PINS - Rule Thirty-two: The Unsteady Zone

(Our visions became laden with willow-wept grief…)

The rules show that there are different kinds of units involved in PINS. Normal units and elite units. Indeed the game of PINS is predominantly based on elite units, they always have extra pins and will always move in one bound. They get things going with no fuss or bother. They are usually set up on the right or left of the line. They will always move because they will always have extra pins, so there; that’s you told. You and your clever ways, wouldn’t know how to switch a kettle on if your mother didn’t hold your hand. 

[SUB NOTE! Pins are discarded on moves forward if the dice fail. Elite units will discard pins unless the pins are missing - or it is judged unnecessary to discard them.]   

This information was written down in black felt tipped pen (an 0.1 by the looks of it, for accuracy and neatness) on the back of the Premium Petcare Priority Order Form, Harrington Dock, Liverpool, L70, 1AX. A space is also given where you can - whilst memorising PINS  - “use the space to give the details of items you would have liked to have seen in this publication.”

Elite troops keep the morale of other units steady in the Unsteady Zone. That’s the place where contact with the opposing force occurs.    

You’d get the unsteady zone down the whist drive on Wednesdays at the Con Club by the Leeds-Liverpool bridge. Subsidised ale goes right through the lot of them oaps. Even with Peter on the piano. You don’t want him opposite, either, my mother banned him. He’s murder, he plays against you and he’s so secretive and yet thinks he’s the bee's knees. It’s like when he plays do’s, too, when we have guests round or in the snug, him and his stupid moves always has me knocking. Clickety-clack! I want to chuck my pieces at him, the silly bugger. There again my mother nearly winded Arthur, too, with a sharp elbow when she was leading with Diamonds, what with Arthur kaylied and standing right behind her pulling “significant faces” to one and all. There’s five bob on and a pop at the raffle with most hands, he’s just not serious enough, Grace says so.

You get unsteady with that new table in the shed, have to put it on your knees, not allowed in the house, man, the stink is something rotten apparently according to her, so I’m out here and need to build the figures for the elite units. On the wire armature, you build up, according to Aeromodellers, with a mix of banana oil and plasticine. When finished, the figure will be given several coats of polyurethane varnish to form a tough, hard skin.

Right, so:

Plaster of Paris - Chemists at Oakleigh or the Arcade

Dental Plaster - Chemists 

Plasticene [SIC] - Model shop (+ pick up new British Hussar kit)

Hardboard - Intack 

Wire - Intack

Washing Bowl - Asda or hardware on Warner Street (buy one, no point getting into a fight, ball of tough yarn too).

After assembling everything I have to make the mould and leave it for two days to dry. So lock the shed. There’s a hedgehog family under there now, they peep out. I have a bucket to put the waste in and leave it locked inside, so they can’t poison themselves; I still feel affal about cutting that toad in half with me spade, when I was making the new compost heap. And the time those young hedgehogs drowned in that pit full of water in the backs, you could hear it. Oh, never again.

The unsteady zone is found in the Minutes of the Labour Housing Group Meeting held in Council Chambers on 2nd May, 1949 at 7pm. Where presentations were made to Councillors Jake Wood and Tom Smith on their retirement from the Council office, serving continuously 27 years and 30 years respectively. The meeting closed at 8:15 pm signed by Councillor James Foster, and Billy Arthurs scores no. 1 in the 1947 Final, while Rutherford fails to stop Scott’s shot from screaming into the net for no. 2 on 49 minutes. Both goals illustrated in cheap and early manufactured blue Biro pen with red pencil denoting Burde FC (Captain, Billy Middlemass, number 5, Centre Half).

An accompanying post to this Rule, with relevant illustrations, can be found in the Museum of Photocopies.