Yay! I won an othello tournament! I was going to leave that revelation until the end of the blog post, but I'm too excited. Admittedly it wasn't a big, big othello tournament - the Oadby regional only attracted five people and no clocks to time the games with (Geoff was meant to be bringing them, but he was ill), but even so, it was a great event. And more importantly, I won it!
Actually, I wasn't playing all that well and probably deserved to lose, but still ended up winning all my games. And that's what counts, after all. That gives me a good head-start in this year's British Grand Prix, especially over the people who didn't turn up (the BGP title, and its accompanying entry into the world championship, generally goes to the only half-decent player who goes to most or all of the five regional tournaments in a year - maybe that will be me this year!)
Or maybe I'll end up coming last in all the others. If I was a betting man, I'd go for that.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds
I'm wondering if I should go to the Speed Memory World Championships. This is a different thing entirely from the World Memory Championships, if you were wondering. We use the word 'memory' to mean something entirely unrelated to what these people are talking about. Memory, of course, is a concept that encompasses a whole lot of things, and to be honest, we really should change the name of the WMC to something a lot more specific - it'd stop me being constantly mistaken for someone who's an expert on teaching people how to remember where they left their car keys.
"Speed Memory" is basically a photographic memory kind of thing - looking at a small handful of numbers or other information for 2 seconds or so and trying to recall them perfectly. It's a discipline that basically is only done by one guy, Ramon Campayo, and he's the one who sets the rules and regulations for this championship - which is organised in an old-fashioned "challengers' tournament to decide who gets to compete against the reigning champion" format. It would be fun to take part and try my hand at it, because I've never done this kind of thing before. On the other hand, it's in Munich, the week before the German Memory Championship in Hamburg, and I can see myself taking a week and a half off work, touring around Germany, and ending up using all my holidays long before the end of March, like I did this time round. And working five days a week, every week for months on end is no fun at all, I tells you.
"Speed Memory" is basically a photographic memory kind of thing - looking at a small handful of numbers or other information for 2 seconds or so and trying to recall them perfectly. It's a discipline that basically is only done by one guy, Ramon Campayo, and he's the one who sets the rules and regulations for this championship - which is organised in an old-fashioned "challengers' tournament to decide who gets to compete against the reigning champion" format. It would be fun to take part and try my hand at it, because I've never done this kind of thing before. On the other hand, it's in Munich, the week before the German Memory Championship in Hamburg, and I can see myself taking a week and a half off work, touring around Germany, and ending up using all my holidays long before the end of March, like I did this time round. And working five days a week, every week for months on end is no fun at all, I tells you.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Five million channels and nothing on
It's true, you know. Sometimes I find myself flicking through the channels after watching a fairly uninspiring Man City v Aalborg game, and find not a single thing worth watching on any TV station! I should set up my own station and broadcast something good, 24 hours a day. I'll call it "The Good Programmes Channel" and it'll be quite popular.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The worst thing about holidays
Is coming back home and going to work all jet-lagged and tired. I want a big long holiday. At least a month, in some exotic foreign place! And then maybe go back to the office when I get bored with having fun...
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
New Mork
That title is meant to represent 'more New York', only phrased in an entertaining way. I've got a feeling it didn't really work.
Anyway, to continue my random reminiscences about my holiday, Ronnie White, who was comfortably the best of the competitors there and unquestionably deserved the win, has some interesting training techniques. Wanting to prepare for the inevitable distractions you're likely to suffer while memorising at the US championship (there's more hustle and bustle there than at any other competition I've been to), he memorised packs of cards in unusual locations, with his nephews and nieces climbing all over him and, most brilliantly of all, underwater. Seriously, he says - with plastic cards and a snorkel. There really should be a world record for underwater memorisation. There probably is, actually. There's a world record for everything nowadays.
Also at the US Championship was Tom Groves, a British memory competitor from the very early days of the sport, who now lives in America. Tom has the honour of being the first person to describe the basic principles of memory techniques to me, and being the first person (some time later) to convince me that they actually do work. I decided to give it a go, and the rest is history. So it was good to see him again, and I did my best to persuade him to come out of retirement. I'm becoming the old man of memory sports, and we need some of the real old-timers back in the game!
Outside the competition, I bought volume two of the complete Popeye comic strip, which I'd been looking for for quite a while. 1931 was a bad year for Castor Oyl - having been downgraded from funny-man to sidekick, the former star of "Thimble Theater" was finally dropped altogether from the storylines in favour of Popeye - but a great year for comics in general, and Popeye and Olive in particular. Popeye wearing a skirt and being mistaken for a particularly ugly old grandmother is a highlight.
It's not a New York reminiscence, but Steven Gerrard's incomprehensible scouse mumblings after a game always make me giggle. I'm sure he's making some valid and interesting points, but I can never make out a word he's saying.
But back to NY, and the US Championship takes place on the 19th floor of the Con Edison building. The funny thing about it is that the lifts go from floor 1 to 11 and then straight up to 19. The contents of floors 12 to 18 are cloaked in mystery. I suspect that's where they plot to take over the world.
Also, Men's Health want to do a "stylish, sophisticated photo shot" of me, to accompany the interview they did the other week. With a real photographer with his own website with pictures of Bafta winners and everything!
Anyway, to continue my random reminiscences about my holiday, Ronnie White, who was comfortably the best of the competitors there and unquestionably deserved the win, has some interesting training techniques. Wanting to prepare for the inevitable distractions you're likely to suffer while memorising at the US championship (there's more hustle and bustle there than at any other competition I've been to), he memorised packs of cards in unusual locations, with his nephews and nieces climbing all over him and, most brilliantly of all, underwater. Seriously, he says - with plastic cards and a snorkel. There really should be a world record for underwater memorisation. There probably is, actually. There's a world record for everything nowadays.
Also at the US Championship was Tom Groves, a British memory competitor from the very early days of the sport, who now lives in America. Tom has the honour of being the first person to describe the basic principles of memory techniques to me, and being the first person (some time later) to convince me that they actually do work. I decided to give it a go, and the rest is history. So it was good to see him again, and I did my best to persuade him to come out of retirement. I'm becoming the old man of memory sports, and we need some of the real old-timers back in the game!
Outside the competition, I bought volume two of the complete Popeye comic strip, which I'd been looking for for quite a while. 1931 was a bad year for Castor Oyl - having been downgraded from funny-man to sidekick, the former star of "Thimble Theater" was finally dropped altogether from the storylines in favour of Popeye - but a great year for comics in general, and Popeye and Olive in particular. Popeye wearing a skirt and being mistaken for a particularly ugly old grandmother is a highlight.
It's not a New York reminiscence, but Steven Gerrard's incomprehensible scouse mumblings after a game always make me giggle. I'm sure he's making some valid and interesting points, but I can never make out a word he's saying.
But back to NY, and the US Championship takes place on the 19th floor of the Con Edison building. The funny thing about it is that the lifts go from floor 1 to 11 and then straight up to 19. The contents of floors 12 to 18 are cloaked in mystery. I suspect that's where they plot to take over the world.
Also, Men's Health want to do a "stylish, sophisticated photo shot" of me, to accompany the interview they did the other week. With a real photographer with his own website with pictures of Bafta winners and everything!
Monday, March 09, 2009
LN4 4XH
Now, how am I going to do this? Lots and lots to write about my New York visit, but doing it all in chronological order is so passé these days (I did that when I went to NY in 2006, and I hate to repeat myself). I'll just randomly talk about incidents, I think, over the next few blog entries, unless something else comes up.
Firstly, I should report that scary internet acquaintance number 1 and his equally scary-sounding friend turned out to be the most fun people I've ever met! Seriously, my existing friends should prepare themselves to be bumped down my favourite-people list a couple of places. I might even start referring to them as Dee and Ry, rather than continuing to describe them as scary strangers, that's how much I like them. And likewise, I had an enormous amount of fun with scary internet acquaintance number 2 (or, as I might want to call him from now on, John) - we went to the enormous FAO Schwarz toy store, as featured in the movie "Big", and played on the giant lighting-up piano! And saw sea-lions playing in Central Park, which I didn't realise was a thing you could do in New York. AND had a genuine New York hot dog from a cart and found to my surprise that it tasted quite nice!
Also, the city is teeming with squirrels! There are a whole lot of them in Central Park, who come scampering up to see you in case you're bringing them nuts, and another gang who hang out in Union Square, who I spent an enjoyable time feeding cashews early on Saturday morning.
I got recognised by one (geordie-accented) person in the city while I was seeing the sights, and two people on the plane home, one of whom was American. Obviously my fame is becoming a global phenomenon. I've just had another email from David Blaine's people, saying he wants to talk to me, too. I'm going to say no thanks, but it's very flattering.
While I'm talking about memory-related things, let's mention my pretext for a holiday there in the first place, and congratulate Ronnie White for winning the US Memory Championship! He really was on another level to the other competitors, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does in the future. He's also got a book out, if you're one of those people who collect memory books - called "The Military Memory Man" and subtitled "An Afghanistan war veteran shares his secrets of memory techniques", or something along those lines. Personally, if I'm looking for a good book on memory, the author's war record isn't the first criterion I use for making my decision, but presumably that kind of thing goes down well in Texas. Ronnie, although a very nice person, is what the Americans call "conservative".
By one of those funny coincidences that make me suspect that my subconscious has got a mind of its own, I randomly picked a book from my bookcase to read on the plane (couldn't make up my mind, so thought to myself 'I'll move my finger along the shelves, and see where it's got to when I've counted to ten'), which turned out to be "Are You Dave Gorman?" I'd completely forgotten this, but during their travels chronicled in the book, Dave and Danny stay in the Roosevelt Hotel, just like I was doing. It's a very nice place, if you ever want to go there. Right next to the awesome-looking Grand Central Station, which certainly lives up to the 'Grand' part of its name (and also the 'Station' part, although that's less of an exceptional thing to say about it. It's a little bit too much to the south of Manhattan to really justify the 'Central' name, though...)
It was in Grand Central, in fact, while I was heading back to my hotel on a break from hanging out at the US Memory Championship and being told by everyone present how great my memory was, that I heard someone say "Hi, Ben," and turned to see who it was. I was a bit surprised by the casual (and midlands-English-accented) greeting, as if from someone who'd expected to see me there, since I didn't recognise the woman at all. "It's Kelly, from Boots," she explained, and I said "Ah, yes," as if that made everything clear.
I still have no idea who she is. But the important thing is that the American memory competitors and hangers-on think my memory is wonderful, so who cares if it turns out that I work alongside people who I completely forget as soon as I'm away from the office?
Finally for today, a conversation between two American women I overheard in Times Square one night, talking about one of the many, many groups around there of shouting people informing the world about their religious beliefs:
"They were wearing, like, Jewish symbols, but they were reading from the Bible. Shouldn't it have been the, you know, the Jewish thingy?"
"The Torah?"
"No, that's not it..."
Firstly, I should report that scary internet acquaintance number 1 and his equally scary-sounding friend turned out to be the most fun people I've ever met! Seriously, my existing friends should prepare themselves to be bumped down my favourite-people list a couple of places. I might even start referring to them as Dee and Ry, rather than continuing to describe them as scary strangers, that's how much I like them. And likewise, I had an enormous amount of fun with scary internet acquaintance number 2 (or, as I might want to call him from now on, John) - we went to the enormous FAO Schwarz toy store, as featured in the movie "Big", and played on the giant lighting-up piano! And saw sea-lions playing in Central Park, which I didn't realise was a thing you could do in New York. AND had a genuine New York hot dog from a cart and found to my surprise that it tasted quite nice!
Also, the city is teeming with squirrels! There are a whole lot of them in Central Park, who come scampering up to see you in case you're bringing them nuts, and another gang who hang out in Union Square, who I spent an enjoyable time feeding cashews early on Saturday morning.
I got recognised by one (geordie-accented) person in the city while I was seeing the sights, and two people on the plane home, one of whom was American. Obviously my fame is becoming a global phenomenon. I've just had another email from David Blaine's people, saying he wants to talk to me, too. I'm going to say no thanks, but it's very flattering.
While I'm talking about memory-related things, let's mention my pretext for a holiday there in the first place, and congratulate Ronnie White for winning the US Memory Championship! He really was on another level to the other competitors, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does in the future. He's also got a book out, if you're one of those people who collect memory books - called "The Military Memory Man" and subtitled "An Afghanistan war veteran shares his secrets of memory techniques", or something along those lines. Personally, if I'm looking for a good book on memory, the author's war record isn't the first criterion I use for making my decision, but presumably that kind of thing goes down well in Texas. Ronnie, although a very nice person, is what the Americans call "conservative".
