Clue Review: LC2 (Across)

Thanks to all the readers who've taken a swing at the cryptic crossword that I put up a couple of weeks ago, I've greatly appreciated the feedback and just getting your reactions to it has been a lot of fun. This post is (the first part of) a run-through of the various clues and their answers, which will hopefully include some explanations for anything that you weren't sure about and will also help me identify the puzzle's weak points so that I can improve in future. That obviously means that it will contain SPOILERS, so this is your last chance to go back and do the puzzle.

I'm not planning to go into a lot of depth here about how cryptics are supposed to work, but if you are interested in learning about that, I do recommend the 31 part series that Mother Owl put together back in Blaugust 2016.

ACROSS CLUES

1 It can be changed or possibly silenced (7) 
MUTABLE ~ Double definition (It can be changed / silenced[?] )
Double definition clues are always the first thing that I look for in a crossword, as words with two simple meanings like the answer to 29 down can be any easy way to get a foothold in the grid and the short clues are often easily indentifiable. Clues like this one, with one 'normal' definition and one slightly playful one (using mutable for 'able to be muted' isn't really proper English, after all), can be a bit trickier to notice, but hopefully the addition of the 'possibly' helps prepare the solver that I'm being a little sneaky here.

5 Folds away picked up evening wear (5) 
Folds away = TUCKS ~ 'Tux' (Evening wear) homophone (picked up)
This is the first of an unusually high number of homophone clues in this crossword, which caused me to dig deep in my limited supply of good indicator words (I am pretty rusty at this, after all). I think 'picked up' is a nice definition for 'received' to indicate a homophone, though at last one solver didn't like it. It could be a little bit naughty to have the indicator slap bang in the middle of the clue where it's not obvious if it affects the folding or the evening wear, but since 'tux' doesn't have five letters I think it's fair enough.

8 Briton gives odd introduction (3) 
Introduction = BIO ~ Regular letters (gives odd) from [B]R[I]T[O]N
It's always the short ones that get you. I found this one surprisingly difficult to clue without resorting to the usual double meaning clue. I'm not very happy with this one since 'gives odd' doesn't really imply multiple letters, it should have been something about 'gives odds' but I couldn't make it flow as nicely.


9 Method's missing from Mother Hubbard's  unconventional recipe for pie fruit (7) 
Pie fruit = RHUBARB ~ Anagram (unconventional) of MOTHER HUBBARD with the letters of METHOD subtracted (missing)
Pretty much everyone who solved this got into contact to remind me that rhubarb isn't actually a fruit, which is an excellent point. Let's just pretend I'd make the straight part of the clue 'pie filling' so that we can just sit back and enjoy the anagram, shall we?

10 Buddhist principle proclaimed greater peace (5)
Buddhist principle = KARMA ~ 'calmer' (greater peace) homophone (proclaimed)
I know that with many accent calmer and karma aren't pronounced the same, but with my Aussie drawl they're pretty close. I'm not completely content with using 'greater peace' to mean 'calmer' when something like 'more peaceful' would have worked better, but I couldn't get it to scan into the surface meaning properly. I feel like this one is a clue that I would have reworked if I'd given myself more time to work on the puzzle.

11 Ask yourself introspectively "What is up?" (3) 
What is up = SKY ~ Container (introspectively) for a[SK Y]ourself
The 'straight' definition for 'sky' here being "What is up?" is probably pushing it, too, but throwing a question mark in there hides a multitude of sins, and I can't imagine too many folks getting stuck on this three-letter word because of it.

13 Progressive loses final 2-0 to volleyballer (6) 
Volleyballer = LIBERO ~ subtraction (loses) of AL (final 2) from LIBER(-AL) (progressive) + O (0)
I was a bit worried that this one was a little on the hard side, given that libero is a pretty obscure sports word from a relatively obscure sport, but it seems like people enjoyed it. I like the way that the clue is able to extremely specific about taking 2 letters away and adding an O all in one neat little package.

