ISSUE 3 / FEBRUARY 2012

Free SOFT PALETTE audio cassette LAYING THE MAC DOWN KONKRETA DRÖMMAR THINGS CAN ONLY GET GUETTA FUNKY GESCHICHTE TOLKIEN VIA GYGAX PHONEY SECURITY WELL, AS LONG AS YOU’VE GOT YOUR HEALTH CONVERSATIONS

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#ANGELOFDEATH

Issue 3 / February 2012

Editors

Romney Taylor Tom Pounder

Deputy Editor

Sonny Baker

Contributors

Andrew Brooke Nosheen Iqbal Haywood Jablomi Emma Lundin Charles Olive Ben Perdue Duncan Robertson Iain Sides Amy Stone

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www.gutpaper.com GUT 3 SOFT PALETTE

Ben Perdue

There. On the lacquered beech arm of a hospital easy Colour theory and hospital administration have become functional, painful apparatus backs up the practical aspect of chair, upholstered in opal green antimicrobial vinyl, your inextricably linked, influencing the practical coding of scrubs the concept; no one will be fooled by the friendly sunshine elbows resting on the collapsible aluminium rail of the and waste management, and the mood-enhancing shades yellow rubber grip of a scalpel, or metallic purple finish on bed adjacent. What you can see: the half-shut, watery pink used wholesale across furniture and walls. The psychology a spinal punch. There’s no reason why a practical solution eyes of someone struggling (for the moment) to overcome that underpins their careful deployment is well documented, shouldn’t incorporate a modern approach to colour usage sedatives; a cornflower blue plastic cap on the cannula that backed up with snappy anecdotal evidence that repeatedly though, just as the production of new medical instruments was responsible for delivering them, taped to their right hand; supports its success in reducing both violence and anxiety. can comfortably sit under the category of contemporary a black crate you didn’t notice on the way in that contains Wards and waiting rooms are the testing ground for clever design. And in terms of ergonomics and material their clothes (folded) and letters of referral (unfolded); a combinations of pales, neutrals, mid-tones and brights; created development they undoubtedly influence other disciplines modular cream headwall system complete with night light, to counteract the cold reality of a visit to A&E or outpatients. already. Where this colour specification becomes less mains supply, nurse call unit and a flow meter spooling coils Spend enough time walking the corridors of crumbling simple to discuss is in its aesthetic appeal for the hospital of translucent reddish gas tubing. The papery curtain has been plaster and chipped tiles in a tired Victorian institution, or staff using these newly augmented objects. For the patient pulled round because you were smuggled into the women’s sitting in the prefab ward of a temporary annex building well it may be of fleeting interest that something expected to be recovery ward by a sympathetic sister who doesn’t want to past its use-by date, and the potential benefits for patients and stainless steel, clinical white, or a sterile-feeling green in risk upsetting the other occupants. Over the reassuring hiss of visitors are obvious. Not that creeping dilapidation should be appearance arrives suddenly reworked in a pleasing shade of pure oxygen there are voices thick with anaesthetic coming confused with over-lit and soulless spaces as the root cause sun-bleached cyclamen. Soon forgotten once the procedure from the neighbouring beds requesting cups of PG and Rich of ill feeling, closely related though they undoubtedly are. begins and thoughts turn to more distracting subjects. You Tea biscuits. Nurses check with doctors before administering These grand utilitarian canvases communicate emotion on a could in fact argue that the familiar no-frills colour palette refreshments. Through a crack where the curtain rail meets crowd-pleasing level, but brief glimpses of colour on a more traditionally associated with the NHS might actually have the wall you glimpse a surgical nurse ferrying another fresh economical scale are just as powerful. its comforting qualities. But do doctors feel like their daily gurney into its cubicle, passenger out for the count. She wears experience is enhanced by the addition of expressive colour unremarkable surgical scrubs in white, offset by the hot pink Modern medical supplies and healthcare uniforms use to the coatings and grips of their equipment? The desire to arms of her clear disposable safety visor (available in boxes of colour in a way that feels customised, raising questions personalise is a very human trait and being able to choose 100). A new nurse turns up to take a pulse and – clocking your about who benefits most from their contemporary aesthetic. the colour of your fibreglass arm cast or air splint shows ill-masked concern – explains in heavily accented English Manufacturers going HAM on the pastels in Pantone’s how it already affects the world of public healthcare on a that everything is normal; she’ll be back again in half an hour colour guide to meet the demands of a market that equates patient level. While the possibility of picking the shade of with a cup of tea (not for you). The glowing dot on the tip of the look of clinical equipment and consumables with that of safety visor arms or pen torch casings reflects its increasing your girlfriend’s finger fades, as the infrared sensor from the disposable razors and plastic hair accessories could be one influence on the professional side too. And the future portable ECG and oximeter is unclipped. When it arrives, the cause. But a more likely explanation is that colour coding in potential for this kind of customisation is likely to explore tea is as anaemic-looking as the other washed-out residents the workplace, to quickly distinguish between needle gauges new uses for performance materials adopted from other of the ward - in its beige throwaway branded cup holder with or airway sizes, has introduced the concept of trends to the fields. How about thermocromatic latex gloves that change matching light brown biscuits (on a green unbreakable plate), coloured plastic used in Luer taper connections and bite colour with changes in temperature? That’s one way to add but is all the more familiar and welcoming for it. blocks. The paradoxical nature of adding fun traits to starkly an entertaining new dimension to prostate examinations. w 4 GUT LAYING THE MAC DOWN