By one of those funny coincidences that make me suspect that my subconscious has got a mind of its own, I randomly picked a book from my bookcase to read on the plane (couldn't make up my mind, so thought to myself 'I'll move my finger along the shelves, and see where it's got to when I've counted to ten'), which turned out to be "Are You Dave Gorman?" I'd completely forgotten this, but during their travels chronicled in the book, Dave and Danny stay in the Roosevelt Hotel, just like I was doing. It's a very nice place, if you ever want to go there. Right next to the awesome-looking Grand Central Station, which certainly lives up to the 'Grand' part of its name (and also the 'Station' part, although that's less of an exceptional thing to say about it. It's a little bit too much to the south of Manhattan to really justify the 'Central' name, though...)
It was in Grand Central, in fact, while I was heading back to my hotel on a break from hanging out at the US Memory Championship and being told by everyone present how great my memory was, that I heard someone say "Hi, Ben," and turned to see who it was. I was a bit surprised by the casual (and midlands-English-accented) greeting, as if from someone who'd expected to see me there, since I didn't recognise the woman at all. "It's Kelly, from Boots," she explained, and I said "Ah, yes," as if that made everything clear.
I still have no idea who she is. But the important thing is that the American memory competitors and hangers-on think my memory is wonderful, so who cares if it turns out that I work alongside people who I completely forget as soon as I'm away from the office?
Finally for today, a conversation between two American women I overheard in Times Square one night, talking about one of the many, many groups around there of shouting people informing the world about their religious beliefs:
"They were wearing, like, Jewish symbols, but they were reading from the Bible. Shouldn't it have been the, you know, the Jewish thingy?"
"The Torah?"
"No, that's not it..."
Friday, March 06, 2009
I still heart NY
Yep, New York is still a cool place to be. And just like every time I go to America, the weather has been lovely, warm and sunny all day, even though the city's still blanketed in snow! In many, many ways I'm the exact opposite of the Selfish Giant - spring follows me around everywhere I go (except in Britain)!
Just briefly dropping by internet land to see if any of the people I've arranged to meet up with over the next couple of days have sent me a last-minute message. They haven't, so you get a quick bonus blog before my net-cafe time runs out. Itinerary for the weekend: tomorrow morning, meet scary internet acquaintance I've never met in real life before, who's bringing along an equally scary-sounding friend too. Afternoon, meet a different but also scary internet acquaintance I've never met in real life before. If I'm still alive at that point, evening dinner with a memory man I have met before and who isn't scary at all (accompanied by a 'memory researcher' who probably is a bit scary). Saturday, hang out with numerous non-scary (mostly) American memory championship competitors, and hopefully a meet-up with another "internet acquaintance" who I've known for the best part of ten years now and have almost stopped being scared of - funnily enough, Crispy's in New York right now too.
Sunday morning, back home. Monday, work. I'm going to be asleep at my desk.
Just briefly dropping by internet land to see if any of the people I've arranged to meet up with over the next couple of days have sent me a last-minute message. They haven't, so you get a quick bonus blog before my net-cafe time runs out. Itinerary for the weekend: tomorrow morning, meet scary internet acquaintance I've never met in real life before, who's bringing along an equally scary-sounding friend too. Afternoon, meet a different but also scary internet acquaintance I've never met in real life before. If I'm still alive at that point, evening dinner with a memory man I have met before and who isn't scary at all (accompanied by a 'memory researcher' who probably is a bit scary). Saturday, hang out with numerous non-scary (mostly) American memory championship competitors, and hopefully a meet-up with another "internet acquaintance" who I've known for the best part of ten years now and have almost stopped being scared of - funnily enough, Crispy's in New York right now too.
Sunday morning, back home. Monday, work. I'm going to be asleep at my desk.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Miscellaneous babblings
My GOD, Excel 2007 is rubbish! Who the heck invented it? I've got it on my new laptop, and I'm going to have to download 2003, or better yet whichever version it was before that. Have you tried drawing a graph with 2007? It's the stupidest system I've ever seen!
Still, to compensate for that annoyance, I have got an old-style 10p coin, courtesy of Roel Hobo at the weekend (I swapped it for a legal-tender new-style one). It was minted in 1968, one of the first batch that were made as 10p rather than two shillings. I've added it to my collection of vaguely interesting coins!
Andre who posted a question as a comment to my blog entry of a few days ago: Yes, my memory system is the same as the one described here. And I've never used photos to keep track of my mental images. That seems to me like it would be very limiting - the images in my head have changed and developed as I've got used to them, and I don't think that would have worked so well if there'd been a real picture in my head rather than a vague idea.
New York! Getting the train down to London tomorrow evening after work, flying out early on Thursday morning. Woohoo!
And before I go, you could listen to Radio Nottingham tomorrow morning, at nine o'clockish. It probably won't be the worst thing in the world if you miss it, but they're interviewing me. Record it and play it in the evenings for the next few days, it'll make up for not having my blog to read!
Still, to compensate for that annoyance, I have got an old-style 10p coin, courtesy of Roel Hobo at the weekend (I swapped it for a legal-tender new-style one). It was minted in 1968, one of the first batch that were made as 10p rather than two shillings. I've added it to my collection of vaguely interesting coins!
Andre who posted a question as a comment to my blog entry of a few days ago: Yes, my memory system is the same as the one described here. And I've never used photos to keep track of my mental images. That seems to me like it would be very limiting - the images in my head have changed and developed as I've got used to them, and I don't think that would have worked so well if there'd been a real picture in my head rather than a vague idea.
New York! Getting the train down to London tomorrow evening after work, flying out early on Thursday morning. Woohoo!
And before I go, you could listen to Radio Nottingham tomorrow morning, at nine o'clockish. It probably won't be the worst thing in the world if you miss it, but they're interviewing me. Record it and play it in the evenings for the next few days, it'll make up for not having my blog to read!
Monday, March 02, 2009
A few more things that happened at the weekend
It's a bit more difficult to get to Cambridge from Beeston than it is from Derby. And even Derby was somewhat difficult - Cambridge boasts about its frequent and fast service to and from London, but tries to discourage northerners from being able to reach the city. They set the wrong tone, you know. Nonetheless, I was able to work out how to get there and wasn't delayed too much by a train breaking down in Nottingham station. However, it was while getting off that train and on to a new one that I noticed someone wearing a nice T-shirt, and idly thought to myself "Which T-shirts did I bring with me for the weekend? Oh, drat, I forgot to bring any. The only things I packed were my pyjamas and a change of pants and socks."
This still left me with at least options for the othello championship - go there dressed in the clothes I'd travelled down to Cambridge in (my work trousers and shirt, which look horribly like the kind of thing an accountant would wear and were also somewhat sweaty from cycling); go there dressed in my pyjamas, which are stylish but uncoordinated (it's the trousers from one pair and the top from another, so as to maximise the amount of remaining buttons on the ones I'm wearing); go there dressed only in my underwear and hat (it was a bit cold, unfortunately); or buy some cheap and stylish clothes from a charity shop.
I went for option four, and got myself a very groovy shirt with lots of pink on it. It got a fair few comments. As for the competition itself, I mostly played very badly, as I said yesterday. Bintsa Andriani played staggeringly well, beating everybody in the eleven rounds of swiss only to lose to David Hand on disc count in the final when they drew the last game. Epic stuff. Despite not achieving very much of note beyond losing to Kali Turner (who's 15 now, so it's entirely acceptable to lose to her), I was able to retain my 100% win record against Takuji Kashiwabara, which dates all the way back to 2003. I beat him that year and have always avoided playing him again ever since.
It's Oadby in two weeks - clearly I'm never going to have a free weekend to practice memory, but never mind. I'd love to mount a serious challenge for the BGP this year, but I don't think I'm going to without a lot more preparation. And I just don't seem to have the time to do anything these days, what with having to go to New York for a fun sightseeing and friend-hanging-out-with holiday and everything...
This still left me with at least options for the othello championship - go there dressed in the clothes I'd travelled down to Cambridge in (my work trousers and shirt, which look horribly like the kind of thing an accountant would wear and were also somewhat sweaty from cycling); go there dressed in my pyjamas, which are stylish but uncoordinated (it's the trousers from one pair and the top from another, so as to maximise the amount of remaining buttons on the ones I'm wearing); go there dressed only in my underwear and hat (it was a bit cold, unfortunately); or buy some cheap and stylish clothes from a charity shop.
I went for option four, and got myself a very groovy shirt with lots of pink on it. It got a fair few comments. As for the competition itself, I mostly played very badly, as I said yesterday. Bintsa Andriani played staggeringly well, beating everybody in the eleven rounds of swiss only to lose to David Hand on disc count in the final when they drew the last game. Epic stuff. Despite not achieving very much of note beyond losing to Kali Turner (who's 15 now, so it's entirely acceptable to lose to her), I was able to retain my 100% win record against Takuji Kashiwabara, which dates all the way back to 2003. I beat him that year and have always avoided playing him again ever since.
It's Oadby in two weeks - clearly I'm never going to have a free weekend to practice memory, but never mind. I'd love to mount a serious challenge for the BGP this year, but I don't think I'm going to without a lot more preparation. And I just don't seem to have the time to do anything these days, what with having to go to New York for a fun sightseeing and friend-hanging-out-with holiday and everything...
Sunday, March 01, 2009
Ol' hotel
CityRoomz, formerly known as Sleeperz, is a really nice little hotel right next to the train station in Cambridge. I always stay there for othello tournaments, and I heartily recommend it to anyone who might want to come to an othello tournament or any of the other things that happen in Cambridge.
Anyway, fun weekend. As I predicted, I played pretty terribly, apart from a quite nice win over Phil. I did develop a new theory about othello games, though, which I'll write in more detail if I really can't think of anything else to talk about tomorrow.
Anyway, fun weekend. As I predicted, I played pretty terribly, apart from a quite nice win over Phil. I did develop a new theory about othello games, though, which I'll write in more detail if I really can't think of anything else to talk about tomorrow.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Weekends
It occurs to me that I'm going to have no time to get into any kind of practice routine for memory competitions for the next couple of weeks. Othelloing in Cambridge this weekend (so no blogging for the next couple of days, Zoomettes*), then New York the following weekend-and-a-bit (so again no blogs, most likely, from Wednesday to Sunday, Zoom-fans** - try not to forget about me).
*I've decided that followers of this blog should be called "Zoomettes"
**I've subsequently decided that "Zoomettes" sounds a bit silly and decided to phase it out of use
I really really need to do some long-discipline training, too. It's been a very, very long time, and I know I'm going to be rubbish when I finally sit down to do it. Almost as bad as I'm going to be at othello this weekend! I haven't played that, or thought about it, or found my clock, or anything for ages and ages.
*I've decided that followers of this blog should be called "Zoomettes"
**I've subsequently decided that "Zoomettes" sounds a bit silly and decided to phase it out of use
I really really need to do some long-discipline training, too. It's been a very, very long time, and I know I'm going to be rubbish when I finally sit down to do it. Almost as bad as I'm going to be at othello this weekend! I haven't played that, or thought about it, or found my clock, or anything for ages and ages.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
DVD people are stupid
I can just about understand them releasing Thundercats DVDs with the episodes all in the wrong order - there are lots of episodes, there's rarely any direct continuity from one episode to the next, and it is just a 1980s cartoon that very few people are obsessive about to the extent that I am. But there's no excuse at all for the people who made the DVD of Police Squad and got the sequence of episodes wrong. There's only six of them, for crying out loud, and the end of each episode explicitly lists all the previous ones, and they still couldn't get it right!
I repeat, DVD people are stupid. Bring back videos.
I repeat, DVD people are stupid. Bring back videos.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Go team!
I do like watching Champions League football. I've turned into a bit of a Man Utd fan these last few years, especially in Europe, in an attempt to discourage Chelsea from winning things. It's working, too. Perhaps if I devoted myself more determinedly to supporting Boston Utd, maybe they'd win something one of these days...
Monday, February 23, 2009
A little bit of memory
One thing people often say to me when I'm explaining my system for turning three-digit numbers into images is "Surely it makes more sense to have 999 be a policeman [or 112 or 911 or whatever the number for the emergency services is in the asker's country] and so on?" I know Dominic does recommend diverging from his system if the number itself suggests an image to you, but I disapprove.
The 'Ben system' and any other system for turning numbers into words and thus images is best compared to learning another language. If you've got it working properly in your head, you don't see the numbers as such, you read '999' as 'b-oh-b' and think of Bobo (Mr Burns's teddy bear) or whatever your favourite word starting with that sound is (I recommend the cartoon series Bobobobs, or the German children's book series 'Bobo Siebenschläfer', but I'm just weird like that). Reading it as a number in some cases and a word in others is just confusing.
Look at it this way - if you speak French and read the word 'pain' in a French text, you don't automatically think 'ouch', because you're mentally pronouncing it differently and taking it in context. That's how it works with reading a story in a 2000-digit number too.
