One of the major city parks hosts a yearly plant festival. Rows of stalls and tents selling all kinds of plants and vegetables. This year it has come at just the right time to help us put the rest of our alottment to good use!

We picked up some basil, courgette, red cabbage, white cabbage and chard.

After almost a week of daily turning of the soil, the weed growth was under control and the ground was looking good and prepped for planting.

In the bordered plot we put four more tomato plants, the cabbage and the chard...

... and the basil in the sunny corner next to the pepper plant.

The entire quarter of the alottment that we cleared first has been occupied by the courgettes as they require a decent amount of space to grow.

Meanwhile we noticed that both the morning glory and four o'clock flower have been germinating rather quickly, with green and purple leaves sprouting along the border.

After finishing planting the vegetables, we realised that we'd almost completely filled all 50 square metres of the plot. There is still room for some flowers, herbs and such along the borders, and a small patch is reserved for more pepper plants beside the carolina reaper, but from now on it will be mostly be maintenance work.

In terms of produce planted, we currently we have:

• 6 garlic plants
• 7 potatoes
• 4 basil
• 1 sage
• 1 thyme
• 12 tomato
• 8 courgette
• 9 Chard
• 12 white cabbage
• 8 red cabbage
• 1 carolina reaper

...

As we are already late in the season, we wanted to waste no time in getting some produce planted in the ground! The day after the clearing, we went back to plant eight tomato plants, a carolina reaper pepper plant that had been suffering in the less than ideal climate of the studio at home for the last year, as well as seed the borders of the plot with four o'clock flower and morning glory.

We cleared the far corner of the plot for the tomatoes (which had been grown by a colleague), and used some bamboo sticks as a climbing structure

The Carolina Reaper was planted in a still mostly forgotten corner of the plot, but we plan to tidy that up later.

It had been growling abysmally at home, with most of the lower leaves and any occasional flowers shedding as soon as they start to sprout. We don't have high hopes that it will fruit, but it should have a better chance in this sunny corner of the alottment.

With still much of the edges of the alottment to clear, the rest of the morning was spent hoeing and weeding. Joined by a few friends, we made a toast to this new land with a few beers under the shade of the rose bushes.

A few days later we returned to plant sage and thyme along the border...

...and had also discovered a sack of forgotten potatoes on the fridge at home. Although they are not usually worth the effort to cultivate, they had become soft and begun to sprout, so rather than throw them away we put them in the ground.

Most of the ground still needed a lot of work. Even the parts that had been thoroughly weeded and turned over would be reclaimed by nature within a day or two. During the week, after work we would go dig up and turn over more ground before the sun set - a surprisingly therapeutic activity!

The allotment was abandoned for almost two years before we picked it up, so there's a daunting amount of weeding to do. In some parts the grass is knee high and the wooden border surrounding the vegetable plot is mostly hidden by the overgrowth.

The plan was just to rip up the long weeds by hand then start hitting it with a hoe, turning over the soil and pulling out any weeds and roots that get churned out.

After a couple of hours of whacking the ground, one corner is mostly cleared.

The rest of the land has a long way to go...

We knew we wouldn't be able to clear everything in one day so we planned to get at least the vegetable patch and a corner for the tomatoes cleared. The more difficult areas we can deal with a bit at a time.

However, around 7 hours later we managed to clear much more than we expected and the land started to look somewhat tended to.

While turning the soil we found handfuls of white bulbs. Most of the knee-high weeds we were pulling out turned out to actually be garlic: planted eons ago and had begun to spread throughout the allotment. We decided to keep a few of them on the left, as well as a patch of mint in the bordered plot.

Inspired by the layout of other alottments, we decided to make a late afternoon trip to the DIY store to see if we can get some stone flags to create a walkway and to section off the different parts of the lot.

We soon found ourselves driving back to the alottment with around 400kg of concrete slabs bottoming out the rear suspension. Three wheelbarrow trips later, things were starting to take shape:

We decided to call it there for the day, pretty satisfied at the transformation that had taken place since the morning:

"Would you like a coffee?" "Shall I send that email we discussed?" These are typical offers you may normally recieve from colleagues. "Would you like an allotment?" is not. It was however, an offer we received and (after the initial bafflement), one which we enthusastically accepted.

The following weekend we went to inspect what exactly we had inherited...

The answer: A surprisingly large chunk of land. Overgrown with weeds but with some remnants of the previous owner's efforts.

Mostly used to grow flowers, a couple of rose bushes still remain.

While a bordered vegetable patch, barely visible amongst the overgrowth appears to have mint, rosmary and other herbs growing wild.

It's a little late in the year to plant much, but we should be able to have some success with seedlings and small plants. The next step is deciding what to do with this plot. It's large enough to accomodate several projects so the bordered patch will remain there. We'll probably keep some of the herbs and plant some of our own. The rose bushes will stay too!

As for the rest, we need to weed  it and turn over all the soil... which will not be an easy feat considering the lack of rain lately.

Once the ground is prepared, we have some tomato plants almost ready for planting, but everything else is still to be decided. We have suggestions from friends ranging from root vegetables to chickens!

Whatever we end up doing, I will keep this "orto diary" updated with the progress...

"Merged?", Lance questions the air. "MERGED?!" I repeat, louder, incredulous. The call has come as a complete surprise. I'd forgotten to tune my radio. Because of that I'd not heard it first hand from our airborne warning controller, nor had I heard the computerised voice fill us in to potential threats in the area over the past few minutes. I'd been having a gentle tree-top level flight in my own world until now, serenely holding formation with Lance and admiring the cold war brutality of the Swedish 'Viggen' fighter-bomber we’re both 'flying'.

The call is not one you want to hear without warning.  It means that an enemy plane is right on top of us and in this case at least has taken us completely by surprise, this really should not happen - often you'll get tens of miles of warning to meander and joust and jockey for position, to spot and control the enemy.

I'm cursing silently, but the instinct of a well-practiced scenario takes over: "Breaking Left" comes the call from Lance, "Breaking Right" I answer as I roll right and slam the throttle forward into a high-G, afterburning turn. Neither of us can see the enemy plane yet, but this manoeuvre will maximise the chance that firstly at least one of us will survive and secondly find themselves in a position to if not save, at least get immediate, satisfying revenge on the other's killer.

As I trace out the northeast leaf of the four leafed clover, mirroring Lance's northwest, we're both frantically looking for any sign of an enemy plane. "YES, YES, UNDERNEATH YOU. ON YOUR SIX!" He’s spotted the aggressor – in this case a needle-nosed MiG-21. It’s another cold war vintage plane and a dedicated interceptor, streamlined and deadly. It can turn tighter and accelerate faster than either of us and it has a powerful radar in its nose, which is presumably how it has found us so effortlessly. Such advantages will only take you so far, however and its pilot is falling into our trap, but for now I am still the bait. I turn harder and burn for where I know Lance to be, trusting him to similarly turn inwards and scrape the MiG off my tail.

Lance and I are now face to face, our aircraft pointing at each other. The enemy is still somewhere on my tail, the back of my neck burns as I expect a missile or gunfire to mince my virtual form at any second. Lance's aircraft screams past me and I reverse my turn, rolling left, this forces a decision from the enemy pilot. He must either follow me into a ‘rolling scissors’ manoeuvre where he will be easy prey for Lance or he must break off and attempt to escape. He does the latter, but not fast or decisively enough. I circle around just in time to hear Lance call "FOX 2", informing me that he has just fired a heat seeking missile. The MiG's burning debris fills the sky with black smoke shortly afterwards, "GOOD KILL", I laugh. The entire engagement from ‘Merge’ to ‘Splash’ has taken 45 seconds.

In the previous "down the rabbit hole"I said that DCS is fun. It's really fun, but to anyone that hasn't jumped into it the gameplay appears somewhere between boring and confusing. Just a lot of flying around and pressing buttons, so let's have a look at a quick fly-out on one of the dynamic PVP servers and see what's actually going on!

I'm back from work, I have half an hour free before I have to start preparing dinner. Just enough time to get a "sortie" in. I boot up DCS and have a look at the server list. Quite busy on a Friday evening. I see that one of the dynamic campaign servers I've been flying on is stacked. Our side, Red, has been losing horribly for a couple of weeks now but it looks like they're doing a Hail Mary assault on one of the Blue airfields north of Ossetia.

I jump in and get into the cockpit of the JF-17 Thunder - a modern Chinese-Pakistani multi-role fighter jet that's all kinds of strange. (See the appendix below for some JF-17 trivia). Compared to the American jets on the enemy team it's rather anaemic in raw performance and endurance, but it makes up for it in cutting edge avionics and tech, a decade or two more modern than the enemy's. That's perfect for what I intend to do - orbit high above the battlefield equipped with precision air-to-ground weaponry, an infrared "targeting pod" camera and be the eye in the sky for my teammates.

After starting up, I tune one of the radios to the "AWACS", which is essentially an airliner orbiting safely behind the front lines at 35,000ft, with a big radar on it's back. This will give me a data-link connection allowing me to see what's going on in the skies above the enemy airfield, and get intercept calls to any enemies. The other radio I tune to 251.000 MHz AM, the battle frequency of my team. Immediately I hear a guy yelling into his mic about hidden air defences in the town next to the airfield, as he goes down in flames. I notice that there's a ground commander on the enemy team. So someone is directly controlling the enemy's ground units - this should be fun.

I take off and head out to the battle. Several teammates are already there performing "SEAD" - suppression of enemy air defences. It's the first step of a ground assault. Take out, or suppress the anti-air defences so you can then get in close to kill what's on the ground without it shooting back at you from a long way away.

