Mafia

It's time to talk mafia.
Not the silly men in hats playing with horses and hacksaws mafia, the discussion game mafia. It's one of those useful little things you pick up from hanging around a lot of Christians, however the game involves the fair bit of deception betrayal and murder, plus a version involving shots. It was invented by some Russian psychologist chap and is generally played in some kind of youth club environment.
The problem is you really need at least seven people to play and at least half an hour free- plus nobody has ever heard of the game. However, done right it's a lot of fun, trust me.
So in case you don't know what it is, here's the lowdown:

Like I said at least 7 people, maybe 5 with special rules but 11 to 13 would be the ideal number. Someone who knows the game well and is good at telling a story is the narrator. The group sit in a circle, the narrator usually describes them as being citizens of a small town under serious threat by mafia -how far the roleplaying goes is up to you. The narrator starts by given the players a card each- these could be pieces of paper, playing cards or specially designed cards, whatever. The card either represents a 'villager', 'mafia', 'doctor', or 'detective'. I'll explain them in a bit.

You look at your card and do not show anybody.

The rounds are split into (fake) day and night. At 'night' the narrator tells everybody to close their eyes and one at a time gives the people with special cards (non-villager cards) instructions.

The mafia (or killers, cultists or werewolves) would be asked to open their eyes together and silently decide amongst themselves who to kill, once decided they silently tell the narrator their decision and close their eyes.

The doctor (or paramedic or guardian angel)would be asked to open his/her eyes and point at somebody they believe might be a likely target for the mafia, then to close his/her eyes. If that was the person chosen by the mafia then that person survives.

The detective (or investigator or psychic)would be asked to point at somebody they suspect of being the mafia, and the narrator would silently say whether or not that person is in fact a mafia.

The narrator announces that everybody wakes, and if somebody was killed he would announce a mysterious death (often detailed in a particularly gruesome and funny way). The 'day' part of the round then consists of the players determining who were the killers. This would usually be settled with a vote. The voted suspects have a little moment to defend themselves and a decision is made on which one would be lynched/killed. In some versions the lynched player can then reveal his card but in almost every version anyone dead (either murdered or lynched) can not converse about who the killers might be throughout the rest of the game. The purpose of the killers is to blend in with the other characters and not reveal their disposition, while all the while defending each other from lynching (although a bit of back-stabbing might be necessary in desperate situations). The game can end by all mafia being killed or by the mafia succeeding in killing off everybody else (the civilians).

During the day the detective can announce that he or she is the detective and help the voting process by saying who they have found out is innocent or guilty.
Yet as cards cannot be revealed this could always just be a mafia manipulating the game to his advantage, claiming mafia are innocent and innocents are mafia. A trusted detective is usually chosen to be saved by the doctor (obviously, mafia don't like detectives).

If you're a doctor, it's best to shut up about it as you're stopping the mafia do their job and they would be likely to kill you if they know who you are. In some games though, doctor's are allowed to save themselves. Admition to being the doctor is most common when that person is being lynched, whether that person is actually the doctor, or a lying mafioso is, however, is up to the citizens.

This all becomes incredibly simple once you start actually playing the game. Trust me. Good for parties or gettogethers, or camping.



An experienced group might find themselves experimenting with new roles, I'm not sure how interested you'd be in this but here goes:

A 'Romeo' card might be given to a civilian and a 'Juliet' card to a mafioso. These two will know each others identities and try to defend each other- as whichever one dies, so does the other.

A 'Vigilante' is a civilian with the power to kill who he suspects to be the mafia during the night. He gets his own little phase.

A 'Medium' can interrogate dead characters.

There could also be a 'Traitor' -a civilian who wins with the mafia or a 'rat' -a mafioso that is secretly on the civilian's side.

The 'Godfather' is a mafioso with some special privelage- other than being the deciding voice of who to kill, he might be given an extra round to kill, appear to a detective as a civilian or be given the oportunity to recruit a civilian to become part of the mafia. Alternatively there's a psychiatrist character who can turn a mafioso good.


