Krypton Force!

I thought this might be a good time to summarise all the Krypton Force releases of "Force Five" anime - see my previous blogs here and here for more details. There's practically nothing about them on the internet, people keep finding this blog by searching for related keywords, and I've acquired a couple more tapes since I wrote those, so let's put them all together in one post! Comments and additions are very very welcome!

The order in which the videos were released is unknown, there is no date on the inlays or tapes. The trailer seen on one of the Don Quixote videos lists the ones currently available at that time as "Videotoons 1-3, Sci-Bots 1-2 and Formators 1-6".

Judging by the packaging designs, the first ones produced were Sci-Bots 1 and 2 (the 'movie') and Formators 1 (the Gai-King movie/final episodes) - these are the only tapes with the series title at the top and the episode title separated by dots instead of spaces (and 'screenshots' on the back that are actually pictures cut out of Transformers books).

After that must have come Formators 2-6, and probably the rest of that series. Then I would imagine Sci-Bots followed (it uses the same hexagon design on the boxes), then the four Protectors and four Orion Quest tapes, and finally the sole Mission Promete, which has a slightly different design again.

Then, I'm thinking at the moment only in Australia, the same people continued a bit further - two more volumes each of Protectors and Orion Quest, and three more of Mission Promete. The internet is very short of pictures of these tapes, but there's good reason to believe they did exist Down Under.

The wonderful trailer that appeared on the Australian videos boasts that each series has 12-14 episodes "plus the movie" available, and then lists exactly twelve titles for each one. The lists omit some titles that were actually released ("Betrayal" from Sci-Bots and "Birds Of Prey" and "Omicron Ray" from Formators), and include several more that were never actually used.

All the tapes have a series title, episode title (at the top of the page), and sub-title (in a flash at the top-right corner of the picture). They're transcribed below, complete with spelling mistakes and missing apostrophes. The series title and episode title also appear onscreen, replacing the ones originally on the 'Force Five' cartoons. Illustrations are provided by the wonderful "Marc", an artist of limited ability who nonetheless proudly signs his work. The back-of-the-box blurb is transcribed in italics.

Sci-Bots

Alias "Spaceketeers" - the name used for the team in the dialogue of the actual episodes. Volumes 1 and 2 are the 'movie' compilation of the series. The rest of the volumes are individual episodes - two episodes on each tape, usually but not always consecutive ones, edited clumsily together into one uninterrupted super-episode. The volume numbers bear no relation to the order of episodes.

Unlike the other Force Five series, Spaceketeers/Starzinger had long continuing story arcs rather than one-off stories. It was a late addition to the Force Five lineup, apparently, when Jim Terry was unable to get the rights to yet another giant-robot cartoon, so he chose 26 of the 64 (or 73 if you count the brief "sequel") episodes of Starzinger to fit the necessary length of his series.

The Krypton Force tapes were also released in Germany, dubbed into German but with the Krypton Force titles and Marc's artwork still intact. These can be seen on YouTube, as can translations of Starzinger into Italian, Swedish, Finnish and probably every other non-English language in the universe. If you're lucky enough to own a complete collection of Krypton Force, this is the order to watch them:

Vol 12 (Crystal & The Space Bees) - nearly at the beginning of the series
Vol 11 (Star Point Tantar) - carrying on
Vol 10 (Snark & The Diamonds) - early adventures
Vol 4 (Betrayal), first half - first appearance of Tryax Khan
Vol 9 (Surrender By Force) - the fight against Tryax
Vol 8 (Evil Catyla) - filler stories between Tryax and Dector arcs
Vol 7 (Zalo) - more of the same
Vol 6 (Love And Treasure) - Tryax returns, with Dector
Vol 3 (Battle Of The Flame Dragon) - Tryax Khan and Dector
Vol 13 (Dector the Betrayer) - Dector and Tryax up to no good again
Vol 5 (Death Valley) - end of the Dector story and start of Queen Marla
Vol 4 (Betrayal), second half - Queen Marla again

It looks like they released random episodes in volumes three and four, then worked backwards through the pile of episodes for subsequent volumes, finally noticing with volume 13 that they'd left a chunk out. Spaceketeers also included the first four Starzinger episodes, which don't seem to have ended up released by Krypton Force (as far as I know).

Sci-Bots 1
Conflict
The Mutants Lightning Strike

The "screenshots" on the back of the box are cut out of a Ladybird Transformers book. Marc's drawing on the front is really quite atmospheric, although the posing is a bit awkward.

First half of the 'movie' compilation - heavily edited highlights of the Starzinger series, dubbed into English by the same people who made the regular 'Spaceketeers' series but with different scripts and voice acting.

Once, long ago, there was a planet called 'Auron' placed in a far corner of our Galaxy. This planet was attacked and destroyed by the forces of two evil mutants, Dector and Tri-Ax-Con. The sole survivor of the devastation, Princess Aurora fled to Earth to gain help for the coming conflict erupting from planet Decos and so begins the battles of the Sci-Bots

The phrase 'Sci-Bots' was invented by Krypton Force, like all their Transformers-like titles. It's not used in the dialogue of the cartoon itself.

Sci-Bots 2
Strike Back
Sci-Bots Fight On

More Transformers on the back. I suspect that when they made these first three tapes, Krypton Force didn't have the technology to get actual screenshots. That doesn't really excuse their using other more popular companies' copyrighted material, though. There's no visible 'Marc' signature on the cover of this one - I think his original artwork was larger, and was cropped to fit the frame of the Krypton Force boxes.

Second half of the 'movie' compilation. Seven 25-minute episodes cut down into 45 minutes!

The Sci-Bots along with Princess Aurora, corner Tri-Ax-Con during the black hole battle. With the aid of Dector Tri-Ax-Con escapes losing his treasures captured from the colonials. Yet again, the Sci-Bots embark on another campaign to rid our Galaxy of the evil mutants.

Actually, the way this 'movie' is presented, it's all one big campaign. The movie ends with the defeat of Dector, and thus has some kind of ending, although that wasn't the end of the Starzinger series, nor indeed of the American "Spaceketeers" translation, which went on a bit further and then stopped abruptly, leaving the story unresolved.

Sci-Bots 3
Battle Of The Flame Dragon
Web Of Defeat

The cover, signed by Marc, has an extremely well-drawn representation of a flame dragon. The rest of the pictures are not particularly misshapen, either!

There are variant covers of this and the next two volumes - some that say "Sci-Bots 3", "Sci-Bots 4", "Sci-Bots 5" at the bottom, and others that just say "Sci-Bots". I've never heard of any copy of volume 6 or later that had a number, so that must be the point where they gave up on that tiny bit of extra effort. All volume numbers appear on-screen, though.

1) Starzinger episode 27 - "Kin Kin Attacks Again"
aka Spaceketeers episode 20 - "Menace Of The Fire Dragons"
2) Starzinger episode 28 - "The Death Of Queen Cosmos"
aka Spaceketeers episode 21 - "Stitch In Time And Space"

Princess Aurora, with the help of her protectors the Sci-Bots, continues to fight against Tryax Khan and the evil Dector.
The Sci-Bots become trapped in an electric web and the princess risks her life against the evil mutants to save them.

Continues from the cliffhanger ending of volume 6. There are numerous flame dragons involved in the battle, which makes the singular title a little odd. The phrase "flame dragon" is never used in the episode itself, by the way, although I know I've used it to exhaustion in this brief review.

Sci-Bots [Vol 4]
Betrayal
Mutant Deceit

There's no visible 'Marc' signature on the cover, but it's very much his style.

1) Starzinger episode 13 - "The Split Planet"
aka Spaceketeers episode 11 - "Enter Tryax Khan"
2) Starzinger episode 34 - "Cursed Forest Of Glass"
aka Spaceketeers episode 26 - "The Mirror Cracks"

Whilst travelling through another solar system the Sci-Bots come across a strange planet where they find the evil Tryax Khan has been at work causing the inhabitants to fight one another. Once again our heroes try to deal with the mutant's wrong doings.

The first half of this tape ends on a cliffhanger, with Jesse Dart confronting Tryax Khan for the first time (the Force Five version edits out a subsequent bit of fighting, so this cliffhanger isn't the same as the cliffhanger on the original Starzinger series), but if you want to see how it's resolved, you need to stop this tape half-way through and put volume 9 in the machine, because the second half of this one jumps immediately to a much later episode, without so much as a pause.

Sci-Bots [Vol 5]
Death Valley
Flight

The big figure in the background is a cut-out of The Beyonder from Marvel Comics' Secret Wars II. The gun, and the hand holding it, are from a Transformers comic.

1) Starzinger episode 31 - "The Revolution Of Lephan"
aka Spaceketeers episode 24 - "Truth About Solda"
2) Starzinger episode 33 - "Devil Of Space"
aka Spaceketeers episode 25 - "The Sayleen Solution"

Dr Schnitzel leaves his laboratory to try and rescue Princess Aurora and her protectors the Sci-Bots when their ship crashes into Death Valley.

Sci-Bots [Vol 6]
Love And Treasure
End Game

The hand is, again, cut from a Transformers comic. Marc really didn't like to draw hands.

1) Starzinger episode 25 - "The Bright Planet"
aka Spaceketeers episode 18 - "A Rose Is A Rose"
2) Starzinger episode 26 - "A Terrible Battle"
aka Spaceketeers episode 19 - "Treasure Of Tryax Khan"

The Sci-Bots battle on against Tryax Khan.
Porkos falls in love with Khan's lady and decides to leave the mission while the evil mutant loses his treasure and the Sci-Bots think they've lost Jesse.

Featuring Tryax's return from the black hole he fell into at the end of volume 9. Also featuring Porkos deciding to abandon the mission because he's met a woman who's as attractive as Princess Aurora and also cooks good food and has a lot of treasure.

Sci-Bots [Vol 7]
Zalo
Iced

1) Starzinger episode 19 - "Bye-Bye Captain"
aka Spaceketeers episode 16 - "Heart Of Ice"
2) Starzinger episode 24 - "One Of Two Is A Liar"
aka Spaceketeers episode 17 - "Truth And Consequences"

The Sci-Bots' mission continues but is nearly destroyed when Aramos finds his old friends frozen by a creature called Zalo.
Princess Aurora is on the Cosmos Queen alone when a young boy hijacks it in an attempt to escape from the Racoomoids.

A review of this tape can be found here.

Sci-Bots [Vol 8]
Evil Catyla
Hated Reflection

1) Starzinger episode 17 - "A Shadow In The Water"
aka Spaceketeers episode 14 - "Eye Of The Beholder"
2) Starzinger episode 18 - "Hot Wave"
aka Spaceketeers episode 15 - "Sacrifice To Rorka"

The Princess Aurora is captured by Catyla who hates Aurora's beauty and plans to make her ugly, but Porkos comes to the rescue and is the hero of the day.

Includes the wonderful line "Our planet is floundering under the dominion of a giant fish that grew in the sea!"

Sci-Bots [Vol 9]
Surrender By Force
No Surrender No Return

1) Starzinger episode 14 - "The Fort Planet"
aka Spaceketeers episode 12 - "Reluctant Enemies"
2) Starzinger episode 15 - "The Dark Point"
aka Spaceketeers episode 13 - "Too Much Monkey Business"

The Sci-Bots continue their battle against Tryax Khan, but when he captures Princess Aurora they are forced to surrender to save her life.

Sci-Bots [Vol 10]
Snark & The Diamonds
Carbon Coma

1) Starzinger episode 11 - "Doctor Mud"
aka Spaceketeers episode 9 - "Dr Snark's Chance"
2) Starzinger episode 12 - "Don't Die, Princess!"
aka Spaceketeers episode 10 - "The Galactic Diamond"

The evil Dr Snork raids the Laboratory as a decoy so he can capture Princess Aurora.
The Princess goes into a coma and the Sci-Bots must get the Ajax Diamond away from General Siluri to save her, but they are 10 minutes too late.