17 Love all and desire tea (6) 
Tea = OOLONG ~ Charade O-O (love all #in tennis) + LONG (desire)
This was lots of people's favourite clue of the crossword, which I have to put down to the Leaflocker audience's love of tea generally, as I personally thought that the surface of the clue was pretty weak. It was fun to get people to translate love all to the tennis score 0-0 for the double-O on the start, and I think it helps that I was able to use 2-0 in the clue before to warm people up to the idea.

20 Won out this time (3) 
This time = NOW ~ WON anagram (out)
Pretty common anagram-type clue. I'd be very surprised if this exact form hadn't appeared in other puzzles multiple times before.

21 Masterplan for gag order after a period (6)
Masterplan = AGENDA ~ NDA (non-disclosure agreement) after AGE (period)
How common is usage of NDA? I feel like it's on the border of common parlance, but probably seen in the wild often enough that it can be used in a simple charade clue like this. I wouldn't want to try and clue it as indirectly as 'gag order' if I were doing anything weird with it, but for these purposes I feel like it worked.

22 Coalition without a mandate is rudderless (6) 
Coalition = TANDEM ~ Anag. (rudderless) of M(-a)NDATE missing (without) A mandate.
Not completely confident that this one is fair, as not only is tandem a bit of a weird definition for coalition (something that you do 'in tandem' could also be done 'in coaliation' but they don't really mean the same thing standing alone), but the wordplay is a bit sloppy, as it requires you to read 'without a mandate' as 'mandate without an a', which I suppose you could, if you squint. I'm also not completely sold on rudderless as an anagram indicator, but in the end I decided to let this one slip through just because the surface reading seemed like fun. Would 'coalition is rudderless without a mandate' have been fairer? Or should I have gone with something else entirely? What do you guys think?

23 Slime is just part of baby talk (3) 
GOO ~ Double definition (slime/part of baby talk)
Babies say googoo gaagaa, right?

24 Insert gobbledegook and let's call it a dialect (6) 
Let's call it a dialect = STRINE ~ Anag. (Gobbledegook) of INSERT
Is Strine a dialect? Sort of? I tried to convey that almost-kinda vibe with the clue and I think it worked out relatively well, although I feel like there should have been a good way to really punch this one up a bit.

27 Officer study subsequent to conflict (6) 
Officer = WARDEN ~ DEN (Study) after WAR (Conflict)
Another pretty straightforward charade clue where I ended up cluing the last part first and then working my way back in order to try and have the surface reading be a little more interesting. I think it more or less worked, but having a word like 'subsequently' in there really telegraphs the wordplay too much and makes for an easy clue.

31 A handy place to fortify (3) 
ARM ~ Double definition (A handy place / to fortify)
Another double definition with one punny meaning, handy places bringing back shades of groanworthy jokes about Napoleon. This one got an ! in the copy of the filled in crossword that my parents sent me, but I hope that was a 'ha ha' ! and not a 'see me' !

33 He has priors! (5) 
ABBOT ~ Cryptic Definition
One of the things that got me writing this crossword in the first place was the over-reliance of my local paper on punny single-definition clues. This is the sort of clue that isn't really properly cryptic, as it doesn't have any wordplay element, the sort of thing that I'd expect to see in an American style crossword, or in one from before cryptics evolved into their current form, but I feel like they're fine in moderation, especially if the surface meaning really pops. I like this one a lot.

34 Release auditor's reckoning (7) 
Release = EDITION ~ homophone (auditor's) of 'addition' (reckoning)
I couldn't resist the idea of an auditor as one who both plays with numbers and listens. Another clue with the indicator just dropped in between the elements, but since 'addition' is one letter too long I feel like most folk will stumble across this one pretty quickly.

35 Tallest test cut out everything (3)
Everything = ALL ~ TALLEST with TEST subtracted (cut out) (-t)ALL(-est)
Have I said yet that I hate cluing short words? Subtractions are a good way to do them but I feel like they can be hard to pitch at the right difficulty level. This grid originally had another big open space to the left of the first letter of this one, but in the end I cut it because it didn't reduce the number of three letter words I had to clue and was very constraining.

