Let's talk about Doctor Who again. Well, I haven't done anything else today, so we might as well. And what with last weekend's excitement, I only got to watch last Saturday's episode yesterday, so I've had two in two days and I thought I'd share my thoughts on them.
"The Poison Sky", the second part of the Sontaran story, was a real rip-roaring, thrilling episode, with no end of action and entertainment. I looked at the clock half an hour in to it and thought "Cripes, we've had at least two movies' worth of things happening so far and it doesn't even feel rushed!" Great writing, and mostly great acting too. It's always fun to see Rupert Holliday Evans, and I hope he shows up again, he works well with the Doctor.
It was also a very good episode for a New Doctor Who Drinking Game - it ticked all the boxes for the plot cliches that keep on showing up. We had modern technology in the form of GPS systems and cars turning against humans; the entire world coming under attack at once with maps displaying affected areas and British and American news reporters commenting on it; the companion's mother being at odds with the Doctor's approach to solving the problem; the Doctor being briefly separated from the Tardis and lamenting that he was going to have to live like a normal person now; a whiny American genius bad guy... but despite all this, it was fantastically fun to watch. The Sontarans were great, so were Martha and Donna and the Doctor, and the plot made some kind of sense too. Only the final resolution was a bit flawed - okay, hindsight is always 20-20, but I bet the Sontarans were really kicking themselves about the way they didn't bother to go after Rattigan and kill him, even though they knew he had a device that could thwart all their plans.
Some really great moments from the Doctor ("People with guns are usually the bad guys"), and I hope we're going to see the Sontarans and UNIT again.
Tonight's episode, "The Doctor's Daughter", on the other hand, I think suffered from being a single episode. It had the kind of plot that would have worked spread over four 25-minute episodes, using as it did the old sci-fi cliche of a war between two factions that's been going on so long nobody remembers how it started (with a nice and very Doctor Who twist that I genuinely didn't see coming). It would have gone down very nicely in the Tom Baker era, and not just because of the similarities to "The Face Of Evil", but it felt like the pacing had been compromised to fit all the action into 35 minutes (with the final ten minutes being a lengthy epilogue). It felt rushed and disjointed, although it did avoid clunky exposition in setting the scene nicely.
I take issue with a couple of details of this society of people bred for the sole purpose of fighting the war and discovering the holy grail they've been searching for all their lives - firstly, having decided that the Doctor and Donna are threats to their society and of no genetic use to them, why do they lock them in a cell rather than just killing them? And why, having discovered the map to the thing their entire lives revolve around finding, do they decide to go to bed and set out to find it in the morning? I mean, I know a good night's sleep is important, but I'm surprised at the patience they're showing here.
Still, it was a good story, introduced an interesting character (although the silly handsprings-through-the-lasers bit is so not what Doctor Who is all about), making intelligent use of sci-fi staples (great costumes on the Hath too). It was just a bit bland and ordinary.
Still, I'm loving new Doctor Who, even half way through the fourth series. David Tennant needs to stay in the role for the rest of time. Best Doctor ever.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
Nobody wants to play with me
Okay, so the situation for the Derby championship is like this. There will be certainly one, possibly two, TV crews filming the event, half a dozen competent arbiters, nice scenic location, admirable organisation of the whole weekend... and, if we're lucky, three competitors.
This is not a good thing, all in all. The whole thing is going to look a bit silly. 66.7% sillier than the UK championship last year, assuming that silliness is inversely proportionate to the number of competitors who turn up for an event. Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted that Gaby is coming from Germany and Dagfinn from Norway, just to take part in the championship, but I would be more delighted if the entire population of Britain didn't have better things to do that weekend. Or if the entire population of Derby wasn't happy to point me out on the street (even the Big Issue salesman in the city centre) but reluctant to try their collective hand at memorising a few numbers.
Okay, we might also have the likes of Nikita from possibly Russia or possibly Stoke-on-Trent, I've never asked, and other-Ben from down south somewhere and Nico from London-I-think-but-I'd-have-to-check-up-on-that and make a half-respectable turnout, but I'm still very worried that I'm going to end up looking extremely silly here.
There's a £100 top prize, remember, people - and I'm not eligible to win it, so you have a decent chance of covering your expenses if you want to come along. But I'm seriously considering taking a full census of exactly who's coming, and if the silliness level is below UK Championship 2007 levels (possibly using a more sophisticated assessment method involving world rankings), I might cancel the event while it's possible to escape with some dignity and my deposit for the room.
Please come to the Derby Memory Championship! Or give me a good excuse why you can't!
This is not a good thing, all in all. The whole thing is going to look a bit silly. 66.7% sillier than the UK championship last year, assuming that silliness is inversely proportionate to the number of competitors who turn up for an event. Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted that Gaby is coming from Germany and Dagfinn from Norway, just to take part in the championship, but I would be more delighted if the entire population of Britain didn't have better things to do that weekend. Or if the entire population of Derby wasn't happy to point me out on the street (even the Big Issue salesman in the city centre) but reluctant to try their collective hand at memorising a few numbers.