Dr Snark is animated in the most ridiculous comic-relief way, but his voice actor delivers his lines in the most deadly serious evil-villain voice. It's a strange combination, especially in a series where almost everyone else has a silly squeaky voice or some other weird vocal tic.

Sci-Bots [Vol 11]
Star Point Tantar
Flap Point

Those floating eyes on the cover freak me right out. There are floating space eyes like that in the cartoon, too, and I'm surprised that Marc has somehow reproduced them so accurately. He normally steals his backgrounds from other sources. And what, exactly, does "Flap Point" mean?

1) Starzinger episode 7 - "The Bravery Of Haka"
aka Spaceketeers episode 7 - "The Panther Bat"
2) Starzinger episode 8 - "The Nightmare Of Energy"
aka Spaceketeers episode 8 - "All For One And None For All"

The Sci-Bots are drawn to the Star Tantar but the Panther Bat tries to stop them from continuing their mission.
Porkos and Jesse are hypnotised and turn against each other leaving Aramos to defend the Princess from the Spidermoids.

Sci-Bots [Vol 12]
Crystal & the Space Bees
A Forgotten Warrior

1) Starzinger episode 5 - "Friendship Is The Strongest"
aka Spaceketeers episode 5 - "The Crystal Palace"
2) Starzinger episode 6 - "The Astrobat"
aka Spaceketeers episode 6 - "Swarm Of Space Bees"

The first episode involves crystals, and the second involves space bees. But wouldn't "Crystal and the Space Bees" be an awesome name for a pop group?

The Sci-Bots are drawn to a crystal palace where an evil mutant kidnaps the Princess Aurora and our heroes come to her rescue.
Jesse's Astrobat saves the day when their ship is later attacked by the Space Apaches.

Sci-Bots tapes seem to become more scarce as the volume numbers get higher - perhaps Krypton Force overestimated the appeal when they first started churning them out.

Sci-Bots [Vol 13]
Dector the Betrayer
Tri-Wars

1) Starzinger episode 29 - "Fort Goldstar"
aka Spaceketeers episode 22 - "An Enemy Betrayed"
2) Starzinger episode 30 - "The Three Brothers"
aka Spaceketeers episode 23 - "The Three Brothers"

The Princess Aurora befriends her enemy Captain Solda and reveals that Dector has betrayed him, but Dector destroys Solda and the Sci-Bots find themselves fighting the three brothers avenging his death.

These episodes fill the gap between volumes 3 and 5. I mean, naturally, that's where you'd expect to find volume 13, isn't it? There is a wonderful attempt to make the story more palatable to children by changing the 'Tryax kills the three brothers' father' plotline to 'Tryax pretends to kill the three brothers' father' - which makes the whole episode really not make any sense.

The Formators

The first 'Formators' tape is the end of the GaiKing series, which was otherwise packaged as 'Protectors'; the subsequent Formators tapes are Starvengers episodes. Krypton Force seem to have chosen Starvengers as their first foray into distributing an entire Force Five series - I don't know why, I think GaiKing is much better, but perhaps they just grabbed the first tapes that came to hand. On the other hand, maybe it's because Starvengers has the highest number of giant humanoid robots.

Starvengers is the American translation of Getter Robo G, which was a sequel to the original Getter Robo series. In accordance with their usual practice, Krypton Force black out the "Starvengers" title and replace it with their own really awful computer-generated "Formators" title. There were 39 episodes of the original Japanese series, once again Force Five only used 26, and only 18 of those seem to have found their way to Krypton Force.

The Formators
Attack Of The Xelans
Dragon Slayers Are Go!

Transformers again on the back cover, masquerading as screenshots. And the front cover, proudly signed by Marc as if it's his own work, is dominated by another cut-out.

1) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 26 - "Pegasus In Outer Space"
aka Gaiking episode 18 - "An Android With A Heart"
2) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episodes 43 & 44 - "A Phantom Castle On Mars" & "Go! The Last Great Battle For Earth"
aka Gaiking episodes 25 & 26 - "The End of Zela" & "The Battle For Earth"

The Heroic Warriors, The Formators, guardians of the Earth's defences, come under attack from the evil Xelans who have formed an attack base on planet Mars. The Formators fight against their enemies with the aid of Pala, Pegusus and Space Dragon.

It should really say 'Pegasus' there, it's a flying horse.

The second half of this is a compilation of the final two episodes, cut down to just over half the original length.

The Formators Vol 2
The New Starvenger
Attack Force Posiden Begins

The central figure here is another Transformer - Marc's contribution to the artwork was drawing a different head on it and adding a single other giant head in the sky. On the other hand, the back cover now contains two genuine screenshots! They're not screenshots of the episodes on this tape, they come from episode 3, but they're a step in the right direction...

1) Getter Robo G episode 1 - "Revive, Getter Robo!"
aka Starvengers episode 1 - "Who'll Fly Poseidon?"
2) Getter Robo G episode 2 - "Mystery of the Fearsome 100 Demon Empire"
aka Starvengers episode 2 - "Dragon Formation ... Switch ON!"

The Formators, heroic warriors who guard the Earth's defences are under attack from a new enemy 'The Pandemonium Empire'.
With the aid of their new ultra robots, Star Posiden, Star Erin and Star Dragon, they battle with the evil Pandemoniums to protect the Earth.

That makes it sound like these Formators are the same ones as in volume 1. They aren't. And this and the next volume both refer to the Star Arrow robot as 'Star Erin', and misspell 'Poseidon'.

On screen, the Krypton Force title calls it "Formators volume 2: the story continues", but this is the first episode of Getter Robo G. It starts with extensive references to the plot of Getter Robo, which must have been confusing for people who bought this expecting a sequel to the GaiKing episodes in the first volume.

The Formators Vol 3
The Havoc Symbol
Star Force Erin Is Go

The front cover illustration was clearly far too big to fit in the space available. Part of it is obscured by the subtitle flash, and there's just the top of Captain Fuehrer's head visible at the bottom.

1) Getter Robo G episode 3 - "An Insidious Trap! The Flying Fleet"
aka Starvengers episode 3 - "Sky Tankers Away!"
2) Getter Robo G episode 4 - "Benkei! Victory Of Tears"
aka Starvengers episode 4 - "Tip Gets The Needle"

The heroic warriors, The Formators, once again find their enemy 'The Pandemonium Empire' trying to destroy the Earth's defences.
Will Star Posiden, Star Erin and Star Dragon, be able to stand up to the Pandemoniums' deadly Robots Anorro and Silver Hair...?

I'm quite impressed that they got the apostrophe on "Pandemoniums'" correct, considering the rather random allocation of capital letters and commas in these blurbs.

On the tape this time, instead of a black screen, the "Force Five" and "Starvengers" titles are replaced by the picture from the cover of Formators volume 1 - a Quintesson cut from a Transformers book, and a bad guy from GaiKing - overlaid with the "Formators" name in BBC-computer-generated text.

The Formators Vol 4
Star Energizers
Fate Of The Star Energizer

The back cover, strangely, uses the cover of volume 2 as one of the "screenshots". Marc's rendition of Star Arrow on the front cover seems to have a moustache, for some reason.

1) Getter Robo G episode 6 - "The Dream Shredding Hyakki Empire"
aka Starvengers episode 6 - "The Star Energiser's Gone!"
2) Getter Robo G episode 9 - "SOS! Getter Robo, Please Respond!"
aka Starvengers episode 7 - "A Deserted Laboratory"

The Pandemoniums are back trying new tactics to capture the Earth and destroy the heroic warriors, The Formators.
When the Star Energizer, vital to The Formators for strength, is stolen, The Formators must get it back or it will be the end of the Earth as we know it.

The American adaptations usually chop out the most violent or non-kid-friendly moments from the Japanese originals - Peter's death on the first episode of this tape, for example. His absence in the final scene is explained by some awkward-sounding changed dialogue.

The Formators Vol 5
Earths Defence
Captain Fureher The Evil

The spelling should really be 'Fuehrer', and there should also be an apostrophe in 'Earth's'. And after two Transformers-free covers, Marc cuts out some more pictures, this time from the comic rather than the Ladybird books (perhaps he'd already cut his entire collection to pieces and had to find new material). The image at the bottom-right comes from the cover of the comic dated 24 October 1987, which gives us a helpful clue as to when these tapes were created.

1) Getter Robo G episode 10 - "Attacking the Demon Island!"
aka Starvengers episode 8 - "The Island Fortress"
2) Getter Robo G episode 11 - "The Hyakki Empire! The Road to the General"
aka Starvengers episode 9 - "Honor Redeemed"

The Pandemonium Empire begin evil operations out of a well fortified base in the Pacific Ocean. From here they plan to steal the Star Energizer which is the main source of power for The Formators. Yet again the evil Captain Fureher attempts total annihilation over our heroic warriors.

It's interesting to note that the blurbs steadfastly avoid mentioning that the robots in this series are vehicles piloted by humans, as opposed to the sentient robots who starred in Transformers.

The Formators Vol 6
Joey & The Pup
Fate Of The War Dogs

Another cover where Marc doesn't take those stars and triangles into account. His signature is also obscured somewhere - he must have been disappointed.

1) Getter Robo G episode 17 - "Koro, Bark For Tomorrow"
aka Starvengers episode 11 - "Joey Finds A Friend"
2) Getter Robo G episode 22 - "Jumbo Jet Disappears On The Ocean Floor"
aka Starvengers episode 15 - "Free Trip To Danger"

Joey finds a puppy who seems to be a perfect playmate. However, the pup is under the Pandemoniums spell and with the help of other dogs they attack The Formators headquarters.
The enemy use more android dogs to capture the computer tapes which control the Star Energizer. Unable to function The Formators find themselves under a deadly attack.

It doesn't get more 1970s-Japanese than giving a dog-themed episode the title "Bark For Tomorrow".

The Formators Vol 7
Birds Of Prey
Wipeout

Thanks to blog-reader Deano for sending me a scan of this one before I finally found my own copy!
Note that from this volume onwards, the middle screenshot picture is uppermost (pasted on last) - on previous volumes it was the one on the right.

1) Getter Robo G episode 13 - "Bat Bombs Crisis!"
aka Starvengers episode 10 - "Tip's Falcon"
2) Getter Robo G episode 37 - "Approaching Crisis In Japanese Waters?"
aka Starvengers episode 24 - "The Mother Quail's Strategy"

Tip is training a falcon who warns The Formators, guardians of the Earth's Defences, that a colony of bats have invaded the launch tubes at the laboratory.
Their evil enemies the Pandemonium Empire attack the large capital cities of the world and The Formators must fight back.

The Formators Vol 8
Omicron Ray
Night Raiders

1) Getter Robo G episode 23 - "Moonlight Dancing Clown"
aka Starvengers episode 16 - "Send Out The Clowns"
2) Getter Robo G episode 24 - "Boy Screaming Into The Sea!"
aka Starvengers episode 17 - "A Boy Crying To The Sea"

Joey gets a free pass to the circus, so The Formators, guardians of the Earth's Defences, take time off to go with him. Meanwhile back at the laboratory a Pandemonium agent steals the designs for the Omicron Ray Amplifier and the Star Energizer.

If all the references to the Star Energizer are getting a bit repetitive, well, that really is what happens in every episode, I'm afraid.

Volume 8 has the episode immediately following the last one on volume 6 - it even starts with a reprise of the end of that episode. Volume 7 features the second-from last story - for some reason, Krypton Force never released the two-part grand finale.

The Formators Vol 9
Star Fire
Galactic Energy

1) Getter Robo G episode 20 - "Major Battle! Mecha Fortress"
aka Starvengers episode 13 - "Star Fire part 1"
2) Getter Robo G episode 21 - "Final Battle! Shinespark"
aka Starvengers episode 14 - "Star Fire part 2"

The Pandemoniums bomb the Capernicus laboratory and their super battle robots defeat The Formators.
With the laboratory apparently destroyed the Pandemonium Empire plan to become rulers of the Earth but they haven't reckoned on The Formators new weapon STAR FIRE.

