Here I am in sunny San Diego! Well, it's night-time, but tomorrow it will be sunny, I'm assured. The Extreme Memory Tournament happens this weekend, and I hope you're all ready to tune in to the XMT Live website! As I said last year, click on everything, it's a Simon Orton masterpiece of clickability - in fact, I think it's even clickier this year than it was in 2014! Follow all the action, live!
Unless you're in bed. I do appreciate that it's four o'clock tomorrow morning back home.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Monday, April 27, 2015
Beware the red moon!
It does exist!
Big thanks to Gilby1385 for pointing me to an eBay auction for the one Krypton Force Force Five video missing from my collection! I'm not sure that I particularly want the tape for any reason other than completism - as I've mentioned in my various Krypton Force blogs, I don't really like the Grandizer cartoon, and the artwork on the Orion Quest covers doesn't even seem to be by Marc, so is missing all the so-bad-it's-good qualities you get with his artwork. But hey, from the picture of the box alone I've now got the subtitle, the text on the back and some pretty solid confirmation that it contains the first two episodes of the series, so I'll update the master blog page with the new details!
And let's hope I win the auction and nobody tries to extort money out of me by bidding thousands of pounds...
Big thanks to Gilby1385 for pointing me to an eBay auction for the one Krypton Force Force Five video missing from my collection! I'm not sure that I particularly want the tape for any reason other than completism - as I've mentioned in my various Krypton Force blogs, I don't really like the Grandizer cartoon, and the artwork on the Orion Quest covers doesn't even seem to be by Marc, so is missing all the so-bad-it's-good qualities you get with his artwork. But hey, from the picture of the box alone I've now got the subtitle, the text on the back and some pretty solid confirmation that it contains the first two episodes of the series, so I'll update the master blog page with the new details!
And let's hope I win the auction and nobody tries to extort money out of me by bidding thousands of pounds...
Monday, April 20, 2015
Let's go skating!
I'm sure you all remember the blog post I wrote eight years ago in which I compared memory competitions to figure skating. Or at least the picture that followed it. It's interesting how things have changed since then. Back in 2007, "national standard" competitions with their shorter disciplines were still a bit of a novelty, the US championship was the only really different kind of memory tournament, and the XMT didn't exist even in people's wildest imagination.
The XMT, of course, is exactly the kind of free-skating thing I was burbling about eight years ago, and I'm pretty sure it now gets the general memory-athlete community more excited than the world memory championships do. But things like that and the Memoriad and the multiple other competitions going on (I haven't even mentioned the cool things happening in Los Angeles, been so wrapped up in Extremeness...) have all sort of combined into a really quite cool whole. The WMSC isn't as big a deal as it used to be when those were the only memory championships in the world, but while the world championship with its hour-long disciplines is still something people aspire to, it's not going to be swept aside. I like the balance we have right now!
The XMT, of course, is exactly the kind of free-skating thing I was burbling about eight years ago, and I'm pretty sure it now gets the general memory-athlete community more excited than the world memory championships do. But things like that and the Memoriad and the multiple other competitions going on (I haven't even mentioned the cool things happening in Los Angeles, been so wrapped up in Extremeness...) have all sort of combined into a really quite cool whole. The WMSC isn't as big a deal as it used to be when those were the only memory championships in the world, but while the world championship with its hour-long disciplines is still something people aspire to, it's not going to be swept aside. I like the balance we have right now!
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Glossary
An additional note to tonight's blog - Yanjaa has given me a good telling-off for referring to names and words as 'nurds' instead of 'nards', so I do apologise for any confusion caused. The official ruling is now that 'nards' means 'names and words' or the people who are good at memorising them, and 'nurds' means 'numbers and cards'. So now there can't possibly be any mix-ups!
The draw is done!
And hmmmmm, not the group of death I was most worried about, but it's going to be tough. Check out the group draw here!
Let's have a look at the groupings, starting with Group A: Simon, Yanjaa, Anne, Katie. Poor Katie, she was hoping to avoid Simon, and I'm sure she would have preferred not to go up against Yanjaa either. But I don't think that's a problem - Katie really is better than those two at the crucial names and words (nurds), and I think she could spring a surprise or two. In fact, Simon could be in a little bit of trouble here! This is the nurdiest group of all, with four experts fighting it out. If he slips up on numbers or cards (which, I'll grant you, he seldom does), it might not be plain sailing for the reigning champ.
Group B: Jonas, Enhkjin, Lance and Marlo. I'd certainly give Marlo a chance here of reaching the knockout stages. (I'd really love to see Team Britain do well in the XMT). It does look like Jonas will be favourite to top the group, but I can see a fierce battle developing between the other three.
Group C: Mark Anthony, Boris, Tuuruul and Akjol. That's a good draw for Boris, I think he'll do well here. And I can see Akjol being his closest rival; he's got a sort of all-round consistency on the big occasions, I think based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the guy. By the way, is it me or does that photo look nothing like Boris? Are we sure it's him?
Group D: Johannes M, Ola, Enkhmunkh, Marwin. This is going to be a real ding-dong; all four of them are likely to be evenly matched and producing some impressive results. It'll be down to who can do it with the most consistency, and I think that's probably going to be Hannes. Marwin is my dark horse to do well at the XMT this year; he's improved a lot since 2014.
Group E: Christian, Johann, Annalena, Johnny. Interesting in that Christian and Annalena are a couple, and will be head-to-head against each other for the first time; that's something to talk about in the press. But I can see Christian coming out on top of this group quite easily, maybe with Johann in second place.
Group F: And finally, it goes Ben, Johannes Z, Tsogbadrakh, Alex. The good thing about this is that at least three of the group will probably be blogging extensively about it - Tsogo might too, although if he does it'll most likely be in Mongolian. I'm going to face some tough challenges from all three of the others here, and it really depends on how fast and reliable everyone can be with cards, images and numbers. In my training lately I've been pretty good at getting 100% correct in a reasonably good time, but we'll just have to see how it goes in the competition...
And if I win my group and my round-of-16, I'm liable to face Jonas in the quarter-final. Finish second, and it'll be Simon. But I'll cross those bridges if and when I come to them.