36 Iron Maiden and others (5) 
Iron = METAL ~ M (abbr. of maiden in cricket) + ET AL.
I am in two minds about this one. You can't really get away with cluing a class of objects (metal) by one of it's parts (iron) in the way that can the other way around. In the end I decided to keep it just because I could sort of justify is as almost an &lit.clue, since 'Iron Maiden and others' are indeed fully metal and the clue is just a popper, but I don't feel good about it.

37 Hide 35 devastated by notorious stylist (7)
Notorious stylist = DELILAH ~ Anag. of HIDE and ALL (answer to 35 across)
The other clue that got an ! from my parents, but I think 'notorious stylist' works for the biblical character of Delilah, and has the nice extra bonus of including a red herring word like 'stylist' which just screams anagram indicator.

That's it for the across clues. This post is already getting pretty long, so I think I'm going to cut it off here for now and come back some time in the next few days to talk about the down clues. Please let me know in the comments if there's anywhere that I haven't explained things well or where you disagree with my assessments, as I really do want to make crosswords more often and I'm sure you all have some good advice to impart.

What I played on my holidays

Whoops, this thing was sitting unfinished in the drafts folder, where it has been languishing for almost a month now. Be free, my pretty, be free!

I've just gotten back from three weeks spent home in Australia over the Christmas break. It was a precious, refreshing time for Mrs. Owl and I to check in with friends and family, have some good discussions, share many good hugs with people that we love and miss, and to look forward to a time when we won't be living so far away, if indeed such a day will ever come.

It was also a good time to sit down and play some board games. I'm not going to say they were needed quite as much as the hugs, but I have been sorely missing my board games in the last few months since moving to Southampton, and spending time around the table with old friends was balm for this gamer's soul. Along with a few old favourites, I got my hands on a bunch of new games, and thought it might be fun to share my first impressions.

Perudo

This classic dice-rolling bluff game was a staple at the Oxford gaming club and is one of those games that always seems to happen somewhere around me, but that I've somehow managed to avoid having to partake in for years. My streak finally came to an end during a League catch-up, and as is my wont for push-your-luck games, I was first eliminated and went to make the tea while I waited for everyone else to finish. While it's fine for what it is, especially given that it's two hundred years old, I can't help but feel like I'd rather pull out Love Letter than this one any day of the week.

Century: A New World

Having played and enjoyed Century: Spice Road for the first time just a month or so ago (I have a draft blog post about it sitting around somewhere that this one is going to relegate to the bin), I was keen to partake in the maiden game of this part of my father-in-law's Christmas gift horde so that I could compare the two entries in the series. I was pleased that New World keeps the central resource-chain mechanic that I'd liked from Spice Road but that the interaction with other players on the worker-placement board adds a satisfying level of complexity that makes it a more meaty game, at the cost of only a little unpredictable gristle. If I had to choose just one of them to add to my collection, it would definitely be New World, but I'm not rushing out to door to buy either, just because they feel like the sort of games that will feel a little overly-mechanical once the shine has worn off them. Guess the only way to find out for sure is to play them a few more times, and I'm looking forward to doing just that just as soon as I can find a friend or friendly cafe that has copies.

Dragon Castle

Unsurprisingly, the game that stuck the most in my head during the trip was one introduced at a Nerd Club gathering. Dragon Castle is the solitaire mahjong game that I was first introduced to on Windows 3.1.1 as Taipei, re-imagined for we board game hipsters by introducing some neat little tile-placement and point-scoring mechanics. As soon as I saw it I knew that we were in for a good time, it just looks fabulous and plays unlike anything else I've met without being at all complex or difficult to pick up.