There's loads of these things, I've even come across 'thief', 'baker' 'lawyer', 'judge', 'village drunk', 'serial killer', 'prostitute','Rambo' and 'village bicycle'.
It's suprising how big this thing is considering nobody's heard of it.

Stay Alive
x

Frohes Neues Jahr!

Ja!
So I'm back from Austria, remember when I said I was going to Austria for New Year's? Yeah I'm back from that. So 2010 has just swooped down in front of my garden and taken a huge dump in my hedge, thanks a lot 2010 you big metaphorical nonce*. No, I didn't do as much work in Austria as I planned to but don't worry I won't go on about that.

Snow really is rubbish here isn't it? Maybe it's just compared to the ten inches of fresh powder I've got used to in Austria where you drop your skis and in ten minutes find them almost completely buried.

I picked up a Guardian in the services and there was this story about a pub in the Yorkshire Dales that was snowed in for over two days over the new year, everyone just had a non-stop party and got to know everybody. A student there said it was like the 'ultimate lock-in'. How great does that sound? They were mostly Leeds University students. If I don't end up in Leeds Uni I will be extremely sad. Having talked to somebody from Leeds I've started getting extremely excited about it, it sounds like the place to be. I'm also excited about my birthday even though it's four months away. But there will be an epic club crawl around Cardiff and most people I know would already be 18 by then so they can come with me.

Also I came home to find this story and assumed you must be worrying about me especially with the amount of FIREWORKS that were going off in the valley and echoing for miles.

So on New Year's Eve, the skiing folks (must have been at least 80 of us) went on a huge trek in the mist where we couldn't see a single firework. Some Austrian kids even attacked us with fireworks. (There is apparently no health and safety in all of Austria during New Years) and we ended up crashing a tiny empty Austrian bar and letting off hundreds of party poppers and singing Old Lang Zine. We felt a bit guilty afterwards and volunteered to clean up after some awkward miming to request a brush. The owners of the bar didn't seem to mind, they were busy setting fire to whole boxes of fireworks and spraying it with deodorant, almost killing us. It was a good night and I decided to get up late to go skiing the next day.
Prior to that there was some curling with the towel trolleys you get from hotel bathrooms, with a borrowed small child as the house. As well as a pub quiz and the odd bit of Scottish dancing.

So that was my New Year for you, gluhwein bingeing, makeshift winter sports, snowstorms, frantic ballistic attacks and some very bad dancing, I hope you enjoyed wasting your time to read about it, now excuse me while I go bury my head in the snow for the rest of the year.

Stay wunderlich!
x



*I have to stop using that word having only just discovered it means child molester.

The Coward

I've been a coward for just about as long as I can think. I wasn't born a coward, who is born anything? I was born a baby and so were most people. I suppose not most people are still babies at my age. My mummy and daddy aren't really important in this story because it was anger that made me, anger not as an abstract but as a person. And I never really understand anger as an abstract, I got and still get angry but I try to do what my mummy says and take a deep breath and bottle it up, though I don't know why we say 'bottle it up' because that suggests I'm going to use all this anger for something but I can't honestly think what I'd ever use it for.

Anger was always angry as you'd expect and he would scream and shout and throw things and hit me sometimes. I'm not quite sure why he thought that being angry would make something better because it only make things worse, you can't really act rationally angry, if you're angry at something else then you'll be really angry at little things like cleaning the dishes or not being able to find the remote. Most people would respond to anger by being angry, even angrier at them, then the angry person would get angrier still. Now to me that's more anger than you need so I never got angry and kept doing what my mammy kept saying. So I became a coward instead. Anger doesn't like cowards but then anger doesn't like anyone, maybe that's because he's angry or he's angry because he doesn't like anyone, one of those. Anger hits me for being a coward and gets more angry so I suppose I haven't done anything on my part.