Let's have a look at the groupings, starting with Group A: Simon, Yanjaa, Anne, Katie. Poor Katie, she was hoping to avoid Simon, and I'm sure she would have preferred not to go up against Yanjaa either. But I don't think that's a problem - Katie really is better than those two at the crucial names and words (nurds), and I think she could spring a surprise or two. In fact, Simon could be in a little bit of trouble here! This is the nurdiest group of all, with four experts fighting it out. If he slips up on numbers or cards (which, I'll grant you, he seldom does), it might not be plain sailing for the reigning champ.
Group B: Jonas, Enhkjin, Lance and Marlo. I'd certainly give Marlo a chance here of reaching the knockout stages. (I'd really love to see Team Britain do well in the XMT). It does look like Jonas will be favourite to top the group, but I can see a fierce battle developing between the other three.
Group C: Mark Anthony, Boris, Tuuruul and Akjol. That's a good draw for Boris, I think he'll do well here. And I can see Akjol being his closest rival; he's got a sort of all-round consistency on the big occasions, I think based on my admittedly limited knowledge of the guy. By the way, is it me or does that photo look nothing like Boris? Are we sure it's him?
Group D: Johannes M, Ola, Enkhmunkh, Marwin. This is going to be a real ding-dong; all four of them are likely to be evenly matched and producing some impressive results. It'll be down to who can do it with the most consistency, and I think that's probably going to be Hannes. Marwin is my dark horse to do well at the XMT this year; he's improved a lot since 2014.
Group E: Christian, Johann, Annalena, Johnny. Interesting in that Christian and Annalena are a couple, and will be head-to-head against each other for the first time; that's something to talk about in the press. But I can see Christian coming out on top of this group quite easily, maybe with Johann in second place.
Group F: And finally, it goes Ben, Johannes Z, Tsogbadrakh, Alex. The good thing about this is that at least three of the group will probably be blogging extensively about it - Tsogo might too, although if he does it'll most likely be in Mongolian. I'm going to face some tough challenges from all three of the others here, and it really depends on how fast and reliable everyone can be with cards, images and numbers. In my training lately I've been pretty good at getting 100% correct in a reasonably good time, but we'll just have to see how it goes in the competition...
And if I win my group and my round-of-16, I'm liable to face Jonas in the quarter-final. Finish second, and it'll be Simon. But I'll cross those bridges if and when I come to them.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
A different kind of death
Okay, I need to rethink exactly what the worst XMT group draw for me could be, because they've rejigged the seedings so I'm in the first pot and introduced rules limiting how many people from each country can be in a group. See the post here for details!
We have 6 groups (A-F), that will have 4 competitors each. The top 6 rankings will own a top spot in the first 6 groups (so, Simon (A), Johannes (B), Jonas (C), Mark Anthony (D), Christian (E), and Ben (F)). Then we will split the rest of the competitors into 3 pools:
Pool 1 (rankings 7-12)
7. Ola Kåre Risa
8. Boris Konrad
9. Johannes Zhou
10. Yanjaa Altansuh
11. Enhkjin Tumur
12. Johann Randall Abrina
Pool 2 (rankings 13-18)
13. Enkhumnkh Erdenebatkhaan
14. Annalena Fischer
15. Tsogobadrakh Saikhanbayar
16. Anne Reulke
17. Lance Tschirhart
18. Tuuruul Myagmarsuren
Pool 3 (rankings 19-24)
19. Alexander Mullen
20. Marwin Wallonius
21. Marlo Knight
22. Akjol Syeryekkhaan
23. Katie Kermode
24. Johnny Briones
GER: 7 competitors - no more than 2 in each group
MNG: 5 competitors - no more than 2 in each group
SWE: 3 competitors - no more than 1 in each group
UK: 3 competitors - no more than 1 in each group
USA: 3 competitors - no more than 1 in each group
PHL: 2 competitors - no more than 1 in each group
So, I'm now in group F, and who'll join me? Well, from pool 1 I think the name that instils the most terror in me is Boris - he'll beat me in names and words most likely, and everything else quite possibly too. The 'easy' option would probably be Enhkjin, who's in the top group thanks to some super-fast times in images and numbers in the qualifying tournament that he might not be able to replicate in a one-off situation.
I've thought about pool 2 since I did my previous Group of Death predictions and decided that Enkhmunkh is slightly more deathy than Lance is, so he moves to the top of my most-feared list today.
And now that I can't be paired with Katie or Marlo from pool 4, that I think leaves Marwin as the one to most make me tremble.
Revised Group of Death: Me, Boris, Enkhmunkh, Marwin. Revised Group of Life: Me, Enhkjin, Anne, Alex. Fingers crossed!
And then, of course, we have to think about who I'll play in the knockout rounds if I manage to get through the inevitable group of death I'll be drawn in. They're using the knockout phase structure from Euro 2016, apparently, but that doesn't strictly tell me who I'd be up against if I win my group, because that seems to be arranged so that groups A and D are the top two seeds (they're the ones who play runners-up rather than group winners in the quarter-finals), so there'll probably be a bit of re-jigging of the alphabet. But E and F do seem to be fifth and sixth seeds in that structure too, so I guess I'd be playing the runner-up of group E (Christian's group) in the round of 16. After that I play a group winner - it's logical to have 3rd seed against 6th in the quarter-finals, so that would mean... Jonas again. Should I say "yikes" or "aha, my chance for revenge!"?
Tell you what, I won't say anything until I've got through the group stage. It's seriously dangerous to start planning things as if I'm going to win my group, isn't it?