I was slightly annoyed by the way that despite being very clearly inspired by Mahjong, the creators seem to have gone out of their way to make the game unplayable with a normal Mahjong set (or at least one without a horde of extra tiles). The stuff that you get in the box is definitely enough to encourage people to buy Dragon Castle, but it just feels so close that the slight changes feel like they don't think their game is good enough for people to buy if they could just play it with their old family mahjong tiles, which just rubs this old chess variants aficionado the wrong way.

So once I got home I cracked out my tiles and used them to home-brew a version of the solitaire version of the game (yes, a solitaire version of the multiplayer variant of a solitaire version of a multiplayer tile game). It worked pretty well for someone familiar with mahjong tiles, but having done it I can see that a custom set that more clearly differentiated tiles would be a good idea, especially if you were trying to introduce the game to newer players. I used the 1s of each suit as replacement dragons, the dragons and blank tiles (also known as the good white dragons) as the replacement flowers, the 2-7 of each suit as the basic tiles and the 8s and 9s (turned vertically) as the shrine caps. I might try it again sometime if I'm with a mahjong crowd that just want to try something different, just to see if other people enjoy it as much as I did.

Imhotep

The end of 2016 and beginning of 2017 was just about the time that I was moving from an open gaming group where people regularly bought and brought new games and into a smaller one that I ran where we had a smaller, stable collection of games, so I never got a chance to enjoy Imhotep when it was all the rage.

Thankfully, I have friends that own it, and we finally sat down to a game years down the track. I was truly awful at it, and when you've got a very tight limited-action game like this one in which you have very little control (because in an action you can either load or unload a boat, but not both, so you're at the mercy of your opponents) and you're playing against people who have a better understanding of the rhythms of the game that's a thing that's going to happen. I'd love to play this one again and see if I can get the hang of the flow, as it seems like a game that has real potential to be an interesting puzzle for two, three or four players. It also has perfect information, so it's the sort of thing that we could play over the internet with friends back home in Oz, so that's a big positive.

The Bloody Inn

In Imhotep, I enjoyed the tightness of having only a few options and a limited number of opportunities, but in The Bloody Inn I found myself drowning in all the different things that I could do, but starved of turns in which to do them. Each turn you only get two actions, but it takes multiple turns to work up the resources to be able to do anything useful, and you just don't get that many turns.

I love the murdering-visitors-to-your-country-hotel-and-burying-the-bodies theme, it definitely appeals to me as an idea, but even though it clearly worked as a game mechanically and the final scores were all relatively close, I just spent so much time second-guessing and regretting my decisions that it just felt too much like work. Perhaps having played it a few more times would let it soak in, but I honestly can't imagine that I'm likely to give it a chance unless I'm in company of folks who really want to play as murderous innkeepers for the night.

6 nimmt!

I've actually played the classic card game 6 nimmt a bunch of times over the years, but for some reason I've never logged it over on boardgamegeek. Either that's because I actually haven't played it in the four years that I've been logging games, or more likely it's just something I missed. 6 nimmt! is the kind of forgettably simple card game that, while enjoyable when you're playing, just doesn't stick in your head.

Camel Up

Another day, another bunch of games. This one was spent at the new local board game café that has opened up in our home town while we've been away. First up was the lovely new edition of Camel Up, complete with pop-up palm tree and 'crazy camels'. I've admired this one from afar before, but never had a chance to play it, and I was keen to give it a go. 

I was pleasantly surprised by how unpredictable the camel race really is, despite the rules of the game being so simple. Of course, there wouldn't really be a game if the outcome was clear, since the whole thing hinges on betting on the outcome of the race, and it's nice when things just come together as nicely as they do in this game. I can just imagine the grin on Steffen Bogen's face when he came up with the mechanics, and I can only assume that it was joined by maniacal laughter when he devised the joy that is the chaotic element of the crazy racers that run backwards and disrupt the race. The little camels are just so cute when they're jumping on each other's backs, too! All in all it's an excellent little package, and while I'm not going to be rushing out to get a copy, I can see why folks might want to and fully endorse the idea of playing it again some time.

