Cities torn between Stamford Bridge and his dream team It reallocates this is B.B.C. 5. A doctor working for Russia's military intelligence agency the G.R.U. Has been identified as the 2nd suspect in the Salzburg nerve agent attack he's been named as an exam to Michigan by the investigative website Belling cat is our security correspondent Gordon Corera what I think it does do is raise more questions about Russian narrative and about the competence of the G.R.U. That question again about why it's been so easy to identify their supposedly undercover intelligence officers there are reports out of Russia today that Vladimir Putin himself is very unhappy with the G.R.U. Donald Trump's controversial new Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has been publicly sworn in at the White House he had faced an F.B.I. Inquiry over sexual assault allegations the Senate confirmation process was contentious and emotional that process is over my focus now is to be the best justice I can be I take this office with gratitude and no bitterness mystic Haven't I had denied the accusations president Trump's apologize to him for what he says was a campaign of destruction based on lies. A group of M.P.'s once millions of householders in England and Wales to be forced to have water meters installed the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee says that all water companies should be allowed to introduce compulsory metering to help save water Jack you're Landrover says no jobs will be lost despite a 2 week closure it is factory in Solihull at the end of the month it says falling demand for diesels is to blame. One in 5 surfers Save the Children say they've experienced harassment or discrimination in the past 3 years the review of workplace culture follows complaints about the charity's handling of sexual misconduct allegations against 2 former senior executives Here's our reporter Mandvi Rana it suggests that there needs to be more collaborative working with staff having a more ethnically and socially diverse workforce and board of trustees and reviewing it whistle blowing arrangements to try and stop anything like this happening again in addition to this is well though the Charity Commission is also carrying out its own investigation charities apologised for past failures the British Film Institute says the U.K. Film and T.V. Industry generated a record 7 point $9000000000.00 pounds in 2016 helped by government tax reliefs report found that more than $600000000.00 pounds in relief led to spending on movies on high end T.V. Like the crown. Much of Google's social network Hugo plus is shutting down after up 250-0000 users had their data exposed the company says a bug in its software meant information that people believed was private had been accessible by 3rd parties and short Moshe's girlfriend has released a statement saying she's now free it's after pictures emerged of him kissing his Strictly dance partner catchier Jane's Rebecca Humphries says the photos were taken on her birthday when she was home alone Steve Holden's from Radio one you speak if Shawn and catches stay in the show Saturday is just going to be about them it kind of takes away from what the other dancers and the other celebrities are doing and it just it just becomes slightly too much a couple previously apologized Betty Glover has the Sports Lead and has are says he's torn between signing a new deal at Stamford Bridge and a dream move to re-arm the Dritte he has 2 years left on his Chelsea contract the F.A.A. Is investigating comments made by Manchester United boss Joe say Marino as he walked along the touchline after Saturday's 32 win over Newcastle 38 shows Marino appears to have sworn in Portuguese Leicester defender Ben chill while is being called up to the England squad for the nation's league games against Croatia and Spain he replaces the injured Luke Shaw England captain Harry came in well strike again with Baylor among the players revealed as Ballon d'Or nominees 11 Premier League players were named in title including never pulls Mohamed Salah and Manchester City's Kevin de Bruyne or England's Lucy bronze and Frank among the 50 nominees for the women's award in rugby league St Helens fullback Ben Barber has won the $20000.00 Man of Steel award Meanwhile Wigan morea Shaun Wayne has been named coach of the year we get more face Warrington in the Super League grand final on Saturday this is B.B.C. 5 Live in digital form smartphone and tablet the weather in red. The whales are expected to have a dry today with a good deal of foam sunshine and light winds Scotland and Northern Ireland will remain cloudy and whites with a fresh south westerly wind the 1st for news and the best life for this is B.B.C. 5 Live. 8 with sharp. How can it benefit a biographer when a subject has been brought out of the cheater goom so convincingly by the raw and watchful figure who glides through Hilary Mantel's novels and as and brought to T.V. By all the acting skills of Mark Riley and Thomas Craughwell 1st as he is a subject of a biography by the professor of the history of the church and orcs for it dammit McCulloch Professor MacCulloch makes the high claim that as Henry the 8th supreme fixer Cromwell shaped a great revolution in his own country's affairs which has in turn shaped much of the modern world so important but such a challenge for the biographer perhaps a better subject for a novel. This I think is because there's a lot missing from the historical record I mean the archive I used in spent 5 years of my life with is really awkward because 5 years it's huge but it's very skewed it's all the things that people wrote to him not the things he wrote to other people and in other words if you're looking at a desk in your office it's the intro not the outré what's happened to the other trader Well the thing is that he would have had what would constitute the tray in his own files he would have had the letters out in the very last draft that his clock had prepared before he took to it and said Right to a fair copy now and send it out so he would have kept the drafts there would have been as big an a tray as there was an there is an interest I think what happened was that when he was arrested in 1540 for treason and then in executed his household heard of having heard about this and the king's men turned up they spent several nights burning the tray because of all the grounds that it's the things that you write to other people that incriminate you not what other people write to you you know it was a good try it didn't actually save Thomas Cromwell but they made their best effort and what that means is you can't hear his voice there are about 300 letters of his surviving but there are other people archives how annoying for you not to be able to hear him does he come across to you. As that sort of. Rather resent figure that Mark Rylan sports Well I think the cleverness of runts his performance and in fact Hilary Mantel's novel behind it is that she's picked up on that she's heard the fact that you're constantly getting the voices of