I think my memory performance in all aspects of my life today mirrors England's performance on the football pitch - it got the job done, but it could have been better. It suddenly occurred to me in the bath this morning that I'd completely forgotten on Friday afternoon to email some figures to my boss, who needs them for a meeting at 7am on Monday. So I sneaked into the office for five minutes (remembering to put on some clothes first), printed them out and put them on his desk in a probably futile attempt to pretend they were there all along and avoid all the memory jokes.
With that out of the way, I checked the Radio Times to see if the England game was on proper telly, saw that it wasn't on BBC1 and concluded that it must be on Sky. I considered going to a pub to watch it, but you can't really watch a game in the pub without drinking a couple of pints of lager, and I do need to memorise stuff tomorrow, so I decided to stay at home and memorise some binary digits instead.
Having done that (a pretty decent result, but still not up to my absolute best), I came back into the living room, glanced at the Radio Times again and thought "D'oh! Of course, ITV have the rights to England games these days! I did know that, I'd just forgotten!" And sure enough, they were showing the game. As luck would have it, though, I only missed the first half, which by all accounts was dull and goalless, and saw the second, which was fast-paced, exciting and had six goals, five of them scored by England.
So, all in all, a pretty good day, memory-wise, but not one that's going to win me the World Cup. Sorry, World Championship.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
The Man Who Wouldn't Be King
Thanks for the interested comments about me becoming King, but I'm pretty certain I haven't got a drop of blue blood in my veins. Nothing but working-class Yorkshire folk in my family tree, I'm afraid, so you'd basically have to kill everybody else in the world, probably including yourselves, if you wanted me to end up on the throne. And I'd only abdicate and give all the money to charity anyway.
Still, it's the weekend, and that means it's memory time! All work and no play makes Zoomy a world champion, fingers crossed, touch wood.
Still, it's the weekend, and that means it's memory time! All work and no play makes Zoomy a world champion, fingers crossed, touch wood.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Seriously?
There's an advert on telly in between all the cartoons I watch for a Fisher Price pink fantasy castle kind of thing, and the narrator enthuses that "Princess Sarah-Lynn and Prince Andrew are getting ready for the party!" or something along those lines. Princess Sarah and Prince Andrew? Do they expect small girls to re-enact a thrilling fairytale divorce hearing?
Actually, is Prince Andrew even still alive? I don't seem to have heard anything about him for decades. If he is still alive and just not being in the newspapers, I approve wholeheartedly and think that the rest of the royals should follow his example. Especially if he's quietly doing some kind of charitable work instead of sitting around watching telly all day. Hey, maybe he's also a fan of Ben 10 and also giggles at that fairy castle Prince Andrew!
Actually, is Prince Andrew even still alive? I don't seem to have heard anything about him for decades. If he is still alive and just not being in the newspapers, I approve wholeheartedly and think that the rest of the royals should follow his example. Especially if he's quietly doing some kind of charitable work instead of sitting around watching telly all day. Hey, maybe he's also a fan of Ben 10 and also giggles at that fairy castle Prince Andrew!
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
First, a couple of adverts
Co-op own brand mint humbugs are delicious! Possibly the best humbugs I've ever tasted! Go and buy some, and share them with me!
Secondly, go and watch channel 4 tomorrow (Thursday) night at 9pm - a Cutting Edge documentary about narcoleptics, directed by Nick "The Mentalists" Holt.
And now our feature presentation - let's talk about the World Memory Championship! The "official" list of registered competitors now stands at 63 people (33 of them Chinese), which even if the usual 50% of those are no-shows would be a decent turnout. Who knows, if Team China really is that big, it might even do what the press releases inaccurately promise every year and have the most competitors ever! (Despite annual 'biggest ever' claims, the record still stands at 46 entrants in 2003 - and even then the press releases after the event claimed it was 53.)
So let's have a look at a few of the names that stand out on that list of 63. And let's start with Astrid Plessl, returning to competition for the first time since November 2004! She's still ranked number 5 in the world, it's just a question of how much she's been practicing since all those years ago. She came within a whisker of winning the world championship in 2003, really deserved to win it in 2004 instead of me, and was for a couple of years one of the absolute best. She always merited more than that lengthy list of second places in competitions (just one win to her name - Austrian championship 2003, in the middle of four runner-up medals, each one behind a different winner! Andi in the WMC 2003, Gunther in Prague 2003, me in the WMC 2004 and then Clemens in Austria!) and it'll be great to see her back again.
And to forestall the many queries I always used to get on the subject, I don't know if she's seeing anyone right now, but I doubt I would be able to set you up on a date with her. Of course, I haven't seen her for four years, she might be a hideous toothless crone by now.
Let's move on. Also registered is good old Andi Bell, three times former champion, unquestionably the best in the world in 2002-2003, but not quite able to keep up the championship temperament since then. I'm hoping that if he's prepared to travel all the way to Bahrain (an idea that he scoffed at the last time I spoke to him), he's planning to win. I don't think he'd make the trip if he didn't believe he could end up on top, it's just a question of whether he really is as prepared as he thinks he is. If he's on form, and doesn't give up half way when things aren't going well, you'd have to bet on him for a top three position (something he achieved for nine consecutive years from 1995 to 2003). If he's really at his optimum performance level, you'd bet on him to win.
Running down the list from top to bottom, we see Ronnie White, the American who, not aware that anybody had ever set a world record for memorising numbers before, claimed on national TV to have broken a record by memorising something like 23 digits. Since being enlightened as to the existence of memory championships, he's been promising to come to one for quite a while now. I'd say there's a sporting chance he'll be a no-show again, but I'm still hoping to meet him. He sounds like a nice guy.
A strong German team includes reigning champion (but how out of practice is he, and how's his motivation to try to win it again now that he's finally achieved it?) Gunther, German Champion Johannes (who I'm still extremely worried about, since he seems to have improved hugely since last year, and he was pretty good to start with), Boris (always hovering somewhere near the top of the scoreboard) and many more - Germany are my bet for team champions this year again.
Dai Griffiths and James Paterson are listed as representing 'Wales', while the rest of the British competitors are down as 'UK'. Well, if they've seceded, then I'm jolly well going to be Team England this year, and squish them like... I want to say Edward I, but whichever king it was who particularly squished the Welsh.