Okay, we might also have the likes of Nikita from possibly Russia or possibly Stoke-on-Trent, I've never asked, and other-Ben from down south somewhere and Nico from London-I-think-but-I'd-have-to-check-up-on-that and make a half-respectable turnout, but I'm still very worried that I'm going to end up looking extremely silly here.
There's a £100 top prize, remember, people - and I'm not eligible to win it, so you have a decent chance of covering your expenses if you want to come along. But I'm seriously considering taking a full census of exactly who's coming, and if the silliness level is below UK Championship 2007 levels (possibly using a more sophisticated assessment method involving world rankings), I might cancel the event while it's possible to escape with some dignity and my deposit for the room.
Please come to the Derby Memory Championship! Or give me a good excuse why you can't!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Mapped into abstraction
I'm embarking on a campaign of getting to grips with abstract images. The memory competition discipline, you know, I'm not turning into a modern artist. Although that would be cool.
No, what I'm doing is finally putting aside my dislike of the whole event and trying to work out a good system. So I'm going through the quite tedious process of identifying all the different background patterns - I think there are about a hundred of them, although I've never examined them in detail - and associating each one with one of my images. Then I think I'm going to memorise the images by reading them DOWN the columns, rather than across the rows. I don't know if that'll work, but in theory it should make recall easier, because I'll be able to pick one of five options for each image at each point on the journey. I might be able to just go through all the images once, and if that does turn out to be possible, 250 images in 15 minutes should be very easy.
I wonder if that's the system Gunther uses? I'm still going to call it the Ben-Images-System anyway, if it works. BIS for short. Like the extremely cool pop group.
No, what I'm doing is finally putting aside my dislike of the whole event and trying to work out a good system. So I'm going through the quite tedious process of identifying all the different background patterns - I think there are about a hundred of them, although I've never examined them in detail - and associating each one with one of my images. Then I think I'm going to memorise the images by reading them DOWN the columns, rather than across the rows. I don't know if that'll work, but in theory it should make recall easier, because I'll be able to pick one of five options for each image at each point on the journey. I might be able to just go through all the images once, and if that does turn out to be possible, 250 images in 15 minutes should be very easy.
I wonder if that's the system Gunther uses? I'm still going to call it the Ben-Images-System anyway, if it works. BIS for short. Like the extremely cool pop group.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
The cake is a lie
As you know (or as you would know if you'd memorised every detail of my life like I expect you to), I disapprove of basically every new computer game developed in the last fifteen years or so. Consequently, I'm a little out of touch with what modern games are like. However, someone made a passing reference to the game "Portal" today, which intrigued me enough to look it up. And, well, I've seen unanimously raving reviews, lots of screenshots and youtube clips, no end of buzz about it, and now I really, really want this game! Enough to abandon my long-held belief that video games reached perfection with the Sega Mega Drive. So, before I spend a lot of money that I really can't afford on a game that the most enthusiastic reviews concede will only take about five hours to complete, I thought I'd ask my loyal blog-readers if you've played it, and if it really is as clever, funny and entertaining as the masses of internet people make it sound?
It really seems worth the £15 it costs in HMV just for that brilliant song at the end...
It really seems worth the £15 it costs in HMV just for that brilliant song at the end...
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Non-interview-related post
As I might have mentioned once or twice before, I'm not going to say anything at all about the job interview I went to today, in case I accidentally say something that would prejudice my chance of getting the job. But please keep your fingers crossed for this one, because I still hope I get it.
Instead, let me announce that before going to the interview (it was a late afternoon one) I did a half-hour binary practice in the morning and a half-hour numbers in the afternoon, and despite the fact that my brain was working significantly slower than usual - I didn't quite get to the end of my sixth journey in binary, and I normally come close to completing seven in 30 minutes - I ended up with pretty accurate recall and scores of 3715 and 1222. The latter would be a world record (just barely) if I did it in competition, and the 3715 would be an entirely acceptable and almost certainly winning score in any championship. I'm happy with myself for being able to keep the mental concentration going for two 90-minute sessions, and hopefully I can expand further on that and get really up to peak performance by the time the German championship comes round. I'd really like to win that one this year.
Instead, let me announce that before going to the interview (it was a late afternoon one) I did a half-hour binary practice in the morning and a half-hour numbers in the afternoon, and despite the fact that my brain was working significantly slower than usual - I didn't quite get to the end of my sixth journey in binary, and I normally come close to completing seven in 30 minutes - I ended up with pretty accurate recall and scores of 3715 and 1222. The latter would be a world record (just barely) if I did it in competition, and the 3715 would be an entirely acceptable and almost certainly winning score in any championship. I'm happy with myself for being able to keep the mental concentration going for two 90-minute sessions, and hopefully I can expand further on that and get really up to peak performance by the time the German championship comes round. I'd really like to win that one this year.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Drat!
