Country life

Derby's postcodes are very strange. I live in DE23, yet I just have to walk down the road and I'm in DE1. I'm right next to the city centre, how come I get a postcode that makes it sound like I live somewhere in the wilds of Derbyshire? When I lived in Tumby Woodside, the best part of fifty miles from Peterborough, I was in PE22, which is the postcode for all the little villages on the far side of Boston that aren't quite close enough to Lincoln to get an LN code. Boston itself is PE21. I've never lived, long-term, in any place with a postcode number under twenty. That statistic makes me sound like some kind of country bumpkin who's afraid of settlements with more than three inhabitants and lives in a cave somewhere, eating passing rabbits and weevils and shouting at goats. It's a good thing nobody knows or cares about my postcode.

I'm watching Crimewatch right now, for want of anything better to do. I used to watch it regularly when I was a lot younger. I don't know why, maybe it's the appeal of the badly-acted dramatisations, or the vague hope that I might have witnessed the arch-criminal without knowing it at some point in the distant past. Of course, with my inability to remember faces, I wouldn't know about it even if I saw them on Crimewatch.

COLD winter ahead!

It's going to snow! Unless the weather forecasters have lied to me, of course, but they don't usually. If I'd thought about it, I would have bought some more new shoes, or wellies, or something suitable for walking around when there's snow and slush on the ground. The famous other-materials shoes haven't really stood up to the strain of being walked around in every now and then, so perhaps next time I really need to splash out on the second-cheapest shoes in the shop instead of the cheapest.

Little Green Men (and Zoom Zoom)

I was wondering whether to watch the repeat of the last episode of the first series of Life On Mars on BBC4 in ten minutes. There's a new series next week, or possibly the week after. While pursuing my usual means of making my mind up about something, ie by doing nothing and waiting to see what happens, I clicked on the uk.misc newsgroup, for the first time ever and for totally un-Life-On-Mars-related reasons, to find a post about it. From a German who thought the characters speak with really weird accents and that it's strange that the police officers don't carry guns, but that's not the point. I took this as a sign from the universe that I should watch Life On Mars, and so that's what I'm doing.

If I were to think about it rationally, I might be worried about the way I'm taking orders from the internet. There are conspiracies, you know. This is probably what led to Spencer Perceval being assassinated. Innocuously-placed websites designed by freemasons and communists designed to prompt lone gunmen into doing things.

Also, it's been decided (by me and Jemfy, and we know about these things), that the word 'gerrymander' now describes the way geese walk. 'Goose-step' tends to have negative connotations nowadays, you see.

Incidentally, does anybody out there get the reference in this post title? I know they're normally obscure, but this one is particularly so, and I think it's particularly clever and funny (though I says it as shouldn't).

More tea, vicar?

It occurred to me early this morning that I had James and Ravinder and Victoria coming round with cameras and tripods and brain buddies and things, and that it's polite to offer guests something to drink. Since the only liquids I had available were tap water and past-the-sell-by-date milk, I went out to the corner shop and got some tea. I did consider getting coffee as well, but decided against it because while I can bring myself to drink tea every now and then, coffee tastes like yuck.

James arrived, asked if I had anything decaffeinated, and when I told him I hadn't, opted for tap water. When the TV people turned up, with all the accompanying excitement and talking, I forgot to offer them anything until just before lunch, when they politely declined since we were just about to go for lunch. So now I've got a box of teabags AND a pack of sugar that I'm going to have to drink and/or eat myself. With hindsight, I really should have bought coffee, seeing as my brother's coming round for the weekend and he drinks no end of coffee but dislikes tea.

But despite my shortcomings as a tea boy, I think today's secondary purpose of making a documentary went well. We did lots of talking about this and that, memorising cards and reciting pi, showing the camera around my stylishly untidy flat, drinking and talking in the haunted pub and expressing scepticism regarding James's mind-altering flashy-lights-and-pulsing-sounds Brain Buddy device. Actually, I expect the thing works very well - Dominic's always raving about it - but it normally takes me at least a couple of years to agree to try new things.