Yip Swe Chooi (the venerable Dr Yip - memory sports is a first-name-terms kind of thing, but there's something about Dr Yip that just demands the title) will be there again, I'm glad to see, although he doesn't seem to have an accompanying entourage of little students any more. He's capable of blowing anyone away when he's at his best, despite the comparatively lowly world ranking of 17th. One of these days it'll all come together for him and he'll be the shock world champion.
And now we're into that list of Chinese names. I don't know any of these people, and we really need to rectify that this year. Liu Ping was the pick of the bunch last year, with Guo Chuanwei not far behind, but I couldn't even tell you which ones they were if I was confronted by the whole Chinese team (admittedly this is more because of my difficulty with names and faces than because I've never spoken to them - we did hang out a little bit last year). But, the need for more international socialising aside, either one of them could be a winner this time round with only a little improvement on their 2007 results.
And let's mention Chen Yu Juan. She has been 'officially' stripped of her time in the speed cards last year (or at least it's been taken off the statistics website) after the widespread accusations of cheating, and it'll be interesting to see how she does this time round. Personally, I'm hoping she can prove her detractors wrong and do something amazing.
I think the top ten this year, in no particular order, will be made up of me, Andi, Astrid, Gunther, Hannes, Boris, Ping, Chuanwei, Lukas and Ed. But I'm rather hoping that someone I haven't even considered will come through and amaze the world. It's always great to see a new superstar!
Secondly, go and watch channel 4 tomorrow (Thursday) night at 9pm - a Cutting Edge documentary about narcoleptics, directed by Nick "The Mentalists" Holt.
And now our feature presentation - let's talk about the World Memory Championship! The "official" list of registered competitors now stands at 63 people (33 of them Chinese), which even if the usual 50% of those are no-shows would be a decent turnout. Who knows, if Team China really is that big, it might even do what the press releases inaccurately promise every year and have the most competitors ever! (Despite annual 'biggest ever' claims, the record still stands at 46 entrants in 2003 - and even then the press releases after the event claimed it was 53.)
So let's have a look at a few of the names that stand out on that list of 63. And let's start with Astrid Plessl, returning to competition for the first time since November 2004! She's still ranked number 5 in the world, it's just a question of how much she's been practicing since all those years ago. She came within a whisker of winning the world championship in 2003, really deserved to win it in 2004 instead of me, and was for a couple of years one of the absolute best. She always merited more than that lengthy list of second places in competitions (just one win to her name - Austrian championship 2003, in the middle of four runner-up medals, each one behind a different winner! Andi in the WMC 2003, Gunther in Prague 2003, me in the WMC 2004 and then Clemens in Austria!) and it'll be great to see her back again.
And to forestall the many queries I always used to get on the subject, I don't know if she's seeing anyone right now, but I doubt I would be able to set you up on a date with her. Of course, I haven't seen her for four years, she might be a hideous toothless crone by now.
Let's move on. Also registered is good old Andi Bell, three times former champion, unquestionably the best in the world in 2002-2003, but not quite able to keep up the championship temperament since then. I'm hoping that if he's prepared to travel all the way to Bahrain (an idea that he scoffed at the last time I spoke to him), he's planning to win. I don't think he'd make the trip if he didn't believe he could end up on top, it's just a question of whether he really is as prepared as he thinks he is. If he's on form, and doesn't give up half way when things aren't going well, you'd have to bet on him for a top three position (something he achieved for nine consecutive years from 1995 to 2003). If he's really at his optimum performance level, you'd bet on him to win.
Running down the list from top to bottom, we see Ronnie White, the American who, not aware that anybody had ever set a world record for memorising numbers before, claimed on national TV to have broken a record by memorising something like 23 digits. Since being enlightened as to the existence of memory championships, he's been promising to come to one for quite a while now. I'd say there's a sporting chance he'll be a no-show again, but I'm still hoping to meet him. He sounds like a nice guy.
A strong German team includes reigning champion (but how out of practice is he, and how's his motivation to try to win it again now that he's finally achieved it?) Gunther, German Champion Johannes (who I'm still extremely worried about, since he seems to have improved hugely since last year, and he was pretty good to start with), Boris (always hovering somewhere near the top of the scoreboard) and many more - Germany are my bet for team champions this year again.
Dai Griffiths and James Paterson are listed as representing 'Wales', while the rest of the British competitors are down as 'UK'. Well, if they've seceded, then I'm jolly well going to be Team England this year, and squish them like... I want to say Edward I, but whichever king it was who particularly squished the Welsh.
Yip Swe Chooi (the venerable Dr Yip - memory sports is a first-name-terms kind of thing, but there's something about Dr Yip that just demands the title) will be there again, I'm glad to see, although he doesn't seem to have an accompanying entourage of little students any more. He's capable of blowing anyone away when he's at his best, despite the comparatively lowly world ranking of 17th. One of these days it'll all come together for him and he'll be the shock world champion.
And now we're into that list of Chinese names. I don't know any of these people, and we really need to rectify that this year. Liu Ping was the pick of the bunch last year, with Guo Chuanwei not far behind, but I couldn't even tell you which ones they were if I was confronted by the whole Chinese team (admittedly this is more because of my difficulty with names and faces than because I've never spoken to them - we did hang out a little bit last year). But, the need for more international socialising aside, either one of them could be a winner this time round with only a little improvement on their 2007 results.
And let's mention Chen Yu Juan. She has been 'officially' stripped of her time in the speed cards last year (or at least it's been taken off the statistics website) after the widespread accusations of cheating, and it'll be interesting to see how she does this time round. Personally, I'm hoping she can prove her detractors wrong and do something amazing.
I think the top ten this year, in no particular order, will be made up of me, Andi, Astrid, Gunther, Hannes, Boris, Ping, Chuanwei, Lukas and Ed. But I'm rather hoping that someone I haven't even considered will come through and amaze the world. It's always great to see a new superstar!
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Oops, nearly forgot to blog
That doesn't bode well for the memory championships, does it? Well, since I haven't left myself enough time to write about it tonight, here's a quick trailer: tomorrow I'm planning to talk about all the people who are apparently going to the WMC! Astrid! Andi! Gunther! And many more!
Monday, October 06, 2008
It's derived from the English words "MENtal math", "MEMORy", "ReaD" and "olympIAD"
At least that's what the website says. Personally, I suspect the name "Memoriad" is just derived from "memory" and "olympiad", like it was when other people coined the name years ago. Apart from that, though, I'm all in favour of the Memoriad, which happens in Istanbul on the 1st and 2nd of November, practically as soon as we get back from the WMC.