Well, I managed to get home, laden with my big heavy rucksack and four bags of miscellaneous othello-related equipment, without losing anything that doesn't belong to me, my hat or my only posession of any monetary value (my laptop), but (and brace yourself for a tale of tragedy here) somewhere along the way the rucksack or the bags slung over my shoulders must have knocked the Blue Peter badge off my lapel! I'm afraid it's really lost and gone forever this time.
I'm going to buy another one on eBay.
I'm going to buy another one on eBay.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
CMC '08
That's Cambridge Memory Championship 2008. I don't think anyone's ever called it the CMC before, but I think we should start. Anyway, the day was fun. I got to Trinity College a bit before our optimistically scheduled starting time of 9:00, carrying two tons of memorisation and recall sheets, packs of cards and timers in my big rucksack, plus Adelaide's handmade "The MSO Is Nigh" sign to wave around at anyone who looked like they might be looking for the MSO. It even worked, luring in all our newcomers to the memory competition world (and there were four of them, too) while we waited outside for Imre to bring the keys to the room. We got into the room just fine, which is more than can be said for the go players in the Junior Parlour, since the stratego players yesterday hadn't returned the key. Everything was sorted out in the end, I gather.
Our room, on the other hand, was one of the Wolfson seminar rooms, nicely away from the street in the middle of the campus, and which I thought would be an ideal, quiet location. It nearly was, with just a few minor exceptions, the major one being the lift just outside the room which bleeps very noisily whenever it goes up or down. The room is basically an enormous glass cube - all windows, even half the floor is glass, allowing you to look down at the concrete two storeys below. Not a room for vertigo-sufferers. The room also didn't have an openable window or working air-conditioning system, so at first we decided to move over the corridor into the room allocated to the shogi players, planning to invoke the time-honoured law of first-come-first-served, but found that the electric sockets weren't working and I couldn't plug in my laptop. So we decamped back to the original room and put up with the hot, sweaty, airtight surroundings.
The seminar rooms are oddly positioned on the second floor of a building that otherwise serves as a hall of residence for Trinity students. There are rooms either side of the seminar rooms, kitchens, showers and toilets at the far ends, and people occasionally wandered back and forth during the day, able to look in through the entirely glass wall of the room as they passed by. The competitors didn't mind the goldfish-bowl feeling, except possibly when a young man wearing nothing but a towel strolled by in the middle of one event. There were only occasional noisy distractions, such as when another pair of students dragged a double bass and cello over to the lift and tried to work out how to fit them both inside, with all our competitors watching.
As for the competitors, we had, as I've said, four newcomers, which is excellent. We also had two Jameses and Gaby from Germany lending the beginners the benefit of their experience. Katie Kermode, however, clearly wasn't in need of much experience - she started off with an excellent 68 in the 5-minute words, and followed it up with a new world record in 5-minute names and faces, of a pretty staggering 82! That's about the score I normally get in 15-minute names and faces... Katie also has the honour of being the first British woman to take part in a memory competition since the early days of the world memory championships. Dagfinn from Norway has the honour of being the first Norwegian to come to the Cambridge championship, which I think is something to be proud of, whereas John and Dave have the honour of joining the very select group of British memory people, and I hope to see them all again soon!
I'd planned to go to the Mitre for lunch, but it turned out not to be open when we got there a bit before twelve (the schedule for Cambridge calls for an early lunch, working on the assumption that there will be major delays. Today, there weren't), so we went into the pub next door, which has a strange name like the Duke of Beef, or something along those lines, I can't really remember. The food was very nice, unless you ordered the Kentucky Burger like James Kemp did and expected a chicken burger like the menu promised. Due to a confusion in the kitchens, he got a fish burger with salsa and the usual chicken-accompaniments. He still ate it.
For the spoken numbers, we took drastic precautions - Jenny went and stood in the lift, holding the doors open, to stop it beeping in the middle of the recitation, and Phil and Rosie took up positions down the corridor to try to head off any noisy or nude students who might be heading our way. We just about managed an acceptable background noise level.
Gaby won in the end, with a just-over-one-minute speed cards to finish off with. I also had a go at the speed cards, joining in on the second trial, but got distracted by some noise right at the start, could only manage 34 seconds and got the recall mixed up. But Gaby's 3963 points bumps her up to 32nd on the rating list, knocking James Ponder down a place, which will serve him right for not being able to come today. James Paterson's third-place score, contrary to what he was saying this evening afterwards, does move him up a place or two too.
Thanks to Science House, our kind sponsor, there was prize money for Gaby and Katie, which is always nice for morale-boosting among competitors. I dutifully plugged the website to all the competitors, or at least I suggested that they check out "sciencehouse.com, or is it sciencehouse.org? Just type 'science house' into google and you'll probably find it". During the course of the day I also discovered that I am completely unable to say "seventh place" without it coming out as "seventh plathe".