We have 6 groups (A-F), that will have 4 competitors each. The top 6 rankings will own a top spot in the first 6 groups (so, Simon (A), Johannes (B), Jonas (C), Mark Anthony (D), Christian (E), and Ben (F)). Then we will split the rest of the competitors into 3 pools:
Pool 1 (rankings 7-12)
7. Ola Kåre Risa
8. Boris Konrad
9. Johannes Zhou
10. Yanjaa Altansuh
11. Enhkjin Tumur
12. Johann Randall Abrina
Pool 2 (rankings 13-18)
13. Enkhumnkh Erdenebatkhaan
14. Annalena Fischer
15. Tsogobadrakh Saikhanbayar
16. Anne Reulke
17. Lance Tschirhart
18. Tuuruul Myagmarsuren
Pool 3 (rankings 19-24)
19. Alexander Mullen
20. Marwin Wallonius
21. Marlo Knight
22. Akjol Syeryekkhaan
23. Katie Kermode
24. Johnny Briones
GER: 7 competitors - no more than 2 in each group
MNG: 5 competitors - no more than 2 in each group
SWE: 3 competitors - no more than 1 in each group
UK: 3 competitors - no more than 1 in each group
USA: 3 competitors - no more than 1 in each group
PHL: 2 competitors - no more than 1 in each group
So, I'm now in group F, and who'll join me? Well, from pool 1 I think the name that instils the most terror in me is Boris - he'll beat me in names and words most likely, and everything else quite possibly too. The 'easy' option would probably be Enhkjin, who's in the top group thanks to some super-fast times in images and numbers in the qualifying tournament that he might not be able to replicate in a one-off situation.
I've thought about pool 2 since I did my previous Group of Death predictions and decided that Enkhmunkh is slightly more deathy than Lance is, so he moves to the top of my most-feared list today.
And now that I can't be paired with Katie or Marlo from pool 4, that I think leaves Marwin as the one to most make me tremble.
Revised Group of Death: Me, Boris, Enkhmunkh, Marwin. Revised Group of Life: Me, Enhkjin, Anne, Alex. Fingers crossed!
And then, of course, we have to think about who I'll play in the knockout rounds if I manage to get through the inevitable group of death I'll be drawn in. They're using the knockout phase structure from Euro 2016, apparently, but that doesn't strictly tell me who I'd be up against if I win my group, because that seems to be arranged so that groups A and D are the top two seeds (they're the ones who play runners-up rather than group winners in the quarter-finals), so there'll probably be a bit of re-jigging of the alphabet. But E and F do seem to be fifth and sixth seeds in that structure too, so I guess I'd be playing the runner-up of group E (Christian's group) in the round of 16. After that I play a group winner - it's logical to have 3rd seed against 6th in the quarter-finals, so that would mean... Jonas again. Should I say "yikes" or "aha, my chance for revenge!"?
Tell you what, I won't say anything until I've got through the group stage. It's seriously dangerous to start planning things as if I'm going to win my group, isn't it?
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Let's get extreme!
The most exciting part of the Extreme Memory Tournament that happens in advance (except for the qualifying competition) happens on Wednesday 15th, at 12 noon EST, which means 5pm here in Britain! It's the draw for the groups, and I would really prefer not to end up in the most horrifyingly difficult group again, if it can possibly be avoided...
So here's how it works. The names are in four pots, and I'm in pot 2:
1. Simon Reinhard
2. Johannes Mallow
3. Jonas Von Essen
4. Mark Anthony Castaneda
5. Christian Schaffer
6. Ola Kare Risa
7. Ben Pridmore
8. Boris Konrad
9. Johannes Zhou
10. Yanjaa Altansuh
11. Enhkjin Tumur
12. Johann Randall Abrina
13. Enkhumnkh Erdenebatkhaan
14. Annalena Fischer
15. Tsogobadrakh Saikhanbayar
16. Anne Reulke
17. Lance Tschirhart
18. Tuuruul Myagmarsuren
19. Alexander Mullen
20. Marwin Wallonius
21. Marlo Knight
22. Akjol Syeryekkhaan
23. Katie Kermode
24. Johnny Briones
Now, being in the second pot isn't so bad, because it means I don't get put in the same group as Boris, Johannes Z or Yanjaa, who are all experts at what Alex Mullen called 'nards', meaning 'names and words'. As an aside, that's not a good thing to call names and words. Not when 'numbers and cards' is another combination that people talk about. Let's call them 'nurds' instead; that should remove any possible confusion.
Pot one contains reigning champion and hot favourite Simon, who I would really prefer to avoid at all costs. It does include last year's 4th-placer Mark Anthony, who looks the most tempting prospect, for all that he did so well last time round. I'm fairly sure I can beat him if things go well, and finishing first in the group would give a big advantage when it comes to the knockout rounds.
Pot three contains a selection of scary Mongolians, who are more of an unknown quantity to me than the Europeans and so make me nervous with their occasional extremely good scores in numbers and cards. Tsogbadrakh, though, I know to be someone who concentrates on numbers more than anything else, and Tuuruul hasn't competed very much lately. Enkhmunkh is the one who's most worrying of the three, with his cards expertise; but Lance is concerning too, just because he's the kind of person who could pull an amazing performance out of nowhere. Hard to say which of them is the group-of-deathiest. The undeathiest in the pot would probably be Anne, though nothing's ever easy here.
Pot four, on the other hand, has the name of Katie jumping out at me. Just like with James Paterson last year, she's the big nurds expert in the bottom six, and I really want to avoid her. Marwin is improving a lot too, and he's got the advantage of having been there last year. I would say my preferred opponent out of those six is Alex - excellent memoriser and all-round-nice-guy though he is, I see him as someone who's not quite up to my level yet in all the disciplines (except names, of course).
So, the Group of Death that I really don't want to end up facing: Simon, me, Lance, Katie. Group of Life: Mark, me, Anne, Alex. Let's just see how it goes...
So here's how it works. The names are in four pots, and I'm in pot 2:
1. Simon Reinhard
2. Johannes Mallow
3. Jonas Von Essen
4. Mark Anthony Castaneda
5. Christian Schaffer
6. Ola Kare Risa
7. Ben Pridmore
8. Boris Konrad
9. Johannes Zhou
10. Yanjaa Altansuh
11. Enhkjin Tumur
12. Johann Randall Abrina
13. Enkhumnkh Erdenebatkhaan
14. Annalena Fischer
15. Tsogobadrakh Saikhanbayar
16. Anne Reulke
17. Lance Tschirhart
18. Tuuruul Myagmarsuren
19. Alexander Mullen
20. Marwin Wallonius
21. Marlo Knight
22. Akjol Syeryekkhaan
23. Katie Kermode
24. Johnny Briones
Now, being in the second pot isn't so bad, because it means I don't get put in the same group as Boris, Johannes Z or Yanjaa, who are all experts at what Alex Mullen called 'nards', meaning 'names and words'. As an aside, that's not a good thing to call names and words. Not when 'numbers and cards' is another combination that people talk about. Let's call them 'nurds' instead; that should remove any possible confusion.
