Hooray for that trainee accountant who won a gold medal in rowing or something. Almost as cool as when I was a trainee accountant who won a gold medal in something (I forget what) at the MSO in 1998, I think. Or did I? I only won a silver in 1997, but when did I first win a gold? It's okay for me not to remember, incidentally, because I didn't start competing in memory competitions until 2000, when I was already AAT qualified.
I could look it up on the website, but that would be cheating. I might have actually not won a gold until later than that, come to think of it. I used to know what I won at the MSO. I'm probably getting old.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Records tumble like memorable ninepins
Well, even though I couldn't go to the German Memory Championship (money thing), it remains the competition where everyone gives their best performance. Johannes and Simon have been on fire this weekend, with a new record in 30-minute numbers and top-notch scores in absolutely everything else, with the kind of consistency that's unusual in the big championships. Scores, as always, can be seen and marvelled at on Memocamp.
There's still hope for me, if I get back in practice - my scores in 30-minute cards and binary remain strangely out of reach of everyone else, and I'm now giving serious thought (not for the first time) to a different method of memorising decimal numbers that might help me catch up with my rivals, maybe. But it's been so long since I last did any serious training, I don't think I can get in shape before the world championship in December. It's that bad.
There's still hope for me, if I get back in practice - my scores in 30-minute cards and binary remain strangely out of reach of everyone else, and I'm now giving serious thought (not for the first time) to a different method of memorising decimal numbers that might help me catch up with my rivals, maybe. But it's been so long since I last did any serious training, I don't think I can get in shape before the world championship in December. It's that bad.
Friday, July 27, 2012
More name issues
I've just looked out of the window and noticed that the nursery place across the road (well, sort of across two or three roads, but it's closer than that makes it sound, trust me, roads around here are a bit weird) has changed its name from Station House Nursery to... Beeston Nursery.
Beeston Nursery? How wildly unoriginal! I mean, this town is called Beeston, and it seems to be chock full of nursery schools, why would anyone want to call their place "Beeston Nursery"? Station House Nursery was a great name, seeing as it's in the old station house and all. Evocative and quaint. Well, I won't be dumping my hypothetical children there if I had any children to dump. I wouldn't have been anyway, of course, since I have a vague recollection of Nick from Boots saying that place wasn't supposed to be very good, and anyway there's another place just down the road called Toddlers' University, with correctly-placed apostrophe and picture of a mortar board on the sign, which is exactly the place for my hypothetical offspring to be dumped.
And while we're on the subject of names, I edited that last post shortly after posting it, since I originally confused Jason David Frank (Tommy on Power Rangers) with Jason Gray-Stanford (Zoom-Zoom on Pocket Dragon Adventures). I then felt bad about editing it, because it makes it look like I'm trying to conceal my stupidity and make people think I can tell my Jasons apart when I can't, but editing it back again would just be silly, so I'm confessing my ignorance here.
Beeston Nursery? How wildly unoriginal! I mean, this town is called Beeston, and it seems to be chock full of nursery schools, why would anyone want to call their place "Beeston Nursery"? Station House Nursery was a great name, seeing as it's in the old station house and all. Evocative and quaint. Well, I won't be dumping my hypothetical children there if I had any children to dump. I wouldn't have been anyway, of course, since I have a vague recollection of Nick from Boots saying that place wasn't supposed to be very good, and anyway there's another place just down the road called Toddlers' University, with correctly-placed apostrophe and picture of a mortar board on the sign, which is exactly the place for my hypothetical offspring to be dumped.
And while we're on the subject of names, I edited that last post shortly after posting it, since I originally confused Jason David Frank (Tommy on Power Rangers) with Jason Gray-Stanford (Zoom-Zoom on Pocket Dragon Adventures). I then felt bad about editing it, because it makes it look like I'm trying to conceal my stupidity and make people think I can tell my Jasons apart when I can't, but editing it back again would just be silly, so I'm confessing my ignorance here.
What's in a name?
I have trouble with remembering names. At work today, I was talking about someone called Jason, while someone else nearby was talking loudly about someone whose surname is Franks, and I spent the rest of the morning thinking "Jason Franks? I know someone called Jason Franks, don't I? Who is he?"