The coolest part of the Memoriad, which also involves a mental calculations competition identical to the world cup, which will nicely make up for me missing that earlier this year, is that everything's going to be done on computer. And they've got a software available for download which is very, very good indeed! Better, I would go so far as to say, than anything anyone has created before. Apart from a couple of little bugs, it works perfectly, and I think this is the future of the memory championships.
Distant future, of course. There's always the question of being able to arrange the necessary computer technology in large enough quantities for all the competitors to use, and I can't see that happening at the world championships for some time. But, barring software errors, this will make arbiting a lot quicker, easier and less prone to mistakes.
I objected to the idea of computerised memory competitions when they were first suggested to me, long ago, and I'm still not really comfortable with the idea of forcing competitors to stare at a screen constantly for an hour, but I'm looking forward to seeing how well it works. And that software is extremely nifty. Go and download it, even if you're not planning on going to Istanbul!
Also, go to Istanbul. There's prize money!
The coolest part of the Memoriad, which also involves a mental calculations competition identical to the world cup, which will nicely make up for me missing that earlier this year, is that everything's going to be done on computer. And they've got a software available for download which is very, very good indeed! Better, I would go so far as to say, than anything anyone has created before. Apart from a couple of little bugs, it works perfectly, and I think this is the future of the memory championships.
Distant future, of course. There's always the question of being able to arrange the necessary computer technology in large enough quantities for all the competitors to use, and I can't see that happening at the world championships for some time. But, barring software errors, this will make arbiting a lot quicker, easier and less prone to mistakes.
I objected to the idea of computerised memory competitions when they were first suggested to me, long ago, and I'm still not really comfortable with the idea of forcing competitors to stare at a screen constantly for an hour, but I'm looking forward to seeing how well it works. And that software is extremely nifty. Go and download it, even if you're not planning on going to Istanbul!
Also, go to Istanbul. There's prize money!
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Memory, memory, memory!
I am so completely in the memory competition mood right now, it's fantastic! I've just finished an hour cards practice, without even caring that I was missing the first ten minutes of Match Of The Day, and I'd go and memorise something else afterwards if I wasn't aware I've got to go to work tomorrow. This is the first time I've done what I used to call 'a full weekend' of training (30-min binary, hour numbers and hour cards, all in one weekend) for I don't know how long. And I'm buzzing with things to write about the WMC and the Memoriad. I think I might devote the whole of next week's blogging to memory talk. Unless something else comes up.
I should also apologise for the way I'm neglecting the people I regularly talk to/hang out with, but I am really hitting the right frame of mind at exactly the right time this year, and it's exciting me. I'm starting to feel like I might win the world championship if I keep this up. Woohoo!
I should also apologise for the way I'm neglecting the people I regularly talk to/hang out with, but I am really hitting the right frame of mind at exactly the right time this year, and it's exciting me. I'm starting to feel like I might win the world championship if I keep this up. Woohoo!
Saturday, October 04, 2008
I forgot Blue Peter, and also that Canadian thing
If the Canadian thing was ever on telly - they didn't tell me about it or send me a DVD if it was. I think they probably told me the name of the show at one point, but I don't remember it.
Anyway, I've done a healthy load of memorising today, and if I do the same kind of amount of work tomorrow, I might just start to think I'm in with a chance of winning the world memory championship. I'm still very much not up to speed - I did an hour numbers today and only got 900, which isn't even up to grandmaster standard, let alone the sort of super-ultra-grandmaster standard I expect of myself, but I was deliberately attempting more than I know my brain is capable of, just to see what my limits are and whether I can keep that concentration going for a three-hour period. And it all went pretty well. Also did a 30-minute binary and got the kind of score that would beat everyone except possibly Gunther if he's at his very best, so I was happy with that.
Of course, my trouble this year is that I don't know which of my main rivals are going to be at their best. I'm assuming Gunther won't be, just because I wasn't the year after I won the world championship, and he hasn't competed at all since then, and he hopefully won't be thinking he can beat me again (and positive thinking is 90% of memory competitions). What's Andi going to do? I'm thinking maybe something exceptional. Just how good is Hannes these days? He's the dark horse that's scaring me the most, after the German championship. And what about all these Chinese people I don't know? We really need to spend more time hanging out with the Chinese competitors, exchanging emails, chatting on forums and so on. The only one I'm in any kind of contact with is Haizhan, and he's not even coming this year. The memory world is seriously in danger of turning into an 'us and them' kind of situation. Maybe I'll learn mandarin and go to the next Chinese championship. If they let me in the country after my previous joke on this blog about overthrowing the government.
And speaking of jokes and governments... I know I have a rule about not talking politics on here, and I know I have another rule about not quoting news stories and commenting on them, and I know I'm nearly thirty-two years old and shouldn't giggle at things like this... but I love the headline "Mandelson Return 'A Risk' - Balls"
Anyway, I've done a healthy load of memorising today, and if I do the same kind of amount of work tomorrow, I might just start to think I'm in with a chance of winning the world memory championship. I'm still very much not up to speed - I did an hour numbers today and only got 900, which isn't even up to grandmaster standard, let alone the sort of super-ultra-grandmaster standard I expect of myself, but I was deliberately attempting more than I know my brain is capable of, just to see what my limits are and whether I can keep that concentration going for a three-hour period. And it all went pretty well. Also did a 30-minute binary and got the kind of score that would beat everyone except possibly Gunther if he's at his very best, so I was happy with that.
Of course, my trouble this year is that I don't know which of my main rivals are going to be at their best. I'm assuming Gunther won't be, just because I wasn't the year after I won the world championship, and he hasn't competed at all since then, and he hopefully won't be thinking he can beat me again (and positive thinking is 90% of memory competitions). What's Andi going to do? I'm thinking maybe something exceptional. Just how good is Hannes these days? He's the dark horse that's scaring me the most, after the German championship. And what about all these Chinese people I don't know? We really need to spend more time hanging out with the Chinese competitors, exchanging emails, chatting on forums and so on. The only one I'm in any kind of contact with is Haizhan, and he's not even coming this year. The memory world is seriously in danger of turning into an 'us and them' kind of situation. Maybe I'll learn mandarin and go to the next Chinese championship. If they let me in the country after my previous joke on this blog about overthrowing the government.