Duncan Robertson

In May this year I made a startling discovery. My best friend had never eaten a Big Mac™, has not eaten a Big Mac since, and it seems unlikely that he ever will eat a Big Mac. At first I saw this as a bit of a ‘statement’: “Sorry, don’t go for the flagship, prefer a little esoterica. Pass the McChicken.”

I was wrong. It was just a coincidence.

That was the aspect that confounded me most. Every now and then it comes to me in the night, like a premonition: my best friend is the last bastion of resistance to Western hegemony and doesn’t even know it. Kim Jong-Il had Big Macs airlifted to North Korea. Even Fidel Castro drinks Coca-Cola.

The more preoccupied I became, the more I enlisted guidance. I discovered a few other regulars who had never sampled ‘the goods’. (Oddly, they always go for the chicken option too.) Why? How can it be that several intelligent, attractive people have let civilisation pass them by?

With this in mind and little qualitative data to substantiate my investigation, I moved on to researching the entire global franchise and this, readers, is where I struck gold.

Ronald’s reach extends to 119 of the 196 countries on this planet.1 In many of these, the Mac is not the staple burg. In others, it doesn’t even exist.

What follows is a case study summary of ongoing, inconclusive research into weird global ‘burgs’ and the extreme, often surreal, and sometimes tragic, conditions in which they’re acquired.

1. For some reason, there’s debate as to whether Taiwan is technically a country. For obvious reasons, I’ve included it. GUT 5

People need to see these weird ‘burgs’

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The McAfrika (not to be confused with the Olympic-edition If you’re living in Canada, as well as enjoying your Down and out in Malaysia? Prosperity burger wouldn’t McAfrica) caused considerable controversy upon release in free healthcare and stable economy, why not tuck into a hurt your chances! Comes with Twisty fries and Prosperity Norway, one of the world’s richest countries, in 2002. At McLobster roll? An additional pescatarian option! Self- McFizz (orange juice mixed with Sprite). the time an estimated 12 million Africans faced starvation. explanatory, really. I think you pretty much get the gist of it. I don’t know if it came with the garlic or if that’s just for show.

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モスバーガー (MOS Rice Burger) With the 1992 McMollets This is a Mexican approach. I think it’s bean- Finally, all eyes on Argentina for the future of McDonalds. McDonald’s Bombings, Taiwan hasn’t had the best of luck paste, with melted cheese on top, with peppers and onions on Presenting the Triple Mac. Take note, world. I’ve been to (don’t even get me started about Bolivia – McD’s was forced top of that. I’m waiting for McDonald’s Mexico to confirm a Buenos Aires branch. They charcoal-grill all the burgers. out in 2002). I didn’t have the best time reading their menu this at time of press. either. And when your buns are made out of rice…

Look out for my book Laying the Mac Down in 2012. Contains a special investigative report on McDonald’s Guantanamo Bay branch. w 6 GUT KONKRETA DRÖMMAR