There are many ways to conduct SEAD, and the choice of tactic depends on what you're going up against. Certain long range, radar guided surface to air missiles (SAMs) can launch on you from 40 miles away, but they give off radar emissions that "anti-radiation" missiles can home in on. These emissions are also detected by your aircraft's radar warning receiver (RWR), giving you a heads up and time to react if you've been fired upon. Up close, you might encounter short range IR SAMs. These use passive seekers that lock on to your aircraft's heat signature. Your RWR can't help you here, but luckily the JF-17 has "IR bloom sensors" around its tail that can detect the heat flash of a missile launch. It only has a detection range of a few miles however, and has many blind spots. Often the alarm from this system is just the harbinger of imminent death rather than a useful forewarning.

Luckily I've come prepared for this fight. Under the wings I have four anti-radiation missiles to take out the radar guided SAMs and two glide bombs for when I can get a bit closer. These glide bombs will detach, spread their wings and glide down to whatever point I've designated using the targeting camera. On the wing tips I have two short range infrared guided air to air missiles, just in case I run into trouble.

During Operation Thunder of the Vietnam War, the US Air Force developed a SEAD tactic called the Wild Weasel. It's nothing short of insanity and involves playing a deadly game of chicken with the SAMs. The goal is to bait the enemy into turning on their radars so the anti-radiation missiles can lock on and destroy them. Often you would have the wild weasel planes that would fly towards the SAMs and act as the bait. Another flight carrying the missiles waits for the radar ping to fire upon them.  Ridges, buildings and other terrain features are used for cover that the wild weasel flight can duck behind when they get fired upon, but if they run away too soon, the enemy will shut off their radars and be on the move before the anti-radiation missiles can reach them. Often, the presence of wild weasel teams in the area would make the enemy too afraid to turn the radars on at all, which is essentially a win anyway. With radars off, they can't fire and they are not a threat. A common defensive tactic by a pilot who has just had a radar SAM fired at him is to yell "magnum" over the radio guard frequency. This is the NATO codeword for having fired an anti-radiation missile. Betting that the enemy is monitoring communications, this might cause them to panic and shut down the SAM system, just in case it was a genuine call.

The rather apt motto of the Wild Weasel crews was YGBSM: "You Gotta Be Shittin' Me".

With a human at the helm of the enemy SAM systems, I expect a good deal of wild weaselling to play out. This happens almost immediately as I approach the battlefield. I see a thin white trail streaking up from the town. An enemy SAM has fired on one of my teammates. This is where the video begins:

I immediately declare the launch over the radio, warning the friendly of the impending union with an unfriendly missile. At the same time, I slew over my targeting pod to the general area in which I saw the launch. I begin scanning the area to see where the launch came from, and before long I see an enemy "TOR" missile system driving full speed across the ground, hastily trying to reposition after firing. The Russian developed SA-15 TOR, of recent and unfortunate infamy was designed specifically for this kind of fight - able to fire, shut down the radar and be on the move within seconds in order to keep its position hidden.

Luckily, I have him tracked on the camera, which has locked onto the edge contrast it is making against the cold snow. I have my missiles in "ACT" mode, meaning they will search for a radar signature in the vicinity of where the camera is pointing, but as I fire them, he deactivates the radar and the signal is lost. My missiles explode where the TOR was just seconds earlier. He then reaches a group of trees and stops to reactivate the radar and acquire a lock on me. He thinks he's hidden, but the camera is still tracking. I wait for the "ping" on my RWR - which in the case of the JF-17 is a red cross-hair on the display and a soothing Chinese voice repeating the word "tracking" to me. A launch is imminent, but if I can get my missile off quick enough it will be at best a kill for me, and at worst a trade. I roll in and fire immediately. Anticipating a launch from him in this game of chicken, I go defensive. I dive for the ground on a vector perpendicular to the TOR, while expending chaff - clouds of Mylar strips from the rear of the aircraft.

Diving for the ground makes it more likely I will find cover to break the line of site between myself and the missile. It also might put the intercept point, which the missile will be continuously calculating, below ground level, causing it to slam into the earth or some poor babushka's house. Diving perpendicular to the TOR is a tactic called notching. Attack radars track targets using  the "Doppler pulse" method. They filter the target out of the background clutter by measuring the Doppler frequency shift between the transmitted and received radar signal. Like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, if you don't move they can't see you. At a perpendicular vector, my relative velocity with respect to the TOR is close to zero, and I look like scenery. This is called hiding in the notch filter. Finally, expending chaff countermeasures creates clouds of highly reflective (for radar) material behind me, which the missile might decide is more favourable than the radar return from my plane.

Before his missile reaches me, my missile connects. I see the TOR explode on my targeting pod in a thick black plume - representing scorching hot in the infrared regime. With the TOR radar destroyed, his missile in the air can no longer track me. I announce "shack" over the radio, letting my team know the TOR is dead.

That SAM has been taken care of but the town is no doubt still bristling with short range infrared guided defences. I climb back up to altitude, safe from these units, and begin scouring the enemy airfield for potential targets for the glide bombs. As I scan around I see a small black pixel flying across the screen parallel to the runway. Zooming in, I see it's an enemy fighter - an F-5 Tiger - taking off to intercept us invaders. I declare it over the radio and a teammate who is flying "CAP" (Combat Air Patrol) responds. CAP is a pure air-to-air fighting role which usually involves orbiting just on the edge of the engagement zone, waiting for enemy aircraft to pop up so they can burn in and engage them.

The CAP guy announces that he's in hot on the enemy F-5, but he's still some distance away and the F-5 is quickly approaching some friendly helicopters who are busy clearing out the town. I have a couple of short range air-to-air missiles on my wing tips and I'm much closer, so I decide to dive in on the enemy. As I get down on the deck, I see that the F-5 is "merged" with a friendly. They are too close to get reliable radar returns, and I cannot trust my IFF system. IFF uses a transponder and a receiver to fire an interrogation beam at the target from the radar. If the target understands the encoded interrogation, it will return a signal declaring that they are friendly. If, however, the signal is not understood, it will return nothing. This likely means (but not always) that they are enemy. Team killing is a tragic affair in DCS. It can be frustrating to die to a teammate, lose one of your precious lives and have to go through start up procedures, re-arming and fly back out to the battle. I'd rather be sure before pushing that missile launch button, so I head in to "the merge" to try and get a visual ID. The AWACS controller calls "merged" over the radio as he sees our radar tracks become one. He flies past me and the short glimpse I get of him confirms to me that it's the enemy F-5. I start coming back around to fire off a missile but then the CAP guy from earlier announces "fox 3" over the radio.

Now this puts me in a predicament. That "fox 3" means that he has fired an active radar homing missile at the enemy. These missiles are guided towards the target by the host aircraft's radar, and then for terminal guidance, the missile switches on its own radar in its nose and guides itself the rest of the way. This switch between aircraft and missile radar guidance either happens at a certain distance, amount of time, or if the host radar loses the contact. If I fire on the F-5 and blow it up, then the plane that just fired the missile at him will lose the contact. This will force his missile to "go active" and turn on its own radar to search for the target itself. In which case, it won't find the recently disintegrated F-5, it will find the next closest thing - me!

So instead, I cross the F-5 in another head on pass as I wince, expecting to see the flash of a missile launch from his wing. I hear a clunk as the glide bombs are ripped from my wings due to the g-forces of the turn. I've positioned myself in a way that obscures my hot engine nozzle from his field of view. I know that the F-5 can only carry what are know as rear aspect IR missiles - they can only lock onto the heat directly coming from the engine exhaust and not onto the heat of the aircraft's skin like more modern variants. As we pass again, I spam the button that releases the chaff. There's a chance, as we cross, that the incoming fox 3 missile will accidentality switch to the wrong radar return as our reflected signals merge and then separate again. Wincing slightly again, as I half expect the instant fiery death from the inbound friendly missile, I see the F-5 explode in a flash behind me. It all worked out in the end.

I tell the friendly CAP I saw his target explode but his reply is one of resignation. In his quest for the kill he had overflown the town and been hit by another TOR. Heavily damaged, he has to return to base. Looking down at my RWR I see that I'm about to be the ground commander's next victim. The word MISSILE flashes on the heads up display as several launch warnings are detected behind me by the bloom sensors. During the dance with the F-5 I'd strayed too close to the enemy airfield!

I get low and fast to try and evade them while heading towards the cover of a hill in the distance. Once safe I start to climb back up to altitude, where the air is thin and the fuel consumption is efficient. Seconds later I get a master alarm - "bingo fuel". The fuel gauge goes from yellow to red as I approach 1000lb left in the tank. On full afterburner this is about a minute more of flight time, but I'm still 40 miles from home. I come back on the throttle and manage to idle it down to the friendly base on fumes.

I wish everyone good luck and log off for the evening. After dinner, I check the live web map and see the airbase is still very much under blue control. After a couple of weeks of fighting that looks like the death knell for Red. Ah well, better luck next war!

My name's Jeff

Recently, the "JF-17 Thunder", multi-role 4th generation fighter jet, affectionately called Jeff was added to the DCS repertoire. Developed by a Chinese 3rd party company Deka Iornworks, their debut full-fidelity aircraft was a huge hit. Released feature complete with an incredible attention to detail, Jeff is unique in DCS as it is surprisingly modern.

In general, DCS lags behind the real world by about two decades or so. Classified information and arms regulations such as ITAR severely limit the amount of publicly available information on modern aircraft, weapons and avionics especially if those systems are still in service. Developers are extremely careful in procuring such information, nevertheless one of Eagle Dynamic's developers was recently extradited from Georgia to the US after Homeland Security got him in a sting operation trying to buy an F-16 operations manual. These documents are completely de-classified and anyone in the US or Europe can buy one off eBay if they wish. The issue was that the dev was Russian, so the transfer of the manual violated ITAR. He spent a few years in prison before returning home where his job at ED still waited for him.

