City-trained priest faces sex probe

I've just been looking through the nooks and crannies of my flat for the little clock radio that I always take to the MSO with me but don't otherwise use. So it's had two years to gradually become submerged by all the junk I hoard. I didn't find it, so I'll have to take my big portable radio with me, but I did come across a pile of local newspapers chronicling my appearance at the first MSO in 1997. Nowadays, of course, I'm so used to being an international celebrity that I don't bother to keep all the newspaper articles about me, but in those days it was something new and exciting.

If you're wondering about the subject header, that's the banner headline in the Boston Target directly above a picture of me which was attached to the smaller article saying I was going to the MSO, rather than the story about the priest. Yes, the Target did a story just about the fact that I was going to compete - the MSO went mad with publicity in the first year, and pestered all the local news hacks with press releases about each of the thousands of people who'd registered. And since every day is a slow news day in Boston (the vicar in question lives in Southend and was arrested in Romania, but went to Lincoln Theological College many years ago) I got some pretty hefty coverage.

Here's a couple of scans of the breaking news stories after I'd won the silver medal in the one-day intelligence championship. God, I looked ugly in those days. The hair's arguably an improvement over my current style, but I genuinely thought the moustache gave me a sort of suave, Clark Gable kind of look.


The Lincolnshire Free Press covers the entire county! 


This was a front page story, albeit in the bottom corner under the thrilling tale of a Boston couple who were no more than a couple of miles away when Princess Di died 

Anyway, today I'm off to the tenth MSO, and then straight down to the British Othello Championships next weekend. As I've mentioned before, the MSO is traditionally a week where I don't watch TV, or check my emails, or let anybody know whether I'm alive or dead, so this will be my last update till September, I'm afraid. But it's good to get away from technology and go back to nature once in a while. Even if most people's idea of getting back to nature doesn't involve going to the University of Westminster to play board games with nerds.

Gee willickers!

I mentioned nearly a month ago that I was feeling inclined to write about why I love Sniffles, the relatively unknown Looney Tunes mouse from the late 30s/early 40s, and then have always had better things to write about of an evening. Well, no more!

Here's our hero, listening to the opening bars of "Mutiny in the Nursery" in his third cartoon, "Sniffles and the Bookworm"

Sniffles first appeared in "Naughty But Mice", in 1939. It's been said that Sniffles was the first character created by the great Chuck Jones, although I'm not so sure about how accurate that assertion is. Anyway, Sniffles is perhaps the last gasp of the original policy behind Warner Bros cartoons - to copy what Disney were doing as closely as possible. Sniffles is pure Disney, at least in his first appearances. He's a small, cute mouse, who explores a series of beautifully drawn big stages, in gentle but extremely entertaining ways. Cute was already becoming rather unfashionable in cartoons at that point, with Chuck Jones and his fellows leading the way in the wacky revolution, but Sniffles appeared in nine cartoons in the next three years - quite an impressive strike rate for someone who wasn't Porky, Daffy or Bugs.

You can see a classic adventure here at Dennis's blog, along with no end of other great cartoons. Look out too for Sniffles making friends with an electric razor in "Naughty But Mice" - it's genuinely beautiful.

Sniffles's voice varies quite a bit from cartoon to cartoon, and nobody's entirely sure who provided it. It was probably any one of four or five perennially-uncredited female voice actors working for Warners at the time, whichever one was available on the day. But they all do a wonderful job with his wide-eyed innocence and gee-whiz exclamations.

Then, in the last of his original run of cartoons, "The Brave Little Bat", Sniffles goes out for a drive in his adorable little clockwork car, which breaks down in spectacular fashion. He takes shelter in an old mill, where he meets a cheerful little bat with what turned out to be a highly contagious case of verbal dysentry. Batty's dialogue is hilarious:

Sniffles: Hello!

Batty: I heard you come in, why'd you come in for? I'm glad you came in, 'cause I get kinda lonesome in here by myself sometimes 'cause there's nobody here but me and now you, where'd you come from? I live up there and I'm a bat, are you a bat? Hello!

All delivered rapid-fire without a pause for breath. Sniffles and Batty have an adventure escaping a cat (Sniffles's reaction to finding himself on a high roof beam is another must-see moment), and then that was the last we saw of him for a couple of years. He returned in 1943, having acquired Batty's speech mannerisms, in the altogether different "The Unbearable Bear"

Still directed by Chuck Jones, but this wasn't a Disney-style cartoon. The backgrounds are stylised and simpler, and the plot is fast, zany slapstick in the quintessentially Warner style - a fox burglar breaks into a policeman bear's house to rob it, but is discovered by Sniffles. ("What are you doing there? What are you doing with that safe? I know what you're doing, you're a burglar and you're burgling that safe 'cause burglars always burgle safes, why do they? Why are you a burglar? It's against the law to be a burglar 'cause burglars are crooks and I'm going straight upstairs and wake up the lady bear and tell her you're a burglar and she'll come right down and beat your old burglar head in...")