The 'Ben system' and any other system for turning numbers into words and thus images is best compared to learning another language. If you've got it working properly in your head, you don't see the numbers as such, you read '999' as 'b-oh-b' and think of Bobo (Mr Burns's teddy bear) or whatever your favourite word starting with that sound is (I recommend the cartoon series Bobobobs, or the German children's book series 'Bobo Siebenschläfer', but I'm just weird like that). Reading it as a number in some cases and a word in others is just confusing.
Look at it this way - if you speak French and read the word 'pain' in a French text, you don't automatically think 'ouch', because you're mentally pronouncing it differently and taking it in context. That's how it works with reading a story in a 2000-digit number too.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Coronation Stone
I hadn't been to Kingston for a relatively young donkey's years, and it's funny how much the place has changed. First glance on emerging from the train station suggests that it hasn't been a change for the better - Books, Bits & Bobs, the cool little shop that sold comics, costumes and party gimmicks is standing derelict and waiting to be demolished along with that whole block of buildings, but judging by the snazzy new cinema just over the road, it's going to be replaced by something shiny and modern.
And most of the city centre has gone all 21st-century too. I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's something smoother and shinier about shop-fronts these days. A few little redecorations and a place becomes unrecognisable. And with the Bentalls centre I had the usual fun of visiting a place from one of my memory journeys and realising how very different it looks in real life - my journeys tend to stylise the layout of a place like that, shrinking the parts in between locations and subtly changing the positions of significant places. Doesn't help that they've turned the fountain into some kind of weird plant-display, either.
Still, at least the combined ice-cream-and-burgers van is still in the same place it's always been, just outside Woolworth's, despite the shop itself being all closed down and empty.
And most of the city centre has gone all 21st-century too. I don't know what it is, exactly, but there's something smoother and shinier about shop-fronts these days. A few little redecorations and a place becomes unrecognisable. And with the Bentalls centre I had the usual fun of visiting a place from one of my memory journeys and realising how very different it looks in real life - my journeys tend to stylise the layout of a place like that, shrinking the parts in between locations and subtly changing the positions of significant places. Doesn't help that they've turned the fountain into some kind of weird plant-display, either.
Still, at least the combined ice-cream-and-burgers van is still in the same place it's always been, just outside Woolworth's, despite the shop itself being all closed down and empty.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
What a beautiful day!
Oooh, it's been like summer! I did get a nice short summery haircut, and went down to London (and also Kingston on Thames) to see the sights and bask in the comparative warmth and sunshine, and I've only just got back in. Now to rest my weary feet and watch Match Of The Day for the highlights of the few games whose result I didn't overhear in other people's conversations or see on randomly-placed TV screens over the course of the day. Why can't people maintain football-related silence on Saturdays for the benefit of people who like to watch MOTD in the evenings?
Friday, February 20, 2009
Hair piece
I need a haircut. My remaining hairs don't grow all that fast, but they've already got to the length where it's starting to look silly, and this weekend's the last chance to get it done for weeks - Cambridge othelloing next weekend and New Yorking the week after. However, I was thinking of going to London tomorrow, and I distrust southern hairdressers. I'm almost certain that they all charge you a hundred pounds and give you a perm whether you want one or not.
I'll just have to find a barber around here that opens reasonably early in the morning, get my hair cut and then get the train down south. I could always not go to London, since my only reason for going is that I quite feel like it and I haven't been there for ages, but I believe in doing what your heart tells you to do, and then rambling on about some insignificant technicality on your blog the night before.
I suppose I could cut my own hair. I did that once, years ago, and nobody noticed. Or shave it all off like a cool person.
I'll just have to find a barber around here that opens reasonably early in the morning, get my hair cut and then get the train down south. I could always not go to London, since my only reason for going is that I quite feel like it and I haven't been there for ages, but I believe in doing what your heart tells you to do, and then rambling on about some insignificant technicality on your blog the night before.
I suppose I could cut my own hair. I did that once, years ago, and nobody noticed. Or shave it all off like a cool person.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Fingerbobs
I've trimmed the fingernails on my left hand and not the right, out of an understanding that that's what ukulele players do. Well, 'trimmed' makes it sound like I've given myself a caring manicure. I bite my nails off, rather than using nail-clippers or scissors or suchlike. Anyway, I'm still having fun with the ukulele, and I wanted appropriate fingernails.
However, it's got me thinking about whether it will get in the way of the other things I do with my fingers. What's the optimum length for othello-disc-flipping fingernails, for example? I flip with my right hand and I think that you need medium-length nails for perfect flippery - no nails at all and it's hard to pick up the disc, big long nails and it's hard to hold on to it. This is probably why very few othello players have long fingernails. That or the fact that 99% of othello players are men.
As for memorising, I think, although I haven't really tested out the theory, that long or short fingernails shouldn't make a difference with the way I look through packs of cards now. Very long nails might get in the way, but I'm not planning to grow them to excessive lengths.
And what if I learn to make Fingermouse-style finger-puppets? That's on my list of things to do, and I think long nails would definitely get in the way there. It's a complicated business, being a polymath. The kind of polymath who's not particularly good at anything, of course.
In other, less finger-related news, Prince Charles is coming to my workplace tomorrow. Just a flying visit - according to his website he's also got other appointments in Nottingham and Mansfield in the course of the day, and I doubt he'll have the time in his schedule to find my desk and tell me he's a big fan of my TV appearances. In fact, he's scheduled to be in my building for ten minutes, according to the announcement on the company intranet, in which time he'll come in the main reception, be shown the 'heritage area' and leave by the exit on the far end of the big head office. He'll have to run. And the tour of the company heritage will have to be limited to one of the less overweight directors gasping "That's a bust of Jesse Boot! Right, come on, let's go!" as they run along after him.
Call me a socialist radical if you like, but I don't really see the point of Royal Visits.
However, it's got me thinking about whether it will get in the way of the other things I do with my fingers. What's the optimum length for othello-disc-flipping fingernails, for example? I flip with my right hand and I think that you need medium-length nails for perfect flippery - no nails at all and it's hard to pick up the disc, big long nails and it's hard to hold on to it. This is probably why very few othello players have long fingernails. That or the fact that 99% of othello players are men.
As for memorising, I think, although I haven't really tested out the theory, that long or short fingernails shouldn't make a difference with the way I look through packs of cards now. Very long nails might get in the way, but I'm not planning to grow them to excessive lengths.
And what if I learn to make Fingermouse-style finger-puppets? That's on my list of things to do, and I think long nails would definitely get in the way there. It's a complicated business, being a polymath. The kind of polymath who's not particularly good at anything, of course.
In other, less finger-related news, Prince Charles is coming to my workplace tomorrow. Just a flying visit - according to his website he's also got other appointments in Nottingham and Mansfield in the course of the day, and I doubt he'll have the time in his schedule to find my desk and tell me he's a big fan of my TV appearances. In fact, he's scheduled to be in my building for ten minutes, according to the announcement on the company intranet, in which time he'll come in the main reception, be shown the 'heritage area' and leave by the exit on the far end of the big head office. He'll have to run. And the tour of the company heritage will have to be limited to one of the less overweight directors gasping "That's a bust of Jesse Boot! Right, come on, let's go!" as they run along after him.
Call me a socialist radical if you like, but I don't really see the point of Royal Visits.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sluggish brain
I have to confess, it's a very, very long time since I did any serious memory-training. Tonight I did something that is part of my regular practice routine when I'm practicing regularly, but which I don't think I've done at all since the WMC last October - memorised 1500 binary digits in as quick a time as possible. When my brain's up to speed, I can do it in a bit under 8 minutes with a passable level of accuracy in the recall (four or five lines out of the fifty with mistakes, that kind of area). Tonight it took me 10:42.88.
This is horrible, but it's not unexpected. I know I'll snap back into my usual form when I've done it a couple more times, but when I haven't practiced for a while, my thought processes just slow down - it's not that I find it more difficult to remember what the image for 1110010111 is or that I struggle to make a mental picture out of it, it's just that my mind wanders and starts going off on tangents, and I have to drag myself back down to the mental story I'm supposed to be telling. It's nice to be confident that my times are going to increase by leaps and bounds the next few times I try this exercise, but it's frustrating that I'll have to work hard to get back to the level I was at last year before I can keep going and improve my personal best.
But it's nearly the start of the memory season! New York and Cardiff will put me back in the mood, I'm sure, and then I'll be back into training nearly nightly, exchanging memory-technique ideas with other memorisers with much more enthusiasm than I am at the moment, catching up on the latest buzz from the world of competitions, finding out what rule-changes Gunther has been lobbying for all winter and objecting to them, all the joys of memory!
It really is a LOT harder to motivate myself while I'm the world champion, but I'm pleased to report I'm much more in the zone right now, out of practice though I am, than I was back in 2005. Who knows, if I keep it up I might stand half a chance this year...
This is horrible, but it's not unexpected. I know I'll snap back into my usual form when I've done it a couple more times, but when I haven't practiced for a while, my thought processes just slow down - it's not that I find it more difficult to remember what the image for 1110010111 is or that I struggle to make a mental picture out of it, it's just that my mind wanders and starts going off on tangents, and I have to drag myself back down to the mental story I'm supposed to be telling. It's nice to be confident that my times are going to increase by leaps and bounds the next few times I try this exercise, but it's frustrating that I'll have to work hard to get back to the level I was at last year before I can keep going and improve my personal best.
But it's nearly the start of the memory season! New York and Cardiff will put me back in the mood, I'm sure, and then I'll be back into training nearly nightly, exchanging memory-technique ideas with other memorisers with much more enthusiasm than I am at the moment, catching up on the latest buzz from the world of competitions, finding out what rule-changes Gunther has been lobbying for all winter and objecting to them, all the joys of memory!
It really is a LOT harder to motivate myself while I'm the world champion, but I'm pleased to report I'm much more in the zone right now, out of practice though I am, than I was back in 2005. Who knows, if I keep it up I might stand half a chance this year...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Correspondence course
I was going to write a blog tonight about feeling proud of myself for getting up-to-date with my emails, but then I remembered one from a few days ago that I hadn't replied to, went back to my inbox to respond to it and found a whole virtual pile of other messages that I need to get back to as well. It's not like I'm even a big email-exchanger, it's just that sometimes I seem to get swamped by the things! So if you're waiting for an email from me still, I assure you it's nothing personal.
Monday, February 16, 2009
New York!
I've got a really quite big apple in my fridge right now, which just serves to remind me how much I'm looking forward to my trip to New York in a couple of weeks. It's ages since I had some time off work - what with starting there in the middle of July I only had 17½ days' holiday, and I used up most of those with various memory championships (and a certain amount of staying at home rather than going to the Memoriad because I was too worn out by the WMC), so I've been working five days a week, every week, for much too long now.
Also, I like long plane journeys every now and then. There's usually cartoons, films and video games, and what more could anyone want? And then there's all the fun people I'm arranging to hang out with when I actually get to the city! Gee, it's gonna be swell!
Also, I like long plane journeys every now and then. There's usually cartoons, films and video games, and what more could anyone want? And then there's all the fun people I'm arranging to hang out with when I actually get to the city! Gee, it's gonna be swell!
Sunday, February 15, 2009
One of those "sorry, it's late at night and I can't think of anything to blog about" posts
Sorry, it's late at night and I can't think of anything to blog about
Saturday, February 14, 2009
This is where I get it from
Grandma, reminiscing about her days working in the payroll department of British Jeffrey Diamond 65 years ago: "Old Sammy Wainwright, 7505 his number was..." Seriously, her recall of every detail of her life is uncanny, and the way she tells it is captivating. I'm going to have to get myself a video camera and capture some of her stories on film.
The occasion for the four-hour non-stop recounting of Grandma's life story I enjoyed today was of course those 1911 census returns featuring her parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. It's great to hear the stories of the people behind that snapshot of households on April 2nd 1911 - how Grandma's Uncle Ronald did well for himself (or at any rate had a good job and bought his own house, which was good work in the Depression), while Uncle Colin spent some time in the nick (but we don't talk about that). Uncle Jack, four years old in 1911, grew up to be quaite refained and wore a bowler hat, but the best part was that mystery 'boarder' I mentioned in my post here.
It turns out that nine-month-old Ethel Gough, living in my great-great-grandparents' household, was the result of an indiscretion between my great-great-granddad and another woman, and ended up coming to live with him rather than her unmarried mother, and having the subject of her parentage resolutely ignored by the family from that moment on. Not that Grandma found out about this until long after the fact, of course - she recalled "I came home one day and told my mam 'Auntie Ethel looks just like me!'... And she hit me."
I can just imagine the difficult decision process of how to record little Ethel's "relationship to head of family" on the census form. The instructions say to 'State whether "Head," or "Wife," "Son," "Daughter," or other Relative, "Visitor," "Boarder," or "Servant."' and they went for "Boarder" in the end.
