Oh I do Like to be beside the seaside... and other thoughts.

So Gentle reade here we are a scant 48 hours before we leave for War Torn is (possibly not) sunny Scarborough wondering what sort of weekend it will turn out to be. Last year's show was small but still a laugh. This year promises to be much bigger with some large Demo games ansd several competitons. Scarborough is a pleasant Victorian seaside town- especially if you avoid the Kiss me quck hats and the candy floss. Hopefully this year I'll have chosen a better hotel. The Grand- last year is a fine building - though the food could be better- or atb least edible- but the worst thing about the grand was the average age of the rest of the clientele-about 157- the absolute nadir - amongst several low points was the noise of 200 septagenarians coach travellers masticating gummily at their porrige for breakfast. Gentle reader I fairly fled the scene- tripping over sundry Zimmer frames as modbility scooters as I fled. There but for the Grace of God !! However this year we are at a different hotel so all should be well. Rest assured that I shall in the fullness tell all!! The other night I was looking out some info I needed in old copies of Miniature Wargames- these early issues from the 1980s. Now if there ever was a "Golden Age" for me this was probably it. The hobby has grown past its infancy - there are a good selection of figure ranges and the writers are intelligent and don't treat theri readers as if they are 12 . Articles have information in them- though there are still turkeys!1 and eye candy is not the raison D'etre of the publication. There is an assumption that you dear reader can actually read and write yourself. Compare with todays magazines WI is all shazam Kapow eye candy for the hard of thinking. Battlegames still thinks its 1972- well the 1st 13 issues do which are the only ones I have - it may have changed since- Miniature Wargames is the only fully rounded magazine we have but it has of course changed as the hobby has changed. My question here is the chicken and egg one. Did Wargmaers become thicker so the mags responded to demand or did the magazines dumb down. Answers on the back of a ten pound note to ...