Thinking outside the box, the fox tells Sniffles that he's Robin Hood, you know, as robs rich blokes for the benefit of the poor. Sniffles is convinced - "Gee! Are you really Robin Hood? You don't look like Robin Hood but I guess you must be Robin Hood if you say you are Robin Hood 'cause Robin Hood wouldn't tell a lie. Hello Robin Hood, I'll help you rob the rich and give it to the poor and I'll stand guard and if anybody comes I'll warn you, like this!" (grabs a spoon and pan and starts banging it deafeningly loudly)

Then father bear comes home, drunk at three o'clock in the morning and not wanting to wake up his wife, who starts sleepwalking, and there's four-way chaos with Sniffles running around trying to help Robin Hood and chattering cheerfully away nineteen to the dozen. It's one of my favourite cartoons of all time, and as soon as I acquire the capacity to share my videotaped cartoon collection with the internet, I'll share it with you.

Sniffles only appeared in two more cartoons, and by the last one, "Hush My Mouse", in 1946, innocence was definitely fading. In the post-war era, Warner Bros were embarking on their golden age, but 'outwit the hunter' cartoons were hugely en vogue, and even Sniffles got in on the act. His chatter and naivete seem to be an act here, as he tricks a stupid cat trying to collect mouse knuckles for his exclusive restaurant. Then he disappeared, apparently unable to compete with the influx of new Looney Tune stars. He's continued to pop up now and then in these nostalgic times - he had a Tiny Toon Adventures counterpart (Little Sneezer), which is more than can be said for some more famous toons, and he made a wonderful guest appearance on an episode of Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries as recently as 1999, playing a Manx mouse. He never did lose the constant babbling. It's a problem that I can identify with...

Back to normality

Just for today and tomorrow. Which means that I basically have to fit two weeks of work into two days, with the year end accounts coming up as soon as I get back from the MSO. In among that I also need to tot up the BOF's accounts for the AGM in a couple of weeks - I'm going down to Crawley straight from London, without a trip back home in between, so I need to not only get the treasurer's report done before I go down there, but remember to take it with me.

All of which means that I had to work late tonight, and haven't got the time to write a great deal here. Sorry, fans!

I, quite genuinely, Haven't Got A Hat

As an example of how mentally and physically exhausting I find the world memory championships, I left my hat on the train last night. And I didn't even realise until this morning! Nobody seems to have handed it in, either, but I'll check again in a couple of days (I've got the day off on Friday). It would be terribly anticlimactic to lose the poor thing like that, after all these years.

Anyway, what other things happened on the last day of the world championships? We ran about five or six hours behind schedule, as usual. They really should stop using that timetable, because it really is impossible to stick to it. Ed helped keep things running smoothly by getting stuck in a lift at one point. When the prizegiving ceremony finally got underway, they announced the correct scores this time (in the individual category, at least - the team scores were wrong), but gave the wrong medals to everyone (there's bronze, silver and gold for each of the ten disciplines, with the discipline names written on the back. Impressively, I ended up with the gold for abstract images, and the gold AND bronze for names and faces! I certainly didn't expect that!). We swapped them among ourselves afterwards. I hurt my hands clapping so much. Clemens got so used to going up and getting medals that he forgot he only came fourth in the hour cards, and was halfway up to the stage for that one too before he realised.

Afterwards there was a celebratory dinner at Simpson's on the Strand, which I couldn't go to because I had to get home - by the original schedule I would at least have had time for a drink, but as it turned out I had to dash off straight after the prizegiving (Andi left before it, as usual). Tony Buzan, who seems to believe that all the competitors are millionaires too, had arranged a special cheap price by the standards of this poshest restaurant in London of only £25 each for the meal. I'm sure we were all very grateful - there was talk of people organising a rival dinner at a more reasonable price, but I don't know if that happened.

So that's it for another year. After today's trip to sunny Rotherham, it's back to work tomorrow for a whole two days before heading back darn sarf for the MSO. It's a tough life, isn't it?

It was nearly complete, it was nearly so sweet

Well, evil has triumphed over good, as Josh perhaps a little over-melodramatically put it, and Clemens remains the World Memory Champion. Lots to write about, but it's late and if I don't go to bed right this second, I'll never be able to get up in the morning and I've got to go up into the wilds of Yorkshire for a meeting at one of our companies. Had I known I was going to hand in my notice, I would have booked today off rather than arranging something like that for the day after the world championships.

Anyway, in brief I got 27 packs in the hour cards, which is huge and very cool - that put me fractionally in the lead with three events to go. I got a respectable 156 in words, Clemens and Gunther got roughly the same, Joachim got a massive 203 but Boris kept the world record with 214. But then I messed up all three trials on the spoken number, which is always a real possibility with me, and Clemens got his usual massive score, putting him safely in the lead and Gunther safely in second place.

That left me having to try for a very quick time in speed cards, and hope that Clemens didn't get a half-decent score. He did get a half-decent score (50 seconds) in the first attempt, whereas I didn't manage to get anything (tried 33 seconds but didn't come close to getting it right). What I should have done then is record a slower time and snatch second place, but I went for a very fast one again because a) having no chance of winning the title I might as well go out with a bang, or b) Andi was sitting next to me and quite obviously aiming to beat my record, although c) none of this occurred to me at the time until Gunther pointed it out and I was just set on a pattern of trying to go as fast as possible. So anyway, I messed it up again. And Andi did beat my record. And Joachim recorded a perfectly acceptable time to beat me for third place.

