Have you ever considered horses, Thatcher?
I'm not sure I really understand the question, Devereaux.
Horses, Thatcher. Have you ever considered them?
Well, if you put it like that, I suppose I haven't.
They have legs, you know, Thatcher. Legs. Four of them, I believe, although I haven't ever counted the things, of course.
Really, Devereaux? I didn't know that.
Ah, well, you're a country boy, aren't you? Not so many horses where you come from. Not like round our way.
Barnsley?
Barnsley, yes, that's right. A lot of horses in Barnsley.
Trees too, I would imagine.
Horses, Thatcher. We're talking about horses, not trees.
I thought perhaps you might have both horses and trees.
Do stop interrupting me, Thatcher. Listen to what I'm saying about horses.
I did in fact wait for you to finish your...
Horses, Thatcher, and their legs. Just bear that in mind.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
Bedtime For Sniffles
Last time I went to Las Vegas, two years ago, I got the flu and spent most of the holiday in bed all feverish and delirious. Which was fun, in its own way, but it meant I missed out on a lot of the stuff I was meaning to do while I was there. So I haven't really had a proper Vegas experience since November 2002, which was the last time I decided to give up working and be an unemployed layabout. That time I saw Siegfried and Roy, before Roy's tiger-mauling (which I heard about on the plane back from the WMC in Malaysia a year later), and was completely amazed by it. Yet another of the things I'd love to be is a magician, but I've never really been good at magic tricks. I never had the patience to get the sleight of hand right. It would be good to do a memory/magic show, so maybe I'll force myself to make more of an effort some time.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
And so, once again, the day is saved...
Thanks to the ability to memorise long numbers!
From this week's Civil War #7, which was okay if you like that kind of thing. The series as a whole has been very entertaining, although it's been more interested in big fight scenes than exploring the possibilities of the very original storyline. I would have preferred a better artist, too. But it's done its job of establishing a new status quo for the Marvel Universe, and some of the upcoming series spinning off from Civil War look like being fun (Dan Slott writing "Initiative" is sure to be brilliant). Almost makes up for Thunderbolts, Exiles and Runaways losing their writers and becoming in two cases at least (Joss Whedon's Runaways hasn't started yet) absolute rubbish. I'm a bit disillusioned with Marvel comics as a whole at the moment.
But more importantly, it makes me giggle to think that we're supposed to take his recall of a 69-digit number as further proof of the Black Panther's genius. Any old eejit can memorise 69 digits with a bit of practice! Really, boasting about something like that just shows what an insecure person he is (although you could maybe have guessed he's a bit strange by the way he wears a mask with little cat-ears on top).
Anyway, I've had enough of rain and not writing books. I've decided to have a holiday in Las Vegas after all. I really do think the change of scene will help me churn out a bit of writing, and I want to see that Cirque show with Beatles music.
From this week's Civil War #7, which was okay if you like that kind of thing. The series as a whole has been very entertaining, although it's been more interested in big fight scenes than exploring the possibilities of the very original storyline. I would have preferred a better artist, too. But it's done its job of establishing a new status quo for the Marvel Universe, and some of the upcoming series spinning off from Civil War look like being fun (Dan Slott writing "Initiative" is sure to be brilliant). Almost makes up for Thunderbolts, Exiles and Runaways losing their writers and becoming in two cases at least (Joss Whedon's Runaways hasn't started yet) absolute rubbish. I'm a bit disillusioned with Marvel comics as a whole at the moment.
But more importantly, it makes me giggle to think that we're supposed to take his recall of a 69-digit number as further proof of the Black Panther's genius. Any old eejit can memorise 69 digits with a bit of practice! Really, boasting about something like that just shows what an insecure person he is (although you could maybe have guessed he's a bit strange by the way he wears a mask with little cat-ears on top).
Anyway, I've had enough of rain and not writing books. I've decided to have a holiday in Las Vegas after all. I really do think the change of scene will help me churn out a bit of writing, and I want to see that Cirque show with Beatles music.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
I remember
I came tantalisingly close to a perfect 200 in spoken numbers today - just two digits wrong, and both of those were memorised wrongly (ie the digit was 0 and I memorised the image involving a 1 instead) rather than recalled wrongly. Of course, the first mistake was on the 35th digit, meaning a score of 34, which is rubbish, but this is still a good result for me, because it's the first time I've attempted 200 and got the recall spot-on without any problems. Now I just have to sort out this problem of memorising mistakes, which I think is caused more than anything by anticipation - I hear the first couple of digits in a group of three and I'm already thinking of a three-digit group that makes an image that fits in nicely with the story I'm creating. I need to make sure I listen to all three digits rather than making them up as I go along. But I'm definitely hopeful of getting a good score in the spoken numbers at the WMC this year. Of course, this probably just means it'll all go wrong for me in another event...
As mentioned previously, though, while the memory training is going fine, the book-writing and stuff really isn't. I'm having great difficulty sitting down to do it. I need some kind of slavedriver to stand over me with a whip.
