It's Christmas in Cambridge!

Remember at the start of the year when I said I'd go to lots of othello tournaments in 2016? Well, I did at least get to the Cambridge Christmas Tournament (impressively held in December for a change this year) today. We had an impressive 12 competitors, 75% of them being the combined Plowman/Brand families out in force, but also including me, Imre and Roy. I'm horribly out of practice, but still only lost to Imre and Guy, ending up in third place with wins including a really quite fascinating game against Richard. Okay, NEXT year, more othello tournaments!

But for now, I need to brush up on my Memory League skills, if I'm to have any hope of beating Jan-Hendrik in the first round of the MLOK tomorrow. I actually don't think I have any chance at all, but maybe he'll forget to compete. That's what I'm pinning my hopes on here.

Red Star Robinson

The Peak app has a fun new game on it where you control a turtle, eating jellyfish and avoiding nets and traps. It's all very Ecco the Dolphin, though I don't think he ever ate quite so many jellyfish. But there are bonus symbols on it including a bright red starfish, which for some reason always makes me think "Red Star Robinson", after the young hero from the Hotspur comic in days of old, who fought crime with the aid of his alien robot butler Mr Syrius Thrice.

I need an alien robot butler. Not because I've got a need to thwart bank robberies on a weekly basis, but just to cook my dinner and clean my flat for me.

MLOK your block off!

Anyone at all interested in Memory League competition should know that Clay's organising a big online knockout competition (just for fun) that everybody should sign up to! You can join by letting him know on the Facebook post or the Art of Memory forum - give it a go, regardless of how good you are at remembering things! It'll be fun!