I was thinking, obviously, of Jason David Frank, that wonderful actor who was Tommy on Power Rangers. That extra S on the end must have confused me. And then I see a news headline about someone called Paul Chambers, and now I find myself thinking "Don't I know a Paul Chambers? Someone I used to work with? I'm sure I'm not just confusing him with Phil Chambers, whom I emailed immediately before seeing that headline, but then again..."
If you're Paul Chambers and you used to work with me, or possibly you're someone I've seen on television, or maybe you just have a similar name that I'm getting mixed up with (but not Phil Chambers, who's someone else entirely), please get in touch and put me out of my misery. Until the next vaguely-familiar name I encounter, anyway...
I was thinking, obviously, of Jason David Frank, that wonderful actor who was Tommy on Power Rangers. That extra S on the end must have confused me. And then I see a news headline about someone called Paul Chambers, and now I find myself thinking "Don't I know a Paul Chambers? Someone I used to work with? I'm sure I'm not just confusing him with Phil Chambers, whom I emailed immediately before seeing that headline, but then again..."
If you're Paul Chambers and you used to work with me, or possibly you're someone I've seen on television, or maybe you just have a similar name that I'm getting mixed up with (but not Phil Chambers, who's someone else entirely), please get in touch and put me out of my misery. Until the next vaguely-familiar name I encounter, anyway...
Monday, July 23, 2012
Bradley Wiggins has nothing on me
I've got a new job since last I talked about dull things like work - in Belper, a town which I previously only knew from the educational BBC Micro game "Derbyshire Runaround". I go there on the train and cycle up to the office (and 'up' is the right word, it's practically vertical), but today since it was so sunny and nice, I decided to bike it all the way back.
The only real problem with that idea is that Derbyshire is nothing but hills. It's more downhill than up going from Belper to Beeston (about 16 miles), but there are still some killer inclines that I ended up being a wimp and walking up instead of pedalling. It took 1 hour 35 minutes by my watch, and I might try it again if the weather stays nice, and see if I can improve on that time when I get more used to it.
On the train journey there, I've taken to bringing along a sheet of numbers and memorising them on the way. Because I haven't been practicing very much at all for the last year or so, and it helps me get in shape mentally. So really, I'm giving myself an all-round work-out as well as getting some much-needed money in the bank! I'm awesome.
The only real problem with that idea is that Derbyshire is nothing but hills. It's more downhill than up going from Belper to Beeston (about 16 miles), but there are still some killer inclines that I ended up being a wimp and walking up instead of pedalling. It took 1 hour 35 minutes by my watch, and I might try it again if the weather stays nice, and see if I can improve on that time when I get more used to it.
On the train journey there, I've taken to bringing along a sheet of numbers and memorising them on the way. Because I haven't been practicing very much at all for the last year or so, and it helps me get in shape mentally. So really, I'm giving myself an all-round work-out as well as getting some much-needed money in the bank! I'm awesome.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Everyone's free (to wear sunscreen)
Ow, my poor bald shiny skull. I never remember to put any sun lotion on it when I'm going out for a long bike ride in this lovely sunny weather without even my hat on. I'm an idiot.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Musical Youth
I went to see a production of West Side Story by the Erewash Musical Society Youth Group today, and it was surprisingly completely awesome. Great performances all round. I really want to be an actor/singer/dancer. Also, eighteen years old, so I can play the cool parts. I'm sure it'll happen some day.
Incidentally, Erewash is the name of an area round here, although I know it looks like it's some kind of code or anagram.
Anyway, when I'm eighteen and an actor, I'll want to look handsome and dashing and perhaps a little less like Adrian Mole than I did the first time I was that age. Here's me, somewhat younger than that, with a kitten:
The kitten grew up to be a big, fat and rather unattractive tom cat, and me, well...
And while I'm at it, here's me somewhat older than that, with friends:
That's me in the stylish black shirt with red roses, incidentally, although Fat Andy's wearing my hat, so I can understand if you were confused. It's quite disturbing how different I looked back then - it was only, what, ten or twelve years ago? I want my hair back. And my original hat.
Incidentally, Erewash is the name of an area round here, although I know it looks like it's some kind of code or anagram.
Anyway, when I'm eighteen and an actor, I'll want to look handsome and dashing and perhaps a little less like Adrian Mole than I did the first time I was that age. Here's me, somewhat younger than that, with a kitten:
The kitten grew up to be a big, fat and rather unattractive tom cat, and me, well...