And speaking of jokes and governments... I know I have a rule about not talking politics on here, and I know I have another rule about not quoting news stories and commenting on them, and I know I'm nearly thirty-two years old and shouldn't giggle at things like this... but I love the headline "Mandelson Return 'A Risk' - Balls"
Friday, October 03, 2008
What TV shows have I been on?
I always seem to forget that episode of Child Of Our Time. I just remembered today that I was on it, and I never include that in the list whenever someone asks me which TV shows I've been on. Which doesn't happen as much as it should, incidentally. What's the point of being a star of probably more than ten obscure TV shows if people don't ask you to list them? So, I figured that since I must have fans out there who keep detailed notes about my celebrity exploits, I'd see if there's anything else I've forgotten. By my current reckoning, the list goes:
Central Tonight (a couple of times)
East Midlands Today (possibly only once)
Weakest Link
Child Of Our Time
This Morning
Richard and Judy
The Mentalists
Extraordinary Animals
Superhuman: Genius
The Panel (Ireland)
Caldeirão do Huck (Brazil)
Eleven of them! Are there any others? I have a feeling there might be, but my memory's letting me down...
(Note: tomorrow's blog entry will contain less boasting about how famous I am and more of 'that self-deprecating thing you do, you know, your usual patter', as the BBC documentary person I've been talking to kindly described it)
Ooh, ooh, that thing on Current TV, "He's The Memory Man"! Twelve!
Central Tonight (a couple of times)
East Midlands Today (possibly only once)
Weakest Link
Child Of Our Time
This Morning
Richard and Judy
The Mentalists
Extraordinary Animals
Superhuman: Genius
The Panel (Ireland)
Caldeirão do Huck (Brazil)
Eleven of them! Are there any others? I have a feeling there might be, but my memory's letting me down...
(Note: tomorrow's blog entry will contain less boasting about how famous I am and more of 'that self-deprecating thing you do, you know, your usual patter', as the BBC documentary person I've been talking to kindly described it)
Ooh, ooh, that thing on Current TV, "He's The Memory Man"! Twelve!
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Multiple subjects
I don't think I really plugged Ed's book as much as I should have done yesterday. Rather than sort of mentioning it in passing, I could have pointed you to the website and told you all to check it out. Now that I've heard a little bit more about what it's about, I think I can safely guarantee that it's worth buying. As anyone who saw The Mentalists (and that's all of you, right?) knows, Ed is tremendous fun, and this book is going to be a great read for anyone, whether they're interested in memory matters or not!
You can listen in to what Ed and I had to say on Radio Derby today, here if you click on "listen again" and find the Aleena Naylor show for today (Thursday) and fast-forward to about 1 hour 25 minutes into the show. It was good fun, although taking time off work was inconvenient - busy there at the moment.
Which is particularly annoying when Harry Hill wants you to make a cameo in a sketch on his show, but they want to film it next Thursday, which is a day when I really can't not be in the office, because my boss is on holiday and there's stuff that needs doing that only I can do. Hilarious-sounding sketch, though. I'm really going to hate not to do it, if I end up missing out. And I'll tell you this, if I don't get to be on Harry Hill, which I would love, I'm not going to do this BBC documentary thing they want to do with me next week, which I'll dislike.
But anyway, I'm finally catching up with some of those moving-house tasks I've neglected in the nearly-a-month since I've been here. The gas here is supplied by eon, and the electric is supplied by edf, so I decided to play the field a little before putting them both under the same supplier so I can get some kind of discount. And I was expecting to end up ditching eon, because they supplied me at my last place and I had no end of hassle with them. eon now think I'm called Benjimin, and had my address slightly wrong, while edf just call me B Pridmore, and have the address slightly wrong in a different way.
But in the calling-to-set-up-a-direct-debit stakes tonight, with eon the phone was answered immediately by a friendly and helpful operator, who took all my details, fixed the address, would probably have fixed the name had I remembered to mention it, and sorted out all the technicalities without any hassle. Rather strangely interrupted the proceedings to tell me I was speaking to Janice halfway through the conversation, but otherwise a perfect example of customer service. edf, on the other hand, I gave up on after ten minutes of an endlessly-looped weird cover of "It's not easy being green" interrupted every thirty seconds by an assurance that my call will be answered.
You can listen in to what Ed and I had to say on Radio Derby today, here if you click on "listen again" and find the Aleena Naylor show for today (Thursday) and fast-forward to about 1 hour 25 minutes into the show. It was good fun, although taking time off work was inconvenient - busy there at the moment.
Which is particularly annoying when Harry Hill wants you to make a cameo in a sketch on his show, but they want to film it next Thursday, which is a day when I really can't not be in the office, because my boss is on holiday and there's stuff that needs doing that only I can do. Hilarious-sounding sketch, though. I'm really going to hate not to do it, if I end up missing out. And I'll tell you this, if I don't get to be on Harry Hill, which I would love, I'm not going to do this BBC documentary thing they want to do with me next week, which I'll dislike.
But anyway, I'm finally catching up with some of those moving-house tasks I've neglected in the nearly-a-month since I've been here. The gas here is supplied by eon, and the electric is supplied by edf, so I decided to play the field a little before putting them both under the same supplier so I can get some kind of discount. And I was expecting to end up ditching eon, because they supplied me at my last place and I had no end of hassle with them. eon now think I'm called Benjimin, and had my address slightly wrong, while edf just call me B Pridmore, and have the address slightly wrong in a different way.
But in the calling-to-set-up-a-direct-debit stakes tonight, with eon the phone was answered immediately by a friendly and helpful operator, who took all my details, fixed the address, would probably have fixed the name had I remembered to mention it, and sorted out all the technicalities without any hassle. Rather strangely interrupted the proceedings to tell me I was speaking to Janice halfway through the conversation, but otherwise a perfect example of customer service. edf, on the other hand, I gave up on after ten minutes of an endlessly-looped weird cover of "It's not easy being green" interrupted every thirty seconds by an assurance that my call will be answered.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
It's good to be home!
It's weird, but having two days in Sheffield immediately followed by two days in Birmingham feels like being away from home for much longer than when I go away to one place for a week. I feel like I haven't set foot in my flat for years! Maybe it's having gone to Paris the weekend before, and being at work all the time I've been at home...
Anyway, it's going to be extremely nice to have a weekend off. Or a weekend of memory training, as it should hopefully be. And also a weekend of catching up with all the other things I've been needing to do for weeks now. I definitely have to get a haircut, because it just looks stupid when it gets to this length, and the three hairs on top of my head are long enough that you really notice them (and point and giggle).
