I went into a shoe shop today, for the first time in living memory. Mainly to see whether the "buy one get one free" sign in the window meant one shoe or one pair of shoes, but since my boots have reached the point where it is in fact painful to walk around in them, I did think it might be a good idea to get some new ones. But I didn't like any of the ones in the shop, so I'll leave it till the weekend.
I had the leisure time to hang around shoe shops, of course, because I did all my work for the day before 9am - twelve very quick interviews with local radio stations (it should have been 14, but Sheffield had technical problems and York cancelled. Typical Yorkshire people.)* It was fun noticing the very slight different in format and questions from each one - some focused on serious talking about Alzheimer's, others were more interested in getting me to recount my amazing memory achievements. Radio Lancashire decided to take the approach of making me out to be a complete sad case. I'd complain, except I am in fact a complete sad case.
I did do a bit of mental calculation practice, and I was pleased to see I'm not far off the level I was at in 2004 when I last did it. I'm not going to break any records there, but I should put in a respectable kind of performance.
*I have no previous experience of the habits of Yorkshire people when it comes to arranging radio interviews, so I'm just assuming based on today that they're always having technical problems or cancelling them at short notice. This prejudice doesn't apply to local radio stations in Leeds.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Monday, September 18, 2006
Video killed the radio star
Early start tomorrow - interviews on the early morning shows of lots of BBC local radio stations about the launch of the Alzheimer's campaign. Still don't know which stations, or exactly when, so if you want to listen to me it's more a matter of tune in and hope. I won't be saying anything interesting, anyway - I've got a very detailed briefing that should more than cover a couple of minute's chat in each case.
Disappointingly, I won't be flying from one radio station to another in a private helicopter, but doing the whole thing from Radio Derby down the road. I'll be finished by nine o'clock, and after that I've got the whole day off work to do something useful.
Also in the news, and I don't normally mention celebrity birthdays here, but I've just heard that June Foray is 89 today. And still doing cartoon voices, as she has been doing for well over sixty years now. Happy birthday, Granny!
Disappointingly, I won't be flying from one radio station to another in a private helicopter, but doing the whole thing from Radio Derby down the road. I'll be finished by nine o'clock, and after that I've got the whole day off work to do something useful.
Also in the news, and I don't normally mention celebrity birthdays here, but I've just heard that June Foray is 89 today. And still doing cartoon voices, as she has been doing for well over sixty years now. Happy birthday, Granny!
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Ah'm fed up! I never get ony fun here.
I'm bored! And by that I mean that there are many, many things I could be doing, like memory training, or mental calculations training, or writing books, cleaning my flat, arranging my birthday party, watching videos, playing games, emailing people, phoning people, heck, even leaving the flat and going for a drink, but for some reason none of these wholesome activities hold any appeal for me at the moment. The only thing I can reconcile myself to doing is lying around the place at 8pm on a Sunday night and moaning because I'm bored.
Have I mentioned that the day after the mental calculation world cup in Gießen, there's a memory competition in Stuttgart that I'm also competing in? I'm trying to work out how best to balance training for the two - the mental calculation bit involves some long-term memory of numbers, which kind of gets in the way of practising the short-term things for the memory competition. Although since, as previously mentioned, I'm not doing either right at the moment, perhaps it's just an academic question.
Have I mentioned that the day after the mental calculation world cup in Gießen, there's a memory competition in Stuttgart that I'm also competing in? I'm trying to work out how best to balance training for the two - the mental calculation bit involves some long-term memory of numbers, which kind of gets in the way of practising the short-term things for the memory competition. Although since, as previously mentioned, I'm not doing either right at the moment, perhaps it's just an academic question.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Cartoons R Fun
I know I've wittered on a lot about finding old cartoon videos in charity shops lately, but that's only because I've found such a lot of them. I'm most fascinated by a range called "Cartoons R Fun". I had never heard of this particular packager of public domain toons a month ago, although they're dated 1990, and in the last couple of weeks I've found five of their releases - one in London, two in Boston and now two in Derby. Is there someone out there with a complete collection who's following me around and planting them in charity shops for me to find? If so, I'm very grateful. You obviously appreciate that I prefer finding them like that to having them given to me. You should be a psychiatrist. Perhaps you are.
They come in cheap cardboard packages with a badly-drawn representation of a scene from the cartoon on the front - these people obviously couldn't afford plastic or screen captures. They also seemingly couldn't afford the effort of taking the copy-protection tabs off the tapes (so one of today's finds is enhanced by a couple of seconds of early-nineties Grange Hill presumably taped on it by mistake by the previous owner), although they did splash out on some sticky plastic labels that look surprisingly professional.
On the back of the each box is a picture of a gorilla and an organ-grinder's monkey (probably inspired by that Bugs Bunny cartoon, what was it called?) holding a sign detailing the cartoons to be found on the tape (usually just one cartoon with "and many more" written afterwards, to give the impression you're getting more than three seven-minute toons for your money. To be fair, these tapes would have been a complete ripoff when they were new, but for 50p from Oxfam they're a bargain!). The ones I found today even have the listed cartoons on them, which is more than can be said for the previous three. Good cartoons too - five late-thirties/early-forties gems from Warner Bros: "Porky's Hired Hand", "Farm Frolics", "Hamateur Night", "The Fifth-Column Mouse" (war propaganda at its very best) and the really brilliant "Robin Hood Makes Good", plus a Noveltoon from 1946 called "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with an extensive follow-the-bouncing-ball singalong of the title song. Must have gone down well in the cinemas.
While I'm on the subject of cartoons (am I ever off it?), I've been indulging in some deep self-analysis today. You may recall me mentioning that Furrball is probably my favourite character on Tiny Toon Adventures? Well, having been watching an episode a day for the past two weeks, I've realised that the character I most look forward to seeing is Calamity Coyote. And I have not the faintest idea why! I always have a favourite character on a cartoon, but I can normally provide a rational explanation as to why. My preference for Calamity, though, seems to have bypassed my brain completely - he's almost exclusively a minor background character (he takes centre stage in a couple of shows, but not any of the ones I've seen this past fortnight), he doesn't really have any of the personality traits that normally appeal to me, he's not especially cute, I just really like him. Does there have to be a reason?
See, how many other blogs give you ruminations as to the writer's preference of characters on a decade-and-a-half old children's cartoon? You get something unusual here.
They come in cheap cardboard packages with a badly-drawn representation of a scene from the cartoon on the front - these people obviously couldn't afford plastic or screen captures. They also seemingly couldn't afford the effort of taking the copy-protection tabs off the tapes (so one of today's finds is enhanced by a couple of seconds of early-nineties Grange Hill presumably taped on it by mistake by the previous owner), although they did splash out on some sticky plastic labels that look surprisingly professional.
On the back of the each box is a picture of a gorilla and an organ-grinder's monkey (probably inspired by that Bugs Bunny cartoon, what was it called?) holding a sign detailing the cartoons to be found on the tape (usually just one cartoon with "and many more" written afterwards, to give the impression you're getting more than three seven-minute toons for your money. To be fair, these tapes would have been a complete ripoff when they were new, but for 50p from Oxfam they're a bargain!). The ones I found today even have the listed cartoons on them, which is more than can be said for the previous three. Good cartoons too - five late-thirties/early-forties gems from Warner Bros: "Porky's Hired Hand", "Farm Frolics", "Hamateur Night", "The Fifth-Column Mouse" (war propaganda at its very best) and the really brilliant "Robin Hood Makes Good", plus a Noveltoon from 1946 called "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with an extensive follow-the-bouncing-ball singalong of the title song. Must have gone down well in the cinemas.
While I'm on the subject of cartoons (am I ever off it?), I've been indulging in some deep self-analysis today. You may recall me mentioning that Furrball is probably my favourite character on Tiny Toon Adventures? Well, having been watching an episode a day for the past two weeks, I've realised that the character I most look forward to seeing is Calamity Coyote. And I have not the faintest idea why! I always have a favourite character on a cartoon, but I can normally provide a rational explanation as to why. My preference for Calamity, though, seems to have bypassed my brain completely - he's almost exclusively a minor background character (he takes centre stage in a couple of shows, but not any of the ones I've seen this past fortnight), he doesn't really have any of the personality traits that normally appeal to me, he's not especially cute, I just really like him. Does there have to be a reason?
See, how many other blogs give you ruminations as to the writer's preference of characters on a decade-and-a-half old children's cartoon? You get something unusual here.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Spick and span
I remember about a month ago mentioning that I'd got a new oven that looked very out of place because it was so clean and shiny. Well, you'll be pleased to hear that it fits right in now after a slight setting-kitchen-on-fire incident while cooking my tea last night. If I can be bothered at the weekend, I'll have to try to clean up the smoke damage.
I should also do something about the smoke detector in my flat. We noticed at my birthday party last year during an episode involving indoor fireworks that the smoke detector either doesn't detect smoke at all, or chooses not to tell anyone about it if it does. That was eleven months ago and I realise now that I never did do anything about the thing. It's a wonder that I've lived to such an advanced age, really.
I should also do something about the smoke detector in my flat. We noticed at my birthday party last year during an episode involving indoor fireworks that the smoke detector either doesn't detect smoke at all, or chooses not to tell anyone about it if it does. That was eleven months ago and I realise now that I never did do anything about the thing. It's a wonder that I've lived to such an advanced age, really.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Dulce Domum
It was a quiet day at home for Ethelbert and Ethel. They both had jobs to go to, but had decided not to bother, as it looked like rain outside. Ethelbert was sitting in his armchair in the lounge reading a newspaper published several years previously and Ethel was practising swimming in a paddling pool on the dining room table. In the kitchen, a man was attempting to convert the oven from gas to electric. Ethelbert and Ethel each assumed that the other had arranged for this man to come round, but in fact he should have been at their next door neighbour's house and had been confused by the fact that both houses had the same number.
"Margaret Thatcher says she won't step down," observed Ethelbert.
"Doesn't surprise me," said Ethel, trying to remember how you're supposed to move your legs when doing the butterfly stroke.
"I'll turn on the telly and see if she's still saying it," pronounced Ethelbert.
The television, which was either psychic or just paying attention to the conversation, turned itself on without human intervention and tuned itself to BBC News 24, where a dancing gorilla was eating Portuguese food for the entertainment of an audience of Senegalese septuagenarians.
"Telly's not showing the right thing," observed Ethelbert.
"Ask it whether you're supposed to move your legs up and down both together or one at a time," Ethel requested.
"It doesn't know," Ethelbert replied without asking.
"You're not supposed to move them at all," called the man from the kitchen. "Sort of stretch them out behind you. Streamlining. Hydrodynamics. Like dolphins, only with legs stretched out behind you."
"Do you know anything about tellies?" Ethelbert shouted back.
"Yeah, you see that button on the remote control?" asked the man, "Press it a couple of times."
"It didn't work," said Ethelbert, without trying it.
"What's the problem, exactly?" asked Doris next door, opening the hatch in the connecting wall and looking into the lounge.
"Telly's showing a gorilla instead of the newsreader," said the vicar, passing by the window.
"It'll be the vertical hold," opined the portrait of Gladstone on the wall, which wasn't up to date with the workings of modern television apparati.
"I only wanted to know about Margaret Thatcher," sighed Ethelbert.
"Oh, that's not on the news any more," scoffed the vicar. "It's all about this plane today. Seems the pilot didn't turn up for work this morning because it looks a bit like rain, and now it's going to crash."
"Not my fault," protested Ethel, inaccurately, "I haven't got an umbrella and I've just had my hair done."
"You've got three umbrellas and no hair," said the man.
"Have you converted my oven yet?" asked Doris.
"So is Margaret Thatcher still the Prime Minister?" asked Ethelbert.
"No, I'm wearing a swimming cap, so it looks like I've got no hair," explained Ethel.
"Any chance of a cup of tea, while I'm here?" asked the vicar.
"I've nearly finished," said the man, still under a misapprehension as to his job.
"You might need to go up on the roof and adjust the aerial," said Gladstone.
"One lump or two?" asked Ethelbert.
"I think she's dead," said Doris.
"And those are ornamental parasols, made of paper and cocktail sticks, designed to decorate exotic drinks, not to protect against the elements," elaborated Ethel.
"Two please," said the vicar. "And I'll have the sunday roast with cabbages and radishes."
"It's cable, there isn't an aerial, she can't be dead because I saw her on telly last year before the gorilla came on, this isn't a pub, it's a private house and we don't serve meals, and you don't have radishes with a sunday roast, you have them as part of a salad and they don't taste very nice anyway, if I don't move my legs I don't move forwards at all, I just sort of bob up and down, and who are you anyway?" asked Ethel.
"Me?" asked Ethelbert.
"No, that man in the kitchen," explained Ethel.
"He's working on my oven," said Doris.
"Oh yes, that's right, I was getting confused," said the vicar. "I came round to tell you about that plane that's going to crash on your house, on my way to the pub. Then when you offered me a cup of tea, the drinks theme made me believe I already was in the pub, so I ordered lunch."
"In my day, we didn't have radishes," mused the portrait of Gladstone.
"Here's your tea, anyway," said Ethelbert, without having got out of his chair or made any drinks.
"Oven's done. Runs on gas now," said the man, wiping his hands on the teatowel in satisfaction.
"It ran on gas in the first place," muttered Ethel to herself, being too polite to say it to the man.
Then the plane crashed on the house, and although it killed everyone in it, the tip of the wing banged the television and fixed it.
"Told you that would sort it," lied the portrait of Gladstone, lying on top of the rubble.
"Hope the builder hurries up and fixes their house," said Doris. "It lowers the property values having a crash site next door."
"I wouldn't hold your breath," laughed the vicar. "Ethelbert was the local builder, and he didn't go to work today because it looks like rain!"
"Margaret Thatcher says she won't step down," observed Ethelbert.
"Doesn't surprise me," said Ethel, trying to remember how you're supposed to move your legs when doing the butterfly stroke.
"I'll turn on the telly and see if she's still saying it," pronounced Ethelbert.
The television, which was either psychic or just paying attention to the conversation, turned itself on without human intervention and tuned itself to BBC News 24, where a dancing gorilla was eating Portuguese food for the entertainment of an audience of Senegalese septuagenarians.
"Telly's not showing the right thing," observed Ethelbert.
"Ask it whether you're supposed to move your legs up and down both together or one at a time," Ethel requested.
"It doesn't know," Ethelbert replied without asking.
"You're not supposed to move them at all," called the man from the kitchen. "Sort of stretch them out behind you. Streamlining. Hydrodynamics. Like dolphins, only with legs stretched out behind you."
"Do you know anything about tellies?" Ethelbert shouted back.
"Yeah, you see that button on the remote control?" asked the man, "Press it a couple of times."
"It didn't work," said Ethelbert, without trying it.
"What's the problem, exactly?" asked Doris next door, opening the hatch in the connecting wall and looking into the lounge.
"Telly's showing a gorilla instead of the newsreader," said the vicar, passing by the window.
"It'll be the vertical hold," opined the portrait of Gladstone on the wall, which wasn't up to date with the workings of modern television apparati.
"I only wanted to know about Margaret Thatcher," sighed Ethelbert.
"Oh, that's not on the news any more," scoffed the vicar. "It's all about this plane today. Seems the pilot didn't turn up for work this morning because it looks a bit like rain, and now it's going to crash."
"Not my fault," protested Ethel, inaccurately, "I haven't got an umbrella and I've just had my hair done."
"You've got three umbrellas and no hair," said the man.
"Have you converted my oven yet?" asked Doris.
"So is Margaret Thatcher still the Prime Minister?" asked Ethelbert.
"No, I'm wearing a swimming cap, so it looks like I've got no hair," explained Ethel.
"Any chance of a cup of tea, while I'm here?" asked the vicar.
"I've nearly finished," said the man, still under a misapprehension as to his job.
"You might need to go up on the roof and adjust the aerial," said Gladstone.
"One lump or two?" asked Ethelbert.
"I think she's dead," said Doris.
"And those are ornamental parasols, made of paper and cocktail sticks, designed to decorate exotic drinks, not to protect against the elements," elaborated Ethel.
"Two please," said the vicar. "And I'll have the sunday roast with cabbages and radishes."
"It's cable, there isn't an aerial, she can't be dead because I saw her on telly last year before the gorilla came on, this isn't a pub, it's a private house and we don't serve meals, and you don't have radishes with a sunday roast, you have them as part of a salad and they don't taste very nice anyway, if I don't move my legs I don't move forwards at all, I just sort of bob up and down, and who are you anyway?" asked Ethel.
"Me?" asked Ethelbert.
"No, that man in the kitchen," explained Ethel.
"He's working on my oven," said Doris.
"Oh yes, that's right, I was getting confused," said the vicar. "I came round to tell you about that plane that's going to crash on your house, on my way to the pub. Then when you offered me a cup of tea, the drinks theme made me believe I already was in the pub, so I ordered lunch."