Pot one contains reigning champion and hot favourite Simon, who I would really prefer to avoid at all costs. It does include last year's 4th-placer Mark Anthony, who looks the most tempting prospect, for all that he did so well last time round. I'm fairly sure I can beat him if things go well, and finishing first in the group would give a big advantage when it comes to the knockout rounds.
Pot three contains a selection of scary Mongolians, who are more of an unknown quantity to me than the Europeans and so make me nervous with their occasional extremely good scores in numbers and cards. Tsogbadrakh, though, I know to be someone who concentrates on numbers more than anything else, and Tuuruul hasn't competed very much lately. Enkhmunkh is the one who's most worrying of the three, with his cards expertise; but Lance is concerning too, just because he's the kind of person who could pull an amazing performance out of nowhere. Hard to say which of them is the group-of-deathiest. The undeathiest in the pot would probably be Anne, though nothing's ever easy here.
Pot four, on the other hand, has the name of Katie jumping out at me. Just like with James Paterson last year, she's the big nurds expert in the bottom six, and I really want to avoid her. Marwin is improving a lot too, and he's got the advantage of having been there last year. I would say my preferred opponent out of those six is Alex - excellent memoriser and all-round-nice-guy though he is, I see him as someone who's not quite up to my level yet in all the disciplines (except names, of course).
So, the Group of Death that I really don't want to end up facing: Simon, me, Lance, Katie. Group of Life: Mark, me, Anne, Alex. Let's just see how it goes...
Monday, March 30, 2015
Othelloadby
Saturday was the traditional clashing-with-the-US-Memory-Championship othello regional in Oadby, and since a trip to New York is too expensive (it's still open to Americans only), I took the train to Leicester and the bike out to the traditional Baptist church venue. The pub down the road where we always used to go to lunch has closed since I was last there (apparently it was also closed last year, when I must have been doing something else that weekend), but otherwise very little changes. Eight competitors, including organiser Steve Rowe - Imre Leader, Phil Marson, Iain Barrass, Roy Arnold, Ken Stevenson and Ken's son Neil, who was the British Champion in 1985 and hadn't played for around 25 years. I played pretty terribly throughout, which is what happens when you don't play a single game since the nationals last year (the two othello tournaments in between happened on the two weekends I was in China), though I somehow beat Phil in a way that I'll have to analyse on Zebra to see what happened.
The thing about that list of competitors is that they've all been coming to othello tournaments for a fair bit longer than I have (Steve I think predates me by a year or so; the others by at least a decade), and I've been around for quite a long time now. Like 16 years or so, in fact. I can't help wondering if our attempts to encourage new players to take up the game need a bit of work. While we've got Imre with his unfailing excitement over every game, pointing out great moves and playing through possible alternate lines for hours thereafter, I don't think the game's ever going to die out from lack of interest, but we really could do with attracting a few more newbies...
Imre won, 7 out of 7, Phil beat Iain in the last game to put them both on 5, Neil obviously wasn't too out of practice on 4, me and Steve on 3, Roy on 1 and Ken on 0. I need to get back in the habit of playing online, that'll get my brain working again.
The thing about that list of competitors is that they've all been coming to othello tournaments for a fair bit longer than I have (Steve I think predates me by a year or so; the others by at least a decade), and I've been around for quite a long time now. Like 16 years or so, in fact. I can't help wondering if our attempts to encourage new players to take up the game need a bit of work. While we've got Imre with his unfailing excitement over every game, pointing out great moves and playing through possible alternate lines for hours thereafter, I don't think the game's ever going to die out from lack of interest, but we really could do with attracting a few more newbies...
Imre won, 7 out of 7, Phil beat Iain in the last game to put them both on 5, Neil obviously wasn't too out of practice on 4, me and Steve on 3, Roy on 1 and Ken on 0. I need to get back in the habit of playing online, that'll get my brain working again.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Brain of Britain meets Brain of China
Check out today's edition of China Super Brain! Featuring Robert Fountain versus Roy Lam; Katie Kermode versus Li Wei; James Paterson versus Liu Jian and Ben Pridmore in a cool cravat versus Li Lu!
Here's the complete video:
What a completely awesome show. I hope we get to do it again!
Here's the complete video:
What a completely awesome show. I hope we get to do it again!
Monday, March 16, 2015
Get back to where you once belonged
Nine years ago, almost to the day, I posted about 30-minute binary training, and said "I've recorded my score every time I've practised since I started properly training again, and it's gone 2545, 2715, 3005, 3195, 3355, 3650, 3865, 3980"
I've done two training sessions in the last week or so, and they were 2140 and 2475. So if I keep training a bit more I might get back to the level I was when I started training in 2006. It's depressing how far I've sunk away from the levels I used to be at - I've resolved not to go to the world championship this year if I'm going to get the kind of abysmal scores I managed in 2014, so I really need to get memorising regularly...
I've done two training sessions in the last week or so, and they were 2140 and 2475. So if I keep training a bit more I might get back to the level I was when I started training in 2006. It's depressing how far I've sunk away from the levels I used to be at - I've resolved not to go to the world championship this year if I'm going to get the kind of abysmal scores I managed in 2014, so I really need to get memorising regularly...
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Thursday, March 12, 2015
My brain is better than EVERYBODY'S!
Among the playful banter on the Superbrain TV show, the panel of Chinese celebrities compared me to Sheldon Cooper, which I think is a great compliment. Sheldon genuinely is the only TV character I can truly identify with, he's a wonderful creation and I can't help thinking he's partly based on my own life - I assume Hollywood spies have been watching me for years. Maybe I'll make a point of coming across even more Sheldon-like on TV in future, it'll give everyone a good laugh...
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
What a week!
Well, where to start? I've just come back from a week in China, filming an episode of the popular and awesome show 'Superbrain' in which contestants are pitted against each other in exciting brain-related competition. They're doing a series of international shows, Team China against Team Another Country, and this was Britain's turn. It says something about the organisation of mental sports in this country that the whole Team Britain was organised by the German TV company that did Die Deutschen Meister last year, since apparently there's nobody in Britain who could arrange this kind of thing, but never mind.