"Copernicus" is spelt wrong on the back cover. This two-part episode actually comes between the two episodes on volume 6. Unlike Sci-Bots there's no real story progression from one episode to the next, so it doesn't really matter, but this episode introduces the new secret weapon that also shows up in volumes 7 and 8.

The Formators Vol 10
Fear Of Imagination
Enter The Evil

Everyone looks a bit cross-eyed and deranged on the cover of this one, don't they?

1) Getter Robo G episode 32 - "What's Up With That Healthy Girl?"
aka Starvengers episode 20 - "A Girl Named Maria"
2) Getter Robo G episode 34 - "Showdown! Hyakki Three Brothers"
aka Starvengers episode 21 - "Triple Play"

Joey makes a new friend and helps her overcome her fear of the Pandemonium Empire, but a visiting baseball player causes problems for our heroes The Formators.

These are the two most unintentionally hilarious episodes in the whole series. The first episode features a small girl who has a screaming fit if anyone "gives her anything shiny or round" and the second involves a tough baseball player who makes friends with one of the heroes in an extremely macho way, following which the two of them go to bed together.

Also, the second episode of this one starts with a reprise of the ending of the episode that was supposed to come in between the two on this tape, which makes it look really strange when the two are edited together into one continuous cartoon in the Krypton Force style.

The Formators unused titles (from Australian trailer)
Center Battle
Silent Warrior
Plutonium Incident
Mecha-Satan

The Protectors

We now return to GaiKing, and Krypton Force seem to have run out of titles that sound a bit like 'Transformers' by this point. I wish they'd used a less generic name, though, because it makes this series harder than the others to search for on the internet.

The Japanese version of GaiKing ran to 44 episodes, but as usual the Force Five release was only 26 of them. Krypton Force might have intended to put out all 26, but for whatever reason they only produced four "Protectors" tapes - plus of course "Formators volume 1", as we saw earlier. There seem to have been two further volumes released in Australia, but as I mentioned above, evidence for them is very slim...

The Protectors Vol 1
Vital Element
Enter The Dragon

A very distorted GaiKing robot on the front cover by Marc.

1) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 1 - "Mysterious Black Holes"
aka Gaiking episode 1 - "Aries Joins The Team"
2) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 2 - "A Necessary Fight"
aka Gaiking episode 2 - "Right Down The Middle"

The Protectors battle against the evil Darius and his Black Horror Corps, but something vital is missing. Aries, a baseball player is recruited to The Protectors team and it seems HE was the vital element, but their troubles are not over yet.

The blurb fails to mention that this is the first episode of the series. Okay, it's labelled as 'volume 1', but that doesn't usually mean anything with Krypton Force.

A review of this tape can be found here.

The Protectors Vol 2
Yongard The Terrible
Sagiterror Attack

Wow, everyone's had their heads chopped off!

1) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 15 - "Miracle Drill!"
aka Gaiking episode 11 - "The Coach Comes Back"
2) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 17 - "Nesser's Big Underwater Challenge"
aka Gaiking episode 12 - "The Threat From Beneath The Sea"

The Protectors are under attack from the evil Yongard piloting his new Sagiterror Robot. Later both an American and Russian fleet mysteriously disappear and The Protectors must attempt to stop the start of World War III.

"Our enemy has applied the reverse space cross technique to some sort of space bazooka!"
"Aries, this time let's try the new Miracle Drill!"

The Protectors Vol 3
The Great Swamp
Flying High

1) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 30 - "A Dinosaur in the Jungle"
aka Gaiking episode 19 - "The Last Dinosaur"
2) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 32 - "The Ghost Ship Which Came From Space"
aka Gaiking episode 20 - "The Flying Dutchman"

The Protectors of Earth go in search of a dinosaur said to be hiding in the Great Swamp of Mexico.
Before returning to base they take a holiday in Hawaii where Bobby has trouble with the myth of the Flying Dutchman.

The Protectors Vol 4
Moon Plane
Zap Speed

The middle screenshot on the back cover is upside-down. It's a picture of Darius, who has a mouth in his forehead, and whoever was pasting the screenshots onto the background clearly didn't realise this.

1) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 23 - "Infernal Moon"
aka Gaiking episode 15 - "Encounter on the Moon"
2) Daiku Maryu Gaiking episode 24 - "The Gods of Easter Island"
aka Gaiking episode 16 - "Guardians of Easter Island"

Aries gets into trouble on the Moon. Could the discovery of iron ore save him?
After a plane is shot down and people are attacked by giant statues, The Protectors rush to investigate.

The first episode on this tape is the second part of a two-parter. I don't know what logic Krypton Force used when they were choosing which episodes to release...

The Protectors Vol 5
The Oriental Empress
[unknown]

Australia only, as far as I know.

The Protectors Vol 6
Mysteries
[unknown]

Australia only, as far as I know.

The Protectors unused titles (from Australian trailer)
Unexpected Action
Sahara Devils
Sabotage
Archaeological Adventures
Kaicord & the Kingdom
The Battle for Peace

Orion Quest

Flying saucer fun with Grandizer! Not my favourite of the Force Five series, but it's interesting that Krypton Force finally chose a title relevant to the series - he actually is called Orion Quest.

This was the longest of the five original Japanese series - 74 episodes in length. The Force Five translation only got as far as episode 37 (skipping eleven along the way to make the usual total of 26), and Krypton Force seem to have just presented us with the first eight (in Britain, anyway), in four very rarely spotted tapes.

Orion Quest [Vol 1]
Triple Triangle
Ranch Attack

None of the Orion Quest boxes has a volume number, but they are shown onscreen and written on the labels on the tapes themselves. The cover design changes with this one - the words 'Orion Quest' obscure another big chunk of Marc's artwork (if indeed it is Marc doing the drawings, because his name doesn't appear on any of these).

1) UFO Robot Grendizer episode 4 - "The Island Of Fear"
aka Grandizer episode 3 - "The Southern Cross"
2) UFO Robot Grendizer episode 5 - "The Pitfall Of Death"
aka Grandizer episode 4 - "General Ding"

Orion Quest, a refugee from another planet, is under cover at the Triple Triangle Ranch. The evil Vegans, his deadly enemies, attack the ranch whilst searching for Orion and his amazing robot Grandizer. Lance, a UFO investigator, enters a plane competition and is also attacked by Vegan saucers.

This may be 'volume 1', but it doesn't contain the first episode of the series. First-time viewers have quite a tough task on their hands working out who is who.

Orion Quest [Vol 2]
Vega
Trapped

1) UFO Robot Grendizer episode 7 - "The Feast of the Wolves"
aka Grandizer episode 5 - "No Honor Among Thieves"
2) UFO Robot Grendizer episode 8 - "The Radars Are Off"
aka Grandizer episode 6 - "Blinded By The Fog"

The Strongs bodyguard takes command of the so-far inefficient Vegans who are trying to destroy super alien, Orion Quest. An unknown gas is released into the stratosphere and whilst Lance is investigating he makes a strange sighting out in space, before he is able to tell anyone, Orion is off in his robot Grandizer... and into a trap.

Orion Quest [Vol 3]
Red Moon
Blown Cover

Thanks to blog-reader Gilby for pointing me to the eBay auction that completed my collection!

1) UFO Robot Grendizer episode 1 - "Brothers Of The Universe"
aka Grandizer episode 1 - "Robot Back To Action"
2) UFO Robot Grendizer episode 2 - "Prince Of The Other World"
aka Grandizer episode 2 - "Beware The Red Moon"

Lance, a UFO investigator, arrives at Professor Valconians Institute and is full of himself, but he soon finds out he needs super alien Orion Quest's help against the evil Vegans. When orders are given to attack Earth, Lance finds out Johnny's true identity.

Orion Quest videos are much harder to find than the other series (except for the super-rare Mission Promete, of course). They were probably the last one that Krypton Force turned their attention to, and made in smaller quantities.

Orion Quest [Vol 4]
The Youngest Eclipse
Spy

"The Youngest Eclipse"? One of the episodes on this tape involves a young boy, the other involves an eclipse. Note the Grandizer episode titles below.

1) UFO Robot Grendizer episode 10 - "Vega's Spy"
aka Grandizer episode 7 - "The Youngest Spy"
2) UFO Robot Grendizer episode 11 - "The Day When The Sun Will Stop"
aka Grandizer episode 8 - "A Vegan Eclipse"

Peter, a young boy, starts telling everyone fantastic stories about riding in an alien flying saucer, but is he really a spy? The Evil Vegans discover a way to use the Solar Eclipse as a means to get rid of Orion's super-robot Grandizer, but will they succeed?

Orion Quest [Vol 5]
Light Energy
[unknown]

Australia only, as far as I know.

Orion Quest [Vol 6]
Meteor Blizzard
[unknown]

Australia only, as far as I know.

Orion Quest unused titles (from Australian trailer)
The Gravity
Life Battle
Radient Rock
The Mirage
Wolfman
Noble Stand

Mission Promete

Danguard Ace - This isn't even on the BBFC website, I have no evidence that it was released in Britain other than that I own it.

It's a series with a slow start, the giant robot hasn't even been built by the time we get to the end of the two episodes on this tape. Jim Terry obviously thought so too - of the 56 episodes in the original Japanese series, the Force Five incarnation cut out a much higher proportion of early episodes than in the other four. However, like Spaceketeers and Grandizer, Force Five also didn't show the final episodes, so the American series has no real ending. Still, 26 episodes is better than the two that Krypton Force presented us with...

Mission Promete
The Mask
[no sub-title]

There is no volume number either on the packaging or on-screen. The number-stickers on the spine and the 4 on the back were stuck on the cardboard box by the previous owner, for some reason. Unlike every other Krypton Force release, this tape comes in a cardboard sleeve, and lacks the characteristic corner-flash with meaningless subtitle. The cover is classic Marc, though it isn't signed.

1) Wakusei Robo Danguard Ace episode 2 - "The Masked Man: Captain Dan"
aka Danguard Ace episode 1 - "Enter Captain Mask"
2) Wakusei Robo Danguard Ace episode 3 - "The Crimson Sunset Vow"
aka Danguard Ace episode 2 - "Down From Mach 2"

A masked man escapes from the evil Krel's slave station.
He manages to get to Earth & find the World Space Institute.
He says he has no memory of his past life & this must be proved.
Captain Mask soon becomes pilot instructor for the DANGUARD ACE (an amazing robot ship)

Mission Promete [vol 2]
Grounded
[no sub-title]

Australia only, as far as I know.

Mission Promete [vol 3]
Blackstar
[no sub-title]

Australia only, as far as I know. This one does have a volume number on screen and on the tape label. To read the 'comic' on the back cover in the right order, it looks like you need to start in the top-right and go anti-clockwise. Perhaps that's how they read comics in Australia.

1) Wakusei Robo Danguard Ace episode 11 - "A Father's Mask of Shadows Disappears Into Space"
aka Danguard Ace episode 5 - "Captain Mask Remembers"
2) Wakusei Robo Danguard Ace episode 12 - "Shine! Danguard Ace!"
aka Danguard Ace episode 6 - "Mission One Remembered"

He regains his memory and realises he is Captain Blackstar.
An explosion losens the Captains mask.
Then he remembers how the mutants made him a masked slave.
Meanwhile Krel's forces deliver their next attack.

If volumes one and three have episodes 1-2 and 5-6 respectively, maybe volumes 2 and 4 followed the same logical order. But knowing Krypton Force, they probably didn't.

Mission Promete [vol 4]
Probe
[no sub-title]

Australia only, as far as I know.

Mission Promete unused titles (from Australian trailer)
Attack
Sky Arrow
Saterlizer
Hawken
The Trap
The Octon
Instinct
Nebula

She asks me why, I'm just a hairy guy

What do Wayne Rooney, Jimmy White, Elton John and John Cleese have in common? They've all never been the undisputed world's best in their chosen profession, that's what. And they've all had hair transplants. I'm just saying.