Yet here, with Jeff, we have a fighter jet developed in the 2010s and still coming fresh off the production line for the Pakistani air force, fully simulated with all the modern bells and whistles. How this is possible is due to the unique way the real JF-17 was developed.

During the Soviet-Afghan war, India was allied with the Soviets, while Pakistan was supplying military aid to the Afghani insurgents, so via "my enemy's enemy..." the US agreed to sell the cutting edge F-16 Fighting Falcon, or "Viper" to Pakistan. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union and due to the continued development of their nuclear programme, Pakistan was placed under arms embargo by the US and the supply of F-16s stopped. Even now, these F-16s from the cold war make up the backbone of the Pakistani air force, yet they are aging and like iphones with proprietary chargers, they can only use US-made compatible weapons. They have been seeking a replacement in order to move away from their reliance on US tech, and China came up with the answer - the JF-17.

The development of the JF-17 is a strange one; constantly shaped along it's history by ever changing international relations. At one point, even US arms manufacturer Grumman was involved before US-China relations soured. This short partnership is often referred to as "Uncle Grumman's wild night out."

After decades of development, with ever changing partners, goals and designs, we end up with the JF-17. A cheap, light, multi-role attack fighter designed to be as easy as possible for pilots to transition to from the F-16. It has the wings, throttle and stick of the Viper; the 23mm cannon of a soviet 1950's Mig-21 interceptor; the engine of the 1980's Mig-29; the navigation avionics of a French private jet manufacturer and an off the shelf Chinese attack radar.

And that's why so much can be publicly known about a very capable, modern fighter jet. It's a Frankenstein's monster of cold war jet parts and off-the-shelf components from the civilian and military international market.

There are a lot of different game genres out there and I can't think of any that I totally hate. In every case I can almost always find at least one game of that type that I like. There are a few that I am less keen on, though, as they are hard to do well and most of the time I play them it's a less than satisfactory experience. One of these lacklustre genres for me is word games. From my experience, they tend to involve long player turns so other players have to wait around a lot and there's almost always someone in the group who just isn't feeling it and so the whole thing falls a bit flat. Even a game that I'm a fan of, Paperback, suffers from these issues. Cooperative games is another of these hit or miss genres since games can often be controlled by one 'alpha' player who knows the game inside out and they just tell everyone else what to do. It can also be demoralising when you spend an hour or more playing a game and everyone loses, sometimes by random chance, but you also want it to be challenging because winning all the time is equally dissatisfying. Notable exceptions being Space Cadets where players are forced to focus on their own roles due to time pressure and Burgle Bros with a very strong theme and great balance of difficulty and luck vs strategy. With all this in mind, if someone asked me if I wanted to play a cooperative word game, I would probably be pretty unenthusiastic. But in 2019, Letterjam was released with a box bearing the slogan "A cooperative word game". Doesn't really sound like my cup of tea, but the game received rave reviews, and here comes another one…

To begin with, players are all dealt a stack of cards, each bearing a single letter. The letters must be used to create a word (five letters long for a standard difficulty game), which is shuffled and passed to the player on the right. Everyone then lays the word out face down in front of them such that all players have a scrambled word and they don't know what it is. Each player then takes the left-most letter from their word and places it in a stand in front of them so everyone can see the letter except for them. If playing with fewer than six players, extra letters are stood up in view of everyone so that everybody can see five letters. Once this is set up, players try to make a word out of the letters they can see. There is a 'wildcard' available for use as well, which can represent any one letter, to aid players if they are stuck. Players discuss who might have the best word, without revealing what it is, and then the chosen player will spell out the word by placing tokens next to the letters it uses. If someone lays one or more tokens down in front of your letter then you can use this as a clue to guess what your letter is. You might write down a clue like ?-A-T-S. Your letter could be C, or H, or perhaps B. Basically, that clue stinks, so you would probably wait to get another one to narrow it down. But if you get a good clue and you think you know what your letter is, you can lay it back down and stand up the next letter in your word. Once a certain number of clues have been given, or if everyone thinks they have correctly guessed all of their letters, the game ends. Players rearrange the face down letters in front of them into what they think is the word they were given and everyone flips over their word in a dramatic reveal. If everyone does this correctly, the whole team wins.

The components in the box are good quality with simple yet effective artwork. The clue tokens for tracking the number of clues given are taken from a nice flower card, which is different depending on the number of players. The shape cleverly determines how many clues can be given and by whom. On the reverse of the card is a scoring system if you wish to keep track of how well you do from game to game. Better scores can be achieved by attempting longer words, finishing with clues left over or collecting extra letters by finishing your word before other players. The score is still shared by all players so there is no incentive to be greedy here. The tokens for marking the letters are good, heavy poker chips, which gives you a nice feeling of satisfaction when you lay down an eight letter word. The cards themselves are even smarter than they initially seem with QR codes to scan on the companion app, which can be used to make random words for every player so nobody knows any of the words in play. It's not necessary, but a nice little addition.

So on to my thoughts on the game as a whole. I'm not sure I quite grasped how the game worked when I first started playing but after a couple of rounds everything fell into place. It all just comes down to looking at letters and trying to make words. But, as I said before, word games do tend to have a few flaws. Letterjam does away with these issues with very simple game design choices. Other word games suffer from players taking long turns as they struggle to find words, but in Letterjam, everyone is involved on every turn. You're always trying to make words with the available letters, and even if you don't give a clue, you're potentially receiving one and trying to work out your letter with the clues you have been given. This simultaneously solves the problem with co-op games where one player can take over. If one player does this and gives all the clues, they will have no clues for their letter and will never work out their word, so everyone loses. Also, if all players give a clue then an extra clue becomes available for the team to use (everyone has to give more than one clue for this in a two or three player game) to encourage everyone to get involved. The difficulty is also at a good level, you can make it harder or easier by attempting longer or shorter words but the key thing that makes this stand out from many other co-ops is that losing is generally pretty hilarious. Where other games can end in an instant of rotten luck with everyone sat around the table thinking they have wasted the last hour, Letterjam always makes it to the dramatic reveal at the end. Even if you haven't guessed all of your letters, you can make an educated guess at your word anyway. And if you get it wrong, you can still get some enjoyment out of revealing what you think is SPACE only to see SPANT in front of you.

Letterjam is without a doubt one of the best releases of the last few years for me. If you like word games, I can recommend Letterjam. If you like cooperative games, I can recommend Letterjam. If you don't like either I would still recommend Letterjam. It's a great game for keeping up to six players constantly engaged for a mind bending and funny 45 minutes. A truly unique experience not to be missed by any gamer.

A delicious filled pasta from the Italian regions of Emilia Romagna and Lombardy. Stuffed with pumpkin and served with butter and sage, it's a perfect winter pasta dish.

Across the Northern Italian regions of Lombardy and Emilia Romagna, you will find many variations of tortelli di zucca. In this version we are using pumpkin, crushed amaretti biscuits, parmigiano, nutmeg and apple mustard for the filling.

The Filling

The filling needs to be prepared the day before, so it can rest in the fridge overnight. An alternative to the apple mustard can be mustard powder and apple jam.

Ingredients

• One large pumpkin (~700g)
• 200g of dry amaretti biscuits
• One  medium egg
• Parmesan (parmigiano reggiano) cheese
• Pecorino or "formaggio di fossa" cheese
• Wholewheat breadrumbs
• Salt
• Nutmeg
• Apple mustard

Method

From 700g of pumpkin we expect to get about 300g for the filling after processing and baking.

Preheat the oven to  220°C (non-ventilated) or 200°C (ventilated)

Slice the pumpkin into slices about 2cm thick, and spread them out on a oven paper covered baking tray. When the oven is heated, place them in for about 20 minutes if not ventilated, or 10 minutes if it is.

Keep an eye on the pumpkin to make sure it does not burn or brown. When the slices can be pierced easily all the way through with a fork, it is done. Once done the oven can be turned off but the pumpkin left in their to dry out while the rest of the filling is prepared.

While waiting for the pumpkin to cook, crush the amaretti biscuits to a consistency of breadcrumbs and place them into a large bowl.

Remove the pumpkin from the oven and peel off the skin and remove the seeds and fibrous strands, leaving just the pulp. If it is still quite wet, give each slice a gentle squeeze over the sink. If the filling has too much water in it, it will ruin the pasta.

Mash the pumpkin pulp with a potato masher, place them into the bowl with the crushed biscuits and mix well.

Finely grate and mix in about 40 grams of the parmesan and 40 grams of the pecorino.

Season the filling with salt and nutmeg and add about 40 grams of the apple mustard and crack in the egg.

Mix the filling well, and if it is still runny add some wholewheat breadcrumbs to thicken it. It should be slightly runnier than needed as it will thicken in the fridge.

Cover with clingfilm and place in the fridge overnight.

The Pasta

Prepare the pasta after letting the filling rest in the fridge overnight. The rule of thumb is 1 egg for every 100g of flour - either 100% '00' grade flour or 80% 00 and 20% semolina.

For the amount of filling we've made, 300g of flour and 3 eggs works well.

Ingredients and Equipment

• 300g flour + more for dusting
• Three medium eggs
• Rolling pin
• Pasta machine
• Trays or tins for drying

Method

Sift the flour into a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Crack the eggs inside and begin mixing.

When the dough is stiff enough, take it out of the bowl and knead it on a lightly floured surface until smooth in consistency.