Yoz

Next up was the only game that I encountered on my trip that I've never heard of apart from Dragon Castle, but unlike that gem, there's a clear reason that I'd never heard of Yoz. We were attracted by the very lovely wooden chest that it comes in, but as soon as we grabbed it we were warned by the proprietor of the café that "it was a kickstarter". Foolishly, we took no heed. Even his demand to see the cards "so that I can take out a bunch of them" didn't warn up away sufficiently, so we sat down to generic a co-op swords and sourcery adventure game that turned out to commit both of my cardinal board games sins, being a truly frustrating combination of the 'pray and roll some dice' and 'turn over some cards and see what random crap happens to you' mechanics. About ten turns in I turned up the "go back to the start" card, closely followed by the "everyone go back to the start" card. Ugh.

Needless to say, we lost. But hey, there were smiles on our faces anyway, so maybe it's not all bad.

Clank!: Gold and Silk

Finishing up the gaming extravaganza was embarking on an expansion to Clank! with the in-laws. I'd not enjoyed Clank! the one time that I'd played it in the past, but figured that if they enjoyed it enough to invest in an expansion then the least that I could do was give it a second chance.

Clank! is a deck-building dungeon crawl game in which the players try to steal as much treasure as possible and get out before they all get eaten by the monster. I employed a fast in-and-out strategy, that I was informed was unlikely to yield results, trying to grab a tiny bit of treasure and then bring on the end of the game before my opponents had a chance to escape with theirs. I feel like the strategy went pretty much as flawlessly as it possibly could have, despite a couple of near-misses, and yet two of my three opponents managed to get themselves out, both with more than twice my haul.

This probably encapsulates my feeling about the game. If going fast isn't a viable option, then the only workable strategy is to delve as deeply as possible and come back heavy laden and risk your chances against the draws from the bag of doom, and if everyone is doing essentially the same thing, then the difference between them just comes down to luck. That said, if you like that sort of thing Clank! is a pretty, well executed game, and this expansion is a cool variation on the theme, it's just that I guess it's just not my cup of tea.

All in all, Christmas 2019 wasn't such a bad little haul on new plays, including some games I definitely want to come back and revisit sometime. If you look at this to this handy graph from Friendless Stats, it looks like I tried only 9 games compared to 12 during our Christmas 2017 visit home, but last time actually included 5 games that I'd played in pre-history (I only began the somewhat obsessive recording of board game plays in 2016), compared to only 1 this time around, so they turn out about the same.

Hopefully, our next biennial trip back to Australia will see us playing just as many games with as many old friends. With any luck that trip will mark our moving back home for good, though, so we won't need to cram all our gaming into such a short frenetic period, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Leaflocker Cryptic 002

I'm a little rusty, but in the last couple of days I wrote a crossword. I am filled with admiration for people who somehow manage to pump one of these things out every day. Enjoy, and let me know how you get on.

This crossword is also available in AcrossLite and printable PDF.

The Poetry of Things Themselves

This 'week' has actually been a very efficient one for reading. I've probably read more in the month or so since the last post than I did in the rest of the year up to that point. Unfortunately, most of the books that I read were extra-curricular. I've been thinking about maybe doing a review of some of them for the blog at some point, but for now I thought it would be best to get this post out there in the world and set off into Week XXVI rather than putting it off any longer.

The Week That Was:

The History of Herodotus

Book VII

The poor Spartans wish they looked this cool, but their helmets couldn't hold up their glasses.

I greatly enjoyed the way that the slow build and the pages and pages of descriptions of all of the different soldiers in Xerxes' army emphasised just how mindbogglingly huge his force is, whereas the Greek forces are barely mentioned in passing. I expected to feel cheated that all this had built up to a climax that arrived and was over so quickly, but on thinking back on it, it just somehow feels right, that the Persians had spent so many years building up this force and yet the battle was over in a moment.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Chapter XVII

Convenient, isn't it, that when Crusoe leaps mindlessly to save someone in a position of peril he turns out to have saved the captain from mutineers rather than the more likely option of having just laid the captain out. I guess even 26 years alone on an island just can't stop him from being on the side of the establishment. Probably a pretty good metaphor for the whole book, really.