What's wrong with being bald? It should be something to be proud of! It makes you look cool! It's amazing how many fashion-conscious people have suggested I should disguise my baldness in some way, like by shaving the rest of my head so that people assume I could grow a full head of hair if I wanted to, but I've just chosen to be stylishly hairless.

Incidentally, my contempt for things like hair transplants extends to cosmetics of all kinds, and also any kind of shaving. Men or women. This is probably why I have so few friends.

Other blogworthy items

On the way to the Sheffield Regional othello tournament today, I saw five magpies all sitting around together in a field from the train window, and thought "Ooh, five for silver! No, wait, that means I'll win the metaphorical silver medal and come second in the tournament. That's not good. Quick, I need to see another magpie!"

And I didn't see another one, and I did come second. Drat those magpies. But congratulations to Iain, who's probably innocent of controlling my fate by means of magpies.

Also, Friends is on E4 after nine o'clock tonight, so they're showing the unedited versions with references to pornography and masturbation intact! This is a good move, because when E4 finally stop showing two or three episodes a day, every day, I'll have to buy the DVDs and be horrified by the rudeness! So this is easing the viewing audience into it gently, obviously part of another master plan devised by some genius.

Also also, I bought a lottery ticket for tonight and I haven't checked the results yet, so I'm in that delightful state of possibly being a millionaire and not knowing it. It's great! I think I'll never check it, and remain a Schrödinger's Millionaire forever!

Oogh, I'm poorly

I've got a terrible cold and I've got to spend tomorrow memorising a page of share prices and a bus timetable that I recklessly promised Japan I'd memorise for their TV show. Well, I actually promised an Australian who assured me that Japanese people are waiting for me to amaze them, so it might all be some kind of antipodean conspiracy. Anyway, I'm flying out on Monday now, so I've got the whole Sunday to spend feeling sorry for myself and trying to remember things.

Also, I might be going to America for scientists to examine my brain. It's a busy life, having a memory.

And now Billie Joe McAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

It being the third of June today, someone on an internet forum I frequent posted a link to "Ode to Billie Joe", so now the song's going to be playing in my head all day. And it does demonstrate what I always say about a positive frame of mind being essential for memory competitions - I had a very speedy historic dates practice this morning, then heard that rather depressing song, and then was a good thirty seconds slower than usual when I went back to some binary digits training. It's a good idea to listen to something fast-paced and bouncy before you go into a competition.

Really great song, though!

Travel plans

Contrary to what I said yesterday, I'm jetting out to Japan on June 5th, and filming with the BBC on the 14th. Which, I realised this morning, is my brother's birthday. I'll have to ask someone at the BBC to remind me on the day, in case I forget again - him being in China makes it easy to forget he exists, apparently.

Anyway, I'm pleased to report that I weigh 12 stone 11. Which, thanks to my anorexic blogging of my unsuccessful efforts to lose weight over the years, I can safely say I haven't weighed since January 2008. The goal is to get down below the 12 stone 4 I was in October 2007, when I first vowed to lose a few pounds and then spent the next three years getting fatter and fatter.

I'm also still training my memory on a regular basis, and doing reasonably well at it, too. Which makes me wonder whether I should start looking for a job (it's two months tomorrow since I left my last one, which was the point at which I decided I'll decide) or leave it for another month and keep up the good work...

Hard at work

Next Saturday, June 4th, I'm going to Sheffield to play othello, on the 6th I'm going down to London for the exciting pilot episode of a new BBC show that I may or may not be allowed to talk about (I really should read the things I sign, or at least remember what I've skimmed through, but never mind), and then I'm apparently going to be flying out to Japan again for a big exciting TV show that they've decided at very short notice they want me to appear on.

Incidentally, I hate it when people come to me and ask "what kind of fee do you expect for doing this?" I mean, admittedly that's probably better than "we're not going to pay you, by the way," which are the terms on which I usually do TV shows, but I'd much prefer it if they named a fee, so I don't face the embarrassing prospect of asking for too much or too little.

Anyway, I'll have to learn to speak Japanese again now. That'll drive all the Chinese out of my brain. It's a tough life.

no Nou no

I was down in London today, filming for the upcoming (in the distant future) BBC show I've been talking about. I've signed the official secrets act, so I'm not supposed to talk about what it involves, you'll just have to be pleasantly surprised when you watch it. Today's stuff, though, was the exact same interview I've done a million times before, so you probably won't be surprised by that bit. But the rest of it will be interesting!

And I came home to find that I've been sent two copies of the new book "Kiseki no Nou no Monogatari" by Dr Ken Mogi, who filmed me last year for the TV show "The Best House 123". The book's all in Japanese, but I'm in it, so if anyone out there can read the language, I've got a spare copy you can have.

They came with a letter thanking me for giving permission to publish the book, which I don't think I did, but since I would have gladly given permission if anyone had asked, I don't really mind.

I've got a lot to say!

For a while now, I've had trouble thinking of something to blog about, but it's all go at the moment, so here's a midday blogging to keep you all informed about the trivia of my life.

Many thanks to the oodles of people who told me that they might possibly come to the Cambridge Memory Championship, and much more sincere thanks to the people who've said they'll definitely come. There are enough of these that I've gone ahead and booked the venue, so it's definitely going to happen now. The current entry list is:

Competing
Yan Minis
Jürgen Petersen
John Burrows
James Ponder
Mattias Ribbing

Possibles
Florian Dellé
Kranthi Raj
Katie Kermode
Khatnaa Kh
Ytep Ho-Yin
Christian Schäfer
Anton Fagerlund
Corrina Draschl
Johann Randall Abrina
Martyna Syguda
Idriz Zogaj
Boris Konrad
Ed Cooke

Several of those possibles almost certainly won't be there, since that list includes the kind of person who replies 'possibly' to every Facebook invitation for fear of offending people. There's also a mental calculator who I invited by mistake, who said he'd come if I turned it into a mental calculation competition, but I'm not going to do that. The ever-wonderful duo of Phil Chambers and Dai Griffiths will be helping me with the arbiting.

In unrelated news, I really love the BBC! The one bit of this upcoming show I wasn't enthusiastic about was a day of filming a little documentary-type sequence about me to establish who I am. I've done so many of those things in the past that I asked the BBC person if they were going to do it in an interesting way at least, and she replied "Well, it's a comedy show, so it's going to be a comedy sketch, not a documentary-type thing." Which is super-groovy and now I'm looking forward to the whole thing!

Although it will take me away from my studies, because as well as a lot of memory training, I've spent the last two days learning Chinese with the help of the absolutely fabulous website Memrise.com! It's the work of Ed Cooke and friends, and it's really really useful for building Chinese vocabulary! I'm starting to think I might understand a word or two of Mandarin by the time I get to the next World Memory Championship!

And furthermore, last Saturday's Doctor Who was a really really good one. After the downright dreadful pirate story last week, we needed something good, but "The Doctor's Wife" surpassed all my expectations. It was very much in the traditional style, studio-bound albeit with state-of-the-art special effects thrown in, with just four guest stars (and one voice), a role for Rory that was more in the mould of the male companions of the sixties rather than alternate whining and comic relief, a clever and original plotline and some nice acting all round (although David Tennant would still have played it a lot better than Matt Smith...). It was only on watching it for the second time that I noticed it was written by Neil Gaiman, which made me nod and say 'well, that explains it, then.' He's really awesome.

The Cambridge Memory Championship 2011!

The traditional friendly memory championship that always takes place on the first Sunday in May in Cambridge, England, will this year take place on Saturday July 30 at Attenborough Nature Reserve near Nottingham. England. See the nature reserve's website here

The competition will only take place if enough people want to come! So please let me know right now if you want to take part!

The entry fee will be £30 (or free of charge for people who have never taken part in any memory competition before) - it might be less than £30 if there are a lot of competitors, because I only want to cover the costs of hosting the competition, not make a profit! This fee includes a hot lunch.

There will be prizes, for a change - no cash (unless someone donates a prize fund), but trophies and medals for the winners.

The venue is quite close to my house - free accommodation is available on my floor, if you bring your own sleeping bag. If you prefer a hotel, there's a nice place just over the road from me: Rockaway Hotel or plenty of guest houses in Beeston or Attenborough.

The competition will start promptly at 9:00am and finish at 5:00pm, and will be a national-standard 10-discipline championship (15 minute numbers, 10 minute cards, etc).

The nearest airport is "Nottingham East Midlands", but it's actually not very near Nottingham and it's difficult to travel from there to here by public transport. Birmingham Airport is better, you can get the train to Beeston (for my house) or Attenborough (for the competition venue) very easily.

Many thanks, and hoping to see you all there

Ben Pridmore

PS Anybody who enjoys my occasional attempts at humorous writing here on this blog would certainly love to read Moonwalking With Horses, the collected edition of all the silly things I've blogged about over the years, plus a few other never-before-published writings for the die-hard Zoomy-fan. This book will not improve your memory.

Networking

You know, people are actually buying my book. Even though the marketing for it consisted of me telling people not to. Perhaps reverse psychology really works, or perhaps people want to read my book but not my blog, I don't know. But anyway, Lulu are sending me four-figure sums of money every month in royalties. That's two figures on one side of the decimal point and two on the other, obviously.

And I periodically get emails saying that someone's following me on Twitter. I set up a Twitter account about a year ago on the offchance that I might want to do something with it one day, and haven't yet wanted to, but people find it every now and then and keep an eye on it in case I choose to share my wisdom. Today's follower is a "Free lance post production specialist based in London and Devon" who possibly thinks I might need post-producing some time. Or maybe he's post-produced me before and I've forgotten about it. At the BBC I met an editor who knew me from Extraordinary Animals, and I spent the conversation subtly trying to establish whether she'd actually met me while working on the show or not. I wish I had a good memory.

Anyway, I was thinking that I should publish another book or two. I could compile all the bits of nonsense I've written on this blog and elsewhere over the years and self-publish it as 'a glimpse into the mind of a world memory champion'. Or get round to what I've been meaning to do for the last ten years and re-write my beloved children's book, get someone to illustrate it and publish that as the latest piece of tat from an F-list celebrity that your children might like to read. And I could tweet incessantly about it and tell everyone to spread the word until it goes viral.

Also, I could accept some invitations to connect with people on LinkedIn. I have no idea what that is, but people keep inviting me.

FOUR blogs today!

Because those disappeared blog entries have reappeared. It's some kind of conspiracy against me, I'm sure of it.

It needs to be said

Yes, three blogs today, to make up for the disappeared ones. After nearly a month of steady weight loss (11 pounds in total!), I put a couple back on last weekend after going away for a high-calorie picnic and then a Burger King on the way back just for the heck of it, and since then I've been struggling to stick to eating right. In fact, yesterday, I bought one of those big giant bars of dairy milk because it was relatively cheap, and after eating half of it in the space of five minutes (entirely composed of I'll-just-have-a-little-nibble) I decided to be resolute and throw it in the bin.

And now it's calling to me from the bin, where it's all wrapped up and would be perfectly edible. Giving in to temptation would make me the worst kind of monster, I know, but I'm really sorely tempted. I'm not even hungry, I'm just bored with healthy food. I'll just have to exercise some willpower...

And hey!

Where are the blog entries I posted this week? The pesky system seems to have deleted them! Who has deprived the world of my ramblings about BBC Television Centre being circular?

Speed 2 - this time it's on a boat

I've regained the ability to memorise things quickly! For the last year or so, secretly, I haven't been memorising numbers and things as fast as I used to. General rustiness was the reason behind it, but I just couldn't get back up to the speeds I used to have when I was practicing every day. But for the last couple of days I've been as speedy as I ever was, and now that I've rediscovered that art, I've been training speed memorisation just as fast as I can, to see how accurate my recall is at warp 9.

The answer, interestingly, is that doing 1500 binary digits in just under seven minutes my recall was excellent, more than good enough to break a record or two; doing 30 rows of abstract images in just under five minutes I could recall them to just about acceptable levels with effort, but I need more work to get up to world-championship standard; and doing 468 decimal digits in just over four minutes I was a long, long way off recalling them adequately. Top top speed in numbers has never really worked for me, but I'm still hopeful that I can do it with some more intensive training. The bar has been raised to stupidly impossible levels these last couple of years (ahh, I remember breaking the world record with 333 and everyone thinking I was awesome...) but at least when someone else has done it I know that there's no reason I can't do it too.