All shame and scandal in the family is long gone and forgotten now, of course. It's the kind of thing that makes you think - all these names on the census were real people at one point, before they became names on a page and half-remembered stories. Poor great-great-granddad on the Batty branch of the family died in a coal-mine accident only a few years after filling in his census form. There need to be more books, documentaries, websites, whatevers about the ordinary people of history. I should make one...
The occasion for the four-hour non-stop recounting of Grandma's life story I enjoyed today was of course those 1911 census returns featuring her parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. It's great to hear the stories of the people behind that snapshot of households on April 2nd 1911 - how Grandma's Uncle Ronald did well for himself (or at any rate had a good job and bought his own house, which was good work in the Depression), while Uncle Colin spent some time in the nick (but we don't talk about that). Uncle Jack, four years old in 1911, grew up to be quaite refained and wore a bowler hat, but the best part was that mystery 'boarder' I mentioned in my post here.
It turns out that nine-month-old Ethel Gough, living in my great-great-grandparents' household, was the result of an indiscretion between my great-great-granddad and another woman, and ended up coming to live with him rather than her unmarried mother, and having the subject of her parentage resolutely ignored by the family from that moment on. Not that Grandma found out about this until long after the fact, of course - she recalled "I came home one day and told my mam 'Auntie Ethel looks just like me!'... And she hit me."
I can just imagine the difficult decision process of how to record little Ethel's "relationship to head of family" on the census form. The instructions say to 'State whether "Head," or "Wife," "Son," "Daughter," or other Relative, "Visitor," "Boarder," or "Servant."' and they went for "Boarder" in the end.
All shame and scandal in the family is long gone and forgotten now, of course. It's the kind of thing that makes you think - all these names on the census were real people at one point, before they became names on a page and half-remembered stories. Poor great-great-granddad on the Batty branch of the family died in a coal-mine accident only a few years after filling in his census form. There need to be more books, documentaries, websites, whatevers about the ordinary people of history. I should make one...
Friday, February 13, 2009
Mensa - a table; Mensa - O table
The Mensa people want me to do my memory thing at their Annual Gathering in October, as a warmup act for the Brain of Mensa finals. I'm not sure whether or not to take them up on the offer - on the one hand, it's always great when people want me to perform in front of an audience (it still doesn't happen all that much), but on the other hand Mensa members are the worst possible audience for any kind of brain-related showing-off. They'll just respond with "Hmm, well, I could have done that just as well, of course" or "Hmm, well, it's an amusing trick, but it's not real intelligence, is it?"
Having been a member myself for many years, I know what a bunch of snobs Mensans can be. If I really want to stroke my ego, I should go to a stupid-people convention. They'll genuinely believe that I'm really, really clever and not suggest that I might be an entirely average person who can do a party trick with cards. On the other hand, I'll get a free meal out of Mensa and maybe even some intelligent conversation. So I'll probably do it. I'm bad at saying no to people, after all.
Incidentally, I'm seeing a lot of people writing it as "MENSA" just lately. It's not an acronym, people. It's the Latin word for "table", indicating a round-table kind of society, and a play on words with "mens", meaning "mind".
Having been a member myself for many years, I know what a bunch of snobs Mensans can be. If I really want to stroke my ego, I should go to a stupid-people convention. They'll genuinely believe that I'm really, really clever and not suggest that I might be an entirely average person who can do a party trick with cards. On the other hand, I'll get a free meal out of Mensa and maybe even some intelligent conversation. So I'll probably do it. I'm bad at saying no to people, after all.
Incidentally, I'm seeing a lot of people writing it as "MENSA" just lately. It's not an acronym, people. It's the Latin word for "table", indicating a round-table kind of society, and a play on words with "mens", meaning "mind".
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Happy Charles Darwin/Abraham Lincoln day!
It's their joint 200th birthday today, you know. And while some might say Darwin is better than Lincoln because he appears on the £10 note, worth roughly three times as much as Lincoln's puny $5 bill, others might argue that Lincoln is better because he's probably going to be on those unimaginative Americans' money forever, while Darwin's about due to be replaced by some other notable dead person.
Anyway, this gives me an idea. I could secure my legacy as a famous person forever by simply sharing my birthdate with someone more famous! That way, whenever his birthday is celebrated with a BBC2 evening of programmes, there'll always be a passing mention of "funnily enough, world memory champion Ben Pridmore was born on the very same day!" That's the only reason anyone's ever heard of John Major, you know - Eric Idle tribute programmes.
Trouble is, nobody who shares my birthday has yet achieved any real degree of fame. The best that 14/10/76 currently has to offer is Henry Mateo, Dominican minor-league baseball player whose wikipedia article is even more skimpy than mine and can't even decide whether he's a shortstop or a second-baseman. I suppose it's still possible he could become the next Joe DiMaggio, but I think we should pin our hopes on some currently obscure 32-year-old suddenly achieving superstardom. Come on, all you Zoomy-birthday people out there, get famous! And quick!
Anyway, this gives me an idea. I could secure my legacy as a famous person forever by simply sharing my birthdate with someone more famous! That way, whenever his birthday is celebrated with a BBC2 evening of programmes, there'll always be a passing mention of "funnily enough, world memory champion Ben Pridmore was born on the very same day!" That's the only reason anyone's ever heard of John Major, you know - Eric Idle tribute programmes.
Trouble is, nobody who shares my birthday has yet achieved any real degree of fame. The best that 14/10/76 currently has to offer is Henry Mateo, Dominican minor-league baseball player whose wikipedia article is even more skimpy than mine and can't even decide whether he's a shortstop or a second-baseman. I suppose it's still possible he could become the next Joe DiMaggio, but I think we should pin our hopes on some currently obscure 32-year-old suddenly achieving superstardom. Come on, all you Zoomy-birthday people out there, get famous! And quick!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
You might not think of me as a shining example of male health...
... But nonetheless, I've just been interviewed for Men's Health magazine. It'll be on the shelves in April or May if you want to check it out - part of an article about "superhumans". I wish people would stop calling me that. Or, even better, I wish people would find some way to give me superhuman powers (faster than a speeding bullet, that kind of thing) so as to justify the title.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
I don't make people smart
I did wonder how they'd adapt my repeated assertions that IQ tests are basically all entirely worthless, that no sensible person cares about them in the slightest, that the only, and very easy, way to improve your score is to practice the handful of very specific kinds of questions they ask, and that memorising cards isn't going to do anything for your intelligence, but it seems they decided to chop it all out. Likewise, my scoffing at the twaddle that Michael's other interviewees came out with. Still, I came across quite well, I thought. Except that people are going to get the impression that I'm one of those people who believe it's important to improve your IQ, which I'd like to take this opportunity to deny absolutely.
Shame they didn't include the moment when I was taken by surprise by Michael's belief that he himself isn't a nerd, because it was very funny, and he does come across in his narration as if he still thinks of himself as a 'normal' person compared to the 'brainy' types he was trying to emulate.
It's another one to add to the list of TV appearances, I suppose, and it's always nice to get a bit of coverage of the world championships, but I'm hoping this one doesn't get repeated as incessantly as Superhuman Genius...
Next week, "Make Me Live Longer"? And judging by the previews on the internet, no Aubrey? What kind of life-extension documentary doesn't feature Aubrey?
Shame they didn't include the moment when I was taken by surprise by Michael's belief that he himself isn't a nerd, because it was very funny, and he does come across in his narration as if he still thinks of himself as a 'normal' person compared to the 'brainy' types he was trying to emulate.
It's another one to add to the list of TV appearances, I suppose, and it's always nice to get a bit of coverage of the world championships, but I'm hoping this one doesn't get repeated as incessantly as Superhuman Genius...
Next week, "Make Me Live Longer"? And judging by the previews on the internet, no Aubrey? What kind of life-extension documentary doesn't feature Aubrey?
Monday, February 09, 2009
I owe you nothing
Ooh-woh, nothing at all. Let me explain. Back in, ooh, June 1996 it must have been, I took out a loan of a few hundred pounds, I forget exactly how much, in order to buy a little motorbike. Impressed by how easy it is to have people give you money in return for a promise to pay it back eventually, I subsequently ended up borrowing more money in order to move into a rented room of my own even though I wasn't earning nearly enough money on my trainee-accountant pittance to afford it. After all, the only other alternative was to keep living with my dad, who also couldn't afford it, and I thought it'd be preferable to bankrupt myself rather than him. And besides, he always refused to put the heating on.
Anyway, I went on living beyond my means for a fair few years, running up further little debts here and there (a succession of little motorbikes that I kept crashing into cars or having stolen, among other things), confident that I'd eventually be rich and successful and anyway it's not real money if it's a loan, even to the extent of giving up my job in November 2002 and deciding to spend some time doing my own thing and seeing just how far my credit cards could take me before I had to go back to the working world again. Surprisingly far, considering by this time I was adding regular memory-competition trips to places like Germany and Malaysia to my expenditure.
And so it came about that in November 2003, having left my six-month temporary accounting job in Skegness, and returned from Kuala Lumpur with a third-place World Memory Championship trophy (rather stylish, made of pewter) and an alarmingly empty bank account, I found a job in Derby and took out one big loan to consolidate all those other debts, finance the relocation and give me a bit of extra spending money to have fun with. £16,000, it came to, which surprised me a little. But hey, over five years it didn't amount to all that much, and I was earning semi-decent money by this point, after all. And at some point in the distant future, it would all be paid off and I'd feel comparatively rich!
And now, woohoo, that day is finally here, and I've just made my 60th monthly payment. I am now, for the first time in living memory, entirely free of debt! No loan, no credit card balances, no nothing! Now I can be scornful of the indebted masses and tell them if they can't handle their finances properly it's their own stupid faults and they shouldn't expect the government to bail them out with us hard-working taxpayers' cash, by cracky. I'll write a letter to the Daily Mail!
No, actually, I'll tell you what'll be even more fun than that - I'll work out what I'm going to do with my extra £350 a month that I'm not giving back to the Royal Bank of Scotland. It's like getting a credit-crunch-busting pay rise!
Anyway, I went on living beyond my means for a fair few years, running up further little debts here and there (a succession of little motorbikes that I kept crashing into cars or having stolen, among other things), confident that I'd eventually be rich and successful and anyway it's not real money if it's a loan, even to the extent of giving up my job in November 2002 and deciding to spend some time doing my own thing and seeing just how far my credit cards could take me before I had to go back to the working world again. Surprisingly far, considering by this time I was adding regular memory-competition trips to places like Germany and Malaysia to my expenditure.
And so it came about that in November 2003, having left my six-month temporary accounting job in Skegness, and returned from Kuala Lumpur with a third-place World Memory Championship trophy (rather stylish, made of pewter) and an alarmingly empty bank account, I found a job in Derby and took out one big loan to consolidate all those other debts, finance the relocation and give me a bit of extra spending money to have fun with. £16,000, it came to, which surprised me a little. But hey, over five years it didn't amount to all that much, and I was earning semi-decent money by this point, after all. And at some point in the distant future, it would all be paid off and I'd feel comparatively rich!
And now, woohoo, that day is finally here, and I've just made my 60th monthly payment. I am now, for the first time in living memory, entirely free of debt! No loan, no credit card balances, no nothing! Now I can be scornful of the indebted masses and tell them if they can't handle their finances properly it's their own stupid faults and they shouldn't expect the government to bail them out with us hard-working taxpayers' cash, by cracky. I'll write a letter to the Daily Mail!
No, actually, I'll tell you what'll be even more fun than that - I'll work out what I'm going to do with my extra £350 a month that I'm not giving back to the Royal Bank of Scotland. It's like getting a credit-crunch-busting pay rise!
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Sorry, haven't had the time or the non-laziness to sort out pictures of Ham and Ex to illustrate my planned ramblings about them, so they'll have to wait till Wednesday (tomorrow and Tuesday I already know what I'm going to blog about - I sometimes worry that my life is getting planned out too far in advance).
Instead, let's talk about fizzy drinks. I went through quite a long period of drinking water at home, but lately I've got back into the habit of coke as my regular liquid intake. I'm thinking I should probably stop, but on the other hand I don't want to. Could someone please fabricate some scientific research to prove that the stuff is actually good for you?
And no, I'm not going to switch to diet coke. It tastes like wee.
Instead, let's talk about fizzy drinks. I went through quite a long period of drinking water at home, but lately I've got back into the habit of coke as my regular liquid intake. I'm thinking I should probably stop, but on the other hand I don't want to. Could someone please fabricate some scientific research to prove that the stuff is actually good for you?
And no, I'm not going to switch to diet coke. It tastes like wee.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
More family ties
A sequel to this post and this one. I realise that census records of my ancestors aren't terribly interesting to anybody outside my immediate family, but as I keep saying, it's my blog, not yours, and I can write about whatever I want. So nyah. And maybe somebody else out there will think it's cool too, who knows? Besides, tonight's subject matter was either this or Ham and Ex, the loveable cartoon puppies from mid-1930s Looney Tunes, so I'm not going for mass appeal here either way.
