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Mr. Linton was an extremely nice, chatty guy! I think he was as proud of his puzzles as he was of the tapestry. The only downside to the whole thing was that I could not stop talking about it for the rest of our honeymoon, to my wife's ever increasing annoyance. :-)

(Weird copy/paste error on the 6th post in this chain: it should say: In the huge back room of the Giant Jersey, the husband, Michael Linton, waited there with his creation: a full recreation of the Bayeux Tapestry, hanging on the walls in a series of metal frames.)

A postscript: I forgot to mention that Mr. Linton was also a prolific game and puzzle designer, and there are puzzles literally encoded into the artwork of the mosaic. There’s a link to his many puzzles on the tapestry’s website: www.1066.co.nz/Mosaic%20DVD...

1066.co.nz

1066 A Medieval Mosaic

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Eventually Mr. Linton brought his Guinness World Record Award-winning creation to a wider audience, taking it on tour around the U.K. I’m not sure where it ended up, but it will always remain one of the greatest things I have ever seen. And we stumbled upon it in the back of a sweater shop.

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I could not stop staring, not stop thinking about what an incredible feat of perseverance I was witnessing. Did I mention THREE MILLION METAL BITS? And while I’m no art critic, the quality of the reproduction was astounding.

A portion of the main webpage screen for Michael Linton's project. It includes a visual of the tapestry hanging on the wall, with text overlaying it that reads:

1066
A Medieval Mosaic
A complete recreation of the Bayeux Tapestry handcrafted in 3 million tiny pieces of steel - by Michael Linton

There is also the image of the Guinness World Records seal in the upper left corner.

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Then he spent *another 10 years* painting a faithful recreation of the Bayeux Tapestry onto that steel backing. The whole thing, when finished, was 64 meters long and weighed 350kg. (That’s 210 feet and about 770 lbs. for the USAers among you.)

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The Giant Jersey went through a LOT of knitting machine wheels, each of which had 72 small teeth around its edge. Mr. Linton, over the course of *10 years,* hand-clipped THREE MILLION of those teeth, and then spread them into a flat layer backed by tape. These formed the canvas of his creation.

Two steel knitting machine wheels, along with at least a hundred small teeth clipped from similar wheels. These are arrayed on a metal sheet, as is a tweezer-like tool meant to manipulate the teeth.

That by itself was pretty cool, but it’s not the mind-boggling part. There are, after all, many copies of the Bayeux Tapestry out in the world. While we marveled at the detail and accuracy of the recreation, Mr. Linton explained how he made it.

In the huge back room of the Giant Jersey, the husband, Michael Linton, waited there Me (right) and Michael Linton, standing in front if his great life's work: a recreation of the Bayeux Tapestry painted on a backing of THREE MILLION KNITTING WHEEL TEETH

Me (right) and Michael Linton, standing in front if his great life's work: a recreation of the Bayeux Tapestry painted on a backing of THREE MILLION KNITTING WHEEL TEETH.

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She offered no hint as to what waited for us back there, and honestly, it seemed a little suspect. But we were young and curious and it was only a dollar each, so, sure, let’s see what little hobby the husband has been indulging. Friends, *nothing* could have prepared us for what we saw.

But then the woman running the shop asked us if we’d like to pay a dollar to see her husband’s personal project in the back. She gestured to a simple door cordoned off by a short length of velvet rope on poles.

One store in town was called “The Giant Jersey,” and a sign outside promised that inside was the world’s largest jersey. Of course we went in, and there, on the wall, was the promised sweater. It was satisfyingly huge. We admired it for a minute or two and took some photos before turning to leave.

Me, an American tourist on his honeymoon, standing in front of the world's largest jersey, in a store fittingly called The Giant Jersey, in Geraldine, New Zealand

23 years ago, my wife and I spent our honeymoon on the South Island of New Zealand. One day we took a detour through the little town of Geraldine, which was holding an “arts and plants festival.” We parked our rental car and walked around the town, enjoying various arts and plants.

Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

With all the Bayeux Tapestry Madness going on right now, this seems like a good time to tell you about one of the most incredible things I’ve seen in my life. It was, in fact, a Bayeux Tapestry. Not *the* tapestry, mind, but one that in some ways I find even more remarkable than the original.