As mentioned previously, though, while the memory training is going fine, the book-writing and stuff really isn't. I'm having great difficulty sitting down to do it. I need some kind of slavedriver to stand over me with a whip.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Fight! Fight! Fight!
I've just been watching Man Utd playing Lille, a bad-tempered kind of match in which the Lille players threatened to walk off the pitch after a couple of very dubious refereeing decisions went against them. I think there's a part of me, my inner hooligan if you will, that always really wants trouble like this to flare up at sporting occasions - it really is exciting to watch an unexpected mass brawl break out in the middle of gentlemanly athletic pursuits. At moments like this I almost understand why people like ice hockey.
This is the 'round of 16' of the Champions League, and I have issues with that name. First off, it's not a league when it gets down to the knockout stages. A league is when each team plays all the others. And secondly, what's a round of 16 when it's at home? We've got by in football competitions for decades just by calling them 'first round' or whatever until it gets to the quarter-finals. It's just silly.
I must apologise for the preceding paragraph. It's psychological - after admitting to wild bloodlust, I find myself reverting to pedantic nerdiness. And then I feel the need to apologise for that. And I could go on saying things and then saying that I've said them all night, but Life On Mars is on.
This is the 'round of 16' of the Champions League, and I have issues with that name. First off, it's not a league when it gets down to the knockout stages. A league is when each team plays all the others. And secondly, what's a round of 16 when it's at home? We've got by in football competitions for decades just by calling them 'first round' or whatever until it gets to the quarter-finals. It's just silly.
I must apologise for the preceding paragraph. It's psychological - after admitting to wild bloodlust, I find myself reverting to pedantic nerdiness. And then I feel the need to apologise for that. And I could go on saying things and then saying that I've said them all night, but Life On Mars is on.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Puckles the Cuckold
Well, this is the funniest thing I've ever seen - Knife & Wife! It was written by Paul "Mr Biffo" Rose, and the version of it that did appear on TV in 2001 completely passed me by somehow. It also seems to be the only television programme ever made that not even a snippet of is to be found on YouTube. I don't suppose anyone taped it?
I know I sort of promised to write about the weekend's othello activities, and I do have a lengthy and entertaining essay about it written in my head, but because I composed it on the way home yesterday, it feels like I've already written it, and I lack the motivation to rehash it. Maybe I'll do it another time, when I can't think of anything better to say. Meanwhile, I'll talk about what's on telly instead. "Heroes" starts tonight on the Sci-Fi channel. I've heard good things from American superhero-likers, and apparently it was a hit over there with normal people, too. Which makes it strange that the Sci-Fi channel have got first dibs on it, because that means that real channels like Sky and the BBC didn't want to spend money on it. Still, they spend money on all kinds of rubbish, so I'm not sure what that proves.
Also, Channel 4 are showing Studio Ghibli films every morning this week (except Wednesday, when for some reason they're showing The Brave Little Toaster), although I didn't notice that until Kiki's Delivery Service had finished today. Still, yay!
I know I sort of promised to write about the weekend's othello activities, and I do have a lengthy and entertaining essay about it written in my head, but because I composed it on the way home yesterday, it feels like I've already written it, and I lack the motivation to rehash it. Maybe I'll do it another time, when I can't think of anything better to say. Meanwhile, I'll talk about what's on telly instead. "Heroes" starts tonight on the Sci-Fi channel. I've heard good things from American superhero-likers, and apparently it was a hit over there with normal people, too. Which makes it strange that the Sci-Fi channel have got first dibs on it, because that means that real channels like Sky and the BBC didn't want to spend money on it. Still, they spend money on all kinds of rubbish, so I'm not sure what that proves.
Also, Channel 4 are showing Studio Ghibli films every morning this week (except Wednesday, when for some reason they're showing The Brave Little Toaster), although I didn't notice that until Kiki's Delivery Service had finished today. Still, yay!
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Young people today, I don't know
The British othello scene has been overrun lately by trendy young people who are better at the game than me. It's quite disturbing - I don't mind losing to old people like most British othello regulars (how's that for an off-hand comment guaranteed to offend no end of people?), they've been playing since the dark ages and have the wisdom that comes with their advanced years. Some of them are over forty, you know. But when I'm being comprehensively thrashed on a regular basis by youthful-looking twenty-somethings who can wear one of those hooded sweaters and get away with it and started playing the game more recently than I did, it makes me think I should start learning how to play properly. It's embarrassing being so bad and so old.
What's even more psychologically disturbing about this horde of new young players is that they're both called David, and I always get confused by their surnames. There's a story behind this, as there is with all of my weirdnesses. You see, as many of my friends know all too well, I automatically file people away in my brain by the name with which they were introduced to me. If for any reason they change their name thereafter, or if they were using a nickname or alias when I first encountered them, I find it impossible to remember to call them by their preferred monicker. Except for Kitty, who seems to have become fixed in my mind as such, even though he was SA when I first met him and seems to be mainly SumerianHaze these days, but that's another story.