Emma Lundin

I grew up in a Social Democratic utopia, in a neighbourhood that had been who the neighbours were, safe in the knowledge that an imposter would be built as part of Sweden’s groundbreaking Million Project housing scheme instantly visible enough to raise suspicion long before he or she made it to in the mid-1970s, in an area that had previously been fertile farmland and my front door. (Mind you, one of my neighbours did a fine line in stalking, where the smoothly tarmacked streets were named for prominent Social and the invisible security system failed to keep the BNP from campaigning Democratic politicians. I grew up on Axel Danielssons väg: Danielsson had on my doorstep.) But there is a price to pay for being on the inside, and the translated Communist Manifesto into Swedish in 1886 – 96 years before I architecture and layout of large council estates in Britain and the Million was born and 96 years before my family moved to a yellow-brick detached Project housing districts in Sweden are largely responsible for keeping house in a cluster of about 100 identical houses. The area might have been the people who live there disconnected from ‘the rest of the city’ and vice considered a bit of an eye-sore (in his novel Underdog, author Torbjörn versa. No one wants to be an outsider, and no one walks across estate Flygt compares it to post-war Dresden) and it has certainly never won neighbourhoods other than their own, and even though I grew up in an area any architectural brilliance prizes, but it was safe and comfortable – car- dominated by the working- and lower-middle classes in a country where and carefree. the school system at least tries to give children of different backgrounds the same opportunities, we still owned our area and felt significantly A small park with an avenue of trees leading up to the patch of land where foreign elsewhere. a farmhouse stood a century ago, and a green field dotted with daisies and dandelions was all that stood between me and the ‘centrum’ – the village- After nearly 10 years in London, I still have the same dentist that I’ve had style town centre that housed both a bank and post office in its heyday, since I was four: she works in the council-run practice attached to my old but where only the local supermarket, the hairdresser and the florist were school, and these days the only time I visit my old area is when I have an still in business by the time I started school in the late 1980s. By the time appointment with her. Her practice is housed inside the school. The sound I left school 10 years and a devastating recession later, the row of shops of the doors opening (a draught-induced sucking noise) and the scent as was a dead place where nothing happened – at least nothing good. A boy you pass through them remind me of the 16 years I spent in and around that in my year was robbed at gunpoint as he worked a late shift in what had building. (Incidentally, the school, the nursery next door, the row of shops become a video rental shop; there were fights – staged and spontaneous – and the church were all built using the same orange-flecked maroon bricks between whoever was considered “us” and “them”; and there were always – uniformity is a leitmotif of the Million Project housing scheme.) But these enough scandals to keep the school’s gossip rag churning out another few days, that wave of emotion is followed by an increasingly stark realisation issues. (The greatest achievement of that rag was having an issue banned that I’m no longer at home, that I am the outsider – the one that knows no by the almighty school authorities who deemed it too salacious on account one at school, the one who doesn’t know the names and addresses of the of its potentially libellous content about some teachers. Still, the issue was cashiers at the supermarket, the one who can wait hours for the number 7 secretly distributed at the end-of-year after-party, and my copy is safely bus without seeing a single familiar face. stored in a box in my parents’ attic.) Despite its obvious weaknesses, I loved that place, and I was bereft when persuaded to leave. In the 12 years that have passed since I boxed up my belongings and followed my parents to a flat in the real centre of Malmö, I have unwittingly The thing about mass-produced areas is that they are inclusive and can be boxed up my longing and homesickness for the area I left in a neat little welcoming, but only for the people who know them well – the people on box stored somewhere between my heart and stomach. I’m reminded of it the inside. When I lived on a council estate (another yellow-brick building) only during flashing moments when I fully understand that the place I long in Rotherhithe, I felt protected by the invisible communal security system: for, the place where I grew up and where I felt like an insider, exists only knowing how to navigate through the lift, stairs and corridors, knowing in the past. w GUT 7