Wrap the dough in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.

After it is has rested, dust a large surface with flour, set up the pasta machine and a small cup of tepid water (to close the pasta).

Tear off a chunk of the dough. Roll it flat with the rolling pin, a few mm thick and narrow enough to fit in the pasta machine's rollers.

Put the dough through the machine's rollers on the widest setting twice, then repeat but decrease the roller spacing each time. The pasta needs to be just thick enough that it is not translucent, but be aware that the elasticity of the dough will cause it to relax back after rolling. Therefore it's fine to roll the dough slightly thinner than needed.

Slice the rounded ends off the dough and any wonky edges. Keep these scraps aside as they can be reformed into another sheet later.

Use a sharp kitchen knife to cut the sheet into squared, 5-6cm on each side. Use a teaspoon to scoop a bit of the filling onto each square.

Closing the tortelli takes some practice. Here are the steps in detail:

Flour the bottom of the pasta and place them spread out on a tray. When a tray is full place it in the oven with the fan on but not heated to dry out a little.

Once the pasta has stiffened from the drying, they should either be immediately cooked or frozen. If freezing, flour them liberally and tie them in a freezer bag. Do not take them out of the freezer again until they are ready to go straight in boiling water.

Serving

The traditonal way of serving tortelli di zucca is with butter and sage.

Ingredients

• The amazing tortelli you made
• Butter
• Sage
• Salt

Method

Bring a large pot of water to the boil and add salt. You want to make sure you have at least double the amount of water needed to cover the pasta completely, as cooking from frozen will lower the water temperature significantly. We do not want too long between adding the pasta and the water returning to the boil.

Once the water is boiling, remove the pasta from the freezer (not before!) and add them immediately. If they begin to defrost before being added to the water they will stick together.

Cook for about 5-7 minutes.

In another pan, add a knob of butter and melt until frothy, but without burning.  Add the fresh sage. Rip the sage leafs into pieces instead of cutting them with a knife or it will accelerate the oxidisation and turn black.

Once the pasta is cooked, drain them and add them to the butter and sage. Mix delicately on a low heat taking care not to burst open any of the tortelli.

Serve with a generous covering of grated parmesan or pecorino.

Do you like that feeling when things slot together perfectly? Like when you're loading a car boot and your family and friends are standing behind you saying "you'll never fit all of that in a Yaris". Then you take the final item and it's as if that last bit of empty space was specifically designed for that item to fit in. And it was because you designed it that way. You were the architect of this glorious shape manipulation exercise, you knew it would work, and it did. That makes me happy, and Bärenpark makes me immensely happy for that reason.

The concept of Bärenpark is very simple. We've all been to one of those parks that have enclosures for various types of bear. They're all the rage! Players compete to build the best one of those. But what makes your bear park the best? Most profitable? Highest critical acclaim? Nah, it just needs to slot together nicely.

The actual gameplay in Bärenpark is quite abstract. All players start with a square park entrance board and a small green amenity piece. On their turn they must place their amenity on their board. When doing this they may cover up one or multiple symbols on their board, which determines which new pieces they can take. In the centre, there are several stacks of pieces in various shapes and sizes that can be taken. The smaller, green amenities or rivers, the larger bear houses and the even larger bear enclosures. There are also two stacks of new park areas to extend your board. Each park area, including the entrance, has one square, which can't be built over. These spaces are reserved for statues of famous bears who founded the great bear parks of the olden days. Once you have completed every square in a particular park area, you may place a statue in this gap. Players continue to place tiles and statues until one player has a total of four park areas and they are all completely covered. Each other player gets one additional turn and the game ends. Players add up their scores taken from their bear houses, enclosures and statues. The player with the highest total wins.

Sounds boring, right? You could sit there on your own sticking different shapes together to build your bear park and suddenly wonder what you're doing with your life. But did you forget about the rival bear parks? The pieces in the centre are finite and every time another player takes a bear house, the value of that type of house reduces. You may be sat there thinking a koala house would go really nicely in that last spot on your board, then the next three players take koala pieces and all of a sudden the value of that koala house you wanted has dropped dramatically or perhaps isn't even available. And the enclosures are all one of a kind, so if you aren't the first to grab the piece that you want, you may be left in a spot of bother. And those bear statues? Yep, those decrease in value as they're taken as well, so you have to decide whether it's good to expand your park and get the high value houses and enclosures or rush to finish your individual boards to get the highest value statues. You can imagine that you're actually building a bear park in Russia when suddenly you get a call from a colleague to say Japan has just won the contract for the huge polar bear enclosure you wanted. Time for a change of plans, call the panda company immediately! You don't have anywhere to put it but you'll work something out, because you are the master of shapes.

But Bärenpark also has a feature which makes me feel like less of a master of shapes. The game comes with a lot of cardboard tiles, which is great if you like popping out the cardboard bits in your new game. It's a pretty heavy box considering its relatively low price point. Three of these cardboard pieces can be slotted together to make a divider for your box to keep your pieces separated as you like them. In all the times I have got this game out, which is quite a few, I have never been able to work out how on earth this divider is supposed to fit in the box. Is it some sort of next level shape test for the seasoned Bärenpark player, or is it just bad design? If it's the latter, I suppose I can forgive it because the rest of the design is so clever. The pieces stacked in the centre are on a board with clear labels to aid setting up the stacks of tiles ensuring that the points values used are correct for the number of players. The bear houses are stacked so their value automatically decreases as players take them. The symbols on the player boards are clear and match up with symbols on the central board so you can immediately see what you are entitled to after covering symbols up in your park. The artwork is colourful and all the different types of tiles are distinct to make the gameplay smooth and easy.

Once you've conquered the basics, you can include the optional randomised achievements to the game. Three common goals are available for players to achieve, but being the first to complete them is going to net you more points. You can also purchase the "Bad News Bears" expansion which adds more variation without changing the game significantly. Grizzly bear tiles are added which are huge and worth lots of points, but you have to trade a bear house and an amenity tile for it, and they're not going to fit in your park easily. You can also play with monorails, which you can build over your amenities and rivers to give you extra points. Not only does this make your amenities actually worth something, where in the base they are merely for filling up space, it adds a 3D element to your board, which looks totally dope. The base game is so great that it's a good thing the expansion doesn't fundamentally change how the game is played. As such it is not necessary to have the expansion but it is worth it if you like the game and you just want a bit more variety.

So if you've always wanted to build a park for bears whilst the Tetris theme plays in your head then Bärenpark is fantastic. The satisfaction of placing your irregular park tiles into the perfect configuration is more exciting than it should be, and with quick and simple rules, it's a game that's easy to teach and can be easily introduced to non gamers. The fact that the value of the pieces is constantly decreasing forces you to strategize and keep an eye on your opponents, so this doesn't fall into the trap of feeling like a solo game, but feels like you really have to compete with your rival bear parks to become the greatest park owner and shape slotter.

In Pokémon SwSh you follow the story of a child on their quest to become PokéBritain-“Galar”'s greatest Currymaster. It’s the first “true” Pokémon game that’s made it onto the switch as Let’s Go didn’t count apparently. I’d initially bought into the anti-hype on the internet so I was going into playing this with very low expectations but I’m happy to report that the hivemind has been almost entirely proved wrong. For me at least, having not played a “mainline” Pokémon game since silver (depending on how you class Let’s Go), it successfully walks the tightrope between feeling like classic Pokémon while introducing new mechanics and new Pokémon.

The first and most striking thing that you’ll notice as a child of ol’ blighty is the setting. It swings wildly between the eerily familiar (I didn’t realise UK living rooms were so distinctive?) and the hilariously (and presumably intentionally) misunderstood:

During the story you’ll wind your way through many locations which manage to hit you right in a centre of the brain that screams ‘home’. Between architectural flourishes like PokéEdinburgh’s blackened sandstone, PokéBrum/Manc/Sheffield/Liverpool/Wherever’s industrial revolution pedigree red brick and PokéBath’s palladian crescent mixed with not-Roman ruins there’s some real soul in the environmental design (along with some beautifully designed diversions more styled after literature than real life). There are some wonderful nods to nichés of UK culture like the new "TR"s, which are single use TMs that get sold out of places that look suspiciously like record stores! This continues with the character design and naming, with some fantastic nods to British folklore and literature (The “proper” rival you go up against is named Bede after the historynerd monk!) although I do balk a bit at the awkward overuse of “mate”. The new cohort of Pokémon introduced this generation also had me double taking over things that I had no idea were distinctly British until they were put on a pedestal. New Poké - Squirrels, Sheep, Clydesdale horses, Angel Delight and Coal all make the cut for Galar themed additions.

The story is utter garbage (but they always are, right?) and there are some valid criticisms to the back seat your character takes throughout, essentially ending up as a rubber duck to be exposited at by other characters, but it’s very easy to ignore in favour of the gameplay – which scratches my old Pokémon itch deep and manages to do so with some wonderful additions (which may or may not be new, I don’t know). Weather dependent spawns, interesting and “hidden” evolution mechanics beyond simple levelling or crunking them upside the head with a power stone, a “wild area” which attempts open world gameplay (I can see why some would be disappointed with its size and detail after playing breath of the wild, but it does ok in my eyes). The camping and currymaking mechanics I enjoy a lot and are better for the lack of direction you’re given (just put some berries and shit in a pot and get a rating. Did your process have any bearing on the outcome? Who knows!) - I love that the camp extends the Let's Go petting interaction to your entire party and gives an alternative training environment to just beating up on wild Pokémon.