I was the captain of the British team (I didn't volunteer or get elected or anything, it was just decided that I was the captain, and the duties of the role only extended to announcing that I was the captain, without actually doing anything) which also included a strong lineup of James Paterson, Katie Kermode and Robert Fountain. We'd had cool video introductions filmed in London previously, to give us a taste of how the whole thing was going to be presented. Mine included magically summoning an umbrella into my hand, and jumping off a building to land on the pavement below. Also, buying comics.
Those wonderful TV people arranged for me to fly out a day early and visit my brother in Harbin, which was amazing. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years, since he's so settled out there now, so we had a lot of catching up to do (this involved staying up all night drinking beer and talking about Thundercats), as well as meeting the people he works with at the university who were all very keen to arrange for me to come back there in term time (Chinese new year holidays when I visited) and give a speech or maybe get a permanent job as a teacher there too.
Having slept about two hours in three days, I then flew off to Nanjing, where I was warmly and enthusiastically received by the TV people - I basically had my own personal attendants for all the time I was there; the director of my particular segment of the challenge and an interpreter who spoke really excellent English. There was also a steady supply of Chinese junk food - McDonalds, pizza and Chinese working lunch boxes - which was more than enough to keep me happy.
My challenge involved delivery boxes - each one had a 12-digit code number on it, and the audience members wrote down their mobile phone numbers on the receipts. I and my opponent then had two hours to memorise the numbers, and then one random code number would be shown on screen and the winner was the first to remember and dial the correct phone. My opponent was Li Lu, who as well as giving me a new teddy bear (Briar or Xiongda from the cartoon Boonie Bears) spent the week talking as if it was a great honour to even be in the same room as a super-brain like myself. In reality, she's the world number 36, and you don't get to be that without being pretty darn brainy yourself, and she was actually quite a bit better and faster at this challenge than me.
The Germans had already filmed their clash with Team China a few weeks previously, and despite Boris and Simon both sporting stylish beards (I've started a real trend there), China triumphed, so it was important to get revenge on behalf of Europe. On the other hand, the Chinese team then consisted mainly of double world champion Wang Feng, and he wasn't in this one, so perhaps we had it a little easier. The most important team task, though, turned out to be deciding on a slogan for us all to chant at the start of the show. After objecting to "Veni vidi vici" on the grounds that it's singular, past tense and all about conquering Britain, we settled on "To victory!"
And certain team members who shall remain nameless had great trouble remembering that two-word slogan, so I have to admit our rallying cry wasn't as good as our opponents'.
I had some quite extensive makeup before appearing in front of the cameras. Normally it's just a case of plastering a lot of powder on my bald shiny skull to stop the reflections of the studio lights dazzling everyone, but they really made a big deal of painting my face orange (on Chinese TV it's apparently the done thing for people's skin to look as pale as possible, and this makeup compensated for that) and fiddling with my eyebrows and everything. They even styled my hair, including hairspray, which is quite a feat when you consider my hair consists of just a few sparse strands on the sides of my head.
I had brought along my black turtleneck, thinking it'd look suitably smart and stylish, but although they did try filming with it (and even sewed up the big hole in the shoulder), they eventually gave up and picked me out a new suit - navy blue trousers and jacket, white open-necked shirt and colourful silk cravat. It looked frankly magnificent! I am so going to wear that kind of thing as part of my regular rotation from now on.
I won't spoil the results of the challenges, since it'll be available for the world to see on the internet when it's broadcast, but I'm sure it'll look awesome and be well worth the two solid days of rehearsal followed by about 14 hours continuous filming. I would love to do this kind of thing every week now - anyone else want me on their TV shows?
I was the captain of the British team (I didn't volunteer or get elected or anything, it was just decided that I was the captain, and the duties of the role only extended to announcing that I was the captain, without actually doing anything) which also included a strong lineup of James Paterson, Katie Kermode and Robert Fountain. We'd had cool video introductions filmed in London previously, to give us a taste of how the whole thing was going to be presented. Mine included magically summoning an umbrella into my hand, and jumping off a building to land on the pavement below. Also, buying comics.
Those wonderful TV people arranged for me to fly out a day early and visit my brother in Harbin, which was amazing. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years, since he's so settled out there now, so we had a lot of catching up to do (this involved staying up all night drinking beer and talking about Thundercats), as well as meeting the people he works with at the university who were all very keen to arrange for me to come back there in term time (Chinese new year holidays when I visited) and give a speech or maybe get a permanent job as a teacher there too.
Having slept about two hours in three days, I then flew off to Nanjing, where I was warmly and enthusiastically received by the TV people - I basically had my own personal attendants for all the time I was there; the director of my particular segment of the challenge and an interpreter who spoke really excellent English. There was also a steady supply of Chinese junk food - McDonalds, pizza and Chinese working lunch boxes - which was more than enough to keep me happy.
My challenge involved delivery boxes - each one had a 12-digit code number on it, and the audience members wrote down their mobile phone numbers on the receipts. I and my opponent then had two hours to memorise the numbers, and then one random code number would be shown on screen and the winner was the first to remember and dial the correct phone. My opponent was Li Lu, who as well as giving me a new teddy bear (Briar or Xiongda from the cartoon Boonie Bears) spent the week talking as if it was a great honour to even be in the same room as a super-brain like myself. In reality, she's the world number 36, and you don't get to be that without being pretty darn brainy yourself, and she was actually quite a bit better and faster at this challenge than me.
The Germans had already filmed their clash with Team China a few weeks previously, and despite Boris and Simon both sporting stylish beards (I've started a real trend there), China triumphed, so it was important to get revenge on behalf of Europe. On the other hand, the Chinese team then consisted mainly of double world champion Wang Feng, and he wasn't in this one, so perhaps we had it a little easier. The most important team task, though, turned out to be deciding on a slogan for us all to chant at the start of the show. After objecting to "Veni vidi vici" on the grounds that it's singular, past tense and all about conquering Britain, we settled on "To victory!"
And certain team members who shall remain nameless had great trouble remembering that two-word slogan, so I have to admit our rallying cry wasn't as good as our opponents'.