And while I'm at it, here's me somewhat older than that, with friends:
That's me in the stylish black shirt with red roses, incidentally, although Fat Andy's wearing my hat, so I can understand if you were confused. It's quite disturbing how different I looked back then - it was only, what, ten or twelve years ago? I want my hair back. And my original hat.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Outwith the Old
I mentioned a while ago that I've been following the Rangers story, mainly for want of anything better to do with my time. One thing you hear a lot in people's discussion of the subject is the word "outwith". I mean, really, if Scottish people are just going to make up words, then they shouldn't be allowed to speak English in the first place. Kick them out of the English language and make them speak Gaelic. Or Welsh.
Friday, July 06, 2012
Cambridge?
It's been suggested to me that the 'Cambridge Memory Championship' joke is wearing a little thin now, and I should probably call it something different. Any ideas? I don't really want a location-specific name, because it'll probably move again. Some websites have called it "Ben Pridmore's Memory Competition", which really doesn't strike the right tone at all, so it really does need a catchy 'official' name.
Thursday, July 05, 2012
The TV CV
I thought I needed a definitive list.
This is every TV show (and a couple of other interesting things) I’ve been on for memory-related reasons, not counting local news or radio shows (which I’m on practically every day, it feels like), or things that I was filmed for but they decided not to use after all (I really wanted to be on the Gadget Show, gadget-hater that I am…).
It's a source of great pride to me that these have all come about as a result of people calling me and asking me to do it, and sometimes even giving me money for the privilege – I’ve never chased anyone to ask if I can be on telly, please. And they tend to cluster around the times when I’m not working or doing anything more important – I do still regret turning down Harry Hill because I had to work in my real job, especially since in all fairness my bosses would have been fine with me doing it, I just wanted to make a point to myself mostly that I didn’t put memory stuff ahead of what actually pays my bills…
9 August 2005
Steve Wright – Radio 2
This is worth mentioning, because it’s my first appearance on national radio, and they even paid me to do it! (Local radio give you a cup of tea) Also, the other guest on the show was Natalie Imbruglia, although I didn’t get to meet her, as she pre-recorded her interview. Still, fame at last, eh?
6 February 2006
Child Of Our Time – BBC
My first ‘real’ national TV exposure, including coverage of me at the 2005 World Memory Championships, and interviews in which I talked vaguely and uninterestingly about memory and learning techniques.
July 2006
Caldeiṛo do Huck РBrazil
Saturday night Brazilian TV got me an awesome holiday in Rio de Janeiro, and a big black cloak that they unfathomably wanted me to wear while memorising a pack of cards for an audience of excited and scantily-clad women. They let me keep the cloak, too!
May 2007
He’s the Memory Man – Current TV
The channel for people with short attention spans has a really rather cool ‘pod’ about me, that I think is still doing the rounds five years later. I’m the number one geek we all love, or at least I was at Christmas 2009!
19 September 2007
This Morning – ITV
Card-memorising with Philip Schofield (who’s one of my childhood heroes from his Children’s BBC presenting days) and Fern Britton.
October 2007
The Panel – Ireland
The Irish equivalent of Have I Got News For You, except that it has two extra guests each week who come on and show off their stuff. Why they picked me I can’t imagine, but being described as “the ultimate geek” was well worth it. Also, it got me a trip to Dublin!
12 December 2007
Blue Peter – BBC
The pinnacle of everyone’s ambition, to appear on Blue Peter! It was awesome, except that I spectacularly failed to remember anything and made a complete fool of myself. But hey, I got a badge! Socks the cat sat on my lap! What more could anyone dream of?
10 January 2008
The Mentalists – Channel 5
Completely awesome documentary about memory competitions, filmed throughout 2007 and focusing on me, Gunther Karsten and Ed Cooke. It portrayed me as the cool-and-relatively-normal one of the three, and involved a lot of following me around the world with a camera, but was worth it. Essential viewing for anyone who wants to see what our peculiar world is like!
29 January 2008
Extraordinary Animals – BBC
It’s safe to say this one made me more famous than anything I’ve ever done. Winning the world memory championship is okay, but losing a memory test against a chimpanzee? Awesome. Anyway, I would have won if it had been a fair contest. Or if I’d cheated by bribing Ayumu with a banana. Didn’t get to go to see him in Japan for this one, my half was filmed in the director’s house in London.