"In my day, we didn't have radishes," mused the portrait of Gladstone.
"Here's your tea, anyway," said Ethelbert, without having got out of his chair or made any drinks.
"Oven's done. Runs on gas now," said the man, wiping his hands on the teatowel in satisfaction.
"It ran on gas in the first place," muttered Ethel to herself, being too polite to say it to the man.
Then the plane crashed on the house, and although it killed everyone in it, the tip of the wing banged the television and fixed it.
"Told you that would sort it," lied the portrait of Gladstone, lying on top of the rubble.
"Hope the builder hurries up and fixes their house," said Doris. "It lowers the property values having a crash site next door."
"I wouldn't hold your breath," laughed the vicar. "Ethelbert was the local builder, and he didn't go to work today because it looks like rain!"
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
The special stuff
I'm watching the League of Gentlemen movie on Film 4. I didn't go to see it at the cinema because I thought it would just be a tired, money-grabbing rehash of the TV series. Turns out that it's brilliant, and now I feel guilty about not paying to see it, and thereby depriving the creators of some money. It must be at least 50p each. I'll have to send them a cheque.
I've done a tiny bit of memory training tonight, in amongst installing internet explorer 6 on this old desktop so that I can install MSN Messenger whatever-version-it-is. I don't know, you start installing something and then it forces you to install something else. I'd complain to Bill Gates, but he probably hears that enough as it is.
At the weekend, I'll sort out a proper kind of training schedule for that and the mental calculations. And by that I mean "I'm making an excuse not to do it for the next couple of days, and then come the weekend I'll find something better to do..."
I've done a tiny bit of memory training tonight, in amongst installing internet explorer 6 on this old desktop so that I can install MSN Messenger whatever-version-it-is. I don't know, you start installing something and then it forces you to install something else. I'd complain to Bill Gates, but he probably hears that enough as it is.
At the weekend, I'll sort out a proper kind of training schedule for that and the mental calculations. And by that I mean "I'm making an excuse not to do it for the next couple of days, and then come the weekend I'll find something better to do..."
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Quote unquote
I've just had the Alzheimer's press release sent to me for my approval:
Ben Pridmore, a memory master and former world memory champ has signed up in support of the Million Memories campaign to offer top tips on memory. He says,
‘Your memory is a marvellous tool – I have trained my memory to do incredible things. If you want to improve your memory then a top tip is to think in pictures, your brain process pictures more easily than words. It is hard to imagine how devastating it must be to be affected by a disease like Alzheimer’s, which robs people of their memories. That’s why I am supporting the Million Memories campaign – and telling people memories do matter.’
I never said anything even remotely like that. The phrasing is horrible, for one thing. I don't ever say I can do incredible things, for another. The top tip (which, unlike the rest of it, is at least a paraphrase of something I did say) comes across like a complete non sequitur. On the other hand, I'm not so picky as to insist that people who claim to quote me actually quote something I said, so I'll just ask them to get rid of the "I have trained my memory to do incredible things" bit rather than insisting on wholesale changes. They have captured my tendency to overuse dashes in my writing, though - that's quite impressive, even if it was just by accident.
I still need to ask my boss if I can have next Tuesday off to do a couple of radio interviews and things for the Alzheimer's people. I've technically already taken more holidays than my entitlement, so they'd be within their rights to not let me. But on the other hand, since they've done nothing about recruiting a replacement and asked me to come back on a consultancy basis for a week or so in early November, I've got a strongish bargaining position.
As previously mentioned, several times, I'm not keen on doing radio interviews anyway. But I suppose it would help my renewed fame-and-fortune campaign.
Ben Pridmore, a memory master and former world memory champ has signed up in support of the Million Memories campaign to offer top tips on memory. He says,
‘Your memory is a marvellous tool – I have trained my memory to do incredible things. If you want to improve your memory then a top tip is to think in pictures, your brain process pictures more easily than words. It is hard to imagine how devastating it must be to be affected by a disease like Alzheimer’s, which robs people of their memories. That’s why I am supporting the Million Memories campaign – and telling people memories do matter.’
I never said anything even remotely like that. The phrasing is horrible, for one thing. I don't ever say I can do incredible things, for another. The top tip (which, unlike the rest of it, is at least a paraphrase of something I did say) comes across like a complete non sequitur. On the other hand, I'm not so picky as to insist that people who claim to quote me actually quote something I said, so I'll just ask them to get rid of the "I have trained my memory to do incredible things" bit rather than insisting on wholesale changes. They have captured my tendency to overuse dashes in my writing, though - that's quite impressive, even if it was just by accident.
I still need to ask my boss if I can have next Tuesday off to do a couple of radio interviews and things for the Alzheimer's people. I've technically already taken more holidays than my entitlement, so they'd be within their rights to not let me. But on the other hand, since they've done nothing about recruiting a replacement and asked me to come back on a consultancy basis for a week or so in early November, I've got a strongish bargaining position.
As previously mentioned, several times, I'm not keen on doing radio interviews anyway. But I suppose it would help my renewed fame-and-fortune campaign.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Urgh
I'm definitely struggling just at the moment to force myself to do anything, anything at all other than sitting around not paying attention to what's on telly. I really should snap out of it. Last night, after posting about my birthday, I looked back at last year's posts, and noticed that I haven't actually achieved any of the things I resolved to do the day before my birthday last year. Which came as quite a surprise, since I was thinking this had been a pretty good year, all in all. Should I make more resolutions on October 13th this year, or just give it up as a bad job? I vote for the latter. That way, anything I do accomplish will be all the more impressive!
There was a really cool thunderstorm here earlier this evening, but it seems to have stopped now. It's been hot for the last week or so after a cold and miserable August, so maybe that's it for summer this year. Not cycling to work in the winter will be a pleasant change (I imagine I'll be cycling to other places rather than sitting at home all day, but if it's not work, it doesn't count as unpleasant).
There was a really cool thunderstorm here earlier this evening, but it seems to have stopped now. It's been hot for the last week or so after a cold and miserable August, so maybe that's it for summer this year. Not cycling to work in the winter will be a pleasant change (I imagine I'll be cycling to other places rather than sitting at home all day, but if it's not work, it doesn't count as unpleasant).
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Happy Birthday To Me
In just over a month, anyway. I need to arrange some kind of party. I feel like hiring a room somewhere and having a big bash. With karaoke. And a magician. It'll double as a leaving-work party, because I can invite my colleagues to this kind of thing now I don't have to worry about them meeting my friends and the resulting collision of accountant-Zoomy and fun-Zoomy causing the universe to explode, which means it'll have to be quite a big deal, and I think last year demonstrated that fitting more than ten people in this place would be a bit on the tricky side. I've been meaning for weeks to look into getting the bar and lounge at the Dragons health club, where I went to a party last year - the place has a very appropriate name, plus it's right by the train station and so perfectly located for a party to which most of the guests will be travelling from afar. Obviously, anybody reading this blog can consider themselves invited. More details if and when I sort them out.
I also need to get back into the habit of memory training. With the MSO and work overload, I haven't done any since the world championships last month, but I've given my brain enough of a rest now. If I can find the time and inclination, I should do a bit of mental calculation and a bit of memory every evening. We'll see how it goes.
I also need to get back into the habit of memory training. With the MSO and work overload, I haven't done any since the world championships last month, but I've given my brain enough of a rest now. If I can find the time and inclination, I should do a bit of mental calculation and a bit of memory every evening. We'll see how it goes.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Good game, good game
See, I knew if I went along to support the Pilgrims, they'd win! A well-deserved 2-1 victory over some unimpressive opposition. We might just avoid relegation yet. Although a terminal shortage of fans might still kill the club off - York Street was half empty, and the total attendance was just 1700. That's a really sharp drop from the kind of crowds they were getting just a few years ago - never Man Utd kind of levels, or even any-other-team-in-the-league kind of levels, but always comfortably over 2000. Apparently, this has been going on for a while, and it's a great shame. There were about a hundred travelling Stockport fans, and they made much more noise between them than any Bostonians. Hardly a home game at all for the poor players.
They did well, though. With Paul Ellender suspended, goalie Andy Marriott was acting captain, and he had an excellent game, making a couple of really first-class saves. The one goal he let in nobody could have done anything about, it was a surprising deflection. We went 1-0 up from a Tim Ryan penalty for handball (slightly unlucky, to be fair, it was ball to hand), they equalised almost immediately and then a bit before half time Anthony Elding celebrated his first home game back with Boston with the winner. The highlight of the second half was a fantastic run from out of nowhere by Dany N'Guessan, skipping past the defence as if they weren't there and cracking a shot which the Stockport keeper tipped over the bar. Lee Canoville had a brilliant game too, not putting a foot wrong in central defence. It wasn't what you'd call a promotion-worthy display, but it was definitely the performance of a team that can avoid relegation again this season.
I need to go to more games. With the other old-timers Mark Greaves and Simon Rusk both out injured, this team were practically strangers to me. And they obviously need all the support they can get.
While in Boston, I also did my usual check of the charity shops for cartoon videos and found three brilliant public domain collections, all of them containing entirely different cartoons to the ones listed on the packaging but with some fascinating selections - apart from some of the old Warner Bros ones I'm looking for, there's Westward Whoa (not, as you might expect on a Porky Pig tape, the 1936 cartoon featuring Porky and the rest of the Beans Gang that I've never seen and really want to find, but the Mutt and Jeff from ten years earlier that I'd also never seen and didn't particularly want to, but it's fun nonetheless), Molly Moo-Cow and the Indians and "Jasper and the Watermelons", a weird George Pal Modeltoon from 1942 which I'd never even heard of before today, but now I want to find some more of them.
Also encountered a big, friendly, but cowardly liver-spotted dalmatian in the park. He was happily bouncing around all the people sitting on the benches trying to persuade them to give him some of their food, until a man came past with a little jack russell on a lead, which barked at him. Whereupon the dalmatian, roughly ten times the little thing's size, hid behind his owners.
They did well, though. With Paul Ellender suspended, goalie Andy Marriott was acting captain, and he had an excellent game, making a couple of really first-class saves. The one goal he let in nobody could have done anything about, it was a surprising deflection. We went 1-0 up from a Tim Ryan penalty for handball (slightly unlucky, to be fair, it was ball to hand), they equalised almost immediately and then a bit before half time Anthony Elding celebrated his first home game back with Boston with the winner. The highlight of the second half was a fantastic run from out of nowhere by Dany N'Guessan, skipping past the defence as if they weren't there and cracking a shot which the Stockport keeper tipped over the bar. Lee Canoville had a brilliant game too, not putting a foot wrong in central defence. It wasn't what you'd call a promotion-worthy display, but it was definitely the performance of a team that can avoid relegation again this season.
I need to go to more games. With the other old-timers Mark Greaves and Simon Rusk both out injured, this team were practically strangers to me. And they obviously need all the support they can get.
While in Boston, I also did my usual check of the charity shops for cartoon videos and found three brilliant public domain collections, all of them containing entirely different cartoons to the ones listed on the packaging but with some fascinating selections - apart from some of the old Warner Bros ones I'm looking for, there's Westward Whoa (not, as you might expect on a Porky Pig tape, the 1936 cartoon featuring Porky and the rest of the Beans Gang that I've never seen and really want to find, but the Mutt and Jeff from ten years earlier that I'd also never seen and didn't particularly want to, but it's fun nonetheless), Molly Moo-Cow and the Indians and "Jasper and the Watermelons", a weird George Pal Modeltoon from 1942 which I'd never even heard of before today, but now I want to find some more of them.
Also encountered a big, friendly, but cowardly liver-spotted dalmatian in the park. He was happily bouncing around all the people sitting on the benches trying to persuade them to give him some of their food, until a man came past with a little jack russell on a lead, which barked at him. Whereupon the dalmatian, roughly ten times the little thing's size, hid behind his owners.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Furrball's unlucky
Fans of cartoons, or just people who care whether I'm entertained or not, will be pleased to hear that Boomerang have got over their summer Scooby Doo obsession and started showing a wider variety of cartoons again. Even better, they've started repeating Tiny Toon Adventures, most episodes of which I haven't seen for years! Today's was the all-Furrball show, starring possibly my favourite character, so I'm happy. Including the cartoon where his owner takes him on holiday to stop him eating her pet bird, but whenever her back's turned for two minutes he dashes from Florida to California to try to catch it. Very funny stuff. Not to mention Frank Welker's unique vocal stylings, always a treat. Also, it's Friday!
And while we're talking about cats I like, I appreciate that I've mentioned this before and possibly freaked out a reader or two, but I'm still in love with Nigel from Newshounds. Just look at his facial expression in the last panel of today's strip - I wish I could draw that well. Or at all. Isn't he adorable?
Another thing I've just remembered today is that I promised to sponsor Ed a penny per digit memorised at the world memory championship in aid of Romanian orphans and then forgot to send the money. That's the kind of excuse that nobody ever believes from me, although it happens surprisingly often.
Anyway, I feel inclined to go down to Boston tomorrow and watch the football match. I feel bad about calling myself a fan if I don't see one live game a season, and we've had a dreadful start this year (not least because those eejits in charge of the club sold Julian Joachim after all - I remember praising them last year for not doing so), and we're at home to Stockport tomorrow, who are always rubbish, so we should get a good morale-boosting win which I can take the credit for by claiming it was all my cheering that did it. I need to pick up my books for college tomorrow morning too - I hope I can remember some of the stuff I did for the earlier stages of CIMA all those years ago before I start again. I need to keep my reputation as the swotty teacher's pet.
And while we're talking about cats I like, I appreciate that I've mentioned this before and possibly freaked out a reader or two, but I'm still in love with Nigel from Newshounds. Just look at his facial expression in the last panel of today's strip - I wish I could draw that well. Or at all. Isn't he adorable?
Another thing I've just remembered today is that I promised to sponsor Ed a penny per digit memorised at the world memory championship in aid of Romanian orphans and then forgot to send the money. That's the kind of excuse that nobody ever believes from me, although it happens surprisingly often.
Anyway, I feel inclined to go down to Boston tomorrow and watch the football match. I feel bad about calling myself a fan if I don't see one live game a season, and we've had a dreadful start this year (not least because those eejits in charge of the club sold Julian Joachim after all - I remember praising them last year for not doing so), and we're at home to Stockport tomorrow, who are always rubbish, so we should get a good morale-boosting win which I can take the credit for by claiming it was all my cheering that did it. I need to pick up my books for college tomorrow morning too - I hope I can remember some of the stuff I did for the earlier stages of CIMA all those years ago before I start again. I need to keep my reputation as the swotty teacher's pet.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
And I've been working like a dog doesn't
And actually, doing quite well considering I'm facing deadlines that Superman would have trouble meeting. And not just because of his lack of basic accountancy experience, either. So it's one more day to finish off a lot of little bits and pieces, then the next week of other, more annoying and pointless, stuff to finish, then the week after that being pestered by auditors, and THEN it'll all be smooth sailing towards October 13th. Except that I'll probably have to teach the job to my replacement in that time, which is something I really hate doing too. Sigh. Still, just a month and a bit to go...
Also, my MSN messenger isn't working, and I suspect it's something to do with the unfathomable security programs this laptop comes equipped with. Honestly, I'd uninstall the lot of them if I had the faintest idea how to go about it. Nobody's ever going to hack into my computer - I'm much too nice for anyone to want to be mean to me.
I'm competing in the Mental Calculation World Cup in November, in Gießen, Germany, and that means I really need to start practicing. Or at least remembering how to do square roots, because I honestly can't right now. I used to be able to do them, I'm sure. Still, it'll be a lot of fun, I'm sure. The previous one in 2004 was great - the competitors were treated like royalty, with tours of the town (Annaberg-Buchholz) by the mayor, free accommodation and meals (at a restaurant that specialises in potato dishes - had I known that there were such places, I would have informed someone beforehand that I'm not all that keen on potatoes, and avoided the potato soup followed by baked potato and for all I know a potato-based pudding too but I'd given up on the food by that point). I also attempted and spectacularly failed a world record attempt at memorising cards, as well as competing unspectacularly in the calculations competition. So this time round, having failed to learn from my mistakes, I'm going to go for another record - 1 minute binary, which I notice has recently been broken by an Israeli guy I've never heard of with a very impressive 240. I'm pretty sure I can manage 270 or maybe a round 300 with a bit of practice.
By the way, the Mental Calculations World Cup isn't to be confused with the Mental Calculations World Championship, which is the MSO event. That's where I stole the idea of asking Andi to rename his world memory championship from, back in 2004.
Also, my MSN messenger isn't working, and I suspect it's something to do with the unfathomable security programs this laptop comes equipped with. Honestly, I'd uninstall the lot of them if I had the faintest idea how to go about it. Nobody's ever going to hack into my computer - I'm much too nice for anyone to want to be mean to me.