After the competition we escaped the glass cube and fled back to the pub, where Gaby gave me a wonderful gift of a German Hagar the Horrible comic and Jenny introduced me to raspberry gin fizz, which is delicious and might become my regular drink of choice from now on. And now I'm back in my hotel and have to lug all my cards and timers, plus all the BOF's othello boards and clocks, back to Derby in preparation for the competitions there in the coming month. It keeps me fit, probably.
Our room, on the other hand, was one of the Wolfson seminar rooms, nicely away from the street in the middle of the campus, and which I thought would be an ideal, quiet location. It nearly was, with just a few minor exceptions, the major one being the lift just outside the room which bleeps very noisily whenever it goes up or down. The room is basically an enormous glass cube - all windows, even half the floor is glass, allowing you to look down at the concrete two storeys below. Not a room for vertigo-sufferers. The room also didn't have an openable window or working air-conditioning system, so at first we decided to move over the corridor into the room allocated to the shogi players, planning to invoke the time-honoured law of first-come-first-served, but found that the electric sockets weren't working and I couldn't plug in my laptop. So we decamped back to the original room and put up with the hot, sweaty, airtight surroundings.
The seminar rooms are oddly positioned on the second floor of a building that otherwise serves as a hall of residence for Trinity students. There are rooms either side of the seminar rooms, kitchens, showers and toilets at the far ends, and people occasionally wandered back and forth during the day, able to look in through the entirely glass wall of the room as they passed by. The competitors didn't mind the goldfish-bowl feeling, except possibly when a young man wearing nothing but a towel strolled by in the middle of one event. There were only occasional noisy distractions, such as when another pair of students dragged a double bass and cello over to the lift and tried to work out how to fit them both inside, with all our competitors watching.
As for the competitors, we had, as I've said, four newcomers, which is excellent. We also had two Jameses and Gaby from Germany lending the beginners the benefit of their experience. Katie Kermode, however, clearly wasn't in need of much experience - she started off with an excellent 68 in the 5-minute words, and followed it up with a new world record in 5-minute names and faces, of a pretty staggering 82! That's about the score I normally get in 15-minute names and faces... Katie also has the honour of being the first British woman to take part in a memory competition since the early days of the world memory championships. Dagfinn from Norway has the honour of being the first Norwegian to come to the Cambridge championship, which I think is something to be proud of, whereas John and Dave have the honour of joining the very select group of British memory people, and I hope to see them all again soon!
I'd planned to go to the Mitre for lunch, but it turned out not to be open when we got there a bit before twelve (the schedule for Cambridge calls for an early lunch, working on the assumption that there will be major delays. Today, there weren't), so we went into the pub next door, which has a strange name like the Duke of Beef, or something along those lines, I can't really remember. The food was very nice, unless you ordered the Kentucky Burger like James Kemp did and expected a chicken burger like the menu promised. Due to a confusion in the kitchens, he got a fish burger with salsa and the usual chicken-accompaniments. He still ate it.
For the spoken numbers, we took drastic precautions - Jenny went and stood in the lift, holding the doors open, to stop it beeping in the middle of the recitation, and Phil and Rosie took up positions down the corridor to try to head off any noisy or nude students who might be heading our way. We just about managed an acceptable background noise level.
Gaby won in the end, with a just-over-one-minute speed cards to finish off with. I also had a go at the speed cards, joining in on the second trial, but got distracted by some noise right at the start, could only manage 34 seconds and got the recall mixed up. But Gaby's 3963 points bumps her up to 32nd on the rating list, knocking James Ponder down a place, which will serve him right for not being able to come today. James Paterson's third-place score, contrary to what he was saying this evening afterwards, does move him up a place or two too.
Thanks to Science House, our kind sponsor, there was prize money for Gaby and Katie, which is always nice for morale-boosting among competitors. I dutifully plugged the website to all the competitors, or at least I suggested that they check out "sciencehouse.com, or is it sciencehouse.org? Just type 'science house' into google and you'll probably find it". During the course of the day I also discovered that I am completely unable to say "seventh place" without it coming out as "seventh plathe".
After the competition we escaped the glass cube and fled back to the pub, where Gaby gave me a wonderful gift of a German Hagar the Horrible comic and Jenny introduced me to raspberry gin fizz, which is delicious and might become my regular drink of choice from now on. And now I'm back in my hotel and have to lug all my cards and timers, plus all the BOF's othello boards and clocks, back to Derby in preparation for the competitions there in the coming month. It keeps me fit, probably.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Yay for othello!
I ended up with an extremely respectable 4½ out of 7 today, which while admittedly not at the dizzy heights of last year's performance, is a definite step in the right direction. I might have left it a bit late to seriously challenge for the BGP (looks like being a close contest between David Beck and Iain Barrass this year), but I'm aiming to continue improving as time goes on.
Also, I've had too much to drink considering I need to be up early tomorrow morning to run a memory competition, and I probably should go to bed.