With speed cards I already go as fast as I can, more or less, but I ran through a pack in just over 21 seconds today, for the first time in a long while. Didn't recall it correctly, but once again there's hope that with a bit more training, anything's possible...

BBC Television Centre

It's only the second time I've been there, but it's an extremely groovy building. It's all big and circular. Also, travelling there was a lot easier than last time, because I insisted on taking the tube rather than a taxi. Taxis are nasty things. Anyway, the upcoming programme, "Epic Win", will involve a strange memory challenge that I'll keep a secret so as to build suspense. It should be fun, though. Stay tuned to BBC1 for the next two or three months until it's broadcast.

This will at least keep me busy until the World Memory Championship finally happens, because I've heard that it's being rescheduled again. Probably a good thing, giving me more time to train, although I did an extremely speedy binary practice this morning before going to London, so I'm feeling confident again now. Yay for me!

The vicious circle of dieting

I was doing really well at the whole weight-losing thing, but then I went away last weekend and was unhealthy (because you don't want other people to see you eating healthy food, do you? They'd think I was weird!) and when I weighed myself yesterday I found I'd put a couple of pounds back on. And of course this makes me want to eat chocolate and sweets to make myself feel better, and that'll only make me even fatter. I tell you, it's hard to be supermodel-thin like I am.

Also, sorry for the lack of updates, I just never seem to find the time for blogging. But I've been memory-training fairly adequately, I've done an hour numbers and 30-minute binary practice since last we spoke, and if I do all three 'marathons' each week between now and October, I really will win the world championship, probably. Maybe. Anyway, update about the Cambridge championship is coming soon, promise.

Tomorrow, though, I'm going to London to discuss things with the BBC for an upcoming programme. Which makes me sound a lot more like a TV star than it should, because this isn't a major big deal kind of thing. I'm also in the mood to write books and things, so maybe I'll do that. All I need to do is get out of the habit of using phrases like "and things" in every sentence, and I'll be fine.

Why can't I find things?

I know for a fact that I own a hacksaw and a ball of string, and they would both have come in handy today (for reasons that I'm going to leave tantalisingly unelaborated-on), but I couldn't find them. It's no good, I'm going to have to spring-clean the flat. I hate tidying.

May-mory

That's a play on the word 'memory', but I realise now that it wasn't very obvious. Anyway, I did an hour cards practice this afternoon, for the first time in a very long while. I've been doing speed training for the last few days, but if I'm to have any chance in the world championship I need to be regularly doing marathon practice from now until October (or whenever it is. I should check.)

Cards has always been the marathon discipline I've found easiest to get into without my mind wandering, probably because of the constant moving of my hands as I juggle the cards between them. If I can follow this up with an hour numbers practice, and then get into the habit of doing them both (and half-hour binary too), then I'll be all set.

I still need a new system for numbers, but that might have to wait until next year.

Rory McLeod's grandmother was right

The wind is really getting stronger around here just lately. It's blow-you-off-your-bike kind of weather, especially if you're as thin as I am nowadays. Well, was until I had a big pub lunch yesterday, anyway - that's probably piled all those pounds back on again.

Hooray for me!

I'm the best othello player in the world! Well, to put it another way, of the four people who came to the Cambridge regional today, I was the best. Which is just as good. And they were good players, too, not just some bunch of idiots I dragged in off the street and forced to play me at othello.

The Cambridge regional used to be the one that got the biggest turnout, but just these last two years it's started to be in danger of dwindling out of existence. I'm not sure exactly why, but the Cambridge MSO was almost small enough to not really count as a thing this year, so it's not attracting new people that way. Anyway, we did have David Beck, Iain Barrass, Roy Arnold and me to play othello, and Adelaide to organise things, and what more does any competition need?

So we had a double round-robin, and I won five games out of six, and played reasonably well in all five of them, so that the one game where I was rubbish and was soundly thrashed by David didn't matter (since he obligingly lost to Roy in another game). Wins in othello tournaments are very rare for me, and this was probably my most impressive result ever. I should probably retire now at the peak of my success, because it'll only be disappointing to everyone when I come last in the next one.

That was fun!

I should do that more often. I've been to Frankfurt lots of times, but only the airport and train station on my way somewhere else. It turns out that there's a city, too, and it's a nice place.

Anyway, I'm home again now, and the next week is going to be full of memory training. I've decided.

To heck with staying at home!

I found some extremely cheap flights and hotels, and I'm going to Frankfurt for the weekend. Just because I can. It'll be nice to see some sights of Germany without having a memory competition getting in the way! Also, this will be an interesting test of whether I can go for a quick holiday without resorting to my usual junk-food-eating ways...

Psychological secrets of Zoomy

I have recurring dreams about my teeth falling out. Not regularly, maybe once every six months or so, but often enough to be puzzling. Clearly this is something that my subconscious mind is deeply worried about, but I can't imagine why. My teeth are entirely healthy, I haven't seen a dentist for about twenty years and I never have so much as a toothache unless I accidentally use toothpaste with super whitening power (I think I'm allergic to the stuff, or else it's just generally bad for the teeth). I have got a missing tooth around the back, but that's because I never had a permanent tooth there, and the milk tooth eventually fell out. The baby tooth in the same position on the other side is still there, which I've always been impressed by. I've also never had wisdom teeth, which might explain my occasional unwise tendencies.

Anyway, as best I can tell, considering that I'm not working and never have occasion to check a calendar except for football schedules, it's the Easter weekend. I was thinking of going away somewhere, but everybody else is also going away somewhere, and they've booked all the hotels. I'll maybe stay at home and go for an Easter holiday some time after all these bank holidays, when all those other suckers are back at work. And send them postcards.

Toffee Crips

I've not really missed all the unhealthy snacks I customarily eat for this past week of dieting, but today in Nottingham I had a fierce and strangely specific craving for a Drifter. But then I went into two different shops looking for one (because I firmly believe in giving in to these kinds of urges immediately) and they both didn't have any! So I'm still officially on the diet, until I have a moment to go to the Co-Op down the road and see if they sell Drifters.

It's a chocolate bar, if you're foreign and think I'm eating vagabonds. Check it out on Nestlé's official website, which not only tells us that "on average, it takes one hour to make a Drifter bar from start to finish", which I find hard to believe in these modern times, but misspells Toffee Crisp as "Toffee Crips Biscuit" and claims that Breakaways are famous for their advertising slogan, 'Everyday should have a Breakaway'.

I've never heard that slogan in my life! If they're famous for anything, surely it's 'Don't take away my Breakaway'? Or am I just getting old? Anyway, that website is rubbish. I almost regret googling it now, but I thought it was important to keep my bloglings properly informed.

Speaking of bloglings, someone found me by googling "013457689014658757562987032105-5" - and if you don't remember what that number was then you'll never be the World Memory Champion - which reminds me how extremely sad it is that Elisabeth Sladen has died. And with Doctor Who coming back on Saturday, too.

The wheels are in motion

I've been memorising all day! I did the full works - binary, words, numbers, spoken, images, names, cards, dates. And cycled into Long Eaton and back in the afternoon, cooked some really fancy (and tasty!) stuffed tomatoes for tea and then in the evening cycled to Nottingham and walked half the way back because I'd got a puncture. It'll keep me fit.

Actually, I'm feeling really great at the moment. I'm still enormously fat, but I have good reason to believe I'm gradually getting thinner, and my memory performances are abject, but I'm confident that I can get back to world-championship-winning standard in the fullness of time. World-championship-2009-winning, anyway, and then when I've got back to that level we'll just have to see about 2011...

As a fiddle

Whether it's the diet or the just not-workingness, I've been doing a whole lot of cycling and walking this last week or so. I'm downright energetic, which I know is very unlike me. I really am going to make an effort to sit still and memorise lots of things tomorrow, though, because let's face it, I'm never going to be the world cycling champion. That's a real thing, and you have to have one of those expensive bikes to be one.

Also, somebody found my blog today by googling "beard good or bad for face". It's good, whoever you are. Extremely good.

Memory training? I didn't say anything about memory training.

The weather was too nice today, I'll start my intensive training regime tomorrow instead. Or, if I go for a day out in Sheffield/Birmingham/Manchester/somewhere-along-those-lines tomorrow, as I've already decided to do, I'll do it on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, let's talk about cooking. Being on a diet that involves a lot of vegetables, I find that I've previously only thought of veggies as something you have with a roast dinner - boil them in a pan and plonk them on the plate. So it only took three days for me to get tired of having cabbage with dinner and conclude that I need to do something new. I had a really quite nice semi-casserole-kind-of-thing with beef, peppers, mange tout, broccoli and tomatoes tonight, and I'm feeling like a real proper chef. I've even bought herbs. Also, Worcestershire sauce.

Anyone got any cooking ideas that I can do with the kind of veggies that are low in carbohydrates and GI? (GI stands for something, I can't remember what, but I'm fairly certain that in this context it isn't an American soldier.) Because this diet is proving to be quite fun, and if I can find ways to keep the meals interesting, I'm probably not going to get bored with it and return to my chocolate-scoffing ways for another month or so at least. I get to eat as much rhubarb as I want! And while technically I've always been free to eat as much rhubarb as I want, I've never really availed myself of the opportunity until now. Rhubarb is great.

Meanwhile, another thing I've been meaning to mention is the Cambridge Memory Championship. I've had a few inquiries about it, and I want to gauge public interest in the idea. Please can you let me know if you would definitely/possibly/under no circumstances (delete as applicable) come to a memory competition in Nottingham, probably, in July, say. Email me or comment here, or shout at me if you happen to be passing my flat and notice that the window's open (warning, I might not hear you). I believe the current plans are to have the UK Championship in August, German in September and World in October, so this would be a good way to warm up. I can promise (well, not promise, but at least express the hope) that the room will be infinitely bigger and quieter than the one we've had for the last couple of years, but that the beginner-friendly and pleasantly social atmosphere will be better than ever!

Oh, and one more important thing! Did you know that Kinder eggs are illegal in the USA? And not just that they don't sell them there (like pretty much every kind of edible chocolate snack except Twixes), they're properly banned, you're not allowed to import them or send them to Americans who might want them! There are laws about having an inedible object inside an edible product, apparently, and also the small parts are unsuitable for children. I think this is disgraceful, and I'm going to set up a smuggling racket immediately.

Back to business

Okay, so the corpore sano thing is all sorted (I've lost three pounds since I weighed myself on Wednesday, although that weighing was immediately after a big lunch so as to give myself the heaviest possible starting weight), now let's focus on the world of memorising things.

I've slacked off on the training in a big way for the last couple of months. I've also slacked off on the blogging about memory competitions, so here's a brief summary of the little opening salvos of the 2011 memory season - I was basically rubbish at the Welsh championship, while Christian Schäfer won the North German Championship ahead of Johannes Mallow, and Simon Reinhard won the South German [I may have mixed up the two parts of Germany, but I don't think I did] with a really extremely impressive kind of performance. Nowadays you have to consider what the Chinese people are doing, too, but to the best of my knowledge they haven't been doing anything lately.

So if I'm going to have even the slightest outside chance of winning my title back, I should be working hard at it right now. Starting tomorrow, I'll grind my way back into training, and give you all daily updates of how I'm getting along. That way you can all jeer at me, and it'll motivate me to get good again.

A delicious, nutritious shake for breakfast...

I'm on a diet. It's the kind of concept that I'm normally quite scathing about, but on the other hand I can't avoid the fact that I've got gradually heavier over the last couple of years, so in the spirit of 'doing something new', which is my defining philosophy at the moment, I'm doing Tony Ferguson.