I'm competing in the Mental Calculation World Cup in November, in Gießen, Germany, and that means I really need to start practicing. Or at least remembering how to do square roots, because I honestly can't right now. I used to be able to do them, I'm sure. Still, it'll be a lot of fun, I'm sure. The previous one in 2004 was great - the competitors were treated like royalty, with tours of the town (Annaberg-Buchholz) by the mayor, free accommodation and meals (at a restaurant that specialises in potato dishes - had I known that there were such places, I would have informed someone beforehand that I'm not all that keen on potatoes, and avoided the potato soup followed by baked potato and for all I know a potato-based pudding too but I'd given up on the food by that point). I also attempted and spectacularly failed a world record attempt at memorising cards, as well as competing unspectacularly in the calculations competition. So this time round, having failed to learn from my mistakes, I'm going to go for another record - 1 minute binary, which I notice has recently been broken by an Israeli guy I've never heard of with a very impressive 240. I'm pretty sure I can manage 270 or maybe a round 300 with a bit of practice.
By the way, the Mental Calculations World Cup isn't to be confused with the Mental Calculations World Championship, which is the MSO event. That's where I stole the idea of asking Andi to rename his world memory championship from, back in 2004.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Only smarties have the answer
I bought a tube of smarties today on my way home. I had vowed never to buy them again after they changed to the hexagonal packaging, but I was peckish and they looked appetising and I figured they'd been punished enough. It's not the same, though. There's no excitement, wondering what letter will be on the underside of the lid. And the new all-cardboard packs just look so cheap and nasty.
Still, there's good news too. In London I found a video of Bobobobs, the extremely weird cartoon series (originally Spanish, I think), that in its English translation appeared on channel 4 in around 1990. It's a very unusual space-odyssey saga about a large cast of little people who sail their wooden spaceship around the universe. They're theoretically on a quest to find a distant planet (Earth, according to the endless theme song) and save the inhabitants from dinosaurs, but in practice they just have a different adventure every week and never really get anywhere. It's one of those things you have to see to understand the appeal, so just take it from me.
My ear's burning. Someone's talking about me. Must be one of the people I just emailed - only three 'fan mails' to catch up with after a week and a half at the MSO, obviously nobody likes me any more. Or perhaps it's because I never get round to writing to people unless they write to me first. I'm terrible like that, it's nothing personal, I assure you.
Still, there's good news too. In London I found a video of Bobobobs, the extremely weird cartoon series (originally Spanish, I think), that in its English translation appeared on channel 4 in around 1990. It's a very unusual space-odyssey saga about a large cast of little people who sail their wooden spaceship around the universe. They're theoretically on a quest to find a distant planet (Earth, according to the endless theme song) and save the inhabitants from dinosaurs, but in practice they just have a different adventure every week and never really get anywhere. It's one of those things you have to see to understand the appeal, so just take it from me.
My ear's burning. Someone's talking about me. Must be one of the people I just emailed - only three 'fan mails' to catch up with after a week and a half at the MSO, obviously nobody likes me any more. Or perhaps it's because I never get round to writing to people unless they write to me first. I'm terrible like that, it's nothing personal, I assure you.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
What a headache
I went through the arduous process of enrolling at the university tonight, for my final year's CIMA course (which is nowadays called Strategic Level, because Final Level sounded too simple. And it was only called that for a couple of years - when I started CIMA back in days of old, it was Level 4), so I'm now officially a student again! I've got a card with an unflattering photo and NUS written on it! I haven't had one of those for ages!
I've also had a headache of a more literal kind on and off all afternoon. Too much work, in too little time.
I've also had a headache of a more literal kind on and off all afternoon. Too much work, in too little time.
Monday, September 04, 2006
So many topics, so little time
Well, I'm back home after all that London extravagance, and I find that there are dozens of things I want to write about tonight. A sort of blog backlog, or backblog, if you will.
Also, I still need to iron some shirts and trousers for next week before I go to bed tonight, so I'll keep this brief.
So, I didn't win any medals at the MSO, which is a bit disappointing. I always used to aim to win at least one. But then, I wasn't there at all for the last couple of days, and they didn't have the events I'm really great at, and I wasn't all that interested in it anyway, but it still annoys me. I was hoping for a last hoorah, like a typically zoomy flukey win in a poker tournament, but even though I was sticking closely to my usual strategy of bad play and outrageous good luck, it didn't get me very far this year. Indeed, on the last night I went out to a guy who combined both those skills much more adeptly than I ever did, and won two consecutive big hands with a better full house than another player had, cleaning me out on the second. Darn it.
But I'm pretty sure I won't bother going to the MSO again. If there's a memory championship there, I'll probably go along to that but not the rest of the event. The main problem with the MSO nowadays is that the only people who bother to come are the ones who take it very, very seriously - it's just too expensive and out of the way to attract the kind of person who just wants to play games for fun. So there are a lot of people there who spend half an hour before, during and after every event arguing about petty details of the rules. Which always gets on my nerves. And no, I don't do that to anything like the same degree in memory.
That wasn't very nice of me. I was intending to be all cheerful this evening, too. Must be the impending horror of going back to work tomorrow. Ah well, it'll soon be over...
Also, I still need to iron some shirts and trousers for next week before I go to bed tonight, so I'll keep this brief.
So, I didn't win any medals at the MSO, which is a bit disappointing. I always used to aim to win at least one. But then, I wasn't there at all for the last couple of days, and they didn't have the events I'm really great at, and I wasn't all that interested in it anyway, but it still annoys me. I was hoping for a last hoorah, like a typically zoomy flukey win in a poker tournament, but even though I was sticking closely to my usual strategy of bad play and outrageous good luck, it didn't get me very far this year. Indeed, on the last night I went out to a guy who combined both those skills much more adeptly than I ever did, and won two consecutive big hands with a better full house than another player had, cleaning me out on the second. Darn it.
But I'm pretty sure I won't bother going to the MSO again. If there's a memory championship there, I'll probably go along to that but not the rest of the event. The main problem with the MSO nowadays is that the only people who bother to come are the ones who take it very, very seriously - it's just too expensive and out of the way to attract the kind of person who just wants to play games for fun. So there are a lot of people there who spend half an hour before, during and after every event arguing about petty details of the rules. Which always gets on my nerves. And no, I don't do that to anything like the same degree in memory.
That wasn't very nice of me. I was intending to be all cheerful this evening, too. Must be the impending horror of going back to work tomorrow. Ah well, it'll soon be over...
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Still here
Well, after all that I-can't-stop-blogging whining earlier this week, I haven't had the time to write anything. But since I said I would if I got knocked out of a poker game early, I feel morally obliged to say something now.
Boing!
There, wasn't that fun? I'll be back, really, on Monday. Or maybe on Saturday morning if I'm out of bed early enough, before going down to Crawley.
Boing!
There, wasn't that fun? I'll be back, really, on Monday. Or maybe on Saturday morning if I'm out of bed early enough, before going down to Crawley.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
It's no good, I can't do it
No TV for a week? No problem. No sitting down and typing the first thing that comes into my head every evening? Not possible. So it's official, blogging really is an unhealthy addiction.
I did try to stand firm in the face of extreme temptation. I didn't write a thing last night about the fact that Joe McGann sat directly opposite me on the tube, not even when I walked past the Zoom Internet Cafe on the way back to my room at night. But enough is enough. I can't deprive my many readers of my nightly wittering for a whole week. I probably won't write something every night, just when I'm out of the nightly poker tournament early like tonight.
The MSO is still great fun, but somehow I get the feeling that I've outgrown it. Or it's outgrown me. Or outshrunk me, anyway. One or other of us isn't the right size, however you want to look at it. By which I mean that I'm not as enthusiastic about the selection of competitions there these days, I'm not particularly close friends with any of the regulars who still turn up every year, and I think I might give it a miss from now on unless there's a memory competition. Sad, but there are other things I could be doing with my time and money.
I did try to stand firm in the face of extreme temptation. I didn't write a thing last night about the fact that Joe McGann sat directly opposite me on the tube, not even when I walked past the Zoom Internet Cafe on the way back to my room at night. But enough is enough. I can't deprive my many readers of my nightly wittering for a whole week. I probably won't write something every night, just when I'm out of the nightly poker tournament early like tonight.
The MSO is still great fun, but somehow I get the feeling that I've outgrown it. Or it's outgrown me. Or outshrunk me, anyway. One or other of us isn't the right size, however you want to look at it. By which I mean that I'm not as enthusiastic about the selection of competitions there these days, I'm not particularly close friends with any of the regulars who still turn up every year, and I think I might give it a miss from now on unless there's a memory competition. Sad, but there are other things I could be doing with my time and money.
Friday, August 25, 2006
City-trained priest faces sex probe
I've just been looking through the nooks and crannies of my flat for the little clock radio that I always take to the MSO with me but don't otherwise use. So it's had two years to gradually become submerged by all the junk I hoard. I didn't find it, so I'll have to take my big portable radio with me, but I did come across a pile of local newspapers chronicling my appearance at the first MSO in 1997. Nowadays, of course, I'm so used to being an international celebrity that I don't bother to keep all the newspaper articles about me, but in those days it was something new and exciting.
If you're wondering about the subject header, that's the banner headline in the Boston Target directly above a picture of me which was attached to the smaller article saying I was going to the MSO, rather than the story about the priest. Yes, the Target did a story just about the fact that I was going to compete - the MSO went mad with publicity in the first year, and pestered all the local news hacks with press releases about each of the thousands of people who'd registered. And since every day is a slow news day in Boston (the vicar in question lives in Southend and was arrested in Romania, but went to Lincoln Theological College many years ago) I got some pretty hefty coverage.
Here's a couple of scans of the breaking news stories after I'd won the silver medal in the one-day intelligence championship. God, I looked ugly in those days. The hair's arguably an improvement over my current style, but I genuinely thought the moustache gave me a sort of suave, Clark Gable kind of look.
The Lincolnshire Free Press covers the entire county!
This was a front page story, albeit in the bottom corner under the thrilling tale of a Boston couple who were no more than a couple of miles away when Princess Di died
Anyway, today I'm off to the tenth MSO, and then straight down to the British Othello Championships next weekend. As I've mentioned before, the MSO is traditionally a week where I don't watch TV, or check my emails, or let anybody know whether I'm alive or dead, so this will be my last update till September, I'm afraid. But it's good to get away from technology and go back to nature once in a while. Even if most people's idea of getting back to nature doesn't involve going to the University of Westminster to play board games with nerds.
If you're wondering about the subject header, that's the banner headline in the Boston Target directly above a picture of me which was attached to the smaller article saying I was going to the MSO, rather than the story about the priest. Yes, the Target did a story just about the fact that I was going to compete - the MSO went mad with publicity in the first year, and pestered all the local news hacks with press releases about each of the thousands of people who'd registered. And since every day is a slow news day in Boston (the vicar in question lives in Southend and was arrested in Romania, but went to Lincoln Theological College many years ago) I got some pretty hefty coverage.
Here's a couple of scans of the breaking news stories after I'd won the silver medal in the one-day intelligence championship. God, I looked ugly in those days. The hair's arguably an improvement over my current style, but I genuinely thought the moustache gave me a sort of suave, Clark Gable kind of look.
The Lincolnshire Free Press covers the entire county!
This was a front page story, albeit in the bottom corner under the thrilling tale of a Boston couple who were no more than a couple of miles away when Princess Di died
Anyway, today I'm off to the tenth MSO, and then straight down to the British Othello Championships next weekend. As I've mentioned before, the MSO is traditionally a week where I don't watch TV, or check my emails, or let anybody know whether I'm alive or dead, so this will be my last update till September, I'm afraid. But it's good to get away from technology and go back to nature once in a while. Even if most people's idea of getting back to nature doesn't involve going to the University of Westminster to play board games with nerds.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Gee willickers!
I mentioned nearly a month ago that I was feeling inclined to write about why I love Sniffles, the relatively unknown Looney Tunes mouse from the late 30s/early 40s, and then have always had better things to write about of an evening. Well, no more!
Here's our hero, listening to the opening bars of "Mutiny in the Nursery" in his third cartoon, "Sniffles and the Bookworm"
Sniffles first appeared in "Naughty But Mice", in 1939. It's been said that Sniffles was the first character created by the great Chuck Jones, although I'm not so sure about how accurate that assertion is. Anyway, Sniffles is perhaps the last gasp of the original policy behind Warner Bros cartoons - to copy what Disney were doing as closely as possible. Sniffles is pure Disney, at least in his first appearances. He's a small, cute mouse, who explores a series of beautifully drawn big stages, in gentle but extremely entertaining ways. Cute was already becoming rather unfashionable in cartoons at that point, with Chuck Jones and his fellows leading the way in the wacky revolution, but Sniffles appeared in nine cartoons in the next three years - quite an impressive strike rate for someone who wasn't Porky, Daffy or Bugs.
You can see a classic adventure here at Dennis's blog, along with no end of other great cartoons. Look out too for Sniffles making friends with an electric razor in "Naughty But Mice" - it's genuinely beautiful.
Sniffles's voice varies quite a bit from cartoon to cartoon, and nobody's entirely sure who provided it. It was probably any one of four or five perennially-uncredited female voice actors working for Warners at the time, whichever one was available on the day. But they all do a wonderful job with his wide-eyed innocence and gee-whiz exclamations.
Then, in the last of his original run of cartoons, "The Brave Little Bat", Sniffles goes out for a drive in his adorable little clockwork car, which breaks down in spectacular fashion. He takes shelter in an old mill, where he meets a cheerful little bat with what turned out to be a highly contagious case of verbal dysentry. Batty's dialogue is hilarious:
Sniffles: Hello!
Batty: I heard you come in, why'd you come in for? I'm glad you came in, 'cause I get kinda lonesome in here by myself sometimes 'cause there's nobody here but me and now you, where'd you come from? I live up there and I'm a bat, are you a bat? Hello!
All delivered rapid-fire without a pause for breath. Sniffles and Batty have an adventure escaping a cat (Sniffles's reaction to finding himself on a high roof beam is another must-see moment), and then that was the last we saw of him for a couple of years. He returned in 1943, having acquired Batty's speech mannerisms, in the altogether different "The Unbearable Bear"
Still directed by Chuck Jones, but this wasn't a Disney-style cartoon. The backgrounds are stylised and simpler, and the plot is fast, zany slapstick in the quintessentially Warner style - a fox burglar breaks into a policeman bear's house to rob it, but is discovered by Sniffles. ("What are you doing there? What are you doing with that safe? I know what you're doing, you're a burglar and you're burgling that safe 'cause burglars always burgle safes, why do they? Why are you a burglar? It's against the law to be a burglar 'cause burglars are crooks and I'm going straight upstairs and wake up the lady bear and tell her you're a burglar and she'll come right down and beat your old burglar head in...")
Thinking outside the box, the fox tells Sniffles that he's Robin Hood, you know, as robs rich blokes for the benefit of the poor. Sniffles is convinced - "Gee! Are you really Robin Hood? You don't look like Robin Hood but I guess you must be Robin Hood if you say you are Robin Hood 'cause Robin Hood wouldn't tell a lie. Hello Robin Hood, I'll help you rob the rich and give it to the poor and I'll stand guard and if anybody comes I'll warn you, like this!" (grabs a spoon and pan and starts banging it deafeningly loudly)
Then father bear comes home, drunk at three o'clock in the morning and not wanting to wake up his wife, who starts sleepwalking, and there's four-way chaos with Sniffles running around trying to help Robin Hood and chattering cheerfully away nineteen to the dozen. It's one of my favourite cartoons of all time, and as soon as I acquire the capacity to share my videotaped cartoon collection with the internet, I'll share it with you.
Sniffles only appeared in two more cartoons, and by the last one, "Hush My Mouse", in 1946, innocence was definitely fading. In the post-war era, Warner Bros were embarking on their golden age, but 'outwit the hunter' cartoons were hugely en vogue, and even Sniffles got in on the act. His chatter and naivete seem to be an act here, as he tricks a stupid cat trying to collect mouse knuckles for his exclusive restaurant. Then he disappeared, apparently unable to compete with the influx of new Looney Tune stars. He's continued to pop up now and then in these nostalgic times - he had a Tiny Toon Adventures counterpart (Little Sneezer), which is more than can be said for some more famous toons, and he made a wonderful guest appearance on an episode of Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries as recently as 1999, playing a Manx mouse. He never did lose the constant babbling. It's a problem that I can identify with...
Here's our hero, listening to the opening bars of "Mutiny in the Nursery" in his third cartoon, "Sniffles and the Bookworm"Sniffles first appeared in "Naughty But Mice", in 1939. It's been said that Sniffles was the first character created by the great Chuck Jones, although I'm not so sure about how accurate that assertion is. Anyway, Sniffles is perhaps the last gasp of the original policy behind Warner Bros cartoons - to copy what Disney were doing as closely as possible. Sniffles is pure Disney, at least in his first appearances. He's a small, cute mouse, who explores a series of beautifully drawn big stages, in gentle but extremely entertaining ways. Cute was already becoming rather unfashionable in cartoons at that point, with Chuck Jones and his fellows leading the way in the wacky revolution, but Sniffles appeared in nine cartoons in the next three years - quite an impressive strike rate for someone who wasn't Porky, Daffy or Bugs.