other people and he sits in the middle of this I know exactly how she she felt because as I read these documents. Thousands on thousands of letters from other people at the end of a day I was just. Why act with exhaustion because all these voices wheedling and complaining and telling him bad news just occasionally good news you get the sense of a man sitting there watching and that's exactly what Hilary Mantel provided in novels and that's what Mark Rowlands gave us on the television that those of inscrutable weary look outwards to the world. Difficult for you he we know came from Putney the home of yuppies and you know Boat Race regular But but in those days probably wasn't really very much was it no but it was more like as a motorway service station because because the Thames the River Thames on which it sat was the great highway from the city of London up river to all the royal palaces so the good folk of Putney would see all the great men and great ladies of the land passing them occasionally stopping to have a beer a beer or something like that and so they'd be in the presence of greatness and probably literally was that it was a place where you had taverns halfway up the river to Hampton Court sort of thing and so that's the atmosphere in which Thomas Cromwell would have grown up he would have seen great people there himself he was from a comparatively humble background unit father was a brewer and had a mill Wandsworth that sort of thing right so this home would not have been a place where the great and the good refresh themselves or are passed by he would have seen them from a farm perhaps bowed to the great man when he was a boy. So was partly itself of any value to him I mean that the use the pop name when he later became a great man in the way that some people do these days when they are a normal go to the House of Lords he did exactly that night and that's one of the reasons why I have to confess I like him he made no bones about coming from this relatively humble background he wasn't a gentleman and he wasn't going to allow the snobbish an ability of England to forget that and the proof of that is that when he was made a baron you know there was a member of the House of Lords he took the title Lord Cromwell of Wimbledon now Wimbledon was the the great man up in which Putney lay. And the nobility of England would know that so every time he was annoyed and announced as Milord Krummel of Wimbledon they think are his that he whippersnapper from Putney that jumped up minister of the king and it's really a gesture of defiance against the old blue bloods who think that they ought to ruling land and yet in the 1530s when he was the King's great minister he was ruling England this is a story of a rise in RA and in the in the 1st place young crumb well leaves home in England that it turns up in Antwerp and then later on in Italy what am takes him to all those places in America or something well I think divine restlessness he got fed up with me and ultimately also got fed up with England which we have to remember was a fairly marginal place in 16th century Europe it was a 2nd rate power it wasn't one of the big boys so going to Italy was to put him right at the center of European culture great cities like Rome and Florence So that's why he went I think and there's no other explanation why should why should he go otherwise he had no formal education that we know about he went abroad to become educated and he certainly did in spades and your called him the best Italian in England was was he really that good he spoke fluent Italian and read it early and all through his career so people would give him books in Italian in his years of greatness cleared to please him and one of the books was actually Machiavelli's great work on the prints on politics I don't think Kamel actually needed it by that stage but he would clearly be interested and the man who gave him that book was a lot more one of the more cultivated Kratz in England said in the letter of giving him the book I've often heard you talk about Florence and the ways that of the floor and times so there's a fair. sue nation there he did he spoke fluent italian he spoke for ryan she spoke a bitter spanish up a bit of german and most crucially apart from the a tally and he spoke with a lattin good cult should latin and you need that if you get really going to be amount of power in the 16th century and and were you able to work a how as a young man on the may q did he how of a mentored that he have somebody who helped him on as a way Yes in Italy he did there's a story which is the main thing we know about him in his a very very obscure teenage years he turned up in Italy turned up in Florence and he was penniless You know so it's not like a gap year student it's own with no background no money desperate but he attracted the attention of a young Italian merchant and we got this vital name Francesco fresco Bali and fresco Bali Turkey Mark and put him in the family firm and that they were a great international firm there they still exist actually the risk is still in the wine trade and in the 16th century they'd been trading for 300 years wine to Northern Europe and cloth from northern Europe and the place in the middle of them to work where they had one of their offices so Frisk is the key and we know that that's right because in correspondence we've got letters from Francesco Bali later on when crime was becoming a great man so he set himself up and tree that's that's essentially as his 1st way of making a living yeah he's in the cloth trade and when he joined a guild in the city of London in the $156.00 in the 15 teens that it was a cloth guild that he joined so it's close to start with and that's what you sell to foreigners it's the is the main thing that the English make rink cloth decent cloth and after that a bit of lore that's quite extraordinary clearly taught himself English law in enough to do conveyancing that sort of thing that the the English gentry need a lot you know getting let land transactions done so it's a mix and there's so many people in early tutoring tonight that and the interesting thing then is why Thomas Cromwell Why does he emerge from this life to become the extraordinary figure he did and very late on in his career he's really for nearly 40 by the time anything interesting happened to him but he's had a long way to come I mean and it's a real indictment of Professor. So education when all these rich kids were sitting around getting a bit of Latin drilled into them and he's he's often proving himself year out there with the you could do that in those days but the normal way you do it would be by going into the church quite humble people could do that as long as they found a patron to send them to a good school and then to university but Kamel didn't do that this this start is extremely unconventional and yet it blossoms into this great career. He's deep into the trade and then Dalton says before a war isn't he tells us this marvelous business that we always here associate with Canterbury Tales of the partner