I had some quite extensive makeup before appearing in front of the cameras. Normally it's just a case of plastering a lot of powder on my bald shiny skull to stop the reflections of the studio lights dazzling everyone, but they really made a big deal of painting my face orange (on Chinese TV it's apparently the done thing for people's skin to look as pale as possible, and this makeup compensated for that) and fiddling with my eyebrows and everything. They even styled my hair, including hairspray, which is quite a feat when you consider my hair consists of just a few sparse strands on the sides of my head.
I had brought along my black turtleneck, thinking it'd look suitably smart and stylish, but although they did try filming with it (and even sewed up the big hole in the shoulder), they eventually gave up and picked me out a new suit - navy blue trousers and jacket, white open-necked shirt and colourful silk cravat. It looked frankly magnificent! I am so going to wear that kind of thing as part of my regular rotation from now on.
I won't spoil the results of the challenges, since it'll be available for the world to see on the internet when it's broadcast, but I'm sure it'll look awesome and be well worth the two solid days of rehearsal followed by about 14 hours continuous filming. I would love to do this kind of thing every week now - anyone else want me on their TV shows?
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Let's have a party with Charlie Brown and Snoopy
Some people, when they find themselves with a huge list of things that really need to be done over the course of a weekend, prioritise the most essential tasks and use effective time management techniques to make sure the best job possible is done. Others give up on the whole thing and decide to devote their time to something reassuringly completely unnecessary and yet entertaining enough to distract them from all those other things they were meaning to do.
With that principle in mind, I hereby rectify the shocking absence from the internet of a really good visual analysis of the relative prominence of characters in the early years of the Peanuts comic. The following graph is a moving annual total of appearance in the daily comic strip; each point shows the number of strips that character has been seen in for the year up to and including that date.
When the strip launched in October 1950 its three regular human characters - Charlie Brown, Shermy and Patty - shared the spotlight, and it's actually Patty who makes the most appearances in the first couple of months. Snoopy, who at this point is an entirely normal dog, plays a supporting role. By the start of 1951, though, Shermy's appearances have already started to dwindle and Charlie Brown becomes established as the star of the series. Shermy never gets any real kind of personality, strangely enough. He's one of life's straight men whose job is to stand there and listen to the punchline once in a while.
The introduction of Violet in February doesn't change the dynamics very much, as there's not much difference between her and Patty, who still features more often. More interesting is when Schroeder makes his debut in May, as a baby who can't yet walk or talk (or even play the piano). He grows up surprisingly quickly, and by the time of Lucy's debut in March 1952 she and Schroeder both are just slightly smaller than the other characters.
Lucy immediately zooms to prominence in the daily strip, mostly at the expense of Patty, although it takes her several months to transform from the baby of the group into the kind of personality she eventually settles on. Linus, when he makes his debut in September, is much more of a slow burner; he remains a baby for a much longer time and settles into a pattern of only occasional appearances for the best part of three years, seen more often only than Shermy (who at one point in 1954/55 shows up only twice in nine months, but doesn't quite get forgotten about altogether).
We settle now into a pattern of Charlie Brown featuring in the majority of strips, with Lucy the other central character and Snoopy gradually getting more anthropomorphised as time goes on (his thought bubbles make a debut around this time and he starts to dance on his hind legs on occasion). Schroeder, Violet and Patty are the supporting players, and it's interesting how closely the lines for Schroeder and Violet stick together on the chart - it's unusual for them to appear together, but they each alternate in strips alongside either Charlie Brown or Lucy.
The other supporting characters of the 1950s don't get much exposure - one-joke character Pig-Pen is used sparingly and Charlotte Braun, although introduced as a new main character, is dropped completely after just a couple of months. There's an almost complete and total lack of other characters, even in the background nor even as passing mentions.
In July 1955 Linus suddenly becomes much more interesting - armed with security blanket and unique philosophy he ages to just a little smaller than the others and starts to play a central role. With Patty and Violet fading to near-Shermy levels of obscurity, the more familiar main cast of Peanuts is in place. We're still a long way away from Snoopy's eventual domination of the strip (in 1957 he'd just started to walk on two legs from time to time), and the sixties add some more major characters to the mix, but I thought seven years was about as far as it was worth going with this. All those other things to do, you see...
With that principle in mind, I hereby rectify the shocking absence from the internet of a really good visual analysis of the relative prominence of characters in the early years of the Peanuts comic. The following graph is a moving annual total of appearance in the daily comic strip; each point shows the number of strips that character has been seen in for the year up to and including that date.
When the strip launched in October 1950 its three regular human characters - Charlie Brown, Shermy and Patty - shared the spotlight, and it's actually Patty who makes the most appearances in the first couple of months. Snoopy, who at this point is an entirely normal dog, plays a supporting role. By the start of 1951, though, Shermy's appearances have already started to dwindle and Charlie Brown becomes established as the star of the series. Shermy never gets any real kind of personality, strangely enough. He's one of life's straight men whose job is to stand there and listen to the punchline once in a while.
The introduction of Violet in February doesn't change the dynamics very much, as there's not much difference between her and Patty, who still features more often. More interesting is when Schroeder makes his debut in May, as a baby who can't yet walk or talk (or even play the piano). He grows up surprisingly quickly, and by the time of Lucy's debut in March 1952 she and Schroeder both are just slightly smaller than the other characters.
Lucy immediately zooms to prominence in the daily strip, mostly at the expense of Patty, although it takes her several months to transform from the baby of the group into the kind of personality she eventually settles on. Linus, when he makes his debut in September, is much more of a slow burner; he remains a baby for a much longer time and settles into a pattern of only occasional appearances for the best part of three years, seen more often only than Shermy (who at one point in 1954/55 shows up only twice in nine months, but doesn't quite get forgotten about altogether).
We settle now into a pattern of Charlie Brown featuring in the majority of strips, with Lucy the other central character and Snoopy gradually getting more anthropomorphised as time goes on (his thought bubbles make a debut around this time and he starts to dance on his hind legs on occasion). Schroeder, Violet and Patty are the supporting players, and it's interesting how closely the lines for Schroeder and Violet stick together on the chart - it's unusual for them to appear together, but they each alternate in strips alongside either Charlie Brown or Lucy.
The other supporting characters of the 1950s don't get much exposure - one-joke character Pig-Pen is used sparingly and Charlotte Braun, although introduced as a new main character, is dropped completely after just a couple of months. There's an almost complete and total lack of other characters, even in the background nor even as passing mentions.