You can see a classic adventure here at Dennis's blog, along with no end of other great cartoons. Look out too for Sniffles making friends with an electric razor in "Naughty But Mice" - it's genuinely beautiful.
Sniffles's voice varies quite a bit from cartoon to cartoon, and nobody's entirely sure who provided it. It was probably any one of four or five perennially-uncredited female voice actors working for Warners at the time, whichever one was available on the day. But they all do a wonderful job with his wide-eyed innocence and gee-whiz exclamations.
Then, in the last of his original run of cartoons, "The Brave Little Bat", Sniffles goes out for a drive in his adorable little clockwork car, which breaks down in spectacular fashion. He takes shelter in an old mill, where he meets a cheerful little bat with what turned out to be a highly contagious case of verbal dysentry. Batty's dialogue is hilarious:
Sniffles: Hello!
Batty: I heard you come in, why'd you come in for? I'm glad you came in, 'cause I get kinda lonesome in here by myself sometimes 'cause there's nobody here but me and now you, where'd you come from? I live up there and I'm a bat, are you a bat? Hello!
All delivered rapid-fire without a pause for breath. Sniffles and Batty have an adventure escaping a cat (Sniffles's reaction to finding himself on a high roof beam is another must-see moment), and then that was the last we saw of him for a couple of years. He returned in 1943, having acquired Batty's speech mannerisms, in the altogether different "The Unbearable Bear"
Still directed by Chuck Jones, but this wasn't a Disney-style cartoon. The backgrounds are stylised and simpler, and the plot is fast, zany slapstick in the quintessentially Warner style - a fox burglar breaks into a policeman bear's house to rob it, but is discovered by Sniffles. ("What are you doing there? What are you doing with that safe? I know what you're doing, you're a burglar and you're burgling that safe 'cause burglars always burgle safes, why do they? Why are you a burglar? It's against the law to be a burglar 'cause burglars are crooks and I'm going straight upstairs and wake up the lady bear and tell her you're a burglar and she'll come right down and beat your old burglar head in...")
Thinking outside the box, the fox tells Sniffles that he's Robin Hood, you know, as robs rich blokes for the benefit of the poor. Sniffles is convinced - "Gee! Are you really Robin Hood? You don't look like Robin Hood but I guess you must be Robin Hood if you say you are Robin Hood 'cause Robin Hood wouldn't tell a lie. Hello Robin Hood, I'll help you rob the rich and give it to the poor and I'll stand guard and if anybody comes I'll warn you, like this!" (grabs a spoon and pan and starts banging it deafeningly loudly)
Then father bear comes home, drunk at three o'clock in the morning and not wanting to wake up his wife, who starts sleepwalking, and there's four-way chaos with Sniffles running around trying to help Robin Hood and chattering cheerfully away nineteen to the dozen. It's one of my favourite cartoons of all time, and as soon as I acquire the capacity to share my videotaped cartoon collection with the internet, I'll share it with you.
Sniffles only appeared in two more cartoons, and by the last one, "Hush My Mouse", in 1946, innocence was definitely fading. In the post-war era, Warner Bros were embarking on their golden age, but 'outwit the hunter' cartoons were hugely en vogue, and even Sniffles got in on the act. His chatter and naivete seem to be an act here, as he tricks a stupid cat trying to collect mouse knuckles for his exclusive restaurant. Then he disappeared, apparently unable to compete with the influx of new Looney Tune stars. He's continued to pop up now and then in these nostalgic times - he had a Tiny Toon Adventures counterpart (Little Sneezer), which is more than can be said for some more famous toons, and he made a wonderful guest appearance on an episode of Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries as recently as 1999, playing a Manx mouse. He never did lose the constant babbling. It's a problem that I can identify with...
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Back to normality
Just for today and tomorrow. Which means that I basically have to fit two weeks of work into two days, with the year end accounts coming up as soon as I get back from the MSO. In among that I also need to tot up the BOF's accounts for the AGM in a couple of weeks - I'm going down to Crawley straight from London, without a trip back home in between, so I need to not only get the treasurer's report done before I go down there, but remember to take it with me.
All of which means that I had to work late tonight, and haven't got the time to write a great deal here. Sorry, fans!
All of which means that I had to work late tonight, and haven't got the time to write a great deal here. Sorry, fans!
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
I, quite genuinely, Haven't Got A Hat
As an example of how mentally and physically exhausting I find the world memory championships, I left my hat on the train last night. And I didn't even realise until this morning! Nobody seems to have handed it in, either, but I'll check again in a couple of days (I've got the day off on Friday). It would be terribly anticlimactic to lose the poor thing like that, after all these years.
Anyway, what other things happened on the last day of the world championships? We ran about five or six hours behind schedule, as usual. They really should stop using that timetable, because it really is impossible to stick to it. Ed helped keep things running smoothly by getting stuck in a lift at one point. When the prizegiving ceremony finally got underway, they announced the correct scores this time (in the individual category, at least - the team scores were wrong), but gave the wrong medals to everyone (there's bronze, silver and gold for each of the ten disciplines, with the discipline names written on the back. Impressively, I ended up with the gold for abstract images, and the gold AND bronze for names and faces! I certainly didn't expect that!). We swapped them among ourselves afterwards. I hurt my hands clapping so much. Clemens got so used to going up and getting medals that he forgot he only came fourth in the hour cards, and was halfway up to the stage for that one too before he realised.
Afterwards there was a celebratory dinner at Simpson's on the Strand, which I couldn't go to because I had to get home - by the original schedule I would at least have had time for a drink, but as it turned out I had to dash off straight after the prizegiving (Andi left before it, as usual). Tony Buzan, who seems to believe that all the competitors are millionaires too, had arranged a special cheap price by the standards of this poshest restaurant in London of only £25 each for the meal. I'm sure we were all very grateful - there was talk of people organising a rival dinner at a more reasonable price, but I don't know if that happened.
So that's it for another year. After today's trip to sunny Rotherham, it's back to work tomorrow for a whole two days before heading back darn sarf for the MSO. It's a tough life, isn't it?
Anyway, what other things happened on the last day of the world championships? We ran about five or six hours behind schedule, as usual. They really should stop using that timetable, because it really is impossible to stick to it. Ed helped keep things running smoothly by getting stuck in a lift at one point. When the prizegiving ceremony finally got underway, they announced the correct scores this time (in the individual category, at least - the team scores were wrong), but gave the wrong medals to everyone (there's bronze, silver and gold for each of the ten disciplines, with the discipline names written on the back. Impressively, I ended up with the gold for abstract images, and the gold AND bronze for names and faces! I certainly didn't expect that!). We swapped them among ourselves afterwards. I hurt my hands clapping so much. Clemens got so used to going up and getting medals that he forgot he only came fourth in the hour cards, and was halfway up to the stage for that one too before he realised.
Afterwards there was a celebratory dinner at Simpson's on the Strand, which I couldn't go to because I had to get home - by the original schedule I would at least have had time for a drink, but as it turned out I had to dash off straight after the prizegiving (Andi left before it, as usual). Tony Buzan, who seems to believe that all the competitors are millionaires too, had arranged a special cheap price by the standards of this poshest restaurant in London of only £25 each for the meal. I'm sure we were all very grateful - there was talk of people organising a rival dinner at a more reasonable price, but I don't know if that happened.
So that's it for another year. After today's trip to sunny Rotherham, it's back to work tomorrow for a whole two days before heading back darn sarf for the MSO. It's a tough life, isn't it?
Monday, August 21, 2006
It was nearly complete, it was nearly so sweet
Well, evil has triumphed over good, as Josh perhaps a little over-melodramatically put it, and Clemens remains the World Memory Champion. Lots to write about, but it's late and if I don't go to bed right this second, I'll never be able to get up in the morning and I've got to go up into the wilds of Yorkshire for a meeting at one of our companies. Had I known I was going to hand in my notice, I would have booked today off rather than arranging something like that for the day after the world championships.
Anyway, in brief I got 27 packs in the hour cards, which is huge and very cool - that put me fractionally in the lead with three events to go. I got a respectable 156 in words, Clemens and Gunther got roughly the same, Joachim got a massive 203 but Boris kept the world record with 214. But then I messed up all three trials on the spoken number, which is always a real possibility with me, and Clemens got his usual massive score, putting him safely in the lead and Gunther safely in second place.
That left me having to try for a very quick time in speed cards, and hope that Clemens didn't get a half-decent score. He did get a half-decent score (50 seconds) in the first attempt, whereas I didn't manage to get anything (tried 33 seconds but didn't come close to getting it right). What I should have done then is record a slower time and snatch second place, but I went for a very fast one again because a) having no chance of winning the title I might as well go out with a bang, or b) Andi was sitting next to me and quite obviously aiming to beat my record, although c) none of this occurred to me at the time until Gunther pointed it out and I was just set on a pattern of trying to go as fast as possible. So anyway, I messed it up again. And Andi did beat my record. And Joachim recorded a perfectly acceptable time to beat me for third place.
So in the end, it was exactly the same as last year, Clemens-Gunther-Joachim-me-Boris, only with much higher scores all round. Frustrating, because I was pretty darn close to my best form this year, and it just wasn't good enough. Still, it's given me a target to aim for next time round.
Anecdotes and rambling to follow tomorrow, assuming I'm awake. Memory competitions tire me out, and I don't think eight hours' sleep tonight is going to be enough...
Anyway, in brief I got 27 packs in the hour cards, which is huge and very cool - that put me fractionally in the lead with three events to go. I got a respectable 156 in words, Clemens and Gunther got roughly the same, Joachim got a massive 203 but Boris kept the world record with 214. But then I messed up all three trials on the spoken number, which is always a real possibility with me, and Clemens got his usual massive score, putting him safely in the lead and Gunther safely in second place.
That left me having to try for a very quick time in speed cards, and hope that Clemens didn't get a half-decent score. He did get a half-decent score (50 seconds) in the first attempt, whereas I didn't manage to get anything (tried 33 seconds but didn't come close to getting it right). What I should have done then is record a slower time and snatch second place, but I went for a very fast one again because a) having no chance of winning the title I might as well go out with a bang, or b) Andi was sitting next to me and quite obviously aiming to beat my record, although c) none of this occurred to me at the time until Gunther pointed it out and I was just set on a pattern of trying to go as fast as possible. So anyway, I messed it up again. And Andi did beat my record. And Joachim recorded a perfectly acceptable time to beat me for third place.
So in the end, it was exactly the same as last year, Clemens-Gunther-Joachim-me-Boris, only with much higher scores all round. Frustrating, because I was pretty darn close to my best form this year, and it just wasn't good enough. Still, it's given me a target to aim for next time round.
Anecdotes and rambling to follow tomorrow, assuming I'm awake. Memory competitions tire me out, and I don't think eight hours' sleep tonight is going to be enough...
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Once More, With Feeling
Last night's entry was a bit dry and full of scores and statistics, I thought. There's a lot more to the WMC than that. I've just been to KFC with Boris, Joachim, Corinna, Daniela, Daren and James K (after Burger King with a similar group last night - junk food is brain food), and the conversations we have on that kind of occasion, as well as throughout the day, are fantastic. You'd be surprised how much there is to talk about on the subject of memory when a bunch of enthusiasts get together.
Anyway, today went pretty well, all in all. You may recall from last night's cliffhanger that Gunther was miles ahead, but with his best events behind us, and a whole pile of us fighting it out for second position. It turned out I only got 1440 on the hour numbers, which is disappointing - on the lower end of my estimate. Gunther, Clemens and Joachim all scored in the 1700s. Andi got exactly 1800, but Dr Yip topped the lot with 1820. Phil described it as a surprise, but it isn't really - he was always red hot on the numbers, and even now when he's only here to bring this year's batch of little disciples to experience the competition and hasn't been doing much training himself, he's still very good.
It's fun to watch people before and between events. The Germans tend to juggle - it's a national tradition (meaning Gunther does it and everyone over there thinks it must be great if Gunther does it), and it's meant to aid concentration. Others sit around chatting or staring into space, concentrating fiercely, depending on temperament. I'm a chatter, mainly. Ed always arrives at the very last minute, if not later. Some get there an hour early, just in case. There's the usual what-are-you-going-to-attempt-here kind of speculation, announcements like "Can anyone lend Daren a stopwatch because he's forgotten his?" (you'd be surprised how often this happens at memory championships. Clemens glanced at the four timepieces on his desk but decided he couldn't risk three of them breaking down. Someone found a spare one in the end.)
Names and faces, the first event of the day, went extremely well by my low standards. I scored 96, a personal best, and I think the 12th-best score on the day. Gunther did badly, as expected. Clemens broke the world record, Andi did well too, and Josh did a very impressive 156. Cornelia continues to be consistently very good at everything.
Speed numbers next, and I went for a safe-ish 324, and got 284, the best score in the first trial. Andi was the last to return to the room for this one, and Phil said (over the microphone and sounding probably a lot more venomous than he intended) "Congratulations on making us all wait, Andi." We were already running late by that point - memory championships always run late, by at least a couple of hours. There are no exceptions to this rule, and certainly not today. There was a bigger holdup between trials of the speed numbers when Joachim and Gunther asked for their scores to be double-checked (Gunther's was correct, but they'd genuinely made a mistake on Joachim). I tried a mad 468 second time round, but made a mess of it and didn't improve on my first score. It was still good enough to be the third best, but Gunther and Clemens both beat me. Operation catch-Gunther not going as smoothly as I'd hoped.
But never mind, event six is Historic Dates, my trump card. By this point Clemens had almost but not quite caught Gunther up, and I was lagging about 700 points behind them. Worryingly far, in other words - the standard is much higher than last year, and there's a lot more competition. But, after another lengthy delay when it turned out they hadn't made enough copies of the English-language version (expecting the Hong Kong contingent to want it in Chinese, but they didn't), I did produce a whopping 96 - a new world record and lots of lovely championship points. After announcing the results, Tony came to me and said "So, do you want to change the scoring system because you're just too brilliant?" (the scoring system was genuinely wrong back in 2004, thank you very much, and I think the new one's fair enough - and anyway, I need all the points I can get this year!)
So, after six of ten disciplines, here's the leaderboard:
1) Gunther Karsten 4459
2) Clemens Mayer 4423
3) Ben Pridmore 4103
4) Joachim Thaler 4090
5) Cornelia Beddies 3608
6) Andi Bell 3581
7) Boris Konrad 3222
8) Ed Cooke 2654
9) Corinna Draschl 2416
10) Yip Swe Chooi 2128
My original plan was to be in the lead by this point. As an illustration of how much tougher it is this year, in 2005 at this point I was winning, with a score of 3471.
Final event of the day was hour cards, and it was obvious that I'd have to do something good to have a chance going into the final day. Luckily, I think I did. Attempting thirty packs, more than anyone else, I did write down thirty plausible full sequences in the recall period. A couple involved educated guesses, but I would hope that I got at least 25 right. If I didn't, I'll be annoyed with myself, because it will be silly errors. But the buzz is that Gunther did disappointingly, and Clemens isn't all that great with cards, so if I've beaten both of them, it'll be a great finish.
Andi didn't recall any - he realised he wasn't going to get a good score and so left. But he is more here than he has been for the last couple of years, and talking in terms of definitely coming back on top form next time round. Which can only be good for the WMC.
Tomorrow it's random words, spoken numbers and speed cards. The first two of these I can do good scores on, but often don't. Clemens is very good at spoken numbers, and I'm going to need a top-notch performance to beat him. And I need to get a pack of cards in somewhere close to thirty seconds to make sure of it. I love the WMC!
Anyway, today went pretty well, all in all. You may recall from last night's cliffhanger that Gunther was miles ahead, but with his best events behind us, and a whole pile of us fighting it out for second position. It turned out I only got 1440 on the hour numbers, which is disappointing - on the lower end of my estimate. Gunther, Clemens and Joachim all scored in the 1700s. Andi got exactly 1800, but Dr Yip topped the lot with 1820. Phil described it as a surprise, but it isn't really - he was always red hot on the numbers, and even now when he's only here to bring this year's batch of little disciples to experience the competition and hasn't been doing much training himself, he's still very good.
It's fun to watch people before and between events. The Germans tend to juggle - it's a national tradition (meaning Gunther does it and everyone over there thinks it must be great if Gunther does it), and it's meant to aid concentration. Others sit around chatting or staring into space, concentrating fiercely, depending on temperament. I'm a chatter, mainly. Ed always arrives at the very last minute, if not later. Some get there an hour early, just in case. There's the usual what-are-you-going-to-attempt-here kind of speculation, announcements like "Can anyone lend Daren a stopwatch because he's forgotten his?" (you'd be surprised how often this happens at memory championships. Clemens glanced at the four timepieces on his desk but decided he couldn't risk three of them breaking down. Someone found a spare one in the end.)