Sheriff John Stone, why don't you leave me alone

I can't get the song 'Sloop John B' by the Beach Boys out of my head today. I've also had an email from a TV guy asking me if I want to do a bit about counting cards for a programme called 'Beat The Casino', but I've turned him down. As previously mentioned, once or twice, I love holidays in Las Vegas, and when Dominic did a similar documentary years ago, all the casinos in Vegas sent him polite letters telling him never to set foot inside them again on pain of nobbling by hired goons. Well, I don't think the hired goons were mentioned, but I just assume they're implied in all letters from Las Vegas casinos.

The above paragraph makes it sound like I'm some kind of genius card-counter who periodically goes to Las Vegas to supplement his income by winning squillions of dollars at blackjack. I'm really not. When they hear that I can memorise cards, the first thing everyone says is 'I bet you're good at blackjack', or 'don't play this guy at poker', or something like that. And yes, I'd be great at blackjack if they allowed me to look through the deck of cards before the start of the game, but strangely enough most casinos prefer not to do that. Card counting is a completely different skill.

I can do it a bit, admittedly, but when I'm in Vegas I prefer to just trust to luck. It's more fun that way and I usually win anyway.

Everlasting, like the sun

I've just watched "Do You Want To Live Forever", the documentary about Aubrey, and it was brilliant. I've heard and read about his theories at length before, but it's always a lot of fun to see him talking about them, with the beard and hair and a glass of beer on the go ("I have the genes that mean I like beer, and drinking it in the morning isn't a problem. I mean, it's ten in the morning, this is my third pint, and that's fine for me..."), and with a very convincing kind of passion for the subject. Jay Olshansky claimed in the documentary that Aubrey is full of bitterness and hate towards the scientific community, which is a wildly inaccurate thing to say - I've never known anyone less hateful, he does everything with a sense of just having fun with it.

Am I convinced by the arguments that we could eradicate the aging process with just a bit of work? Yes. Not from any kind of scientific understanding, but just because I like to believe we live in the kind of world where Aubrey's right. If I had money, I would gladly invest it in SENS research, or bump up the Methuselah Mouse prize fund, or whatever, and I hope it all comes to fruition, just so I can say I knew about it before it was cool. Even before meeting Aubrey, I generally approached life from the point of view that I was going to live forever, so it's quite nice to know I was right all along.

Meanwhile, I notice tonight that Amazon.co.uk seem to also have a different approach to time - they've just sent me an email saying:

"Dear Customer,

We wanted to give you an update on the status of your order
[026-4457344-7257252].

We are sorry to report that the following items have been delayed.

Antonia Forest (Author) "Falconer's Lure"

Our current estimate is that it will take an additional 4-6 weeks to
obtain these items for you.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes."

This, I might point out, is a book I ordered for a Christmas present for my mother, BEFORE Christmas, and this is the first I've heard that it hasn't been delivered yet. (Yes, if I spoke to my mother occasionally, I might have learned as much by now, but that's not the point.) I don't know, what is the world coming to?

Still, to look on the bright side, at least I didn't go to the football like I was thinking of doing yesterday. We got thrashed six-nil. At home. To Grimsby.

It's grim up north

Boston Utd are at home to Grimsby tomorrow, in yet another crucial relegation six-pointer. There's a whole gaggle of six teams fighting it out for the next-to-bottom spot, and most of the others have got home games against mid-table opposition tomorrow, so a win for Boston is absolutely vital. I'm not sure whether or not to go and see it - Boston-Grimsby games are always fun, since Grimsby are the dirtiest team in the league, they're local rivals and games are always more like a punch-up in the mud than a classic football match.

Alternatively, I might stay at home and do memory practice. I did an hour numbers today, trying out that thing where I link the last image from one group to the first of the next, like I do with spoken numbers. It's slower, so I only went through the 2340 digits three-and-a-bit times instead of four or five, but the recall was better, and I ended up with a score of 1800, which is more than acceptable, especially since I'm pretty sure I could do better than that with a bit more practice.

I'm not sure whether to try doing that in hour cards or half-hour binary, but I think I probably won't. Hour numbers was the only one where I was getting to the limit of what I wanted to try to memorise before half way through the memorising time, and just revising it for the rest of the time. Which I don't think is an effective way to do things, but trying to memorise more than ten journeys doesn't really work for me either. Still, it was quite exciting.

