My OperaEssential Essen
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 12:28:18 PM
Back online after a trip to Essen and having spent a fortune at said games fair and traipsed miles around the exhibition hall, I now propose to bore you with details of my trip.
Spiel is a 4-day board games and comics fair, based in Essen. Were such a fair to be held in Britain there is every chance that attendees might number in the hundreds and that in all probability, if you attended, you would already know 50% of the other attendees. In Germany, where the playing of board games is a lot more ingrained in the national culture, things are slightly different; over a four day period, around 160,000 turn up, and most of them seem to congregate around the second hand stalls![/COLOR][/size] Day one Getting there is, theoretically, fairly easy. There is one famous hobby story of a gamer catching the train (via Eurotunnel) to Brussels, and then asking advice on how to get to Essen from the Belgian railway people; what he did not realise was that there is also an Essen in Belgium – one that does not have a huge exhibition hall hosting a games fair. I understand that he spent about 19 hours travelling from Brussels to Essen (Belgium), thence to Essen (Germany). Bearing this in mind, and also my famed masculine reluctance to ask anyone for directions, I decided it would be safer to fly there. A BA return ticket from Heathrow to Dusseldorf (hang on, let’s call up character map) – make that “Düsseldorf” – cost about a hundred quid. I deliberately chose an afternoon flight because, although that would mean I’d arrive too late to catch the first day of the fair, I knew I would still be rushing about like a blue-arsed fly on the day of the flight, doing last minute packing and t’ing. The best laid plans of mice and men often ging-gang-gooley, as the Scottish bard once didn’t say, and I ended up leaving home an hour later than intended. Why? Because number one son was off school (big shock) with a rugby injury and was complaining there was nothing to eat in the house, so I had to do some emergency shopping. I still left myself about 105 minutes to get from North London by rail to Heathrow tube. Not long enough, as it turns out. I was already cutting it fine when I heard the dreaded announcement from the train driver, “this train will now be terminating at Northfields. Passengers for Heathrow are advised to get off at Northfields and wait for the next Heathrow train”. What he didn’t add was that this would be about a 10-minute wait – ten minutes I could not afford. Ho-hum. I hadn’t realised quite how far west Heathrow was. Perhaps I would have been better going to Stansted and stumping up the £30 bandit price for the Stansted Express from Liverpool Street. Check in was at 14:40, boarding gates closed at 14:50. I had checked in online so already had my boarding pass but I still needed to get my cases checked in. The nice lady at the check-in counter checked her screen and said the plane had been delayed a bit and, if I ran all the way, I might make it there in time for them to stick my case in the emergency “latecomers” chute and get it on board. So, abandoning all dignity, I legged it to the departure lounge. In the circumstances, barging through the security check area claiming I had a plane to catch probably wasn’t going to work, so I calmed myself down (“Don’t panic, Mr. Mainwaring!”) and subjected myself to some desultory frisking, after which it was another pell-mell dash through duty free. I have never been so pleased to see one of those moving walkway things (horizontal escalators) they have at airports. I’d often wondered whether, in these days of wheeled suitcases, they were strictly necessary but now I realise what a boon they are. I got to the boarding gate at about 15:00, about 10 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave. My case was bunged down the chute for the baggage handlers to play “Destination Roulette” with it and I finally had time to sit down, catch my breath, and wipe about three pints of sweat off my brow and chest. Thank God Heathrow is such a ridiculously busy airport; if the plane had not been delayed, I’d have had a tricky decision to make: go back home and return to catch the early morning flight, or kip at Heathrow? Now, if my life were a situation comedy, my relief at the plane being late and therefore allowing me to catch my flight would have turned to exasperation by 15:25 when the flight still had not boarded, and I’d have been whizzing off a complaint to BA’s Customer Relations department from the Blackberry I don’t own, but I was happy to use the time to chill out and treat my fellow passengers to the subtle aromas of Eau de Flopsweat. The trip to Düsseldorf is barely long enough to get stuck into your book. BA were suitably apologetic that the