scruffian

One benefit of me working from home is that I am there for my kids a lot more than I ever was when I worked in an office and commuted. I take them to school every day. I am there at dinner time every evening and for bedtime.

I was also been blessed with a six month paternity leave which gave me the opportunity to play an equal part in raising my third child.

These benefits are obviously great for my relationship with my children, but there was also an unexpected benefit. By being around more at home my children have a very different experience of parenthood, and how that relates to gender roles.

I recently took a “Gender/career” test at Project Implicit and discovered that I have a strong bias towards seeing women in carer roles and men in career roles. This is not a surprise since that was my experience of my family and my peers when we were growing up. I also suspect there are biological reasons why this bias will always be present to some extent.

However I hope that by being at home, my children will get a different picture of their parents roles and will themselves have less of this implicit bias. Maybe I’ll get them to do the test…

If you want to work from home then come join us!

The idea for cups just appeared in my head. I have been inventing games that are variants of Avalon and mafia/werewolf for a while. This one seems pretty good.

In my opinion, a good game should:

• Have as few rules as possible, so it’s easy to learn and teach.
• Should involve skill not luck, so you can get better.
• Should have a psychological and social element, not pure logic, so computers can’t beat you.

Cups tries to satisfy all these requirements. We’ve only played it twice so the rules are a little in flux.

How to play

Cups is a game for 3+ players. I think probably 5/6 is best but we need to play it more.

You will need as many different coloured cups as players

The aim of the game is for your cup to be at the top of the pile of cups at the end of the game, and to not be discovered.

To set up, assign a different cup to each person, without letting the other players know which one is which. The way we have done this is to close our eyes and hand out the cups – then put the cup under your t-shirt and take a peek without looking at anyone else’s. A better way would be to have cards which correspond to each cup, and hand these out.

The game has two stages. Stage one: each player takes a turn. This can be any one of the following:

• Stack one cup on top of another cup, or stack of cups
• Move a stack on top of another stack, or another cup
• Break a stack at any point and move the top of the stack to the table/floor
• Break a stack at any point and move the top of the stack to another cup/stack

Going clockwise each player takes a turn. Once every player has had a turn, they each take another turn. Once every player has had two turns they all have an opportunity to take a third turn, if they wish to, in any order.

Stage two: The highest cup is the front runner. The players now have to determine who the highest cup belongs to. By discussing among themselves they try to reach a consensus about who the cup belongs to. Once they have discussed, and come to some agreement, (with the obvious exception of the accused), they hold a vote. If everyone votes for the same person (except that person), then owner of that cup is revealed. If the owner was not the person who was voted for then they win. If the owner of the cup was the person who was voted for then the cup is removed from the game. Stage two begins again with the next highest cup.

Some additional notes:

• It may never be possible to reach consensus. In this case no player wins.
• Once there are only two cups on the table the game is over and there is no winner.
• It may be possible that there are two cups that are equally high. In this case the players should try to determine who either cup belongs to using the same process. If no cup is higher than all the other cups then there is no winner.
• If a player is bored they can remove themselves and their cup from the game at any stage.

I hope you have a go at this game. Let me know how you get on, and what rules could do with tweaking.

Does the moth blame the flame when he burns his wings thereon?
Does the ship blame the rocks when she is wrecked on them?

New track now available on Spotify, Google Play, iTunes and everywhere else.

Artwork:

A few weeks ago my old friend Roo came to stay and I recorded a few of his songs. Red did a nice drawing, and Becky played some recorder. We put it all together with a bit of magic to create Seven Spells. The album is now on Spotify and all major music outlets:

You can download for free from Roos’ bandcamp.

I have been working on a playlist of music that reminds me of being in the mountains. Mist, fire, trees, cabins.

Can you think of more tracks that would fit?

I wrote this song in response to an event in my childhood. My Dad wrote a short piece about it, which some of the words are lifted from. You need to read it.

Maybe one day my brother will make a chainsaw sculpture of it and my sister and animation. Until then you’ll have to make do with a snow sculpture of Anne Boleyn and her dog watching an execution.

It’s a bit like “there’s a hole in my bucket” only not at all:

For the last month I have been writing acrostic haiku. This means writing a verse which adheres to the western interpretation of haiku (lines of five, seven and five syllables), while at the same time making the first letter of each line spell a word.

There are several variants of the acrostic haiku. You can just make sure the first word of every line spells something:

Your ancient trunk haunts
Every sacred cemetery
With poison berries

You can give every word in the line the same letter to emphasise the pattern:

Long life lines laying
Open. Our origin of
Growing golden grain

Or you can do the acrostic for every word in the verse:

Dandy amber nest
Downy evening lion
Inside out nature

It goes without saying that the word that the verse spells should also be the subject of the haiku.

You can see my efforts on my haiku blog.

As part of my grand clear out, I have decided to sell all my CDs. They have been in boxes in the loft for five years, never used, so it’s time to lighten my load. Every purchase of a CD from my ebay store also comes with a free copy of Growing Wild.

People who buy my CDs:

• Like similar music to me
• Listen to CDst
• Are giving me their name and address
• Are paying me to post them something

So really this is just a cunning ploy to get more people listening to my music!

So, if you want a free copy of Growing Wild on CD then just head over to my ebay store and buy a proper CD. Or just leave a comment below and I’ll send you one 🙂