Travelin Z - The Gibraltar Defenders(39)

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Hi all


Lets play a game.
This is a new fresh-out-of-the-box game. Pun absolutely intended.
I call it "The Gibraltar Defenders" - Time as observed from the top of The Rock.
A Game loosely based on historical events, the way I remember and interpret them - manifestly, twisted a tiny bit. This is the prerogative of anyone who writes history.
I played this game in my mind while walking around the rock of Gibraltar, looking at the magnificent fortifications and the birds flying all over the cliffs.


THE GAME:

For a playing partner I call British Bob to the arena.

On the floor in front of us is a good large topographical map, with the Rock of Gibraltar in the center. To the south - Africa. To the north - Europe, to the east (left) the Mediterranean and to the right the Atlantic.

British Bob Gets to play "The Defender of the Rock" - I get to be all the rest of the players - this way, some of my orderly multiple personalities will come into play, sort of speak.

Dice. A box game has to have them, I guess. Yes they are loaded -what else would you expect.

One more key rule I forgot to mention, Sorry Bob, but any dice roll before 1830, when the Rock became a British garrison, you get to watch only.


WE PLAY:

DICE ROLL??????1994 - Pass midnight. Bob, you are observing the coastline in the south - you see Africa, The Black Continent. All the Macaque monkeys roaming the Rock, came from there. Actually the first country you see is Morocco, but this not the point now.
Suddenly you see the Blacks!! Drum roll. A boat of illegal African workers trafficking into France or Spain. You hide the big smirk under your well groomed Sergent-Major mustache.

DICE ROLL??????218 BC - Hannibal comes by with the elephants but was turned down by Spanish immigration for transferring tusks - alive or not the border clerk exclaimed - The ivory law is a law. Hannibal doesn't conquer Italy. In modern times we get pizza, spaghetti, and very cool Vespa -Al Dente of course.

DICE ROLL??????1973 - The cold war in warming up and you get real cold on the Rock. You call your uncle at The Ministry (hash hash) and you ask to raise taxes so you can build better bunkers on the Rock. Air-con, central heating, Satellite TV.Maybe a water bed. You call it "surveillance equipment" so the tax payers don't ask too much. The only thing you really "survey" is the Playboy channel on your new big screen plasma gizmo TV. If you are gay, Bob, and that's OK with me, you can use the "surveillance" equipment to watch the Russian sailors exercising in tank-tops on the deck of the passing "fishing boat". The one with more antennas on it then Star Ship Enterprise and the name K.G.Brown inconspicuously painted on the stern.

DICE ROLL??????5555 - You lose a turn. Things you can do on The Rock while there is no war going on: You can go pick some wild flowers on the cliffs. I saw some pretty yellow ones while I was there. Don't ask me to name them. You can write a poem about the Med and the Atlantic intermingling in fort of you. Write a love letter. Clean your guns - they rust with salty ocean air.

DICE ROLL??????4444 - I lose a turn, Bob. We can go watch the seagulls. The seagulls are always here, through time, and unlike the humans they never change their feathers. Some of them play "Dive Bombers" and hit The Admiralty's ten-inch-rifled-muzzle-loaders with excrement as they buzz the cliffs. These big guns where just bought off E Bay from an former USSR state, and Fed Exed to the Rock.
No Bob! If you dare target practicing on the seagulls, I'll stop playing!

DICE ROLL??????early 16th century - Spanish conquistadors swoosh by - taking syphilis to south America. Have a nice day. Send post cards.

DICE ROLL??????$$$$ - We win the Lottery - we got cash. Money. Moola. Smacaroons. Lets build fortifications, and more fortifications. buy buy buy - help the economy! Come Bob, lets help the rich Lords get richer!!