29 January 2008
Richard and Judy – Channel 4
The chimp thing was so exciting to everyone in Britain that I spent the day doing the rounds of local TV news and radio, culminating in an interview with Richard and Judy that evening. Richard greeted me with “Good to see you again, Ben. We’ve met before, right?” Actually, we hadn’t, but it’s good that he was playing it safe, not wanting to look stupid.
18 August 2008
Superhuman: Genius - ITV
Documentary following me around in 2008 (along with four other “geniuses”) – repeated so often that I got sick of seeing it, especially as The Mentalists was better. But hey, it’s the one that everyone has seen, and it’s the one that got me a reputation as a barcode-memoriser, so it can’t be all bad!
January 2010
Memory Documentary – NHK, Japan
I can’t find the title of this thing, but it involved me and Boris going to Japan, having our brains scanned and doing lots of filming, plus a lot of footage of memory competitions of 2009. The filmmakers, especially the director, are really really good at their job!
January 2010
Wonder Wonder – NHK, Japan
Sort of a sequel to the documentary, this consisted of showing clips from it to celebrities in the studio and asking them brainteasers about memory, and then bringing me in again (another trip to Tokyo!) to talk with them about it and take part in a sushi-memorising challenge.
28 October 2010
Where Did I Put My… Memory? – CBC, Canada
I still haven’t seen this one, actually. It features interviews with me and coverage of the 2009 World Championship.
April 2011
The Best House 123 – Fuji TV, Japan
The star, Ken Mogi, came to my house to talk about memory, and I demonstrated a couple of the usual tricks. Didn’t get a trip to Tokyo out of this one, but it was still fun.
10 September 2011
Epic Win – BBC1
Okay, I’m there in the capacity of contestant on a game show, and I’m not including my starring role on The Weakest Link in this list, but the difference is that a) the Epic Win people asked me to be on the show, rather than the other way round, and b) it was completely awesome and epic in every way. I memorised a lot of barcodes and lay down in a mockup till to have them swiped over me. Brilliant, and different.
14 November 2011
“Scale It Back” by DJ Shadow featuring Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon
(music video)
By far the best music video ever made, being an enactment of the mental images I create to memorise a pack of cards, and featuring me burbling unconvincingly about what’s going on. Well worth watching if you’re remotely interested in memory, as well as if you like really quite cool music.
28 March 2012
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
(promotional video)
A really rather cool publicity exercise for the modern art gallery featuring me memorising the layout, artists and works of art, and including animated sequences illustrating my thought processes while I’m doing it. Involved a great visit to Bilbao!
16-17 June 2012
LISTE art exhibition, Basel, Switzerland
(art?)
I was a piece of performance art exhibited by Rubén Grilo, memorising details of the art fair and talking about the mental story I created to do it. It doesn’t get more modern-art than that!
This is every TV show (and a couple of other interesting things) I’ve been on for memory-related reasons, not counting local news or radio shows (which I’m on practically every day, it feels like), or things that I was filmed for but they decided not to use after all (I really wanted to be on the Gadget Show, gadget-hater that I am…).
It's a source of great pride to me that these have all come about as a result of people calling me and asking me to do it, and sometimes even giving me money for the privilege – I’ve never chased anyone to ask if I can be on telly, please. And they tend to cluster around the times when I’m not working or doing anything more important – I do still regret turning down Harry Hill because I had to work in my real job, especially since in all fairness my bosses would have been fine with me doing it, I just wanted to make a point to myself mostly that I didn’t put memory stuff ahead of what actually pays my bills…
9 August 2005
Steve Wright – Radio 2
This is worth mentioning, because it’s my first appearance on national radio, and they even paid me to do it! (Local radio give you a cup of tea) Also, the other guest on the show was Natalie Imbruglia, although I didn’t get to meet her, as she pre-recorded her interview. Still, fame at last, eh?
6 February 2006
Child Of Our Time – BBC
My first ‘real’ national TV exposure, including coverage of me at the 2005 World Memory Championships, and interviews in which I talked vaguely and uninterestingly about memory and learning techniques.
