Variable Pig The Meishan Issue The “Happy New Year” issue, featuring the 177th issue of “Polar Pig”, “The Universe Is A Pink Blancmange Called Simon” 95 and on- the-shelf vol. XVI, issue 46. Variable Pig – (Meishan Pig) 3 VARIABLE PIG (MEISHAN PIG) POLAR PIG 177 Happy New Year, everybody. I hope that you all had an enjoyable Christmas and holiday season and wish you all the best for a happy and healthy New Year. We had a very enjoyable Christmas day. Hannah and Tyler came on Christmas Eve and joined the 10.30 Church service where Jacqueline was singing with the choir. They left Christmas morning to visit some of Tyler’s relatives that live close by but came back for lunch. Thomas and Kelsey arrived around 1pm. Jacqueline cooked probably the best turkey we have ever had; it came out so well. We had a lot of fun opening presents and playing some games. Like most years, I was able to take the week between Christmas and New Year off to relax and recharge my batteries, as well as producing this issue. I saw Hannah again on the 27th when we went to see “All Time Low” in concert in New Jersey. They were celebrating the 10th Anniversary of their “Nothing Personal” album, which was their breakthrough. The concert was a lot of fun, even if I only recognized a few songs (“Lost in Stereo” is classic modern pop-punk) but a rather late night as the venue was a long way away. We also saw Thomas and Kelsey on the Saturday when we went to see the new Star Wars movie together. We all enjoyed the film that I thought wrapped up the series well. We didn’t get out as much as we would have liked, as the weather warmed up and turned very wet and rainy. We celebrated New Year at home, as the children both went to parties with friends. We did spend the afternoon and early evening at friends for their annual open house event and had a good time catching up with friends. Otherwise, it’s been peaceful since last issue. We finished in the top half of our bowling league in the first half of the season, having recovered from a pretty miserable start. My average has crept back into the 150s, still lower than last year but much better than my miserable opening. We’re also volunteering again at the Bethlehem Emergency Shelter on Thursday nights, where we’ve helping >30 guests per night, a much higher number of guests than expected for this early in the winter. There was some confusion at the start of the Shelter season, as BES had hoped to open in mid- November, but were prevented from doing so when a neighbor took out an injunction to stop the early opening. Our church stepped in and operated as an emergency warming center for one week while the problem was resolved. I also played my first game of badminton in years just before Christmas and hope to play some more in the New Year, now the Fitness Center at the Air Products campus has set up courts. One sad note was the passing of Grace Stephens, a long-time family friend whom I knew for most of my life. When my parents took their assignment in the Philippines in 1980, I stayed at a friend’s house in Farnham to finish my A-levels and Grace (and her husband Roger) were there for me as support. I always thought of Grace as posh, probably due to her accent, but she was also a lot of fun. She gave me an alarm clock for Christmas that year that is now my oldest possession still in regular use, having traveled to Warwick and around the World with me. Rest in Peace, Grace. It’s a busy issue this time, with a couple of games finishing and quite a few game starts. Both Richard and I have been busy developing new maps for Railway Rivals and Bus Boss and my thanks for all the positive suggestions and input I received developing these. It’s also good to see more of the waiting lists starting to fill. Alex Richardson published the 2020 Zine Poll results and it was another good result for Variable Pig, although we were beaten into second by John Marsden’s long running ODE. My congratulations to John for an excellent win and my thanks to Alex for running this again. Thanks also to everyone who voted for the Pig. Variable Pig – (Meishan Pig) 4 * * * * * Letters John Hopkins A Happy Christmas to you and yours. Judy Ferguson Hope all is well, and you have a good Christmas. Martin Walker Wishing you and the family a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year. Steve Ham I hope you and yours have a lovely Christmas. Allan Stagg Anyway, I wish you, Jacqueline and your family a joyful time over the festive season, and thanks for the Variable Pigs you have produced through the year. Looking forward to the first 2020 pig. Thanks for all the seasonal greetings. I hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas and wish you all the best for the New Year. Mike Townsend I wish you all a Merry Christmas and all the best for 2019 Hope you have a fabulous Christmas and best wishes for 2020. See you at Croppers (what a great looking line-up). Variable Pig – (Meishan Pig) 5 Mike Townsend Have you already got your Cropredy tickets? Line-up looks pretty "safe". Full House will be interesting. A few cracking songs but I think I need to listen to the whole album a few times to remind myself of the less played songs. Good to have RT on stage with them too (I think) We always buy our tickets early, having had delivery problems in the past, although I may be buying some more tickets for Tyler and Hannah. I agree that it is maybe a safe line-up, but there is a lot I’m looking forward to. Steve Ham Hope you are well. It is a busy time when all I want is to get to Christmas and stop. I know the feeling; we were shopping right up to Christmas Eve. Hope you’ve been able to relax afterwards? Allan Stagg We are slowly getting ready for Christmas - Julie has done the Christmas cake and puddings, and we have produced a first draft of our Christmas letter. We haven't done much present shopping yet, and definitely not got down the decorations from the attic - a joy yet to come! We were late decorating again: most people put their lights up over the Thanksgiving holiday. This makes sense given the long weekend and potential for winter storms, but it still grates to see the lights before December. There are, however, some very nicely lit up houses in our area, which makes the winter driving more enjoyable. Tom Howell Happy Boxing Day! Yes, nice and quiet here. Got some programming done, and some debugging of the program I wrote to print calendars for my check book every year with local tides and sunrise and sunset each day. Bad data as it turned out... :~ Good to hear that all is well out West. I’ve used the post-Christmas break to finish this issue. Michael Pargman Wishing you and your family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will leave for France in a week. Excellent – we’re hoping to visit France in the summer as it’s been 15+ years since our last trip to France. Where did you go? Mike Townsend Have now returned from China and just about caught up on preparations for Christmas. China trip was a longer one than the first one including a weekend. In the first week it got exceptionally cold getting down to somewhere around -16 Celsius. At this temperature one even struggled on a fairly short walk to a restaurant. Fortunately, it warmed up a little for the weekend. Sounds like another great trip to China. You’ve certainly got to see some different places to those I visited. I think the old water city of Wushen is still my favourite place in China, although Hangzhou is also very nice. I do remember that the North can get very cold. I think there is a very famous ice festival up there (Harbin?) in the New Year. I can’t remember the details, but I believe it’s well worth seeing if you have the chance. We went to the snow festival in Sapporo, Japan which was very enjoyable, Mike Townsend On Saturday I managed a little shopping in the huge Wuai market which features a number of 5 storey buildings each bigger than any department store I've ever been in. Each floor seems to have a theme - e.g. shoes; so, you find literally hundreds of stalls selling shoes all together in the same place! On Sunday two of us took the bullet train to Dandong on the North Korean border (220 km about 1.5 hours). The train service is fantastic being punctual, comfortable, regular, cheap and very fast. We then took a taxi to the Hushan section of the Great Wall (most Eastern section). We found a nice walk along the wall and then back along the river bordering North Korea. Interesting to peer across the river at the guard posts on the other side keeping us out or the locals in! The wall itself is a wall and as such is not that exciting.