So the thing with the Davids started at the nationals last year - I'd heard in advance that a player called David Beck, whom I'd never met, was going to be there, so when a newcomer introduced himself to me as David, I naturally assumed that was him. As it transpired, David Beck wasn't there after all, and this other guy was David Hand. But I didn't realise this for about an hour, and the mental damage was done. So now whenever I see David Hand, my brain automatically calls him David Beck. And when I see David Beck, my brain calls him... David Gray.
No, not David Hand. I know he's not David Hand. I'm not stupid. But I think that since I know, deep down, that he can't be David Beck, my subconscious trawls around for another likely-sounding name to pin on him, and comes up with David Gray. Who I believe is a pop singer of some kind, probably also younger than me and better at pop singing than I am, but who I otherwise don't know anything about.
When I started this post, it was with the intention of describing what I've been doing this weekend, but I think I'll do that tomorrow. This whole Beck/Hand thing has gone on too long already. And it's just this minute occurred to me that "David Beck/Hand" sounds surprisingly like "David Beckham". Maybe they're all related.
What's even more psychologically disturbing about this horde of new young players is that they're both called David, and I always get confused by their surnames. There's a story behind this, as there is with all of my weirdnesses. You see, as many of my friends know all too well, I automatically file people away in my brain by the name with which they were introduced to me. If for any reason they change their name thereafter, or if they were using a nickname or alias when I first encountered them, I find it impossible to remember to call them by their preferred monicker. Except for Kitty, who seems to have become fixed in my mind as such, even though he was SA when I first met him and seems to be mainly SumerianHaze these days, but that's another story.
So the thing with the Davids started at the nationals last year - I'd heard in advance that a player called David Beck, whom I'd never met, was going to be there, so when a newcomer introduced himself to me as David, I naturally assumed that was him. As it transpired, David Beck wasn't there after all, and this other guy was David Hand. But I didn't realise this for about an hour, and the mental damage was done. So now whenever I see David Hand, my brain automatically calls him David Beck. And when I see David Beck, my brain calls him... David Gray.
No, not David Hand. I know he's not David Hand. I'm not stupid. But I think that since I know, deep down, that he can't be David Beck, my subconscious trawls around for another likely-sounding name to pin on him, and comes up with David Gray. Who I believe is a pop singer of some kind, probably also younger than me and better at pop singing than I am, but who I otherwise don't know anything about.
When I started this post, it was with the intention of describing what I've been doing this weekend, but I think I'll do that tomorrow. This whole Beck/Hand thing has gone on too long already. And it's just this minute occurred to me that "David Beck/Hand" sounds surprisingly like "David Beckham". Maybe they're all related.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Darling, I am growing older...
I've just seen a trailer for Channel 5's tenth anniversary celebrations. Surely it can't be ten years already? I can remember Channel 4 starting, when I was tiny, and I wouldn't object to them commemorating that, but Channel 5? It's still brand new! Gah, I can't be thirty years old, it just isn't scientifically possible.
Ah well, I'll just cover my ears and sing 'la la la I'm not listening' whenever the subject comes up again. That'll sort everything out. Meanwhile, another thing I've noticed lately is a new and exciting magazine in the shops - Harry Potter chess! It's one of those magazines that give away a free gift, in this case a chess piece, with every issue, with the idea being that you gradually build up a complete collection as you buy the informative magazine, in this case a guide to how to play chess. The Harry Potter connection here comes from a couple of photos of Daniel Radcliffe and co liberally pasted all over it, and the fact that the chess pieces do exciting things! The rooks have got magnets in them so you can move them by 'waving a magic wand', the knights make a noise when you pick them up, the bishops make a slightly different noise when you pick them up, the pawns, um, fall apart, and the king and queen presumably do something fun too, but I stopped reading at that point.
The first issue is a mere £1.99 (normally £3.99), and comes with a rook, so presumably over the next 32 weeks enthusiastic Potter fans can spend well over a hundred pounds on a chess set and what must be a pretty exhaustive guide to chess play and strategy. Unless, of course, the series gets cancelled after three issues like these things always, without exception, are. Of course, since you won't be able to play chess until you've bought the final issue with that last piece, your learning will have to be strictly theoretical over the next seven months.
Off to sunny Cambridge tomorrow! Emmanuel Caspard gives what my limited understanding of French tells me is a very entertaining account of what makes the event so much fun in his blog, I might possibly write about it when I get back, if you're lucky.
Ah well, I'll just cover my ears and sing 'la la la I'm not listening' whenever the subject comes up again. That'll sort everything out. Meanwhile, another thing I've noticed lately is a new and exciting magazine in the shops - Harry Potter chess! It's one of those magazines that give away a free gift, in this case a chess piece, with every issue, with the idea being that you gradually build up a complete collection as you buy the informative magazine, in this case a guide to how to play chess. The Harry Potter connection here comes from a couple of photos of Daniel Radcliffe and co liberally pasted all over it, and the fact that the chess pieces do exciting things! The rooks have got magnets in them so you can move them by 'waving a magic wand', the knights make a noise when you pick them up, the bishops make a slightly different noise when you pick them up, the pawns, um, fall apart, and the king and queen presumably do something fun too, but I stopped reading at that point.