So in the end, it was exactly the same as last year, Clemens-Gunther-Joachim-me-Boris, only with much higher scores all round. Frustrating, because I was pretty darn close to my best form this year, and it just wasn't good enough. Still, it's given me a target to aim for next time round.

Anecdotes and rambling to follow tomorrow, assuming I'm awake. Memory competitions tire me out, and I don't think eight hours' sleep tonight is going to be enough...

Once More, With Feeling

Last night's entry was a bit dry and full of scores and statistics, I thought. There's a lot more to the WMC than that. I've just been to KFC with Boris, Joachim, Corinna, Daniela, Daren and James K (after Burger King with a similar group last night - junk food is brain food), and the conversations we have on that kind of occasion, as well as throughout the day, are fantastic. You'd be surprised how much there is to talk about on the subject of memory when a bunch of enthusiasts get together.

Anyway, today went pretty well, all in all. You may recall from last night's cliffhanger that Gunther was miles ahead, but with his best events behind us, and a whole pile of us fighting it out for second position. It turned out I only got 1440 on the hour numbers, which is disappointing - on the lower end of my estimate. Gunther, Clemens and Joachim all scored in the 1700s. Andi got exactly 1800, but Dr Yip topped the lot with 1820. Phil described it as a surprise, but it isn't really - he was always red hot on the numbers, and even now when he's only here to bring this year's batch of little disciples to experience the competition and hasn't been doing much training himself, he's still very good.

It's fun to watch people before and between events. The Germans tend to juggle - it's a national tradition (meaning Gunther does it and everyone over there thinks it must be great if Gunther does it), and it's meant to aid concentration. Others sit around chatting or staring into space, concentrating fiercely, depending on temperament. I'm a chatter, mainly. Ed always arrives at the very last minute, if not later. Some get there an hour early, just in case. There's the usual what-are-you-going-to-attempt-here kind of speculation, announcements like "Can anyone lend Daren a stopwatch because he's forgotten his?" (you'd be surprised how often this happens at memory championships. Clemens glanced at the four timepieces on his desk but decided he couldn't risk three of them breaking down. Someone found a spare one in the end.)

Names and faces, the first event of the day, went extremely well by my low standards. I scored 96, a personal best, and I think the 12th-best score on the day. Gunther did badly, as expected. Clemens broke the world record, Andi did well too, and Josh did a very impressive 156. Cornelia continues to be consistently very good at everything.

Speed numbers next, and I went for a safe-ish 324, and got 284, the best score in the first trial. Andi was the last to return to the room for this one, and Phil said (over the microphone and sounding probably a lot more venomous than he intended) "Congratulations on making us all wait, Andi." We were already running late by that point - memory championships always run late, by at least a couple of hours. There are no exceptions to this rule, and certainly not today. There was a bigger holdup between trials of the speed numbers when Joachim and Gunther asked for their scores to be double-checked (Gunther's was correct, but they'd genuinely made a mistake on Joachim). I tried a mad 468 second time round, but made a mess of it and didn't improve on my first score. It was still good enough to be the third best, but Gunther and Clemens both beat me. Operation catch-Gunther not going as smoothly as I'd hoped.

But never mind, event six is Historic Dates, my trump card. By this point Clemens had almost but not quite caught Gunther up, and I was lagging about 700 points behind them. Worryingly far, in other words - the standard is much higher than last year, and there's a lot more competition. But, after another lengthy delay when it turned out they hadn't made enough copies of the English-language version (expecting the Hong Kong contingent to want it in Chinese, but they didn't), I did produce a whopping 96 - a new world record and lots of lovely championship points. After announcing the results, Tony came to me and said "So, do you want to change the scoring system because you're just too brilliant?" (the scoring system was genuinely wrong back in 2004, thank you very much, and I think the new one's fair enough - and anyway, I need all the points I can get this year!)

So, after six of ten disciplines, here's the leaderboard:

1) Gunther Karsten 4459
2) Clemens Mayer 4423
3) Ben Pridmore 4103
4) Joachim Thaler 4090
5) Cornelia Beddies 3608
6) Andi Bell 3581
7) Boris Konrad 3222
8) Ed Cooke 2654
9) Corinna Draschl 2416
10) Yip Swe Chooi 2128

My original plan was to be in the lead by this point. As an illustration of how much tougher it is this year, in 2005 at this point I was winning, with a score of 3471.

Final event of the day was hour cards, and it was obvious that I'd have to do something good to have a chance going into the final day. Luckily, I think I did. Attempting thirty packs, more than anyone else, I did write down thirty plausible full sequences in the recall period. A couple involved educated guesses, but I would hope that I got at least 25 right. If I didn't, I'll be annoyed with myself, because it will be silly errors. But the buzz is that Gunther did disappointingly, and Clemens isn't all that great with cards, so if I've beaten both of them, it'll be a great finish.

