Actualol Newsletter - December 2019 (Patreon)

Happy New Year patient patrons! I hope your decade went, in a way that was suitably decadent.

My new year's resolutions for Actualol:

• To inject more comedy into videos - after the successful pledge drive I’m feeling more confident to get back to my roots and challenge myself.
• To keep playing with new types of videos - there’s still so many places I want to take Actualol, and it’s very easy to get stuck making the same types of videos every month. I want to break out of that rut to try new formats.
• To make at least one video that looks at board games from a wider angle, a little like my Monopoly video did.

My personal resolutions:

Get more sleep - I’ve always been a night owl and desperate to cram as much into my day as possible, so it’s a huge battle of wills to get myself to go to bed on time. But I would like the health benefits.

Read more books - I made such a great start on this last year, reading five books in a few weeks. But I always hit a wall, either a book bores me into submission, or I can’t find one that hooks me, and months go past without me reading anything.

Move - Working from home means I am devastatingly sedentary - I don’t even have a bus stop to walk to. I’ve always resented exercise, occasionally forced myself to do it, felt the endorphin release and thought “I really should do this more often”, only to forget the feeling a day later. I hope to find something I can stick at this year.

Watch more films - It seems easy, but I’ve found myself watching less and less films as the years go on, preferring TV. This is actually Serena’s resolution, but since I’ll be watching them with her, I may as well give myself the credit for it. 

We’re already 1 for 1, yesterday we watched Wild Rose - a bittersweet story of a Glaswegian girl who dreams of making it as a country singer in Nashville. I give it an 8 out of 10. 

It’s made by the incredible performance and singing voice of Jessie Buckley (from Chernobyl). The final song of the film is wonderful. And tonight we’re off to see Little Women, so 2 for 2!

Actual Life

On Christmas day this year, Serena and I decided to forgo the usual turkey lunch and fulfilled a long held dream of having curry for Christmas dinner instead. Curry is a favourite meal of ours, but we never usually do it justice at home, because of the time it takes to make it really good, and the unhealthy amount of ghee/butter needed to make it taste authentic. Since it’s Christmas, we could afford to go all out and so we did!

It tasted better than it looks - curry isn’t very photogenic. The meal centered around a Lamb Rogan Josh recipe from Rick Stein, which is possibly the best curry I’ve ever tasted.

And the rest came from our new Dishoom cookbook (a very popular Indian restaurant in London) - Keema Pau (minced lamb), Chicken Tikka Kebabs, Gunpowder Potatoes, Black Daal, Kachumber Salad and Pilau Rice, with some shop bought naan breads and samosas. It was all delicious, and I expect it won’t be the last Christmas curry we have. 

Whilst visiting my Mum over Christmas, I started going through my old school work, to help clear it out. My Mum has kept what seems to be every thing I ever made. It was quite an experience going back through it all, being reminded of moments and people I’d completely forgotten. 

And it’s incredible how much information was once in my brain that has since left it. All the things I was taught at junior school about Ancient Greece and Egypt, details about religions that these days I would consider myself uninformed on. The UK curriculum made a noble effort to inform me, but how do you make it stick? I found a drawing I’d done of a “canopic jar”, an Egyptian burial pot - the only reason I know what that is as an adult is from playing the card game “Valley of the Kings”! 

Here is the list of things that 9 year old Jon would take to the after life:

Top 11 of the Year

I haven’t had a chance to play all the games I would like from 2019 to make my Top 10 of the year (they release them all in December!), so I wanted to share with you my alternative Top 11 of the year, my favourite pieces of art that I’ve enjoyed over the year, TV shows, books and music.

11. Don't Forget The Driver, TV mini-series 

Toby Jones is brilliant as a loveable, put upon coach driver in this comedy drama. It has the subtle humour of The Detectorists, but with a more serious side, looking at Brexit-era middle England and the way we treat immigrants. 

10. Joz Norris is Dead. Long Live Mr Fruit Salad, live comedy

Mr Fruit Salad is a comedy character that somehow manages to be hilariously absurd, and really sympathetic. It’s a comedian, playing a hopeless wreck, who is trying to be a comedian. I’ve never seen a show like it. Big laughs and a few surprising moments where you end up empathising with a silly-voiced weirdo in a wig. (what a genius concept!)

9. Bobby and Amy, play

Two actors portray an entire town of characters dealing with the 2001 Foot and Mouth farming crisis in the Cotswolds. Experienced from the perspective of two innocent kids, you really feel the effect it had on people's lives in rural communities. It effortlessly jumps from being sweet and funny to thoughtful and touching. I can still remember all the distinct, loveable characters that made up the town. 

8. The Hunting Party, book by Lucy Foley

I raced through this murder mystery in 3 days, desperate to find out whodunnit. I loved the premise of nine old uni friends in their thirties going to a remote house in the Scottish Highlands for New Year's Eve -  it felt like it was written for my generation. Secrets and resentment come to the surface, and every character has their own baggage. A modern Agatha Christie.

7. Chernobyl, TV mini-series 

An incredible work - gripping, terrifying, heartbreaking - I put off watching Chernobyl for months, thinking it wouldn’t be my sort of thing. It is far too good to marginalised in a genre like that. A devastating look at how the hubris of people in power can cost innocent lives. Many important lessons that still haven’t been learned by the world. Not since Band of Brothers has television been this powerful. 

6. What's Inside: Songs from Waitress - Sara Bareilles, album 

I was completely and utterly hooked by the sad song "She Used To Be Mine", this year, finding it four years after its release. I really connected with its sentiment of not recognising the person you've become: 

"Sometimes life just slips in through a back door, and carves out a person and makes you believe it's all true, and now I've got you. And you're not what I asked for, if I'm honest, I know I would give it all back, for a chance to start over and rewrite an ending or two, for the girl that I knew."