There's also a big long documentary on ITV tomorrow night about Aubrey and his life-extension stuff, which I'm sure will be fun to watch. I'd probably miss the start if I went to the football. Plus if I stayed at home I could hoover the place and pick up some of the filth, you know, seeing as I've got guests on Monday.

Wow, that's weird. I've just noticed that there's a series called "After You've Gone", starring Nicholas Lyndhurst, on BBC1 on Friday nights nowadays. I assume it's a sitcom of some kind. Tonight's is episode 4, but it's the first time I've noticed that it exists. And I normally make a point of checking out new sitcoms, even BBC1 ones, in case they're good. I need to be more observant.

Beauty school dropout

I'm watching Grease on Sky again tonight. Last time I mentioned this in my blog I was emailing a TV producer about a documentary about memory stuff - this time I've got two of them on the go. The one I've been talking about for a while that looks like being fun, and another guy who just emailed me the other day to ask about things. I'm practically a superstar. In terms of fame, I must be at least on the level of the guy who played Eugene.

Reactor engaged, traction locked, all go!

I noticed in HMV today that Thundercats is finally out on DVD! The first 33 episodes, anyway, which is a good start. I never really understood why it wasn't released a few years ago when 80s cartoon nostalgia was really, really big. Everything else was. And Thundercats was the BEST of the half-hour-toy-advert cartoons that made my childhood so special - yes, better than Transformers, better than He-Man, the whole lot of them. Nothing could beat Thundercats.

I've already got all of these episodes on video, taped off the TV when they were first shown (except "Pumm-Ra", when we had the video set to the wrong channel and taped the snooker on BBC2 instead, and "Spitting Image", where the tape ran out half way through, but I've got those on the commercial VHS release - luckily, they were not only two of the handful of episodes that were released on video, but they were both on the same tape!), but I might buy the DVD anyway, just to show support for Thundercats in general. Thundercats Hoooooooo!

Derby day

I was in the town centre yesterday when a man asked me if I knew how to get to the Wardwick. "What's a Wardwick when it's at home?" I thought to myself, and apologised for not being able to help him. I went on my way, turned a corner, looked up and saw a sign saying "WARDWICK". The following thoughts then went through my head:

"Oh, this is a Wardwick? I always thought this road was called 'That street with the library and the Cats Protection League shop and all the old buildings'. I could never get the hang of street names that don't say 'street' or 'road' or 'boulevard' or anything like that after them. Oh, and the guy who asked me the way wandered off in the other direction. I feel all guilty now. No, it's okay, assuming he asked someone else (and you'd think he would have done, unless I'm the only approachable-looking person in town today), he could just have gone the other way around and got to this road from the other end. Oh heck, that means he might be walking towards me right now, ON the Wardwick, not five minutes after I told him I don't know where it is! He'll think I knew all along and just sent him in the wrong direction as a cruel joke! I'd better hide. But if I hide in the library or the Cats Protection League shop or one of the other grotty shops down here, that might turn out to be where he was going, and it will look ten times worse! He'll probably call the police and everything."

In the end I decided to just keep walking on my way, and I didn't bump into him, nor did I get arrested. Hopefully he found whatever he was looking for, despite my hindrance.

There's also a TV show on tonight about one of the few things Derby's famous for - sumo wrestling! Yes, it's a little-known fact that the British Sumo Federation is based in Derby. Makes me wonder if I should try to organise the British othello championships alongside one of their events - "the two most popular Japan-originating pastimes in Derby, together on the same day!" Hey, they have chess boxing, why don't we have sumo othello!

Another hit Derby-connected documentary of the future is taking shape - James Kemp and I are being filmed here next Monday talking memory for this latest project. This leaves me with the dilemma of whether I should clean up my flat a bit before the squalor is captured for posterity, or whether the cheerful clutter will just make me look loveably eccentric on camera. I'm inclining towards the latter, because it means I don't have to do any tidying.