Andi didn't recall any - he realised he wasn't going to get a good score and so left. But he is more here than he has been for the last couple of years, and talking in terms of definitely coming back on top form next time round. Which can only be good for the WMC.

Tomorrow it's random words, spoken numbers and speed cards. The first two of these I can do good scores on, but often don't. Clemens is very good at spoken numbers, and I'm going to need a top-notch performance to beat him. And I need to get a pack of cards in somewhere close to thirty seconds to make sure of it. I love the WMC!

Day One

...went just about according to plan. Although I know I could have done better than I did. If you remember, the plan was to do really badly in abstract images, which I haven't bothered to practice at all, and then to make up for it in the other two disciplines today, binary and hour numbers.

I did indeed do very badly in abstract images - a score of 57, which equates to about 220 championship points. Gunther, as in Cambridge, did really well - 228 raw score, about 920 points and a world record. He's been working on the new discipline, and obviously has come up with a much better system than everyone else. Slightly concerningly, my other main rivals all had good scores too - Clemens got 151, German Wunderkind Cornelia Beddies (who would have got a mention yesterday if I'd had time) 140, Joachim 130, Boris 129 and Andi (who to nobody's surprise made a surprise last-minute appearance) 120.

But that's okay. Because I knew binary is one of my best disciplines, and I could catch up there with a good score. Of course, it's also one of Gunther's best too - he and I are always miles ahead of the rest of the field there. I attempted somewhere in the region of 5300 digits (having asked for extra ones specially - you're normally only given 5000 to memorise in half an hour), and ended up thinking I'd got a score of about 3500 (I'll explain the scoring system another time, or you can look it up yourselves if you don't know it already). It turned out I'd underestimated myself, and when the papers were marked I found that I'd fractionally beaten my existing world record - 3710, whereas the previous record was 3705!

Gunther got 3452, Joachim 2832, Cornelia 2521 and Clemens 2385. Andi only attempted 2250 and ended up with a score of 1980, but his best could be yet to come. He seems to have been doing at least some training this year, and is taking the event more seriously. After two of ten disciplines, the leaderboard looks like this:

1) Gunther Karsten 1778
2) Joachim Thaler 1228
3) Clemens Mayer 1200
4) Cornelia Beddies 1190
5) Ben Pridmore 1156
6) Andi Bell 975
7) Boris Konrad 880
8) Corrina Draschl 628
9) James Paterson 621
10) James Ponder 576

We haven't yet had the results of the hour numbers - I went for 2340, and got maybe 1600. Possibly a bit better, possibly a bit worse. It's going to be a close-run thing. Gunther may seem to be flying away, but today's three disciplines are probably his three best. He tends to struggle with the cards, so unless he's improved a lot in the last year the pack will catch him up in event seven, hour cards, tomorrow afternoon. And in names and faces (event four, first thing tomorrow) he's normally, as Boris tactfully put it, even worse than me. Also tomorrow are historic dates, which I should win, touch wood, I usually do, and speed numbers, which I've also got a good feeling about (last year I won it when I didn't think I would, so by that logic I'll do terribly this time round).

I love the WMC! Not just the competing, but the hanging out with the other memorisers. They're a great bunch, one and all!

Runners and riders

Limited time tonight - I've gone into an internet cafe and realised I've only got enough money on me for half an hour. Rather than look like a pauper and go out for more money (I can just see everyone in the building looking at me in these circumstances and thinking "he's going out to the pawnshop or to beg money on street corners), I'm pretending that was what I was going to use in the first place, rather than an hour like I was intending.

Anyway, having wasted all my time writing the above, let's talk about the weekend ahead. Just been to the competitors' briefing, delivered by Phil (who for all his good points isn't a natural speaker and was almost as incoherent as me at Cambridge when explaining the rules and regulations) because Tony's busy doing interviews. And a drink afterwards with some of the other guys, of course, to discuss what we think is going to happen. So I thought it would be good for the benefit of my non-memory readers to know who to look out for while they're following the scores on the internet over the next three days.

Assuming they're updated on the internet. They usually aren't, but the official website always promises to.

So let's look at the top ten in the world ranking list, with brief notes. Omitting the world number one for obvious reasons, we start with:

2) Astrid Plessl (Austria, age 22) (or thereabouts. Most of these ages are rough guesses, and I probably shouldn't be including them at all)

WMC history: 12th, 2001; 6th, 2002; 2nd, 2003; 2nd, 2004

Astrid wasn't there tonight, and the probability is that she won't be competing this year. Which would be a crying shame. She came very, very close to winning the world championship two years in a row, and if she retires from competitions now without winning it it would be a great injustice. She started out famous for her natural memory (high scores in the poem and words, the disciplines that you don't use artificial systems for so much), but between 2002 and 2003 got really good at the systems too. If she's kept in training, she'd be my top rival this year. Hoping she defies expectations and shows up.

3) Clemens Mayer (Germany, age 21-ish)

WMC history: 4th, 2004; 1st, 2005

The reigning champion is obviously the man to beat. He hasn't failed to win a competition he's entered since November 2004, and he's committed to keeping that up. He's burst onto the scene in only a couple of years, and although it's been said that he's never beaten the likes of me or Andi or Astrid when we were at the top of our games, he can hardly be blamed for that. He did all that was necessary to win, and it's possible he's capable of much more when he's pushed.