The first issue is a mere £1.99 (normally £3.99), and comes with a rook, so presumably over the next 32 weeks enthusiastic Potter fans can spend well over a hundred pounds on a chess set and what must be a pretty exhaustive guide to chess play and strategy. Unless, of course, the series gets cancelled after three issues like these things always, without exception, are. Of course, since you won't be able to play chess until you've bought the final issue with that last piece, your learning will have to be strictly theoretical over the next seven months.
Off to sunny Cambridge tomorrow! Emmanuel Caspard gives what my limited understanding of French tells me is a very entertaining account of what makes the event so much fun in his blog, I might possibly write about it when I get back, if you're lucky.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
I found it on YouTube
Happy Valentine's Day, again. I'd like to credit the writer, but I'm not sure who did it - the credits of the episode list lots of people with vaguely musical-sounding descriptions. Sung by Katie Leigh, who always deserved extra praise for striking a balance between doing the Rowlf voice and being able to sing.
You're Special To Me
What's the greatest piece of Valentine's Day poetry ever composed? Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls? Ophelia's song in Hamlet? No, the correct answer is in fact Rowlf's song from an episode of Muppet Babies. Or at least that's the one that comes first to my mind every time, anyway. Happy Valentine's Day to you all, anyway, love and kisses.
I've been looking back at last February's blog posts, because someone added a comment to the one about The Armstrongs today, to see what I was doing at this time last year. It turns out that I was getting better results at memory training than I currently am, observing that I was nearly a hundred places higher on the French othello rating list than I am right now (because they're rating more people nowadays, rather than because I'm getting worse at the game, but it's still annoying), appearing on BBC TV rather than just being tentatively filmed for a prospective Channel 4 documentary and organising the Cambridge memory championship rather more seriously than I'm currently doing. That's rather annoying. But on the other hand, this time last year the Uefa cup game I was watching was a dull 0-0 draw, and the one I'm watching tonight is 3-2 and quite exciting. AND there's an FA Cup replay later tonight too. So all things considered, I win in the achievement stakes over my year-younger self.
Another thing I did last year, although not in February, was enthuse over Life On Mars. Well, the second series is possibly even better than the first - I watched the first two episodes last night. They're putting more emphasis on the time-travel aspect this time round, but that's probably necessary because they're finishing it after this series and need to provide some kind of explanation. And it still doesn't get in the way of a brilliant police drama. The second episode was particularly enthralling - there really isn't a lot of stuff on telly these days that grips me in that way.
I've been looking back at last February's blog posts, because someone added a comment to the one about The Armstrongs today, to see what I was doing at this time last year. It turns out that I was getting better results at memory training than I currently am, observing that I was nearly a hundred places higher on the French othello rating list than I am right now (because they're rating more people nowadays, rather than because I'm getting worse at the game, but it's still annoying), appearing on BBC TV rather than just being tentatively filmed for a prospective Channel 4 documentary and organising the Cambridge memory championship rather more seriously than I'm currently doing. That's rather annoying. But on the other hand, this time last year the Uefa cup game I was watching was a dull 0-0 draw, and the one I'm watching tonight is 3-2 and quite exciting. AND there's an FA Cup replay later tonight too. So all things considered, I win in the achievement stakes over my year-younger self.
Another thing I did last year, although not in February, was enthuse over Life On Mars. Well, the second series is possibly even better than the first - I watched the first two episodes last night. They're putting more emphasis on the time-travel aspect this time round, but that's probably necessary because they're finishing it after this series and need to provide some kind of explanation. And it still doesn't get in the way of a brilliant police drama. The second episode was particularly enthralling - there really isn't a lot of stuff on telly these days that grips me in that way.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The sound of silence
I'm racked with indecision. I did a half-hour binary practice today using my 'new' method of linking all my groups of images together and scored 3660. Doing it the old way last week I got 3555. But I know I can do better than that with my usual approach, but then I'm also pretty sure I could do better with the new one too. It's just a matter of deciding which is the best way to go, if I want to get the maximum possible score. I'm going to try an hour cards new-style tomorrow (if I have the time and inclination) and see what happens there. I should go into more detail of what I'm talking about here, I know, but it would take hours and nobody would really be all that interested, so I'll leave it for another time.
This whole thing raises another existential dilemma - I'm doing lots of memory practice lately and that's all well and good, but when I left my job it was in order to experiment with ways of making money from being a memory guy (okay, if I'm honest it was in order to leave a job I didn't particularly like, but the making-money-from-memory thing was the justification for it), and I'm never going to make a living just by winning memory competitions, more's the pity. I should be writing that book that I'm all writer's-blocked on, I should be preparing an impressive pi-memory performance and getting it ready for Ulrich's pi-day festival next month, and I should be forcing people to make documentaries about me in much greater quantities than they currently are. If I'm to have any hope of not going back to accountancy when I run out of money, I need to do something other than mess about with infinitesimally increasing my score in half-hour binary, which I'm already the best in the world at and which nobody's going to throw money at me for doing.