Names and faces, the first event of the day, went extremely well by my low standards. I scored 96, a personal best, and I think the 12th-best score on the day. Gunther did badly, as expected. Clemens broke the world record, Andi did well too, and Josh did a very impressive 156. Cornelia continues to be consistently very good at everything.
Speed numbers next, and I went for a safe-ish 324, and got 284, the best score in the first trial. Andi was the last to return to the room for this one, and Phil said (over the microphone and sounding probably a lot more venomous than he intended) "Congratulations on making us all wait, Andi." We were already running late by that point - memory championships always run late, by at least a couple of hours. There are no exceptions to this rule, and certainly not today. There was a bigger holdup between trials of the speed numbers when Joachim and Gunther asked for their scores to be double-checked (Gunther's was correct, but they'd genuinely made a mistake on Joachim). I tried a mad 468 second time round, but made a mess of it and didn't improve on my first score. It was still good enough to be the third best, but Gunther and Clemens both beat me. Operation catch-Gunther not going as smoothly as I'd hoped.
But never mind, event six is Historic Dates, my trump card. By this point Clemens had almost but not quite caught Gunther up, and I was lagging about 700 points behind them. Worryingly far, in other words - the standard is much higher than last year, and there's a lot more competition. But, after another lengthy delay when it turned out they hadn't made enough copies of the English-language version (expecting the Hong Kong contingent to want it in Chinese, but they didn't), I did produce a whopping 96 - a new world record and lots of lovely championship points. After announcing the results, Tony came to me and said "So, do you want to change the scoring system because you're just too brilliant?" (the scoring system was genuinely wrong back in 2004, thank you very much, and I think the new one's fair enough - and anyway, I need all the points I can get this year!)
So, after six of ten disciplines, here's the leaderboard:
1) Gunther Karsten 4459
2) Clemens Mayer 4423
3) Ben Pridmore 4103
4) Joachim Thaler 4090
5) Cornelia Beddies 3608
6) Andi Bell 3581
7) Boris Konrad 3222
8) Ed Cooke 2654
9) Corinna Draschl 2416
10) Yip Swe Chooi 2128
My original plan was to be in the lead by this point. As an illustration of how much tougher it is this year, in 2005 at this point I was winning, with a score of 3471.
Final event of the day was hour cards, and it was obvious that I'd have to do something good to have a chance going into the final day. Luckily, I think I did. Attempting thirty packs, more than anyone else, I did write down thirty plausible full sequences in the recall period. A couple involved educated guesses, but I would hope that I got at least 25 right. If I didn't, I'll be annoyed with myself, because it will be silly errors. But the buzz is that Gunther did disappointingly, and Clemens isn't all that great with cards, so if I've beaten both of them, it'll be a great finish.
Andi didn't recall any - he realised he wasn't going to get a good score and so left. But he is more here than he has been for the last couple of years, and talking in terms of definitely coming back on top form next time round. Which can only be good for the WMC.
Tomorrow it's random words, spoken numbers and speed cards. The first two of these I can do good scores on, but often don't. Clemens is very good at spoken numbers, and I'm going to need a top-notch performance to beat him. And I need to get a pack of cards in somewhere close to thirty seconds to make sure of it. I love the WMC!
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Day One
...went just about according to plan. Although I know I could have done better than I did. If you remember, the plan was to do really badly in abstract images, which I haven't bothered to practice at all, and then to make up for it in the other two disciplines today, binary and hour numbers.
I did indeed do very badly in abstract images - a score of 57, which equates to about 220 championship points. Gunther, as in Cambridge, did really well - 228 raw score, about 920 points and a world record. He's been working on the new discipline, and obviously has come up with a much better system than everyone else. Slightly concerningly, my other main rivals all had good scores too - Clemens got 151, German Wunderkind Cornelia Beddies (who would have got a mention yesterday if I'd had time) 140, Joachim 130, Boris 129 and Andi (who to nobody's surprise made a surprise last-minute appearance) 120.
But that's okay. Because I knew binary is one of my best disciplines, and I could catch up there with a good score. Of course, it's also one of Gunther's best too - he and I are always miles ahead of the rest of the field there. I attempted somewhere in the region of 5300 digits (having asked for extra ones specially - you're normally only given 5000 to memorise in half an hour), and ended up thinking I'd got a score of about 3500 (I'll explain the scoring system another time, or you can look it up yourselves if you don't know it already). It turned out I'd underestimated myself, and when the papers were marked I found that I'd fractionally beaten my existing world record - 3710, whereas the previous record was 3705!
Gunther got 3452, Joachim 2832, Cornelia 2521 and Clemens 2385. Andi only attempted 2250 and ended up with a score of 1980, but his best could be yet to come. He seems to have been doing at least some training this year, and is taking the event more seriously. After two of ten disciplines, the leaderboard looks like this:
1) Gunther Karsten 1778
2) Joachim Thaler 1228
3) Clemens Mayer 1200
4) Cornelia Beddies 1190
5) Ben Pridmore 1156
6) Andi Bell 975
7) Boris Konrad 880
8) Corrina Draschl 628
9) James Paterson 621
10) James Ponder 576
We haven't yet had the results of the hour numbers - I went for 2340, and got maybe 1600. Possibly a bit better, possibly a bit worse. It's going to be a close-run thing. Gunther may seem to be flying away, but today's three disciplines are probably his three best. He tends to struggle with the cards, so unless he's improved a lot in the last year the pack will catch him up in event seven, hour cards, tomorrow afternoon. And in names and faces (event four, first thing tomorrow) he's normally, as Boris tactfully put it, even worse than me. Also tomorrow are historic dates, which I should win, touch wood, I usually do, and speed numbers, which I've also got a good feeling about (last year I won it when I didn't think I would, so by that logic I'll do terribly this time round).
I love the WMC! Not just the competing, but the hanging out with the other memorisers. They're a great bunch, one and all!
I did indeed do very badly in abstract images - a score of 57, which equates to about 220 championship points. Gunther, as in Cambridge, did really well - 228 raw score, about 920 points and a world record. He's been working on the new discipline, and obviously has come up with a much better system than everyone else. Slightly concerningly, my other main rivals all had good scores too - Clemens got 151, German Wunderkind Cornelia Beddies (who would have got a mention yesterday if I'd had time) 140, Joachim 130, Boris 129 and Andi (who to nobody's surprise made a surprise last-minute appearance) 120.
But that's okay. Because I knew binary is one of my best disciplines, and I could catch up there with a good score. Of course, it's also one of Gunther's best too - he and I are always miles ahead of the rest of the field there. I attempted somewhere in the region of 5300 digits (having asked for extra ones specially - you're normally only given 5000 to memorise in half an hour), and ended up thinking I'd got a score of about 3500 (I'll explain the scoring system another time, or you can look it up yourselves if you don't know it already). It turned out I'd underestimated myself, and when the papers were marked I found that I'd fractionally beaten my existing world record - 3710, whereas the previous record was 3705!
Gunther got 3452, Joachim 2832, Cornelia 2521 and Clemens 2385. Andi only attempted 2250 and ended up with a score of 1980, but his best could be yet to come. He seems to have been doing at least some training this year, and is taking the event more seriously. After two of ten disciplines, the leaderboard looks like this:
1) Gunther Karsten 1778
2) Joachim Thaler 1228
3) Clemens Mayer 1200
4) Cornelia Beddies 1190
5) Ben Pridmore 1156
6) Andi Bell 975
7) Boris Konrad 880
8) Corrina Draschl 628
9) James Paterson 621
10) James Ponder 576
We haven't yet had the results of the hour numbers - I went for 2340, and got maybe 1600. Possibly a bit better, possibly a bit worse. It's going to be a close-run thing. Gunther may seem to be flying away, but today's three disciplines are probably his three best. He tends to struggle with the cards, so unless he's improved a lot in the last year the pack will catch him up in event seven, hour cards, tomorrow afternoon. And in names and faces (event four, first thing tomorrow) he's normally, as Boris tactfully put it, even worse than me. Also tomorrow are historic dates, which I should win, touch wood, I usually do, and speed numbers, which I've also got a good feeling about (last year I won it when I didn't think I would, so by that logic I'll do terribly this time round).
I love the WMC! Not just the competing, but the hanging out with the other memorisers. They're a great bunch, one and all!
Friday, August 18, 2006
Runners and riders
Limited time tonight - I've gone into an internet cafe and realised I've only got enough money on me for half an hour. Rather than look like a pauper and go out for more money (I can just see everyone in the building looking at me in these circumstances and thinking "he's going out to the pawnshop or to beg money on street corners), I'm pretending that was what I was going to use in the first place, rather than an hour like I was intending.
Anyway, having wasted all my time writing the above, let's talk about the weekend ahead. Just been to the competitors' briefing, delivered by Phil (who for all his good points isn't a natural speaker and was almost as incoherent as me at Cambridge when explaining the rules and regulations) because Tony's busy doing interviews. And a drink afterwards with some of the other guys, of course, to discuss what we think is going to happen. So I thought it would be good for the benefit of my non-memory readers to know who to look out for while they're following the scores on the internet over the next three days.
Assuming they're updated on the internet. They usually aren't, but the official website always promises to.
So let's look at the top ten in the world ranking list, with brief notes. Omitting the world number one for obvious reasons, we start with:
2) Astrid Plessl (Austria, age 22) (or thereabouts. Most of these ages are rough guesses, and I probably shouldn't be including them at all)
WMC history: 12th, 2001; 6th, 2002; 2nd, 2003; 2nd, 2004
Astrid wasn't there tonight, and the probability is that she won't be competing this year. Which would be a crying shame. She came very, very close to winning the world championship two years in a row, and if she retires from competitions now without winning it it would be a great injustice. She started out famous for her natural memory (high scores in the poem and words, the disciplines that you don't use artificial systems for so much), but between 2002 and 2003 got really good at the systems too. If she's kept in training, she'd be my top rival this year. Hoping she defies expectations and shows up.
3) Clemens Mayer (Germany, age 21-ish)
WMC history: 4th, 2004; 1st, 2005
The reigning champion is obviously the man to beat. He hasn't failed to win a competition he's entered since November 2004, and he's committed to keeping that up. He's burst onto the scene in only a couple of years, and although it's been said that he's never beaten the likes of me or Andi or Astrid when we were at the top of our games, he can hardly be blamed for that. He did all that was necessary to win, and it's possible he's capable of much more when he's pushed.
4) Dr Gunther Karsten (Germany, mid-40s)
WMC history: 3rd, 1998; 5th, 1999; 3rd, 2000; 2nd, 2001; 3rd, 2002; 4th, 2003; 8th, 2004; 2nd, 2005
Ever-present in the top ranks at the world championships for many, many years, but never quite as winner. Last year's performance for second place was his best ever, so he's still improving. His seven-year run as German champion was ended by his protegé Clemens in 2005, but he's a good outside bet for the world title this year. Never write him off.
5) Andi Bell (England, 37?)
WMC history: 3rd, 1995; 2nd, 1996; 2nd, 1997; 1st, 1998; 3rd, 1999; 2nd, 2000; 3rd, 2001; 1st, 2002; 1st, 2003; 7th, 2004; 26th, 2005
Andi also wasn't there tonight, but he never came to the briefings even when he was a serious competitor. He's said he won't compete this year, but I'd actually be more surprised if he doesn't show up tomorrow morning to take part, however half-heartedly. Arguably the best competitor ever, he put in his apprenticeship for many years coming second to Dominic O'Brien (his 1998 win was the year Dom didn't take part) before finally blowing him away and setting new standards for the "sport" in 2002, his participation has been half-hearted for the last couple of years. But if he's been training on the sly, anything's possible. His nine consecutive years of top-three finishes might never be beaten.
6) Dominic O'Brien (England, getting on for 50? Or am I being unkind?)
WMC history: 1st, 1991; 1st, 1993; 2nd, 1994; 1st, 1995; 1st, 1996; 1st, 1997; 1st, 1999; 1st, 2000; 1st, 2001; 2nd, 2002; 6th, 2003
The legendary eight-times champion definitely won't be competing this year, unless there's something we haven't been told. He keeps saying he isn't completely retired, but it's looking more and more like he is. Conventional wisdom is that he couldn't keep up with the much higher level of performance from the top competitors over the past few years, but that might not be the case at all. He never had to stretch himself to his limits in his glory days, perhaps he's capable of another win yet.
7) Joachim Thaler(Austria, 18)
WMC history: 15th, 2002; 3rd, 2004; 3rd, 2005
Still very young, and still improving, Joachim is the only person to finish in the top three in each of the last two years. He beat me last time round, and Clemens the year before, and although he's pessimistic about his chances for a podium place this time round, it's certainly not impossible.
8) Jan Formann (Denmark, late-50s)
WMC history: 16th, 1999; 4th, 2001; 4th, 2002; 5th, 2003
Not much has been heard from the super-eccentric Dane for the last couple of years. His last competition was the World Cup (not to be confused with the World Championship) in 2004, when he finished a close second behind me. He used to be the undisputed world's best at the number-disciplines, although Gunther seems to have taken over that mantle now. I hope Jan also makes a surprise return, because he adds a lot of colour and fun to the championships.
9) Boris Nikolai Konrad (Germany, 22)
WMC history: 6th, 2004; 5th, 2005
Boris has been leader of the chasing pack at a lot of competitions over the last couple of years. I would certainly back him to make that final leap into one of the absolute top-level if he keeps up with it - he's very enthusiastic and deeply involved in the politics of German memory. This year he's got a good chance of making the top five.
10) Lukas Amsüss (Austria, early 20s)
WMC history: 17th, 2001; 14th, 2002; 7th, 2003; 9th, 2004
Sadly, Lukas definitely can't make it this year, due to work. But his previous WMC positions do him a disservice, he's another major chasing-pack guy, with a particular talent for speed cards. Also a lot of fun.
I don't have time to mention anyone else, but watch out for the likes of Ed Cooke, Josh Foer and Yip Swe Chooi too!
Anyway, having wasted all my time writing the above, let's talk about the weekend ahead. Just been to the competitors' briefing, delivered by Phil (who for all his good points isn't a natural speaker and was almost as incoherent as me at Cambridge when explaining the rules and regulations) because Tony's busy doing interviews. And a drink afterwards with some of the other guys, of course, to discuss what we think is going to happen. So I thought it would be good for the benefit of my non-memory readers to know who to look out for while they're following the scores on the internet over the next three days.
Assuming they're updated on the internet. They usually aren't, but the official website always promises to.
So let's look at the top ten in the world ranking list, with brief notes. Omitting the world number one for obvious reasons, we start with:
2) Astrid Plessl (Austria, age 22) (or thereabouts. Most of these ages are rough guesses, and I probably shouldn't be including them at all)
WMC history: 12th, 2001; 6th, 2002; 2nd, 2003; 2nd, 2004
Astrid wasn't there tonight, and the probability is that she won't be competing this year. Which would be a crying shame. She came very, very close to winning the world championship two years in a row, and if she retires from competitions now without winning it it would be a great injustice. She started out famous for her natural memory (high scores in the poem and words, the disciplines that you don't use artificial systems for so much), but between 2002 and 2003 got really good at the systems too. If she's kept in training, she'd be my top rival this year. Hoping she defies expectations and shows up.
3) Clemens Mayer (Germany, age 21-ish)
WMC history: 4th, 2004; 1st, 2005
The reigning champion is obviously the man to beat. He hasn't failed to win a competition he's entered since November 2004, and he's committed to keeping that up. He's burst onto the scene in only a couple of years, and although it's been said that he's never beaten the likes of me or Andi or Astrid when we were at the top of our games, he can hardly be blamed for that. He did all that was necessary to win, and it's possible he's capable of much more when he's pushed.
4) Dr Gunther Karsten (Germany, mid-40s)
WMC history: 3rd, 1998; 5th, 1999; 3rd, 2000; 2nd, 2001; 3rd, 2002; 4th, 2003; 8th, 2004; 2nd, 2005
Ever-present in the top ranks at the world championships for many, many years, but never quite as winner. Last year's performance for second place was his best ever, so he's still improving. His seven-year run as German champion was ended by his protegé Clemens in 2005, but he's a good outside bet for the world title this year. Never write him off.
5) Andi Bell (England, 37?)
WMC history: 3rd, 1995; 2nd, 1996; 2nd, 1997; 1st, 1998; 3rd, 1999; 2nd, 2000; 3rd, 2001; 1st, 2002; 1st, 2003; 7th, 2004; 26th, 2005
Andi also wasn't there tonight, but he never came to the briefings even when he was a serious competitor. He's said he won't compete this year, but I'd actually be more surprised if he doesn't show up tomorrow morning to take part, however half-heartedly. Arguably the best competitor ever, he put in his apprenticeship for many years coming second to Dominic O'Brien (his 1998 win was the year Dom didn't take part) before finally blowing him away and setting new standards for the "sport" in 2002, his participation has been half-hearted for the last couple of years. But if he's been training on the sly, anything's possible. His nine consecutive years of top-three finishes might never be beaten.