but it's still going strong Oh very much so that the trade was really flourishing on the eve of the Reformation in a sense because the Reformation it's all about how you get through that 3rd State of the afterlife purgatory towards going to heaven and one way of doing it is by speeding up the process by getting an indulgence from a leading clergyman to say that if you do the right things you will have several 1000 years of purgatory and there are guilds associations which are devoted to selling indulgences and that's what Thomas Cromwell did he became associated with a super Guild which was run from Boston in Lincolnshire and they wanted a renewal of their indulgence from the pope and this would take a lot of resources a lot of money and of course what you really need them would be an Englishman who spoke Italian and so Cromwell was employed by them on a sort of consultancy basis sent off to Rome and the great Protestant historian John Fox in his act Book of Martyrs tells a story of great relish of Cromwell taking a group of singers 3 singers and some English jellies and getting the Pope when it was out hunting somewhere in the Italian countryside and the singers struck up an English 3 part melody and the jellies came out in the poser job he signed the documents and hey presto the Boston guild had got their indulgence renewed It's a funny story because the great thing about Thomas Cromwell was he would be become the leading figure in engineering the Protestant Reformation in tutoring in a Henry the 8th England but you know we all start with unexpected stories and expect that he sounds like like a very typical. Young English deal maker doesn't if you get one good deal under your belt the world opens up to you the whole career was about we're dealing seeing opportunities again that's why I think he's so fascinating he could just see the the moment and in the end the end of his career it would all go wrong but for so long that the secret of his genius was to create things from just random opportunities with the money he's able to build and sell a big hole in Austin Friars where where is Austin fryers on and why the peculiar name well if the Austin fries is the precinct of the Union friars who had a big house in the city of London and if you're thinking in the modern terms of central London you're thinking of Liverpool Street it's not near there that the street name is still there and the descendant of the Church of the Austin for us is still there but the point is that they rented out bits of their property was prime city real estate to have a house in Austin Friars you doing very well indeed and interesting only the people who very frequently live there were foreigners and Italians so Cromwell actually bought part of his house from a great Italian merchant dynasty who were allied GUESS WHO to the old friend dynasty that he'd known before. So he is knocking on 40 as you say and he decides that it's time. To enter Parliament you enter Parliament Norada different way and 1520 years you'd find a patron and the patron would get you some each by the borrowers who return members department he had all had to and in this case it's likely that his patron was a very great heiress to crash at the Marcus of Dorset because we know that in 1523 the year that parliament met. Cromwell had entered the service of the markers of Dorset 1st great patron trouble is we don't know which Barra of the hundreds of borrowers who returned them Police Department at the time. And that's fascinating that's one of the mysteries or didn't solve something for someone else to do and he joins cardno was in. This point as a unit of his power as what are well poached from the markers of Dorset for a very special purpose to set up and organize a tomb a tomb for the cardinal plus all the things you need for a big tomb in the early 16th century which is a fleet of priests to pray for your soul around the tomb any great man wants this and a fleet of priests you call it a call a game a college so Cardinal Woolsey set up the 2 colleges with a tomb and quite didn't quite know where the tomb was going to go but the point of all this is that the best people to make tombs are Italians the competition into making at the time had been king Henry the 7th with that magnificent to me you can still see in Westminster Abbey so called The Wall he wanted something either I'm better than that and so a Talon craftsman you get the most Italian Englishman you can find Thomas Cromwell That was his special skill out of all the sort of. Being lawyers and commercial people that swore he had to offer the cardinal my goodness and of course ultimately the project stalls because was his career stalls it doubly stalled because yes Woolsey fell from power because he couldn't solve an insoluble problem which was how to get rid of a marriage King Henry the marriage to Catherine American and then King Henry and his fury against Woolsey and his spite took that true for them to taking all the card to leave bits off the card in all caps and that sort of thing and confiscated the bits which were in a warehouse in Westminster but that's the secret of why Thomas Cromwell could go into the King's service after cardinals the service because he was the man who could then go with the same Italian craftsman about the 2 so tombs did come along the good it did crown well managed to keep out of the whole divorce mess no he found his way into it clearly the the what he did 1st for King Henry the 8th when cardinals he fell was to act as a sort of secretary for Woolsey related affairs because not just the 2 had gone the Kings way but all the as states that Woolsey had gathered for his colleague G.'s around the tomb lots of land transactions which Cromwell had set up so who better than to transform them transfer them to the king but after that then the big business around is the King's great problem they called it the King's great matter how to get rid of Catherine of Aragon and make the way for the lady with whom the king was genuinely passionately in love and Bullen. Not that. I think of that because you see it in the spelling at the time it will be you double. So I am rather snobbish about that prancing as to the people to spend why have. While we're on pronunciation do you think there will be crime where you Krummel coronal Yes because all the letters addressed to virtually all of them are addressed to master with a you actually if you try to pronounce that you find yourself dropping the W So it's much easier with all my sound and so I think they end up primal and that's sounds very like the way that 2 people spoke so when does he get his reputation that a scourge of the modest Well the fascinating thing was that it was Cardinal Woolsey who dissolved ministries to start with to create those hugely expensive colleges around the tomb so that was Thomas Cromwell 1st experience of dissolving ministry and he found it difficult he found it people were very angry in various localities about it that taught him a lesson and when it came when he came to suggest to Henry the 8th