"The coming of the Second World War spelt the death knell of the old pier. The theatre was closed in late May 1940 and has never reopened. The neck of the pier was cut by explosive charges and the pier head was systematically booby trapped against the feared invasion. Eventually the booby traps were cleared and, in 1946, the pier was restored and reopened."

21st century renovation seems to be moving onward, disappointingly, although more of the surrounding seafront than the pier itself. Fierce locals are rightly opposing the beaming in of glass-and-dayglo shops and restaurants. Doesn't seem to be anyone campaigning against actual restoration of the pier, though, of carefully maintaining its desolate, darkly-reflective austerity, and all that. Think of the starlings.

"Example: Mantisman has Precognition, Tai-Chi and Big, Gnashy Claws. He has 70 Energy at the start of the round, and chooses to assign 20 Energy to his Tai-Chi Power (choosing Plastiqueman as its target), and 50 Energy to Attack and Defense (using Precognition, he can choose how many to assign to each later)."

"If the snipers didn't have violence in their life, I don't think they'd be as violent as they are."

Over on the other side of the computer-game/violence debate, a fund-raising thermometer is gathering dollars to buy President Bush a Playstation 2, along with some appropriate games and an extra controller for Cheney:-

"Without the catharsis that video games provide, Bush has no way of fulfilling his militaristic fantasies other than actually fighting wars."

"Only a drop has to force its way through, and before long, cracks are spreading like ants running from a nest. Each imperceptible hairline is squeezed open into a gash, a fracture, a chasm, and then everything bursts at once, and you're hit with a crumbling hail of... whatever it was that used to protect you, and then drowned by a terrible flood of... whatever it was that it used to protect you from."