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The Power of the Daleks ©BBC

Good distractions from the unfolding political nightmare:

• Watching the animated reconstruction of Patrick Troughton’s first story, The Power of the Daleks, in the cinema. Actually, I also enjoyed just focusing on the audio and trying to hear it in the living room where it was first broadcast and saved 50 years ago. The story itself was silly but menacing nonetheless, with sneaky Daleks ready to lure credulous humans into with extravagant promises of 100% reliable weather forecasts. And then killing almost all of them.

• Introducing James to Four Lions. I do love that film.

• Playing Pandemic with Randi, Chloe, Aaron and Jason. I was sceptical of cooperative games but this really won me over, even though we were unsuccessful in saving the world from destruction. (Damn you, South America!)

• Finally seeing Catherine and AJ again now that the campaign is over, and trying to uplift ourselves with multiple episodes of The Secret Life of 4 Year Olds. (Conclusion: 4 year olds are frighteningly advanced.)

• Laughing a surprising amount at three improv comedy teams with Randi’s colleague Katie at Friday Night Riot at the Bughouse Theatre. (Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but for $10 tickets at a tiny theatre on a Friday night I wouldn’t necessarily expect to be laughing out loud rather than smiling indulgently. Legitimately funny.)

• Lunching with Luis while keeping an eye on two football matches (real football!) and pooling our limited knowledge about the political situation in France. It would really be a good idea to keep an eye on France.

• Joining the adorable adventures of Newt Scamander and his TARDIS briefcase by seeing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with Todd and Carolyn this afternoon. (Although I do share Todd’s concerns about the continued absence of any proper judicial process in the wizarding world.)

If you’re looking for more productive things to do, I am reliably informed that phoning your representatives (not writing or emailing) is the most effective way to lobby them into investigating Trump’s evident conflict of interests, challenging his frightening and unqualified appointments, and generally causing a fuss. (I haven’t done so yet, partly because none of them are really ‘my’ representatives. But I should.)

What a moment to be in Chicago. We had the perfect spot at the Begyle Brewing Company last night to watch the Cubs win the World Series for the first time in 108 years, but it wasn’t an easy ride getting there. Randi and I tried watching a couple of the earlier games with Todd and Carolyn, but our presence didn’t seem to bring much luck, and the Cubs ended up down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series. I made plans for Wednesday night on the assumption that there would be no seventh game. But then it all turned around, culuminating in a thrillingly tense finale in which my efforts to actually understand baseball were rewarded bigly.

Sure, my joy is vicarious. It was great timing to turn up in the city just as lifelong Cubs fans got what they’d always wanted. But as we were driven home through a thicket of celebratory car horns and waving W flags, it was clear there was plenty of joy around to share.

Flatmates

Matt, James and Lauren

In non-baseball news, Randi scored free tickets to The Last Wife – a play based on the relationship between Henry VIII and Katherine Parr. As the title suggests, she was the one who outlived him. I most enjoyed its depiction of Henry, a historical figure who manages to tick both the boxes of ‘pivotical turning point in the nation’ and ‘clearly a psychopath’ at the same time. He ends up weirdly lovable, which is what several hundred years of distance can get you. I also completed my duty of showing Randi the Lord of the Rings trilogy and decided that I was going to love Class, the new Doctor Who spinoff, no matter any objective spoilsporting which could be trotted out. (I mean, it’s worth it for the character of Miss Quill alone. She’s great.)

I wanted to write this post now because tomorrow night we’re off to Toledo, Ohio to volunteer for Hillary in the final four days of the election. I fully expect the election of America’s first female President to follow next week. But just in case…. here was the high before the low. Look how happy we were!

OK, unlike last time, this blog won’t be 100% Carcassonne related. Just a little bit.

We’ve now had two Presidential and one Vice Presidential debates to watch, which Randi and I have only got through with help from virtual Catherine and real-life Chloe and Amanda as watching partners. They generally leave us somewhere on the spectrum between incredulous and upset, but it’s especially annoying for me since I don’t actually get to vote at the end. So I was very pleased to be able to play my small part for Hillary by joining a virtual phonebank organised by Randi’s friend Debra.

Hello, Ohio

We weren’t calling to persuade voters: these were from a database of likely Hillary supporters, and the aim was to sign up volunteers to help register new voters before the deadline closed in a couple of days. What is really striking is how almost-obsolete phonebanking (and by implication, telephone polling) feels: the vast majority of people simply don’t pick up. I certainly wouldn’t, and simply making contact felt a lot rarer than when I last did this in London in 2008. Nevertheless, I did successfully sign up one woman to volunteer, so I have contributed! On the other hand, I also generated the angriest (and most hilarious) voicemail I’ve ever heard. The man was not having a good day, and curious readers should drop me a message if they want to hear it 😉

Back by the bay

Lori has just started walking

The other big thing to mention is our whirlwind trip to San Francisco last weekend! The first order of business was to see Jamie and Paul and to meet baby Lori for the first time, which was as wonderful as you’d expect. (She’s just turned one, and is magically starting to walk.) With the beautifully sunny weather we were able to just chill out together in their garden, talking and watching their cat unsuccessfully hunt gophers, before getting lunch nearby.