that a good way of getting money was dissolving ministry he said he must do it very slowly and partially because otherwise the trouble and he was overruled but the thing was he was absolutely right because as monasteries were dissolved in systematic ways it was a huge rebellion in the north of England the pilgrimage of grace which was the most dangerous rebellion that the early to the regime faced in the nearly brought Henry the 8th government down. How about his own career when our Cromwell's career after he falls into disfavor must be a very difficult time for us it was and it's a mark of his subtlety that he was loyal genuinely loyal to carnivals even virtue no one else was but he also gained the trust and interest of Henry the 8th he was a man who could get things done. But the the the other person in this. Various relationships is ample in who clearly came to loathe him and the loathing was mutual The reason was that Ann had seen the cardinal as the chief obstacle to her rise and she had me try to she had devised in effect destroyed the cardinal and that's one of the geniuses of Hillary Mantell in her novels that she spotted that this hatred of and born in and Woolsey and then Cromwell also hating and bull and that's that goes against all the way that history is being told in the early to the period they loathed each other it's a very greasy pole that he's climbing and yet he claims it with a startling success even becoming a royal councilor by $1531.00 and so it went on he made himself indispensable The only thing that Henry the 8th wouldn't allow him which he learned was he was controlling foreign policy why that is why the difference I'm not sure was something about the personal chemistry there so he never quite achieved the mastery that was you know had but he went to a very long way and he gets got the same power in running the church that cardinals he had had a different title coddles him being the pope's REPRESENTATIVE Well Kamel was the king's representative in the church although I'm wary of the parallel there's something about Henry that rather does remind you of Donald Trump he does strike the world in a rather similar way but does Cromwell whisper in his ear the way that Steve Bannon whispers and trumps here. yes and also how does own agenda i suspect that steve bannon has an had his own agenda with donald trump the a gendering cromwell's case i thought i would think so slightly more creditable it's about a propos pushing forward the reformation and i think the one thing that steve benen never really seem to notice when he made that comparison with thomas chromo was that what happened to thomas cromwell air souter a few more years you know it but it if you're a you good years or just a few a you you're absolutely right there is a real comparison to be made between donald trump and henry the 8th in this all about me that's the great to comparison was or was crumb well at the a logically part of the reformation i was he completely convinced by the by cover day oh and the wall ards and people like that who who democratized the the gospels yes it's quite clear that he was genuinely promoting reformation and then the proof RINGBACK or that is that it would do him no faber's the king was not a protestant and very often chromo would be promoting people whom the king profoundly distrusted in the case of william tindall the great biblical translator the keaton effectively connived in the destruction of william tindall and he was a friend and collaborator of thomas chroma and chrome well went on to promote the biblical translation which william tindall had made and made it official and the the king winter along with that an extraordinary subtle thing to do against the king's better instincts and it in in this definition of of chrome well as somebody who really made the modern world in a lot of ways we come to the act of succession which which sets the king as as head of the chart which and defines treason as any kind of opposition and the King's headship of the church. Is this high watermark of Cromwell's influence we reach 1534 in the story when we reach the Act of Succession and that's the point where I see things going dark. That chapter in Book I have entitled touching pitch by which I mean getting your fingers soiled in tar. At that stage Thomas Cromwell started doing bad things he became involved in destroying people for treason because the stakes were becoming extremely high the kingdom had split with Rome in effect he did split with a 1000 years of Christendom and that was a matter of profound seriousness it alienated Thomas More made him into the enemy of the kill he destroyed Thomas Moore he helped the whole process along he did things to make Thomas Moore's imprisonment less dire than otherwise might have been but in the end he did the king's will. Short circuiting an entire book and a lot more do you still have sympathy for crumb well at the end of his life I do I think the story is a Greek tragedy in that he overreached himself he overreached himself in what he could do he is the end tag Unism of the nobility caught up with him and so the story in the end is exactly Q Briss followed by Nemesis exactly how a Greek tragedy works but I see the bad things I see the ruthlessness I hear the bad temper and the bullying but I also see such are a chance. Man who could so exuberantly improvise we've talked about Mark Rylance the other portrayal of Hilary Mantel's novels on stage Ben Miles who leapt about stayed the stage for 2 hours in such energy and that's Thomas Cromwell to. Professor dam Mark Karr has the author of Thomas Craughwell a life described by Helen Mantell as the biography we've been awaiting for 400 years just after half past 3. Digits along my smartphone and tablet this is B.B.C. 5 Live B.B.C. News Hour with Claire Bailey investigative website telling cat says a doctor working for Russia's military intelligence agency is the other suspects in the Solsbury Novacek attack has been named as Alexander Michigan Brett Kavanaugh has been publicly sworn in as the new Supreme Court justice he had faced an F.B.I. Inquiry of his sexual assault allegations which he denied president apologized to him a group of M.P.'s want all water companies to be allowed to introduce compulsory metering the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee says it will help save water John washes girlfriend says she's now free I'm not a victim in response to pictures of him kissing his Strictly dance partner catchier Jones Rebecca Humphrey says I hope he gets what he wants from this I'm not sorry I took the cat though but he clever has the spokes Edin has odds that he's torn between signing a new deal at Stamford Bridge and a dream move to Ray on the Dritte he has 2 years left on his Chelsea contract the F.A.A. Is investigating comments made by Manchester United boss Joe say Marino as he walked along the touchline after Saturday's $32.00 win over Newcastle $38.00 shows Marino appears to have sworn in Portuguese Leicester defender Ben chill while is being called up to the England