That's the name of a diet, which seems to be founded and run by someone called Chris Ferguson, and which they sell at Boots. Just to divulge a bit of confidential information now that I don't work for them any more, it didn't sell as well as the people in charge of setting the budgets expected (I think this is more of a reflection on the budget-setters than on the diet), but someone in our department lost a huge amount of weight very quickly on it, and didn't put weight back on afterwards either, so I thought I'd give it a try. My fridge is full of vegetables. It ain't natural.

It's day two, and I'm not noticeably slenderer (I don't own a set of weighing scales, so I haven't measured my progress), but on the other hand cutting carbohydrates and sugary treats out of my food intake hasn't killed me yet either. If it doesn't kill me by next weekend, I'll weigh myself on the machine in Boots or somewhere, and see how much good it's done. If it works, I'll celebrate with cake and cherry coke.

If only they still sold that miracle soap from the adverts in yesterday's blog entry.

Douglas Fairbanks Junior's Gay Love

I'm sorry I've been a non-blogger for so long. You deserve both an apology and a full explanation of what I've been up to for the last couple of weeks, but I'm afraid you're not going to get them. Instead, let's talk about the June 1933 edition of "Happy Mag", which I found in London some time last year and have been meaning to blog about ever since. And the absolutely hilarious 'Just Williams' comic in the latest issue of Viz (in which the Archbishop of Canterbury has an adventure in the style of Richmal Crompton's 'Just William' stories, including a perfect imitation of William's trademark dialogue - it's a must-read, believe me) reminded me of this old ambition, so here we go:

It's actually "Happy and Sunny Mag", having recently absorbed a less-successful sister title, but the cover sets the tone for what's inside - your sevenpence gets you a hundred pages of humorous drawings, jokes and stories, most of them romances. And there are also some fascinating adverts featuring the latest products and services that the buying public of 1933 really need.



"LET ME BE YOUR FATHER" bellows the rather sinister-looking Mr Bennett, who promises to give free fatherly advice and (for a few shillings monthly) instruction in practically everything. If you're not the academic type so much as the kind of person who goes out playing cricket and ruptures himself, then I recommend "Brooks Appliance" - "Write now for our free trial offer sent in plain sealed envelope." Or if you're short (which judging by these adverts a whole lot of people in 1933 were), take a box of Challoner's tablets and become miraculously taller! The sheer quantity of different ads in this issue of Happy Mag for ways and means to increase your height is really quite fascinating.



Once more, Science aids short people, this time with a book rather than tablets. And deaf people are completely cured by The New Patent SOUND DISCS ("Are the same to the ears as glasses are to the eyes"). But I'm sure every reader's eye was drawn to the full-page advert for the new story, "Gay Love", by movie star Douglas Fairbanks Jnr, which apparently chronicles the adventures of Phil and Peter, whose philosophy is "Enjoy life - be gay!" This is the kind of situation where any further comment from me would just be redundant.



Over the page, we have two more tried and tested means of increasing your height - the Stebbing System and the Ross System. Mr Ross seems more convincing, since he's personally increased his own height to six foot three-and-three-quarters.



And just for completeness, the ads on the back cover, although there's nothing too funny about these ones. I'd snigger at the use of the word 'gay', but Douglas Fairbanks Jnr has exhausted my puerile-humour quota for the next couple of weeks. The "Span" Bracer that "supersedes belts & braces" is a wonderful idea, though. I'll have to get one, although it looks like you need to wear your trousers pulled up to your nipples in order for it to be effective.

The actual stories are a mixed bunch - they're mostly very similar in theme, almost all of them chronicling the adventures of working girls who end the story by marrying a rich and handsome man and thus not needing to work for a living any more. Particularly noteworthy are Doris in "A Lesson For The Boss", who takes the blame for a costly error of judgement by a handsome young man, since it doesn't matter if she loses her job, because she won't need a job when they get married, and Tessie in "Not Afraid Of Lions", who gives up her circus lion-taming job at the end of the story when "She's the wife of a country gentleman now, and has no time for such things."

The rest of the stories are all essentially the same kind of thing, except for "William and the Love Test", which is a very good one, and a funny-comic adventure of "Mr Rabbit and his Baby Bunnies":



It's unoriginal even in 1933, but nicely drawn and fun to read, so I thought I should share it here.

Anyway, I'm intending to return to daily bloggery from now on, so thanks for sticking with me.

Baseball and beef jerky

These are things I only experience when I go to America, but that there should be more of over here. Actually, I'm sure you can find jerky in Britain if you know where to look, I'll have to check it out.

Still, I'm back now. Today was a getting-over-jetlag day (I hate overnight flights, they completely destroy my internal clock), tomorrow is officially the start of whatever I'm going to do with myself for the next couple of unemployed months. I haven't really decided yet, but it's going to be fun.

Las Vegas was completely awesome, if I really need to point that out. It's changed a bit since the last time I was there, with a couple of new hotel/casinos on the Strip which look much too stylish and contemporary to fit in around there, so I don't think they'll last long, but the basic grooviness of Vegas is still very much there. I saw the Cirque du Soleil's "O" for the second time, and it's still completely amazing. There's also a really great magician called Dirk Arthur, who performs in the shabbiest and nastiest casino in town, but has a very close-up and intimate act full of completely impossible magic tricks with minimal equipment and special effects and only a handful of lions and tigers appearing out of nowhere (that's the Las Vegas equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat - no magic show is complete without at least one real tiger). It's not a spectacle like David Copperfield or Siegfried and Roy (who I saw back in 2002, before they retired), but it's somehow even more cool because it looks real rather than like a showbiz performance.

Also, it was baking hot! As I might have mentioned before, whenever I go to America, I always get the hottest weather - everyone told me that it was unseasonably warm all of a sudden, even by Las Vegas standards. Charlotte, North Carolina, where I changed planes en route, was also extremely hot, but in the humid kind of way that you don't get in Vegas. And it's been scorching hot back here today, too! Summer's here!

Viva!

God, I love this city. It's six o'clock in the morning here, and I've already lost $15 at video poker but won $100 at blackjack while waiting for breakfast to open. Everything about Las Vegas is awesome - the gambling, the lights, the artificiality, the fact that you can come downstairs at four in the morning and find a bustling casino full of gamblers, the serious electric shocks you get from touching anything, the weather, the internet kiosk that's a new innovation since last time I came, the fact that I've still got enough self-control so far to stop playing blackjack for the moment and not bet all my winnings on the next hand...

Anyway, I'm going to go and watch cartoons until breakfast time, then go out exploring. And yes, I could have earned more than $85 by going to my job today, and not paying for expensive flights and the super-cheap but wonderful Gold Coast Hotel, but it wouldn't have been so much fun. See you all next time I drag myself away from the gambling!

Las Vegas ahoy!

I'm out of here! No more work, lots more play, I'll see you when I'm back in the country!

Census Day

The 2011 census is a 32-page booklet, full of questions about everybody in the household. A hundred years ago, it was just one sheet of paper, with instructions on the back, and a form to fill in on the front. Census day in 1911 was April 3rd, but I'll be away from the computer then, so this seems as good a time as any to subject you all to one final exhaustive summary of the Pridmore family. If nothing else, this is a good place for me to compile all my notes about them...

My great-grandfather William Thomas Pridmore (02/08/1855 - 02/05/1932) and his offspring are the family members who fascinate me the most in all of my family-tree research. For one thing, William's ancestors are easier to trace than usual, just because there aren't many of them - William was illegitimate, whether or not he knew who his father was I can't say, but I certainly don't, and there seems to be no way we're ever going to find out. His mother, Eliza Pridmore (c1835 - August 1886) was also illegitimate, and her father is equally unknown to posterity. William thus has only one grandparent to trace, rather than the usual four - Jane Pridmore (1816 - 1870s). We have to go back as far as Jane's parents, James Pridmore (1777 - 1848) and Elizabeth Ward (1787 - 1867) before the family tree branches out any further. And with the big generation gaps in my own branch of the family tree (I was born 121 years after William), the Pridmores obligingly give me much fewer 18th-century ancestors to research!

Furthermore, William was the one who moved the family in around 1880 to the industrial city of Sheffield from the tiny farming village of Pickworth that he grew up in. And he produced a vast legion of offspring who almost all stayed in Sheffield for the rest of their lives and produced hordes of children themselves. William had 13 children and 36 grandchildren, though he didn't live to see all of them born, and researching them has been no end of fun.

They all seem to have individual personalities bursting from the dry records of births, marriages and deaths, so much so that I almost feel like I know them. There are plenty of things that the records just don't tell us, obviously - given the time and place that he lived, I'd say William was probably known as Bill to his friends, but there's no record of that. I don't know if it was his idea or Eliza's to move the whole family to Sheffield, just that they all lived there together for a while; Eliza, her husband and her four children, including William who had grown up with his grandmother while Eliza moved away with her new family. The records tell us that William struggled to find work for the first few years in the city, was a boiler firer at the ironworks for eight years, spent a few more years floating from job to job and then settled into a successful and long career as a bricklayer, but I don't know whether that was the job he'd always wanted or something he ended up doing without really meaning to.

I do know that William outlived the majority of his children. Three of them - Beatrice (06/05/1887 - 01/04/1889), George Richard (06/11/1890 - 29/09/1891) and Percy (16/07/1898 - 28/07/1899) - died in infancy, then four sons were killed in the First World War, followed by William's wife, a daughter and another son in a pneumonia epidemic of 1920-21. Just four out of thirteen living to old age is a low ratio even by the standards of Sheffield in those days.

Here's his census form from one hundred years ago:

The Pridmores had only recently moved into 34 Hunt Street, within the last couple of years. A five-room house was something of a luxury compared to the places they'd lived while bringing up their large family. They'd got it, I'm guessing from circumstantial evidence, with the help of the money of the Palmer family William's daughter Florence married into. It remained the family home until at least the forties, passing to Oswald (he being the only child of William's who had never married and left home) after the parents died.

William and Sarah had married in the rural wilds of Rutland when he was 21 and she was 17. She was also five months pregnant at the time - this seems to have been the rule rather than the exception in all the marriages I've seen in that area at that time. How well they got along is something we can only speculate, but Sarah continued to have a baby every couple of years on average until she was over forty years old. She died of pneumonia in 1920, aged 59.

Starting with the youngest, the ten surviving children of the marriage were:

Sydney Pridmore (06/05/1900 - early 1982), called 'Sidney' above, but changed it to Syd by the 1920s, determinedly followed in his father's footsteps by living and working in Sheffield his whole life, first as a general labourer like most of the rest of his family, then becoming a railway porter in 1923. He stayed with the railways forever after, by 1940 moving from porter to shunter. Also in the early twenties, he and his wife Catherine (nee Millership) moved to 72 Robey Street, which became the family home for decades. He followed the Pridmore tradition by having an army of sons, the last of whom was my dad, and also one daughter just to show that the Pridmore y-chromosome isn't completely infallible. After Catherine died in 1960, daughter Cath took over the 'woman of the house' duties. Syd passed a passion for trains onto his offspring, and must have been a pretty contented man, all in all. He died when I was five, I just barely remember him. His children, without the hardships and diseases of the first couple of decades of the century, lived long lives - with the exception of Philip, who died of diptheria aged five, they all lived to see the 21st century.

They were: William Thomas (Bill, born 18/09/1922), Arthur Edward (Ted, 08/11/1923), Sydney (Syd, 07/03/1926), Catherine (Cath, 24/07/1927), twins Michael (Mike) and Philip (02/11/1929), Lawrence (Lol, 27/01/1931), Samuel Bernard (Bernie, 08/03/1934), Cyril (08/01/1936), Robert (02/01/1940) and George (28/09/1946).

The reason behind the names is intriguing. William Thomas was obviously Syd's father's name; the traditional way to follow it would be to call the second son Sydney, but instead they went for Arthur Edward, who I suppose must have been Syd's favourite older brother - one of the four who died in the war. It's not a Millership name, certainly. Then, after Sydney junior joins the family, we move on to Catherine junior and then a more random selection of names for the subsequent sons. Samuel Bernard was one of Catherine's brothers, while George was another of Syd's. Whether it was a deliberate naming or just for want of any other boys' names left that hadn't been used, I don't know, but I think it was appropriate. Both Georges were the brains of their families, from what I can see.