Learning Japanese, I think I'm learning Japanese

I dug out my old Teach Yourself Japanese course today and refreshed my memory of the first couple of chapters. I've started to learn the language a few times in the past, and always got stuck when I got to verbs and gave up. This time, I fully intend to become a master of the tongue, able to chat fluently with Hideshi Tamenori or Rumiko Takahashi or Usagi Yojimbo, should they happen to come round for tea. I expect to be talking like a native by tomorrow lunchtime, teatime at the latest.

I feel I should point out that I've also done a huge amount of memory training (I'm really getting somewhere with the spoken numbers now) and writing of Cambridge Memory Championship website today. Having weekend non-memory-stuff breaks is definitely a good idea. But then if I get so used to the idea of not memorising things at weekends, I might not be able to do it at competitions, which are invariably weekend events! Maybe I'll have a weekend in the middle of the week. Or just do what I want, when I want, like I always do.

It was Sunday, what a black day

I was thinking of having an image. Or a different image, anyway. Rather than being the one with the hat and the strange clothes, I thought it would be cool to be the one with the hat and the all-black clothes, or the one with the hat and the 18th-century period costume, you know the kind of thing. That way it will be easier to become a major TV star, because everyone will remember me after the first time they see me perform.

Or I could become a nudist.

I don't write as much as I used to

By which I mean that I actually write more nowadays than I used to, but it's all on this blog thing, and so is mostly dull stuff about my everyday life, rather than dull fictional stuff that's supposed to be funny. I used to be quite prolific with that kind of thing in the olden days.

I'm using my antique desktop that I've had since 1999 (I think - I had to pause for a moment and replay my life so far to work out when it must have been, and it still might have been 1998), because I needed to dig out "The Adventures of Jayce and Alex" from the hard drive, in order to force it on someone who I somehow neglected to force it on back when I wrote it in 2001. J&A was a serious attempt to see if I could become a writer of children's books, and I continued to try to start a career in that field for the next couple of years, on and off. The publishers of Britain were unanimous in their opinion that I'd be better off as an accountant. I've re-read Jayce and Alex tonight, and I STILL think it's quite good. But then, I'm biased.

While I was here, I decided to have a look through the various Word documents saved on my PC. Since I save everything in 'My Documents', usually with the title that Word suggests (the first few words of the text), it provides a fun guessing game to see if I can remember what any document is from the title. Things of note include:

The special secret extra Jayce and Alex adventure that I wrote a month or so after the first book, intending it to be the opening chapter of the sequel, which nobody knows exists, and the first few paragraphs of chapter two. I wasn't entirely happy with the way it turned out, and since by then the rejection letters were coming in thick and fast, I decided I should maybe try writing something else instead. Then I think I got distracted by another project, and didn't write anything at all, until...

"Interesting Private Detectives", another planned masterpiece of fiction for the discerning primary school audience, that I never got very far with. It would have been a real epic, with dragons and squirrels, at least three different planet Earths and a lot of mad-scientist inventions - I must finish writing it some time.

A story involving a giant that I had completely forgotten about, dated 2003 and seeming to be so heavily indebted to Lemony Snicket that I would never dream of trying to get it published now. Strange, because it was written long before I'd ever read any Snicket books.

Lots and lots of exercises I wrote for my students while I was learning to teach English as a foreign language. They're not very good. The poor foreigners (and I mean 'poor' in more ways than one - you could pay for lessons from qualified teachers at that place, or get taught by trainees for free) can't have learned very much.

"Alpha.doc" Good grief, it's an Alpha Flight fanfic. And a TERRIBLE one! I'm pretty sure I never showed this to anyone. I don't do fanfic, this is the only time I've turned my hand to it.

"Animal Cookies.doc" Oh, I remember this. I was going to write a story based on a surreal conversation I had on the Bridge with a bunch of people. And since most of those people were Americans, I tried to write it with an American accent. I didn't get very far without giving up on it.

"Bagshot is large.doc" A hilarious one-act play about the upper classes. I'll save that in case I ever find myself needing to put on a comedy revue at the local theatre.

"Bratislava application.doc"? When the heck did I apply for anything involving Bratistlava? Oh, it's a TEFL thing. I didn't get the job. Or indeed a TEFL job anywhere, but I only applied for a couple before deciding I would have a lot more fun going back to accountancy.