Lucretius by George Santayana

I was not disappointed by picking up this one. Santayana's wit drips off the page, and while he doesn't pull any punches, one can feel his affection shining through. After reading this I am stoked to actually read Lucretius himself, although we're not due to get to him for another three 'months' if we keep to the plan.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 

Volume III - Books II-III

I like Hugo's constant diversions at least as much as the next guy, but having some indication that this little diversion is actually important information that the reader needs to care about is useful, and these chapters do it well. The musical tells us that you don't actually need any backstory about Marius at all to make the story work, but these chapters make a significant difference in helping us understand him and care about him as more than just a pretty face.

Some Numbers: 

The most significant number that we passed this 'week' was that we've now been having this little conversation for five years. At this point, 25 'weeks' into the project, I think it's time to find another name for each group of readings. I haven't come up with a better idea, but if you do, please suggest it in the comments. Though the whole 'seven year reading project' idea has obviously been blown well and truly out of the water by this point, I'm still enjoying myself, so let's keep going.

Pages last week: 112
Pages so far: 2915

Readings for Week XXVI

This week we are in for a lot of Greek even if our dose of Herodotus is a little more managable, since his good buddies Plato and Archimedes are along for the ride. I am particularly looking forward to both of them, because Republic seems to be the Platonic work that causes the most rolled eyes around here, and because, well, Archimedes! I imagine that both will probably be pretty hard work, but all in all it's a relatively quiet week, so I hope that we'll be able to manage, even if my history of managing the mathsy stuff shouldn't fill us with a lot of confidence. Then we're going to finish off Crusoe as a bit of a bit of a palate cleanser, and squeeze in a little Les Mis as well, just for fun. Dr J also had a little more Santayana this week, but while I've enjoyed the diversion, I don't feel like I need to go there.

The History of Herodotus

Book VIII (34 pages)

#gbbw #mands #history #greek

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Chapters XVIII-XX (26 pages)

#ggb #imaginativeliterature #novel #english

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 

Volume III - Book IV (18 pages)

#non_gbww #imaginativeliterature #novel #french

Republic of Plato

Book I (26 pages)

#gbbw #pandt #philosophy #greek #new

The Sand Reckoner by Archimedes

(10 pages)

#gbbw #mathmatics #greek #oneshot

Snow

This particular prompt is from a couple of days ago, but the image popped into my head and I just had to do it. Maybe I've just been thinking about saints a bunch since Cardinal Newman was canonised this weekend, but with the prompt snow I couldn't help but draw the connection between snow angels and snow saints.

I'm not going to get into the theology of either angels or saints, not only because I am utterly unequipped, but also because both can get pretty nutty pretty quickly. If you're in to that sort of thing, allow me to point you in the direction of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. Suffice it to say that in iconography and in the history of Christian art, most saints, and angels, and those confusing angels that are also saints, are usually depicted with the halo, so it's pretty easy to get them mixed up, at least if the flying and the wings and that sort of thing aren't obvious hints.

Today's drawing depicts John Paul II and John XXIII, who were canonised together back in 2013 playing in the snow making snow saints while poor old Paul VI looks on jealously. Paul would get his fancy hat five years later, once his second attested miracle was confirmed, so perhaps I should have made the figure looking on be John Paul I, whose cause is currently stalled as merely being venerable, after it was determined that his attested miracles don't count, but he just doesn't seem like the jealous type.

Pattern

Oh dear, we've gone from the 2nd to the 10th just like that. I have been struggling with motivation for creative tasks a lot in the last few weeks. I have some fun ideas for bits and pieces that I'd like to have committed to over the course of Inktober so far, but rather than desperately try to catch up I'm just going to jump back in for today and maybe doodle a little some other time.