George Harry Pridmore (23/06/1896 - 31/08/1918), who was in what seems to me the awkward situation of being named after a dead brother (recycling of names of dead infants was very common in those days), an errand boy in 1911, later became a labourer at the steel works, but only until he was old enough to join the army. The first world war broke out shortly after his eighteenth birthday, and it was both the making and the death of him. He was on the front lines from 1916, quickly promoted to corporal, was wounded in action and was then sent to Scotland for officer training, while the rest of the family remained in the rank and file. On leave in 1917, he went back to Sheffield and married May Foster, then was commissioned Second Lieutenant and posted back to the fighting in France. He might have gone on to life in an altogether higher social circle than the Pridmore family had experienced before, but he was killed in action, aged 22, two months before the end of the war.

Oswald Pridmore (18/12/1893 - 24/10/1967) was a bachelor boy. While his brothers and sisters married and moved away from home one by one, Oswald kept on living with his parents, a single man. Whether he fought in the war, I don't know. He would have been called up in January 1916, like all single men, but two-thirds of the army records from that time were destroyed during the second world war, and the paperwork that would tell us whether Oswald was fit for military service seems to have gone up in smoke. He worked at the gasworks for most of his life. After his mother died in 1920, he and his father were left to rattle around the big house in Hunt Street for another twelve years. When William died in 1932, Oswald inherited the house and lived there alone.

Then, in 1944, at the age of fifty, Oswald married Annie Askham, a 42-year-old spinster. What persuaded them to take the plunge at that late age I can't imagine, but the marriage lasted until Oswald's death 23 years later. After the war, they moved to the Park Hill Flats, finally leaving the Hunt Street house behind.

Wilfred Pridmore (12/03/1892 - 08/03/1921) moved around from one job to another for all his short life. A labourer in 1911, a carter when he married in 1913, a soldier for a short time before leaving the army on a pension, presumably in ill health, then a file stripper at the time of his death from 'pneumonia and asthenia' just before his 29th birthday. Wilfred married Chloris Gertrude Moorhouse at the age of 21 - she was the daughter of a jeweller with a penchant for unusual names; she had a sister called Dacier. They had no children. I'm assuming that it was because of Wilfred's poor health that his death certificate records him as living with his sisters' families at 10 Brough Street, while Chloris (who registered the death) was living on Silver Street, but it's not impossible that they had separated. Chloris also died quite young, of cancer in 1933.



Lilian May Pridmore (12/05/1889 - 02/06/1968) was a servant in 1911. Many women of her class and generation were already married and a mother several times over by the age of 21, but Lilian was 28 before she married John Charles May in 1917. They must have known each other for many years before that - John's older sister had been living with Lilian's older brother since 1900 - but their first child was born a respectable ten months after the Christmas Day wedding, so there was no urgent need to tie the knot at that time. John was thirty and not in the army, so he must have been unfit in some way.

Lilian May May, as her marriage renamed her, had four children: Charles William (04/11/1918 - the birth was registered on Armistice Day), Florence (08/11/1919), Lilian (31/03/1921) and Mary Ann (25/10/1922). The Mays lived at 10 Brough Street along with Lilian's older sister Florence and her family, also taking in younger brother Wilfred. They moved away in 1926, I don't know where they went, but by the time of her old age Lilian had left Sheffield and even Yorkshire behind, and was living in Droylsden, Lancashire when she died at the age of 79. Her daughter Florence was still in Sheffield to witness Oswald's late wedding in 1944, so I assume the big move to Lancashire came after the war.



Florence Pridmore (08/04/1885 - 13/05/1920) married John (or maybe James) William Palmer at the age of 23, and he seems to have been quite a catch. The Palmers lived at first at 34 Hunt Street, all five rooms of it, before apparently swapping houses with Florence's parents and going to the slightly smaller house on Daisy Walk that the Pridmores had lived in before. Four rooms to themselves was still above the norm for Florence's siblings.

Florence's husband, with the unusual profession of 'mineral water carter', seems to have had a strangely fluctuating name. He was born John, was married under that name, but at the birth of their first child nine and a half months later, had changed his name (and that of their son) to James. He's still James in the 1911 census, but by the time their second son was born, later the same year, he's John again, remaining a John until 1914. He joined the army and fought in the war. Florence moved into Brough Street with Lilian, and James (as he was now calling himself again) joined them there after the war was over, working as a stableman. Their children were James William (17/05/1909), Norman (17/10/1911) and Jennie (17/06/1914).

Florence died of pneumonia in May 1920, aged 35, just seven days before her mother died of the same illness. James and the children continued to live with Lilian and her family, even after James remarried in early 1926.



Arthur Edward Pridmore (01/04/1883 - 18/10/1914) was a soldier. It was something he did for his whole life, from joining the army at 18 to fight the Boer War, to dying at Ypres at 31 years old. His active service and career as a recruiting sergeant took him away from the family home in Sheffield - when he married the widowed Annie Ashworth in 1909, he was in barracks in Southampton. Maybe it was the distance from the rest of his family, maybe it was the fact that Annie's father had been a sergeant-major, or that he was Irish, maybe it was just a creative imagination, but Arthur gave his father's occupation as 'master brewer', as opposed to 'bricklayer', on the marriage certificate. They had no children. Soldiers of his rank marrying was tolerated by the higher-ups, having children was unofficially somewhat frowned upon - distracts them from their duties, you know. Who their baby visitor recorded on the census form was, I have no idea. But when war broke out, Arthur was in the British Expeditionary Force and in the thick of the first fighting. Sadly, though, he didn't last long.



John Thomas Pridmore (23/02/1881 - 14/10/1914) seems to have struggled to find a direction in life. He was the first of the family to join the army, and fought in South Africa throughout the Boer War. Despite his 1899-1902 medal, he never moved up the ranks like his younger brother Arthur. Posted to York in 1907, he met and married Harriet Annie Myton (in the register office, the first non-church wedding in the family), leaving the army after the birth of their first son. He took his wife and baby back to Sheffield, moving in with his ever-accommodating oldest brother Ernest (after whom the baby had been named) and drifting from one job to another rapidly over the next few years - railway labourer, porter, steelworker and then soldier again when war broke out. Still a Private, he was among the first British soldiers killed as the army slowly advanced towards Ypres.

John and Harriet had three children: Ernest William (13/03/1908), Gladys (03/05/1910) and Frederick (14/07/1913).



Albert Pridmore (01/05/1879 - 22/06/1917) wasn't married, despite what the census form says. He had been living with Margaret May since 1900, she was known as Margaret Pridmore, and they had had six children, but they had never tied the knot. Margaret (and her younger brother John, who married Lilian) were born Richardsons, out of wedlock, and changed their surnames to May when their mother married. Perhaps that's why she and Albert didn't see it necessary to get married. Nonetheless, in December 1913, with Margaret seven months pregnant with their seventh child, Albert belatedly made an honest woman of her in the register office. Why then, after thirteen years of common-law marriage, I can't imagine.

Their children were: Albert (24/03/1901), Frederick (16/08/1903), Lily (22/11/1904), George (11/01/1907), Ernest (04/11/1908), Harold (13/12/1910) and Mary (05/03/1914). Frederick and Lily died in infancy, and Albert junior met a tragic end in 1915. At the age of 14, he was working as a wagon greaser on the railway when he was run over by a train and killed. The death certificate records "Accidentally killed, his leg being cut off by his being run over by a railway engine or a goods train." That they didn't know which train had done it, and the nature of the injury, makes me think the death wasn't quick or pleasant. This makes me wonder about my grandfather Syd - although he and Albert were uncle and nephew there was less than a year in age between them, they lived in the same area and their fathers had worked together as bricklayers. Syd's life on the railways came after losing his close relative in that way when they were boys.

Albert senior thus had a more tragic Great War than most. He joined up shortly before his son's death - at the age of 36, with a wife and five children to support and his two brothers already killed, I can't imagine he was enthusiastic about it. When he died, it wasn't even quick; he was wounded on 2 May 1917, shipped back to Bradford hospital for treatment and died on 22 June. Margaret, with her four remaining children still all very young, worked as a charwoman, and in 1919 had an illegitimate son, John - who carried on the name Pridmore, despite not being a blood relative. Who his father was I don't know, but I hope he at least helped Margaret out with some cash.



Ernest William Pridmore (28/07/1877 - 06/10/1948) seems to have been a well-respected oldest brother - Albert and John both named sons after him. Unlike his brothers, he came through the war without joining the fighting, probably for medical reasons. He was within the upper age limit for conscription, just, but throughout the war and afterwards worked at the steelworks. His school records twice show him absent for long periods due to medical certificates, but whatever his infirmity was, it didn't stop him producing a big family. The juggling act of fitting all his children and various boarders into his three rooms doesn't seem to have bothered him either - the lodgers shown on the census are his wife's father and brother, and the previous year he had accommodated his own brother John and family when they returned to Sheffield. That small house on Shepherd Street had been their home for nearly ten years, and Ernest remained there until at least 1928.

He and his wife Elizabeth had eight children: William (29/12/1901), Eliza (04/11/1903), Nellie (06/03/1906), Lilian (20/07/1908), Elizabeth (06/06/1911), Ernest (02/06/1914), Hilda (28/02/1916) and Rose (02/07/1918). The preponderance of girls, unlike the usual Pridmore boy-centric families, makes me wonder if Elizabeth was cheating on him. Eliza and Ernest junior died in infancy, but Hilda just passed away last year, at the age of 94.

Which seems like a positive note to end on. I really like this family!

Clean me

Working where I do, you see a lot of dirty lorries and vans. Why do people always write "Clean me" and the like on them? One time I saw "All I want for Christmas is a clean", which is really tugging on the heartstrings to an unnecessary degree.

The thing is, nobody writes "Clean your van", or "This lorry is really dirty". It's always first-person, written from the point of view of the vehicle. I suspect that the lorries exert a hypnotic influence over passers-by, and compel them to write these messages.

Note - I saw David Cameron and Nick Clegg today, and the above is the most important thing I can think to write about.

Normal service

Once I'm satisfactorily unemployed, I'll resume posting something trivial, long and fascinating in this blog every single day. Well, after I'm back from Las Vegas, anyway. Thanks for sticking with me until then!

Sky 1 announcement

"As it's Comic Relief night, our Comedy Friday is taking a break this week..."

Anyway, I'm only watching Sky because I'm taking a break from trawling through my spare room. I've got at least three credit cards that were last seen lying on the floor in there, about a year ago, and it occurred to me that I should find them and put them somewhere safe in case I need them. Trouble is, I think I might have done this exercise six months ago, and if so, I have no idea where the somewhere safe was. So the good news is that it's extremely safe, but the bad news is that if I ever find myself in a position of needing to use credit cards (which, when you're voluntarily jobless, can sometimes happen), I'll just have to get a new one. Or steal one from someone else. Or make a fake one using an old video box. That'd work.

Are Amazon spying on me?

They sent me a recommended-reading email with Moonwalking With Einstein and a lot of similar memory-themed books this morning. But I've never bought a memory book from Amazon - I don't buy memory books, as a rule, I just wait for people to give them to me. It's worrying.

Anyway, let's all congratulate Nelson Dellis for winning the US Memory Championship at the weekend! The first US Champion to be a regular reader of my blog without the regular reading being at least partly in order to write a book about it! This would also be a good time to remind everyone that Nelson is climbing Mount Everest, just like his namesake famously climbed that big giant column in Trafalgar Square. Go and wish him luck! And give money to the Alzheimer's Association!

Library lane

The Oadby Regional is one of life's unchanging constants. Same location (Oadby Baptist Church), same date (always the same day as the US Memory Championship for some unfathomable reason), same people (more or less), same pub for lunch (the Old Library, next door to the new library, which is next door to a small terrace which claims to be built on the site of both a library and a swimming baths), even the same man who's seen me on TV and happened to be in the pub when we went for lunch this year and last. He probably lives there.