4) Dr Gunther Karsten (Germany, mid-40s)

WMC history: 3rd, 1998; 5th, 1999; 3rd, 2000; 2nd, 2001; 3rd, 2002; 4th, 2003; 8th, 2004; 2nd, 2005

Ever-present in the top ranks at the world championships for many, many years, but never quite as winner. Last year's performance for second place was his best ever, so he's still improving. His seven-year run as German champion was ended by his protegé Clemens in 2005, but he's a good outside bet for the world title this year. Never write him off.

5) Andi Bell (England, 37?)

WMC history: 3rd, 1995; 2nd, 1996; 2nd, 1997; 1st, 1998; 3rd, 1999; 2nd, 2000; 3rd, 2001; 1st, 2002; 1st, 2003; 7th, 2004; 26th, 2005

Andi also wasn't there tonight, but he never came to the briefings even when he was a serious competitor. He's said he won't compete this year, but I'd actually be more surprised if he doesn't show up tomorrow morning to take part, however half-heartedly. Arguably the best competitor ever, he put in his apprenticeship for many years coming second to Dominic O'Brien (his 1998 win was the year Dom didn't take part) before finally blowing him away and setting new standards for the "sport" in 2002, his participation has been half-hearted for the last couple of years. But if he's been training on the sly, anything's possible. His nine consecutive years of top-three finishes might never be beaten.

6) Dominic O'Brien (England, getting on for 50? Or am I being unkind?)

WMC history: 1st, 1991; 1st, 1993; 2nd, 1994; 1st, 1995; 1st, 1996; 1st, 1997; 1st, 1999; 1st, 2000; 1st, 2001; 2nd, 2002; 6th, 2003

The legendary eight-times champion definitely won't be competing this year, unless there's something we haven't been told. He keeps saying he isn't completely retired, but it's looking more and more like he is. Conventional wisdom is that he couldn't keep up with the much higher level of performance from the top competitors over the past few years, but that might not be the case at all. He never had to stretch himself to his limits in his glory days, perhaps he's capable of another win yet.

7) Joachim Thaler(Austria, 18)

WMC history: 15th, 2002; 3rd, 2004; 3rd, 2005

Still very young, and still improving, Joachim is the only person to finish in the top three in each of the last two years. He beat me last time round, and Clemens the year before, and although he's pessimistic about his chances for a podium place this time round, it's certainly not impossible.

8) Jan Formann (Denmark, late-50s)

WMC history: 16th, 1999; 4th, 2001; 4th, 2002; 5th, 2003

Not much has been heard from the super-eccentric Dane for the last couple of years. His last competition was the World Cup (not to be confused with the World Championship) in 2004, when he finished a close second behind me. He used to be the undisputed world's best at the number-disciplines, although Gunther seems to have taken over that mantle now. I hope Jan also makes a surprise return, because he adds a lot of colour and fun to the championships.

9) Boris Nikolai Konrad (Germany, 22)

WMC history: 6th, 2004; 5th, 2005

Boris has been leader of the chasing pack at a lot of competitions over the last couple of years. I would certainly back him to make that final leap into one of the absolute top-level if he keeps up with it - he's very enthusiastic and deeply involved in the politics of German memory. This year he's got a good chance of making the top five.

10) Lukas Amsüss (Austria, early 20s)

WMC history: 17th, 2001; 14th, 2002; 7th, 2003; 9th, 2004

Sadly, Lukas definitely can't make it this year, due to work. But his previous WMC positions do him a disservice, he's another major chasing-pack guy, with a particular talent for speed cards. Also a lot of fun.

I don't have time to mention anyone else, but watch out for the likes of Ed Cooke, Josh Foer and Yip Swe Chooi too!

Your fifteen minutes start now

There's a song from years ago with the refrain "Your fifteen minutes start now..." that always comes to my mind when I'm starting my stopwatch going for a period of time for memorising or recall. Even the ones that aren't fifteen minutes long. I don't remember which song it was, or what the rest of the words were, but that bit's very memorable.

I'm free from work for the next four days, yay, and going down to London tomorrow morning - meeting the Alzheimer's people, with accompanying interview by Women's Weekly magazine. I've had more publictity-heavy buildups to the world championships. Then it's just a case of finding the hotel, finding the competition site, going to the 6pm competitors' briefing that's never really worth going to, and getting a good night's sleep. This might be my last blog entry until the competition's over - I'm not taking my laptop, and I probably won't have the time to find an internet cafe. But you never know - if I get bored tomorrow night I might give my last-minute opinions about the weekend ahead. I'll get off to a bad start with the images, but then hopefully do something special in the binary and hour numbers to show the others who's boss.

Sniffles and Bimbo are constantly pestering me to write about them like I promised, so I'll do that next week. Maybe with screenshots!