If I wasn't a coward I would be the joker. Now the joker scares me because he doesn't care about anything, he can't take things seriously he just tells jokes. And everybody else is scared of the joker. But that's what you get for not getting angry: you become a coward or you become a joker. Just for doing what your mamma told you. I can't say I understand it. But as far as I can see I will always be a coward, and maybe sometimes I will be the joker but I hope not often. It's a sad little prospect and anger would never change because like I said he hates people and he would never be able to connect with them. I don't hate people though.

and I suppose that's why I will always beat anger in a way.

Pot Noodle in a Sieve

Dear God, if you've got the time here is a list of people I would like you to kill;

The prats off the gold exchange adverts
The prats off most other adverts
Nick Griffin
Louis Walsh
Danni Minogue
Michael Buble
Jordan and the prat she does all those programmes about
Silvio Berlusconi
Mark Wahlberg
Louis Walsh
Anne Robinson
Donny Osmond
The creator of Twighlight -and no I'm not going to even bother looking up his/her/the malevolent androgynous force of evil's name.
Jack Frost- as in the one who makes roads slippery not the moustachey David Jason.
Louis Walsh
Whoever changed Desperate Dan.
The American fellow who says that Santa Claus is the reason for obese kids and should be changed to be more healthy.

Right, that's over with.
Now I'm eating a Pot Noodle with a sieve because this seems like the logical approach to easting a Pot Noodle which would usually be 20% food and 80% greasy drink which means I have to fish around like a starving polar bear for slivers of mushroom to eat. and meanwhile, Wilson is zipping Pacman-esque around the house swallowing everything he happens to come across, often without chewing. And who the frak do PRS for Music think they are calling me up and telling me I can't listen to music on a CD player or radio because I haven't got a license? Where did this come from? What has the world come to?
Anyway I feel inclined to lighten up the mood of recent blogs the way things are going so I'll highlight all the good things that are happening in the world.

It's Jesus' birthday. (But don't remind him how old he is)
School is over or nearly over for this year.
We are young, we run green, keep our teeth nice and clean. (Keep our teeth nice and clean? What's that all about? Have you got nothing else better to do with your youth that to take meticulous care of your dental hygeine?) and yes as Supergrass said, we're alright.

P.S Don't take my list as some serious fascist statement. It's just a wee joke.

Paradise Misplaced

So Adam said to God:
Listen, I'm sorry mate. We didn't expect things to get so out of hand. We never even seen all this evil before. Eden so perfect and everything. I mean when you made New Zealand you never made any predators, so I could lead a kiwi straight in to a den of tigers and they would realise what would happen to them and the kiwi would get eaten cause it's fat and blind and it can't fly. It's kind of like that. Do you know what I mean? Of course you do. Now I realise all the things like hunger and pain and tiredness and boredom and, well, it really sucks.


Obviously you knew everything that was going to happen all along, 'cause you're immense. So you knew we'd eat from that tree, isn't that why you put it there? Or did you put it there? Anyway, that tree was always there, so things weren't always perfect were they? Wow, that's pretty, like, cosmic to think about.

Anyway, what I don't get is, why do our kids have to suffer for this? I mean it's just a point but me and Eve are a bit, like, miffed about that bit, no offense. Cain has been a bit off lately and Abel's working his socks off. If we're expecting an expansion of the human race here -which by the way is something I really need to talk to you about later- then, well, you know, there's only so much guilt I can take. There gonna have to pay for TV licenses and queue at the post office and clean up dog shit all because of this. I mean, I think I got the point.

You know, if people are going to believe in you. Not that I doubt your believability or anything, you're completely believable. I mean, as invisible omniscient forces go, you're definitely one of the most believable. But, this whole original sin/unjust world thing is a bit of damper, let's be honest. And for some reason people are going to point out that there's bad in the world as if all the religious folk didn't know that already and some thickos are going to say 'hey, he's right' and there'll be mass conversion to atheism. For some reason I think this will happen. I also get a feeling that people might get all woried about the fact that suffering exists and start making up there own theories. Like 'why was the tree there in the first place?' and a lot of people are gonna forget the point that suffering exists no matter what people try to do about it.