So, fans of Grandma's star turn on "The Mentalists" can now see the 1911 census returns featuring her parents! My family tree is very lopsided - thanks to the huge generation gaps in the Pridmore family, my great-grandparents on that side were actually a fair few years older than my great-great-grandparents on the Bancroft branch. Here's great-grandma:
Ada Eliza Batty, a 17-year-old worsted spinner from Wakefield. It is cool to see all these distant relatives - if only I had more time on my hands, I'd try to track down the descendants of all those great-great-uncles-and-aunts in my extensive family tree. Of course, this research would be a bit more exciting if there was a single person anywhere in my family history who wasn't from a working-class Yorkshire family, but at least I make everybody else's ancestors look fascinating by comparison...
Anyway, here's great-granddad:
Herbert William Bancroft, 14-year-old apprentice bricklayer. Lots of bricklayers in my family. And hey, check it out, no infant mortality among the Bancrofts! Five children and they're all still alive in 1911! And they've even apparently got a 9-month-old 'boarder', Ethel Gough. I have no idea what that was about - I'll ask Grandma when I go to see her next weekend.
As a footnote, having had a telling-off when I phoned her today, here's a public apology for not calling or visiting Grandma nearly enough, considering I only live just down the road and all. I really am terribly sorry.
Tomorrow, Ham and Ex, the loveable puppies from mid-1930s Looney Tunes.
So, fans of Grandma's star turn on "The Mentalists" can now see the 1911 census returns featuring her parents! My family tree is very lopsided - thanks to the huge generation gaps in the Pridmore family, my great-grandparents on that side were actually a fair few years older than my great-great-grandparents on the Bancroft branch. Here's great-grandma:
Ada Eliza Batty, a 17-year-old worsted spinner from Wakefield. It is cool to see all these distant relatives - if only I had more time on my hands, I'd try to track down the descendants of all those great-great-uncles-and-aunts in my extensive family tree. Of course, this research would be a bit more exciting if there was a single person anywhere in my family history who wasn't from a working-class Yorkshire family, but at least I make everybody else's ancestors look fascinating by comparison...
Anyway, here's great-granddad:
Herbert William Bancroft, 14-year-old apprentice bricklayer. Lots of bricklayers in my family. And hey, check it out, no infant mortality among the Bancrofts! Five children and they're all still alive in 1911! And they've even apparently got a 9-month-old 'boarder', Ethel Gough. I have no idea what that was about - I'll ask Grandma when I go to see her next weekend.
As a footnote, having had a telling-off when I phoned her today, here's a public apology for not calling or visiting Grandma nearly enough, considering I only live just down the road and all. I really am terribly sorry.
Tomorrow, Ham and Ex, the loveable puppies from mid-1930s Looney Tunes.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Weekend!
Snow! Possibly. Maybe I'll make a snowman out front and then throw snowballs at it. Or maybe I'll stay indoors where it's warm and watch the telly. Or play the ukulele. We'll see how the mood takes me.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Wiki wiki woo
I disapprove of Wikipedia. It's almost certainly a bad thing that a website so full of wild inaccuracies and outright lies should be the first port of call for anybody conducting research into anything. On a related note, I believe that editing one's own Wikipedia page is just about the worst thing anybody can do, ethically speaking. You have to be a terrible swollen-headed oaf to care what is written about you on a website like that.
Which brings me to the point of this blog. See, if somebody doesn't edit my Wikipedia page very soon indeed, I'm going to have to do it myself, and then I'll be consumed with shame and self-loathing. I also disapprove of asking people to edit my page, of course, so I'm not doing that tonight. I just want to say that it would be cool if someone made sure the world records list was up to date, complete and didn't include things that aren't world records held by me. It'd be great if somebody wrote a bit more in the body of the article about the TV shows I've been on, like the time I made a complete fool of myself on Blue Peter or the thing with the chimp. It would be extremely groovy if somebody realised that I didn't 'recently' quit my job (two and a half years out of date with that bit now), and that I was never working on a novel unless you count the NaNoWriMo. Similarly, if only somebody would remove the description of me as 'a writer' unless and until I actually write something, ever.
And wouldn't it be fantastic if somebody slipped in a 'fact' that's completely untrue, like for example that I won the hammer throw at the North Berwick Highland Games in 2003, and threw in a link to a website that looks at first glance that it might be corroborating evidence for that claim, just to see if it slips past the Wiki editors? I tell you, I'm just itching to do that myself, but I worry about the morality of the whole thing...
Which brings me to the point of this blog. See, if somebody doesn't edit my Wikipedia page very soon indeed, I'm going to have to do it myself, and then I'll be consumed with shame and self-loathing. I also disapprove of asking people to edit my page, of course, so I'm not doing that tonight. I just want to say that it would be cool if someone made sure the world records list was up to date, complete and didn't include things that aren't world records held by me. It'd be great if somebody wrote a bit more in the body of the article about the TV shows I've been on, like the time I made a complete fool of myself on Blue Peter or the thing with the chimp. It would be extremely groovy if somebody realised that I didn't 'recently' quit my job (two and a half years out of date with that bit now), and that I was never working on a novel unless you count the NaNoWriMo. Similarly, if only somebody would remove the description of me as 'a writer' unless and until I actually write something, ever.
And wouldn't it be fantastic if somebody slipped in a 'fact' that's completely untrue, like for example that I won the hammer throw at the North Berwick Highland Games in 2003, and threw in a link to a website that looks at first glance that it might be corroborating evidence for that claim, just to see if it slips past the Wiki editors? I tell you, I'm just itching to do that myself, but I worry about the morality of the whole thing...
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
One point twenty-one gigawatts!
Well, you can't see that Back To The Future is on Sky and not watch it, can you? Even though it's getting alarmingly close to the point where I could travel thirty years back in time and hang out with my teenage self, which makes me worry that I'm never going to be the star of a teen movie. Heck, I'm even older than Michael J Fox was when he last played 17-year-old Marty!
Also, I really suck at doing things, just lately. Will someone please come round here and bully me into organising all the various events/get-togethers I'm supposed to be organising?
Also, I really suck at doing things, just lately. Will someone please come round here and bully me into organising all the various events/get-togethers I'm supposed to be organising?
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Another one to set the video for
Tuesday, 10th February, 10:35pm, BBC1 - "Make Me... Smart". Featuring that loveable World Memory Champion, whatsisname.
I can't promise it's any good, I haven't seen it yet, but hey, it's got me in it.
Also, apparently, this is the UK version, trimmed down to fit BBC1's timeslot (not a great timeslot, incidentally - don't they know I'm a major superstar who should be broadcast in primetime? Between EastEnders and Holby City, say?). There's also a longer, 'international' version that will be making its way around the world via BBC Worldwide, so truly devoted Pridmore-philes will have to track down both of them to add to the constantly-looped video playing on all four wall-sized screens in their Ben-Shrine.
I can't promise it's any good, I haven't seen it yet, but hey, it's got me in it.
Also, apparently, this is the UK version, trimmed down to fit BBC1's timeslot (not a great timeslot, incidentally - don't they know I'm a major superstar who should be broadcast in primetime? Between EastEnders and Holby City, say?). There's also a longer, 'international' version that will be making its way around the world via BBC Worldwide, so truly devoted Pridmore-philes will have to track down both of them to add to the constantly-looped video playing on all four wall-sized screens in their Ben-Shrine.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Cycling in a winter wonderland
It's really great when it snows all day long like this! Even though this part of the country always gets much less snow than all the rest, it works out quite well today, because we got a reasonable amount, whereas the rest got too much. Even cycling to work through a snowstorm is quite fun, every once in a while. It's invigorating!
Sunday, February 01, 2009
How do you do, do you do, the thing that you do?
Ace wondered, via a blog-comment, what exactly an accountant does. I must say, I'm a bit in the dark too. Of course, I do have that self-imposed ban on talking about my work on this blog (and I only violate it once a week or so at the most), but I'm not actually working as an accountant right now, I'm an analyst, which is an entirely different kettle of fish, so I'm quite at liberty to talk about it.
I do, however, firmly believe that accountants are unnecessary in this world. Their very existence rather clashes with my socialist principles. You might wonder why I choose to do it for a living, but basically, it's because I'm good at it and people give me money to do it, and my socialist principles aren't really what you'd call a deeply held belief system. I'm still a working class hero, though - look, I've got a blister on my thumb and everything.
I would like to come up with a snappy definition of accountants, such as Ambrose Bierce or Samuel Johnson might have come up with, along the lines of 'someone who tells a company how much money they have and then takes every penny in fees', or 'one whose entire working life is devoted to bending the facts in order to justify his employment' but I can't think of a good one.
I do, however, firmly believe that accountants are unnecessary in this world. Their very existence rather clashes with my socialist principles. You might wonder why I choose to do it for a living, but basically, it's because I'm good at it and people give me money to do it, and my socialist principles aren't really what you'd call a deeply held belief system. I'm still a working class hero, though - look, I've got a blister on my thumb and everything.
I would like to come up with a snappy definition of accountants, such as Ambrose Bierce or Samuel Johnson might have come up with, along the lines of 'someone who tells a company how much money they have and then takes every penny in fees', or 'one whose entire working life is devoted to bending the facts in order to justify his employment' but I can't think of a good one.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
I once had a whim and I had to obey it
Just every once in a while, if I've got money in my bank account and the whim takes me, I get into a mood where I buy things on impulse. I did that today, out in Nottingham - I was passing HMV and thought to myself 'I like browsing through the DVDs in HMV, but I never buy anything there. If I really want a particular DVD/video/whatever, I buy it on the internet or tape it off the telly, whichever is more convenient. And yet, if everybody did this, HMV would close down and I wouldn't be able to browse their DVDs any more. I'd better buy something. It'll be good for the economy.'
So I bought some of their cut-price DVDs - The Mitchell and Webb Look series one, Catterick, The Day Today, The Inbetweeners and the Doctor Who Lost In Time collection. The last of these wasn't reduced price, it was £15, but I've been meaning to get it for ages. And then in the Works bookshop I saw a book on playing the ukulele for absolute beginners. And then shortly afterwards I was passing the music shop and noticed that they had a cheap ukulele for sale. A little red one. So basically, I now own a ukulele. And I've spent the afternoon playing it. It's great - I can now play the ukulele part of 'Five Years Time' by Noah And The Whale (which is really, really, really easy to play, and I suspect their ukulele player also only had an afternoon of practice before they recorded it) and I'm starting to work on fingerpicking.
It's murder on the fingers, though - alternative titles I considered for this blog entry included "Played it till my fingers bled", "I've got blisters on my fingers!" and "Maybe get a blister on your thumb". The thumb-blister is the only one of those that has actually happened so far, but the fingers on my left hand are also rather sore.
The important question, though, is 'will calluses on my fingers impede my card-memorising technique?' Andi Bell learnt to play the guitar a few years ago and he's never won the world championship since. Perhaps it really isn't possible to be a Rock n Roll World Memory Champion!
So I bought some of their cut-price DVDs - The Mitchell and Webb Look series one, Catterick, The Day Today, The Inbetweeners and the Doctor Who Lost In Time collection. The last of these wasn't reduced price, it was £15, but I've been meaning to get it for ages. And then in the Works bookshop I saw a book on playing the ukulele for absolute beginners. And then shortly afterwards I was passing the music shop and noticed that they had a cheap ukulele for sale. A little red one. So basically, I now own a ukulele. And I've spent the afternoon playing it. It's great - I can now play the ukulele part of 'Five Years Time' by Noah And The Whale (which is really, really, really easy to play, and I suspect their ukulele player also only had an afternoon of practice before they recorded it) and I'm starting to work on fingerpicking.
It's murder on the fingers, though - alternative titles I considered for this blog entry included "Played it till my fingers bled", "I've got blisters on my fingers!" and "Maybe get a blister on your thumb". The thumb-blister is the only one of those that has actually happened so far, but the fingers on my left hand are also rather sore.
The important question, though, is 'will calluses on my fingers impede my card-memorising technique?' Andi Bell learnt to play the guitar a few years ago and he's never won the world championship since. Perhaps it really isn't possible to be a Rock n Roll World Memory Champion!
Friday, January 30, 2009
Correspondence
I think I might have to spend the whole weekend writing to people. I've got to reply to a list of questions from the fact-checker who's proof-reading Josh's book (asking me about some things I've completely forgotten, naturally), reply to a few more interview questions from the BBC website guy who was here the other day (need to expound my 'filing cabinets' theory of memory in full detail), and reply to lots of emails from friends, fans and enemies (well, I haven't had any emails from enemies lately - perhaps they're not talking to me because they don't like me. Also, all my fans are my friends too, although possibly not all my friends are fans...)