With Jamie, Paul and Lori!

With violent family and her less-violent family

San Francisco City Hall

The primary purpose of the trip was the wedding of Brett and Courtney – Randi’s family friends – which was held inside San Francisco’s magnificent City Hall. Spending time with her family is always great, and (amongst many other things) the wedding itself set a very high standard for the quality of cheese on offer. I don’t mean kitsch, I mean literal cheese. I think this will become my barometer for all future weddings.

Not pictured: shattered dreams

Wait, who’s that? Is it Robert Dietz? Indeed so, back in Chicago two weeks ago for work stuff but thankfully amenable to watching one of the tense Orioles vs. Blue Jays games in Toons with Todd and Carolyn. Later in the week we had drinks with Alex during one of her brief jet-setting interludes, and also ended up in a bizarre bar watching Otis Wilson of the ’85 Superbowl Bears compete to see how many beers he could pour in two minutes. (These details don’t mean much to me, but I dutifully wrote them down because it felt like good Americana for this post.)

Randi and I also had drinks with James and Lauren and saw Sam Hicks star in The Rhode Island Chapter: a play about a community of New England zombies. It was part of a weekend festival of back-to-back sci-fi and fantasy short plays which I would certainly check out again next year. Prior to Sam, we also saw Worrier and the Not about a robot couple struggling with their (optional) human emotions.

Finally, some updates to previous posts:

• Remember my dentist? Well, the ratcheting effect over two subsequent years has now resulted in a Bluetooth-connected toothbrush which partners with my phone to nag me as I brush my teeth. I know, I know.

• Remember Jimmy Savile? Louis Theroux’s 2000 documentary has always stuck in my mind even before the full revelations came out, so it was doubly fascinating to watch his self-questioning follow-up about failing to get to the truth.

• I did promise some more Carcassonne, which has continued to spread through my life. Since last time, Randi and I have played in real-life with Alec, with Emilie (both of whom were frustratingly good, although only Emilie brought delicious French cheese) and with many others over the iOS app. You should join us!

Carcassonne is both a fortified French town (I’ve been!) and a lovely board game which I have become slightly obsessed with in the past few weeks. To be clear: I now own expansion packs. Two of them. That’s a very fulsome level of commitment.

Carcassonne! The game, not the French town. Although both are beautiful.

People with whom I have lured into playing Carcassonne recently: Randi, Randi’s mum, Chloe and Aaron (a couple who also share our love of Indian food).

People with whom I have failed to play Carcassonne with recently, but it was still nice to see: Nolan (he visits!), Karol (he brunches!), Debra and Andrew.

And when I haven’t been playing Carcassonne, I’ve been winning and losing Worms in equal measure against Katie and playing Plants vs. Zombies 2 in solitary loner mode. (I checked this blog, and it’s been a full five years since I went through my addiction to the original game, so it’s been a decent gap before my relapse.)

Don’t worry, I have some travels booked, so this blog won’t be board games forever.

Here is a story about people being nice. Way back in March I saw the first half – but only the first half – of Interrogation. This was very frustrating, as a pretty crucial component of a whodunit is finding out who actually did it. I told this sad story at Grace’s farewell dinner last week at Saujanya’s (whose cooking is incredible, by the way) and it reminded me of my open email thread with the good people at The Artistic Home to clear things up. So I prodded them and, the next day, the full script of Scott Woldman’s Interrogation lay waiting in my inbox. It read beautifully. And now I know who did it! Thank you, kind theatre people.

Only one team had the requisite power and speed

We went back to another Cubs game with Todd and Carolyn – this time against the ‘Los Angeles’ Angels of Anaheim, with scale quotes added for Randi’s benefit and a naming controversy which ended up in court. But I digress. We went back to another Cubs game with Todd and Carolyn, but this time we sat in seats which didn’t fill me with any fear of being hit in the face with a baseball, and I enjoyed it immensely. Presumably the Cubs did too, because they won comfortably.

Held prisoner in my chair as I had my hair cut, I did finally see some of the Olympics through the demented breakfast-news lens of NBC. Sandwiched between advertisements and sponsorship messages came a feature on a sports charity doing great work for schools in Mozambique and the story of a ‘celebrity’ penguin who ‘mysteriously’ returns to the same beach in Rio each year. “THE OLYMPICS! IT’S BEHIND YOU!” I wanted to shout, pantomime fashion.

My favourite view

One direction from my new apartment affords a superb view of Chicago: the full city skyline, lying beyond the Metra tracks and the (less aesthetically pleasing, but representationally accurate) motorway. But it’s not my favourite view. Looking the other way, out from the corner of the window by the landing at the top of the stairs, are the backs of brick houses. This could be North London. This could be Carolyn’s back garden. And this makes me happy.