At the end of the day, I admit we really screwed up here and we're sorry about that, just.... don't get in a knot about it alright?

Anyway, like I said, just a point.
Keep me posted.
See ya.

Dear University of Glamorgan, Piss Off

"XX replied to a thread on Facebook"


fuck off

Seriously, go away, I've had enough of it. I haven't had a seriously worthwhile e-mail in months, like University of Glamorgan that keeps emailing and sending letters like an obsessive stalker fan telling me to apply, and saying 'do not reply' but I did with the simple two words 'piss off' and they sent me a letter back saying 'thanks for your enquiry, there are plenty of ways of managing student finace, if you visit our website you can see our awards....' what's that all about? And people who take pictures of their crunched up bellies that momentarily resemble six-packs and set it as their msn picture, fuck off. And people who keep whining about their university applications and driving tests and individual investigations and essays, I really don't want to hear about it. And people who show off about knowing all of Hotel California on the electric guitar their mum bought them, not interested. And people who do nothing but stay at home criticising people's spelling and blogging about other people's annoying personal habits you can, well, never mind.

Anyway, I was looking in the Twister cupboard. (The door in my room that leads to a secret cavern like area where no one goes unless for Twister related party emergencies.) And found among many things, about a ton of LEGO, a Simon and Garfunkel CD, and an old book that published all poems written by kids in primary schools, back forever ago. Mine's in there and it's a one about a lion and it was immense except they made a grammar error that wasn't originally mine. But I don't know what I've done with the book now so I can't read it out to you which has totally ruined my fucking anectode and I don't know why I'm swearing quite so much it must me the media cause they're only responsible for every other fucking thing. Anyway that had something to do with poems which is what Xanthe blogged about to get you lazy louts writing again. The truth is I'm not a big fan of poems and in my childhood I mostly read Roal Dahl over limericks, later I read a bit of John Cooper Clarke and some T.S Elliot but nothing really interesting to put here. Blogs would really be better if people didn't force you to do one and it just came naturally I think.

'The meek shall inherit the earth which is just as well because if he didn't he wouldn't really mind.'

Right, Twister, Roal Dahl, Lego... where a I going with this? Oh, yes, nowhere. I never really am I guess. Do you think identity is fixed or chosen? I spend time reading and writing songs, I like playing sports but don't play in a team because people take that stuff too seriously. I would like to have a better hobby, I don't know what, surfing, diving, BMXing, parcoring, juggling, fire-eating, it could be anything really. I'm going skiing in Austria instead of having any expensive Christmas presents and I only really started skiing because my family did and although I enjoy it, it's a bit fake. I quit religion but I'm not sure if anyone's noticed, this was just a way to be different if anything. I don't know, I'm getting tied up about whether people are really genuine or not, do I know what I'm saying? Probably not. People steal things a lot nowadays because it's so easy and socially acceptable now. I try not to, maybe I'd try to justify it by saying it's something over 40 years old and older folks criticises us kids for not being aware of such things. When I download something it never seems to work anyway, even when it's all the best software or whatever and this just makes me feel cheap and dirty, I hate computers. I'm not downloading anything now and I'm free of viruses and nasty stuff and there's plenty of space but everything is still horribly slow. And a lot of the time the computer just does things I don't understand and I don't think they could be understand, I don't need to tell you about that. I think it's time I stop rambling.

Stay fierce.
x

A Disastrous Common Room Blog

I haven't got anything to blog about.

So you know this blog is going to be good.

Here are some things you don't know about me:

• I have two penises and a vagina
• I am one hundred and twenty six years old.
• I shit roughly two dozen times a day.
• My nose is a result of a rare skin disease
• I am a black man
• I can summon meerkats to fight for me when the need arises.
• When I get drunk I foam purple at the mouth
• I invented Connect 4. Originally Connect 19.
• I'm a typrewriter and I hate technology
• The back of my head is a door to Narnia
• Your mum
• Your mum
• I once fell off the planet, I'm ok now though.
• There is a small man in my head called Simon who controls my thoughts.

See You Space Cowboys....