Photos: Gustaf Emanuelsson (www.gblog.se) 8 GUT

Illustration: Courtney Morgan GUT 9 THINGS CAN ONLY GET GUETTA

Nosheen Iqbal

During the knowingly postmodern mid-nineties, a period the same, incessantly attention-seeking beat. The critics In Britain, the charts and the dancefloors were meshed years in which the ‘Britpop scene’ – as according to music hate it for its vulgarity and its simplistic high spirits. But before, but until the arrival of Guetta ... had they ever been history – was the only one that mattered, another genre musical opprobrium never got in the way of popularity so uniformly euphoric in tempo? Even Benny Benassi, Eric climaxed to its peak, ‘Handbag house’, what Americans and so, the sound has gone global. Prydz and Tiësto – each once credible DJs on the clubbers would dub ‘Eurotrance’ and what generations of Brits circuit, if not in the music press – have now become a spent whole holidays in the company of, imploded. Think of 2 Unlimited’s ‘No Limits’, which ironically called significant piece of the contemporary pop puzzle. Namely, for “Techno! Techno! Techno!” despite containing none, as how did music finally become universally agreeable to An orgy of desperately dancefloor beats and overblown an early forebear. The template was set. Cher capitalised on child, teen, parent and pensioner alike? At what point did synth arpeggios, the lurid sateen shimmer and River it in 1998 with ‘Believe’; Usher married it to modern RnB it become okay for ‘I Gotta Feeling’, David Guetta and Island diamanté to Britpop’s three stripe Adidas Canvas in 2004 with ‘Yeah’. Crunk’s upgrade to the mainstream Black Eyed Peas’ definitive cultural opus, to be considered and Fred Perry polos, had a good run on the singles took matters to a whole new level. Thematically speaking, a personal anthem spanning generational divides? charts. It came booming from cars, sonically flashing in if not stylistically, Fifty Cent threw the genre a curveball high streets, seaside arcades and the kind of small-town in 2003. His deep rolling beats were no precursor for the It’s for this achievement, not to mention a prolific rate for clubs always named either Quo Vadis or Fifth Avenue. Its four to the floor rhythms and cheaply intoxicating whao knocking out floor-filling hits, that Guetta will later be hits were legion – chart-defining tracks like ‘U Sure Do’; whao crescendos that followed. Yet Fifty advocated being culturally revalued. He is this century’s first major musical ‘Dreamer’; ‘Don’t Stop Movin’’ – its creators bouncing up in da club and at some point between 2009 and 2011, so influence: an ex-stripclub owner and the archetypal French from anonymous assembly lines. did every other single. Rolling like a G6, partying with music-making cheese. He’s also the only music act in the beautiful people, given everything tonight. This music history to have his handprint immortalised outside LA’s Big in Europe, platinum blonde or disco afro and sold us an aspirationally good time, delivering faux- legendary Chinese theatre; the seller of some 15m singles at invariably pink of pout, the conventional face of Handbag wellbeing through an acquisitive, money-hungry prism. It a time where the format has universally been declared dead. House was the turbocharged dance dolly. Her records manufactured RedOne. It gave us David Guetta. His fingerprint is stamped in songs across the planet, aural were Hi-NRG, deliberately trashy and injected with the flashpoints embedded in national psyches. His rise from artificially synthetic beat of cheap production studios. Guitars carry the burden of emitting faux-cerebral vibes interchangeable house DJ to architect of our modern sound In short, colossal Eurodance with epic piano lines and which means it’s the pure rush of this, the most cynically is giddy. That familiar wuh wuh wuh is now inescapable Barbie vocals. constructed pop, which will envelop present-day cultural from our radio stations. And to think, judging by that noise- history. After all, the hefty bulk of critical adoration won’t making talent, it almost could have been Calvin Harris. With working class rock ‘n’ roll long since adopted be heaped on cheaply disposable, bankably addictive big and appropriated by the middle classes – sensitively tunes. That kind of worthy reverence will be saved for So what now? Wedding discos flounder without Guetta; cardiganed dweebs inevitably dug guitars – producers and PJ Harvey. Ibiza falls over. Saturation point has been shot through DJs became the sound of the mainstream masses. This and yet the brilliance of the 44-year-old’s arrangements, was the decade’s true pop music of the common people. But in truth, contemporary pop’s present formula is the instinctive without needing to be creative, are still the first It was dubbed repetitive and unoriginal (unlike say, the more often recognised – if not forever remembered – by and best example of truly globalised pop music. Undeniably obviously still adored Menswe@r or Gene) and critically- great swathes of us. The bars of Beirut and the malls of catchy, ubiquitously upbeat. The intelligence isn’t in any speaking, left to wither in a black hole. Predictably, it was Singapore are enthralled by its shiny lure. Clubs and shacks of the songs themselves, which are soundbites for crassly also a commercial smash. across continents are tuned into the cross-territory sounds consumerist excess, but in the collective conquering power of American hip hop and RnB being steamrolled by Euro of Guetta-ised modern music. The jury may be out on the Some sweet sixteen years later and contemporary pop club bangers. The result is internationally irresistible. At importance of its legacy but right now, everyone should culture has reached a natural, logical conclusion. The a time when the economic and social outlooks are deeply be too pissed to care: the pleasure is fleeting, instantly morphed, dance-pop synths siren-calling from fairground and discriminately bleak, why not let every other moment disposable. The world might be undergoing a collective waltzes are no longer the preserve of so-called chavs. The in your life be soundtracked by the plastic party, pick ‘n’ political and financial mid-life meltdown but at least we all moneyed, and especially newly-moneyed, are dancing to mix bag of house pop? know: tonight’s gonna be a good, good night. w 10 GUT FUNKY GESCHICHTE