6) Dominic O'Brien (England, getting on for 50? Or am I being unkind?)
WMC history: 1st, 1991; 1st, 1993; 2nd, 1994; 1st, 1995; 1st, 1996; 1st, 1997; 1st, 1999; 1st, 2000; 1st, 2001; 2nd, 2002; 6th, 2003
The legendary eight-times champion definitely won't be competing this year, unless there's something we haven't been told. He keeps saying he isn't completely retired, but it's looking more and more like he is. Conventional wisdom is that he couldn't keep up with the much higher level of performance from the top competitors over the past few years, but that might not be the case at all. He never had to stretch himself to his limits in his glory days, perhaps he's capable of another win yet.
7) Joachim Thaler(Austria, 18)
WMC history: 15th, 2002; 3rd, 2004; 3rd, 2005
Still very young, and still improving, Joachim is the only person to finish in the top three in each of the last two years. He beat me last time round, and Clemens the year before, and although he's pessimistic about his chances for a podium place this time round, it's certainly not impossible.
8) Jan Formann (Denmark, late-50s)
WMC history: 16th, 1999; 4th, 2001; 4th, 2002; 5th, 2003
Not much has been heard from the super-eccentric Dane for the last couple of years. His last competition was the World Cup (not to be confused with the World Championship) in 2004, when he finished a close second behind me. He used to be the undisputed world's best at the number-disciplines, although Gunther seems to have taken over that mantle now. I hope Jan also makes a surprise return, because he adds a lot of colour and fun to the championships.
9) Boris Nikolai Konrad (Germany, 22)
WMC history: 6th, 2004; 5th, 2005
Boris has been leader of the chasing pack at a lot of competitions over the last couple of years. I would certainly back him to make that final leap into one of the absolute top-level if he keeps up with it - he's very enthusiastic and deeply involved in the politics of German memory. This year he's got a good chance of making the top five.
10) Lukas Amsüss (Austria, early 20s)
WMC history: 17th, 2001; 14th, 2002; 7th, 2003; 9th, 2004
Sadly, Lukas definitely can't make it this year, due to work. But his previous WMC positions do him a disservice, he's another major chasing-pack guy, with a particular talent for speed cards. Also a lot of fun.
I don't have time to mention anyone else, but watch out for the likes of Ed Cooke, Josh Foer and Yip Swe Chooi too!
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Your fifteen minutes start now
There's a song from years ago with the refrain "Your fifteen minutes start now..." that always comes to my mind when I'm starting my stopwatch going for a period of time for memorising or recall. Even the ones that aren't fifteen minutes long. I don't remember which song it was, or what the rest of the words were, but that bit's very memorable.
I'm free from work for the next four days, yay, and going down to London tomorrow morning - meeting the Alzheimer's people, with accompanying interview by Women's Weekly magazine. I've had more publictity-heavy buildups to the world championships. Then it's just a case of finding the hotel, finding the competition site, going to the 6pm competitors' briefing that's never really worth going to, and getting a good night's sleep. This might be my last blog entry until the competition's over - I'm not taking my laptop, and I probably won't have the time to find an internet cafe. But you never know - if I get bored tomorrow night I might give my last-minute opinions about the weekend ahead. I'll get off to a bad start with the images, but then hopefully do something special in the binary and hour numbers to show the others who's boss.
Sniffles and Bimbo are constantly pestering me to write about them like I promised, so I'll do that next week. Maybe with screenshots!
I'm free from work for the next four days, yay, and going down to London tomorrow morning - meeting the Alzheimer's people, with accompanying interview by Women's Weekly magazine. I've had more publictity-heavy buildups to the world championships. Then it's just a case of finding the hotel, finding the competition site, going to the 6pm competitors' briefing that's never really worth going to, and getting a good night's sleep. This might be my last blog entry until the competition's over - I'm not taking my laptop, and I probably won't have the time to find an internet cafe. But you never know - if I get bored tomorrow night I might give my last-minute opinions about the weekend ahead. I'll get off to a bad start with the images, but then hopefully do something special in the binary and hour numbers to show the others who's boss.
Sniffles and Bimbo are constantly pestering me to write about them like I promised, so I'll do that next week. Maybe with screenshots!
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Packing
And more than 24 hours before it's strictly necessary, too! But don't worry, all I've been doing tonight is finding boxes to put my cards in, putting my cards in them, and putting the boxes into a larger box. Which makes me giggle, because in writing it like that I've reminded myself of an excellent webcomic called Living In Greytown, that I used to read years ago (it's finished now, as has its sequel, Lizard).
But I was talking about cards. I don't normally keep them in the boxes, they sit on my desk in teetering towers with a rubber band around each pack. So I had to dig up the flattened, crumpled boxes from the depths of my desk's drawers where all kinds of strange things lurk. The reason for this is that for the first time I'm taking my own cards to the WMC this time round. Competitors are allowed to bring their own or to use the ones provided, and I normally choose the latter option, but last year they didn't bother to shuffle them before giving them out, so I got a couple that were in sequence. I thought of pretending to memorise them and hoping nobody noticed, but got replacements instead. I'll also bring my own recall sheets for the cards, which I may or may not use, depending on what the provided sheets look like (if they're plain paper, I'll use my own, but if they're the normal kind with a column for each suit where you just fill in the number, I'll go with those). Some competitors have their own extremely fancy recall sheets for numbers as well as cards, with the spaces to fill in numbers divided into sections, but I don't go in for that kind of thing. I prefer a recall page as blank as possible, and if I can't remember a sequence I'll count out the appropriate number of empty spaces and mark it with little dots. I'm a minimalist.
Good grief, that was close. Just before posting that, I selected the whole text to copy it in case the computer or Blogger crashes while I'm posting (I always do this, I'm paranoid), and pressed ctrl-V instead of ctrl-C, replacing the text with some rubbish that was on the clipboard. Luckily, it turns out you can do ctrl-Z to undo here. You really do learn something new every day!
But I was talking about cards. I don't normally keep them in the boxes, they sit on my desk in teetering towers with a rubber band around each pack. So I had to dig up the flattened, crumpled boxes from the depths of my desk's drawers where all kinds of strange things lurk. The reason for this is that for the first time I'm taking my own cards to the WMC this time round. Competitors are allowed to bring their own or to use the ones provided, and I normally choose the latter option, but last year they didn't bother to shuffle them before giving them out, so I got a couple that were in sequence. I thought of pretending to memorise them and hoping nobody noticed, but got replacements instead. I'll also bring my own recall sheets for the cards, which I may or may not use, depending on what the provided sheets look like (if they're plain paper, I'll use my own, but if they're the normal kind with a column for each suit where you just fill in the number, I'll go with those). Some competitors have their own extremely fancy recall sheets for numbers as well as cards, with the spaces to fill in numbers divided into sections, but I don't go in for that kind of thing. I prefer a recall page as blank as possible, and if I can't remember a sequence I'll count out the appropriate number of empty spaces and mark it with little dots. I'm a minimalist.
Good grief, that was close. Just before posting that, I selected the whole text to copy it in case the computer or Blogger crashes while I'm posting (I always do this, I'm paranoid), and pressed ctrl-V instead of ctrl-C, replacing the text with some rubbish that was on the clipboard. Luckily, it turns out you can do ctrl-Z to undo here. You really do learn something new every day!
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Almost forgot
I nearly went to bed without writing anything tonight. But it's okay, I've deliberately put my memory on ice this week in the buildup to the WMC. I did have a try at abstract images using a clever new system I thought up, which turns out not to work at all. I still have no idea how I'm going to approach that one in the competition, which could be a problem, but it's not one I'm hugely worried about. It's a silly thing anyway, that they'll hopefully get rid of or change before next year (if I keep pestering them).
Monday, August 14, 2006
The follies of men's youth
I've been reading my old blog posts tonight, and I can be quite fascinating at times, can't I? Makes me think that I need to start doing interesting things so I can write about them in more detail. And yes, I did hand my notice in at work today. I was going to think about it a bit more, but I got butterflies in my tummy every time I thought about it, and I didn't want that getting in the way of the world memory championship, so I decided to just get on with it and resign. It felt pretty good, all in all. So now I'm resolved not to think about it or anything else for the next week, and just relax, clear my brain and do a bit of last-minute practice with abstract images because I'm not nearly prepared enough for them. Everything else, though, I'm pretty sure I can make a decent stab at. I'm not as match-fit as I'd like to be, but I'm better than last year, and I didn't lose by much last year. Fingers crossed, eh?
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Things that need to be clarified
1) That Frosties advert that everyone thinks is so terrible? It's brilliant! I mean, what's all the hostility about? It's singalongable and catchy and funny, and it raises public awareness of Frosties, which can only be a good thing.
2) Also, Airplane II: The Sequel, which I saw for the first time tonight, is really funny too. I've never bothered to watch it before because everyone says it's not much good, but it turns out that everyone in the world has been lying to me all these years.
3) These clarifications are not just my opinions, they're the objective truth. I'm automatically right about everything. It's quite a burden sometimes.
4) I'm still not sure about the whole handing-in-my-notice thing. I'm tempted to leave the decision until after the WMC, although that might not be the best idea because I'm always at my most I-hate-my-job-ish immediately after a big competition. I'll see what I feel like when I wake up tomorrow.
5) Butter.
2) Also, Airplane II: The Sequel, which I saw for the first time tonight, is really funny too. I've never bothered to watch it before because everyone says it's not much good, but it turns out that everyone in the world has been lying to me all these years.
3) These clarifications are not just my opinions, they're the objective truth. I'm automatically right about everything. It's quite a burden sometimes.
4) I'm still not sure about the whole handing-in-my-notice thing. I'm tempted to leave the decision until after the WMC, although that might not be the best idea because I'm always at my most I-hate-my-job-ish immediately after a big competition. I'll see what I feel like when I wake up tomorrow.
5) Butter.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
World Twister Champion 2006
Title suggested by Vicky, although in fact I didn't win at Twister. I shouldn't really have been playing at all, with my knees being what they are, but you know what it's like at these parties. Crispy and Sleepy couldn't come at the last moment because Crisp's not well (possibly infected with lethal bacteria from her new job, so I think we should all send get-well-soon-type happy thoughts to her and hope she's okay), so I had to go to the scary almost-strangers' barbecue by myself. But it turned out to be fun after all. I'd write more about it, only I've had too much to drink considering I need to be practicing memorising cards tomorrow, and it's late, and I've just cycled home in the pouring rain so I'll probably get hypothermia if I don't go to bed rather than sitting around in my undies typing incoherently.
Friday, August 11, 2006
I've got sixpence, jolly jolly sixpence
Remember that thing I wanted to talk about but couldn't in case talking about it jinxed the whole thing? Well, now the official secrets act has been repealed and I can go ahead. I'm wealthy! I've just had £16,631.04 paid into my bank account, courtesy of my dad's pension scheme. Which certainly came as a surprise to me - my mum and brother have the same amount each too. Add that to the money in my bank account, and it comes to just over £20,000. Does that sound familiar? I got the letter telling me about it last Saturday, exactly a month after writing this about what I'd do if I had £20,000 or so.
So should I do it? Hand in my notice at work, take a year off, write those books, do those college courses, join that hypothetical gym? I'm inclining towards yes, I should. The universe quite clearly wants me to. I can't quite delude myself into thinking it's what my dad would have wanted me to do with the money (he really wouldn't have). I've given myself the weekend to think about it - I'd want to give two months' notice at work (rather than the one that I'm obliged to give) so as not to leave anyone in the lurch, and if I did it on Monday it would neatly round off my career at Nord Anglia the day before my birthday. I could be a wage slave until the age of 29 years and 364 days, and embark on a whole new phase of my life in my thirties. I won't be able to splash out on anything extravagant, but I can just about live for a year with those kind of expenses for twenty grand.
The only thing that worries me is whether I would be able to motivate myself to do cool things if I didn't have to get up in the morning every day. I'm thinking if I structure things around college courses and routines I'd be okay - from past experience I really do need something like that so that I can fit the fun things around it - if I don't have a day job, I don't do extracurricular things either and just spend my time lounging around doing nothing.
This kind of earth-shattering decision isn't the kind of thing I should be doing on the last weekend before the world memory championship. Crispy and Sleepy are coming round on Saturday night, so I can drunkenly discuss the pros and cons with them and see how much I can remember of the conversation the next morning. The plan is to do a 30-minute binary practice tomorrow morning, hour numbers after lunch, then we'll go round to Vicky's barbecue and have a good time, then on Sunday night when I've recovered a bit, do an hour cards. Hope I can stick to it.
Another thing that worries me - everyone is going to say "Yes, you should quit your job and become a gentleman of leisure! That sounds cool!", because it does sound cool. But I'm quite aware that it's not the right thing for me to do on any kind of long-term or intellectual level. On the other hand, though, my decision is pretty much a foregone conclusion. When have I ever chosen the option marked "leave things the way they are and do the sensible thing"?
And feeling guilty about spending it all on myself when the world is full of people suffering? I think I can get used to it. I've never claimed to be a saint. I squandered my redundancy money from Parkhouse on good causes, after all, and if I write a bestseller or become a professional snooker player, I can pay the money back to my conscience.
So should I do it? Hand in my notice at work, take a year off, write those books, do those college courses, join that hypothetical gym? I'm inclining towards yes, I should. The universe quite clearly wants me to. I can't quite delude myself into thinking it's what my dad would have wanted me to do with the money (he really wouldn't have). I've given myself the weekend to think about it - I'd want to give two months' notice at work (rather than the one that I'm obliged to give) so as not to leave anyone in the lurch, and if I did it on Monday it would neatly round off my career at Nord Anglia the day before my birthday. I could be a wage slave until the age of 29 years and 364 days, and embark on a whole new phase of my life in my thirties. I won't be able to splash out on anything extravagant, but I can just about live for a year with those kind of expenses for twenty grand.
The only thing that worries me is whether I would be able to motivate myself to do cool things if I didn't have to get up in the morning every day. I'm thinking if I structure things around college courses and routines I'd be okay - from past experience I really do need something like that so that I can fit the fun things around it - if I don't have a day job, I don't do extracurricular things either and just spend my time lounging around doing nothing.
This kind of earth-shattering decision isn't the kind of thing I should be doing on the last weekend before the world memory championship. Crispy and Sleepy are coming round on Saturday night, so I can drunkenly discuss the pros and cons with them and see how much I can remember of the conversation the next morning. The plan is to do a 30-minute binary practice tomorrow morning, hour numbers after lunch, then we'll go round to Vicky's barbecue and have a good time, then on Sunday night when I've recovered a bit, do an hour cards. Hope I can stick to it.
Another thing that worries me - everyone is going to say "Yes, you should quit your job and become a gentleman of leisure! That sounds cool!", because it does sound cool. But I'm quite aware that it's not the right thing for me to do on any kind of long-term or intellectual level. On the other hand, though, my decision is pretty much a foregone conclusion. When have I ever chosen the option marked "leave things the way they are and do the sensible thing"?
And feeling guilty about spending it all on myself when the world is full of people suffering? I think I can get used to it. I've never claimed to be a saint. I squandered my redundancy money from Parkhouse on good causes, after all, and if I write a bestseller or become a professional snooker player, I can pay the money back to my conscience.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
I don't break rules, I just bend them... a lot
I normally have a rule about not commenting on news items in this blog (mainly because that's what everyone else does on their blogs, and besides, who wants to hear my opinions about current events when they could read me rambling on about cartoon characters for pages? That reminds me, I never did get round to writing that promised essay about Sniffles, did I? And I'm also in the mood to try and get Bimbo, the unusually-named male dog cartoon character from the 30s, the public attention he's been deprived of for so long. But not tonight. I was going somewhere before I got into this parenthetical profusion of purple prose, wasn't I?), but I seriously hope this latest mess involving planes isn't going to stop people getting to the WMC next weekend. Last year the strike at Heathrow stopped some competitors from attending, and the timing of this thing is majorly annoying.
There's been a decided lack of publicity about the WMC this time round. Last year we got quite a bit of press coverage by playing up the England v Germany angle, but this time the people who run the event seem to have decided on a policy of doing nothing at all and hoping someone notices it. I also have no idea how many people are going to be there. Word has it that the German contingent will be smaller than last year, although it will include Clemens, Gunther, Boris, Alisa(?), the usual gang, so I'll have someone to make a contest of it. From Austria there's definitely Joachim and hopefully Astrid, I'm sure Andi won't be able to stay away despite what he says even if he doesn't properly compete, so I can't moan about a shortage of top-level competition.