But before any of that, I'm dashing away from work for a couple of hours tomorrow for an interview on Radio Derby. 11:30-ish, if you want to tune in. Ed Cooke's promoting his book on local radio stations, and Derby thought they'd have a word with their more-or-less-still-local memory man while they were on the subject.
Anyway, it's going to be extremely nice to have a weekend off. Or a weekend of memory training, as it should hopefully be. And also a weekend of catching up with all the other things I've been needing to do for weeks now. I definitely have to get a haircut, because it just looks stupid when it gets to this length, and the three hairs on top of my head are long enough that you really notice them (and point and giggle).
But before any of that, I'm dashing away from work for a couple of hours tomorrow for an interview on Radio Derby. 11:30-ish, if you want to tune in. Ed Cooke's promoting his book on local radio stations, and Derby thought they'd have a word with their more-or-less-still-local memory man while they were on the subject.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Expectations
If I don't perfectly remember something I've made an effort to memorise, like for example a store's credit claim values, I'm annoyed with myself. The people I'm showing off to, however, are usually just as impressed by an imperfect recall as they are by a perfect one. It's rather irritating, really. I'd like to raise public expectation of memory performers, so that they won't be satisfied with mediocre achievements. We need a nationwide media campaign, with the message "If someone doesn't memorise every single thing they said they would, throw rotten vegetables at them!" That way I'll feel properly appreciated if I do get things right.
Incidentally, my memory stuff today mostly did go perfectly. And it's nearly done with now!
Incidentally, my memory stuff today mostly did go perfectly. And it's nearly done with now!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Making an exhibition of myself
Well, here I am at the Hilton in Birmingham, being a professional memory man for the next two days. Ahh, only 48 hours until I can go back to being a professional analyst with a weird hobby. Still undecided what to wear at our stand at the healthcare exhibition - business suit with hat and enormous red tie, probably, although I did bring the Brazilian Mystery Cloak and I might try that out if I'm feeling adventurous. I can't wear my normal office uniform, because I can't memorise when I'm dressed like an accountant. It's a strange psychological hangup of mine...
Sunday, September 28, 2008
A weekend's othelloing
Sheffield is just far enough away that there isn't a train early enough on Sunday mornings for me to come home half way through a two-day othello tournament, but close enough that I didn't have to get up too early on Saturday morning to get down there, which was nice. Also nice was the fact that a whole three people recognised me from the telly and said hi while I was on my way from Beeston to Sheffield - the woman serving baguettes at the Upper Crust at Derby station, a man on the platform at Derby where I was waiting for my delayed connection, and a boy on the train itself. I'm getting quite a bit of "my kids saw you and thought you were great" lately - surprising though it is that children would want to watch a documentary like Superhuman Genius, maybe we've encouraged a whole new generation to get interested in memory!
Although to be honest, I was more impressed when the aforementioned boy's younger brother, who didn't recognise me from the telly, asked if he could try on my hat. I'd rather inspire a new generation to start wearing hats than to enter memory competitions. Just imagine, a whole country full of hat-wearers, and all thanks to me! Wouldn't that be groovy?
Anyway, I eventually arrived at Sheffield and found my way to the Heeley Institute, where I've been once before, many years ago, and didn't arrive more than fifteen minutes late (which in othello circles counts as being quite early). We had the AGM, which passed without memorable incident, and then launched into the 32nd British Othello Championship.
With Graham Brightwell being somewhere overseas, the chance of a final not contested between him and Imre Leader for a change was significantly improved. And with Joel Feinstein and Garry Edmead being more or less retired these days, Imre was the only representative of the four players who between them had won every British championship for the previous twenty years. Against him were an impressive lineup of fourteen other othelloists, many of them significantly better than me, so my hopes weren't high. But all in all, I played quite well. On the first day I lost to Davids Beck and Hand, but didn't feel like I did anything monumentally stupid. I probably did, but I didn't know about it, and that's the important thing. But I beat Yvette in between David-games, and in the fourth and final game of the day I took my revenge on nine-year-old Tani Turner, wiping her out in a brutal kind of way. I'm not proud of myself here, but it was kind of fun.
Then we went out for the traditional Saturday night meal, at an Indian restaurant where the highlight of the evening was probably Ali's anecdote about being taken to a similar place by an Indian colleague who picked out all the mildest things on the menu because he doesn't like spicy food. To which Tani replied, very loudly and while the waiter was collecting plates "What's the point of being Indian, then?"
Then back to the hotel (on the way, walking through the back streets of Sheffield, Imre asked if anyone knew where he could find a croissant shop), which was very nice - I got a room with three beds for the price of one, a TV that worked if you leaned the severed aerial cable against the socket it was supposed to go in and a skylight in the bathroom (which made me a little worried about passing balloonists ogling me in the shower). And a full English breakfast, which is a must for any hotel I stay at. And we all got back to the Institute in good time for the second day of competition.
I lost to Iain, beat Roy and lost to Guy, again without being under the impression that I was playing badly. Meanwhile, David Hand was beating everyone, Imre was doing exactly the same thing as last year (losing two of his first three games and then winning all the others) and Michael, Other David, Iain, Guy and Geoff were also fighting it out for a place in the final. There was quite a lot of excitement, all in all, and I'd write about it if I could remember who beat whom and how. But I can't, so you'll just have to wait until Geoff posts all the games on the forum, and play through them, and make your own deductions about which were the most interesting.
Anyway, being around the middle of the leaderboard, I got the bye in round eight, leaving me on four points with one game to go. David H had lost one game, to Iain, and was a clear point ahead of Imre and Michael, each on six, then David B and Iain on five. So with the top two going to the final, anything could still happen.
The final round had Michael playing Iain, the Davids each playing someone who wasn't mentioned in the list above, don't ask me who, and Imre against me. "You wouldn't be so nasty as to beat me, would you?" he asked. "That's the thing," I replied, "I was sort of rooting for you to get to the final, but now..."
But even though I have a startlingly good record against Imre, I didn't expect anything amazing. Still, the game started quite well for me, and then he played a move that was so very, extremely, obviously bad that I assumed I had completely missed some subtle point and was in fact about to lose horribly. But no, it turned out after the game that it was just a silly mistake. And then I thought I'd lost after all when he took the diagonal, but I managed to find the rather clever way to make sure I'd be able to cut it, and the rest was simple. 47-17 to me. That makes six times I've beaten Imre in competitions, which is probably a higher proportion of wins to losses than practically anyone.
