My talk yesterday went well, at least from my perspective (I don't know about the audience's).
The "on tour" part of the name is because that's what they call the monthly El Tardeo talk when it's not being held in its usual location. This one was in the Vodafone offices, which are huge; must make quite a bit of money in Spain. The room I gave the talk in was high-tech and configurable, with glass false floors so you could see the cables running underneath (and also the ones taped to the surface because there was no outlet where they wanted them to emerge).
Before the talk, I was interviewed by a Spanish games news site; I have another interview today at 10:00, Annoyingly, the shuttle to the airport leaves at 9:45 and the next one is at 11:00. I'm hoping I'll be able to get through passport control as quickly as I did on the way in, otherwise I may miss my 13:10 flight.
After the talk (which wasn't really a talk so much as a series of intelligent questions from the interviewer and somewhat less intelligent replies from me) there was a small get-together so people could mingle and network. I spotted two separate groups of students that were only talking to themselves, so I went to them in turn and they asked me a bunch more questions. All of them were smart; one of the two things I miss about university life is speaking to smart students (the other is being paid a salary). Now isn't a great time to be trying to enter the games industry, but they were doing everything right except the networking. I can understand that, as I'm useless at it, too. Still, at least I spoke to them myself, so they got one contact out of it — even if I am in the wrong country!
I'm in Spain today, as the guest speaker at an event called El Tardeo on Tour. The format is like a fireside chat: I'll be asked a bunch of questions (which I've seen — they're much more intelligent than most of the ones I'm asked) about assorted games-related topics.
The venue is the Vodafone office near the airport. The event starts at 18:30. I'm therefore spending most of today sitting in an airport hotel.
I was expecting that getting here would be tiresome because of the new Schengen Entry/Exit system. Getting here was indeed tiresome, but not because of that. Here's the timeline:
The flight from Heathrow to Madrid was due to leave at 14:00. The departures board said "Gate shown 13:10".
At 13:14 it still said "Gate shown 13:10"".
At 13:15, it said "Please wait".
At 13:30, it told us to board at Gate 10. This was bad news, because Gate 10 is where all the buses leave from for the flights that don't have a walkway to them.
At Gate 10, there was a 5-minute wait while all the fast-track people got on the very same bus the rest of us were getting on.
It took another 10 minutes for us slow-track passengers to board,
The ride to the plane on the bus took 15 minutes. I was beginning to wonder if it was parked at Gatwick.
By the time we were all in our seats, the flight was already late for take-off. However, that didn't matter, because the tug they had attached to the aircraft to tow it to the runway had a mechanical fault and they needed to send for an engineer to fix it.
The flight eventually took off an hour and a quarter late. The pilot assured us he would make back some time on the way.
The flight landed an hour and a quarter late.
It took 20 minutes for me to disembark from row 18. The people in row 17 who had connecting flights to Palma were resigned to missing them. So were the people in row 20 who were going to Majorca. So were the people in about row 14 who were going on their holiday of a lifetime to Mexico.
It took me 10 minutes to get from the aircraft to passport control. It would have taken me a couple of minutes less if the pink lines that non-EU citizens had to follow hadn't led in a circle.
Passport control featured the EES machines. A good 30%, perhaps even 40%, were working. It took me two minutes to get through. I'm hoping it'll be this smooth on the way back tomorrow.
Passport control to the airport exit took 12 minutes, 5 of which was spent waiting for an inter-terminal train.
I knew there was a shuttle bus to the hotel, but that's all I knew. I wandered to the bus section, spotted a bus for another hotel, and waited for one for mine, hoping I didn't have to phone to request it.
14 minutes after leaving the airport, a hotel bus of the right kind appeared. Two other people boarded before me. Maybe they phoned to request it.
I sat on the bus for 5 minutes, then it set off.
20 minutes later, the bus arrived at the hotel. It would have been sooner, but it went to every other terminal before leaving the airport grounds. Shuttle buses do this a lot, so I wasn't surprised.
The woman on the desk in the hotel had laryngitis, but other than that the check-in went just fine.
Now to decide what to do for the rest of the day before the Tardeo. I'm thinking I might sleep.
I have stomach ache at the moment, which reminded me of this article from the Knaresborough Post, 17th December, 1887.
