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Ruling Britannia XXIV
by Ian Taylor Actually, this month is rather clean by my standards. Still not recommended for children though. Ruling Britannia XXIV Well, the 2-year anniversary of Ruling Britannia has arrived. I seem to have been writing this column either forever or hardly any time at all depending on what way I look at it. On one hand, a lot of things that happened before the column began such as the Grandslam at Warwick and the whole Pages Bar addiction seem very recent indeed. On the other hand, when I re-read some of the older articles, it makes me realise how much has changed since then. Deck types have come and gone and in some cases come back again. People I once knew well I haven’t spoken to for ages. People I had never even heard of I now couldn’t imagine life without. It is because of this I have decided, as Olav has, to start writing tributes to people I have met down the years. Those forgotten heroes that rarely got a mention in RB (or at least not any more) but nevertheless touched my life in some small but meaningful way. To compliment this, I am including my second annual awards ceremony to celebrate those individuals that certainly do get mentioned in RB and for good reason. Most other stuff will have to wait until next month. I couldn’t let another month slip by without mentioning a few things though. Firstly and at the moment freshest in my mind is that it is now almost certain that I will be getting a house with Bowdy and Noddy. That’s about all there is to say on the matter for now but I should have more next month on Stovokor II. Secondly, you have probably all read the news on the Decipher BBS about the future of Trek. For the unenlightened, Decipher have finally admitted that it is too difficult to get into Star Trek and are going to release a new game starting from scratch. They say that they will still be supporting the old game but you have to wonder whether this is really a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Right now I am finding it difficult to imagine a world where there will still be expansions coming out for Star Trek in a year's time. Also, I must post a couple of corrections from last month. Both concern the Victoria Line Challenge and my excuse for making the mistakes (both of which came after the 10th pub) should be fairly obvious. The first comes from Snap (hey remember him?) who spotted a false claim I made. ’First off, happy birthday!! I'll follow this up with a small nit about the Victoria Line challenge in this month's RB. You state that in Pub 10, King's Cross, Noddy claimed Aftershock after pulling the any drink of your choice card. He did not specify what type, so you mixed them, creating a brand new drink, Purple Aftershock. Purple Aftershock is not brand new!!! Purple Aftershock in fact made it's debut in Ruling Britannia XV, as part of Stage 7 of the Snap Birthday Challenge.’ Full marks to Snap for spotting that especially as he could give the exact episode number as well. He also goes on to say: ‘Also, Rozi is not happy about being referred to as "Snap's best mate's ex-bird." She claims that she is an accomplished card gamer in her own right, who will "whup your ass at Lord of the Rings anytime." She will also be joining us on the Victoria Line Challenge 3, taking place in early August, cos we're visiting London for my birthday.’ Point taken Snap although, to be fair, most people could whup my ass at Lord of the Rings. The other correction came from Ringo who is rightly defending his good name. This is in response to my comment that the landlord refused to serve him in the last pub. True, but someone still got me one. I did finish the challenge, whatever state I was in. I vanished because someone told me that Walthamstow Fire Station was giving away free kebabs. Not too sure about that last bit to be honest. Who the hell would think a fire station was giving out kebabs? I have had other reader's mail this month but it will keep until next month, as it is not reliant on remembering last month as these two are. So anyway, now this has been cleared up, onto this year’s awards.
The same as last year, I will provide a few statistics before I go any
further. The previous ten episodes of Ruling Britannia have totalled
in at a mammoth 39,743 words. That’s nearly half a novel, no wonder
I’ve been feeling tired lately. RB 16 was the longest ever at nearly
6,500 words. DT and Ringo were both mentioned in all 11 episodes,
while Snap and Tobes joint third both being mentioned in 9. In the
last 12 months, none of the RB regulars have managed more than sex with
more than 2 different people (to my knowledge) but most have managed to
score at least once. Howard, ex-Casanova has also been very quiet
lately. Must be building up to something. Possibly homosexuality.
For each award, the nominations are listed along with the percentage of
the vote they got. Voting was carried out by a small panel of experts.
First Award: Best Piss Up of the Year =1st Our Walthamstow House Party (36%)
The awards start with joint winners and deservedly so in this very strong
field of applicants. Both winning events had the great virtue that
loads and loads of people were there. Apart from that, the house
party had Snap diving through a pane of glass, lots of booze, lots of dope,
lots of chundering and unfortunately some pissed off neighbours.
GenCon had lots of beer, unsuspecting female tourists, orange shit and,
of course, Olav.
Second Award: Quote of the Year 1st ‘Is Yortle a word?’ – Ringo (36%)
The undisputed origin of the word Yortle wins the award this year narrowly
edging out my personal favourite from Tobes. If you don’t understand
Tobes’ quote, neither did we. He just came out with it when we were
talking about roller coasters.
Third Award: Most Amusing Story of the Year 1st Howard trying to score drugs from the Purple Turtle’s bouncer
(50%)
Not a particularly deep pool of entries this year although to be honest
it was never going to compete with Mike’s escapade with the Polish stripper
from last year. However eventually there was a clear winner in Howard’s
doomed attempt to buy some drugs that only succeeded in getting him thrown
out of the bar. Mind you, he came back the following night.
Fourth Award: Breakout Game of the Year 1st The Trouble With Trekkies (44%)
A clear win for the game that defined the era when we lived in Walthamstow
and is still continuing to make progress (albeit slowly). Hopefully,
when we go up to Glasgow for James’ Stag party we can take a few photos
and come up with a few more ideas for this wonderful game. This award
is probably a slight disappointment for Decipher as their game only received
one vote. Well at least Howard is taking his Riders job seriously.
Fifth and Final Award: The ‘I’ve Had a Bad Year’ Award 1st Mike Shanny (42%)
I think that any one of these 5 were deserving of the award this year.
Slightly worryingly, the nominees included all of my housemates from last
year. Matt and Colm had better watch out for next year! Howard
put in a touching vote for himself, even writing a poem about it (see below).
However, Mike was a clear winner in a year when he was made redundant twice
by the same company, started up a company that failed and lost his house
forcing him to move back to Ireland. Oh yes and Snap still owes him
about £300.
That concludes the awards for this year and almost concludes Ruling
Britannia for this month. Before that however we would normally do
Song of the Month. This month however, I would like to bring a bit
of culture to the column and go with poetry instead. Those with a
good memory may remember a poem called ‘Satchel’ written by Ringo some
time ago. Well, on the side he has apparently been writing a few
poems including ‘Cardiff: The Emancipation’ and ‘We Are Cornetto Excrement’.
The poem he has written for us this month however is in honour of our new
word of the moment, which is ‘Uwaga’. I will explain why next month.
‘Uwaga’ by Ringo Greenwich Uwaga says Uwga is past, a Yortling so deeply felt
As if this wasn’t enough culture this month, we also have another poem,
this one written by Howard. It is a touching poem explaining why
he should win the ‘I’ve Had a Bad Year’ award despite the fact he was not
initially nominated.
‘Howard’s Bad Year’ by Howard Kendrick 8 ½ years a third my life,
Right, that really is it this time. No doubt there will be plenty to share next month what with moving house and everything. Until then goodbye. 
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