July 2006
Caldeiṛo do Huck РBrazil
Saturday night Brazilian TV got me an awesome holiday in Rio de Janeiro, and a big black cloak that they unfathomably wanted me to wear while memorising a pack of cards for an audience of excited and scantily-clad women. They let me keep the cloak, too!
May 2007
He’s the Memory Man – Current TV
The channel for people with short attention spans has a really rather cool ‘pod’ about me, that I think is still doing the rounds five years later. I’m the number one geek we all love, or at least I was at Christmas 2009!
19 September 2007
This Morning – ITV
Card-memorising with Philip Schofield (who’s one of my childhood heroes from his Children’s BBC presenting days) and Fern Britton.
October 2007
The Panel – Ireland
The Irish equivalent of Have I Got News For You, except that it has two extra guests each week who come on and show off their stuff. Why they picked me I can’t imagine, but being described as “the ultimate geek” was well worth it. Also, it got me a trip to Dublin!
12 December 2007
Blue Peter – BBC
The pinnacle of everyone’s ambition, to appear on Blue Peter! It was awesome, except that I spectacularly failed to remember anything and made a complete fool of myself. But hey, I got a badge! Socks the cat sat on my lap! What more could anyone dream of?
10 January 2008
The Mentalists – Channel 5
Completely awesome documentary about memory competitions, filmed throughout 2007 and focusing on me, Gunther Karsten and Ed Cooke. It portrayed me as the cool-and-relatively-normal one of the three, and involved a lot of following me around the world with a camera, but was worth it. Essential viewing for anyone who wants to see what our peculiar world is like!
29 January 2008
Extraordinary Animals – BBC
It’s safe to say this one made me more famous than anything I’ve ever done. Winning the world memory championship is okay, but losing a memory test against a chimpanzee? Awesome. Anyway, I would have won if it had been a fair contest. Or if I’d cheated by bribing Ayumu with a banana. Didn’t get to go to see him in Japan for this one, my half was filmed in the director’s house in London.
29 January 2008
Richard and Judy – Channel 4
The chimp thing was so exciting to everyone in Britain that I spent the day doing the rounds of local TV news and radio, culminating in an interview with Richard and Judy that evening. Richard greeted me with “Good to see you again, Ben. We’ve met before, right?” Actually, we hadn’t, but it’s good that he was playing it safe, not wanting to look stupid.
18 August 2008
Superhuman: Genius - ITV
Documentary following me around in 2008 (along with four other “geniuses”) – repeated so often that I got sick of seeing it, especially as The Mentalists was better. But hey, it’s the one that everyone has seen, and it’s the one that got me a reputation as a barcode-memoriser, so it can’t be all bad!
January 2010
Memory Documentary – NHK, Japan
I can’t find the title of this thing, but it involved me and Boris going to Japan, having our brains scanned and doing lots of filming, plus a lot of footage of memory competitions of 2009. The filmmakers, especially the director, are really really good at their job!
January 2010
Wonder Wonder – NHK, Japan
Sort of a sequel to the documentary, this consisted of showing clips from it to celebrities in the studio and asking them brainteasers about memory, and then bringing me in again (another trip to Tokyo!) to talk with them about it and take part in a sushi-memorising challenge.
28 October 2010
Where Did I Put My… Memory? – CBC, Canada
I still haven’t seen this one, actually. It features interviews with me and coverage of the 2009 World Championship.
April 2011
The Best House 123 – Fuji TV, Japan
The star, Ken Mogi, came to my house to talk about memory, and I demonstrated a couple of the usual tricks. Didn’t get a trip to Tokyo out of this one, but it was still fun.
10 September 2011
Epic Win – BBC1
Okay, I’m there in the capacity of contestant on a game show, and I’m not including my starring role on The Weakest Link in this list, but the difference is that a) the Epic Win people asked me to be on the show, rather than the other way round, and b) it was completely awesome and epic in every way. I memorised a lot of barcodes and lay down in a mockup till to have them swiped over me. Brilliant, and different.
14 November 2011
“Scale It Back” by DJ Shadow featuring Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon
(music video)
By far the best music video ever made, being an enactment of the mental images I create to memorise a pack of cards, and featuring me burbling unconvincingly about what’s going on. Well worth watching if you’re remotely interested in memory, as well as if you like really quite cool music.