Andrew Brooke

The man circled in the photo at this 1933 National Socialist pace quicken on finding the bush that would become his due to his accurate reading of the fragility of the integrity of rally is Martin Huntvenk, born in Dortmund in 1903 to toilet, he could swear he felt hot streaks of what he imagined these trousers’ dye, Ziggy rarely washed them, and in time parents Lilliane and Rolf. During the rally he was bursting, as dark orange streaking down his legs, and he was sure he they came to take on a very ripe aroma, particularly around absolutely positively bursting, to use the toilet. It was just a had strained a muscle in his groin with the effort of damming the lower part of the legs, and inevitably around the crotch. number one, brought on by his over-enthusiastic consumption himself. Just his imagination. He was so relieved on emptying Ziggy’s son Peter would also go into chemicals and would of a few steins of lager just before the rally started, but buried his bladder that he felt a physical emptiness so profound that go on to propose changes to the blister-packs used to house in the middle of the crowd as he was, it was incredibly he started to shiver and tremble in the keen last light of that paracetemol at a meeting in 1997, at a time when he was difficult to find an appropriate moment to achieve relief. autumn day. Martin would go on to be stabbed in a sentry box seconded to an English company. Peter enjoyed his time in He was prevented from urinating more by his own social in 1942 by Derek Wright, a British Commando from Ipswich. England up to a point. He participated in local life – joining awkwardness than anything else. Something that had tasted a canoeing club, a French society and filling his time with so good, so cold, crisp and refreshing on consumption had Martin had one son, born in 1940, called Zigmund. He many visits to the local cinema; he enjoyed Life is Beautiful, turned into something that felt like a hot sweet sticky soup would go on to be known as ‘Ziggy’ at the University of released in 1997, but took issue with it in a way he couldn’t in his poor, wretched bellybag. The schnitzel he had eaten Bremen where he would later study chemical engineering articulate (he did not share this view with anyone, just noted to go with his lager was floating on a fast-curdling sea in his at undergraduate level before going on to work for Merck, it to himself). He enjoyed The 5th Element more (“Stylish bloated guts, and not going any way towards soaking up any the pharmaceutical company. Ziggy had been curious about movie – very funky,” he commented at the time to a colleague, of the sluicing liquid rancidity. the Paris Uprisings of 1968, and would talk about them to Angela Rustin, who had asked after his weekend. She liked girls at the local beer hall favoured by students ‘Der Pikel Peter, but found him essentially bland and unforthcoming Had he forced the issue into the open he may well have found Haus’ but essentially he was non-political. He was a big and thus hard to get to know. She and her partner, Paul the crowd immediately surrounding him a great deal more fan of The Beatles, and quite liked music that talked about Meadows, had seen the same film and found it ‘weird’. Paul understanding than he imagined. Some two hundred yards concepts of political revolution in non-specific terms, as it had particularly not enjoyed Chris Tucker’s performance. away in the same crowd a circle of men suffering from the allowed him to talk to girls in a way that was at once virile- Angela would go on to have a minor health scare in 2002, same complaint stood facing each other and enthusiastically sounding, yet neutered. He wore a pair of much-prized, which worried her mother – a nervous woman – a great rained down urine onto the cobbles at their feet, droplets much-patched denim jeans that were bought from an old- deal, but it turned out to be nothing) and loved Good Will splashing onto their boots as a grace-noting afterthought from fashioned outfitters that had introduced denim to their stock Hunting; “Very smart. A bit like Rocky. I’m not explaining the main gushing gouts, just as the Führer got to a crucial as a harrumphing concession to modernity, for ‘Der Jugend’. well. See it and see.” In 1998, Derek Wright’s grandson point in his speech relating to steel production. One instigator Even though these jeans were a feature of Ziggy’s wardrobe Dean would kill himself in the woods near his home using had silently begun what swiftly turned into a bestial circle from the late 60s right through to the mid-70s (and would several packs of paracetomol, which came in the packaging of nature; he was Tomas Heidink of Leipzig, born 1914. make a wry reappearance as gardening-wear in the mid- that Peter had proposed and was subsequently implemented. His father Ludwig had been killed at Passchendaele, and 80s, until the embarassment of Ziggy’s children, Peter and He made this a feature of his CV on his return to Germany, as the eldest son of a large family he had become the man Oliver, finally forced him to retire them permanently (burnt citing it thus: “January 1997 to May 1998 Secondment to of the house in what were very straitened times for both his on a pyre in the garden with some receipts, an empty aerosol Green Valley Pharm, Gloucestershire, England. Packaging family, and of course for Germany itself. This had given him and a paint tin). A time often represented by men wearing Department; Roles included complete repackaging of major a confidence beyond his years that grew as he developed into flares, these were straight, if a little baggy, and with a high lines.” He would be pushed to expand on this in an interview manhood, and it may have been this confidence that led to waist. The denim used by the tailors was actually used as in 2001 and the interviewer was kind enough, having read his being the initiator of what became a complicit group of cheap tarpaulin wrapping in industrial processes and had between the lines, not to call Peter on his use of the plural silent urinators on the day of the rally, the rest of the men been bought as a job lot for a one-off run. The tailors reverted “lines” once the penny had dropped. He did get the job he who joined following a leader; if none of us comment on to their more traditional process swiftly as the jeans did not was being interviewed for, as it was a fairly undemanding our breaking out into serving our base need – even by way sell. The proprietor of ‘Turgen Fashion’, Oscar Renkerz, role and all the other elements of his CV meant he was of a nervous laugh – then all will be well, all is allowed. If commented at the time to his young apprentice (David Ikksert, eminently qualified for it. The interviewer, Richard Steiger, Martin had known that this was occurring nearby then maybe who would pass away from pneumonia in 1983 and had a was actually from HR as opposed to the department Peter he would have felt able, given the dire extent of his need, to patch of very dry hair at the back of his head just to the right would end up working in. The woman who would go on to be simply extract his penis silently from its housing within the that would always stick up away from the head and could his immediate boss – Sylvia Kansch – was away on holiday rough fabric of his heavy wool trousers and allow himself not be tamed and that resulted in his keeping his hair short at the time of interviewing, but had said before going to what the release he craved so desperately. But he didn’t – instead pretty much throughout his life in contrast to the fashion of she referred to as “the more restful part” of Torremolinos: he suffered in silence for the whole three hours of the rally, the time, with only occasional disappointed branchings-out “It is not so important, and I trust you; if the CV fits all will eventually finding a hedgerow to hose down away from the into length, which would always result in a wounded scurry be well, they are in the office round the corner and it is not crowd’s eyes as he walked to the train station. As he let his barberwards) that: “We should stick to our purpose.” In part so participatory.” w GUT 11 12 GUT TOLKIEN VIA GYGAX