Also, if anyone sees any business cards, bits of paper and such like fluttering around Beeston, could you give them back to me, please? They all fell out of my back pocket while I was cycling home from the supermarket tonight. I did manage to find all the credit/debit cards, luckily enough, but there's still some miscellaneous junk that's missing.
And also furthermore, I'm making a concerted effort to get every episode of Pocket Dragon Adventures on video, before Tiny Pop stops showing them and they disappear into obscurity again (actually, I think they're maybe going to release them all on DVD, but just in case they don't...) I've taken stock of all my old tapes and now I've got 70 of the 104 episodes. Maybe when I've got them all I'll somehow convert them to computerish files and 'torrent' them like some kind of genius hacker for the world to see. Long like Pocket Dragon Adventures!
Also, if anyone sees any business cards, bits of paper and such like fluttering around Beeston, could you give them back to me, please? They all fell out of my back pocket while I was cycling home from the supermarket tonight. I did manage to find all the credit/debit cards, luckily enough, but there's still some miscellaneous junk that's missing.
And also furthermore, I'm making a concerted effort to get every episode of Pocket Dragon Adventures on video, before Tiny Pop stops showing them and they disappear into obscurity again (actually, I think they're maybe going to release them all on DVD, but just in case they don't...) I've taken stock of all my old tapes and now I've got 70 of the 104 episodes. Maybe when I've got them all I'll somehow convert them to computerish files and 'torrent' them like some kind of genius hacker for the world to see. Long like Pocket Dragon Adventures!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The black sheep of the family
I made an alarming discovery today - it seems that Michael Heseltine's mother's maiden name was Eileen Pridmore! This could have all kinds of alarming consequences. What if he decides he's a long-lost cousin and invites himself round for tea? I have no idea what the likes of Michael Heseltine like to eat, and anyway my kettle's broken. And what if some journalist uses an unusual filing system in which he organises minor celebrities by their mothers' names, and then confuses the names Aileen and Eileen (which happens a lot), and asks Michael Heseltine for advice on how to remember where you put your car keys? My reputation would be ruined! Or what if the same journalist asks me for my comments on whatever Michael Heseltine achieved during his years in the halls of power (if anything)? I'd probably say something wrong and the government would collapse!
It's not like he's even got a hereditary peerage and thus gives me the fun of calculating how many people I'd have to assassinate to get myself a seat in the Lords.
It's not like he's even got a hereditary peerage and thus gives me the fun of calculating how many people I'd have to assassinate to get myself a seat in the Lords.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
It's hard work being memorable
High up on my to-do list is organising the Cambridge Memory Championship. It gets harder every year to come up with 'historical events', especially since we need 120 of them now. It's just typical of those memory competitors, insisting on raising the standards without a thought for us poor slobs who have to create the memorisation papers. It's very difficult to think of a whole lot of vague event descriptions, ideally two to five words, along the lines of 'peace treaty signed'. There are only so many things that can possibly happen, and I'd hate to repeat myself and use a description that I've used in previous years.
And then there's names and faces. It's a real chore finding pictures of people and then putting names to them. If anything, that's even more difficult than remembering their names in a competition (which, as everyone knows, I'm rubbish at).
And I've got to email people and pester them to come along and compete. Because all this work of creating things for people to memorise is much less worthwhile if nobody turns up to the competition. I'm way behind on keeping in touch with competitors, and it really is easy to forget about a memory competition if you don't get reminded...
And then there's names and faces. It's a real chore finding pictures of people and then putting names to them. If anything, that's even more difficult than remembering their names in a competition (which, as everyone knows, I'm rubbish at).
And I've got to email people and pester them to come along and compete. Because all this work of creating things for people to memorise is much less worthwhile if nobody turns up to the competition. I'm way behind on keeping in touch with competitors, and it really is easy to forget about a memory competition if you don't get reminded...
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
It'll be memorable
Well, three hours of filming for the BBC News website, and hopefully it'll come out as something fun to watch. I'll let you know when it's online!
Monday, January 26, 2009
I should probably confess...
... that despite having bought a new hoover on Saturday, I haven't actually technically taken it out of the box yet, let alone used it to suck up some of the filth around this place. And the BBC are coming tomorrow. I might just leave the place dirty, so as to give the little snippet of BBC-News-website-magazine-feature a gritty edge.
In other news, those Natural Confectionery Company sweets you see advertised on telly? They're not very nice. Stick to unnatural confectionery if you want good sweeties.
In other news, those Natural Confectionery Company sweets you see advertised on telly? They're not very nice. Stick to unnatural confectionery if you want good sweeties.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
It's the works Burns supper and I've tae address the haggis!
Hey, all you people out there in the blog-reading world, would you do me a favour? If I die (I'm not planning to die, but they tell me there's a chance of it happening at some point over the next hundred years), start having annual suppers on the anniversary of my birth, death, first World Boku Championship, whatever's most convenient. And turn it into some kind of national event somehow (create a wikipedia page that says Pridmore Night is the most important festival in Britain, that should do the trick). I think I'd make a good national icon.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Why does everything I own inevitably explode?
Had to buy a new vacuum cleaner today in order to keep my clean-this-pigsty-up-a-bit resolution. The old one started pouring smoke out of itself when I turned it on, and although I'm not one of those technological whizzes, I'm pretty sure that's a bad sign. I considered leaving it on to see whether it would either stop or go bang and destroy half the street, but decided to just go and splash out on a new one from Argos. It's good for the economy to buy new vacuum cleaners, I understand.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Real plans this time!
I was out of bed this morning in time for a few speed cards before going to work (it's official, my brain is four seconds slower in the early morning than in the afternoons) and now I'm all fired up to actually do some memory training this weekend. And also some house-cleaning, because the BBC News website are coming to film me on Tuesday. And I've also had an email today from Korean TV wanting to film me for a memory documentary. The whole fame and fortune bandwagon keeps on rolling! (On a very obscure kind of back road that few people are watching...)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Have you ever noticed?
That if you're typing an email to somebody called Jim, and your right hand accidentally slips one key to the left, you end up writing a sentence like "Hun, if I send you an amended file, can you include it in a new report?" Which completely changes the tone of the whole email.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Yes, I'm still superhuman
I'm actually getting tired of seeing "Superhuman: Genius" in the TV listings. It seems to have been playing constantly on ITV4 for the last few months, and now tonight it's on ITV1 again. I mean, it's nice, but can't ITV make some new documentaries? And couldn't they buy "The Mentalists" and subject that to the same round-the-clock showing? "The Mentalists" is all about the world of memory competitions, and it's the kind of thing that motivates people to take part themselves. "Superhuman: Genius" just motivates people to tell me I'm extremely clever if they see me in the street.
Ah well, at least it clashes with Celebrity Big Brother Eviction, so nobody's going to watch it...
Ah well, at least it clashes with Celebrity Big Brother Eviction, so nobody's going to watch it...
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Meerkat market
Since I've posted more than one blog entry criticising TV adverts that have no idea how to sell their product, I thought I really should praise comparethemarket.com, for their brilliant 'comparethemeerkat.com' ads. Now THAT's how to present a concept in a memorable way!
For the benefit of foreigners or non-TV-watchers, comparethemarket.com is a car insurance website, and their adverts consist of a meerkat explaining that his website, comparethemeerkat.com, has been getting a lot of hits by mistake. If you want to compare meerkats (size, hobbies and so on) go to his website, if you're looking to compare the market for car insurance quotes, check out theirs.
The best part of it is that they've really created a http://www.comparethemeerkat.com/ site! Someone's had a lot of fun making it, I can tell. If I wanted car insurance, I'd almost be tempted to use the comparethemarket.com website. Almost. I'd probably still just call Direct Line, to be honest. Their adverts are more convincing.
For the benefit of foreigners or non-TV-watchers, comparethemarket.com is a car insurance website, and their adverts consist of a meerkat explaining that his website, comparethemeerkat.com, has been getting a lot of hits by mistake. If you want to compare meerkats (size, hobbies and so on) go to his website, if you're looking to compare the market for car insurance quotes, check out theirs.
The best part of it is that they've really created a http://www.comparethemeerkat.com/ site! Someone's had a lot of fun making it, I can tell. If I wanted car insurance, I'd almost be tempted to use the comparethemarket.com website. Almost. I'd probably still just call Direct Line, to be honest. Their adverts are more convincing.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Suspicious
Yesterday I bought "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher", largely because I'd seen someone at work reading it, liked the title and then noticed it in the bookshop and decided to flick through it, rather than because I had any idea what it was about. Who needs fancy advertising techniques, anyway?
Luckily, it turned out to be brilliant - it's a detailed true account of an 1860 murder investigation, and what's best about it is the picture it gives of the very earliest days of police detectives. The developing vocabulary of detective fact and fiction is really fascinating, and the writer (Kate Summerscale) has a real knack for picking up on the little nuances of meaning in 150-year-old language. I'd recommend the book to anyone!
Luckily, it turned out to be brilliant - it's a detailed true account of an 1860 murder investigation, and what's best about it is the picture it gives of the very earliest days of police detectives. The developing vocabulary of detective fact and fiction is really fascinating, and the writer (Kate Summerscale) has a real knack for picking up on the little nuances of meaning in 150-year-old language. I'd recommend the book to anyone!
Sunday, January 18, 2009
More family history
In the spirit of the genealogical research of last Tuesday, it seems only fair to write something on the subject of my grandmother too. My other grandmother, that is - not the one who starred in The Mentalists, wasn't born until 1920 and is still alive and well today, but the one who died when my dad was young and consequently doesn't get mentioned very much when I talk about my family. Her only fifteen minutes of fame, to the best of my knowledge, come in this 1948 article from a Sheffield newspaper:
"The parents were delighted, and none more than Mrs. S. Pridmore, of 72, Robey Street. She has ten children, nine boys and a girl. They are all members of St. Thomas's, and two of them are in the choir, but it was left to 17-month-old Georgie to represent them and give the daffodils to their mother."
And here's little Georgie himself, proving that aside from the moustache, my dad really did look exactly the same for his entire life!
And finally, here's Mrs. S. Pridmore on the 1911 census, back when she was still Katherine Millership and a middle child of one of those wonderful enormous Sheffield familes, rather than spending her entire life from the age of 19 to 45 churning out offspring of her own:
Let's preserve the memory of my long-dead Other Grandma! I'm sure she'd be just as big a hit with documentary-watchers if she was alive today!
And here's little Georgie himself, proving that aside from the moustache, my dad really did look exactly the same for his entire life!
And finally, here's Mrs. S. Pridmore on the 1911 census, back when she was still Katherine Millership and a middle child of one of those wonderful enormous Sheffield familes, rather than spending her entire life from the age of 19 to 45 churning out offspring of her own:
Let's preserve the memory of my long-dead Other Grandma! I'm sure she'd be just as big a hit with documentary-watchers if she was alive today!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Just maybe...
... I might be getting back into the memory mood. Really feeling like getting in some hard-core training in preparation for the Welsh Championship at the end of March. I might just spend tomorrow memorising a whole lot of numbers, cards and anything else that comes to hand!
Friday, January 16, 2009
Stupid Expedia
Not stupid working when I'm trying to book a stupid trip to stupid New York. Stupid letting me pick out all the stupid flight/hotel/other options and then not stupid letting me stupid book them.
Still, assuming it becomes possible to buy flights and things at some point before March 5th or thereabouts, I've decided I'm definitely going to non-stupid New York for the US Championship. Woohoo! It'll be fun to see the sights and the people and the giant monsters! Who wants to hang out with me while I'm there?
Still, assuming it becomes possible to buy flights and things at some point before March 5th or thereabouts, I've decided I'm definitely going to non-stupid New York for the US Championship. Woohoo! It'll be fun to see the sights and the people and the giant monsters! Who wants to hang out with me while I'm there?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Ties
There are many aspects of this world that history books of the future will poke fun at and which make me deeply ashamed to be living in this time period. One of the more trivial but nonetheless annoying is the fact that I wear a tie to work. And an ironed shirt. I mean, really, it's the 21st century. Why is it still necessary to knot a decorative strip of cloth around your neck in order to look smart? Perhaps I should make a stand and go to work in my pyjamas. Or naked. I'm extremely cool and popular, after all - maybe it would start a new trend and I'd appear in those history books as an inspiration for change?
The illustrations would be hand-drawn and would make me look a lot better in the nude than I do in real life. History is written by the cool people.
The illustrations would be hand-drawn and would make me look a lot better in the nude than I do in real life. History is written by the cool people.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Time flies when you're... working
I just realised today that I've now been working for Boots for six months! It really doesn't feel like it - sad to say, I really am having fun. This thought disturbs me so much that I can't think of anything appropriate to write about the semi-anniversary.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
The good old days
I heard today that the 1911 census is available on the internet, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act and some bright spark noticing that it didn't become technically a law that you have to wait 100 years before releasing a census until 1920. And so, even though they make you pay money to look at it, I couldn't resist. Here's my granddad:
That's him at the bottom, Sidney Pridmore, age 10. Yes, my great-grandfather was born in the 1850s - we believe in big, big generation gaps in our family. Sid-Prid is rather an ugly rhyme, but then his parents had had twelve previous children (almost certainly most of them boys - females in our family tree are few and far between), so they were probably running short of names by then.