Life is hard. I spend my days doing stuff I enjoy and having fun doing it, and I'm still complaining. I don't know.
This whole thing raises another existential dilemma - I'm doing lots of memory practice lately and that's all well and good, but when I left my job it was in order to experiment with ways of making money from being a memory guy (okay, if I'm honest it was in order to leave a job I didn't particularly like, but the making-money-from-memory thing was the justification for it), and I'm never going to make a living just by winning memory competitions, more's the pity. I should be writing that book that I'm all writer's-blocked on, I should be preparing an impressive pi-memory performance and getting it ready for Ulrich's pi-day festival next month, and I should be forcing people to make documentaries about me in much greater quantities than they currently are. If I'm to have any hope of not going back to accountancy when I run out of money, I need to do something other than mess about with infinitesimally increasing my score in half-hour binary, which I'm already the best in the world at and which nobody's going to throw money at me for doing.
Life is hard. I spend my days doing stuff I enjoy and having fun doing it, and I'm still complaining. I don't know.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Moral: always look at the bits of shops you don't normally look at
I had been thinking about buying the Order Of The Stick prequel book (containing stuff that isn't on the internet), and probably would have done already, but I assumed that buying it would mean ordering it from America over the internet. And I don't have any problem with that, but I generally think 'I should buy such-and-such' when I'm not sitting in front of my computer, and then I see a butterfly or some other distracting insect, and forget about it. But then on Saturday my brother and I went into Forbidden Planet here in Derby, and he happened to stand in front of the RPG section and talk to me, and I noticed that they had the book sitting on the shelf right in front of me! Which just goes to show something, doesn't it?
I decided to take an extra day off from 'work' today, because I woke up with a headache and a lazy attitude, and thought some fresh air and healthy exercise might help. The headache cleared up immediately, but the laziness didn't, and so I found myself in a bookshop. I sneezed in the foreign languages section, and a man across the other side of the room said 'Gesundheit'. I'm not sure if there is a distance limit for acknowledging a complete stranger's sneeze in public. Perhaps there are different rules for 'bless you'.
I also had my hair cut this morning. I was thinking of trying to grow it long, but it never works. It just gets down to collar length and then doesn't go any further. It's very frustrating when you've got the soul of a hippy trapped in the body of an accountant. I've also toyed with the idea of shaving off my beard (I had a dream the other day that I did, and it took me a while the following morning to remember that I was still hairy about the face). I seem to have almost more white hairs than black/brown/whatever-colour-they-should-be ones lately. Growing up sucks.
I decided to take an extra day off from 'work' today, because I woke up with a headache and a lazy attitude, and thought some fresh air and healthy exercise might help. The headache cleared up immediately, but the laziness didn't, and so I found myself in a bookshop. I sneezed in the foreign languages section, and a man across the other side of the room said 'Gesundheit'. I'm not sure if there is a distance limit for acknowledging a complete stranger's sneeze in public. Perhaps there are different rules for 'bless you'.
I also had my hair cut this morning. I was thinking of trying to grow it long, but it never works. It just gets down to collar length and then doesn't go any further. It's very frustrating when you've got the soul of a hippy trapped in the body of an accountant. I've also toyed with the idea of shaving off my beard (I had a dream the other day that I did, and it took me a while the following morning to remember that I was still hairy about the face). I seem to have almost more white hairs than black/brown/whatever-colour-they-should-be ones lately. Growing up sucks.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Never apologise, never explain
I would explain that I haven't posted anything for a couple of days because, as regular readers know, I don't like blogging when I've got guests. But I've said that two or three times before, and I don't like to repeat myself. Besides, I expect everyone who reads this blog to go through the entire archive and learn everything there is to know about me, so if you didn't know already that I wasn't going to post anything, it's your own fault. And besides, I'd be surprised if anyone really noticed, since practically everyone who reads this thing seems to read it at work on weekday mornings. I sometimes feel guilty about the amount of man-hours I'm costing British and international industry. And I'll be skipping a day or two next weekend too, because I'm going to Cambridge for the othello EGP.
I watched the Ireland/France rugby game today. I don't particularly like rugby, but for some reason I always end up tuning into a game or two during the Six Nations. Perhaps it's the way the BBC promote it excessively during their coverage of football and everything else I like to watch. I'm annoyed with the BBC because they deliberately showed Shrek last night at 7:15 in order to make people forget they were going to watch the new thing with the dinosaurs on ITV at 7:45, and I fell for it. I'm sure the dinosaur thing was rubbish ("Walking With Dinosaurs" was rubbish, and this is just the same sub-Jurassic-Park CGI dinosaurs with an added plot about time travel and a maverick scientist hero), and Shrek is great, but that's not the point. The rugby was also a good game, but that's not the point either. I'm not sure what the point is, but it almost certainly involves the licence fee.
My TV licence is actually in the name of Mr G Bridmore. I keep meaning to change it.