In July 1955 Linus suddenly becomes much more interesting - armed with security blanket and unique philosophy he ages to just a little smaller than the others and starts to play a central role. With Patty and Violet fading to near-Shermy levels of obscurity, the more familiar main cast of Peanuts is in place. We're still a long way away from Snoopy's eventual domination of the strip (in 1957 he'd just started to walk on two legs from time to time), and the sixties add some more major characters to the mix, but I thought seven years was about as far as it was worth going with this. All those other things to do, you see...
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Wedding vows
I heard "Uprising" by Muse today for the first time in quite a while. It's not the best song in the world, obviously, and whenever I listen to it I always tune out the mumbled lyrics of the verse and only notice it during the cool bellowed chorus, "They will not force us! They will stop degrading us! They will not control us! We will be victorious!"
And every single time I hear the song I expect the second line to rhyme with the first, and when it gets to "They will stop de-" I mentally complete the line to say "They will stop divorces!" and start imagining it's singing the praises of some militant group who are out to uphold the sanctity of marriage by any means necessary. That might actually be a cooler song altogether.
And every single time I hear the song I expect the second line to rhyme with the first, and when it gets to "They will stop de-" I mentally complete the line to say "They will stop divorces!" and start imagining it's singing the praises of some militant group who are out to uphold the sanctity of marriage by any means necessary. That might actually be a cooler song altogether.
Sunday, February 08, 2015
Meet the Extremers!
No, wait, let's call them The Extremities! That sounds even cooler. X-Tremities. X-Tremites. X-Termites? I'll think of a cool name later.
Qualification is finished for the 2015 XMT, and if all the people who've qualified do decide to go to the actual tournament, the lineup looks like this - 7 Germans, 5 Mongolians, 3 Swedes, 2 Filipinos, 3 Americans, 1 Norwegian, 3 Britons.
The quarter-finalists from last year qualify automatically - this includes Simon Reinhard, Boris Konrad, Mark Anthony Castaneda and me, who all decided to take part in the online qualification anyway, and Jonas von Essen, Johannes Mallow, Christian Schäfer and Ola Kåre Risa, who didn't. Then there are the top sixteen of the online qualifiers, as below:
Lance Tschirhart apparently had his words attempt disqualified and then reinstated, or something like that - I don't know if there's any kind of sensational controversy there, but it's bad news for Purejav Erdenesaikhan, anyway.
The others who were competing "just for fun" are Nelson Dellis, who will be running things admirably as always, Simon Orton providing the wonderful software and Idriz Zogaj helping out and cheering on Team Sweden, too.
How will the group stages and knockout rounds work? If I could make a suggestion before I know the seedings and so can't be accused of suggesting something that'd give me an advantage, I'd like to see a tennis-style thing (big tennis tournaments are seeded so that the 1st and 2nd seed will meet in the final, they'll each play a randomly-drawn one of the 3rd and 4th seeds in the semi-finals, and each of those four will play a randomly-drawn one of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th seeds in the quarter-finals, and so on) coupled with the system that I think they used in the football world cup when it had 24 teams like this:
The top six seeds will each be in a group with a random one from the three other pots (7th-12th; 13th-18th; 19th-24th), split like this:
Group A - 1st seed
Group B - 3rd/4th seed
Group C - 5th/6th seed
Group D - 2nd seed
Group E - 3rd/4th seed
Group F - 5th/6th seed
The knockout stages will then be arranged to keep the top seeds apart if they win their groups, and the second and third places in each group be ranked according to the number of points they amass (the best being called 2nd-place-1, then 2nd-place-2, and so on), and split like this:
Match 1 - winner group A vs 3rd-place-4
Match 2 - 2nd-place-2 vs 2nd-place-3
Match 3 - winner group C vs 2nd-place-6
Match 4 - winner group B vs 3rd-place-2
Match 5 - winner group E vs 3rd-place-1
Match 6 - winner group F vs 2nd-place-5
Match 7 - 2nd-place-1 vs 2nd-place-4
Match 8 - winner group D vs 3rd-place-3
Then the quarter-finals are winner match 1 vs winner match 2, and so on to the final.
Any better suggestions, bloglings? Maybe an optional rule to stop people who've met in the group stages meeting again in the round of 16...
Qualification is finished for the 2015 XMT, and if all the people who've qualified do decide to go to the actual tournament, the lineup looks like this - 7 Germans, 5 Mongolians, 3 Swedes, 2 Filipinos, 3 Americans, 1 Norwegian, 3 Britons.