Then I found out there was a whole musical around it, and loved the upbeat energy and clever lyricism. I prefer the Sara Bareilles originals to the cast recording, but I should probably actually see the musical in London since I've listened to the album so many times.

5. Maren Morris, country music artist 

I finally found a pop-country artist to fill the void that Taylor Swift has left since turning her back on the genre. Catchy as fuck, singalong happy music, with lyrics that don't make me want to rip my ears out (see: most modern country music). Favourites are The Feels, Company You Keep, 80s Mercedes.

4. Everything I Know About Love, book by Dolly Alderton

A hilarious memoir about relationships that captures the feelings of being in your twenties, and the challenges of maintaining friendships as you get older. It’s interspersed with funny comments on modern life, like a satirical Baby Shower invite that ends: 

“We’re hoping for an expensive and boring day full of love and laughs, preparing our best friend for motherhood, hopefully while making all her friends without children feel alienated and all her friends with children feel inadequate.”

Whether it’s a thoughtful take on dating, or a joke about the ridiculousness of modern life - Dolly’s skewer is sharpened. I found myself smiling in agreement throughout.

3. MUNA - Saves The World, album 

Eighties-inspired indie pop is my jam (see last year's favourite album - Fickle Friends). I had "Number One Fan" on repeat for weeks, but the whole album is great. And it's just as strong when it gets raw and autobiographical in "Never" and "It's Gonna Be Okay, Baby". 

2. 7 Up - 63 Up, documentary series 

We binged every installment of this landmark documentary series that follows the lives of 16 British children starting at 7 years old in 1963, and checking in every 7 years, seeing how their lives have changed at 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, 56 and 63 years old in 2019. 

It's fascinating seeing how they grow into adults, and often heartbreaking to learn what has happened to them. You get deeply invested in their lives, and are hoping they will find their place in the world. You can see how childhood circumstances still affect their lives 56 years later. 7 years is a long time, and it's terrifying to watch them age across the series. It's also a wonderful visual history of a changing Britain.

1. Halt and Catch Fire, TV drama 

TV series about friendship, love, dreams, failure, getting older, heartbreak, and incidentally about the computer industry in the 1980s. This is the best depiction of the human struggle I've seen on TV. Gordon and Joe's relationship is wonderful. I haven't stopped thinking about them all, months after finishing it.

Been Playing

But let’s not forget about the board games, so here are my thoughts on some I’ve played recently:

ShipShape is a unique tile-laying game designed by Rob Daviau. It features some unusual tiles that have holes in, that you place on top of each other to create an interesting 3D display.

The idea is that you're pirates trying to fill the hold of your ship with gold, cannons and contraband. In a round you'll win three tiles, and place them in your hold, rotating them as you wish, because you'll score what you see when you look down at your hold. 

The way you get the tiles is from a stack, which you can also look down on and get an idea of what's available. You then all pick a numbered card, and the highest takes the top tile, then you go in down in numerical order. So if you really want the top one you play your highest card, but with the chaos of everyone else's pick it's hard to guarantee anything.

That's where it sets its tone, you have to be happy with things not going your way, and a feeling of not being in control. The 3D tile system is fun, and its a neat, filler game, but one that will feel too luck-dependent for a lot of gamers.

Mental Blocks is a cooperative puzzle game that has you collaboratively building with delightful foam shapes, like you're a kid again.

You're each given a different part of the building plan, so everyone has incomplete information on how the construction needs to look, but together you can discuss what you know and get it right. You each can see a different side of the construction, knowing what colours go where, but not how far back they go. One player can see the full construction but not any colours.

You have ten minutes to make it happen which seems like too much until you start playing and realise how tricky it can be. Once you’ve completed it, you can check the solution card to see if you succeeded.

Mental Blocks was a big hit for some of my friends. Personally, I was expecting to enjoy it more than I did - to me it felt more like a forced team-building exercise than a fun party game. I’d rather play something sillier like Brick Party or Ugg-Tect. 

Funkoverse: Harry Potter is a duelling 2 player game, in which you each control some Harry Potter characters in their Funko Pop form.

There are a few scenarios, but the gist is that you spend actions to move your characters around a map, and attack your opponent's characters by rolling dice.  

It's simple, as you'd expect, but there are things to consider. Each character has their own spells, that once used must recharge. And there are special abilities and items that can make for some clever play. But there's never quite enough of that to make it a fun game. And the luck of the dice can render the decisions meaningless.

The turn-based play gives it the initial feel of a thoughtful abstract game, but instead what you get is a chaotic laser tag for tortoises. I'm not fond of games that turn a 30 second action sequence into a 30 minute experience. And there's not enough potential for clever play to excite seasoned gamers. But, if you're in love with Harry Potter, the gameplay is at least streamlined and straightforward enough that your enthusiasm might make up for the rest.

What’s Next

My games of the month will be out soon, and then I will be turning my attention to some comedy. The Best Games of 2019 is meanwhile being honed in the background, as I get the games played.

The Big Question

What TV shows, music and books were big for you in 2019?

Games I’ve been enjoying lately

- Detective Stories: Case 1 - The Fire in Adlerstein

- Banned Words

- Ninja Academy

Games that have just arrived

- Clank! Legacy

- Horrified

- First Contact

Song of the month - Smith & Burrows - When The Thames Froze 

Been Watching - The Americans Season 1, Modern Love

I hope your 2020 vision is clear. Thanks to your support I am feeling better about Actualol than probably any time in its existence. In the last year, the channel grew by 6,000 subscribers and almost doubled in patrons. Let’s make this the best year yet!

Actually yours,

Jon