It’s not perfect, the animations are famously janky - I’ve seen them described by a review as closer to south park than something you'd expect from a full price videogame and the characters can be pretty grating if I’m honest (except for Bede, I fucking love to hate that guy). The “Raid” mechanics and Gigantamaxing are also nothing to rave about, but the game doesn’t specifically suffer for their presence either and nothing has turned me off playing yet. I'm quite happy they've tried new things, it's ok for some to fall flat.

I’ll wrap this up with one thing I think they’ve absolutely nailed, which is the feel and flow of the Gym battles. The sound design and camera positioning is phenomenal and they’ve managed to somehow capture the essence of a stadium football match (not that I’ve been to one in a long time). My first one got me hyped in a way I can’t quite describe and for that this game gets a strong recommendation from me. The soul of the game is a real love letter to the British psyché and i'm finding it hard to put down for long. I've played 16 hours so far and I doubt i'll be stopping soon.

Down the Rabbit Hole is a series of ramblings by the Space Cats on niche and unconventional games (and other media), and what is ultimately appealing about them.

The first flight sims I enjoyed were from the late 90's/early 2000's. Predominately from the developer and publisher Novalogic. This was a golden age for "milsim" gaming, with the likes of F-22 Lightning II, Armored Fist 2, MiG-29 Fulcrum and the Delta Force trilogy. You could find these games front and centre of the video games displays at any supermarket, along side the ever popular Microsoft Sidewinder joystick. Certainly they were not up there with Quake and Half-Life in sales, but it was still very much mainstream PC gaming.

Coming into the new millennium, the popularity of these games began to dwindle. Favoured peripherals were discontinued, and the torch was instead passed on to more high-octane and arcade-like gaming series such as Ace Combat and Battlefield. I did not really have an interest in flight sims during this decade. The titles available were few and far between and the genre accepted its "niche-ness", putting spectacle last in terms of graphics and gameplay, and becoming somewhat inaccessible to all but the most hardcore flight sim fans.

Recently, that has all started to change. The newest hardcore combat sim titles look stunning on a modern gaming PC. They embrace the prevalence of online multiplayer to create huge, dynamic and persistent online arenas, all while striving for the highest quality of fidelity and realism for the proper nerds. However, as we will see, this rebirth does not come without some teething issues.

I have grown to appreciate these modern sims while in search for some really challenging and tactical competitive multiplayer. Through the likes of DOTA II, Fractured Space and PUBG, the thing that always brought me back was how the high stakes, skill based gameplay and need for quick strategic decision making gave rise to some incredibly exciting and rewarding moments. I was never particularly a fan of the "on-rails" bombastic adrenaline train of many FPS games such as the Modern Warfare series, or even the (in my opinion) rather repetitive multiplayer they have to offer. Yet, with DOTA II and other MOBAs, no two matches were the same and they always felt like a rather satisfying mental workout... even if the tilts were brutal. Two particular titles of combat flight sims that I have grown fond of, offer the same drug but without being constrained to arbitrary rules or gameplay balancing.

These two titles are DCS: World and the IL-2 Great Battles series. The former has an emphasis on Cold War and modern era aircraft, while the latter deals only with WWII theatres.

DCS: World

DCS is a "free to play" combat flight sim, with add-on modules and aircraft developed in-house by Eagle Dynamics, and a few licensed 3rd party developers. I say "free to play" as the base game offers only the game engine and a couple of free aircraft. In practice it is more of a demo than F2P as you'll need at least one of the addon modules to fully experience the sim.

This is where accessibility is still a problem. These modules are anywhere between 40 and 80 USD. This will put off anyone wanting to dip their toe into the genre quite quickly. That said, most of them go to 50-75% discount every 2-3 months during sales, which is the only time I've ever picked one up. Considering the fidelity and depth a single aircraft module has, it will provide many months of fun and study for about $20-30, which is a pretty good deal considering the average price of a triple-A title.

Speaking of fidelity, DCS is a simulator which focuses on realism. The game engine itself has most of the things you would expect from a flight simulator: weather simulation, atmospheric models, detailed flight model APIs and accurate physics, weapon effects and realistic radar. The aircraft modules themselves are often incredible feats of work. They take many years to develop and is done so along side the advice and testing of former pilots, engineers and other experts. These modules aim to reproduce the real aircraft as closely as possible - with every system, switch, weapon and flight behaviour being simulated with meticulous accuracy - as far as international arms regulations and official secrets acts allow (well, for the most part).  All exterior and interior models are often laser scanned from in-service aircraft or museum pieces, and each button click or alarm sound recorded from the real cockpit. Some of these modules have even been adopted by various armed forces around the world as official simulation and training platforms for the aircraft.

The online MP scene of DCS attempts to merge these very anorakish study-sim elements with mainstream competitive play, to the point where it has a rapidly growing e-sports scene. There's an abundance of PVP servers, all hosted freely by the community. You find a server and click join. There are no lobbies and no match making. You're in with everyone else from the beginning. This is where the developers leave the shaping of the MP scene to the community and it's all the better for it. Whether you want to fight in the flight sim equivalent of a Quake arena, or take part in an MMO-like simulation of war, the options are all there. DCS exposes a powerful LUA scripting API where many things can be controlled. All kinds of information can be pulled from and pushed to the server by the host, which has given rise to hugely dynamic war theatres.

It's difficult to explain just how complex and rich these servers can be. Some simulate all out war in the Persian Gulf or Caucasus region where 70-80 concurrent players battle in the skies. On many servers, getting kills is not the most important goal. It's about capturing objectives, making it difficult for the enemy to respond to your advances, and bringing back your aircraft in one piece. Attrition mechanics are built in, with bases and airfields having limited supplies that need to be brought in by players in transport helicopters, or routed to key points via armoured convoys controlled by a battle commander in RTS fashion, by means of a tactical map.

Another player may be sitting in the "GCI" (Ground Intercept Controller) slot, where they have real time information from the airborne and ground based radar systems. They are able to task other players with objectives, and give them situational awareness and intercept instructions towards enemy aircraft. Those ground based radars giving the commander and GCI the information they need were probably hauled to their locations on top of mountains by player piloted helicopters. The amount of strategical coordination needed between players is immense, and the willingness of the player base to cooperate on such a level is even more impressive. The maturity of the community along with the diminished importance of personal scores drives the teamwork. When you state your intentions over the radio, you will often get numerous offers of assistance, such as the relaying of information on enemy positions, a fighter escort to keep you safe, or the deployment of troops behind enemy lines to recon your target.

These "war-sim" scenarios can persist for weeks as each side fights for air superiority, territory and kills. Progress, scores and battle maps are often displayed in real-time on the websites of the server hosts, allowing players to plan detailed missions, or just to have a quick look at the situation during their lunch break and see if what they did the previous evening had any effect on the war effort.

This naturally gives rise to some incredibly rewarding gameplay. Planning a mission with some friends to, say, strike an enemy airfield where some of you are up high in fighters offering protection, while others go in fast low to avoid enemy radar and bomb the runway, and a group of helicopters carrying troops to capture the base after the strike follow behind, is a lot of fun. As is watching the tactical replays afterwards to see what went wrong, what was done right and what you can do better next time. There are so many variables that it can go horribly wrong in countless ways, but if it all pays off, it's genuinely awesome.

Such missions are not conducted because the game told you to. There is no flashing element in your objectives list saying 'take this base'. It was decided by the players based on the current state of the battle, the resources and the effect it will have on the enemy.

Planning missions is a daunting affair. You are trying to outsmart a lot of real people on the enemy team, who are also trying to outsmart you. One quickly realises that a lot of skill in strategic planning is required, and this is probably why my success rates for such plans are rather low... nevertheless, each one feels like a rewarding learning experience and whether planning missions, flying in them or coordinating them in real-time, I often feel like I am learning something more than just how to win at a particular video game.

DCS comes with a mission editor that allows you to set up and control your own scenarios. This could be for a multiplayer server, or for a private campaign between friends. I've taken part in one such campaign with around 20 other people, in which the creator wrote an entire backstory, rules and guidelines to the fictional conflict in which we take part, and the story progresses between sessions in a way that reminds me very much of a table-top RPG.

Without even talking about the aspect of flying in what is still essentially a flight sim, we see that gameplay aspects ranging from an RTS to tabletop roleplay emerge from the its dynamic nature. In essence however there is the strategic gameplay, and then there is the tactical gameplay. Despite being a completely different platform entirely, I think these can be best described through the lens of something we all understand: DOTA. The strategic part is the meta-gameplay: the long term teamwork and coordination in achieving a goal - be it winning the "war" or capturing an objective. It's like the pre-game discussions in DOTA to decide on farming strategies, lanes and builds, except these strategies may persist anywhere from an hour to several days. The tactical element is in the flying itself. Positioning, elements of surprise, well timed coordination, situational awareness and a deep understanding of your aircraft's capabilities vs the enemies'. It's like the coordinated team-fight aspect of DOTA. You need to understand the strengths and limits of your "hero". You need to know how well it works with your other teammates', and you need to know where the enemy are and what good positioning looks like, and above all, you need good communication.

There is no intrinsic balancing in DCS however. Some servers will attempt some degree of fairness by restricting weapon types, or aircraft to a specific era such as early Cold War, but in general there's nothing stopping you from taking off in an aircraft 30 years senior than what the enemy is flying, and relying purely on the element of surprise and skill to beat them. Deliberately making yourself the underdog is a common occurrence in DCS multiplayer, since there is no grind and nothing to 'unlock'. For many the bragging rights from killing a modern American fighter jet from 2006 in a purely analogue 1960s ground striking aircraft from Sweden, inferior on paper in all the ways that matter, is reward enough.