Packing

And more than 24 hours before it's strictly necessary, too! But don't worry, all I've been doing tonight is finding boxes to put my cards in, putting my cards in them, and putting the boxes into a larger box. Which makes me giggle, because in writing it like that I've reminded myself of an excellent webcomic called Living In Greytown, that I used to read years ago (it's finished now, as has its sequel, Lizard).

But I was talking about cards. I don't normally keep them in the boxes, they sit on my desk in teetering towers with a rubber band around each pack. So I had to dig up the flattened, crumpled boxes from the depths of my desk's drawers where all kinds of strange things lurk. The reason for this is that for the first time I'm taking my own cards to the WMC this time round. Competitors are allowed to bring their own or to use the ones provided, and I normally choose the latter option, but last year they didn't bother to shuffle them before giving them out, so I got a couple that were in sequence. I thought of pretending to memorise them and hoping nobody noticed, but got replacements instead. I'll also bring my own recall sheets for the cards, which I may or may not use, depending on what the provided sheets look like (if they're plain paper, I'll use my own, but if they're the normal kind with a column for each suit where you just fill in the number, I'll go with those). Some competitors have their own extremely fancy recall sheets for numbers as well as cards, with the spaces to fill in numbers divided into sections, but I don't go in for that kind of thing. I prefer a recall page as blank as possible, and if I can't remember a sequence I'll count out the appropriate number of empty spaces and mark it with little dots. I'm a minimalist.

Good grief, that was close. Just before posting that, I selected the whole text to copy it in case the computer or Blogger crashes while I'm posting (I always do this, I'm paranoid), and pressed ctrl-V instead of ctrl-C, replacing the text with some rubbish that was on the clipboard. Luckily, it turns out you can do ctrl-Z to undo here. You really do learn something new every day!

Almost forgot

I nearly went to bed without writing anything tonight. But it's okay, I've deliberately put my memory on ice this week in the buildup to the WMC. I did have a try at abstract images using a clever new system I thought up, which turns out not to work at all. I still have no idea how I'm going to approach that one in the competition, which could be a problem, but it's not one I'm hugely worried about. It's a silly thing anyway, that they'll hopefully get rid of or change before next year (if I keep pestering them).

The follies of men's youth

I've been reading my old blog posts tonight, and I can be quite fascinating at times, can't I? Makes me think that I need to start doing interesting things so I can write about them in more detail. And yes, I did hand my notice in at work today. I was going to think about it a bit more, but I got butterflies in my tummy every time I thought about it, and I didn't want that getting in the way of the world memory championship, so I decided to just get on with it and resign. It felt pretty good, all in all. So now I'm resolved not to think about it or anything else for the next week, and just relax, clear my brain and do a bit of last-minute practice with abstract images because I'm not nearly prepared enough for them. Everything else, though, I'm pretty sure I can make a decent stab at. I'm not as match-fit as I'd like to be, but I'm better than last year, and I didn't lose by much last year. Fingers crossed, eh?

Things that need to be clarified

1) That Frosties advert that everyone thinks is so terrible? It's brilliant! I mean, what's all the hostility about? It's singalongable and catchy and funny, and it raises public awareness of Frosties, which can only be a good thing.

2) Also, Airplane II: The Sequel, which I saw for the first time tonight, is really funny too. I've never bothered to watch it before because everyone says it's not much good, but it turns out that everyone in the world has been lying to me all these years.

3) These clarifications are not just my opinions, they're the objective truth. I'm automatically right about everything. It's quite a burden sometimes.

4) I'm still not sure about the whole handing-in-my-notice thing. I'm tempted to leave the decision until after the WMC, although that might not be the best idea because I'm always at my most I-hate-my-job-ish immediately after a big competition. I'll see what I feel like when I wake up tomorrow.

5) Butter.

World Twister Champion 2006

Title suggested by Vicky, although in fact I didn't win at Twister. I shouldn't really have been playing at all, with my knees being what they are, but you know what it's like at these parties. Crispy and Sleepy couldn't come at the last moment because Crisp's not well (possibly infected with lethal bacteria from her new job, so I think we should all send get-well-soon-type happy thoughts to her and hope she's okay), so I had to go to the scary almost-strangers' barbecue by myself. But it turned out to be fun after all. I'd write more about it, only I've had too much to drink considering I need to be practicing memorising cards tomorrow, and it's late, and I've just cycled home in the pouring rain so I'll probably get hypothermia if I don't go to bed rather than sitting around in my undies typing incoherently.

I've got sixpence, jolly jolly sixpence

Remember that thing I wanted to talk about but couldn't in case talking about it jinxed the whole thing? Well, now the official secrets act has been repealed and I can go ahead. I'm wealthy! I've just had £16,631.04 paid into my bank account, courtesy of my dad's pension scheme. Which certainly came as a surprise to me - my mum and brother have the same amount each too. Add that to the money in my bank account, and it comes to just over £20,000. Does that sound familiar? I got the letter telling me about it last Saturday, exactly a month after writing this about what I'd do if I had £20,000 or so.