DICE ROLL??????1943 - On a cold night in March, Sea Wolf Z gets on the bridge of U-217 - a Type VIIC/41 German submersible on patrol in the north sea. Receives radio orders to pick up a spy in Malta. Curse the Fuhrer, and upon hitting the deck below command with a crisp authoritative voice: "dive, dive" ("Tauchen, Tauchen"). Didn't you always want to say this?
U-217 picks up speed goes down the English Channel and picks up speed. If you look at the map - south is down-hill (you'll see it better on a glob). Then hook a right to avoid hitting the French coast (German coast at the time but still too solid to attempt collision). Then south again. Late evening the next day stop in Lisbon (where the regime pretends to be neutral), so the crew can get Pastrel De Nata. Better risk the stop then mutiny, due to the absent of a small mean cake.
U-217 heads south again with a plan to hit a sharp left turn, towards the Strait of Gibraltar.
Now, Bob, it is your turn. The good old boys at Head Quarters intercepted the original transmission of orders to Sea Wolf Z. They risked translating it with the Enigma machine. You are ready with depths charges mounted on a fast destroyer and your guns are ready as back-ups.
But Sea Wolf Z doesn't show up!
Did he missed the turn? Did he hit an high library tower protruding from the sunken Atlantis ? Did he defect The Third Reich because he fell in love with a statuesque Portuguese woman?

DICE ROLL??????Early on in time - A group of Egyptian pyramid builders are sailing by in a papyrus boat towards America. You would like to shout "hey guys - don't forget to register the find, or the Spaniard will get the screen credit", but you are not there yet Bob.

DICE ROLL?????1805 roughly - Here comes Napoleon. Nice ships with velvety curtains, even though he is just back from St Helena. From the top of the Rock, you shout at him:
"Yo Napoleon, wanna come over and get pissed on the Rock with some girls from Spain?" But Napoleon speaks only french, Italian and some Yiddish. He recons you shouted that you can piss on him from the rock, and that his mom was a Spanish whore. He fires the first three volleys. You finally get to shoot back. What else would you expect from a guy that has a major inferiority complex named after him, and a cake with flaky dough?
On the other hand, Bob, this is an out of the box game so lets show compassion. All he really needs is a big hug.

DICE ROLL??????1969 - John Lennon and Yoko Oh-No get married at the Rock of Gibraltar. Hey Bob you could have warned him. You come down to the village for the party. They play great pree-rave music all night long. Imagine.

DICE ROLL??????Early on - Asterix and Obelix swim fast around the Rock. If you really know what the hell I am taking about Asterix did use performance enhanced drugs. Obelix didn't.

DICE ROLL?????? 7777 - We switch parts, I get to play the defender. In three simple moves I allow almost everything and before the e mail gets to London a visionary Utopian flag is on the rock. But Utopia by definition does not reign. Bob gets the Rock back when I go to the bathroom.

DICE ROLL??????1111 - Lucky roll. Go head, Bob, take Glenda to the light house. Please practice safe sex.

DICE ROLL??????1938 - Eighteen hundred Italian immigrants are sailing full steam head towards the New World on board the Firenze. Give or take four families. Bob and I shout - "Don't forget to write to Mama !!"

DICE ROLL??????6666 - Again it is the middle of the night, Bob - you can't sleep. You go for a walk inspecting the fortifications. You spot me, in a gray trench coat, collar up, suspiciously using a flesh-light (you call it a torch) to signal a UFO. You wipe the mist off your horn rimmed glasses and look again.
Is Zeev a spy? Is he mad? Can he be trusted? Does the UFO takes unleaded gasoline?
You go back to bed in the cozy bunker.

DICE ROLL??????0000 - This is a Win-Win Roll! Bob and I watch migrating birds of pray soaring in the thermal winds, bathing in the last warm rays of a setting sun.
We meditate together.

We all win. Lets go get some fish and chip.



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Hey guys - I know I took a lot of your precious time reading my updates, in the last few days. I hope you liked. I had fun writing it all.
I am heading south, deeper into Morocco now, and will give you some time to ruminate.



Love you

Zeev

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