I watched the Ireland/France rugby game today. I don't particularly like rugby, but for some reason I always end up tuning into a game or two during the Six Nations. Perhaps it's the way the BBC promote it excessively during their coverage of football and everything else I like to watch. I'm annoyed with the BBC because they deliberately showed Shrek last night at 7:15 in order to make people forget they were going to watch the new thing with the dinosaurs on ITV at 7:45, and I fell for it. I'm sure the dinosaur thing was rubbish ("Walking With Dinosaurs" was rubbish, and this is just the same sub-Jurassic-Park CGI dinosaurs with an added plot about time travel and a maverick scientist hero), and Shrek is great, but that's not the point. The rugby was also a good game, but that's not the point either. I'm not sure what the point is, but it almost certainly involves the licence fee.
My TV licence is actually in the name of Mr G Bridmore. I keep meaning to change it.
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Country life
Derby's postcodes are very strange. I live in DE23, yet I just have to walk down the road and I'm in DE1. I'm right next to the city centre, how come I get a postcode that makes it sound like I live somewhere in the wilds of Derbyshire? When I lived in Tumby Woodside, the best part of fifty miles from Peterborough, I was in PE22, which is the postcode for all the little villages on the far side of Boston that aren't quite close enough to Lincoln to get an LN code. Boston itself is PE21. I've never lived, long-term, in any place with a postcode number under twenty. That statistic makes me sound like some kind of country bumpkin who's afraid of settlements with more than three inhabitants and lives in a cave somewhere, eating passing rabbits and weevils and shouting at goats. It's a good thing nobody knows or cares about my postcode.
I'm watching Crimewatch right now, for want of anything better to do. I used to watch it regularly when I was a lot younger. I don't know why, maybe it's the appeal of the badly-acted dramatisations, or the vague hope that I might have witnessed the arch-criminal without knowing it at some point in the distant past. Of course, with my inability to remember faces, I wouldn't know about it even if I saw them on Crimewatch.
I'm watching Crimewatch right now, for want of anything better to do. I used to watch it regularly when I was a lot younger. I don't know why, maybe it's the appeal of the badly-acted dramatisations, or the vague hope that I might have witnessed the arch-criminal without knowing it at some point in the distant past. Of course, with my inability to remember faces, I wouldn't know about it even if I saw them on Crimewatch.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
COLD winter ahead!
It's going to snow! Unless the weather forecasters have lied to me, of course, but they don't usually. If I'd thought about it, I would have bought some more new shoes, or wellies, or something suitable for walking around when there's snow and slush on the ground. The famous other-materials shoes haven't really stood up to the strain of being walked around in every now and then, so perhaps next time I really need to splash out on the second-cheapest shoes in the shop instead of the cheapest.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Little Green Men (and Zoom Zoom)
I was wondering whether to watch the repeat of the last episode of the first series of Life On Mars on BBC4 in ten minutes. There's a new series next week, or possibly the week after. While pursuing my usual means of making my mind up about something, ie by doing nothing and waiting to see what happens, I clicked on the uk.misc newsgroup, for the first time ever and for totally un-Life-On-Mars-related reasons, to find a post about it. From a German who thought the characters speak with really weird accents and that it's strange that the police officers don't carry guns, but that's not the point. I took this as a sign from the universe that I should watch Life On Mars, and so that's what I'm doing.
If I were to think about it rationally, I might be worried about the way I'm taking orders from the internet. There are conspiracies, you know. This is probably what led to Spencer Perceval being assassinated. Innocuously-placed websites designed by freemasons and communists designed to prompt lone gunmen into doing things.
Also, it's been decided (by me and Jemfy, and we know about these things), that the word 'gerrymander' now describes the way geese walk. 'Goose-step' tends to have negative connotations nowadays, you see.
Incidentally, does anybody out there get the reference in this post title? I know they're normally obscure, but this one is particularly so, and I think it's particularly clever and funny (though I says it as shouldn't).
If I were to think about it rationally, I might be worried about the way I'm taking orders from the internet. There are conspiracies, you know. This is probably what led to Spencer Perceval being assassinated. Innocuously-placed websites designed by freemasons and communists designed to prompt lone gunmen into doing things.
Also, it's been decided (by me and Jemfy, and we know about these things), that the word 'gerrymander' now describes the way geese walk. 'Goose-step' tends to have negative connotations nowadays, you see.
Incidentally, does anybody out there get the reference in this post title? I know they're normally obscure, but this one is particularly so, and I think it's particularly clever and funny (though I says it as shouldn't).
Monday, February 05, 2007
More tea, vicar?
It occurred to me early this morning that I had James and Ravinder and Victoria coming round with cameras and tripods and brain buddies and things, and that it's polite to offer guests something to drink. Since the only liquids I had available were tap water and past-the-sell-by-date milk, I went out to the corner shop and got some tea. I did consider getting coffee as well, but decided against it because while I can bring myself to drink tea every now and then, coffee tastes like yuck.