Also, I've had too much to drink considering I need to be up early tomorrow morning to run a memory competition, and I probably should go to bed.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Cambridge could do with another Cam-bridge
This hotel would be slightly closer to the city centre if you didn't have to go a long way round to get over the river. Still, it does have wireless internet in my room, even though it isn't supposed to - the wi-fi is officially only in the conference rooms.
So, othello tomorrow, memory on Sunday. I've got a big pile of brown envelopes containing more numbers, words, faces, dates and images than anyone could ever hope to memorise in the time allowed - enough for twenty competitors as long as precisely fifteen of them speak English, three speak German and two speak Norwegian. I'm not expecting more than twelve people to turn up, but it'd be nice to have more. Still time to come along, if you're in Cambridge this weekend!
With any luck, talking to people about memory will get me all fired up to practice for Derby, Germany, Bahrain and anywhere else I might get to test my memory later this year. I'm still looking for that elusive motivation.
As for othello, this was the one I did really well in last year. Can I do it again? Probably not. I've been playing better on the internet just lately, but I don't think I'm in what for me qualifies as good form. Still, I'm more optimistic than I have been going into the last couple of tournaments.
Oh, and in the field of real life, I've got another interview on Tuesday, this one in Tamworth, for another cool-sounding job. Wish me luck!
So, othello tomorrow, memory on Sunday. I've got a big pile of brown envelopes containing more numbers, words, faces, dates and images than anyone could ever hope to memorise in the time allowed - enough for twenty competitors as long as precisely fifteen of them speak English, three speak German and two speak Norwegian. I'm not expecting more than twelve people to turn up, but it'd be nice to have more. Still time to come along, if you're in Cambridge this weekend!
With any luck, talking to people about memory will get me all fired up to practice for Derby, Germany, Bahrain and anywhere else I might get to test my memory later this year. I'm still looking for that elusive motivation.
As for othello, this was the one I did really well in last year. Can I do it again? Probably not. I've been playing better on the internet just lately, but I don't think I'm in what for me qualifies as good form. Still, I'm more optimistic than I have been going into the last couple of tournaments.
Oh, and in the field of real life, I've got another interview on Tuesday, this one in Tamworth, for another cool-sounding job. Wish me luck!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
You wouldn't believe all the tedious stuff I've been doing today
Well, you would, but you'd be bored with it. So I'll spare you the tiresome details and just tell you I'm going to bed. And I'll see you (in a manner of speaking) either tomorrow, or when I get back from Cambridge on Monday, depending on internet access over the weekend.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Gah! Too much work!
I'd forgotten just how long it takes to create all the memorisation papers and associated paraphernalia for a memory competition. I thought I could just wrap everything up quickly today and be all ready to lug everything down to Cambridge on Friday, but instead I've been messing around with things all day, keeping on finding new things that needed to be done... it's hard work, I tells ya. Still, now at least there's no danger of getting to the day itself without something vitally important. I've made a checklist and everything.
See you there on Sunday, everyone! Or on Saturday if you're an othello player instead of a memoriser. Or not at all if you're neither. In which case shame on you!
Also, cats are fighting noisily outside. Someone do something about it.
See you there on Sunday, everyone! Or on Saturday if you're an othello player instead of a memoriser. Or not at all if you're neither. In which case shame on you!
Also, cats are fighting noisily outside. Someone do something about it.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
I broke my glasses
But this did lead to an exciting voyage of discovery deep down to the bottom of my Big Box Of Miscellaneous Junk, looking for my spare pair. The following interesting things turned out to be in it:
Two old, broken pairs of glasses
An old, broken pair of prescription sunglasses
Three old Beanos from 2000
A broken bike lock
A Birmingham A-Z that I don't remember buying or ever using
Various medals and nametags from various MSOs
A few handwritten pages of The Adventures Of Jayce And Alex
A Simpsons jigsaw, still wrapped in cellophane, which must have been a birthday or Christmas present
A 2001 Simpsons calendar
My collection of old coins that some relative, possibly Auntie Cath, sent me out of the blue many years ago
A box of 3½" floppy disks, mostly blank, one containing my work and an assortment of computer games from when I was at Holland Training back in 1995/6
My spare pair of glasses
This last is particularly interesting, because a) I didn't expect to find them in the place where I knew I'd left them - my posessions are rarely so well organised - and b) because they were somehow right down at the bottom of the Big Box, underneath all that more ancient stuff, even though I only bought them less than three years ago. Still, I've found them now, and apart from a vague worry that they make me look somewhat nerdier than my other pair and a slight disorientation caused by the fact that my other pair were a little bent out of shape and these ones aren't, everything is good.