squad for the nations league games against Croatia and Spain he replaces the injured Luke Shaw England captain Harry CAIN Well strike again with Baylor among the players revealed as Ballon d'Or nominees 11 Premier League players were named in title including Liverpool's Mohamed Salah and Manchester City's Kevin de Bruyne or England's Lucy bronze and Franca among the 50 nominees for the Women's Awards in rugby league. St Helens fullback Ben Baba has won the 20000 Man of Steel award Meanwhile Wigan morea Sean Wayne has been named coach of the a regular face Warrington in the C play grand final on Saturday through the Japanese cross 3. S. . The reaction machine. If. You fast for news and the best lifespan this is B.B.C. 5 Live. It was shopping and now to discuss a game that's been going strong for over a quarter of a century Here's Adam Russia with Q. And A gathering the 1st collectible trading card game was unleashed by its creator Richard Garfield 25 years ago most matches are a battle between 2 wizards who employ spells artefacts and creatures which are depicted on individual cards to defeat their opponent and there are a lot of those cards out there between 282016 there have been was that of the coasts website tells us 20000000000 magic cards printed that's a white of cards equivalent 251-6292 of the games current had designer Mark Rosewater I got to speak to the very singular Mr Rosewater a little while ago and I asked him When did he join the company are actually part of that except that it got it right and that bit later since 2003 our you got started in magic mark is actually quite an interesting story in and of itself isn't it have did you get your start. So I actually was a player when the game came out in 1903 I was working down in Hollywood as a writer and I was working part time in a game store codes right in the very solitary profession and I wanted to just get out and I always have loved games so I was working in a game for part and mostly just you know active people and it was the summer of 9093 and people kept coming in and describing this game that they'd like I didn't know the name of it is as we described it and it sounded fascinating some a long time gamer so I tracked it down that summer I did a game convention and I started playing and I just really really enjoyed it and so what happened was obvious it's months later they put out a magazine for the game and I thought that the magazine didn't have a lot of advance content and so basically what I did is I submitted the idea proposal calm and then accepted it and saw through that I started doing 3 lance writing for the company at one point I was actually doing and I was working for 7 different sections of the company doing freelance work and I was coming up to Washington and on one of the projects and I said you know what I'd be willing to move here and they said When can you start so the game has always had quite a dynamic relationship with its audience the audience is was being key to the process of the game yes very much so one of the things about magic is so Richard Arculus the creator of the game he describes magic as being a game that's bigger than the box and what it needs as normally when you play a game of pick the game Monopoly for example you know when you open up a monopoly game look there's 40 squares of the same 40 squares every time anybody play anywhere you know if the same game that you're playing but magic when I look at a booster pack I will pick up 15 random cards and I'm making a deck of the cards that I all know so when I sit down to play somebody else they might have cards that never seen you know that when I'm playing I don't have all the pieces to the game and that part of playing the game we call the medic game is sort of interactive with a lot of. And so they get it has a very community aspect to it that part of playing the game is you know acting with other people you know the game really has this quality that I bring my element of the game to the game and other people bring what they like to the game and so as they're playing with different people you know the community kind of shapes the experience do you think you get a sense of who someone is by the kind of take that they build Oh very much very much like I see somebody and they show me their dept that you know that they built it tells me a lot about who they are I really get a sense of who they are as a person and who their hours again are and who they are is the magic is that part of the reason why people started playing 25 years ago and I probably still play now one in that 1st and foremost Magic is an amazing game that I'm a gamer I play games all my life I literally have to think like 5 book it's still the games at all and magic is my cover game because it is so dynamic it's just such a fun game and it's a constant changing lead our average player right now is played I think 10 years which is longer than the average length of most games and the reason we have such our young players played for so long is that you never grow tired that the other game that keeps reinventing itself and so you're constantly getting to explore you're constantly when you're building the new boosters a new building the new packs a new updates do you feel like you're always building for the future as well as kind of looking at the past because I'm Yeah one of the ways I was talked about sort of magic is that they say there's a famous arm I don't know where the aphorism comes from but that you can't step in the same river twice you know the idea to represent constantly moving and that you know when you experience the river it's always different magic is kind of like a river of gaming that like any time you interact with magic it's always going to be different than any moment in time you know if the game is it's sort of always in flux and as a gamer that it just it really exciting part of the game and one of the reasons that they get to people lead and it makes people play for such a long period of time is that beginners kind. Evolving and changing and every time we put out a new some new steps begins to change in a new way and some people are always excited like what is the game going to do next they're always looking toward the future but the core of the guy that's like the sign wasn't that guy in private I 1st saw it. In south London 25 years ago is still essentially the same isn't it there's still the the draw cards there are still the you know where you get energy from the land and so on and so forth that hasn't trying doesn't know not of the nuts and bolts of the game not changed I mean if you if you played Magic 25 years going to step down today you would recognise the game you are to wizards dueling with magic and yeah the basic elements of the game work hasn't changed but Richard made it very the game that so much design space and that we've been able to explore so many different facets while still keeping true the basic elements of the game over with the packs that you've worked on all of the Opdyke Steve worked on which is the one the one happiest