The Davids both won, and we all crowded around the table where Michael and Iain were still finishing their game. It looked to me like Iain was on top, but either he went wrong somewhere or he'd never been on top after all, because Michael finally won. So Adelaide was spared the headache of working out a four-way tie-break for second place (she refuses to use a computer or even a calculator for this kind of thing, believing that it's more fun to do it by hand - this would doubtless have caused friction when David B and Roy, who both brought laptops with them, calculated the Brightwell Quotients themselves and got different figures) and the final was much more Handy than ever before, David Hand v Michael Handel.
I left before the game in order to memorise the wastage figures for all of Boots's Scottish and Irish stores that'll be coming to the conference on Tuesday, but I hear that David won. Congratulations! A new name on the back of the permanent trophy! (the name of each winner is on a little metal shield stuck to the big wooden shield, and they ran out of room on the front of the trophy in the late eighties. At the present rate, we will also be out of space on the back in another ten years or so)
David also won the third-place play-off - Other David, that is, who beat Imre - and I ended up joint fifth with Roy, Iain, Geoff and Guy. Which is a definitely cool kind of position to end up in. That means the British team for the world championships in Oslo will be David H, Michael and British Grand Prix winner Iain. One of these days, with a few more flukey results going my way, I might end up there too, who knows?
But one world championship I will be going to is the memory one, of course. And, I hear, so will Andi! Fantastic news! Last year's was the first Andi-free WMC since 1994, so it'll be good to see him there again. And if he's shelling out for a trip to Bahrain, it seems to me there's a good chance that he's been practicing and is really going to try to win. Also, Gunther will definitely be there, it seems, so it's going to be a good competition. If only I can find the time for a little bit of training...
One final memory note, hot off the presses (thanks, Dai) - congratulations to Tansel on winning the Australian Memory Championship!
Although to be honest, I was more impressed when the aforementioned boy's younger brother, who didn't recognise me from the telly, asked if he could try on my hat. I'd rather inspire a new generation to start wearing hats than to enter memory competitions. Just imagine, a whole country full of hat-wearers, and all thanks to me! Wouldn't that be groovy?
Anyway, I eventually arrived at Sheffield and found my way to the Heeley Institute, where I've been once before, many years ago, and didn't arrive more than fifteen minutes late (which in othello circles counts as being quite early). We had the AGM, which passed without memorable incident, and then launched into the 32nd British Othello Championship.
With Graham Brightwell being somewhere overseas, the chance of a final not contested between him and Imre Leader for a change was significantly improved. And with Joel Feinstein and Garry Edmead being more or less retired these days, Imre was the only representative of the four players who between them had won every British championship for the previous twenty years. Against him were an impressive lineup of fourteen other othelloists, many of them significantly better than me, so my hopes weren't high. But all in all, I played quite well. On the first day I lost to Davids Beck and Hand, but didn't feel like I did anything monumentally stupid. I probably did, but I didn't know about it, and that's the important thing. But I beat Yvette in between David-games, and in the fourth and final game of the day I took my revenge on nine-year-old Tani Turner, wiping her out in a brutal kind of way. I'm not proud of myself here, but it was kind of fun.
Then we went out for the traditional Saturday night meal, at an Indian restaurant where the highlight of the evening was probably Ali's anecdote about being taken to a similar place by an Indian colleague who picked out all the mildest things on the menu because he doesn't like spicy food. To which Tani replied, very loudly and while the waiter was collecting plates "What's the point of being Indian, then?"
Then back to the hotel (on the way, walking through the back streets of Sheffield, Imre asked if anyone knew where he could find a croissant shop), which was very nice - I got a room with three beds for the price of one, a TV that worked if you leaned the severed aerial cable against the socket it was supposed to go in and a skylight in the bathroom (which made me a little worried about passing balloonists ogling me in the shower). And a full English breakfast, which is a must for any hotel I stay at. And we all got back to the Institute in good time for the second day of competition.
I lost to Iain, beat Roy and lost to Guy, again without being under the impression that I was playing badly. Meanwhile, David Hand was beating everyone, Imre was doing exactly the same thing as last year (losing two of his first three games and then winning all the others) and Michael, Other David, Iain, Guy and Geoff were also fighting it out for a place in the final. There was quite a lot of excitement, all in all, and I'd write about it if I could remember who beat whom and how. But I can't, so you'll just have to wait until Geoff posts all the games on the forum, and play through them, and make your own deductions about which were the most interesting.
Anyway, being around the middle of the leaderboard, I got the bye in round eight, leaving me on four points with one game to go. David H had lost one game, to Iain, and was a clear point ahead of Imre and Michael, each on six, then David B and Iain on five. So with the top two going to the final, anything could still happen.
The final round had Michael playing Iain, the Davids each playing someone who wasn't mentioned in the list above, don't ask me who, and Imre against me. "You wouldn't be so nasty as to beat me, would you?" he asked. "That's the thing," I replied, "I was sort of rooting for you to get to the final, but now..."
But even though I have a startlingly good record against Imre, I didn't expect anything amazing. Still, the game started quite well for me, and then he played a move that was so very, extremely, obviously bad that I assumed I had completely missed some subtle point and was in fact about to lose horribly. But no, it turned out after the game that it was just a silly mistake. And then I thought I'd lost after all when he took the diagonal, but I managed to find the rather clever way to make sure I'd be able to cut it, and the rest was simple. 47-17 to me. That makes six times I've beaten Imre in competitions, which is probably a higher proportion of wins to losses than practically anyone.
The Davids both won, and we all crowded around the table where Michael and Iain were still finishing their game. It looked to me like Iain was on top, but either he went wrong somewhere or he'd never been on top after all, because Michael finally won. So Adelaide was spared the headache of working out a four-way tie-break for second place (she refuses to use a computer or even a calculator for this kind of thing, believing that it's more fun to do it by hand - this would doubtless have caused friction when David B and Roy, who both brought laptops with them, calculated the Brightwell Quotients themselves and got different figures) and the final was much more Handy than ever before, David Hand v Michael Handel.