dispute with Gate Gourmet meant they were unable to offer on-board catering, but frankly the journey was not long enough to justify an in-flight meal. I have been to Essen once before, with the Small Furry Creatures crowd, and knew that it was possible to travel by rail from Düsseldorf airport to Essen without much difficulty. Well, without much difficulty if you get on the right platform. I just blundered down on to the first available platform and tried to make sense of the railway system. Clearly there were trains that travelled from the airport to Essen’s mainline station but equally clearly, they weren’t departing from the platform I was on. The trouble was, it was the only platform I could find. Turns out the other platforms were a “Skytrain” (no, not the Freddie Laker outfit – a sort of suspended monorail jobbie) journey away. In the end I decided to travel in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go, get off at a mainline station that had lots of connections, and catch a train to Essen from there. This worked well enough. My only tricky decision was whether my ticket was valid on the inter-city service. I suspected it wasn’t, and so caught the local train which, interestingly, was a double-decker affair. The time was 19:30 local time and I guess I was getting the tail end of the rush-hour crowd. I was uncomfortably aware that, laden down with a smallish suitcase and a rucksack on my back, I was the sort of passenger I hated encountering on the London Underground; wherever I stood it was in the way, I was rubber-necking at each station to make sure I was not on some sort of special German train that hyper-jumped straight to Berlin, and I did not understand the language. Not a word of it. Well, hardly a word of it. All the German I know is either from “The Valiant” comic (Schnell, achtung, Gotten himmel, Englander, Fritz and Hans) or from German board games (wertung, spiel, punkte and, of course, ausreisse). I got to Essen mainline station OK – there was no hyper-jumping on the train I was on. I had previously printed off numerous maps to assist me and my next task was to find the hotel. Once I had found the correct exit from the station (think Kings Cross or Liverpool Street, but with more hot-dog booths) the hotel was relatively easy to find. I was staying at the Ibis, a serviceable but characterless hotel some 200 yards from the station. My room (and about 20 others) had been booked for me by Chris Boote, and I was concerned by an e-mail I had received from Chris two days before my trip which stated that he would cancel the booking of anyone who had not got a cheque to him by Monday. I received this e-mail from him on Tuesday morning ….. In fairness to Chris, he had sent the initial e-mail a few days earlier to my old, defunct, Demon e-mail address, and subsequently forwarded it to the right address when it bounced. Nevertheless, I had been unable to contact him before my flight, so I had no idea whether he had cancelled my booking or not. This was another reason why I had been late in leaving for the airport – I had been hitting the internet trying to find hotels in the Essen area that still had rooms available; I had in my pocket a list of 6 hotels that might still have had rooms available, albeit at prices almost double those being charged by the Ibis. Somebody up there likes me, because my room had been reserved, though the desk clerk did explain apologetically, that only non-smoking rooms were available. What a bummer! You mean I have to sleep in a room that does not stink of stale tobacco smoke? Can I get a discount? I’d worked out that most of the British contingent in the hotel would be out stuffing their faces on the archetypal German meal of meat with meat stuffed with meat, with meat sauce on a meat plate, followed by meat and ice cream (sausage flavoured) so I went up to my room to have, in the words of the immortal Terry-Thomas, “an absolute shower”. The plan was to chill out until about ten, then pop down to the bar area to see if anyone recognisable was down there playing games. After the shower I tried to phone Lin (Mrs. Fiendish) to let her know I had arrived safely, but could not get through, so I tried texting her. Twenty minutes later I got a somewhat sarcastic message back from her: “You know how to text!”. Yes, but I don’t know how to phone the UK from Germany (“This call has been barred”). I stuck on my headphones, and let the sounds of the Cosmic Rough Riders (“Pure Escapism”) wash over me, opened up my book (Truecrime by Jake Arnott) and settled down to while away the next couple of hours. I woke up about 1:30 in the morning, having drifted off to sleep. In all probability there were still going to be people down in the bar playing games but I decided that my body’s need for sleep was greater than my mind’s need for intellectual stimulation, so I turned in for the night. (More of this guff tomorrow, when I’ll give my first impressions of the fair) JoHn