with so which which is my favorite child are you saying basically yes any day you ask me what my favorites that is my answer will change just because you know you pour your heart and soul into anything you create I lot of games ninety's art and there's a lot of emotion that gets poured into it user the one I'm most excited by is the one that just the most recent book that like one of the great things about my job is I do something and then I get a WANT to the audience experience it and then I get it interact with them as they experience it and that adds up to someone who makes something it's a really great joy that we have a really passionate fan base and they have opinions on everything they do and so for example I have a blog I answer questions on tumblr I have a blog and in the last 6 years I've answered over 100000 questions so I just get a constant back and forth with my audience all then what they like what they don't like what they want to see and that that constant sort of interaction with them it's really dynamic it was my 3rd that are it changes like my. Now there's a 2nd came out last December it was called unstable that was sort of experimental set it's a step that played into the idea that magic is funded a little goofy or a little silly there and I spent 7 years working on that it took a long time to come out that's my current there except just cuz I pour so much time and energy into it and the fans just really loved it and so that is a great experience that's the relationship with the fans you said you've answered 100000 questions on tumblr and probably you know in other ways as well of all this time as that relationship changed has it been speeded up by social media and do you feel like you were more in touch with your audience now or are you just listening to these sort of squeaky squeaky kites My background is actually communications you know I went to school and studied communications and so I've always been fascinated with media of any kind and so it's also be like when the game started way back in 993 you know the Internet was very it's early days like that Usenet's where people discuss magic so I've tried to be very act of and you know I'm on tumblr I'm on Twitter I want Instagram I don't Google plus I mean I'm wherever I can be where the fans are out and so I thought I had a really good relationship with the fans and that I tried to talk not just the squeaky wheel I try to say hey what is your issue and that when find different people play Magic for very different reasons and that what I want to do is understand for each individual players you know what I need a game a magic I'm trying to get everybody happy so I have to understand all the different people play and magic is so dynamic and you the player have so much input on how you play it that we really have a very varied audience they want a lot of different things and so one of the things I try very hard at social media is up represent all the different people in all the different voices you've got to multispeed audience have new copy playing for a very long time you've probably got new players coming in how do you make an experience which is rich in for the people who have been there for a long time and act. For the people who are coming to it for the 1st time or playing their 1st few games Is this the point where you have to have a sober structured play community as well that you can have invitations be you can also have start to sessions that you've got this sort of structure this bill top to bring people into magic and hold them so that a couple things that help us one we've been very robotic organized place that's done there's millions of tournaments one around the world so that you want to play there is probably not too far from where you live but some place that you can play on a local Up all busy on that there's lots of approach where we get millions of dollars every year that are competitive that there's a lot of some social ways to play you know there's a lot of different avenues and ways to play 2nd magic is very robust and that we have we call formats which is there's a basic game system but there's different ways to play it there's different rules about what kind of cards you can include and some of them are very competitive and some of them are very casual and very friendly to playing with many people and so what the formats are law is to let people sort of play the way they want to play so you know if you're a top beginner and want to play in a more confined system you can play something we're just left cards are a lot you know much easier time building that but if you've been playing for 25 years and you love the depth of the game and the fact that there's over 800000 cards it's exciting to you and not intimidating hitters where you can play where all the cards back to all the parts and so that's another big way to do that and the 3rd thing we do is we have a ways to play online in fact we're just releasing today I'm not beat opens up for Magic the Gathering or enough and that has a total built into it so like if you want a way to learn how to play there's digital ways to help you and aid you so that you can sort of be interested good slowly in a way that's called before you get one of these magic does and there are so many ways to play to such a wide audience such a big community that it's not like it's only one way to do something one of the strengths that magic is there's so many different ways to experience it you know we've kind of why you code in an old 10. But I should have this marking on you there Mark you're making cards which offers a quick things there are the gangs which are you paying what magic 1000 been very successful in their own right and when they find somebody that basically a game breaker they can Earth it on the fly you don't have that do your stock if that's the right word with you you've released something and then over sudden people are manipulating it or abusing it or however you'd like to to think about it does that change do you think the way that you guys approach each individual card we have a tabletop version of the game and you also have different versions but yeah so that there's a thing called the G C The game developer conference that happens in sepsis go once a year that's kind of the big convention the game design in America and I was there I spoke there are a couple years ago and I remember standing there is a big star in the shell of the top 30 games and 29 of them are video games and magic and one of the things I realize is that one of the things that I actually think is the strength of magic is yes we can change things quite easily as a visual thinker and but we are a game of all these big games that right now we're getting where you sit down against another human being and actually interact with them you know face to face you know in a world where everybody is stuck in their screens and stuck sort of not having that person communication but I think we're like the big game that they're kind of our competitive advantage as you actually get to deal