Two old, broken pairs of glasses
An old, broken pair of prescription sunglasses
Three old Beanos from 2000
A broken bike lock
A Birmingham A-Z that I don't remember buying or ever using
Various medals and nametags from various MSOs
A few handwritten pages of The Adventures Of Jayce And Alex
A Simpsons jigsaw, still wrapped in cellophane, which must have been a birthday or Christmas present
A 2001 Simpsons calendar
My collection of old coins that some relative, possibly Auntie Cath, sent me out of the blue many years ago
A box of 3½" floppy disks, mostly blank, one containing my work and an assortment of computer games from when I was at Holland Training back in 1995/6
My spare pair of glasses
This last is particularly interesting, because a) I didn't expect to find them in the place where I knew I'd left them - my posessions are rarely so well organised - and b) because they were somehow right down at the bottom of the Big Box, underneath all that more ancient stuff, even though I only bought them less than three years ago. Still, I've found them now, and apart from a vague worry that they make me look somewhat nerdier than my other pair and a slight disorientation caused by the fact that my other pair were a little bent out of shape and these ones aren't, everything is good.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry
Now I come to look at it, that quote is much too long to use as a blog title. Oh well, never mind. I just wanted to observe that an election is coming and the Labour and Lib Dem candidates have been pestering everyone in the area with newsletters stressing why they're great or why the others are evil incarnate. Without wanting to get all political, I really would rather they didn't waste resources and money on this kind of thing. Judging by the newsletters, their policies are as identical as their surnames (the Labour candidate is Shiraz Khan, the Lib Dem is Farhatullah Khan. Possibly they're brothers.)
I think the Conservatives should take advantage of this similarity - they don't bother to campaign in this ward, as a rule, knowing a lost cause when they see one, but they should go out of their way to appeal to those who aren't necessarily in tune with what the other candidates are supporting. The Derby congestion charge, for instance - I think it would make a refreshing change to have a candidate who says "Yes, Derby residents WILL have to pay lots and lots of money!" That way, those of us without cars will be able to laugh at everyone else!
Hey, I like this idea. I might run for the council myself, and go out of my way to offend and horrify everyone! Bulldoze the Arboretum! Encourage crime and drugs! Turn off the streetlights!
I think the Conservatives should take advantage of this similarity - they don't bother to campaign in this ward, as a rule, knowing a lost cause when they see one, but they should go out of their way to appeal to those who aren't necessarily in tune with what the other candidates are supporting. The Derby congestion charge, for instance - I think it would make a refreshing change to have a candidate who says "Yes, Derby residents WILL have to pay lots and lots of money!" That way, those of us without cars will be able to laugh at everyone else!
Hey, I like this idea. I might run for the council myself, and go out of my way to offend and horrify everyone! Bulldoze the Arboretum! Encourage crime and drugs! Turn off the streetlights!
Sunday, April 27, 2008
I'm too lazy
Since I'm too lazy to write anything interesting or entertaining tonight, I think I'll just mention that I'm cheering for Stephen Hendry in the snooker. I used to routinely cheer for Steve Davis, but perhaps I'm getting more up-to-date nowadays.
It's still an ambition of mine to become a great snooker player some day. It's sort of on the back burner of my things-to-do list, because a prerequisite of the plan is to become a millionaire and own a house big enough to fit a snooker table in. But I'm sure it'll happen some day. After all, how hard can it be to knock a few balls around?
It's still an ambition of mine to become a great snooker player some day. It's sort of on the back burner of my things-to-do list, because a prerequisite of the plan is to become a millionaire and own a house big enough to fit a snooker table in. But I'm sure it'll happen some day. After all, how hard can it be to knock a few balls around?
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Lost In Übersetzung
It must be a leftover thing from my very brief university career as a student of foreign languages, but I'm always fascinated by the art of translation, especially when it comes to translating comedy. So I read with interest an article on the BBC News website about translating 'Allo 'Allo into German. Well, the article was maybe about how they've finally sold the series to Germany after twenty years or so, but the translation bit was what really interested me.
'Allo 'Allo is a particularly difficult sitcom to translate, because of the funny conventions it established - the series is set in France, with characters from Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and basically when characters speak with a French accent, it means they're speaking French, whereas if they speak with an English accent, they're speaking English. And then there's Crabtree, who's English and speaks very bad French, which comes out as phrases like "Good moaning!" when he means "Good morning!" and "I have good nose" for "I have good news".
The French translation, I noticed, cheated, and had him say "Au revoir" for "good morning", rather than doing the mispronunciation thing, so I was pleased to hear that the German version has him saying "Guten Magen", which is much more in keeping with the original. But I do wonder what they're going to do with his mispronunciations when the joke involves something happening on screen. Like when a tank crashes into the pissoir while he's using it and he observes "It seems there is no piss for the wicked..."
This is why I admire people like the great Anthea Bell, who practically nobody else has heard of. She translated the Asterix books into English, and those have no end of untranslatable plays-on-words. So she has to come up with new jokes herself that keep the general feel of the ones in the original - and does a really brilliant job of it, too. I'd love to do something like that, as I think I've mentioned before, with Joscha Sauer's "Nichtlustig" comics. A lot of the jokes are simple to translate, some would involve a real stretch of the imagination. Tomorrow, if nothing more exciting happens to me in the meantime, I'll scan and post some examples...