For me personally, the peak of cooperative gameplay in DCS is with the "multicrew" aircraft, which require more than one player to operate. One such plane in the sim is the F-14 Tomcat (of Top Gun fame). It's a two seater fighter with a radar in its nose that's so powerful and complex, you need an extra crew member to operate it from the back seat, while the pilot up front does, well, "some of that pilot shit".

The Tomcat carries a massive missile known as the "Phoenix" which can hit enemies from 50+ miles away. Firing these beasts at enemies over the Strait of Hormuz from up in the Stratosphere, while Kitt flies from the front seat is some of the best multiplayer fun I've had in a long time.

All is not perfect in the skies over Georgia and Iran however. At its core, specifically the game engine itself, DCS is a relic of those underground days of flight sims in the mid 2000s. The current graphics engine looks great most of the time (and if you have the hardware to back it up) but the core engine is the product of incremental improvements of their game "Black Shark" released in 2008. Parts of the interface still feel like they are from this era, and the multiplayer scene exploded in a way that the developers did not predict, so the demons buried deep in the netcode sometimes make themselves known in densely populated servers (see the gif below...). Optimisation also leaves a lot to be desired. All but the audio runs on a single thread so even 32Gb, 2080 RTX, i9 rigs struggling to run it at max settings in VR.

That being said, DCS sees almost weekly updates to the core engine and modules and there are big plans in the works such as the implementation of Vulkan and a complete re-write of the netcode.

I've mentioned how engaging the gameplay (or meta-gameplay) is in DCS, but not much about the actually flying. It is a flight sim after all. Although the same principles apply to both DCS and IL-2, the joys of being at the controls in an air combat sims are best described when talking about the latter:

IL-2: Great Battles Series

IL-2 has been a series of WWII combat flight sims for many years, but their latest and very popular series is the "Great Battles" brings this long series into the mainstream spotlight. Each of the series is like an expansion pack. You need one of the packs to play, but can freely join any of the multiplayer servers with just one. Each pack offers a selection of aircraft from a particular period and key battle of WWII.

Unlike DCS, the aircraft in IL-2 do not have "fully clickable" cockpits. This means that although the fidelity and realism of the aircraft and how they fly is just as detailed, everything is controlled with key bindings rather than actually clicking buttons and levers in the plane itself. This encapsulates the main distinction other than era, between DCS and IL-2. IL-2 is more about the pure flying and fighting. The damage and flight models are very impressive, with metal fatigue and damage to internal components being very precisely simulated with the use of soft body PhysX materials. For instance, you can get shot through your wing but continue flying just fine. Then 20 minutes later you pull a tight turn and off rips your wing due to the damage and fatigue the struts inside it have received since being damaged by the shots. You can damage fuel lines, engine components and vital control surfaces. Springing an oil leak can make you blind as the cockpit glass gets sprayed with the leaking fluid, yet opening the canopy to try and peek your head out and see where your going just ends up with your goggles getting sprayed with it instead. Small details like this, along with amazing sound effects and a polished graphics engine make for very immersive and visceral gameplay.

With the old warbirds of IL-2: GB, you only have guns. No missiles or fancy modern weaponry. This really amplifies the need for pure flying skill. When fighting in close quarters with an enemy aircraft this is known as a "dogfight", and winning a dogfight requires a lot of skill and knowledge in the performance of your aircraft compared to the enemy's, and how things like angle of attack, lift, drag and the interplay between potential and kinetic energy affect your ability to gain the upper hand. It is the purest skill test out of any type game I have ever played, and lies somewhere between a physics problem and an art. Coming across a worthy opponent in an online battle, forcing them to make mistakes, capitalizing on them and winning is a rather gratifying experience.

Like DCS, IL-2 also hands off control of the multiplayer realm to the community. Here you can also find the dynamic wars, the air-quake servers and the realistic campaigns. There are fewer options, some by design and others limited by the technology of the WWII era, however with that simplicity comes a much shinier polish on the whole product. In contrast, DCS, for all its ambition and breadth, does feel like an early access game in many aspects. That said, I enjoy both for what they are and welcome the constant improvements both games are currently seeing.

Since the days of Space Cats DOTA ended, I've been chasing the dragon for something that offers the same rewarding experience. Something that is never quite the same from session to session, which relies fundamentally on teamwork with your mates and something that overworks your brain cells and multitasking abilities to the point where you always feel rather incompetent, yet slightly less so than the previous session. DCS and IL-2 offer this high in copious amounts, once the dauntingly large barrier for entry is scaled.

I have fully embraced this new wave of combat flight sims, which straddle the fence between pure dweebish obsession and mainstream gaming, for all the enjoyment they offer.

Footnote: Hardware

Such flight sims will likely always remain a niche due to the hardware requirements, particularly peripherals. It's possible to play either on a steam or even a playstation controller, but for those that start that way and enjoy the experience, it won't be long before they're pricing up joysticks, throttles and pedals on Amazon.

That said, a decent joystick and throttle can be acquired for around £40, in the shape of the popular T. Flight HOTAS X:

The main issues are the ball-joint of the stick becoming rather creaky after a couple of years of use and lack of switches and controls. Still, it could serve someone well for many years.

The other requirement is some way to look around. A thumbstick or D-Pad can be used for this but some form of head tracking gives a much better and more natural experience. For a while I was using a home made infrared LED head tracker. It cost me £10 in components and stuck to the side of my headphones. It worked like a charm and just as good as the pre-made commercial solutions such as TrackIR, which costs around £150.

Recently however, I was gifted a second hand Oculus CV1 VR headset. I run it on sub-par hardware, with which I get surprisingly comfortable performance by compromising my graphics settings and overclocking the hell out of my 970 GTX. Despite my flight sims not looking as pretty with my settings turned down, and the lower perceived resolution of the headset, I can never go back. The immersion of VR in flight sims is indescribable. The feeling of depth, speed, vertigo and genuine fear when about to experience a crash is second to none. In my opinion this will become the true way to fly simulators.

The problem is not that the hardware is expensive. The "buy-in" cost for a joystick, throttle and head tracking solution can be around £50, and you'll never need more than that... the issue is you may eventually want more than that.

I first played Link's Awakening on the GameBoy Colour. That handheld device was responsible for many of my favourite gaming memories. Pokémon Red was the defining game of that era for 10 year old Rick. I enjoyed Link's Awakening very much back then, too. I loved exploring the world, soaking up the weird and mysterious mood, and uncovering new abilities and secrets.

I remember the frustrations just as keenly though. I was convinced that I had a duff cartridge because I was unable to trigger the game to reveal the next dungeon. I told my mum that we would have to return it to the the shop, or call tech support, but she understood that I was being a filthy casual. Eventually, I figured it out.

Playing this game re-imagined in 2019 has definitely been a source of nostalgia for me. I was not such a devotee of the original to have completed it multiple times, or unlocked all of its secrets. I had twinges of recognition at various points, memories of boss fights and characters, but I could not recall the exact order of the (in)famous Trading sequence.

Link's Awakening is set on the mysterious Koholint Island, Link washed ashore after a storm at sea. He is told that he must awaken the Wind Fish in order to leave. This will necessitate retrieving eight mystical instruments, each located at the bottom of a dungeon (obviously). The plot here is pretty minimal and straightforward, but the quest to awaken the Wind Fish does provide some structure and narrative drive for the player.

Everything on Koholint is somewhat off-kilter and melancholy. The talking owl, the strange kindness of Marin, Tarin's ill fated mushroom hunt. The original developers have since said that they were heavily inspired by the David Lynch classic, Twin Peaks. It's probably not an obvious connection at first glance – but the pervasive sense of mystery, the eerie mood of the Island and its inhabitants, do really evoke the cult TV series.

The presentation of this game is phenomenal. The plasticky, toy-like modelling of the characters is very effective. All of the environments are packed with colour, the levels really pop. The interior of houses are all loaded with distinctive miniature decorations, giving even mundane areas of the game a real sense of personality. The game features animated cut scenes, used very sparingly – these are beautifully drawn, and effectively underline some key moments. The in-game animations here too, are absolutely stellar. Every type of injury Link can suffer (stabbing, electrocution, falling down a pit) is accompanied with an adorable animation. Dying has never been so joyful to watch.  

The music throughout is also exceptional. The original Link's Awakening score is rightly highly regarded by fans, and it holds up extremely well in its original bleepy-bloopy rendition. The musical team have taken a fantastic source OST, and made it even more special with a captivating orchestral arrangement. It really showcases the quality of the original score that it can be re-arranged in this way and sound both fresh and familiar.

Combat is simple but enjoyable. The level of technical challenge never really gets off the ground (a 'Hero' mode for the masochists is available from the get-go), but there are a couple of trickier boss fights and segments. Quite a few enemies and bosses require some trial and error in figuring out how to effectively damage them, encouraging the player to use their full repertoire of abilities. Puzzling through the eight dungeons, and exploring the Koholint overworld, is for the most part a really fun time. There are some superbly intricate dungeon designs here, and for the most part they are engaging and satisfying to beat.

Unfortunately, the struggles of 10 year old Rick are still relevant at the age of 30. The game opens up Koholint to fully explore quite quickly, which is a good thing, but occasionally the game struggles to provide a sense of direction. This isn't an open world experience – the game requires specific actions in order to progress along the critical path. Ulrira's phone directions definitely help, but there were moments when I was completely stuck. The Trading sequence ties into the progress of the main plot, meaning that if you are not using a walkthrough, then be prepared for lots of running around and talking to random NPCs to move forward. Some of the in-dungeon puzzles too, are obscure. At times it felt that I had gotten the answer by trying all possibilities, or attempting  random combinations of block pushing. Some of the later dungeons also require extensive backtracking, which others may resent. I ended up using a guide at several points, and I'm convinced that twenty years ago I must've resorted to GamesFAQs to ultimately awaken the Wind Fish.

