Monday, August the 29th, 2005

back to: title, date or indexes

hear this 

Bosanquet

Pansy Cradledew has recently become enamoured of the computer game Bosanquet, which she will play for hours at a time, seemingly removed from an earthly plane. Though I do not share her enthusiasm for this so-called “game of skill, tactics, problem-solving and strategy”, Pansy assures me that she is but one among a legion of devotees. She also says that, as an expert player, she wants to reach out to those less adept than herself, and has asked me to publish a few little hints and tips.

“These should not be considered as something so vulgar as ‘cheats',” she writes, “but as advisory notes for those Bosanquetistas (as we dub ourselves) who have not yet reached the exalted level in which I bask.”

Here, then, is an edited version of the dozens upon dozens of pages of scribbled jottings Pansy sent in:

Tranche 6 : The Rushdie can be placated by moving the cursor over the red squares next to the pond. There is a squirrel hidden under the canopy. Press CTRL-SHIFT repeatedly to capture the goat.

Tranche 11 : To avoid the bees, hold down all the numeric keys and move your avatar to the square beside the pillows.

Tranche 43 : The ice-field is really a devil's pit. Get past it by collecting all sixteen nougat-bags.

Tranche 49 : My fastest time at this tranche is a whopping four hours thirty six minutes. Remember that to pass the crepuscular nozzles you have to bring your sack of V S Naipaul novels from the previous tranche.

Tranche 60 : Martin Amis can only be beheaded by using the cursor to drag the sword across the blobs.

Tranche 144 : Hit the arrow keys in this order :UP-UP-UP-LEFT-LEFT-UP-RIGHT-DOWN. This will take you to the lair of the savage brontosaurus and you will be able to swallow the magic potion. Be careful of the magnetic locusts.

If Pansy's “advisory notes” are to be believed, there are at least two hundred more tranches to complete, but that is quite enough of this nonsense.