2012 - A Summary

Games

A combination of missing the normal cons, plus extended periods of working away, meant that I only played approximately half the number of games I played in 2011.  However my choices for this year are:

Game of the Year

Kolejka – aka the Polish queuing game.

Great theme, simple to play, slightly ‘thinky’ but not too much, a bit of ‘take that’ and good fun.  Not strictly released in 2012, I first played it at Midcon in 2011 but the international edition came out this year.

Runners-Up

King of Tokyo – glorious dice-throwing monster-fighting game

Tumblin’ Dice – yet more dice!  (Tumblin’ to be exact)

Bullfrog Goldfield – brain-bustin’.

Con of the Year

This year I managed to miss Manorcon, Midcon and Essen.  But of the ones I did attend, it had to be:

The Cast are Dice – great venue, good food, great people, crap hotel (well 3 out of 4 can’t be bad)

Geocaching

Again about 50% down on 2011, mainly due to the crap weather that dominated the year.  However we did add Gibraltar, Morocco, Jersey and Norway to the countries we have cached in.  So to the awards:

Cache of the Year

 Well it had to be  GC3Q9RE – Caching Heroes Number 1: Slogger007

Placed by Team PDB&G in my honour.  Many thanks to Matthew and family.  Of course I claimed the FTF on it!

Caching Event of the Year

Easy: the Geolympix in Oxford in July.  11 icons in 11 hours including our first Wherigo and first CITO.

Caching Day of the Year

15^th July – 136 caches found in the Nevada desert.  Epic!

Books

I’ve read 17 books this year which must be my adult record.  The best ones being:

Best non-fiction reads

Cider With Roadies – Stuart Maconie

CAMRA's Good Beer Guide 2013 – Roger Protz

Best fiction (in reading order)

Roman: The Fall of Britannia – KM Ashman

Hereward: The Devil’s Army – James Wilde

The Leopard Sword – Anthony Riches

Spartacus: Rebellion – Ben Kane

1356 – Bernard Cornwell

The Wolf’s Gold – Anthony Riches

The Bourne Identity – Robert Ludlum

Roman II: The Rise of Caratacus - KM Ashman

Comedy

 Rich Hall in Cirencester & Simon Evans at the Arts Centre

Music

Best Live gig

1. John Otway at the Vic
2. Jack White at the Ally Pally
3. From the Jam & the Blockheads at the O2 Academy Bristol

Best Album

1. England keep my bones – Frank Turner [OK I know it was 2011]
2. Boys & Girls – Alabama Shakes
3. Blunderbuss – Jack White

Tech of the Year

Kindle Paperwhite – goodbye paper!

Year as a whole

 Overall 2012 will be remembered as the year of sport:

• London 2012
• Chelsea winning the Champions League
• Swindon winning League 2
• Glaws continuing to dominate Barf
• The Ryder Cup triumph
• England beating India in the test series in India
• Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France.

 Not that I voted for the SPOTY, but if I had done it would have been:

1. Bradley Wiggins
2. Mo Farah
3. Sarah Storey
4. Alistair Brownlee