Spiel is a 4-day board games and comics fair, based in Essen. Were such a fair to be held in Britain there is every chance that attendees might number in the hundreds and that in all probability, if you attended, you would already know 50% of the other attendees. In Germany, where the playing of board games is a lot more ingrained in the national culture, things are slightly different; over a four day period, around 160,000 turn up, and most of them seem to congregate around the second hand stalls![/COLOR][/size] Day one Getting there is, theoretically, fairly easy. There is one famous hobby story of a gamer catching the train (via Eurotunnel) to Brussels, and then asking advice on how to get to Essen from the Belgian railway people; what he did not realise was that there is also an Essen in Belgium – one that does not have a huge exhibition hall hosting a games fair. I understand that he spent about 19 hours travelling from Brussels to Essen (Belgium), thence to Essen (Germany). Bearing this in mind, and also my famed masculine reluctance to ask anyone for directions, I decided it would be safer to fly there. A BA return ticket from Heathrow to Dusseldorf (hang on, let’s call up character map) – make that “Düsseldorf” – cost about a hundred quid. I deliberately chose an afternoon flight because, although that would mean I’d arrive too late to catch the first day of the fair, I knew I would still be rushing about like a blue-arsed fly on the day of the flight, doing last minute packing and t’ing. The best laid plans of mice and men often ging-gang-gooley, as the Scottish bard once didn’t say, and I ended up leaving home an hour later than intended. Why? Because number one son was off school (big shock) with a rugby injury and was complaining there was nothing to eat in the house, so I had to do some emergency shopping. I still left myself about 105 minutes to get from North London by rail to Heathrow tube. Not long enough, as it turns out. I was already cutting it fine when I heard the dreaded announcement from the train driver, “this train will now be terminating at Northfields. Passengers for Heathrow are advised to get off at Northfields and wait for the next Heathrow train”. What he didn’t add was that this would be about a 10-minute wait – ten minutes I could not afford. Ho-hum. I hadn’t realised quite how far west Heathrow was. Perhaps I would have been better going to Stansted and stumping up the £30 bandit price for the Stansted Express from Liverpool Street. Check in was at 14:40, boarding gates closed at 14:50. I had checked in online so already had my boarding pass but I still needed to get my cases checked in. The nice lady at the check-in counter checked her screen and said the plane had been delayed a bit and, if I ran all the way, I might make it there in time for them to stick my case in the emergency “latecomers” chute and get it on board. So, abandoning all dignity, I legged it to the departure lounge. In the circumstances, barging through the security check area claiming I had a plane to catch probably wasn’t going to work, so I calmed myself down (“Don’t panic, Mr. Mainwaring!”) and subjected myself to some desultory frisking, after which it was another pell-mell dash through duty free. I have never been so pleased to see one of those moving walkway things (horizontal escalators) they have at airports. I’d often wondered whether, in these days of wheeled suitcases, they were strictly necessary but now I realise what a boon they are. I got to the boarding gate at about 15:00, about 10 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave. My case was bunged down the chute for the baggage handlers to play “Destination Roulette” with it and I finally had time to sit down, catch my breath, and wipe about three pints of sweat off my brow and chest. Thank God Heathrow is such a ridiculously busy airport; if the plane had not been delayed, I’d have had a tricky decision to make: go back home and return to catch the early morning flight, or kip at Heathrow? Now, if my life were a situation comedy, my relief at the plane being late and therefore allowing me to catch my flight would have turned to exasperation by 15:25 when the flight still had not boarded, and I’d have been whizzing off a complaint to BA’s Customer Relations department from the Blackberry I don’t own, but I was happy to use the time to chill out and treat my fellow passengers to the subtle aromas of Eau de Flopsweat. The trip to Düsseldorf is barely long enough to get stuck into your book. BA were suitably apologetic that the dispute with Gate Gourmet meant they were unable to offer on-board catering, but frankly the journey was not long enough to justify