--------8<----------------
INQUEST AT HARROGATE
On Monday afternoon, about half-past five, Florence Eva Bartle, aged 5 years, daughter of Frederick Bartle, pianist, of No. 1 Parliament Terrace, Harrogate, died somewhat suddenly. It appears that about four o'clock on the 11th inst., the child came home from church and complained of feeling sick, and Mrs. Bartle gave her some tea. The deceased remained in the house the whole of the evening, and went to bed about 8 p.m. Shortly before ten the mother sent to Coupland's for some Carminative Mixture, and administered it to the child twice, but it got no better. About four o'clock on Monday Dr. Lever was sent for, but on his arrival the child was dead.
On Tuesday afternoon, and inquest was held at the house of Mr. Clarkson, the Somerset Hotel, Harrogate, before Mr. J. H. Turner, deputy coroner. Mr. G. R. Parker was selected as the foreman of the jury. The first witness called was
Elisa Bartle, wife of Frederick Bartle, who deposed:- The deceased was five years of age, and was in good health up to half-past four on Sunday afternoon. She was at church in the afternoon; and when she came home she said that she felt sick. I thought it was a cold. I sent for some brandy because she was sick. She was sick several times. I thought she had eaten something that had disagreed with her. She began to have diarrhoea after the sickness; and she continued suffering from diarrhoea and sickness all the night. I sent for some Carminative; and that allayed both sickness and diarrhoea. I sent early in the morning for the mixture from Mr. Coupland's. I afterwards gave her another dose, and she said that it comforted her. About noon on Monday she appeared better, and seemed all right until about four. We saw her change shortly afterwards. I left to get some tea. She made a noise as if she was going into a fit. I did not leave her for more than ten minutes the whole of the time. I sent for four different doctors, and these were not in. I would have sent for a doctor earlier if I had thought it was serious. She died in a convulsion. I do not know that she ate anything that had not agreed with her. I had not given her anything. She took the same dinner as the rest of the family, and it did not disagree with any other member of the family. I took a dose of the same mixture on Monday night as I felt sick, and it did me good.
Annie Bell Henson, wife of Wm. Henson, joiner deposed: I was called into Mrs. Bartle's on Sunday to see the deceased. She was on her mother's knee, and died in my presence. The deceased received every care at her parents' hands.
Frederick Lever, of Harrogate, physicians and surgeon, deposed: I have never attended the deceased professionally. I was called in a little before five o'clock on Monday. The deceased was dead when I saw her. She was quite warm. There were no marks of physical violence on the body; and not injury to the mouth compatible with corrosive poisoning. It is my opinion the deceased died naturally. From the evidence given, and the appearance of the body, it is my opinion she died from syncope, caused by excessive diarrhoea and vomiting. There was no contraction of the pupils of the eyes of the deceased.
William Henry Tyas, of Montpelier Parade, assistant to Mr. Coupland, deposed: I supplied the bottle of mixture produced. It is Carminative Mixture, and is used for soothing children when suffering from divers complaints. I do not know what there is in it. It is made up at the principal shop. It is made from the late Dr. Short's recipe. We sell from the same bottle regularly, and I never heard of it doing any harm.
The jury then returned a verdict that the deceased died naturally from syncope, in accordance with the medical evidence. The jury afterwards expressed their sympathy with the parents in their bereavement; the Coroner adding that he felt sure they would have sent for medical aid sooner if they had thought it was of so serious a nature.
--------8<----------------
Interestingly, my grandfather's grandfather, Frederick Bartle's youngest daughter, Eva, fell ill on 11th December and died the next day. On the 9th December, Frederick himself had been subject to a court administration order for being in debt. Two body blows in close succession must have been tough.
No, I don't believe he killed Eva — he was a very popular figure and all his children were proud of him (even the reprobate who was my grandfather's father).
We went to Hillhouse Wood yesterday, to see the bluebells. This is the sort of thing you can do mid-week when you've retired.
We do this every year, but this time I took a video rather than just photos; this way, you get to hear the birds as well as see the bluebells.
There were hardly any people there, although half of them had dogs (invariably off the lead, despite the signs telling dog-owners to keep their dogs on leads).
Why no, I don't like dogs, but to be fair, they don't like me, either.
I often buy books second-hand, either because they're no longer in print or they're too expensive new. Sometimes, they contain notes written by previous owners.