'Allo 'Allo is a particularly difficult sitcom to translate, because of the funny conventions it established - the series is set in France, with characters from Britain, France, Germany and Italy, and basically when characters speak with a French accent, it means they're speaking French, whereas if they speak with an English accent, they're speaking English. And then there's Crabtree, who's English and speaks very bad French, which comes out as phrases like "Good moaning!" when he means "Good morning!" and "I have good nose" for "I have good news".
The French translation, I noticed, cheated, and had him say "Au revoir" for "good morning", rather than doing the mispronunciation thing, so I was pleased to hear that the German version has him saying "Guten Magen", which is much more in keeping with the original. But I do wonder what they're going to do with his mispronunciations when the joke involves something happening on screen. Like when a tank crashes into the pissoir while he's using it and he observes "It seems there is no piss for the wicked..."
This is why I admire people like the great Anthea Bell, who practically nobody else has heard of. She translated the Asterix books into English, and those have no end of untranslatable plays-on-words. So she has to come up with new jokes herself that keep the general feel of the ones in the original - and does a really brilliant job of it, too. I'd love to do something like that, as I think I've mentioned before, with Joscha Sauer's "Nichtlustig" comics. A lot of the jokes are simple to translate, some would involve a real stretch of the imagination. Tomorrow, if nothing more exciting happens to me in the meantime, I'll scan and post some examples...
Public Service Announcement
There's just one week to go until the Cambridge Memory Championship!
The competition takes place on Sunday May 4th, at Trinity College,
Cambridge, as part of the Cambridge Mind Sports Olympiad 2008.
Details can be found here: http://msocambridge.org.uk/ as well as
here: http://cambridgememorychampionship.co.uk/
The venue is in the city centre, and easy to find. The only slightly
confusing bit is that the rooms for the competition are in the part
of Trinity College not accessed by the main entrance, but by
Whewell's Court, the entrance on the opposite side of the street.
There will, hopefully, be signposts and people (including me) to
point you in the right direction on the day!
The prize money for Cambridge will be £50 for the winner, £25 for
second place and £10 for the best beginner. Our prizes are made
possible by the kind sponsorship of Science House:
http://sciencehouse.com/
It's not too late to take part, it's possible to just turn up on the
day, but it would be more helpful if you let me know in advance, so
that we know how many people to expect. Friends and family are
welcome to come along, especially if they're willing to lend a hand
with invigilating and marking recall papers!
The Derby Memory Championship is just one month away! It takes place
at the Bramblebrook Community Centre, Stockbrook Street, Derby on
Saturday and Sunday May 24-25. Details can be found here:
http://cambridgememorychampionship.co.uk/derby_index.shtml and free
accommodation on my living room floor is still available for anyone
who wants it (bring a sleeping bag!)
Prizes for Derby are £100 for the winner, £50 for the runner-up and
£25 for the best beginner. People who take part at Cambridge as
beginners will still be classed as 'beginners' at Derby! Again,
prizes are thanks to the generosity of Science House -
http://sciencehouse.com/
I can promise and guarantee a fun day and weekend of memorising for
everyone who comes along to either competition, and I'm looking
forward to seeing you there!
Ben
The competition takes place on Sunday May 4th, at Trinity College,
Cambridge, as part of the Cambridge Mind Sports Olympiad 2008.
Details can be found here: http://msocambridge.org.uk/ as well as
here: http://cambridgememorychampionship.co.uk/
The venue is in the city centre, and easy to find. The only slightly
confusing bit is that the rooms for the competition are in the part
of Trinity College not accessed by the main entrance, but by
Whewell's Court, the entrance on the opposite side of the street.
There will, hopefully, be signposts and people (including me) to
point you in the right direction on the day!
The prize money for Cambridge will be £50 for the winner, £25 for
second place and £10 for the best beginner. Our prizes are made
possible by the kind sponsorship of Science House:
http://sciencehouse.com/
It's not too late to take part, it's possible to just turn up on the
day, but it would be more helpful if you let me know in advance, so
that we know how many people to expect. Friends and family are
welcome to come along, especially if they're willing to lend a hand
with invigilating and marking recall papers!
The Derby Memory Championship is just one month away! It takes place
at the Bramblebrook Community Centre, Stockbrook Street, Derby on
Saturday and Sunday May 24-25. Details can be found here:
http://cambridgememorychampionship.co.uk/derby_index.shtml and free
accommodation on my living room floor is still available for anyone
who wants it (bring a sleeping bag!)
Prizes for Derby are £100 for the winner, £50 for the runner-up and
£25 for the best beginner. People who take part at Cambridge as
beginners will still be classed as 'beginners' at Derby! Again,
prizes are thanks to the generosity of Science House -
http://sciencehouse.com/
I can promise and guarantee a fun day and weekend of memorising for
everyone who comes along to either competition, and I'm looking
forward to seeing you there!