So should I do it? Hand in my notice at work, take a year off, write those books, do those college courses, join that hypothetical gym? I'm inclining towards yes, I should. The universe quite clearly wants me to. I can't quite delude myself into thinking it's what my dad would have wanted me to do with the money (he really wouldn't have). I've given myself the weekend to think about it - I'd want to give two months' notice at work (rather than the one that I'm obliged to give) so as not to leave anyone in the lurch, and if I did it on Monday it would neatly round off my career at Nord Anglia the day before my birthday. I could be a wage slave until the age of 29 years and 364 days, and embark on a whole new phase of my life in my thirties. I won't be able to splash out on anything extravagant, but I can just about live for a year with those kind of expenses for twenty grand.

The only thing that worries me is whether I would be able to motivate myself to do cool things if I didn't have to get up in the morning every day. I'm thinking if I structure things around college courses and routines I'd be okay - from past experience I really do need something like that so that I can fit the fun things around it - if I don't have a day job, I don't do extracurricular things either and just spend my time lounging around doing nothing.

This kind of earth-shattering decision isn't the kind of thing I should be doing on the last weekend before the world memory championship. Crispy and Sleepy are coming round on Saturday night, so I can drunkenly discuss the pros and cons with them and see how much I can remember of the conversation the next morning. The plan is to do a 30-minute binary practice tomorrow morning, hour numbers after lunch, then we'll go round to Vicky's barbecue and have a good time, then on Sunday night when I've recovered a bit, do an hour cards. Hope I can stick to it.

Another thing that worries me - everyone is going to say "Yes, you should quit your job and become a gentleman of leisure! That sounds cool!", because it does sound cool. But I'm quite aware that it's not the right thing for me to do on any kind of long-term or intellectual level. On the other hand, though, my decision is pretty much a foregone conclusion. When have I ever chosen the option marked "leave things the way they are and do the sensible thing"?

And feeling guilty about spending it all on myself when the world is full of people suffering? I think I can get used to it. I've never claimed to be a saint. I squandered my redundancy money from Parkhouse on good causes, after all, and if I write a bestseller or become a professional snooker player, I can pay the money back to my conscience.

I don't break rules, I just bend them... a lot

I normally have a rule about not commenting on news items in this blog (mainly because that's what everyone else does on their blogs, and besides, who wants to hear my opinions about current events when they could read me rambling on about cartoon characters for pages? That reminds me, I never did get round to writing that promised essay about Sniffles, did I? And I'm also in the mood to try and get Bimbo, the unusually-named male dog cartoon character from the 30s, the public attention he's been deprived of for so long. But not tonight. I was going somewhere before I got into this parenthetical profusion of purple prose, wasn't I?), but I seriously hope this latest mess involving planes isn't going to stop people getting to the WMC next weekend. Last year the strike at Heathrow stopped some competitors from attending, and the timing of this thing is majorly annoying.

There's been a decided lack of publicity about the WMC this time round. Last year we got quite a bit of press coverage by playing up the England v Germany angle, but this time the people who run the event seem to have decided on a policy of doing nothing at all and hoping someone notices it. I also have no idea how many people are going to be there. Word has it that the German contingent will be smaller than last year, although it will include Clemens, Gunther, Boris, Alisa(?), the usual gang, so I'll have someone to make a contest of it. From Austria there's definitely Joachim and hopefully Astrid, I'm sure Andi won't be able to stay away despite what he says even if he doesn't properly compete, so I can't moan about a shortage of top-level competition.

And then there'll be a reasonably large British contingent. Me, Ed and at least three Jameses would break all recent records for sheer numbers, even if nobody else comes along. It seems we won't be getting a Brazilian team after all, Globo having decided to spend their money on a Brazilian championship next year instead, which is a shame. And there'll only be the one Norwegian, it seems. I have no idea about Malaysians, or Indians, or Jan (the one and only Dane who's ever competed in these things). There'll be Josh from the USA and Tansel from Australia and Pierre from France and HaiZhan from China who hasn't competed before but has been exchanging emails with me lately. It should be fun, anyway.

I'm more interested at the moment in researching Irish history. Talking with my assistant Patrick at work today I realised that I don't actually know anything about the country - it's only just next door, after all, and I know we have a proud history of going over there and subjugating and killing people, so I think I should know a bit more. I want to get a book out of the library or something - I'm suspicious of most websites.

Scheduled outage at 4:00PM PDT

According to the little toolbar thing on the top of this create-new-post thing. It's three minutes to ten here, and I have no idea what PDT is, so I'm hoping it's not six hours behind real time.

Anyway, I'm feeling a sense of achievement tonight, because I've replied to a bunch of emails (I'm kind of a recluse, but I still manage to get into no end of correspondence and if I let it build up for a couple of days it becomes quite a task to reply to everyone), done a load of memory practice (got 385 in speed numbers, which would have been 425 if I hadn't transposed two images - 468 is definitely possible on a good day, now I just have to decide whether to attempt it first time at the WMC, or go for something safer and then go for the big score on the second trial), watched Liverpool play football badly but still win (they're still playing but they've just gone 2-1 up with a minute or two left), and watched some Battle of the Planets and Betty Boop cartoons all in the four hours since getting home.