Funnily enough, if I'm remembering my family history properly, Granddad went on to have 13 children himself, three of whom died in infancy. I had no idea he was taking after his father. That's a weird family trend. And also, if Sid was the youngest of his Pridmore brood, does that make my dad the thirteenth child of a thirteenth child? And just how many magic powers does that grant me?
I really need to find out more about my family. Must get in touch with my cousin Sue, who actually knows about these things...
That's him at the bottom, Sidney Pridmore, age 10. Yes, my great-grandfather was born in the 1850s - we believe in big, big generation gaps in our family. Sid-Prid is rather an ugly rhyme, but then his parents had had twelve previous children (almost certainly most of them boys - females in our family tree are few and far between), so they were probably running short of names by then.
Funnily enough, if I'm remembering my family history properly, Granddad went on to have 13 children himself, three of whom died in infancy. I had no idea he was taking after his father. That's a weird family trend. And also, if Sid was the youngest of his Pridmore brood, does that make my dad the thirteenth child of a thirteenth child? And just how many magic powers does that grant me?
I really need to find out more about my family. Must get in touch with my cousin Sue, who actually knows about these things...
Monday, January 12, 2009
Office rituals
I'm vaguely irritated by the tradition of getting a 'secret' card for anyone in the office who has a birthday, gets married, has a baby, leaves the company, things like that. And particularly by the tradition of furtively passing the card around the office disguised by an old brown envelope and pretending it's some kind of tedious bureaucratic business. Every place I've ever worked does this, and I think it's just silly. It's not like the card-recipient ever doesn't know that a card is coming to them. Bah humbug, I say.
This doesn't mean I don't want a card next time I have a birthday, get married, have a baby or whatever. That'd be terrible! I hope nobody from work reads this...
This doesn't mean I don't want a card next time I have a birthday, get married, have a baby or whatever. That'd be terrible! I hope nobody from work reads this...
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Cambridge Memory Championship!
Just a heads-up to let you all know that the Cambridge Memory Championship website, thanks to the usual great work by Grand Master of Memory James Ponder (sounds rather cool, doesn't it? I need to start using my GM title more in everyday conversation), is updated with everything you need to know about this year's competition.
Please do come to the championship! It's a lot of fun, it's designed to be beginner-friendly, and everyone is welcome! Also, it's free if it's your first competition!
Please do come to the championship! It's a lot of fun, it's designed to be beginner-friendly, and everyone is welcome! Also, it's free if it's your first competition!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
I had plans for today
I had actually worked out a very specific programme of things to do today - I was going to clean the place up, do some memory training, all kinds of productive things. Maybe even pay my electic bill, since I've never got round to setting up a direct debit and haven't paid them any money since I moved in. My impression is that EDF haven't even noticed yet, but I think there's a fair chance that even a company as useless as them might start sending me letters soon.
Anyway, in the event, I woke up feeling lazy, took a long time finding a good reason not to stay in bed all day, and then noticed that "The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr T" was on Channel 5, so I just had to watch that, and then that was the whole morning gone, so I decided to spend the day relaxing and doing nothing instead, in preparation for a productive and successful day tomorrow.
But hey, isn't Dr T a wonderful film! The writing is hilarious and clever, the sets are amazing (some uncredited geniuses achieved the impossible and made three-dimensional versions of Dr Seuss designs!), the costumes are fantastic (I might try to make a Dr Terwilliker costume for the next fancy dress party I go to, and I really feel sorry for poor Peter Lind Hayes, who has to spend the entire film in ordinary-working-guy clothes when everybody else gets to dress up in the most awesome creations) and the acting (and singing, and dancing) from the four central actors is sensational! It's another one on my everybody-who-hasn't-seen-it-yet-needs-to-go-and-find-a-DVD-right-this-second list.
Yes, right this second. I don't care if it's 10pm and your local Zavvi store has been shut down by the administrators. Get out there!
Anyway, in the event, I woke up feeling lazy, took a long time finding a good reason not to stay in bed all day, and then noticed that "The 5,000 Fingers Of Dr T" was on Channel 5, so I just had to watch that, and then that was the whole morning gone, so I decided to spend the day relaxing and doing nothing instead, in preparation for a productive and successful day tomorrow.
But hey, isn't Dr T a wonderful film! The writing is hilarious and clever, the sets are amazing (some uncredited geniuses achieved the impossible and made three-dimensional versions of Dr Seuss designs!), the costumes are fantastic (I might try to make a Dr Terwilliker costume for the next fancy dress party I go to, and I really feel sorry for poor Peter Lind Hayes, who has to spend the entire film in ordinary-working-guy clothes when everybody else gets to dress up in the most awesome creations) and the acting (and singing, and dancing) from the four central actors is sensational! It's another one on my everybody-who-hasn't-seen-it-yet-needs-to-go-and-find-a-DVD-right-this-second list.
Yes, right this second. I don't care if it's 10pm and your local Zavvi store has been shut down by the administrators. Get out there!
Friday, January 09, 2009
Come let us stray our gladsome way and view the charms of nature
Look! Squirrels! A blog dedicated to pictures of red squirrels in Bavaria! It's great. I miss the squirrels who used to hang around my old flat in Derby - they had a regular route across the back yard which involved a section skittering quickly along a vertical wall to get to the roof of the shed in the next door garden. There don't seem to be any squirrels watchable from the windows of this house, although there are plenty of trees, big gardens and hiding-places. Maybe I'll leave some nuts lying around out the back and see what happens.
I'm in a bit of a nature-boy mood tonight, for some reason. I don't normally watch nature documentaries, but I saw an article earlier about a thing about cuckoos tonight, so I decided to watch it. And it was good stuff, too - it's always fun in a weird way to watch a tiny reed warbler feeding a massive screaming cuckoo chick three or four times its size.
I'm in a bit of a nature-boy mood tonight, for some reason. I don't normally watch nature documentaries, but I saw an article earlier about a thing about cuckoos tonight, so I decided to watch it. And it was good stuff, too - it's always fun in a weird way to watch a tiny reed warbler feeding a massive screaming cuckoo chick three or four times its size.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
2009 is your unlucky year!
This post has been edited because I just realised the Excel spreadsheet I used to work out the luckiness factors had a mistake in it!
It's true, we are now in what I like to call an Unlucky Year. Let me explain. The weirdness of the calendar means that every year has either one, two or three instances of a Friday The Thirteenth, and this year is one of the ones with three. 2006 and 2007 were Average Years (two Friday 13ths), but if we manage to get through the misfortunes of 2009, the following two years will be Lucky Years (just one Friday 13th)!
Unlucky Years don't happen very often. As any calendar-calculator knows, the days of the week run in 28-year sequences - if you were born on a Thursday, your 28th birthday will also be on a Thursday. If your third birthday is on a Saturday, your 31st birthday will be on a Saturday too. And, as a side note, during any 28-year cycle, each date will land on each day of the week exactly four times. So if you're one of those people who complain that your birthday is never on a weekend, you're lying.
In every 28-year cycle, there are 12 Lucky Years, 12 Average Years and just four Unlucky Years. The last Unlucky Year was 1998, the next will be 2012 (then 2015, then not until 2026). At one extremely boring point in the 28-year cycle, there are four consecutive Average Years - the next one is the dull period from 2017 to 2020 inclusive. The best run of luck you ever get is two Lucky Years in a row.
The three thirteenths to watch out for this year will be in February, March and November, as is the case in three of the four Unlucky Years of the cycle. The other is an Unlucky Leap Year, and has Friday 13ths in January, April and July.
Speaking of leap years, the year 2100 will not be a leap year, which will throw the 28-year sequence out. The upshot of this is that there will be some 28-year periods overlapping the turn of the century which have five or even six Unlucky Years in them! I'm going to spend the entire period from 2078 to 2099 hiding under my bed!
I hope you've enjoyed this fascinating blog entry. If you didn't, make sure to avoid this blog on July 6th, when I and all Excel users around the world will be celebrating Day 40000!
It's true, we are now in what I like to call an Unlucky Year. Let me explain. The weirdness of the calendar means that every year has either one, two or three instances of a Friday The Thirteenth, and this year is one of the ones with three. 2006 and 2007 were Average Years (two Friday 13ths), but if we manage to get through the misfortunes of 2009, the following two years will be Lucky Years (just one Friday 13th)!
Unlucky Years don't happen very often. As any calendar-calculator knows, the days of the week run in 28-year sequences - if you were born on a Thursday, your 28th birthday will also be on a Thursday. If your third birthday is on a Saturday, your 31st birthday will be on a Saturday too. And, as a side note, during any 28-year cycle, each date will land on each day of the week exactly four times. So if you're one of those people who complain that your birthday is never on a weekend, you're lying.
In every 28-year cycle, there are 12 Lucky Years, 12 Average Years and just four Unlucky Years. The last Unlucky Year was 1998, the next will be 2012 (then 2015, then not until 2026). At one extremely boring point in the 28-year cycle, there are four consecutive Average Years - the next one is the dull period from 2017 to 2020 inclusive. The best run of luck you ever get is two Lucky Years in a row.
The three thirteenths to watch out for this year will be in February, March and November, as is the case in three of the four Unlucky Years of the cycle. The other is an Unlucky Leap Year, and has Friday 13ths in January, April and July.
Speaking of leap years, the year 2100 will not be a leap year, which will throw the 28-year sequence out. The upshot of this is that there will be some 28-year periods overlapping the turn of the century which have five or even six Unlucky Years in them! I'm going to spend the entire period from 2078 to 2099 hiding under my bed!
I hope you've enjoyed this fascinating blog entry. If you didn't, make sure to avoid this blog on July 6th, when I and all Excel users around the world will be celebrating Day 40000!
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
With a krypton factor of 999!
I missed the relaunch of The Krypton Factor at the weekend, but I caught the repeat tonight (didn't go to the football, sounds like it was a good game, though. Yay Derby!) and it was fantastic!
I always loved KF in the old days, and it was pleasing to see that the new series is exactly the same (except, sadly, without the aeroplane-simulator round). I would love to be a competitor! The obstacle course would literally kill me, of course, but the rest of it would be fun.
I always loved KF in the old days, and it was pleasing to see that the new series is exactly the same (except, sadly, without the aeroplane-simulator round). I would love to be a competitor! The obstacle course would literally kill me, of course, but the rest of it would be fun.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Adverts of which I disapprove
I can't believe they're STILL showing that "Colour Catcher" advert with "the proof's on the sheet!" stupidity. I complained about it on my blog MONTHS ago! And they still haven't taken it off the air!
And now there's an advert for some company or other that's changing its name, in which a number of actors and musicians observe that their stage names are better than their real names. Ringo Starr interacts with footage of screaming Beatle fans and asks "Would any of this have happened to me if I was still Richard Starkey?"
Well, yes, Ringo, it would. If you remember, you adopted the stage-name in order to become the drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, who all had silly names, and then your mates in another band asked you to start playing with them instead, and it all got quite big from there. I'm almost certain that the exact same amount of fame and adulation would have come your way if you were still Richard Starkey.
Incidentally, I can't remember what company this advert's for. Like many adverts, it has no idea about how to make something memorable. The new and old names of the company are just flashed up on screen right at the end, entirely disconnected from the preceding celebrity-fest. They must have spent a fortune on the advert, and it doesn't do its job at all. I ask you.
Also, what's with those Renault adverts that operate from the starting point that nobody wants to buy a Renault, and then tries to convince you that the new one is actually quite cool, so maybe you should reconsider your prejudices. I thought Renaults were cool all along! Weren't they? What was wrong with Nicole and Papa? Now that was a good advertising campaign.
Also, and this isn't an advert I'm complaining about, I have a strange urge to go and see Derby play Man Utd in the league cup semi-final first leg tomorrow night. I don't know why, I never once went to see Derby play, even when I was living there and they were in the premier league and playing Man Utd all the time (well, twice in a year, anyway). Still, I feel like going to see this one now. Anyone want to come with me?
And now there's an advert for some company or other that's changing its name, in which a number of actors and musicians observe that their stage names are better than their real names. Ringo Starr interacts with footage of screaming Beatle fans and asks "Would any of this have happened to me if I was still Richard Starkey?"
Well, yes, Ringo, it would. If you remember, you adopted the stage-name in order to become the drummer for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, who all had silly names, and then your mates in another band asked you to start playing with them instead, and it all got quite big from there. I'm almost certain that the exact same amount of fame and adulation would have come your way if you were still Richard Starkey.