I have to say, however, that this particular previous owner was rather more enthusiastic than most.
Maybe they had a stash of green highlighter pens to use up or something.
I was on one of the juries for the BAFTA games awards that were presented this week, so I thought I'd explain how these things are decided for the enlightenment of those who don't know.
There are 18 categories. One of these, the Fellowship, goes to an individual and is decided upon using an arcane system to which I'm not privy. The rest are decided by votes.
First, there's a list of nominations. Companies get to nominate their own games, but it costs £220+VAT for each one, or twice as much for a late entry, which discourages developers from blanket-entering. Also, they have to make their games available to be played for free by the BAFTA games electorate (of whom there are around 1,400). The games must have been released within a set period, which is something like mid-November to mid-November, so some late 2024 games were on the 2026 list. The games are entered in different categories, but there's no extra charge for each category; we do therefore see some blanket entries, although a few categories have eligibility criteria. You're not going to be able to name which voice artist you're putting up for a voice-artist award if your game doesn't use any voice artists.
The games are played by the BAFTA members and they vote on them. There are so many games — around 200 — that few people are going to play them all, and even if they do, they won't necessarily play them for very long. I myself played 40 or so well enough to form an opinion on them. Some of the others were clearly no-hopers from their descriptions, and some looked promising but were console-only and I don't have a console. Some of the games, I'd already played so didn't have to play again.
For two of the categories (best game and best British game), that's the end of the story. The ones that scored highest are the winners. Both my votes in those categories won, so I'm pleased with that.
For the remaining 15 categories, there are juries. The highest-scoring games in each category are put forward into a longlist. I don't know what the rules are for deciding this, but I suspect it's something sensible like "the top X games that scored more than a threshold of Y votes". There were 11 such games in the category for which I was on the jury. Overall, about a third of the games that were entered made it to one or more longlists.
There are nine to twelve members of each jury (mine hadd twelve). Jurors have to play all the games on their longlist. I'd already played most of the ones on mine, either naturally (nothing to do with BAFTA) or in the earlier voting process, but I replayed those anyway. The games are discussed one by one, then there is a vote. The top six games in the vote comprise the shortlist. Shortlists seem to be the reason that we have the juries: it means that the top six are decided by actual experts rather than publicity campaigns, and it reduces the noise from voters who perhaps weren't as diligent in their decision-making as they might have been. The six nominees will have short showreels shown prior to the actual award, and being nominated for a BAFTA is seen as a feather in the cap, so the discussion to decide the final six is earnest. None of the jury members know what the other jurors voted for, nor do they know how many votes each game received.
Oh, as a note to future entrants: if you use AI to fill in your nomination forms, that's going to give the impression you're not serious about the awards.
Given the top six, the jury now has to decide which one is the eventual winner. There's a second round of discussion, with arguments made for and against each game. Maybe if there's an obvious winner, this doesn't happen, but in my jury there were several strong contenders so we did have a lively discussion. At the end, we all voted for the one we believed should win. In the event of a draw, I believe we would have to vote again, but there wasn't a draw in my jury's case.
Here's the key point: the jury members don't know which of the six shortlisted nominees won. It's all done electronically, and only the auditors find out. Therefore, although I could tell you in advance of the awards which games were in contention (well, I could have done if it was allowed), I couldn't tell you which one won because I didn't know. I could only say which one got my vote. As it happened, that one did indeed win, but I didn't find that out until it was announced at the ceremony.
There was one big surprise for me in the awards. Back in October, I wrote "given that the soundtrack for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 topped the Billboard classical chart for ten weeks, I think it's safe to say that if it doesn't win the music BAFTA there's something seriously wrong."; it didn't win the music BAFTA, therefore there is something seriously wrong. Whether that's with the Billboard classical chart or the BAFTA music jurors' tastes I don't know, but it certainly caused me to raise an eyebrow.
Occasionally, I take 3D photos. Here's an example I took on Wednesday, a three-minute walk from our house:
Cross your eyes, bring it into focus, and you'll see it in 3D.
I took this one because the farmer had helpfully lowered the height of the hedge using some kind of hedge-lowering machine. Normally, this view would be obscured by a mass of brambles.
Masses of brambles also make good 3D photos, but I can see those in my own garden, I don't have to walk down a country lane packed with dog-walkers to do so.