I left before the game in order to memorise the wastage figures for all of Boots's Scottish and Irish stores that'll be coming to the conference on Tuesday, but I hear that David won. Congratulations! A new name on the back of the permanent trophy! (the name of each winner is on a little metal shield stuck to the big wooden shield, and they ran out of room on the front of the trophy in the late eighties. At the present rate, we will also be out of space on the back in another ten years or so)
David also won the third-place play-off - Other David, that is, who beat Imre - and I ended up joint fifth with Roy, Iain, Geoff and Guy. Which is a definitely cool kind of position to end up in. That means the British team for the world championships in Oslo will be David H, Michael and British Grand Prix winner Iain. One of these days, with a few more flukey results going my way, I might end up there too, who knows?
But one world championship I will be going to is the memory one, of course. And, I hear, so will Andi! Fantastic news! Last year's was the first Andi-free WMC since 1994, so it'll be good to see him there again. And if he's shelling out for a trip to Bahrain, it seems to me there's a good chance that he's been practicing and is really going to try to win. Also, Gunther will definitely be there, it seems, so it's going to be a good competition. If only I can find the time for a little bit of training...
One final memory note, hot off the presses (thanks, Dai) - congratulations to Tansel on winning the Australian Memory Championship!
Friday, September 26, 2008
If I had the time and energy to think of something else to write, I would
The council estate on Bumblebee Road has been controversial from the start. While the project was still in its planning stages, Porr-Lon, the god of housing developments, manifested himself nearby and played a melody on his pewter bassoon which all those who heard it agreed meant that he felt the estate should be built on the other side of the river. The council considered re-siting the planned estate, but eventually concluded that the additional expense of drawing new blueprints, the difficulty of aligning the houses with the constellation of Aries on the other side of the river and the fact that Porr-Lon is one of the less important gods made it impractical to change the location of the estate.
Immediately after it was built, there was a space adventure involving Martians, and after that had been dealt with there were complaints from local residents that crime levels had risen and there was an unpleasant smell coming from certain of the buildings. These allegations were inaccurate - crime had in fact been completely and totally eliminated in the entire county the day after the council estate was built, and in fact in some regions the number of reported crimes fell as low as minus seventeen every day. And while there was indeed an unpleasant smell coming from certain of the buildings, who are we to criticise unpleasant smells? After all, most people smell quite unpleasant, if you come to think about it.
Nonetheless, the controversy reached such a level that the leader of the council, Bog Myrtle Sutherland, signed an emergency decree banning the estate from ever having been built in the first place. When it comes into effect, next Tuesday, the whole estate and everyone who lives on or near it will be wiped out of existence entirely and this whole article will never have been written. Which is a shame, but that's Bog Myrtle Sutherland for you. She's always overreacting to things. There was a time when she overreacted to a horse, and that didn't end well for anyone, except the jockey.
Immediately after it was built, there was a space adventure involving Martians, and after that had been dealt with there were complaints from local residents that crime levels had risen and there was an unpleasant smell coming from certain of the buildings. These allegations were inaccurate - crime had in fact been completely and totally eliminated in the entire county the day after the council estate was built, and in fact in some regions the number of reported crimes fell as low as minus seventeen every day. And while there was indeed an unpleasant smell coming from certain of the buildings, who are we to criticise unpleasant smells? After all, most people smell quite unpleasant, if you come to think about it.
Nonetheless, the controversy reached such a level that the leader of the council, Bog Myrtle Sutherland, signed an emergency decree banning the estate from ever having been built in the first place. When it comes into effect, next Tuesday, the whole estate and everyone who lives on or near it will be wiped out of existence entirely and this whole article will never have been written. Which is a shame, but that's Bog Myrtle Sutherland for you. She's always overreacting to things. There was a time when she overreacted to a horse, and that didn't end well for anyone, except the jockey.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Not quite so panicky
Did a 30-minute binary tonight and it went quite well. Low score, but no concentration problems. If I can do a few hour cards and numbers in the evenings, I'll be fine for the world championship. Doesn't leave me much time for blogging, though...
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Just starting to panic a little bit now
The World Memory Championship is a month away, and I'm nowhere NEAR match-fitness. It's infuriating - on one level I can't stand the idea of losing the world championship yet again, but on another I can't really summon the enthusiasm to go all-out for the win. And circumstances have kept me from getting into any kind of training schedule lately, so I think I've already left it too late to get back into top form before the competition, even with some excessively draining training over the next few weeks. We'll just have to see what happens.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
A healthy memory
Well, the not-blogging-about-work-in-case-I-get-in-trouble rule lasted for two months, more or less, which is pretty good going. But I can't resist this one tonight. The worlds of work and memory are sort of merging, you see, and the people who read this blog for the memory technique insights might be interested in this.
As I might have mentioned before, it's the Boots Healthcare Conference in Birmingham next week, woo, and I've been asked to go along to our department's stand (it's all about store-controllable wastage) and persuade attendees to come and look at this not terribly compelling-sounding display by performing a memory stunt. I'm not 100% comfortable with being an Official Boots Memory Man as opposed to a Boots Profit Protection Analyst, but as long as it's only once in a while, I don't really mind.
So what I've done is taken a list of all the stores which will be represented at the convention, which each have a number from 5 (Beeston) to 6526 (Glasgow Fort) and the value of their healthcare-department credit claim values for this year to date and last year in three different categories (out of date, damaged and theft), all of which are a one-to-five-digit number, and when somebody tells me their store number, I'll be able to reel off the six figures for their store, and amaze and astound them. Then I suppose I'll order them to make an effort to reduce their wastage if they want to see more memory feats, or something like that.
Having played around with techniques for memorising these slightly tricky numbers (when you have a 3-digit-image system like me, memorising a 4-digit number is inconvenient), I decided to memorise them as eight three-digit numbers, by taking off the first digits of each and combining them into one number. So for example, if store 27's [there is no store 27 in the Boots world at the moment, and the following numbers are entirely fictional] six numbers are 1425, 684, 9723, 226, 8821 and 23, I remember it as 027-109-425-684-723-080-226-821-023. See what I'm doing there? The 027 is the store [I forget where store 27 used to be, but it closed down last year. I reiterate, I'm not quoting real figures here], the 109 is the thousands figure from the first three numbers and the 080 is the thousands figure from the last three.
I tried memorising a scene of these nine images in isolation for each of the 192 stores that'll have representatives at the conference, but they just wouldn't stay in my memory. So I used journeys instead, and placed nine images in each location, and somehow that works a great deal better. Now when someone says 'store 27' to me, I have to run through my journeys and work out where it is, but when I find it, I can remember the images perfectly.
