I went to the Isleworth Gamers last night, a new club based in a lovely pub by the river Thames. They are getting organised with a Geek Guild and a blog. They meet every Wednesday at 7.30pm. They are a very relaxed, welcoming bunch and if you are in West London, you should go along.

Last night I taught my favourite game, Age of Steam, to three first-time players. We played the Southern England map, which is little too spacious for four, but it’s simple and it’s always nice playing a game on a local map.

The Age of Steam FAQ is useful. Considering I have played the game so many times, I made two bad rules mistakes:

• I played that only the first player pays full auction price, in fact the first two players pay full price.
• I let someone ship a cube back to its starting city.

Steerpike wrote an amusing post about teaching games to newbies the other day. I bore this in mind and kept the stabilising wheels on. There were no bankruptcies and three of us were in with a chance going into the last round. They seemed to enjoy it, although there were the usual reservations about how the game is so unforgiving and heavy. They all wanted to play it again, so maybe next week.