It's The Mind

I've finally got round to sending off my entry form for the Mind Sports Olympiad. Longtime fans will remember that I didn't go to last year's, for the first time since it started in 1997, and I did feel guilty about it. But this year I'm going for the classic MSO experience - staying in a student hall of residence like I used to in the early years when I didn't have any money, competing in lots of games that I don't even particularly like just so as to have something to do, late night poker, no TV for a week (got to dig out my little clock radio so I can have the pleasure of listening to slightly out-of-tune London radio stations all night), lots of unhealthy food, it'll be great.

I'm also almost certainly going to skip the last couple of days in order to go to the othello nationals in Crawley. Now that the WMC has been moved and I only have two major mind sports competitions clashing that weekend, it's only fair to go along to the othello after a week's MSOing. Especially since I'll have to do the treasurer's report at the AGM before the competition starts. Besides, there's still the outside possibility of qualifying for the British team at the Worlds in Japan in October, which I would really love to do. And although 'outside possibility' here means 'no chance whatsoever because I'm not nearly a good enough player even when I've been practicing rather than barely playing at all for months now', it's still enough to give me a gleam of hope in the eyes.

So come along to the Mind Sports Olympiad if you want to play me at azacru, stratego, pacru, acquire, othello, twixt, mental calculations, decamentathlon, entropy, abalone, boku and lots of poker, and to the British Othello Championship if you're British and want to play me at othello more than you can do at the MSO.

Incidentally, I still haven't written the memory tips that the Alzheimer's people asked me for. It should just be a matter of churning out a few bullet points of the usual waffle that everybody says in this kind of situation, but I want it to be actually profound and useful and meaningful. Which, as you might have noticed, isn't something I'm very good at.

(I do have something important and earth-shatteringly significant to write about, but I'm not going to just yet until it's all sorted out for fear of jinxing it. Updates shortly, hopefully. Now that's a cliffhanger worthy of Doctor Who, isn't it!)

War of the worlds

Vole-like aliens invaded Earth in the year 1937. They arrived en masse in about thirty-seven flying saucers equipped with death-ray devices and small gerbils and set about slaughtering humans with the intention of subjugating the human race and forcing them to design new card games for the vole-like aliens' entertainment.

However, since the people of Earth at that time were also rather vole-like, nobody believed that the aliens were in fact alien invaders at all, and just assumed it was some kind of practical joke organised by the new television service. Even when the aliens barged into Downing Street, cut off the Prime Minister's head with pinking shears and declared that Earth was now under their rule, nobody took them seriously and just laughed about it. The aliens got back into their spaceships and left, disappointed with the reception they'd had.

Having assumed that his horrible demise was a practical joke, Neville Chamberlain was none the worse for wear and carried on with his business. But the incident had made him consider the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms, and one night at a party he wrote the snappily-titled "What is to be done should real aliens ever invade and assassinate the Prime Minister with pinking shears or some such device" essay, which was published (due to a misunderstanding) in the Dandy the following week.

The essay detailed the process by which aliens would be repelled, and hinged around three people who would be required to do the entirety of the fighting while the rest of the world's population hid in underground shelters. Although a good plan, it didn't consider the ravages of time, and somebody really should have updated it by the time the vole-like aliens returned in 1993. By now immediately recognisable as aliens, they were taken seriously, and everyone immediately dropped what they were doing and dived into the shelters. Global warming having caused them to be flooded in the meantime, of course, the entire world's population were drowned.

The three people, chosen at random from the phone book in 1937, were by a happy coincidence still alive, and after several days' fighting, came to an agreement with the vole-like aliens which satisfied everyone except Bertram Cox. The aliens departed happily and left the three surviving humans a small cat made of green electricity in return for Bertram's underpants and left kidney. Today, on the thirteenth anniversary of that epic and anticlimactic settlement, we celebrate the memory of Earth's three saviours, Bertram and the other two whose names I don't recall, and take the day off work in order to throw bricks at sheep in a ceremony instituted last year in Belgium.

Retail therapy

I went to Birmingham today, rather than practicing memorising things like I was supposed to. But I've got an excuse, sort of - my mother phoned me in the morning to blame me for pretty much everything she's ever done, which put me in a bad mood and feeling like I wanted to go out and take my mind off things. I much preferred it when she forgot I existed for years on end. Anyway, I'm not what you'd call a great shopper. I tend to cave in to high-pressure salespeople asking tough questions like "Can I help you?". If I don't say "Yes, please sell me everything in your shop," I feel guilty about wasting their time and cluttering up the store unnecessarily. But sometimes I can't help going into shops I have no intention of buying from or even any interest in the things they're selling, just because they're playing cool music. There was a clothes shop today blasting out "All These Things That I've Done" by the Killers at top volume, which is the kind of song you just have to sing along to if you're me. I wouldn't be seen dead in the kind of clothes they were selling (you know, the kind of normal clothes that everyone else wears, horrific things like that), but I think I did a pretty good job of feigning interest in the things for five minutes until the song finished and I could beat a hasty retreat.

I did do an hour cards practice this evening after getting home, so I'm not too worried about letting the memory stuff slide. Attempted 30 packs, possibly got as many as 27 right although I haven't checked yet and there are probably several mistakes. That would probably be enough to beat everyone at the WMC.