28 March 2012
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
(promotional video)
A really rather cool publicity exercise for the modern art gallery featuring me memorising the layout, artists and works of art, and including animated sequences illustrating my thought processes while I’m doing it. Involved a great visit to Bilbao!
16-17 June 2012
LISTE art exhibition, Basel, Switzerland
(art?)
I was a piece of performance art exhibited by Rubén Grilo, memorising details of the art fair and talking about the mental story I created to do it. It doesn’t get more modern-art than that!
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
The Cambridge Memory Championship 2012!
A 2013 update - if you've been directed to this page looking for the 2013 event, please click here instead. Thanks!
It's getting later in the year, as I try to find the best gap in the memory competition schedule, but this year's Cambridge competition will take place on Saturday October 20, not in Cambridge, but in the same place as last year, the delightful Attenborough Nature Centre!
Most of what I said last year still applies, so here are the details again:
The traditional friendly memory championship that always takes place on the first Sunday in May in Cambridge, England, will this year take place on Saturday October 20, 2012 at Attenborough Nature Reserve near Nottingham. England. See the nature reserve's website here
The competition will only take place if enough people want to come! So please let me know right now if you want to take part!
The entry fee will be £30 (or free of charge for people who have never taken part in any memory competition before) - it might be less than £30 if there are a lot of competitors, because I only want to cover the costs of hosting the competition, not make a profit! This fee includes a hot lunch.
The venue is quite close to my house - free accommodation is available on my floor, if you bring your own sleeping bag. If you prefer a hotel, there's a nice place just over the road from me: Rockaway Hotel or plenty of guest houses in Beeston or Attenborough.
The competition will start promptly at 9:00am and finish at 5:00pm, and will be a national-standard 10-discipline championship (15 minute numbers, 10 minute cards, etc).
The nearest airport is "Nottingham East Midlands", but it's actually not very near Nottingham and it's difficult to travel from there to here by public transport. Birmingham Airport is better, you can get the train to Beeston (for my house) or Attenborough (for the competition venue) very easily.
Obviously, like all memory competitions, it won't stick to that "strictly nine to five" schedule, although we kept quite close to it last year. But please come along, it's always a fun day's memorising and chatting with like-minded individuals!
It's getting later in the year, as I try to find the best gap in the memory competition schedule, but this year's Cambridge competition will take place on Saturday October 20, not in Cambridge, but in the same place as last year, the delightful Attenborough Nature Centre!
Most of what I said last year still applies, so here are the details again:
The traditional friendly memory championship that always takes place on the first Sunday in May in Cambridge, England, will this year take place on Saturday October 20, 2012 at Attenborough Nature Reserve near Nottingham. England. See the nature reserve's website here
The competition will only take place if enough people want to come! So please let me know right now if you want to take part!
The entry fee will be £30 (or free of charge for people who have never taken part in any memory competition before) - it might be less than £30 if there are a lot of competitors, because I only want to cover the costs of hosting the competition, not make a profit! This fee includes a hot lunch.
The venue is quite close to my house - free accommodation is available on my floor, if you bring your own sleeping bag. If you prefer a hotel, there's a nice place just over the road from me: Rockaway Hotel or plenty of guest houses in Beeston or Attenborough.
The competition will start promptly at 9:00am and finish at 5:00pm, and will be a national-standard 10-discipline championship (15 minute numbers, 10 minute cards, etc).
The nearest airport is "Nottingham East Midlands", but it's actually not very near Nottingham and it's difficult to travel from there to here by public transport. Birmingham Airport is better, you can get the train to Beeston (for my house) or Attenborough (for the competition venue) very easily.
Obviously, like all memory competitions, it won't stick to that "strictly nine to five" schedule, although we kept quite close to it last year. But please come along, it's always a fun day's memorising and chatting with like-minded individuals!
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Vicious cycle
You know, one thing I can't do is ride a bike in the cool no-hands way that people do. Which is a shame, because one of my secret ambitions is to learn to ride a unicycle, and ride it to work on a daily basis. It'll look really groovy. But I'm pretty sure a first step to that would be riding a bicycle without holding the handlebars, and I'm sort of scared to try that...
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
World Memory Championship news!
Yes, it looks like there will be a world memory championship this year!