And then there'll be a reasonably large British contingent. Me, Ed and at least three Jameses would break all recent records for sheer numbers, even if nobody else comes along. It seems we won't be getting a Brazilian team after all, Globo having decided to spend their money on a Brazilian championship next year instead, which is a shame. And there'll only be the one Norwegian, it seems. I have no idea about Malaysians, or Indians, or Jan (the one and only Dane who's ever competed in these things). There'll be Josh from the USA and Tansel from Australia and Pierre from France and HaiZhan from China who hasn't competed before but has been exchanging emails with me lately. It should be fun, anyway.
I'm more interested at the moment in researching Irish history. Talking with my assistant Patrick at work today I realised that I don't actually know anything about the country - it's only just next door, after all, and I know we have a proud history of going over there and subjugating and killing people, so I think I should know a bit more. I want to get a book out of the library or something - I'm suspicious of most websites.
There's been a decided lack of publicity about the WMC this time round. Last year we got quite a bit of press coverage by playing up the England v Germany angle, but this time the people who run the event seem to have decided on a policy of doing nothing at all and hoping someone notices it. I also have no idea how many people are going to be there. Word has it that the German contingent will be smaller than last year, although it will include Clemens, Gunther, Boris, Alisa(?), the usual gang, so I'll have someone to make a contest of it. From Austria there's definitely Joachim and hopefully Astrid, I'm sure Andi won't be able to stay away despite what he says even if he doesn't properly compete, so I can't moan about a shortage of top-level competition.
And then there'll be a reasonably large British contingent. Me, Ed and at least three Jameses would break all recent records for sheer numbers, even if nobody else comes along. It seems we won't be getting a Brazilian team after all, Globo having decided to spend their money on a Brazilian championship next year instead, which is a shame. And there'll only be the one Norwegian, it seems. I have no idea about Malaysians, or Indians, or Jan (the one and only Dane who's ever competed in these things). There'll be Josh from the USA and Tansel from Australia and Pierre from France and HaiZhan from China who hasn't competed before but has been exchanging emails with me lately. It should be fun, anyway.
I'm more interested at the moment in researching Irish history. Talking with my assistant Patrick at work today I realised that I don't actually know anything about the country - it's only just next door, after all, and I know we have a proud history of going over there and subjugating and killing people, so I think I should know a bit more. I want to get a book out of the library or something - I'm suspicious of most websites.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Scheduled outage at 4:00PM PDT
According to the little toolbar thing on the top of this create-new-post thing. It's three minutes to ten here, and I have no idea what PDT is, so I'm hoping it's not six hours behind real time.
Anyway, I'm feeling a sense of achievement tonight, because I've replied to a bunch of emails (I'm kind of a recluse, but I still manage to get into no end of correspondence and if I let it build up for a couple of days it becomes quite a task to reply to everyone), done a load of memory practice (got 385 in speed numbers, which would have been 425 if I hadn't transposed two images - 468 is definitely possible on a good day, now I just have to decide whether to attempt it first time at the WMC, or go for something safer and then go for the big score on the second trial), watched Liverpool play football badly but still win (they're still playing but they've just gone 2-1 up with a minute or two left), and watched some Battle of the Planets and Betty Boop cartoons all in the four hours since getting home.
Anyway, I'm feeling a sense of achievement tonight, because I've replied to a bunch of emails (I'm kind of a recluse, but I still manage to get into no end of correspondence and if I let it build up for a couple of days it becomes quite a task to reply to everyone), done a load of memory practice (got 385 in speed numbers, which would have been 425 if I hadn't transposed two images - 468 is definitely possible on a good day, now I just have to decide whether to attempt it first time at the WMC, or go for something safer and then go for the big score on the second trial), watched Liverpool play football badly but still win (they're still playing but they've just gone 2-1 up with a minute or two left), and watched some Battle of the Planets and Betty Boop cartoons all in the four hours since getting home.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
It's The Mind
I've finally got round to sending off my entry form for the Mind Sports Olympiad. Longtime fans will remember that I didn't go to last year's, for the first time since it started in 1997, and I did feel guilty about it. But this year I'm going for the classic MSO experience - staying in a student hall of residence like I used to in the early years when I didn't have any money, competing in lots of games that I don't even particularly like just so as to have something to do, late night poker, no TV for a week (got to dig out my little clock radio so I can have the pleasure of listening to slightly out-of-tune London radio stations all night), lots of unhealthy food, it'll be great.
I'm also almost certainly going to skip the last couple of days in order to go to the othello nationals in Crawley. Now that the WMC has been moved and I only have two major mind sports competitions clashing that weekend, it's only fair to go along to the othello after a week's MSOing. Especially since I'll have to do the treasurer's report at the AGM before the competition starts. Besides, there's still the outside possibility of qualifying for the British team at the Worlds in Japan in October, which I would really love to do. And although 'outside possibility' here means 'no chance whatsoever because I'm not nearly a good enough player even when I've been practicing rather than barely playing at all for months now', it's still enough to give me a gleam of hope in the eyes.
So come along to the Mind Sports Olympiad if you want to play me at azacru, stratego, pacru, acquire, othello, twixt, mental calculations, decamentathlon, entropy, abalone, boku and lots of poker, and to the British Othello Championship if you're British and want to play me at othello more than you can do at the MSO.
Incidentally, I still haven't written the memory tips that the Alzheimer's people asked me for. It should just be a matter of churning out a few bullet points of the usual waffle that everybody says in this kind of situation, but I want it to be actually profound and useful and meaningful. Which, as you might have noticed, isn't something I'm very good at.
(I do have something important and earth-shatteringly significant to write about, but I'm not going to just yet until it's all sorted out for fear of jinxing it. Updates shortly, hopefully. Now that's a cliffhanger worthy of Doctor Who, isn't it!)
I'm also almost certainly going to skip the last couple of days in order to go to the othello nationals in Crawley. Now that the WMC has been moved and I only have two major mind sports competitions clashing that weekend, it's only fair to go along to the othello after a week's MSOing. Especially since I'll have to do the treasurer's report at the AGM before the competition starts. Besides, there's still the outside possibility of qualifying for the British team at the Worlds in Japan in October, which I would really love to do. And although 'outside possibility' here means 'no chance whatsoever because I'm not nearly a good enough player even when I've been practicing rather than barely playing at all for months now', it's still enough to give me a gleam of hope in the eyes.
So come along to the Mind Sports Olympiad if you want to play me at azacru, stratego, pacru, acquire, othello, twixt, mental calculations, decamentathlon, entropy, abalone, boku and lots of poker, and to the British Othello Championship if you're British and want to play me at othello more than you can do at the MSO.
Incidentally, I still haven't written the memory tips that the Alzheimer's people asked me for. It should just be a matter of churning out a few bullet points of the usual waffle that everybody says in this kind of situation, but I want it to be actually profound and useful and meaningful. Which, as you might have noticed, isn't something I'm very good at.
(I do have something important and earth-shatteringly significant to write about, but I'm not going to just yet until it's all sorted out for fear of jinxing it. Updates shortly, hopefully. Now that's a cliffhanger worthy of Doctor Who, isn't it!)
Monday, August 07, 2006
War of the worlds
Vole-like aliens invaded Earth in the year 1937. They arrived en masse in about thirty-seven flying saucers equipped with death-ray devices and small gerbils and set about slaughtering humans with the intention of subjugating the human race and forcing them to design new card games for the vole-like aliens' entertainment.
However, since the people of Earth at that time were also rather vole-like, nobody believed that the aliens were in fact alien invaders at all, and just assumed it was some kind of practical joke organised by the new television service. Even when the aliens barged into Downing Street, cut off the Prime Minister's head with pinking shears and declared that Earth was now under their rule, nobody took them seriously and just laughed about it. The aliens got back into their spaceships and left, disappointed with the reception they'd had.
Having assumed that his horrible demise was a practical joke, Neville Chamberlain was none the worse for wear and carried on with his business. But the incident had made him consider the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms, and one night at a party he wrote the snappily-titled "What is to be done should real aliens ever invade and assassinate the Prime Minister with pinking shears or some such device" essay, which was published (due to a misunderstanding) in the Dandy the following week.
The essay detailed the process by which aliens would be repelled, and hinged around three people who would be required to do the entirety of the fighting while the rest of the world's population hid in underground shelters. Although a good plan, it didn't consider the ravages of time, and somebody really should have updated it by the time the vole-like aliens returned in 1993. By now immediately recognisable as aliens, they were taken seriously, and everyone immediately dropped what they were doing and dived into the shelters. Global warming having caused them to be flooded in the meantime, of course, the entire world's population were drowned.
The three people, chosen at random from the phone book in 1937, were by a happy coincidence still alive, and after several days' fighting, came to an agreement with the vole-like aliens which satisfied everyone except Bertram Cox. The aliens departed happily and left the three surviving humans a small cat made of green electricity in return for Bertram's underpants and left kidney. Today, on the thirteenth anniversary of that epic and anticlimactic settlement, we celebrate the memory of Earth's three saviours, Bertram and the other two whose names I don't recall, and take the day off work in order to throw bricks at sheep in a ceremony instituted last year in Belgium.
However, since the people of Earth at that time were also rather vole-like, nobody believed that the aliens were in fact alien invaders at all, and just assumed it was some kind of practical joke organised by the new television service. Even when the aliens barged into Downing Street, cut off the Prime Minister's head with pinking shears and declared that Earth was now under their rule, nobody took them seriously and just laughed about it. The aliens got back into their spaceships and left, disappointed with the reception they'd had.
Having assumed that his horrible demise was a practical joke, Neville Chamberlain was none the worse for wear and carried on with his business. But the incident had made him consider the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial lifeforms, and one night at a party he wrote the snappily-titled "What is to be done should real aliens ever invade and assassinate the Prime Minister with pinking shears or some such device" essay, which was published (due to a misunderstanding) in the Dandy the following week.
The essay detailed the process by which aliens would be repelled, and hinged around three people who would be required to do the entirety of the fighting while the rest of the world's population hid in underground shelters. Although a good plan, it didn't consider the ravages of time, and somebody really should have updated it by the time the vole-like aliens returned in 1993. By now immediately recognisable as aliens, they were taken seriously, and everyone immediately dropped what they were doing and dived into the shelters. Global warming having caused them to be flooded in the meantime, of course, the entire world's population were drowned.
The three people, chosen at random from the phone book in 1937, were by a happy coincidence still alive, and after several days' fighting, came to an agreement with the vole-like aliens which satisfied everyone except Bertram Cox. The aliens departed happily and left the three surviving humans a small cat made of green electricity in return for Bertram's underpants and left kidney. Today, on the thirteenth anniversary of that epic and anticlimactic settlement, we celebrate the memory of Earth's three saviours, Bertram and the other two whose names I don't recall, and take the day off work in order to throw bricks at sheep in a ceremony instituted last year in Belgium.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Retail therapy
I went to Birmingham today, rather than practicing memorising things like I was supposed to. But I've got an excuse, sort of - my mother phoned me in the morning to blame me for pretty much everything she's ever done, which put me in a bad mood and feeling like I wanted to go out and take my mind off things. I much preferred it when she forgot I existed for years on end. Anyway, I'm not what you'd call a great shopper. I tend to cave in to high-pressure salespeople asking tough questions like "Can I help you?". If I don't say "Yes, please sell me everything in your shop," I feel guilty about wasting their time and cluttering up the store unnecessarily. But sometimes I can't help going into shops I have no intention of buying from or even any interest in the things they're selling, just because they're playing cool music. There was a clothes shop today blasting out "All These Things That I've Done" by the Killers at top volume, which is the kind of song you just have to sing along to if you're me. I wouldn't be seen dead in the kind of clothes they were selling (you know, the kind of normal clothes that everyone else wears, horrific things like that), but I think I did a pretty good job of feigning interest in the things for five minutes until the song finished and I could beat a hasty retreat.
I did do an hour cards practice this evening after getting home, so I'm not too worried about letting the memory stuff slide. Attempted 30 packs, possibly got as many as 27 right although I haven't checked yet and there are probably several mistakes. That would probably be enough to beat everyone at the WMC.
I did do an hour cards practice this evening after getting home, so I'm not too worried about letting the memory stuff slide. Attempted 30 packs, possibly got as many as 27 right although I haven't checked yet and there are probably several mistakes. That would probably be enough to beat everyone at the WMC.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
It's official, I'm fat and lazy
I started today with a couple of firm resolutions. Lots of memory training, and since I'd run out of sweets in the house, no going out and buying more. No training whatsoever and a metric buttload of sugar later, I'm feeling slightly guilty. It is, for those not keeping track, two weeks to the world championships. My standard of preparation is much better than last year's, but much worse than the year before's. I did do a full weekend's workout the weekend before last, and if I do a load tomorrow I'll still be happy with the day's work. I've rather unwisely accepted an invitation to a barbecue next Saturday night, so I'm not sure how much training I'll manage to fit in around that. Theoretically I could do lots and lots, but theoretically doesn't generally cut much ice with me.
I'm sounding like a stuck record here. I should be talking about something new and original. Hey, "Come On Eileen" is just coming on the radio. How long have I had it on? Not more than an hour or so, and that's the second time this song's come along. Same DJ too - it's Suggs on Saturday nights from six till ten. Perhaps he forgot. Or perhaps he just likes the song a lot. It is a good one.
I was thinking of telling an extremely tasteless joke about an advert on the radio, but I don't think I will. People expect certain standards from this blog.
I'm sounding like a stuck record here. I should be talking about something new and original. Hey, "Come On Eileen" is just coming on the radio. How long have I had it on? Not more than an hour or so, and that's the second time this song's come along. Same DJ too - it's Suggs on Saturday nights from six till ten. Perhaps he forgot. Or perhaps he just likes the song a lot. It is a good one.
I was thinking of telling an extremely tasteless joke about an advert on the radio, but I don't think I will. People expect certain standards from this blog.
Friday, August 04, 2006
My boomerang won't come back
The TV channel Boomerang is in its annoying "Scooby Summer" mode at the moment. This means that it quite literally shows nothing but Scooby Doo cartoons every single day from 6am to 9pm. I'm all in favour of a bit of Scooby every now and then (I even like Scrappy), but I can't imagine what makes them think people want to watch it constantly every single day. It's just plain silly. Hopefully they'll revert to normal again when it stops being summer.
There's also a free plastic boomerang with this week's Beano. I'd rather like to be able to throw a boomerang (in the sense of throwing the thing in such a way that it comes back, I mean), but I have a feeling that it would take a bit of practice, and practice of the kind that has to be done in wide open spaces. And I'm not self-confident enough to do that kind of thing somewhere where people can see me. So barring a trip to the Sahara desert or Antarctica, I suppose boomeranging is just not a skill I'm ever going to acquire. It's a darn shame, because imagine how cool it would be to be out in the park, nonchalently pick up a boomerang that someone's left lying around and throw it in a perfect curve. Then wander off while everyone goes ooh and aah and who was that handsome boomerangist?
There's also a free plastic boomerang with this week's Beano. I'd rather like to be able to throw a boomerang (in the sense of throwing the thing in such a way that it comes back, I mean), but I have a feeling that it would take a bit of practice, and practice of the kind that has to be done in wide open spaces. And I'm not self-confident enough to do that kind of thing somewhere where people can see me. So barring a trip to the Sahara desert or Antarctica, I suppose boomeranging is just not a skill I'm ever going to acquire. It's a darn shame, because imagine how cool it would be to be out in the park, nonchalently pick up a boomerang that someone's left lying around and throw it in a perfect curve. Then wander off while everyone goes ooh and aah and who was that handsome boomerangist?
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Rail Rage Redux
My train this morning was sitting in the middle of nowhere for twenty minutes because of a cow on the line. I really have nothing to add to that.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Rail rage
Remember me saying yesterday that I was going to go into work early today? Well, that was the plan, but then when it came to getting out of bed in the morning I decided to snooze for another five minutes and woke up just in time to get up, get dressed and dash down to the station to catch the 8:38. Only to get there and find it had been cancelled due to a technical fault. So I was half an hour late, and had to stay late tonight to get things done.
I really hate working late. I don't get paid extra for it, even if I manage to get in on time in the morning, it's just out of professional committment or possibly just not wanting to get told off for missing deadlines.
Enough work-talk. I've done too much of that lately. I still haven't written that 150-word memory for the Alzheimer's people. Having decided to write about my dad and his clown costume from the first Red Nose Day (he got on the school bus with me and demanded that everyone give him money), I find that I'm really struggling to put it into words. It's just because it's going up on the internet, with my name on it, with people to read, so I want it to be just right. And I know that that description also applies to this blog and I don't have a problem with writing this, but you know... it's different, somehow.
I really hate working late. I don't get paid extra for it, even if I manage to get in on time in the morning, it's just out of professional committment or possibly just not wanting to get told off for missing deadlines.
