Zines with Diplomacy Waiting Lists
Ode No.261 from John Marsden, 91 Westwood Avenue, Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR33 9RS. Of course by the time I get around to publishing this issue No.262 will be out, but I can’t miss the opportunity to congratulate John on 25 years continuous zine publishing. How he does it I will never know. On the Diplomacy front John has lists open for Dip, Vain Arts and Steve Jones has opened a new Mercator waiting list. An excellent place to play postal Dip with the sure knowledge that the zine will not fold before your game ends.
The Cunning Plan No. 126 from Neil Duncan, 25 Sarum Hill, Basingstoke, Hants, RG21 8SS. In many ways I identify with this zine a lot – although Neil is someone who discovered postal Dip in the 80s rather than the 70s, he and I started our zines at about the same time. Neil was one to avoid feuds (although Iain Bowen always took against him for some reason), whereas I always enjoyed them – he was the Dr Jekyll to my Mr Hyde. But whereas I couldn’t keep it up, Neil has kept going. Always a Diplomacy zine at heart, he has even managed a gamestart recently, although down to three games of regular and a couple of gunboat. Politically there is a lot in this zine I disagree with, which is a Good Thing as you shouldn’t just read things which reinforce your established positions, but which challenge them. I can’t bring myself to be as anti-English or anti-Government as Neil though, but then I don’t have any Irish ancestry to stir my emotions. The letter column has been dominated for years by Alan Frost, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as at least Alan has an opinion on everything. I heartily recommend this zine and would urge people to subscribe and contribute. By the way, issues 69, 76 and 108 are missing from the Zine Archive, so I would be very grateful if anyone has these issues to spare.
Obsidian No.131 from Alex Richardson, 86 Strathmore Avenue, Hitchin, Herts., SG5 1ST. A zine which has been going on in its own idiosyncratic way for as long as I can remember from one of the nice guys of the postal hobby. Although really a Diplomacy zine in its soul, Obsidian has lists for some of the other usuals – e.g. Breaking Away, Civilization, Middleman, Snowball Fighting etc. and more games in the 2 or 3 subzines which accompany Obsidian (namely The Amnesia Express from Simon Cutforth, Rules of’t Lunatic Faculty from Bruce Edwards and Green is the Colour from Andrew Fisher). Sadly, quite a few issues of Obsidian are missing from the Archive – namely, issues 24, 29-30, 42, 44 and 47. Can anyone help?