Hi all, Thanks for your patience. We are really pleased to announce the details for the 21st World Memory Championship.
It will return to London for the Olympic and Queen's Jubilee year. The dates are confirmed as December 14 15 and 16, 2012
The venue will be The Lilian Baylis School, Kennington Lane, London.
The area is very close to the centre of London and is furnished with many reasonably priced hotels and restaurants.
Bringing the World Championship to a school in central London creates a magnificent opportunity to inspire and empower the capitals schoolchildren and create role models for young and developing minds.
Further details will be released soon
Say what you like, I think it can only be a good thing for the competition to return to its roots as a low-budget affair in a school's assembly hall - it badly overreached itself in the last couple of years. From this kind of starting point, maybe we can build a more stable and successful regular competition? Anyway, that's your World Championship, I don't know yet if I'll be there, but I'll let you know.
Hi all, Thanks for your patience. We are really pleased to announce the details for the 21st World Memory Championship.
It will return to London for the Olympic and Queen's Jubilee year. The dates are confirmed as December 14 15 and 16, 2012
The venue will be The Lilian Baylis School, Kennington Lane, London.
The area is very close to the centre of London and is furnished with many reasonably priced hotels and restaurants.
Bringing the World Championship to a school in central London creates a magnificent opportunity to inspire and empower the capitals schoolchildren and create role models for young and developing minds.
Further details will be released soon
Say what you like, I think it can only be a good thing for the competition to return to its roots as a low-budget affair in a school's assembly hall - it badly overreached itself in the last couple of years. From this kind of starting point, maybe we can build a more stable and successful regular competition? Anyway, that's your World Championship, I don't know yet if I'll be there, but I'll let you know.
Monday, June 25, 2012
How the cool kids talk
To prepare for a job interview a couple of weeks ago for a job that would require me to speak German (I didn't get it) and also to prepare for the trip to Basel, I got a "Perfect Your German" book-and-CD course. These things always boast "genuine German speakers" doing the talking, but one thing I realised when listening to the recording on this one is that speaking German as a first language is all well and good, but it doesn't necessarily mean the voices are good actors.
When it introduced a dialogue between two seventeen-year-olds and then came the voice of a middle-aged man exclaiming "Mensch, ich bin vielleicht froh, dass die Sommerferien morgen anfangen!" I actually laughed out loud. You can just picture a 40-year-old dressed in trendy clothing and trying to sound cool.
When it introduced a dialogue between two seventeen-year-olds and then came the voice of a middle-aged man exclaiming "Mensch, ich bin vielleicht froh, dass die Sommerferien morgen anfangen!" I actually laughed out loud. You can just picture a 40-year-old dressed in trendy clothing and trying to sound cool.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
The squirrels are dancing again!
The Victoria Centre in Nottingham has an absolutely beautiful "Time Fountain" decorated with ornate birds and squirrels and things - every fifteen minutes it chimes and the dancing animals spin round to music. Or at least they're supposed to, but it broke down about a year ago and never got fixed. But no more - it's working again now! Dancing squirrels make me feel that all is right with the world again! The birds I can take or leave, but squirrels? Yay!
Oh, and also, while I was cycling back, two young boys with a pedal-powered go-kart challenged me to a race. See, children like me! That one yesterday was probably a grumpy adult in disguise.
Oh, and also, while I was cycling back, two young boys with a pedal-powered go-kart challenged me to a race. See, children like me! That one yesterday was probably a grumpy adult in disguise.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
My feelings are deeply wounded
I was unlocking my bike from the bike-parking thing today and there was a small girl playing around them, so I smiled at her, which provoked her to go and hide behind her mother, saying "I don't like that man!"
This is hugely upsetting - children almost invariably like me, for some reason, even if I don't like them. I feel terribly hurt by this rejection.
This is hugely upsetting - children almost invariably like me, for some reason, even if I don't like them. I feel terribly hurt by this rejection.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Queen's Park and Rangers
Like most people, I'm really not interested in Scottish football at all, but I have been following the prolonged saga of Rangers and their amazing ability to get into more and more trouble as time goes on. It is a bit difficult to keep up with what's happening, though, because my usual first port of call for sports news is the BBC website, and in their strange way of occasionally being enormously biased for no obvious reason, the BBC are hugely anti-Rangers at the moment. But even so, and even if you ignore the BBC's assertion that Aberdeen have said they'll vote against admitting the new company to the Scottish Premier (the club themselves have loudly denied ever saying anything of the sort), there really does seem to be a possibility that Rangers won't be allowed to play in the SPL next year. Which is really unfathomable and goes against any kind of common sense, at least in the 'people want to make money and don't care about companies just not paying their bills and then wriggling out of it somehow' kind of common sense that football usually applies.