Charles Olive

Dungeons and Dragons was the first commercially Are there any LARPs that inhabit the same worlds Which countries are particularly into LARPing? available role playing game – is this heritage as tabletop RPGs? still apparent in today’s LARPs (live action role- It seems to be very popular on the continent: notably France playing games)? There are LARPs based on the TV show Stargate and even and Germany. The Americans are also into it, although one based upon the Fallout computer game. There must be it’s hard not to laugh at their weapons; due to some sort There are two separate aspects of LARPs that are worth others. of health-and-safety feature, they look very unrealistic. It’s considering here: also widely practised up and down the UK too! There are The company White Wolf had their ‘World of Darkness’: all sorts of LARP: high fantasy LARP (which I participate IC Worlds – Not all LARPs are fantasy based – there a single game world in which all of their tabletop products in), vampire LARP, zombie LARP, Steampunk… are Vampire, Wild West, Steampunk etc systems that as well as a number of (usually non-combat, weird hand- obviously wouldn’t share much of a heritage with D&D. waving) LARPs were set. How much preparation usually goes into preparing For those that are fantasy-based though, I would say that a game? How long do they usually last for? they are heavily influenced by D&D. But having said ‘Vampire the Masquerade’ was the most famous of these. that, given that originally, D&D pretty much took all of Speaking as a referee: a LOT of preparation! There’s the its inspiration from Tolkien, you could perhaps argue that The main decision mechanic in role-playing games whole admin side of things, which is handled by a single that’s where Fantasy LARPs really get their influence from seems to be the roll of a dice – how does it work contact, that includes the more mundane things such as co- Middle Earth. (Just look at HQs realm of Thranduil!) If a in LARP? ordinating who is going to be on an event and whether they sound-byte was required, I’d say the influence was from want food etc, washing the costume and packing the kit Tolkien via Gygax. Similar to pencil and paper games, all characters have a required for the dungeon. set of “statistics” which determines how skilled they are at OOC Mechanics – I think the influence here is much more fighting, how effective their armour is, what abilities they Then there’s the event itself: a referee will need to start with overt. Hit Points, Armour Class, Levels, Fighters, Magic have. But unlike rolling a dice, in LARP you actually have an idea of what will happen, translate that into a coherent Users, Priests and Thieves; the “Quest” plot construction to fight! Not that this is a bad thing… the blows are firm plot that is consistent with the wider universe of the game, are all pretty much a direct lift from D&D. enough that you notice, but not so they’d hurt. At the end turn that again into a set of encounters and then earmark of the day, it’s down to whether you did physically strike what kit would be needed, and what stats the different sets LARP didn’t have a single point of origin, but certainly that monster with your sword, or if he was in range of of monsters should have. On top of your day job, it can be some early LARP started as desktop players seeking to your spell. a couple of weeks of work to sort everything in advance – use real combat as part of their table-top sessions (at least and sometimes more for the bigger events! according to Wikipedia). This may not have been D&D High-hit systems, such as Heroquest, are useful for those sessions, but even if it were Runequest or something else, people who might not be the most skilled natural fighters, Our shortest adventures are 36 hours long, and often have these all came from D&D pretty much anyway. as “your character” might be so tough that he needs to be more than one player “party” (grouped by the character hit twenty times before requiring medical attention! LARP ranks). Our standard adventures run from Thursday to So, the worlds came from Tolkien and the game mechanics is a team game, and you rely on other characters (who Sunday, and our “hero” adventures last for 5 days. We did came from D&D… might be playing healers) to help you out. once run a well-received 11-dayer, but nobody has been GUT 13