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Also true if the question was changed to “fave game made before 2027.”

The box cover for the video game “Star Control 2” which includes a man’s face, an alien, a planet, and several spaceships, all arranged in a montage.

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Whenever someone observes a clock in our kitchen showing a numerically interesting time (like 11:11 or 12:34), they shout the time and everyone in the house makes chicken noises while flapping their arms. (My younger kid did that when she was 4, and it’s still a house tradition 15 years later.)

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Hi Alexx! Hope you're doing well.

Well, let's say the statute of limitations has run out on that one. But I'm still giving you a stern glare! :-)

You're welcome. Thanks for playing it! Fun fact: I wasn't just co-lead designer (with the talented Alexx Kay) but I also did the voices for Deja Vu, the Praetor, and the Kill-a-rilla. :-)

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Well, my game work was mostly in the rear-view mirror when our branch of the self-pubbed fantasy book tree was starting to grow. :-) (There's some irony that I didn't do much writing for games; at LG, Austin Grossman did the writing, and then at IG it was Ken Levine. Both better writers than me!)

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Whoa! A Terra Nova player in the wild! 😀 Thanks for being one of the 17 or so people who bought it.

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Hey there! I guess it stands to reason that Gail's feed would attract a certain flavor of good-natured nerd. :-)

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The one that most people have heard of is the original BioShock. The ones that still get me Old Skool Cred™ are System Shock, Thief, and System Shock 2 The one most obviously pursuant to your interests is Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich. Also: Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri, Card Hunter

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Sure! No great claim to fame, though in a bygone age I worked on some video games you may have heard of?

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That is hilarious, but also I am outraged on your behalf!

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"It's a poor way to go in cold." Yeah, I can get behind that. I'm in my late 50's with a large circle of nerdy friends, so I'm not often in "cold" situations anymore. But I wouldn't try to spring a game on a group that included strangers unless they all showed interest first.

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That implied, to me, that you were discounting a whole set of people who genuinely give enthusiastic consent to adding games to their gatherings and consider them improved. And I thought it was "weird" to discount those people. That's all I was saying -- or meant to say, at least.

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Just deleted a long-winded response, in favor of something more concise: 1. I phrased that poorly, and I apologize. I don't think you are weird or have a bad relationship with consent. 2. You said: "no social situation is ever improved by *adding* a game." ...

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...(ironically, given how you phrased your response) implied a lack of up-front "well, that’s not how I experience it" thinking on your part. tl;dr: I don't think you're weird or have a bad relationship with consent, and I apologize for implying either of those.

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...is going to be forced to play a game against their will, or even to continue playing a game they're not enjoying. That's not something that happens with my friends. But I'm living proof that social situations can always be improved by games if everyone is enthusiastic about them.

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

My social circle is so game-saturated that any social invite -- "Hey, why don't you come over for dinner?" -- comes with an implicit "and maybe some games" even if not mentioned up front. And it's always delightful! You conclusion comes with a weird implied lack of consent, as though someone...

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Glad I'm not the only one with a Tolkien shelf!

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

GRADE OF EXECUTION? Or simply EXECUTION? Though the suggestion above of DEATH SPIRAL is brilliant and better than either of these.

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go was supposed to be a cautionary tale, not an activity guide! 🤦

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I can try to dig up an EPUB and send it to you. And if you’re jonesing for D&D-feeling books that might be available for Kobo, I can suggest some that are better than mine. :)

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

My career was as a video game designer, which required a great deal of both creative writing and math. I was first hired to write conversation trees for a fantasy game, but later, for many years, I was the "spreadsheet guy." How many laser blasts does it take to kill a mutant? Well, let me tell you!

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Well, I certainly enjoyed the first one!

Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Quick shout-out to fantasy novelist @rjbarker.bsky.social, as I embark on the second book in his Wyrdwood trilogy. I loved his Wounded Kingdom books. I loved his Tide Child Trilogy even more. And Wyrdwood's amazing world-building is giving me "Tide Child but in the forest" vibes in the best way.

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Dorian Hart @dorianhart.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

(Of course, as soon as I posted that, I found a different dictionary that says you can use it for non-persons, so I guess it's probably fine? 🤷‍♂️)