with people and I think that people crave that now there's a big rise in tabletop games because well Video games are a lot of fun obviously a lot of people like video games it's credit comforting to sort of still play and what I call the meatspace that you know when you actually get it down to real people interacting like I said the 1st time I saw Magic I was basically in a cave in chisel Hurst that I was there to pick up some stuff from live action role playing session I cannot imagine a situation where they would be a game shop or game cafe or indeed that this wonderful card café the. There is down here in Ipswich where you wouldn't see Magic the Gathering either available for sale or being played you have to really have an incredibly dominant position but one of the things that I think happened was so Richard introduced the idea of a trading card game and we were the magic was the 1st that a lot followed and I wait and I think obviously in the digital space you're seeing a lot of people doing it there but one of the things is yeah we we want to be a think game we were fun game I think we did a really good job of building organized places down and making sure that we built communities and yeah I mean I think Magic had the arm in the tabletop space have a nice dump this right now and that it is something that is known worldwide we're pretty 11 languages you know were played I think in a 140 or so older Not 140 countries you know that magic has become this sort of gaining phenomenon that really it's hard to be a gamer and not at least seem that if you don't play it at least you're aware of it it's hard to be a gaming phenomenon for 25 years isn't it you on the the market leader you're the people who introduced this concept to the gaming public and have sustained over 25 years I hate to ask the question but you are obviously very passionate about about magic and in a wonderful ambassador for is your successor already in the business and do you think that in 50 years time in 25 more years time when we're at the 50th anniversary we could have this conversation again I believe in magic Well let me I believe that one day I look in the party sharply I will die and at my funeral they will play magic that is what is going to happen arm Richard made it really robust again and that one of the reasons that magic is there done it it's not like it rejected again walked away that you know not that 5 games just the game I don't think it what it is today you know we had a very good a good team of people there constantly like reinventing and building on things like one of the things about in designs in designs that you know they should game designs about right. Did you get it back to you improve on it and so we've been making this game for 25 years we've got really really good because we've got so many opportunities so much iteration if rigid mythical robots if there's so much space for us to explore not every problem that I DID WE WILL world RINGBACK wants creative Dean we're totally building really exciting worlds we're building very interesting characters there's a story was that this little bit of that built into it that I mean I I really believe that it is like we're 25 years in this is the best your budget ever headed and I don't believe the battery will out I think we're keeping up with the I I think that it is something that's going to be around for a long time that was Mark Rosewater the head design of the magic has been with it since 1995 because Saundra core has not been with the Magic game for that long when do they 1st come calling Cassandra. 6 months ago maybe I think and what is it that they ask you to do because I've gone to a short story or shortish story of yours which is basically set in this newest expansion pack isn't it. That's exactly what I want to ask for ID I want that number let her Me OK so how does this work they are there are a set of cards though the cards have pictures the cards have descriptions of powers then so I come to you and say we have a thing but we think we need to set this in a sort of story context give something to the players that why is that kind of what was happening yes and now we have a new character and I wanted to bring my flesh to her and then just the card powers and if you description was so they came in they were like we would like a story like providing more background characters and which character is this you've even read and if you read comics monsters is that right. There might be a bit of an oversimplification that yes she is kind of like I'm very sure Ange coking my master. Right OK. Or you hybridizing things right have nots here so have they done this before with characters or is this the 1st time they've moved in this direction they've definitely done this before various characters only scenarios there was to work with Kate Elliot and Marco wells before this why do you think they came to you this time not this is not any way disparaging of your ability to write so but you all relatively new to the to the writing scene in particularly new to this kind of very wrong yes I am incredibly near the giant monolithic operation . And similar to that but I was actually very lucky apparently Marco Welles recommended me to the edit their magic and then to contact them I imagine that it really was that simple and that straightforward Yes and I completely fell over it was very very certain I was streaming for a while you know now magic itself how do you approach writing fiction for the for the magic universe it's not it's not the sole prize I would associate with sort of back stories and a depth of fiction if I'm being honest Oh I think that's kind of encourage historically speaking the Magic the Gathering has always had a lot of kind fiction there were novels for a very long time and college East that were released many of which I think pivot on the idea of a single line with write this expanding name and even Michael Skakel has written for Magic the Gathering So it's always a very lush world so why is it full on for my consciousness then is that simply because I'm not really a magic playa that is highly possible I mean it's been around for more than 20 years now and expansions continued to grow it's very easy to just kind of phase out a particular I.P.S. Specially for you have a lot of other work associated with like various other games that I can 1st remember in countering magic when I was down she's with her skates and seeing somebody play. You know asking them what they were up to in the extract to explain it to me I mean when did you 1st encounter magic house probably 12 I think I encounter year after it came out and then fell over a love of it really so yes if you've been collecting the you've been collecting implying that there been years where. Slightly obsessive about my collection I'm playing and there have been longer spans of years so I've tried to stay away from this addiction because it has it can be quite fierce be honest on expensive hobby. Which is simply the way of the world I suppose with these modern things I mean how much of