I hadn't played in an othello tournament for quite a long time, or played online either, so I suppose I can be happy with coming fourth out of eight players. One of these days, I'll get good at the game.

I haven't heard any updates from New York, meanwhile, but I assume someone's winning the US Championship right now as we speak. Well, as I type and shortly before you read, but you know what I mean.

Senseless

Yay, I've got my census form! Boo, census day is March 27th, the day before my last day at work. I'll have to describe myself as a financial analyst, not an unemployed memory-man-cum-vagabond.

I'm mystified by the government's advertising campaign claiming that the census will be used to determine local authority services. Surely this will just encourage everyone to lie on their form in the hope of making their local area seem most in need of a new swimming pool or whatever? Also, why haven't I had any spam emails/facebook messages urging me to put 'jedi knight' for my religion, or whatever? Or whatever.

Anyway, census forms were better 100 years ago. I can say this from genealogical experience.

That went surprisingly well!

I turned up at BBC Nottingham late, having missed the train and cycled in to the city, but they gave me the task of teaching the sports presenter how to memorise royal weddings, and it came out sounding good on the radio.

Also as a follow-up to last night, the prize I won turns out to be a cheque for £1,000. Maybe instead of giving it to charity like I said I would, I'll take it to Las Vegas and attempt to win a fortune. Did I mention that I'm going to Las Vegas? Well I am. So there.

Everyone wants me all of a sudden

Tune in to Radio Nottingham at the crack of dawn (7:15ish) tomorrow morning - they're talking about memory for no particular reason, and asked me if I wanted to join in. And since I'm in such a cheerful mood this week, I said okay. Now I just have to remember to get out of bed in time.

I also got a letter today from the bank, forwarding a letter sent to them by Cerebra, a charity for brain injured children that I've been giving small amounts of money to by monthly direct debit since longer ago than I can remember (I sometimes look at the list of direct debits on my account and usually have no idea what half of them are. I should probably do something about that, really - evil people have probably been taking my money every month without me knowing or caring). Anyway, this letter says I've won a prize in their fundraising lottery, and since I never told them my new address when I moved house two and a half years ago (or maybe even the time before that, five years earlier), they went to the trouble of writing to my bank and asking them to forward the letter.

I didn't know they were even doing a 'fundraising lottery', and I'm not sure that I really approve of charities giving money to people like that. If I give money to a charity, I expect it to go to brain injured children, not to fat lazy slobs who can't even be bothered to work for a living and have got plenty of money anyway. That kind of person gets my goat no end. I was going to tell them to keep the prize when I call them back, but actually now I come to think of it, I'll take it and give it to a different charity, one that doesn't give prizes to people. That'll teach them.

The prize is probably gift vouchers or something, donated for free by some business, but that's not the point.

Things come in threes

My boss, who's been needing a kidney transplant for about five years, has finally got a matching donor and was whisked in for surgery today. So please all send positive vibes in this general direction and hope it all goes well. Also, another colleague has gone off on maternity leave starting tomorrow. Really, the office is going to be empty by the end of the week at this rate. I'm also feeling a million times more cheerful and less stressy ever since I handed in my notice, it's really quite miraculous.

Hooray for me!

Because I've handed in my notice from the job that has been somewhat driving me to distraction for the last few months, and I'm going to be an unemployed vagabond again for a little while, paid for by my memory championship winnings.

This sabbatical is going to be shorter than the last couple of times I did this exact same thing (why people keep employing me is a mystery, but past history has taught me that they inevitably do), I'm only going to leave it two months, three at most, before I start looking for another job. But I do really need the break and change of scene. I've spent too many evenings lately just calming down from a stressful day at the office, and that's really not healthy for a delicate would-be hippy like me.

Also, have you seen that advert for some anti-aging cream or suchlike, that says "Don't take drastic measures - use our anti-aging cream!" And then at the bottom of the screen there's small print saying "Not equal to the effect of taking drastic measures." I didn't know that 'drastic measures' was a quantifiable scientific thing, but I think I'm going to have to take them. I found a white hair in my moustache! I'm resigned to being increasingly white of beard these days, but my upper lip has remained resolutely a luxuriant dark brown up to now...

Moonwalk like a Mnemonist!

I've finally got the advance copy of "Moonwalking With Einstein" that Joshua Foer kindly sent me. Autographed, too! I'm building up quite a collection of signed memory books by other people. Almost but not quite motivates me to write a proper one of my own!

I'll read it properly at a later date, but I thought I should give it a quick plug tonight on the strength of five minutes' skimming - it's a fun, light-hearted account of Josh's year-and-a-bit exploring the world of memory competitions. It seems like the kind of thing that might appeal even to someone who's never heard of memory sports before, so if you fall into that category (I can't imagine how you come to be reading my blog if you do, but you never know), please do check it out anyway.

If you're into the present-day memory scene, of course, the book is five years behind the times, but still fun in a nostalgic kind of way. Judging by the sheer volume of questions the fact-checker bombarded me with, in fact, the last five years have been spent editing ten volumes' worth of words from it, because I think the majority of the 'facts' I confirmed way back when didn't make it into the finished work. Also, having been fact-checked, I feel entitled, even obliged, to sue the publishers for the assertion that I met Josh for the first time in Oxford rather than Germany, or that I was 'temporarily unemployed' during the time he was looking me up on the internet. I was actually in full-time work for the entire three-year period around that point, which is wildly unlike me, I know. Also, it says "principle" when it means "principal" at one point. There's probably a mnemonic for remembering how to get that right. I'll create one and put it in my next book.

But those are my only complaints! Go on, buy the book! It's well worth reading, and I'm in it!

Memory people have standards, you know

Commendably early in the year, we've got the revised scoring system for memory championships, plus a couple of the rule tweaks that people have been lobbying for! So just to pass it on to anyone not on the WMSC mailing list, and add my own traditional unhelpful commentary, here we go, hot off the presses:

Spoken Numbers – In the World Championships trials will consist of 200, 300 and 400 digits. In National Championships trials will be 100 and 300 digits.


I wasn't really expecting that one - I hadn't heard anyone lobbying for this. Nobody's come really close to getting all 300 digits correct yet, although I suppose it's only a matter of time...

Names used in the ‘Names and Faces’ discipline will consist of a equal mix of international names drawn from a wide range of different languages to include European, Middle and Far Eastern, Asian and African (following a similar formula as used in the World Memory Championships).

First and Second Names shall be combined entirely at random (eg. a person may have a Chinese first name and a Western surname) and assigned to faces at random.

There must also be a full mix of ethnicity, age and gender of faces used.

No bias towards an individual country will be accepted in a national competition. As a result all current National, International and World records in this discipline will be reset to zero since a comparison with previous events is invalid.


Just clarifying the rules, at the request and for the benefit of the Germans, who've tended to be inconsistent in preparing names and faces in their national competitions in the past. This is how things are done in the World Championship at the moment, so no real change there.

Speed Cards – The rule will remain that if a competitor recalls less than 52 cards their time will be taken as 300 seconds and they will receive a score of c/52 points where c is the number of cards correctly recalled.

The New formula of calculation of points for a full deck is as follows:

11180/(time to the power of 0.75)

This gives 1000 points for a deck recalled in 25 seconds.


Nice formula - very clever, and I think sensible. As well as increasing the 1000-point standard up to the current peak, it slightly improves the score for slower times, bringing the overall difficulty curve more in line with the other disciplines. I don't know whose idea this was, but traditionally Gunther was always the one to come up with peculiar calculations like this, so I suspect him. Anyway, I wholeheartedly approve!

Junior and Kid competitors may elect to compete in an adult competition if they desire. Any competitor that decides to do so cannot take part in a Junior / Kids event for one year after the adult event, thus preventing "competition hopping".


Again, this one is strictly for the Germans, and I don't really know why they demanded a WMSC ruling on it, since the only place that has separate kids' competitions is Germany, and the German competitions aren't run by the WMSC. Still, I suppose it can't hurt to have an 'official' rule in place. I also don't get why the ban on "competition hopping" is necessary - can't we allow people to just compete in whichever events they want? - but I can't really pretend to care about it all that much, seeing as I'm 34 and English.

We would like to welcome the new Council Members who have recently been invited to sit on the World Memory Sports Council and to represent the interest of the sport in their countries. They are:

Jennifer Goddard of the National Memory Sports Council of Australia
Simon Reinhard GM, of Memory XL in Germany
Klaus Kolb of the National Memory Sports Council of Germany
Mr Lin Chuxu, Chairman of New Mind Education in China
Guo Chuanwei GM China

We look forward to their help is growing the sport worldwide in the year ahead.

That's cool. I have no idea who Lin Chuxu is, although I've probably met him. You know what I'm like with names and faces. But it's good to have a bigger council with worldwide representatives to chip into future arguments. Makes the whole thing a bit more organised and official.

And finally, the new standards:

Discipline Millennium Standard Calc Factor Original MS Comp Type
30 min Cards 676 1.479 676 International #
30 min Numbers 1200 0.833 1200 International #
10 min Cards 365 2.747 333 National
15 min Numbers 900 1.111 800 National
5 min Binary 1000 1.000 1000 National #
5 min Names and Faces 70 14.286 100 National
5 min Words 125 8.000 100 National
Poem 375 2.6667 375 Old Comp #
30 min Binary 4000 0.250 4000 WMC #
5 min Numbers 470 2.128 375 WMC
Abstract Images 400 2.500 250 WMC
Historic /Future Dates 125 8.000 91 dates WMC
Hour Cards 1300 0.769 1300 cards WMC #
Hour Numbers 2200 0.455 2200 digits WMC #
Names and Faces 170 5.882 200 points WMC
Random Words 275 3.636 250 words WMC
Speed Cards 25 seconds * 30 seconds WMC
Spoken Numbers 204 70* square root (n) 200 digits WMC #


I think that gets it pretty much spot-on. And I'm very difficult to please with this kind of thing, too. But I think these new standards are punishing Wang Feng for being awesome at numbers to almost exactly the same degree that they punish me for being awesome at cards and binary. All of the ones that really needed fixing (images, dates) have been fixed - I'll leave the likes of Boris to judge whether the names & faces turns out to be a fair standard, obviously.

My own training lately has been erratic in scheduling, but successful when I do it - I very nearly got a "perfect" 468 in 5-minute numbers the other day, which is cool, because if Wang Feng can do it then I don't see any reason why I shouldn't. I've dropped the 4-digit system plan for the moment, by the way - it just wasn't clicking in my head as well as it needs to. It's still on the back burner to be dug up again in future, though...

Moonie and Broon

In July 2002, I went to Chicago with some friends. And it was a completely awesome holiday, too, I'd recommend it to everyone who's looking for a new place to visit. One of these people, although otherwise a really great person, was one of those people who go to Renaissance Faires and dress up as 'genuine European renaissance folk', and so we all ended up going to the local Faire to see what it was like. It was actually rather groovy, and the best part of it was a pair of brilliant comedians called Moonie and Broon.

They were completely and totally hilarious and extremely talented, and so when at the end of the show they collected email addresses to add to the mailing list, I put mine down, just on the offchance I was ever in a position to go and see them again.

If memory serves, I heard nothing from them for about two years, but then from 2004 onwards, I've received regular mailings, letting me know where they're performing next, what other projects they're working on, and now (technology having moved on since 2002) what's on their latest podcast. I've never really considered taking myself off the mailing list all these years, since I might still, one day, end up in a position to go and see them again. And really, they are by far the most persistent mailing list I've ever been affiliated with - most people would have struck me off the list by now, or lost the original list and recreated it, or something like that. I'm impressed.

So, getting the latest update from Moonie and Broon today has inspired me to give them a plug on my blog. I feel quite bad about them emailing me so many times over the last eight and a half years, and me never replying or going to see them. So if anybody's in the Walnut Creek, California area on March 19th, go and check them out! They come with my heartiest recommendation! Say hi from me!