brave enough to attempt that again! injured everybody’s characters are). What is it that attracts you to Fantasy LARP?

Does someone have to write the game before it’s Additionally, we have other sets of referees who co-ordinate For the most part: escapism. You can forget your job, played? Do you have dungeon masters? character plot and over-arching campaign plot, whose ideas worries at home in your life, things that have been bugging will also feed into the event itself. you and transform into another person. Sure, this other An event will be pre-planned by a couple of referees, where person might have his or her own concerns: will I die in they write the background: what groups of people are in Do people stay in character for the whole this battle? But it’s a break from real life. And being with the area, are they hostile or not, how they would react to weekend? friends, trekking out and about in the countryside, caves certain situations… The referee will usually write a series and other landscapes outside the city, gives you a feeling of of encounters, so that the monster crew can pack the right During “time in”, everyone stays in character. After each wellbeing that you can’t beat. costumes for the next segment of the dungeon. However, it’s combat, we usually call a “time out” where the referee not pre-ordained how an encounter might go. I’ve been in determines how injured your character is from the fight. Also you mentioned building plots that are more than one expected “talking encounter” that developed This is usually a 20 minute opportunity to catch up with your consistent with the universe. Do you have to into a fight, due to the party actions! friends about real life… or just froth over memories from write your LARP into the universe after the event previous LARP events! We might have 10 fights a day­ so like a post-event report? Where does the LARP I guess our equivalent of “dungeon masters” are the behind- you do get a breather ­ but for the main part, you’re thinking, universe live? the-scenes referees. For each event, we would normally moving and talking with your character’s body and brain. have at least three referees: the main referee, who has Each system generally creates its own universe – or in our generally written the plot for the event, and is responsible You mentioned there are all types of LARP – is there case – a multiverse (one with many planes of existence). for overseeing it as a whole; the monster referee, who looks much interaction between the different types? Heroquest’s multiverse has been created and added to after the monster crew, packs the props and costume, dresses over a period of 25 years, so it’s rich in detail, history and the monsters and co-ordinates the dressing of the encounter Not really. politics. Each LARP event should fit into or co-exist with sites; the player referee, who stays with the players (usually that historical framework, just like you can’t rewrite WW2 as a background NPC – non-player-character) and is there to Are any types on the rise? and claim that Germany was allied with Britain. w answer any rules-related questions they might have, and to do the “battleboard” after each fight (where we work out how Zombie and Steampunk genres seem to be on the rise. 14 GUT PHONEY SECURITY