James arrived, asked if I had anything decaffeinated, and when I told him I hadn't, opted for tap water. When the TV people turned up, with all the accompanying excitement and talking, I forgot to offer them anything until just before lunch, when they politely declined since we were just about to go for lunch. So now I've got a box of teabags AND a pack of sugar that I'm going to have to drink and/or eat myself. With hindsight, I really should have bought coffee, seeing as my brother's coming round for the weekend and he drinks no end of coffee but dislikes tea.
But despite my shortcomings as a tea boy, I think today's secondary purpose of making a documentary went well. We did lots of talking about this and that, memorising cards and reciting pi, showing the camera around my stylishly untidy flat, drinking and talking in the haunted pub and expressing scepticism regarding James's mind-altering flashy-lights-and-pulsing-sounds Brain Buddy device. Actually, I expect the thing works very well - Dominic's always raving about it - but it normally takes me at least a couple of years to agree to try new things.
James arrived, asked if I had anything decaffeinated, and when I told him I hadn't, opted for tap water. When the TV people turned up, with all the accompanying excitement and talking, I forgot to offer them anything until just before lunch, when they politely declined since we were just about to go for lunch. So now I've got a box of teabags AND a pack of sugar that I'm going to have to drink and/or eat myself. With hindsight, I really should have bought coffee, seeing as my brother's coming round for the weekend and he drinks no end of coffee but dislikes tea.
But despite my shortcomings as a tea boy, I think today's secondary purpose of making a documentary went well. We did lots of talking about this and that, memorising cards and reciting pi, showing the camera around my stylishly untidy flat, drinking and talking in the haunted pub and expressing scepticism regarding James's mind-altering flashy-lights-and-pulsing-sounds Brain Buddy device. Actually, I expect the thing works very well - Dominic's always raving about it - but it normally takes me at least a couple of years to agree to try new things.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Sheriff John Stone, why don't you leave me alone
I can't get the song 'Sloop John B' by the Beach Boys out of my head today. I've also had an email from a TV guy asking me if I want to do a bit about counting cards for a programme called 'Beat The Casino', but I've turned him down. As previously mentioned, once or twice, I love holidays in Las Vegas, and when Dominic did a similar documentary years ago, all the casinos in Vegas sent him polite letters telling him never to set foot inside them again on pain of nobbling by hired goons. Well, I don't think the hired goons were mentioned, but I just assume they're implied in all letters from Las Vegas casinos.
The above paragraph makes it sound like I'm some kind of genius card-counter who periodically goes to Las Vegas to supplement his income by winning squillions of dollars at blackjack. I'm really not. When they hear that I can memorise cards, the first thing everyone says is 'I bet you're good at blackjack', or 'don't play this guy at poker', or something like that. And yes, I'd be great at blackjack if they allowed me to look through the deck of cards before the start of the game, but strangely enough most casinos prefer not to do that. Card counting is a completely different skill.
I can do it a bit, admittedly, but when I'm in Vegas I prefer to just trust to luck. It's more fun that way and I usually win anyway.
The above paragraph makes it sound like I'm some kind of genius card-counter who periodically goes to Las Vegas to supplement his income by winning squillions of dollars at blackjack. I'm really not. When they hear that I can memorise cards, the first thing everyone says is 'I bet you're good at blackjack', or 'don't play this guy at poker', or something like that. And yes, I'd be great at blackjack if they allowed me to look through the deck of cards before the start of the game, but strangely enough most casinos prefer not to do that. Card counting is a completely different skill.
I can do it a bit, admittedly, but when I'm in Vegas I prefer to just trust to luck. It's more fun that way and I usually win anyway.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Everlasting, like the sun
I've just watched "Do You Want To Live Forever", the documentary about Aubrey, and it was brilliant. I've heard and read about his theories at length before, but it's always a lot of fun to see him talking about them, with the beard and hair and a glass of beer on the go ("I have the genes that mean I like beer, and drinking it in the morning isn't a problem. I mean, it's ten in the morning, this is my third pint, and that's fine for me..."), and with a very convincing kind of passion for the subject. Jay Olshansky claimed in the documentary that Aubrey is full of bitterness and hate towards the scientific community, which is a wildly inaccurate thing to say - I've never known anyone less hateful, he does everything with a sense of just having fun with it.
Am I convinced by the arguments that we could eradicate the aging process with just a bit of work? Yes. Not from any kind of scientific understanding, but just because I like to believe we live in the kind of world where Aubrey's right. If I had money, I would gladly invest it in SENS research, or bump up the Methuselah Mouse prize fund, or whatever, and I hope it all comes to fruition, just so I can say I knew about it before it was cool. Even before meeting Aubrey, I generally approached life from the point of view that I was going to live forever, so it's quite nice to know I was right all along.
Meanwhile, I notice tonight that Amazon.co.uk seem to also have a different approach to time - they've just sent me an email saying:
"Dear Customer,
We wanted to give you an update on the status of your order
[026-4457344-7257252].
We are sorry to report that the following items have been delayed.
Antonia Forest (Author) "Falconer's Lure"
Our current estimate is that it will take an additional 4-6 weeks to
obtain these items for you.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes."