On another slightly sour note, the game seems to suffer from inexplicable frame drops when moving around the overworld. They're certainly not severe enough to cause difficulties, but do take the sheen off an otherwise exceptional presentation. The Switch is clearly capable of running more graphically advanced games at consistent frame rates – this feels like an unforced error.

Link's Awakening is a great game, nostalgia or no. The art style, music, dungeons, and mood, all contribute to a wonderful overall experience. Some of the poor signposting and obscure puzzles, for me, did detract from my overall enjoyment. It's a loving and faithful reproduction of a classic, but I wonder if maybe a few tweaks might have helped this be a more enjoyable experience in 2019. Definitely come along for the adventure, but bring a guide. After all, it's dangerous to go alone.

Contents

• Making a Starter
• Making a Sourdough Boule
• Troubleshooting

I fell into making sourdough after watching Bon Appétites "It's Alive" YouTube series. It's a fantastic look at living foods you can make in your own home, such as sourdough and kimchi. I recommend you watch it, if you haven't already seen it!

Sourdough is an easy and delicious bread to make. Sourdough involves the use of wild yeasts instead of commercial bread yeasts that you buy in a packet. Commercial yeasts have been selected over the years to cut down the amount of proving time required to rise a dough. In doing this, however, these yeasts also reduce the amount of flavour in the final product. The traditional way to rise your bread is to maintain your own live culture and use the wild yeasts within it to leaven your dough.

Many guides over-complicate the process of making sourdough. Having tried many approaches and gone through many failures, I've created a simple and effective way to bake proper, delicious sourdough at home.

Making a sourdough loaf is a simple process. Typically, it involves three stages: the dough (30 minutes), the prove (~10 hours) and the bake (35 minutes bake, ~30 minutes to cool).

The key ingredient to sourdough is a sourdough starter, an active culture consisting of wild yeast and lactobacilli. The use of a sourdough starter gives the bread its distinctive tangy flavour. You can make your own starter from scratch in a week, or acquire one from a local bakery to save you the time it takes to get one started.

Making a Starter (7 days)

Making a sourdough starter from scratch is simple - much simpler than you may think. You will need: a warm place, a clip top jar to hold the starter, wholegrain flour, water and a few minutes each day for about a week. When starting a sourdough culture, it's important you use wholegrain flour, as unrefined flours retain the natural wild yeasts required for sourdough. Before you are able to use the starter, you need to build up a strong and active culture, which we do by regularly "feeding" the starter with more flour and water.

As you feed your sourdough starter, the wild yeasts and lactobacilli will begin to proliferate, though the ratios of each will vary. Gradually as the acidity rises in the culture, the less useful microbes will be removed, leaving behind the strong fermenting wild yeasts and lactobacilli bacteria. Presence of these strong yeasts will cause your starter to bubble and grow and eventually ensure that your dough rises properly. The lactobacilli produces lactic acid that creates the distinctive sour tang that sourdough is renowned for. You will know that the starter is strong enough to be used in making a dough when the amount of starter consistently doubles in size a few hours after feeding.

Throughout the initial process, the culture can give off some unusual smells due to the ebb and flow of various yeasts and bacteria. During the creation of my culture, it actually spent a few days smelling like smoked bacon! By the seventh day, these aromas will have mellowed.

Ingredients:

• Wholegrain flour‌‌
• Room temperature water

Day 1

To get started, take a large clip top jar and carefully rinse it with boiling water to sterilise. Add a large heaped tablespoon of wholegrain flour and a quick splash of lukewarm water. Mix the two together into a very thick but smooth batter consistency. Seal the container and leave it at room temperature for 24 hours. Keep out of direct sunlight - on top of the fridge is ideal.

Day 2

After 24 hours, repeat the feeding process from Day 1, adding another large heaped tablespoon of flour, a splash of lukewarm water and stirring into a thick batter. Leave for 24 hours. It is unlikely you will see much activity at this stage.

Sometimes a layer of liquid can form on the surface of the starter, referred to as "hooch" because of its aroma of alcohol. This is harmless and can be either stirred in during the next feed or poured off if desired. Presence of hooch normally means the starter has too high a ratio of water to flour.

Day 3

Discard half of the starter. You want to keep the amount of fresh flour high during this initial stage. Add wholegrain flour back into the starter, roughly the amount of starter that you just discarded; with enough water to stir into a smooth batter.

Day 4

Repeat the feeding process. You may notice some minor bubbling activity a few hours after feeding.

Day 5

Discard half of the starter again. Add enough wholegrain flour and water back in to build the starter up to the same amount before you discarded. A few hours after feeding, you should see the starter begin to bubble and grow in size.

Day 6-7

Continue feeding the starter daily. You should add roughly a third of the starters size in flour daily, with enough water to make a thick batter. It's difficult to over-feed a culture. If you have too much starter simply discard half and continue feeding. The culture should be roughly doubling in size a few hours after feeding.

If your culture isn't bubbling as consistently as you hoped, don't worry! Continue feeding and discarding as necessary and the yeast will strengthen.

Once you have a solid culture, you can begin to make sourdough. Be careful not to use all of your starter in a loaf, keep a little left to feed and continue the culture. To keep your starter alive you should continue to feed it flour and water daily. You can discard starter if you end up creating too much. You can store it for up to 2 weeks in the fridge without feeding and even longer in the freezer. When bringing a starter out of cold storage it's recommended to feed it for two days at room temperature before using it in a loaf.

Making a Sourdough Boule

This technique has been designed to create a simple, beautiful, crusty and delicious sourdough loaf. I make a few loaves during the work week - creating the dough before bed and baking a perfect bread in the morning. The recipe includes a long fridge prove which should take place overnight.

Traditional recipes for sourdough involve an additional autolyse period before making the dough, with periodic folding and shaping of the dough during the extended proving period. These techniques can help aerate the dough if you have time, but, in my opinion, don't add enough to the final bread to warrant the effort. For this guide, I will keep it simple and avoid these labour intensive steps.

Equipment

• Baking Paper
• Cling Film (or shower cap)
• Oven Dish - Preferably a Dutch Oven or Large Casserole Dish with a lid. (Alternatively a tray can work - see below)
• Dough Razor / Lame (Sharp knife can work)
• Dough Scraper
• Proving basket / Banneton (or large bowl)

I recommend using a dough scraper for handling and shaping the dough as it can be unwieldy with bare hands. You can pick up a scraper cheaply on Amazon or Ebay. Proving the dough in a banneton instead of a bowl will help shape your dough and impress a beautiful swirl pattern on your final bread. Further, removing sticky dough from a well-used banneton is much easier than a smooth bowl. To prevent unnecessary plastic waste, I like to use a large shower-cap instead of cling film to cover my dough as it proves. Post-prove, I'd recommend using dough razor or lame to score the dough: a sharp knife can be used but it is likely you will drag the dough instead of cleanly scoring.‌‌‌‌

For the perfect loaf, I recommend baking the loaf inside a dish with a lid, such as a dutch oven, large casserole dish or a cloche. This will retain the moisture from the dough during the bake, preventing the crust from forming too quickly. A crust that forms too quickly will stall a full oven-spring resulting in a dense, heavy crumb and a flat, misshapen loaf. If you do not have a covered dish, it's possible to imitate these conditions by adding a tray of water to the bottom of your hot oven a few minutes before baking.

Ingredients:

• 400g Extra Strong White Bread Flour
• 250ml Room-temperature water
• 5-10g Salt
• 1 Tbsp Olive oil
• 200g Sourdough Starter

Extra-strong bread flour (Canadian wheat usually) makes a large difference to the outcome of the bread. It can be found in most larger supermarkets under an own-brand as very-strong or extra-strong bread flour. Canadian wheat strains contain more protein per gram, which will develop into a better crumb texture in your bread.

British wheat typically has less protein, which hinders gluten development. This incidentally lead to the Chorleywood Bread Process, the process by which 80% of British bread is made

As long as you keep the ratio between flour and water roughly 2:1, with the same amount of starter as water you can scale the recipe up for larger loaves or down to small rolls.

‌‌Method

Night Before

Using a large mixing bowl, mix 250ml lukewarm water with 200g of sourdough starter. Add the 400g of strong bread flour followed by 5-10g of salt to taste. The salt contributes significantly to the bread's final flavour so don't be tempted to skip. Add a tbsp of olive oil, this helps preserve the bread. Mix together into a sticky dough.

The initial dough should be sticky. If the dough is too dry and lacking any stickiness, add a splash of water. ‌‌‌‌If kneading by hand, lightly flour a surface and knead for a full 15 minutes (Time it!). Avoid adding too much additional flour during kneading as it will result in a tougher, dry loaf. You can dust your hands in flour to prevent the dough sticking or alternatively if the dough is seeming too dry, dunking your hands in a bowl of water and handling the dough will prevent sticking without adding flour to the dough.‌‌‌‌ As you knead the dough will become smooth and less sticky. The gluten in the dough will develop resulting in a dough that stretches instead of tearing.

Once the kneading time is up, shape the dough into a round while lightly dusting the outside of the dough with flour. The result should be a smooth continuous surface. This will prevent sticking and help develop the ‌bread crust. Coat a large bowl or proving basket with flour and place the dough inside, upside down. Cover the container with cling film and leave to prove in a fridge for a minimum of 10 hours. I like to leave it overnight, ready for a bake in the morning. Longer proves will result in stronger taste, but over-proving can result in a collapsed loaf.‌‌‌‌

Baking (~10 hours later)‌

It is important to preheat the oven and dish before baking. An oven too cold will result in a collapsed loaf and lack of rise. A hot oven will cause the dough to "spring", resulting in an open crumb, round shape and delicious caramelised crust. ‌‌‌‌Place the dish you will use to bake your bread in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 240°C.