I don't know why that's so much better than doing it without a journey. Maybe my mind is just used to journeys and now I can't survive without them. Anyway, it's been fun to be working from home this afternoon, memorising numbers and getting paid for it, although I still feel guilty because I can't quite mentally accept that memorising is part of my job at the moment.
Speaking of memory, you can check out Gaby's pictures of Maisons-Laffitte here!
And the BBC were speaking of memory today to me, too, asking questions like "when you talk about memorising a pack of cards, do you mean a 52-card pack or a 36-card pack?" I suppose you have to check everything, but that's one I've never been asked before. They want to film me on October 7th.
Wait, I forgot to mention the interesting technical bits of the healthcare memory thing. Some stores have a four-digit store number - ones that start with 1 I remember which journeys they were on and just memorise them as a 3-digit number without the 1, and the handful that start with 20 or 50 or 64 or 65 I use others of my images that I don't usually use with numbers, so store 2053 becomes store h-5-3, a hummingbird, in my head.
And for the stores whose credit claims in a category are over 9999, I use another consonant or vowel for the 10, 11, 15 or whatever thousands figure - no number is over 16000, luckily. Creating systems is about 75% of the fun of doing something like this.
As I might have mentioned before, it's the Boots Healthcare Conference in Birmingham next week, woo, and I've been asked to go along to our department's stand (it's all about store-controllable wastage) and persuade attendees to come and look at this not terribly compelling-sounding display by performing a memory stunt. I'm not 100% comfortable with being an Official Boots Memory Man as opposed to a Boots Profit Protection Analyst, but as long as it's only once in a while, I don't really mind.
So what I've done is taken a list of all the stores which will be represented at the convention, which each have a number from 5 (Beeston) to 6526 (Glasgow Fort) and the value of their healthcare-department credit claim values for this year to date and last year in three different categories (out of date, damaged and theft), all of which are a one-to-five-digit number, and when somebody tells me their store number, I'll be able to reel off the six figures for their store, and amaze and astound them. Then I suppose I'll order them to make an effort to reduce their wastage if they want to see more memory feats, or something like that.
Having played around with techniques for memorising these slightly tricky numbers (when you have a 3-digit-image system like me, memorising a 4-digit number is inconvenient), I decided to memorise them as eight three-digit numbers, by taking off the first digits of each and combining them into one number. So for example, if store 27's [there is no store 27 in the Boots world at the moment, and the following numbers are entirely fictional] six numbers are 1425, 684, 9723, 226, 8821 and 23, I remember it as 027-109-425-684-723-080-226-821-023. See what I'm doing there? The 027 is the store [I forget where store 27 used to be, but it closed down last year. I reiterate, I'm not quoting real figures here], the 109 is the thousands figure from the first three numbers and the 080 is the thousands figure from the last three.
I tried memorising a scene of these nine images in isolation for each of the 192 stores that'll have representatives at the conference, but they just wouldn't stay in my memory. So I used journeys instead, and placed nine images in each location, and somehow that works a great deal better. Now when someone says 'store 27' to me, I have to run through my journeys and work out where it is, but when I find it, I can remember the images perfectly.
I don't know why that's so much better than doing it without a journey. Maybe my mind is just used to journeys and now I can't survive without them. Anyway, it's been fun to be working from home this afternoon, memorising numbers and getting paid for it, although I still feel guilty because I can't quite mentally accept that memorising is part of my job at the moment.
Speaking of memory, you can check out Gaby's pictures of Maisons-Laffitte here!
And the BBC were speaking of memory today to me, too, asking questions like "when you talk about memorising a pack of cards, do you mean a 52-card pack or a 36-card pack?" I suppose you have to check everything, but that's one I've never been asked before. They want to film me on October 7th.
Wait, I forgot to mention the interesting technical bits of the healthcare memory thing. Some stores have a four-digit store number - ones that start with 1 I remember which journeys they were on and just memorise them as a 3-digit number without the 1, and the handful that start with 20 or 50 or 64 or 65 I use others of my images that I don't usually use with numbers, so store 2053 becomes store h-5-3, a hummingbird, in my head.
And for the stores whose credit claims in a category are over 9999, I use another consonant or vowel for the 10, 11, 15 or whatever thousands figure - no number is over 16000, luckily. Creating systems is about 75% of the fun of doing something like this.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Old fellow
It's othello in my dad's ancestral home of Sheffield this weekend. I've played a couple of games on playok in some kind of preparation, conscious that I haven't looked at an othello board for months now (except in the course of moving mine to the new flat and dumping them in the corner of my living room - they're among the things I haven't found a place for yet). I also haven't done my treasurer's report for the AGM... come to think of it, where did I put my box of othello paperwork? I'm pretty certain I brought it with me, but I don't think I've seen it since. Ah well, there's days before I need it.
With this kind of advance preparation, I think I'm a dead cert to win the nationals this year!
With this kind of advance preparation, I think I'm a dead cert to win the nationals this year!
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Hooray, I'm home!
Despite a slightly awkward moment going through security at Charles de Gaulle airport when the machine picked up an undeclared bottle of liquid, an unidentifiable big heavy object and lots of sophisticated-looking timing devices in my rucksack. But I managed to explain without too much difficulty that the timers are used for timing memorisation of cards in memory competitions, that the big thing was the trophy I won at the UK Memory Championship and that despite the above I had put a half-drunk bottle of coke in my bag and completely forgotten it was there. I drank the coke without exploding and the security people seemed satisfied.
As for the competition itself, I won't say much except that I was rubbish. I still won, so obviously I wasn't all that rubbish, but it definitely showed that I hadn't done any training. Got to get on with it now for the next month.
Good food, though - at lunch, we had a waiter who bravely attempted to talk with us in French, English and German, as necessary, which led to a fun multilingual bacon/Schinken/chicken confusion. And in the evening we had crepes, in the proper French style. And I got to see lots of sights in Paris!
As for the competition itself, I won't say much except that I was rubbish. I still won, so obviously I wasn't all that rubbish, but it definitely showed that I hadn't done any training. Got to get on with it now for the next month.
Good food, though - at lunch, we had a waiter who bravely attempted to talk with us in French, English and German, as necessary, which led to a fun multilingual bacon/Schinken/chicken confusion. And in the evening we had crepes, in the proper French style. And I got to see lots of sights in Paris!
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