the ground a lot of games are now covering Do you think was 1st opened up by magic I mean how important has it begun to the to the world of gangs it's well oh all the collectible card games that are out nowadays I imagine all of them have their roots in magic they look at the stuff they see and Cmdr a lot of fantasy things then you dream up new worlds based on a few lines and description big battles between. Me That is pure magic in my opinion but it's hard to say it's a property that's always been in the background of both cultures consciousness so I guess it was a see true type again it's hard to say because I don't think anyone really references that outwardly babying it's been an influence because if you look at all of the blocks that are easily Xanadu expansions they've done very interesting things with each well and each scenario the present is not part of the reason why it's endured than that they've not kept it static that it's kept evolving it's kept changing and developing Yes I definitely think so like one of the mean appeal at least for me in regards to know and then you expansion is coming out is just eagerly waiting to see when your story the end wrap Richard Goldfield himself has got a new game coming out hasn't he I mean but this one is predicated on the idea that no 2. Packs are the site that you cannot build the deck you can have to play the deck your given until such time as it becomes apparent that is massively overpowered and is taken away from you becomes ascended I think is the phrase that they use and that's an interesting development that something that couldn't have been done 25 years ago is now mass customization of that kind block China whatever it is that they're using to track the cards that didn't exist so we're looking innovation of a different kind in that space now and what we are like knowledge is opened up a lot of avenues for both ends of the admin and practical purposes So what about this story spinning that one has to do when you're presented with a deck of cards how did you approach it it was blatantly different I came in pretty early I didn't really get a look at many of the cards I was presented with several ideas as we bounce thoughts back and forth it was really based on the cards I was given a project brief and I had the opportunity to dark very in-depth with my editor to figure out what we're going to do with it so there's a kind of there's a kind of a deeper collaborative process that underpins what magic does yes well yes for me I'm not I can see the same for everyone else. I've been to League of Legends headquarters Rod games in Santa Monica I think it is over there in the States and the campers there and they have a whole department dedicated to the creation of back stories for all of their characters all of those situations the scenarios they've taken this idea of probably possibly for magical like you said magic is just in the background and they've blown it out enormously so that they have a whole universe a constellation of so fictions behind their characters is that important for players do you think that there isn't simply this character who does this thing there isn't this card that does this thing there is a backstory do we as players like to build narratives behind the games that we're playing I think it varies in. An importance depending on the player some people don't really care about and other people will care if you want little information they have to build the world in their heads but I think overall it doesn't matter if there is no backbone or story no trend of narrative it's very hard to give a damn about a game because Think Big and always in this thing washable a game of checkers or a game of poker it's thin a story without backstory is thin yet I know you've come from most of us come while we come from a background in science fiction's fandom but something I did for a long time and probably still do to our family of watching a show the other side thinking and somebody else me question about and I meet at least all to dramas what was calm a continuity or supply a kind of a narrative to the things I'd say and and say well that doesn't make any sense because this kind of stuff is happening which it becomes this kind of stuff players all of these kinds of games do you think they're going all instinctively storytellers Yes I think we're all instinctively start Well it's a human condition when I create a backstory all by shutting down the storytelling the player could do all the opening it up by giving people more points of information I think it definitely opened a new. Look at this issue storytelling is very much a human condition but we're also. Engineering to build our certain cultural touchstones. Look at everything we have to even the D.C. Universe in some weird way feels like a spin off from great mythology and so on having something to grow from is essential for a good story on your Twitter feed in the recent days you've been complaining about writing the sort of the things the interstitial to loading quotes on a guy. And I imagine not having never having done it the right to those kinds of things which are supposed to be if they are the best talk about we're going to be in a kind of an avocado for floating otherwise actually quite difficult. For me or. For anyone else. B.B.C. 5. It's 4 o'clock now the B.B.C. News the credibility the military talk to is named as the 2nd sole spree suspect and in sports as in has other cities torn between Stamford Bridge and his dream team it reality writes. This is B.B.C. 5. The 2nd man suspected of poisoning a former Russian spy in Seoul's Bray has been identified by an investigative website so gay scree Palin's daughter Yulia survives the attack in March and in Katz says a doctor named Alexander Michigan was working for Kremlin intelligence and you about as a specialist in Russian security at Boston College makes a lot of sense that this kind of hit team was comprised of one person of a kind of in control of the operation and then there's a medical doctor most likely with the kind of necessary training to safely handle the nerve agent to deployed against screwballs Donald Trump said sorry to his new Supreme Court justice for what he describes as the pain and suffering of his confirmation process Cavanagh had faced sexual assault allegations which he tonight he's now been publicly sworn in alongside the president those who stepped forward to serve our country deserve a fair. Dignified evaluation not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception what happened to the Kavanagh family violates every notion of fairness decency and due process Nicholas sturgeon will promote a message of hope and optimism in her speech to the S.N.P. Conferencing Glasgow later the party leader and 1st minister will close the event by hitting our SO what she says is unfolding calamity and despair Westminster prison officers in England and Wales will soon be allowed to use pepper spray known as POV on violent prisoners to be rolled out next year after a trial at 4 jails the prison officers.