an in-flight meal. I have been to Essen once before, with the Small Furry Creatures crowd, and knew that it was possible to travel by rail from Düsseldorf airport to Essen without much difficulty. Well, without much difficulty if you get on the right platform. I just blundered down on to the first available platform and tried to make sense of the railway system. Clearly there were trains that travelled from the airport to Essen’s mainline station but equally clearly, they weren’t departing from the platform I was on. The trouble was, it was the only platform I could find. Turns out the other platforms were a “Skytrain” (no, not the Freddie Laker outfit – a sort of suspended monorail jobbie) journey away. In the end I decided to travel in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go, get off at a mainline station that had lots of connections, and catch a train to Essen from there. This worked well enough. My only tricky decision was whether my ticket was valid on the inter-city service. I suspected it wasn’t, and so caught the local train which, interestingly, was a double-decker affair. The time was 19:30 local time and I guess I was getting the tail end of the rush-hour crowd. I was uncomfortably aware that, laden down with a smallish suitcase and a rucksack on my back, I was the sort of passenger I hated encountering on the London Underground; wherever I stood it was in the way, I was rubber-necking at each station to make sure I was not on some sort of special German train that hyper-jumped straight to Berlin, and I did not understand the language. Not a word of it. Well, hardly a word of it. All the German I know is either from “The Valiant” comic (Schnell, achtung, Gotten himmel, Englander, Fritz and Hans) or from German board games (wertung, spiel, punkte and, of course, ausreisse). I got to Essen mainline station OK – there was no hyper-jumping on the train I was on. I had previously printed off numerous maps to assist me and my next task was to find the hotel. Once I had found the correct exit from the station (think Kings Cross or Liverpool Street, but with more hot-dog booths) the hotel was relatively easy to find. I was staying at the Ibis, a serviceable but characterless hotel some 200 yards from the station. My room (and about 20 others) had been booked for me by Chris Boote, and I was concerned by an e-mail I had received from Chris two days before my trip which stated that he would cancel the booking of anyone who had not got a cheque to him by Monday. I received this e-mail from him on Tuesday morning ….. In fairness to Chris, he had sent the initial e-mail a few days earlier to my old, defunct, Demon e-mail address, and subsequently forwarded it to the right address when it bounced. Nevertheless, I had been unable to contact him before my flight, so I had no idea whether he had cancelled my booking or not. This was another reason why I had been late in leaving for the airport – I had been hitting the internet trying to find hotels in the Essen area that still had rooms available; I had in my pocket a list of 6 hotels that might still have had rooms available, albeit at prices almost double those being charged by the Ibis. Somebody up there likes me, because my room had been reserved, though the desk clerk did explain apologetically, that only non-smoking rooms were available. What a bummer! You mean I have to sleep in a room that does not stink of stale tobacco smoke? Can I get a discount? I’d worked out that most of the British contingent in the hotel would be out stuffing their faces on the archetypal German meal of meat with meat stuffed with meat, with meat sauce on a meat plate, followed by meat and ice cream (sausage flavoured) so I went up to my room to have, in the words of the immortal Terry-Thomas, “an absolute shower”. The plan was to chill out until about ten, then pop down to the bar area to see if anyone recognisable was down there playing games. After the shower I tried to phone Lin (Mrs. Fiendish) to let her know I had arrived safely, but could not get through, so I tried texting her. Twenty minutes later I got a somewhat sarcastic message back from her: “You know how to text!”. Yes, but I don’t know how to phone the UK from Germany (“This call has been barred”). I stuck on my headphones, and let the sounds of the Cosmic Rough Riders (“Pure Escapism”) wash over me, opened up my book (Truecrime by Jake Arnott) and settled down to while away the next couple of hours. I woke up about 1:30 in the morning, having drifted off to sleep. In all probability there were still going to be people down in the bar playing games but I decided that my body’s need for sleep was greater than my mind’s need for intellectual stimulation, so I turned in for the night. (More of this guff tomorrow, when I’ll give my first impressions of the fair) JoHn