When prompted by the word pattern, the papal imagination cannot escape from that wonderful adage: After a fat pope, a thin pope. The phrase refers to the way that conclaves tend to look to appoint someone with a different outlook to their predecessor. It isn't meant to refer to the physical characteristics of actual popes, but whenever I think of the phrase I am always reminded of the contrast between the large jovial John XXIII and the thin, severe-looking Paul VI. Then this happened:

The John XXIII that lives inside my head was exactly the sort of fellow that would go to a party and start a conga line. I can just imagine him shouting out the lyrics as he capers around the papal apartments, even if this is a particularly disappointing rendition of him. Paul VI is inevitably drawn in to finish what John starts, as always, and manages to bring a sort of dignified stoicism to the whole farce. Then John Paul I joins in, and when he's left a I just hanging at the end of his name like that, John Paul II has to jump on as well just so that the whole thing doesn't look silly. For some reason I've drawn him here as some kind of tiny wizened yoda figure clinging to JPI's back, which was entirely unintentional, but I love it. Benedict XVI, ever the traditionalist, jumps in just because his predecessors apparently thought that the conga was a good idea, but he wants everyone to know that he's not enjoying this at all. In fairness, Benedict XVI should really be the yoda, he looked undersized next to JPII even at the end of his life, but once I'd unintentionally shrunk JPII it would have silly to keep going. And of course, Francis brings up the rear, he likes a party, although the poor man is particularly struggling with a few physical deformities that he doesn't deserve, due to being on the far-right of the piece of paper when I was drawing him. What did I do to his ears?

Mindless: Inktober Day 2

I have been enjoying the efforts of some of my artistically inclined friends the last few days with the annual coming of the phenomenon that is Inktober. While I'm generally partial to a festival, and the sillier the better, Inktober has never been one that has interested me, because despite my long-standing desire to make a comic about time-travelling popes one day, I cannot draw to save my life.

That said, if I were to attempt to participate, I would no doubt try to do something Papish. Back when I began this blog, I used to spend a lot of my time thinking of strange situations to put various popes in, but I have a memory like a sieve and over the years I've forgotten almost all of the useless information that I've crammed into my head, so if I am going to do this, I'm going to have to do a lot of googling.

I've already missed day one, but the prompt for today is mindless. While it would seem like there's got to be some low-hanging fruit there making fun of some ridiculous theological stance, it was never really the vibe for Habemus Papas to make fun of religion. Instead, I want to have fun with religion, using these fascinating historical figures as the backdrop. So if theology is out, so where does mindlessness take us?

Then the obvious answer hit me. What I was looking for was a pope who had quite literally lost their mind. Which popes had been decapitated? Sadly for the purposes of this aspiring cartoonist, the list is shorter and less interesting than I would have expected. Lots of the early popes are have been traditionally described as martyrs, and often as beheaded, but actually sourcing the stories of their deaths is difficult, largely because we know very little about most of them. There's Sixtus II, who was almost certainly beheaded in 258 AD under Valerian, but what would I draw, 5 blokes in a cemetery blessing? Oh, for a papal Cephalophore!

In the end, I decided just to go right ahead and pick a scene from the life of my favourite possibly decapitated pope, St Fabian. He was martyred by Emperor Decius, traditionally understood to have been by the sword, so he counts as mindless, but perhaps his closest association with beheading is that he sent St. Denys, (Guess we're going to talk about Cephalophores after all!) to Gaul.

For most of papal history, Popes could be appointed in three main ways. Either the electors voted and picked someone, or they appointed a subcommittee to pick someone for them, or most rarely, by acclamation, where everyone unanimously just picks someone. Fabian, who wasn't even a priest at the time, became the first Pope appointed by acclamation when a dove landed on his head while he was standing in the crowd watching the voting, and the similarity to Pentecost was so overwhelming that everyone agreed that it was a miraculous sign and instantly declared him Pope.

He turned out to be a pretty good Pope, too. I can't see him being a notable character in a time travelling pope comic given how little we really know about him, but he's undoubtedly going to turn up in the background somewhere when I get around to it, which is definitely absolutely about to happen, because, hey, he has a birb on his head.