Romney Taylor

Jonas Erik Altberg is a Swedish singer-songwriter, effort to determine which is the most human-like. Judges obnoxious.” This is pretty bleak, and raises a fascinating producer, and DJ better known to fans of Eurodance by interact with contestants through instant-messaging question: how do we be the most human we can be; his stage name Basshunter. In 2006, his IRC channel software, engaging in 5-minute conversations and not only under the constraints of the Turing Test, but in #BassHunter.se was out of control. “And then came subjecting entrants to a measure called the Turing Test. everyday life? the day I didn’t think was real / The channel was out of The test is named after the British mathematician Alan control,” Mr Altberg sings on ‘Boten Anna’, the number Turing – one of the founders of computer science – who * * * one single off Basshunter’s third full-length LOL <(^^,)>. in 1950 attempted to answer one of the field’s earliest questions: can machines think? The most widely-used anti-bot technique is CAPTCHA, a Mr Altberg tasked a friend with creating a bot that could type of Turing Test used to distinguish between a human keep his channel in order – a bot that could “get rid of Mr Turing predicted that by the year 2000, computers user and a less-sophisticated AI-powered WWW robot, by everyone that spams” and ensure “there is no take-over would be able to convince 30 percent of human judges the use of graphically-encoded, human-readable text. The that succeeds”; one that could “ban you so hard” if you that they too were human; and that, as a result, one would term ‘CAPTCHA’ was coined in 2000 by three Carnegie stepped out of line [quoted lyrics translated from the “be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting Mellon University alums – it’s an acronym based on the original Swedish]. Shortly after the request, Mr Altberg to be contradicted.” Chat robots have become increasingly word “capture” and stands for ‘Completely Automated noticed a new user with administrative capabilities join the sophisticated in their linguistic programming and are being Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’. channel. Her name was Anna and he naturally concluded widely used commercially, as automated online assistants, that she was the iron-fisted chatterbot sent by his friend to to handle simple customer service for large organisations. Last year online ticket-reselling business Wiseguy Tickets kick disruptive IRC users into shape. This, combined with learnings garnered from 20 years faced criminal prosecution for setting up a network of of Loebner Prize competition, makes it surprising that a shell companies, rented servers, and automated scripts Months later, after several interactions with Anna, Mr computer is yet to pass the Turing Test. The 2008 contest which it used to snatch up more than one million premium Altberg discovered that she wasn’t a bot at all. “I never proved to be the machines’ most successful, with the top- tickets for coveted concerts and sporting events. The four thought I would be so wrong / When Anna said to me scoring computer program missing the 30-percent mark Wiseguy defendants used sophisticated programming / I’m not a Bot / I’m a really beautiful girl / Which is, by just a single vote. and inside information to bypass technological measures unluckily, now very strange to me / But nothing needs to at Ticketmaster and other major ticketing sites that were be explained / Because in my eyes, you will always be As well as passing judgement on whether a contestant intended to prevent such bulk automated purchases. The a bot.” It turned out that Anna was the girlfriend of the is human or bot, the Loebner Prize judges must rank group then resold the tickets for more than $25 million friend Mr Altberg had sought help from in the first place. contestants according to their ‘humanness’. This in profits. But she would always remain a bot in his eyes. Despite its culminates in the awarding of the ‘Most Human Computer’ arcane subject matter, ‘Botten Anna’ topped the charts in title to the most convincing piece of software and, perhaps To prevent internet bots from large-scale ticket purchasing, Scandanavia, Poland and the Netherlands, paving the way more intriguingly, the ‘Most Human Human’ award – online ticket vendors use CAPTCHA challenges and Proof for a successful career in dance music and a place on UK given to the person best exhibiting traits the judges deem of Work software to detect and slow down computers. They Celebrity Big Brother for Mr Altberg in 2010. to be unmistakably human. also block IP addresses showing suspicious purchasing activity. But as the Wiseguy defendants showed, humans * * * One of the first winners of the ‘Most Human Human’ are capable of devising computer software that can outwit accolade, in 1994, was the journalist and science-fiction Turing Tests like CAPTCHA, landing them prized spots Since 1991, the artificial-intelligence community has writer Charles Platt, who explained to Wired magazine at the front of ticket purchasing queues, and leaving us convened to compete for the Loebner Prize – an annual that he had succeeded in convincing the judges he was wondering if this small victory for the bots hints at more event pitting ‘people contestants’ against chatbots in an a real live human being by “being moody, irritable, and worrying things to come. w GUT 15 WELL, AS LONG AS YOU’VE GOT YOUR HEALTH

Iain Sides

I was looking for something else this morning and I found a Christmas Card that I thought I’d lost. It was sent to my Dad in, I think, 1994 by a man called Graeme. Graeme had been researching his family tree and was convinced he was my Dad’s cousin, and that his mother, Pam, was my Dad’s aunt.

My Dad said no, he didn’t think that was right, and that he had never even heard of Pam. 16 GUT CONVERSATIONS

Amy Stone

“Do you think the Piccadilly Line or the “I’m cutting out wheat, dairy, Victoria Line will get me there quicker?” meat, caffeine...”

“I had a great trip to IKEA last night. Go around “How much did you end up paying for “I personally think that all music should be 8 on a weekday, it’s practically dead.” your Olympics tickets?” free anyway.”

“Have you got timeline yet?” “Do anything interesting last night?” “Pizza Express pizzas from Tesco are not half bad actually.”

“Your shoelaces are undone.” “Can you fit a sofa into an estate car?”