"Brotherly Love.doc"? What the... ohh, wow, another thing I'd forgotten. It's the script for a Doctor Who comic strip that another member of the Mensa Doctor Who fan club was going to draw. We got as far as talking about it, when I realised that my writing was, in fact, horrific, and I decided not to go on with it. Shame, but looking at it now I can see it was a very good decision.

"Code Effect.doc" Ooh, a list of the secret codes for Mortal Kombat 3! You never know when that might come in handy...

Hmm, it's going to take all night at this rate, and I sincerely doubt anyone's still reading. Besides, there's an othello tournament on Kurnik starting in a couple of minutes. I'll continue the journey down memory lane.doc later, and won't write about it here unless a lot of people really want me to.

Okay, I definitely need to take a break

I've had decidedly diminishing returns in everything I've turned my hand to over the last couple of weeks. With hindsight, it's possibly because the schedule I set myself for doing things (if a collection of vague intentions can really be described as a schedule) now I'm my own boss has me working seven days a week without variation. Weekends were invented for a reason - I'll arrange things in future so I do different kinds of not-work on different days, and make myself stick to it. And not even pay myself overtime if I work extra.

In recognition of this, I've spontaneously decided to go to Manchester tomorrow. I'm not sure what the mental connection is, but that doesn't matter - I've not been there since the MSO in 2004, and I've never really explored the city as much as I probably should. Then I'll come back home and be all refreshed and get on with things on Sunday. It might happen. And monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Easy? Maybe if you're a millionaire...

I was pondering going to Center Parcs, because they email me occasionally to tell me that they've got special offers (very expensive special offers, but special nonetheless), so I decided to look into how easy it is to get there without a car or an obliging father who'll give you a lift anywhere. I was pleased to see that the official website says "Getting to Sherwood is easy by rail or road". Then it elaborates on the method of getting there by rail - "The nearest mainline station is Newark Northgate, which is approximately 15 miles away. There is also Nottingham station approximately 20 miles away. For further information contact National Rail Enquiries on 0845 7484950 or visit www.thetrainline.com/. A taxi may be taken to Center Parcs from Newark or Nottingham station, using the following companies..."

I'm sorry, but taking a taxi for fifteen miles does not constitute easily getting somewhere by rail! This really does nothing but reinforce my prejudice against the kind of wealthy middle-class people who ponder going to Center Parcs. Obviously they're all so wealthy and posh that they think nothing of taking taxis whenever they travel anywhere! Bunch of snobs, the lot of them! Pfah!

I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet skies

Yes, I really love the song "Grace Kelly" by Mika. I like squeaky voices. I've been mistaken for Maurice Gibb in the past, you know. It also comes passably close to providing a relevant title for what I was going to write about tonight - for the benefit of mutual friends who might not know about it, check out Jemfy's other other blog, especially the latest entry where she describes her meeting with Gordon from Sesame Street. I never really watched Sesame Street when I was little, but I was an ardent devotee of Rainbow, and I've always kind of wanted to meet Geoffrey and see what he's like in real life. I'm sure there are plenty of people who meet him every day - he's a minicab driver these days, as opposed to a hermit - but I still can't really imagine what it must be like to actually meet such an iconic figure. I'd probably be all speechless and in awe.

And while I'm throwing links to VPSers around, can I recommend this seriously cool video by Jimi (aka Dog-Faced Boy)? I think it deserves to be a hit.

Also, because this post has contained a lot of me saying other people are great and not so much about how fantastic I am, here's a blog post that describes me as 'the incredible'. Actually, I only mention it because the picture it uses is one of the few pictures you get when you put my name into Google images. People have asked me before if that's a picture of me in my younger days. It's a picture of the Decamentathlon competition at the MSO in 2003, and I'm not actually in it - Google's just picking up my name from the article attached to it. It shows Demis Hassabis, Tony and Alex Wilkinson and I think it's George Lane in the background - I was in the room, to Demis's right, just off-camera.

