1001011010

I got a score of 3705 the other night, experimenting with the slightly different approach to memorising binary digits, and that made me nostalgic for the good old days of 2004. At the world championship that year, I set a new world record of 3705, and everyone thought it was really great. Actually, that's still higher than anyone else has managed in a competition, which surprises me a bit, but in these modern times I desperately need to get back over 4000 if I want to win competitions. Only by comfortably beating my rivals (who all get 3500-ish) in binary and cards can I make up for my comparative feebleness with decimal digits, names, words and so on.

Ah, 2004. When you could cause debate and consternation by getting a score of 80 in historic dates, a pack of cards in 32.90 seconds was astonishing, when my closest rivals were Austrian instead of German, when the world championship was in Manchester rather than Beijing, when I used to actually break world records on a regular basis. I miss those days.

Tomorrow is my last big practice before the German Championship - which, even in these days when there are Chinese people to worry about, is still the best guide to who's going to be trouble at the Worlds. I still have no idea whether I'm going to win or come seventh.