Still, I don't see why nobody's suggested Rangers applying to the English league instead. They've been whining about wanting to be allowed in there for years, and playing in the lower reaches of the English league has to be more lucrative than playing in the lower reaches of the Scottish. There are games there that are attended by two people and an apathetic elderly dog. Called Hamish. Actually, someone has probably suggested it by now, and someone else has probably told Rangers where they can put that suggestion if they do make it, but I haven't heard about it, and what I don't hear doesn't count as reality.
And as for the Scottish Premier League, what all those integrity-of-football people should do is go back to the olden days when Queen's Park, the amateur team who 'play for the sake of playing' and are run by a smaller number of slightly less dodgy businessmen, were allowed to play in the top division every year and were exempt from relegation. They could form a rivalry with Celtic, and everyone would be happy.
Still, I don't see why nobody's suggested Rangers applying to the English league instead. They've been whining about wanting to be allowed in there for years, and playing in the lower reaches of the English league has to be more lucrative than playing in the lower reaches of the Scottish. There are games there that are attended by two people and an apathetic elderly dog. Called Hamish. Actually, someone has probably suggested it by now, and someone else has probably told Rangers where they can put that suggestion if they do make it, but I haven't heard about it, and what I don't hear doesn't count as reality.
And as for the Scottish Premier League, what all those integrity-of-football people should do is go back to the olden days when Queen's Park, the amateur team who 'play for the sake of playing' and are run by a smaller number of slightly less dodgy businessmen, were allowed to play in the top division every year and were exempt from relegation. They could form a rivalry with Celtic, and everyone would be happy.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Superheroes
I never tire of looking at the stats page on Blogger and seeing what google searches brought people here to this strange corner of the internet. "Black superhero with a bird theme" gets you a picture of me in my superhero-bird-themed T-shirt. If anyone else comes looking for that, then the hero you're thinking of is probably the Falcon, but hopefully you found that out without my help.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Tickling the tastebuds
I'm back home from Basel now, and my first thought on entering my flat is "oh my gosh, this place is filthy!" That's what happens when you spend a weekend in a flat that's actually nice and tidy. I'm going to have to clean up, there's no getting away from it.
Anyway, while I was there, I was persuaded by the artist Rubén Grilo (who exhibited me at Liste and whose work you should all go and admire) to try gazpacho, which I previously only knew of from jokes on Red Dwarf and the Simpsons. I'd always sort of assumed it was exactly the same as the tomato soup you can get from a Heinz tin, only not heated up, but actually it's really quite nice! I'm going to order it the next time I'm eating in a fancy restaurant (which, as you know, I do as little as possible). This new culinary delight comes hot on the heels of some other friends persuading me to try a bit of kiwi fruit a couple of weeks ago - I've always maintained that I don't like it, without ever having eaten any, but in fact, it's not all that bad after all! Tastes much more like strawberries than anything green has any right to. I still don't trust it.
Anyway, while I was there, I was persuaded by the artist Rubén Grilo (who exhibited me at Liste and whose work you should all go and admire) to try gazpacho, which I previously only knew of from jokes on Red Dwarf and the Simpsons. I'd always sort of assumed it was exactly the same as the tomato soup you can get from a Heinz tin, only not heated up, but actually it's really quite nice! I'm going to order it the next time I'm eating in a fancy restaurant (which, as you know, I do as little as possible). This new culinary delight comes hot on the heels of some other friends persuading me to try a bit of kiwi fruit a couple of weeks ago - I've always maintained that I don't like it, without ever having eaten any, but in fact, it's not all that bad after all! Tastes much more like strawberries than anything green has any right to. I still don't trust it.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Basel: City of Roadworks
Basel is a very nice city, but I can't believe how many roads all around town are currently halfway through being dug up. Is it a once-a-year thing in Switzerland, that they rebuild the whole street system from scratch?
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