If you are using an uncovered dish, place a tray of water in the bottom of the warm oven 5-10 minutes before moving on to the next step.‌‌‌‌

Once the oven is preheated, remove the dough from the fridge and upend the bowl/basket onto baking paper. Score the top in any pattern you like, a cross or a line is traditional. Slashing a dough allows you to control the final rise of the bread during the bake. An un-slashed dough can struggle to rise through the crust, resulting in an unsightly bursting out the side or a dense compact loaf. A properly scored loaf results in beautiful sprung patterns but also accommodates more rise and a lighter, even crumb.

Carefully remove the preheated dish from the oven and place the baking paper and dough within. Cover dish with a lid (if applicable) and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the lid and reduce temperature to 200°C, (if not using a dish, open the oven door briefly to release excess steam and continue). Bake for another 15 minutes or until the crust becomes a dark golden brown. Remove the dish from the oven and carefully move the loaf onto a cooling rack.

To test if a loaf is fully baked, tap the underside and check for a hollow sound and a crisp crust.‌‌‌ Let the loaf cool for at least 30 minutes to finish the baking process and allow the excess moisture to escape the bread. Cutting the loaf too soon after baking will reveal a disappointing doughy bread.‌‌‌‌ During this cooling period, you can occasionally hear the crust cracking!

Out the Oven

Once cooled, take a sharp serrated bread knife and slice into your sourdough! The crust should be thick and crisp, the crumb inside soft but springy with pockets of air throughout. Freshly baked bread is delicious with a bit of salted butter or brie. Generally the crust softens after a day or two. The loaf can last for up to a week if covered although it will rarely be around for that long!

Troubleshooting

Dough Sticks to the Proving Container

I had this issue a lot. I found that well-floured banneton performs much better when compared to a steel bowl. A generous final dusting of flour over the loaf during shaping can go a long way. Ensuring a layer of flour remains across the bottom of the container will help although this can be difficult with a bowl. In this case, a coating of oil on the container can be used instead.

Bread too Dense

If the starter shows active signs of bubbling a few hours after feeding it's unlikely to be the culprit. I would add more water to the dough to increase the hydration percentage and keep surface flouring minimal. The dough should be sticky and quite difficult to handle before kneading. Next, I would ensure the oven and dish are pre-heated and that steps have been taken to retain dough moisture during the bake. This can be achieved by baking in a covered dish or by adding a tray of water to the bottom of the hot oven 5-10 minutes before baking.

Kneading can also play a part. An under-kneaded dough lacks the gluten development to retain the structure of the crumb, collapsing during the bake. An over-kneaded dough can become tough and resist the rise with a rubbery crumb. Both can result in a dense bread, however, it's unlikely you will over-knead when kneading by hand (as it's very hard work!).

Bread Misshapen

This can be the result of too high-hydration and not enough kneading. Dough that has a very high hydration is slack and quickly loses shape when placed in a warm oven. Dough that has been under-kneaded will lack the gluten structure that will help retain the shape and air-pockets that develop during the prove and the bake. Preventing the dough from warming up once out of the fridge helps maintain it's shape during the bake. Ensure the baking dish and oven have been pre-heated sufficiently so the dough bakes immediately.

Getting the round, tight shape of the dough before the prove is important. The technique that I use when it comes to shaping is to scrape the dough roughly into a round using the dough scraper and then lightly dust with flour. With a well floured hand on one side of the dough and the scraper on the other, scrape the dough under itself. Rotate the dough with the floured hand and continue to pull dough under itself with the scraper. Gradually this will round the dough into a smooth, consistent finish. If the dough is too sticky at this stage add more flour to the surface and repeat, this flour won't be incorporated into the bulk of dough so won't dry out the loaf.

The film starts with a panning shot across a retirement home, towards our narrator - a very old and wheelchair bound Robert De Niro, playing Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, who is recounting his past to an unknown character. As we follow the Irishman's memories into the past, three distinct time frames develop. His origin story; a road trip he takes with the mobster Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) in his senior years; and the present in which they are narrated to us by an even older Frank.

The film centres around Frank's career. He starts out as a regular truck driver, ferrying beef from the slaughterhouse to the butcher. A chance meeting with Russel, a powerful and respected gangster starts to change all of that. At first Frank's only crime is selling mobsters some premium steak from his cargo before delivering it to the butcher, but before long he's "painting houses" as a respected hitman for the mob, and becoming a trusted friend of the famous Teamsters union president, Jimmy Hoffa.  

The story spans six decades - from the second world war to the 2000s with the characters being rather convincingly de-aged with some fancy new CGI techniques. For the most part it's unnoticeable, which I believe is a testament to how well the tech was used. There were very few moments in which I was reminded that in reality, these actors no longer look like they did back in Goodfellas.

Joe Pesci delivers an incredible performance as the calm and seemingly empathetic mobster Russell Bufalino - a digression from his usual roles that involve pulling his gun on someone for calling him funny, or putting peoples heads in vices. The fervour instead comes from Al Pacino as the charismatic and slightly unstable Jimmy Hoffa. All three stars give amazing performances, and are backed up by a strong supporting cast that includes Harvey Keitel, Jesse Plemons, as well as a brief appearance from a SpaceCats favourite: Steve Van Zandt. The dialogue is captivating even when... or especially when it is seemingly mundane - a conversation between Russell and Frank during a bowling night, in which they talk about the shyness of Frank's young daughter comes to mind. Like many conversations in The Irishman, a lot is said without the words being uttered. Whether it be as simple as Russel ordering Frank to kill someone without actually stating anything of the sort, or the scenes with Anna Paquin's excellent performance as Frank's grown up daughter where much is said without any dialogue at all.

Despite the non-linear story telling, and the flashbacks within flashbacks, there is no confusion as to which point we are at in the story. The time frames merging seamlessly in such a way that you don't realise that the past has caught up to the present for quite some time. It expertly demonstrates something Frank tells a nurse towards the end of the film: "You don’t know how fast time goes by until you get there."

With a runtime of 3.5 hours, this really is an epic. It does not quite overstay its welcome, but you almost feel like you've lived six decades with Frank by the end. In a great mirror of reality, and our dual perception of the passing of time, the film makes the present moment feel long and almost infinite yet time marches slowly forward, and we reach moments in Frank's life before we even realise we're there.

On the surface there are the typical Scorsese expressions of glamourised mob crime, extremely brief yet visceral flashes of violence and a vein of dark wit through it all. However, as the time frames converge, we reach an anticlimactic final act, yet I say this not as a criticism. This act cements the real themes of The Irishman - age, loss, abandonment and regret. We see these themes develop throughout - as random characters get freeze-framed and their date and cause of death are displayed on screen. Through the slow, and cigarette-break-filled road trip to attend a wedding, in which two killers and their wives travel like retired couples on holiday. Through the way Frank attempts to protect those he loves in ways that only push them away, and a particular phone call Frank makes to Hoffa's wife. By the end, both Frank and the audience have a lot to recollect and think on.

Some people may find the runtime of 3.5 hours a bit too much to bear, and despite the long duration I found myself wishing we had gotten to know a few of the characters a little better. Some people who apparently have a lot of importance in Frank's life barely get any screen time... yet maybe that's not because Scorsese has neglected them, but rather that Frank has.

The performances are superb, and the underlying themes which develop throughout, and are explored masterfully in the films third part, raise the film above what would otherwise be a rather enjoyable crime epic.  The Irishman is a new classic, and probably Scorsese's best film since Goodfellas.

Ludovico Einaudi has developed a well established brand of soothing modern classical composition. His pieces are beautiful and accessible, featuring Einaudi at the forefront playing piano with signature restraint, sometimes with additional orchestral accompaniment. They are wonderfully relaxing to listen to at home, and fortunately, translate well to a live venue.

The evening was an understated affair. Einaudi was joined by two players, a violinist and cellist. The stage was set simply, white spotlights drawing the eyes to the musicians. Pieces were  played in sets of three, with a subtle transition between pieces that could easily be missed. After each set, the lights would lower, hiding the players in the shadows for a brief applause. This structure reflected the musical style well, allowing the audience to be washed along the ebb and flow. Behind the players was a screen featuring abstract moving images and light. These enhanced the performance without distracting, with well timed transitions to emphasise moments of thickened texture or heightened dynamics.

The majority of the set-list was taken from the recent studio release, Seven Days Walking.  These were exercises in elegant repeated motifs, layering and removing texture, and gradually shifting dynamics. Seven Days Walking as a title works well. The music here reflected both the zen-like repetition of putting one foot in front of the other, as well as slow uncovering of a fresh landscape. The pieces were undeniably minimal, but it was easy to be captured by their charm. Indeed, the audience were rapt. In the moments of space in the arrangements the silence in the auditorium was deafening (malicious sweet rustlers aside).

All of the performers were excellent. Einaudi himself was a picture of composure, confident yet unassuming. The violin and cello parts provided some lovely additional texture, and the musicians played with passion. There was little on stage banter, only to introduce a new ‘experimental’ composition, which was in the end just another (albeit lovely) Einaudi standard, with some added radio static and a few discordant piano flourishes.

In the end, the performers were awarded a well deserved standing ovation. Einaudi returned to play some solo piano pieces, before finishing in ensemble with a superb arrangement of Experience. All together, a stirring performance that was the ideal prescription for the encroaching British winter. Inspiring.