As the actress said to the bishop

I'm thinking of moving house. I'm tired of waking up every day and seeing the words "Super suction, compact cylinder!" on the vacuum cleaner box on top of my wardrobe. It contains some of my stuff, probably - I can't really be bothered to look, but I assume it's up there for some reason, like the various other boxes and suitcases up there. There isn't really anywhere else in the flat that I could fit a large-ish cardboard box.

I suppose technically I could just turn the box around, rather than moving house, but I would quite like a bigger place. On the other hand, moving is such a lot of unnecessary work that I vowed never to do it again after moving here three-and-a-bit years ago. And unless I got a proper job it would be difficult to find a new place anyway, of course. Perhaps I could become wealthy enough to buy a second home without moving out of this one? Although then any time I wanted one of my posessions, it would always be at my other place. Millionaires must be constantly frustrated.

How do you eat yours?

The correct way to eat gingerbread men is to bite their heads off first. It's vitally important to make sure you kill them with the first bite, so that they don't suffer unduly. I felt it was necessary to publicly point this out, because I've been hearing people advocating other means of eating the things which I think are frankly sadistic. Anyone who starts with the toes and works their way up is a horrible, horrible person.

I've just been re-reading my old sitcom, "Sitcom", that I wrote years ago and occasionally forced people to read. I also made a couple of attempts to persuade people to put it on TV, but it never worked out (although I did exchange emails with a guy at Channel 4 for some time about the possibility, and not just with me saying 'oh, go on' and him saying 'no, stop emailing me' either). Even reading it now I think it's occasionally funny. I was thinking that I might try to rework it as a webcomic, since I'm reading so many of them lately and always wanted to write one. Or maybe even make it into a webcartoon, if that's a word. It would be a fun kind of exercise to develop some artistic ability. Here's a scene from episode 11, which I don't think I ever finished writing and so probably didn't show to even my long-suffering readers:

Everybody is sitting around in the living room. Dean is in his usual armchair, watching television, Rufus is in the other armchair reading a book entitled “I Hate Everybody”, by Rufus Hemingway, Cecil is dressed as a boxer, shadow-boxing and skipping around in the way he imagines boxers do when they’re training for a fight, and Adolf and Celia are sitting on beanbags, playing ‘Guess Who’. Celia is extremely pregnant. There is a bizarre humming noise in the background.

ADOLF
Is it Herman?

CELIA
No. Is it Claire?

ADOLF
No. Is it Richard?

CELIA
No. Is it Michael?

ADOLF
No. Is it Herman?

CELIA
No. Is it Michael?

CECIL
You’re not playing it right.

EVERYBODY
Shut up, Cecil.

RUFUS
What the bleeding heck is making that humming noise?

ADOLF
Not me. Probably a dog.

RUFUS
Dogs don’t hum. You’re thinking of hummingbirds.

ADOLF
Well, maybe it’s a hummingbird.

RUFUS
Don’t be stupid. Anyway, since you’re talking to me, even though I told you not to, I suppose I should make some polite conversation. What are you going to call the baby?

CELIA
We’re not quite sure yet. I think I’m going to call it Captain Invincible, if it’s a boy, and Captain Invulnerable if it’s a girl. Adolf’s going to call it Boris.

ADOLF
No, I’ve changed my mind again since I said that. I think I might call it Ferdinand, after my brother.

CECIL
Your brother’s called Godris.

CELIA
Shut it, Cecil. Nobody asked you.

ADOLF
Maybe I’ll just pick a name at random out of our book of baby names.

CELIA
Well, make sure it really is a book of baby names, and not a dictionary. That’s the kind of thinking that led to our previous four children being called Satisfactory, Burlesque, Artichoke and Artichoke Two.

ADOLF
Well, it’s hardly my fault that the book came open at the same page twice. You keep opening it at that page to look up the word ‘artisan’, because you think it’s rude.

CELIA
It is. The dictionary’s got it wrong. I keep writing to them and telling them to change it, but they haven’t yet.

CECIL
Wait a minute. You’ve got four children already?

ADOLF
Yes. Hadn’t you noticed?

Rufus, Adolf, Celia and Dean all point and laugh at Cecil, saying things like “What an idiot!” for quite a long time.

CECIL
But you only got married last year!