The quarter-finalists from last year qualify automatically - this includes Simon Reinhard, Boris Konrad, Mark Anthony Castaneda and me, who all decided to take part in the online qualification anyway, and Jonas von Essen, Johannes Mallow, Christian Schäfer and Ola Kåre Risa, who didn't. Then there are the top sixteen of the online qualifiers, as below:
| Rank | Name | Cards | Images | Names | Numbers | Words | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simon Reinhard | 133.00 | 123.61 | 108.70 | 81.16 | 91.84 | 538.31 | |
| 1 | Johannes Zhou | 69.54 | 154.00 | 117.39 | 71.41 | 87.76 | 500.10 |
| 2 | Yanjindulam Altansuh | 52.15 | 167.22 | 113.04 | 67.25 | 87.76 | 487.42 |
| Ben Pridmore | 107.08 | 133.87 | 65.22 | 79.50 | 79.59 | 465.26 | |
| Boris Konrad | 74.96 | 169.49 | 100.00 | 74.99 | 419.44 | ||
| 3 | Enhkjin Tumur | 57.90 | 158.23 | 65.22 | 92.97 | 38.78 | 413.10 |
| 4 | Johann Randall Abrina | 99.06 | 116.28 | 100.00 | 37.85 | 51.02 | 404.21 |
| 5 | Enkhmunkh Erdenebatkhaan | 89.34 | 75.78 | 78.26 | 117.53 | 42.86 | 403.77 |
| Nelson Dellis | 52.32 | 72.99 | 117.39 | 66.15 | 85.71 | 394.56 | |
| 6 | Annalena Fischer | 42.18 | 129.70 | 86.96 | 44.04 | 83.67 | 386.55 |
| 7 | Tsogbadrakh Saikhanbayar | 51.58 | 130.26 | 78.26 | 49.05 | 75.51 | 384.66 |
| 8 | Anne Reulke | 43.87 | 125.47 | 100.00 | 37.38 | 77.55 | 384.27 |
| 9 | Lance Tschirhart | 70.19 | 66.86 | 100.00 | 73.58 | 71.43 | 382.06 |
| 10 | Tuuruul Myagmarsuren | 46.29 | 123.15 | 113.04 | 37.85 | 59.18 | 379.51 |
| 11 | Alexander Mullen | 53.04 | 101.97 | 82.61 | 69.70 | 71.43 | 378.75 |
| 12 | Marwin Wallonius | 58.70 | 115.43 | 73.91 | 71.81 | 57.14 | 376.99 |
| 13 | Marlo Knight | 62.88 | 101.11 | 91.30 | 55.18 | 59.18 | 369.65 |
| 14 | Akjol Syeryekkhaan | 37.96 | 80.52 | 121.74 | 52.92 | 73.47 | 366.61 |
| 15 | Katie Kermode | 30.37 | 76.36 | 117.39 | 42.44 | 97.96 | 364.52 |
| 16 | Johnny Briones | 45.69 | 93.87 | 100.00 | 38.33 | 75.51 | 353.40 |
| 17 | Purevjav Erdenesaikhan | 69.23 | 84.22 | 65.22 | 76.92 | 57.14 | 352.73 |
| 18 | Konstantin Skudler | 34.59 | 116.96 | 78.26 | 42.71 | 69.39 | 341.91 |
| Mark Anthony Castaneda | 87.90 | 95.65 | 73.32 | 65.31 | 322.18 | ||
| 19 | Tsetsegzul Zorigtbaatar | 51.50 | 94.16 | 65.22 | 49.92 | 59.18 | 319.98 |
| 20 | Norbert Reulke | 37.96 | 104.57 | 60.87 | 40.46 | 65.31 | 309.17 |
| 21 | Brad Zupp | 42.18 | 62.88 | 91.30 | 37.38 | 67.35 | 301.09 |
| 22 | Juliane Fischer | 23.62 | 122.25 | 65.22 | 33.06 | 55.10 | 299.25 |
| 23 | Tuvshintugs Nyamdorj | 53.99 | 53.74 | 65.22 | 75.88 | 48.98 | 297.81 |
| 24 | Clay Knight | 33.74 | 96.96 | 69.57 | 45.43 | 48.98 | 294.68 |
| 25 | Florian Dellé | 30.37 | 89.07 | 60.87 | 32.58 | 53.06 | 265.95 |
| 26 | Oddbjørn By | 23.62 | 81.39 | 69.57 | 37.38 | 40.82 | 252.78 |
| 27 | Brice Trejo | 44.64 | 81.26 | 43.48 | 43.83 | 38.78 | 251.99 |
| 28 | Omkar Kibe | 29.53 | 62.37 | 60.87 | 25.88 | 48.98 | 227.63 |
| 29 | John Graham | 24.46 | 70.03 | 95.65 | 32.10 | 222.24 | |
| 30 | Javier Moreno | 19.40 | 55.11 | 65.22 | 15.33 | 42.86 | 197.92 |
| 31 | David Billington | 25.31 | 35.00 | 69.57 | 28.75 | 36.73 | 195.36 |
| 32 | Khaliun Bolor-Erdene | 32.90 | 55.35 | 69.57 | 36.42 | 194.24 | |
| 33 | Luis Angel Echeverria | 22.78 | 56.78 | 52.17 | 25.40 | 30.61 | 187.74 |
| 34 | Andrej Savickij | 26.99 | 50.00 | 26.09 | 35.46 | 34.69 | 173.23 |
| 35 | Chris Forde | 10.97 | 71.77 | 65.22 | 14.38 | 162.34 | |
| 36 | Kevin Horsley | 80.39 | 64.68 | 145.07 | |||
| Simon Orton | 59.93 | 78.26 | 138.19 | ||||
| Idriz Zogaj | 46.67 | 22.04 | 68.71 | ||||
| 37 | Alexis Rodríguez | 23.62 | 23.62 |
Lance Tschirhart apparently had his words attempt disqualified and then reinstated, or something like that - I don't know if there's any kind of sensational controversy there, but it's bad news for Purejav Erdenesaikhan, anyway.
The others who were competing "just for fun" are Nelson Dellis, who will be running things admirably as always, Simon Orton providing the wonderful software and Idriz Zogaj helping out and cheering on Team Sweden, too.
How will the group stages and knockout rounds work? If I could make a suggestion before I know the seedings and so can't be accused of suggesting something that'd give me an advantage, I'd like to see a tennis-style thing (big tennis tournaments are seeded so that the 1st and 2nd seed will meet in the final, they'll each play a randomly-drawn one of the 3rd and 4th seeds in the semi-finals, and each of those four will play a randomly-drawn one of the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th seeds in the quarter-finals, and so on) coupled with the system that I think they used in the football world cup when it had 24 teams like this:
The top six seeds will each be in a group with a random one from the three other pots (7th-12th; 13th-18th; 19th-24th), split like this:
Group A - 1st seed
Group B - 3rd/4th seed
Group C - 5th/6th seed
Group D - 2nd seed
Group E - 3rd/4th seed
Group F - 5th/6th seed
The knockout stages will then be arranged to keep the top seeds apart if they win their groups, and the second and third places in each group be ranked according to the number of points they amass (the best being called 2nd-place-1, then 2nd-place-2, and so on), and split like this:
Match 1 - winner group A vs 3rd-place-4
Match 2 - 2nd-place-2 vs 2nd-place-3
Match 3 - winner group C vs 2nd-place-6
Match 4 - winner group B vs 3rd-place-2
Match 5 - winner group E vs 3rd-place-1
Match 6 - winner group F vs 2nd-place-5
Match 7 - 2nd-place-1 vs 2nd-place-4
Match 8 - winner group D vs 3rd-place-3
Then the quarter-finals are winner match 1 vs winner match 2, and so on to the final.
Any better suggestions, bloglings? Maybe an optional rule to stop people who've met in the group stages meeting again in the round of 16...
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