Ben
Friday, April 25, 2008
People will see me and die
Have I been on telly again recently without me knowing it? The number of people hailing me in the street as the memory man had died down a bit, but I've been getting lots of recognition just this last week. Tonight a gang of youngish teenagers in the shopping centre all recognised me, and the following conversation ensued:
Dan: You're that memory guy?
Me: Yep, that's me.
Dan: Ooh, go on then, do me!
Me: Umm... "do you"?
Dan: You know, do a memory thing to amaze me!
I really need to have a performance ready for moments like this. What I should have done, with hindsight, is tell them all what day of the week they were born on - that always goes down well. Or else I should start carrying a pack of cards or a list of FA Cup final results around with me. Actually, that's a really good idea. I will do that.
Dan: You're that memory guy?
Me: Yep, that's me.
Dan: Ooh, go on then, do me!
Me: Umm... "do you"?
Dan: You know, do a memory thing to amaze me!
I really need to have a performance ready for moments like this. What I should have done, with hindsight, is tell them all what day of the week they were born on - that always goes down well. Or else I should start carrying a pack of cards or a list of FA Cup final results around with me. Actually, that's a really good idea. I will do that.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Stafford ho!
Either thetrainline.com knows something that the rest of the internet doesn't, or it doesn't know something that the rest of the internet does, but it tells me there are very few trains from Derby to Stafford and back tomorrow. Enough that getting there at the right time for the interview and home again isn't a problem, but I'm still suspicious about the whole affair. Last year I noticed that thetrainline seems to have a blind spot when it comes to Mansfield, maybe it's suffering from the same problem with Stafford. You can't trust anything you read on the internet.
Except this blog, of course. You can trust me. There's no need to question anything I write on here, just obey me with blind faith and you won't go far wrong. Oh, and wish me luck for tomorrow, please - I'd really like to get this job.
Except this blog, of course. You can trust me. There's no need to question anything I write on here, just obey me with blind faith and you won't go far wrong. Oh, and wish me luck for tomorrow, please - I'd really like to get this job.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Bumcivilian
It's just been brought to my attention that the entire series of "Look Around You" is available on YouTube for the world to see. Both series, in fact - the original ten-minute episodes and (although I haven't watched them yet) I think all of the half-hour second series are on there too. Which pleases me no end! Look Around You is possibly the single funniest thing that's been on television for the last decade or so, and it's quite criminal that it isn't better known. It's the kind of comedy that I aspire to write myself and wildly envy when other people do it so well.
But don't take my word for it. Take an hour or so out of your busy schedule and watch the whole bally lot of the things. And when you've finished watching them, notice that the 'related videos' box for the final episode (The Brain) gives you seventeen other Look Around You videos, two random brain-related things and "Maximise the Power of Your Brain - Tony Buzan MIND MAPPING". He really is everywhere!
Go on, check them out. If you like my occasional ventures into mad surrealistic comedy, you'll love these. If you hate my occasional ventures into mad surrealistic comedy, you'll still love these because they do it so much better than I do.
But don't take my word for it. Take an hour or so out of your busy schedule and watch the whole bally lot of the things. And when you've finished watching them, notice that the 'related videos' box for the final episode (The Brain) gives you seventeen other Look Around You videos, two random brain-related things and "Maximise the Power of Your Brain - Tony Buzan MIND MAPPING". He really is everywhere!
Go on, check them out. If you like my occasional ventures into mad surrealistic comedy, you'll love these. If you hate my occasional ventures into mad surrealistic comedy, you'll still love these because they do it so much better than I do.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A cry for help
I'm concerned that I'm not going to have enough arbiters for the Derby Memory Championship. I'm also concerned that I'm not going to have enough competitors, but that's a minor problem. The arbiter thing, on the other hand, could be serious. I need to find a couple of helpful people who are willing to spend a weekend handing out, collecting in and marking memorisation and recall papers, generally keeping an eye on competitors in case anyone's cheating, and being quiet for long periods of time. In return, these happy helpers get free accommodation on the floor of my living room, free meals and drinks, my undying gratitude and a favour that can be called in at any time in the future.
If I don't manage to recruit any little helpers, I might have to drop out of the competition myself in order to run it, which would annoy me enormously, because one of my main reasons for organising the championship in the first place is to give me a practice event for the German and World Championships later in the year. So, anyone who's reading this who thinks memory-competition-assistant-arbiter could be a great career move, please get in touch. Undying gratitude, people! You can't put a price on that!
Although if you wanted to put a price on it and demand a tenner or so for your services, I could do that too.
If I don't manage to recruit any little helpers, I might have to drop out of the competition myself in order to run it, which would annoy me enormously, because one of my main reasons for organising the championship in the first place is to give me a practice event for the German and World Championships later in the year. So, anyone who's reading this who thinks memory-competition-assistant-arbiter could be a great career move, please get in touch. Undying gratitude, people! You can't put a price on that!
Although if you wanted to put a price on it and demand a tenner or so for your services, I could do that too.
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