This, I might point out, is a book I ordered for a Christmas present for my mother, BEFORE Christmas, and this is the first I've heard that it hasn't been delivered yet. (Yes, if I spoke to my mother occasionally, I might have learned as much by now, but that's not the point.) I don't know, what is the world coming to?
Still, to look on the bright side, at least I didn't go to the football like I was thinking of doing yesterday. We got thrashed six-nil. At home. To Grimsby.
Am I convinced by the arguments that we could eradicate the aging process with just a bit of work? Yes. Not from any kind of scientific understanding, but just because I like to believe we live in the kind of world where Aubrey's right. If I had money, I would gladly invest it in SENS research, or bump up the Methuselah Mouse prize fund, or whatever, and I hope it all comes to fruition, just so I can say I knew about it before it was cool. Even before meeting Aubrey, I generally approached life from the point of view that I was going to live forever, so it's quite nice to know I was right all along.
Meanwhile, I notice tonight that Amazon.co.uk seem to also have a different approach to time - they've just sent me an email saying:
"Dear Customer,
We wanted to give you an update on the status of your order
[026-4457344-7257252].
We are sorry to report that the following items have been delayed.
Antonia Forest (Author) "Falconer's Lure"
Our current estimate is that it will take an additional 4-6 weeks to
obtain these items for you.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes."
This, I might point out, is a book I ordered for a Christmas present for my mother, BEFORE Christmas, and this is the first I've heard that it hasn't been delivered yet. (Yes, if I spoke to my mother occasionally, I might have learned as much by now, but that's not the point.) I don't know, what is the world coming to?
Still, to look on the bright side, at least I didn't go to the football like I was thinking of doing yesterday. We got thrashed six-nil. At home. To Grimsby.
Friday, February 02, 2007
It's grim up north
Boston Utd are at home to Grimsby tomorrow, in yet another crucial relegation six-pointer. There's a whole gaggle of six teams fighting it out for the next-to-bottom spot, and most of the others have got home games against mid-table opposition tomorrow, so a win for Boston is absolutely vital. I'm not sure whether or not to go and see it - Boston-Grimsby games are always fun, since Grimsby are the dirtiest team in the league, they're local rivals and games are always more like a punch-up in the mud than a classic football match.
Alternatively, I might stay at home and do memory practice. I did an hour numbers today, trying out that thing where I link the last image from one group to the first of the next, like I do with spoken numbers. It's slower, so I only went through the 2340 digits three-and-a-bit times instead of four or five, but the recall was better, and I ended up with a score of 1800, which is more than acceptable, especially since I'm pretty sure I could do better than that with a bit more practice.
I'm not sure whether to try doing that in hour cards or half-hour binary, but I think I probably won't. Hour numbers was the only one where I was getting to the limit of what I wanted to try to memorise before half way through the memorising time, and just revising it for the rest of the time. Which I don't think is an effective way to do things, but trying to memorise more than ten journeys doesn't really work for me either. Still, it was quite exciting.
There's also a big long documentary on ITV tomorrow night about Aubrey and his life-extension stuff, which I'm sure will be fun to watch. I'd probably miss the start if I went to the football. Plus if I stayed at home I could hoover the place and pick up some of the filth, you know, seeing as I've got guests on Monday.
Wow, that's weird. I've just noticed that there's a series called "After You've Gone", starring Nicholas Lyndhurst, on BBC1 on Friday nights nowadays. I assume it's a sitcom of some kind. Tonight's is episode 4, but it's the first time I've noticed that it exists. And I normally make a point of checking out new sitcoms, even BBC1 ones, in case they're good. I need to be more observant.
Alternatively, I might stay at home and do memory practice. I did an hour numbers today, trying out that thing where I link the last image from one group to the first of the next, like I do with spoken numbers. It's slower, so I only went through the 2340 digits three-and-a-bit times instead of four or five, but the recall was better, and I ended up with a score of 1800, which is more than acceptable, especially since I'm pretty sure I could do better than that with a bit more practice.
I'm not sure whether to try doing that in hour cards or half-hour binary, but I think I probably won't. Hour numbers was the only one where I was getting to the limit of what I wanted to try to memorise before half way through the memorising time, and just revising it for the rest of the time. Which I don't think is an effective way to do things, but trying to memorise more than ten journeys doesn't really work for me either. Still, it was quite exciting.
There's also a big long documentary on ITV tomorrow night about Aubrey and his life-extension stuff, which I'm sure will be fun to watch. I'd probably miss the start if I went to the football. Plus if I stayed at home I could hoover the place and pick up some of the filth, you know, seeing as I've got guests on Monday.
Wow, that's weird. I've just noticed that there's a series called "After You've Gone", starring Nicholas Lyndhurst, on BBC1 on Friday nights nowadays. I assume it's a sitcom of some kind. Tonight's is episode 4, but it's the first time I've noticed that it exists. And I normally make a point of checking out new sitcoms, even BBC1 ones, in case they're good. I need to be more observant.
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