CELIA
Well, it’s not like we’d never met each other before our wedding day. We’ve known each other for years.

RUFUS
Oh, is Satisfactory Fortescue your son? The one who works at the pig factory, with green hair, a tattoo of Cliff Richard on his nose and blue eyes?

ADOLF
No, that’s the other Satisfactory Fortescue from the pig factory. Our son’s got brown eyes.

RUFUS
Oh yes, I think I’ve seen him around. Fat, isn’t he?

ADOLF
Yes. We’re always making fun of him about it.

CECIL
Hang on, how old are your children?

CELIA
Twenty-four, nineteen, fourteen and eight.

CECIL
What? But… I mean… I’m only thirty-six, and you’re a year younger than me, so…

ADOLF
Isn’t Cecil an idiot, everyone?

Everyone points and laughs at Cecil for another long time. Godris enters, and joins in. Then he leaves again.

RUFUS
That humming noise is really getting annoying. I think it’s coming from outside.

Rufus gets up, and goes outside. Everyone else sits in silence, looking at the door. The humming noise gets louder.

CELIA
He’s only made it louder.

ADOLF
I’ll go and sort it out.

Adolf goes outside. The humming noise stops immediately. Adolf and Rufus come back in and sit down again.

ADOLF
Is it Herman?

CELIA
No. Is it Claire?

RUFUS
Oh, get out of my house, the lot of you!

More fun than any other sport that's almost 'raccoons' spelt backwards

I'm watching the final of the Masters snooker as we speak. Well, as I write and significantly before you read, but you know what I mean. Someone asked me just recently whether there is anybody in the world of memory competitions who is the Ronnie O'Sullivan natural genius type, and I wasn't sure what would be a good answer. Andi springs to mind, but that's more of a temperament thing than a natural-brilliance thing, although there's no doubt Andi's got plenty of that too. And my second thought was that memory things aren't so much a case of natural talent, because it's more a case of work and preparation - which is a silly thing to think, because of course snooker players probably do ten times as much training and practice as us part-time memorisers.

So are some memory people more naturally gifted than others? I've never been quite sure. I tend to say that it's really something anyone could do, and that the only difference between the people who compete in championships and the people who don't is that the former are weird enough to want to. But who knows? I'm a competitor, not a pundit. When memory competitions are huge and televised, Dominic can be Steve Davis and talk about natural ability and motivation, I'll be Stephen Hendry and get to the semi-finals while everyone talks about how good I used to be.

The US Championship in a couple of months, incidentally, is going to be the same format as last year (except that there will be seven finalists instead of six, presumably to make the last round go on a bit longer). I would really, really love to see a British championship in that exact same format, just to see if we could get anyone to watch it. Maybe I'll make a serious effort to sell it to some TV people - I'm sure we could rustle up half a dozen good competitors without even opening it to foreigners.

Anyway, Ronnie's won, and brilliantly. And what do we get to fill the hour-and-a-quarter extra time in the schedule? A programme about the Norfolk coast. I ask you. If I was the director-general of the BBC (or whoever's in charge of choosing filler, I don't imagine he does it personally), I'd break out the cartoons at moments like this. I know what Hunstanton looks like, and anyone who doesn't isn't missing much.

Would it be monstrously self-indulgent of me?

If I went to Las Vegas for a holiday? You know, as opposed to visiting the various friends in the Americas who are reading this and might reasonably expect me to drop by if I find myself on the other side of the Atlantic? But it's a couple of years since I last went there, and it's still my favourite holiday destination, and the solitude would definitely help me work on my book and things (this last sentence is what we in the trade call a terminal case of self-delusion). Flights aren't too expensive at the moment, and it's practically two dollars to the pound these days, so I'd be able to throw even more money around than I usually do when I've got foreign cash on me and can't be bothered to work out exactly how much I'm spending.

I thought of promising it to myself as a reward if I meet my self-imposed targets writing the book, but I know from past experience that I'd just fail to meet the targets, take the reward anyway and feel terribly guilty about the whole business, losing productivity, money and morale all in one fell swoop. So maybe I'll just do it anyway and not care about anything or anyone else. Is it me, or do I sometimes come across as a really terrible person in this blog thing?