Enough work-talk. I've done too much of that lately. I still haven't written that 150-word memory for the Alzheimer's people. Having decided to write about my dad and his clown costume from the first Red Nose Day (he got on the school bus with me and demanded that everyone give him money), I find that I'm really struggling to put it into words. It's just because it's going up on the internet, with my name on it, with people to read, so I want it to be just right. And I know that that description also applies to this blog and I don't have a problem with writing this, but you know... it's different, somehow.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Butterscotch Angel Delight
Isn't nearly as nice as I remember it being. Once again nostalgia can't stand up to harsh reality.
I was going to write about something slightly more lengthy and interesting (well, maybe not interesting - an essay about why I love the hugely underappreciated cartoon character Sniffles - but certainly lengthy), but I think I'll go to bed instead. I need to be in work early tomorrow because some fool's scheduled a three-hour meeting of minimal use or interest to me in the middle of the day and I've got lots of real work to do. These things are sent to try us. And when I moan about something like this, the audience have to ask me whether I've written those books yet. Keep me on my toes, please.
I was going to write about something slightly more lengthy and interesting (well, maybe not interesting - an essay about why I love the hugely underappreciated cartoon character Sniffles - but certainly lengthy), but I think I'll go to bed instead. I need to be in work early tomorrow because some fool's scheduled a three-hour meeting of minimal use or interest to me in the middle of the day and I've got lots of real work to do. These things are sent to try us. And when I moan about something like this, the audience have to ask me whether I've written those books yet. Keep me on my toes, please.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Just for you, Mike
Seeing as Mike Carroll, who if I had a fan club would be not only the president but also the person who does the fiddly jobs of printing and stapling the newsletter and sending it out to everyone, is always on at me to get some more photos taken of myself and shown to the world, here's me and my brother drunkenly but passionately singing at his party last month.I'm still not going to get a camera - they're just too much hassle all round, and besides, I'm camera-shy. Except when it comes to VPS get-togethers, and those photos can stay restricted to VPS people, thank you very much. I don't think the world needs to see me in Lursa's dress.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Normal service
As I've mentioned before, I don't like posting on here while I've got my brother staying with me over the weekend. I don't know why exactly, since he reads this anyway, but that's just the way my mind works. Anyway, I haven't got anything too exciting to say, so I've probably spared you loyal readers a couple of days' worth of tedium by not forcing you to read me droning on about nothing in particular.
It's going to be all work and a strictly minimal amount of play for the next couple of weeks - not just work in the accountancy sense, although that's been a bit of a drag lately, but work on winning the WMC, which has luckily still been fun. But evenings and weekends of the next 14 days are hopefully going to be taken up by memorising cards and numbers, followed by a week's break before the competition. I'm definitely committed to winning it this year (and hopefully by a huge margin too, if I'm at my best and nobody else has got all that much better since last time).
As for the day job, I don't seem to have been firing on anything close to all cylinders for the last couple of weeks. There's been a load of stuff that I'm finding it impossible to get excited about, and I've just generally felt that I'd much rather be somewhere else. I think it's the time of year. Ever since 2002, my life has tended to start a new adventure of some kind in November, and it worries me that there's nothing on the horizon this time round. November 2002 was when I left my job at Adams, I started at Parkhouse in November 2003, in November 2004 I changed jobs and offices at Parkhouse and started working with a different set of people, and in November 2005 I started at Nord Anglia. But I am seriously thinking in terms of handing in my notice and wandering off into the wilderness again, and I need more people to tell me that that isn't a good idea at all, please. Because believe me, it isn't.
It's going to be all work and a strictly minimal amount of play for the next couple of weeks - not just work in the accountancy sense, although that's been a bit of a drag lately, but work on winning the WMC, which has luckily still been fun. But evenings and weekends of the next 14 days are hopefully going to be taken up by memorising cards and numbers, followed by a week's break before the competition. I'm definitely committed to winning it this year (and hopefully by a huge margin too, if I'm at my best and nobody else has got all that much better since last time).
As for the day job, I don't seem to have been firing on anything close to all cylinders for the last couple of weeks. There's been a load of stuff that I'm finding it impossible to get excited about, and I've just generally felt that I'd much rather be somewhere else. I think it's the time of year. Ever since 2002, my life has tended to start a new adventure of some kind in November, and it worries me that there's nothing on the horizon this time round. November 2002 was when I left my job at Adams, I started at Parkhouse in November 2003, in November 2004 I changed jobs and offices at Parkhouse and started working with a different set of people, and in November 2005 I started at Nord Anglia. But I am seriously thinking in terms of handing in my notice and wandering off into the wilderness again, and I need more people to tell me that that isn't a good idea at all, please. Because believe me, it isn't.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
I've broken my TV aerial
I don't use the thing, because I've got cable, but it sits on my telly to look decorative. Or at least it did until I knocked it on the floor and broke it. I suppose I could sellotape it together, but it wouldn't look as cool. Or would it? Maybe it would look cooler, actually. Yes, I will sellotape it. Forget I said anything.
I'm mentally writing a novel at the moment. It's been floating around my head in various little threads for years, but now the thing's coalescing into plots and paragraphs of purple prose. I think I'm going to have to write it down and see if anyone will publish it. I know I said I was going to write that stupid memory book, but you try telling my brain that. Maybe I'll write both. And then publish them, together with "Jayce and Alex" as a three-pack. It'd be different, anyway. I don't want to say what this novel's about in case someone steals or derides the idea (I'm very sensitive). But I think it's going to be pretty good.
I'm mentally writing a novel at the moment. It's been floating around my head in various little threads for years, but now the thing's coalescing into plots and paragraphs of purple prose. I think I'm going to have to write it down and see if anyone will publish it. I know I said I was going to write that stupid memory book, but you try telling my brain that. Maybe I'll write both. And then publish them, together with "Jayce and Alex" as a three-pack. It'd be different, anyway. I don't want to say what this novel's about in case someone steals or derides the idea (I'm very sensitive). But I think it's going to be pretty good.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Something I missed
It's now a year and five days since I started this blog. Not counting the false start in October 2004. Hooray!
I wrote to all the memory people I was meaning to write to (except one who I just realised I forgot, darn it), and put in a good bit of practice tonight. Did a pack of cards in 27.20, a new personal best - it was the kind of recall that took the full five minutes of hard thought and finished with a bit of guesswork, but they all count. I seem to do my best times when I haven't tried speed cards for a week or so, so I should be good for the world championship if I stick with the plan of doing a final mega training session on the weekend before. With my brother coming round this weekend, I've only got two more after that. Ooh, nerves building up. I'll admit I had a slightly anxiety-based dream about doing abstract images at the WMC last night. But a bit of nerves is good for you.
I wrote to all the memory people I was meaning to write to (except one who I just realised I forgot, darn it), and put in a good bit of practice tonight. Did a pack of cards in 27.20, a new personal best - it was the kind of recall that took the full five minutes of hard thought and finished with a bit of guesswork, but they all count. I seem to do my best times when I haven't tried speed cards for a week or so, so I should be good for the world championship if I stick with the plan of doing a final mega training session on the weekend before. With my brother coming round this weekend, I've only got two more after that. Ooh, nerves building up. I'll admit I had a slightly anxiety-based dream about doing abstract images at the WMC last night. But a bit of nerves is good for you.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Hi, fans
I have a huge pile of "fan mail" (by which I mean emails from people involved in memory competitions, who aren't actually fans of mine so much as rivals) to answer, and I was planning to go through it all tonight and get it out of my inbox. But in the end I decided to sit around doing nothing instead. I get like that sometimes. So if you're expecting an email from me, it'll be tomorrow, probably.
It's getting to be the silly season when everyone goes crazy about "memory sports". Well, the vast majority of the world's population still hasn't heard about it, but a few more people than usual realise that the World Memory Championship exists, and it maybe gets a mention in a couple of newspapers and things. This is the height of fame and fortune for us mnemonic types. I'm actually quite looking forward to it at the moment, and hoping I get the local paper tracking me down and interviewing me again. I'll get over it.
Also, I've blown a fuse, in the more literal than usual sense of the phrase. I need to get a new one and I have no idea where to get one from in Burton during my lunch break. But the current situation involves either having the kitchen plug sockets working, or the living room ones. And yes, I haven't got a real kitchen so the kitchen sockets are about six feet away from the living room ones, but it's still an inconvenience. Why can't this house have the kind of fuses I can deal with, that you put new wire in like my old place? I've never had to cope with these cylindrical things before.
It's getting to be the silly season when everyone goes crazy about "memory sports". Well, the vast majority of the world's population still hasn't heard about it, but a few more people than usual realise that the World Memory Championship exists, and it maybe gets a mention in a couple of newspapers and things. This is the height of fame and fortune for us mnemonic types. I'm actually quite looking forward to it at the moment, and hoping I get the local paper tracking me down and interviewing me again. I'll get over it.
Also, I've blown a fuse, in the more literal than usual sense of the phrase. I need to get a new one and I have no idea where to get one from in Burton during my lunch break. But the current situation involves either having the kitchen plug sockets working, or the living room ones. And yes, I haven't got a real kitchen so the kitchen sockets are about six feet away from the living room ones, but it's still an inconvenience. Why can't this house have the kind of fuses I can deal with, that you put new wire in like my old place? I've never had to cope with these cylindrical things before.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Hanging out with the impaler
I dreamt last night that my best friend was a man called Ethan, known to his friends as Vlad. He was a really nice guy, and it was kind of disappointing to wake up and remember that he doesn't exist. The dream didn't see fit to narrate how he acquired the unusual nickname, so we can only speculate. As to why my subconscious mind came up with the name in the first place, I can only assume it's because one of my neopets (the one I adopted and didn't name myself) is called 0_Vladimir_0, Vlad for short. And the name Ethan must be because I was thinking about the Transformers comic storyline featuring a character called Ethan Zachary recently, although why anyone would want to be friends with the man who killed Optimus Prime, I can't imagine.
Meanwhile, in the waking world, I'm trying to think of a memory. Any memory from my life will do, as long as it can be expressed in 150 words (so I can see this is going to be a problem for me, I can't say good morning without launching into a rambling three-volume epic). It's for the Alzheimer's Society Million Memories campaign, which will be launching in a couple of months with interviews and top tips on how to keep your memory sharp from some guy called Ben Pridmore. What, couldn't they find any real celebrities to do this kind of thing?
Anyway, my mind's a blank. So far they've got "Lynda Bellingham's special family Christmases; AA Gill's unforgettable trip to Paris; Richard Briers and his first home on a struggling actor's wage in 1960s; and Jo Brand's first and dangerous driving lesson", so I need something along those lines. But now I can't think of anything that's ever happened to me prior to sitting down and typing this latest paragraph.
Meanwhile, in the waking world, I'm trying to think of a memory. Any memory from my life will do, as long as it can be expressed in 150 words (so I can see this is going to be a problem for me, I can't say good morning without launching into a rambling three-volume epic). It's for the Alzheimer's Society Million Memories campaign, which will be launching in a couple of months with interviews and top tips on how to keep your memory sharp from some guy called Ben Pridmore. What, couldn't they find any real celebrities to do this kind of thing?
Anyway, my mind's a blank. So far they've got "Lynda Bellingham's special family Christmases; AA Gill's unforgettable trip to Paris; Richard Briers and his first home on a struggling actor's wage in 1960s; and Jo Brand's first and dangerous driving lesson", so I need something along those lines. But now I can't think of anything that's ever happened to me prior to sitting down and typing this latest paragraph.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Roundheads and Cavaliers
Since I haven't talked about comics for a while, I thought it would be fun to express my opinions of "Civil War", the epic storyline consuming Marvel comics at the moment. For the benefit of readers who aren't into American superhero comics, the two main publishers (Marvel and DC) have taken to doing this kind of mega-crossover to excess in the last couple of years. It has the effect of temporarily boosting sales when an individual issue of any superhero comic is part of a wider crossover, so the logic is that if they do it all the time, sales will go on getting higher forever. Last time they went down this road, the bubble burst in spectacular fashion and Marvel went bankrupt - the problem is that what people buy comics for in the long term is the characters and their ongoing storylines, and when they're being constantly derailed by a story being part 274 of an epic that expects you to pay hundreds of dollars to read the whole thing, it gets old pretty fast. On the other hand, Marvel nowadays have lots of money because their movies have been so successful, so that's not such a big deal now. And, more importantly, Civil War is actually really good. Unlike "House of M" last year, which was diabolical.
The idea is that a major tragedy caused by second-string superheroes the New Warriors, which kills hundreds of children in small-town America, sparks a huge public reaction and finally persuades the government to put through a law forcing people with superpowers to register with the authorities, get proper training and work under government supervision. Which is actually quite sensible, but it goes against the superhero tradition of anyone just being able to put on a mask and go out and fight crime. So all the world's superheroes pick a side and end up fighting each other. It's an interesting idea that hasn't been done before on this kind of scale. The individual heroes' storylines have mostly been well done, especially She-Hulk (which gives the New Warriors the kind of serious treatment they've been lacking for years now) and Thunderbolts (which is always great and seamlessly incorporates this storyline into its many ongoing plots). The only ones I haven't bought after reading them in the shops are Wolverine (which has atrocious art) and X-Factor (which gives a token acknowledgement to the Civil War background and carries on with its own impenetrable plots).
We automatically sympathise with the rebel anti-registration superheroes, but they're making an effort to give coverage to the other side too - Spider-Man, at least for the moment, is firmly pro-registration, even revealing his secret identity to the world, and in the latest Civil War issue Captain America and his rebels are decidedly out of line, starting a big fight when Iron Man and his join-the-government-team gang just want to talk. I'm enjoying the whole thing, and looking forward to seeing where it goes (although you just know that it'll end with the whole thing being swept under the carpet and the status quo restored, like they always do. Maybe with Spider-Man's wife written out somehow because the idiot in charge of Marvel doesn't like her).
DC are also doing an epic storyline in a rather different way at the moment - instead of crossing over into their regular comics, they're doing an additional weekly series called '52', on account of it runs for 52 weeks. I don't normally read DC, but I'm getting this because I think weekly comics should be encouraged - I hate waiting a month or more for the next issue. The gimmick here is that it's in real time - each issue covers a week in the life of the DC universe, while all their other comics have jumped ahead a year in the lives of their heroes. So in '52', we get to see a world where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are all missing, without it getting in the way of the other comics. We're eleven weeks into it now, and it's been very entertaining. Although the latest issue is focusing on the least compelling of the various interconnecting storylines, so it isn't as good.
If you want to get into the world of superhero comics, either of these is a good place to start. Try "Civil War" especially - see if your comic shop can get you all the comics so far, it's worth giving it a try.
The idea is that a major tragedy caused by second-string superheroes the New Warriors, which kills hundreds of children in small-town America, sparks a huge public reaction and finally persuades the government to put through a law forcing people with superpowers to register with the authorities, get proper training and work under government supervision. Which is actually quite sensible, but it goes against the superhero tradition of anyone just being able to put on a mask and go out and fight crime. So all the world's superheroes pick a side and end up fighting each other. It's an interesting idea that hasn't been done before on this kind of scale. The individual heroes' storylines have mostly been well done, especially She-Hulk (which gives the New Warriors the kind of serious treatment they've been lacking for years now) and Thunderbolts (which is always great and seamlessly incorporates this storyline into its many ongoing plots). The only ones I haven't bought after reading them in the shops are Wolverine (which has atrocious art) and X-Factor (which gives a token acknowledgement to the Civil War background and carries on with its own impenetrable plots).
We automatically sympathise with the rebel anti-registration superheroes, but they're making an effort to give coverage to the other side too - Spider-Man, at least for the moment, is firmly pro-registration, even revealing his secret identity to the world, and in the latest Civil War issue Captain America and his rebels are decidedly out of line, starting a big fight when Iron Man and his join-the-government-team gang just want to talk. I'm enjoying the whole thing, and looking forward to seeing where it goes (although you just know that it'll end with the whole thing being swept under the carpet and the status quo restored, like they always do. Maybe with Spider-Man's wife written out somehow because the idiot in charge of Marvel doesn't like her).
DC are also doing an epic storyline in a rather different way at the moment - instead of crossing over into their regular comics, they're doing an additional weekly series called '52', on account of it runs for 52 weeks. I don't normally read DC, but I'm getting this because I think weekly comics should be encouraged - I hate waiting a month or more for the next issue. The gimmick here is that it's in real time - each issue covers a week in the life of the DC universe, while all their other comics have jumped ahead a year in the lives of their heroes. So in '52', we get to see a world where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are all missing, without it getting in the way of the other comics. We're eleven weeks into it now, and it's been very entertaining. Although the latest issue is focusing on the least compelling of the various interconnecting storylines, so it isn't as good.
If you want to get into the world of superhero comics, either of these is a good place to start. Try "Civil War" especially - see if your comic shop can get you all the comics so far, it's worth giving it a try.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)