Incidentally, I can't remember what company this advert's for. Like many adverts, it has no idea about how to make something memorable. The new and old names of the company are just flashed up on screen right at the end, entirely disconnected from the preceding celebrity-fest. They must have spent a fortune on the advert, and it doesn't do its job at all. I ask you.
Also, what's with those Renault adverts that operate from the starting point that nobody wants to buy a Renault, and then tries to convince you that the new one is actually quite cool, so maybe you should reconsider your prejudices. I thought Renaults were cool all along! Weren't they? What was wrong with Nicole and Papa? Now that was a good advertising campaign.
Also, and this isn't an advert I'm complaining about, I have a strange urge to go and see Derby play Man Utd in the league cup semi-final first leg tomorrow night. I don't know why, I never once went to see Derby play, even when I was living there and they were in the premier league and playing Man Utd all the time (well, twice in a year, anyway). Still, I feel like going to see this one now. Anyone want to come with me?
Monday, January 05, 2009
Doctor what?
I suppose, seeing as I go on about Doctor Who all the time on this blog, I should jump to conclusions about the new star actor without knowing anything about him or the future plans for the series. I've seen Matt Smith in The Ruby In The Smoke and The Shadow In The North - or at least, I must have seen him in those, since I watched them, and thought they were quite good. And Jim is a great character in the books, so it's a bit disturbing that I don't remember a single thing about Matt Smith's performance. Still, maybe he'll be a better match for the Doctor. There's nothing wrong with having a very young actor playing the part (although he'll be the first younger-than-me Doctor, which is alarming), but they'll need a hairstyle and costume that are timeless rather than trendy for it to work.
That's enough anticipation, though, we're not going to see him until 2010, and by that point we'll all be living on the moon and driving space cars.
That's enough anticipation, though, we're not going to see him until 2010, and by that point we'll all be living on the moon and driving space cars.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Dragon's Claws!
I was thrilled to discover yesterday that the classic comic series Dragon's Claws is now available in graphic novel format. Buy it on Amazon here!
Or, if you need further persuasion, hear the story of a misspent youth first. Picture the scene, it's summer 1988, I'm eleven-going-on-twelve and my favourite weekly reading matter is the Transformers comic, with its thrilling and convoluted tales of time-travelling giant robots (interspersed with American-written, less thrilling and convoluted non-time-travelling stories), which around this point starts to run trailers on its editorial page for a brand new upcoming comic - Dragon's Teeth, written by Simon Furman and drawn by Geoff Senior and involving some kind of fighting in the distant future.
I don't think these editorials managed to give me any kind of impression of what this comic was going to be about, and the names of the creators didn't really intrigue me - at that point, I never paid attention to the identities of the writers and artists, and I really hadn't noticed that all the Transformers stories I really loved were written by Simon Furman, nor that all the ones drawn by a competent artist were drawn by Geoff Senior. But the plugging continued, and just before the all-new comic was due to hit the shelves, that week's Transformers comic gave it one final push, complete with full-page advert and a quick mention that it was now going to be called "Dragon's Claws" instead:
Forgive the crumpled and stained page, it comes from my own non-mint-condition comic collection. And notice that the change of name was so last-minute that the caption of panel two still refers to "the Teeth" instead of "the Claws". Apparently they'd found out at the last second that "Dragon's Teeth" was already the registered-trademark name of an obscure American comic.
All of which, as I said, didn't excite me in any big way, but when I saw Dragon's Claws #1 in W H Smith's, I decided to check it out, and I loved it from the start. Violence and destruction in the year 8162! Colourful costumes and fascinating characters! And, which I didn't expect, once you got past the action and adventure, there was a lot of intelligent and thought-provoking stuff. Debates about ethics, evil consipracies, dark secrets... I was hooked all the way through. I pestered my parents to buy me a subscription to it, and would eagerly read the new issue when it arrived, occasionally annoying my brother, who of course hadn't had a chance to see it yet, with outbursts like "Stenson's dead!"
Actually, that's sort of a spoiler for anyone who hasn't read it yet, so if you're going to buy it, forget you read that last sentence. Anyway, sadly, the series didn't last long, just ten monthly issues before it was cancelled. It just wasn't popular enough, which was the fault of the format more than anything to do with the stories it told; it was an attempt by Marvel UK to launch a range of American style comics - small size, twenty pages monthly, just one story in a comic - to an audience of British youth used to big weekly comics with four or five six-page stories in them. But it was something special, as everybody who read it at the time remembers, and I hope new people discover it now it's in the book shops.
I read through my old collection today, and it's still as good as I remember. But to get the full effect, you shouldn't read it all at once. Buy the book and read one chapter every month, spending the intervening time re-reading, picking up on the little details, and wondering what's going to happen next.
The book also has a great foreword by Simon Furman, and an afterword by Rich Johnston in which he rightly says that it's a great shame Dragon's Claws came out before the days of the internet, because otherwise the web would be full of fan fictions now. He also urges everyone to write their own Claws #11, and I second that! Go and buy the book now, and relive my childhood!
Or, if you need further persuasion, hear the story of a misspent youth first. Picture the scene, it's summer 1988, I'm eleven-going-on-twelve and my favourite weekly reading matter is the Transformers comic, with its thrilling and convoluted tales of time-travelling giant robots (interspersed with American-written, less thrilling and convoluted non-time-travelling stories), which around this point starts to run trailers on its editorial page for a brand new upcoming comic - Dragon's Teeth, written by Simon Furman and drawn by Geoff Senior and involving some kind of fighting in the distant future.
I don't think these editorials managed to give me any kind of impression of what this comic was going to be about, and the names of the creators didn't really intrigue me - at that point, I never paid attention to the identities of the writers and artists, and I really hadn't noticed that all the Transformers stories I really loved were written by Simon Furman, nor that all the ones drawn by a competent artist were drawn by Geoff Senior. But the plugging continued, and just before the all-new comic was due to hit the shelves, that week's Transformers comic gave it one final push, complete with full-page advert and a quick mention that it was now going to be called "Dragon's Claws" instead:
Forgive the crumpled and stained page, it comes from my own non-mint-condition comic collection. And notice that the change of name was so last-minute that the caption of panel two still refers to "the Teeth" instead of "the Claws". Apparently they'd found out at the last second that "Dragon's Teeth" was already the registered-trademark name of an obscure American comic.
All of which, as I said, didn't excite me in any big way, but when I saw Dragon's Claws #1 in W H Smith's, I decided to check it out, and I loved it from the start. Violence and destruction in the year 8162! Colourful costumes and fascinating characters! And, which I didn't expect, once you got past the action and adventure, there was a lot of intelligent and thought-provoking stuff. Debates about ethics, evil consipracies, dark secrets... I was hooked all the way through. I pestered my parents to buy me a subscription to it, and would eagerly read the new issue when it arrived, occasionally annoying my brother, who of course hadn't had a chance to see it yet, with outbursts like "Stenson's dead!"
Actually, that's sort of a spoiler for anyone who hasn't read it yet, so if you're going to buy it, forget you read that last sentence. Anyway, sadly, the series didn't last long, just ten monthly issues before it was cancelled. It just wasn't popular enough, which was the fault of the format more than anything to do with the stories it told; it was an attempt by Marvel UK to launch a range of American style comics - small size, twenty pages monthly, just one story in a comic - to an audience of British youth used to big weekly comics with four or five six-page stories in them. But it was something special, as everybody who read it at the time remembers, and I hope new people discover it now it's in the book shops.
I read through my old collection today, and it's still as good as I remember. But to get the full effect, you shouldn't read it all at once. Buy the book and read one chapter every month, spending the intervening time re-reading, picking up on the little details, and wondering what's going to happen next.
The book also has a great foreword by Simon Furman, and an afterword by Rich Johnston in which he rightly says that it's a great shame Dragon's Claws came out before the days of the internet, because otherwise the web would be full of fan fictions now. He also urges everyone to write their own Claws #11, and I second that! Go and buy the book now, and relive my childhood!
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Cambridge Memory Championship 2009
The fourth Cambridge Memory Championship (gosh, has it really been so long since I started doing this?) will happen on Sunday May 3rd, in the delightful surroundings of Trinity College, Cambridge. Please come along! Memorise things and have fun! If you want any further details, please ask! I mean, I don't really know any further details yet, but I'll make something up.
Also, I've just watched both pilots of the US version of Red Dwarf on YouTube (I love YouTube), and they're really not anywhere near as bad as everyone says they are. It might have been a fun series. Craig Bierko especially is very likeable as Lister, it's a shame he didn't get the chance to play the character some more. What's he doing these days? Hmm, Broadway plays, it seems. And according to Wikipedia, he was offered the part of Chandler on Friends but turned it down. That's probably not true, but it does make him sound like a guy who has no luck with TV shows. If I make one, I'll offer him a part in it.
Tomorrow, I will be talking about Dragon's Teeth.
Also, I've just watched both pilots of the US version of Red Dwarf on YouTube (I love YouTube), and they're really not anywhere near as bad as everyone says they are. It might have been a fun series. Craig Bierko especially is very likeable as Lister, it's a shame he didn't get the chance to play the character some more. What's he doing these days? Hmm, Broadway plays, it seems. And according to Wikipedia, he was offered the part of Chandler on Friends but turned it down. That's probably not true, but it does make him sound like a guy who has no luck with TV shows. If I make one, I'll offer him a part in it.
Tomorrow, I will be talking about Dragon's Teeth.
Friday, January 02, 2009
I'm a master criminal!
I've just realised something tonight. I took nine speed cards timers out to Bahrain with me for the world championship (I own a lot of them myself and lend them out to supplement the WMSC's supply at big events) and brought ten back with me. Nobody's complained, so perhaps they just called the police and left it at that.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Rissolutions
I understand it's the done thing to resolve to do things at this time of year. So here's what I resolve. If I haven't done these things within the next twelve months, throw things at me. Heavy things. But no sharp edges.
1) Win the World Memory Championship again. I'm rather lacking in dedication right now, although I have done a little bit of practice today, despite my strategy of not being pleased with my winning performance last year. I really need to make an effort to win two years in a row, because that really would be a cool achievement. Clemens did it, and Andi, and I'm pretty sure I'm better than them.
2) Encourage the likes of Clemens and Andi to compete and try to win the World Memory Championship by taunting them like in the paragraph above, so as to make the whole thing more fun and challenging.
3) Break some world records at the World Championship. That was embarrassing and annoying this year.
4) Organise at least one big, successful memory competition (see tomorrow's blog for details of the Cambridge Memory Championship 2009) and get lots of new people competing in memory competitions.
5) Outside the world of memory competitions, win an othello tournament. I'm getting fed up with never having done that. I'm a wildly inconsistent player, so I'm sure at some point I'll have one of those days where I beat everyone.
I would resolve to do things not related to mind sports competitions, but frankly, five resolutions is more than enough. Sheesh, what do you want, perfection?
1) Win the World Memory Championship again. I'm rather lacking in dedication right now, although I have done a little bit of practice today, despite my strategy of not being pleased with my winning performance last year. I really need to make an effort to win two years in a row, because that really would be a cool achievement. Clemens did it, and Andi, and I'm pretty sure I'm better than them.
2) Encourage the likes of Clemens and Andi to compete and try to win the World Memory Championship by taunting them like in the paragraph above, so as to make the whole thing more fun and challenging.
3) Break some world records at the World Championship. That was embarrassing and annoying this year.
4) Organise at least one big, successful memory competition (see tomorrow's blog for details of the Cambridge Memory Championship 2009) and get lots of new people competing in memory competitions.
5) Outside the world of memory competitions, win an othello tournament. I'm getting fed up with never having done that. I'm a wildly inconsistent player, so I'm sure at some point I'll have one of those days where I beat everyone.
I would resolve to do things not related to mind sports competitions, but frankly, five resolutions is more than enough. Sheesh, what do you want, perfection?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Numismatology!
What better subject to talk about on New Year's Eve than my coin collection? I think I mentioned it on here a little while ago - I own a "collection" of 14 interesting coins that I've had since I was little and recently rediscovered among all my old junk while in the process of moving house. Most of the coins were sent to me by some relative, probably Auntie Cath, perhaps with the intention of starting me off on a fascinating hobby or perhaps because she had a house full of old coins and had run out of other presents to send to her numerous nephews.
Anyway, last night there was a Simpsons episode on Sky involving a coin collection (they really have run out of interesting plots for the Simpsons, haven't they?) and it inspired me to wonder 'did they make any coins with Edward VIII on them?' And since when I get a thought like that I can't sleep or do anything else until it's resolved to my satisfaction, I turned to the internet to find out. Luckily, I quickly came across this excellent website that gave me a quick and interesting answer - they did, but they were waiting for the coronation to issue them, so they never came into circulation - and motivated me to do what I'd been meaning to do for at least twenty-something years, and find out for certain whether that 1806 penny, the oldest coin in the collection, was actually a penny or in fact a halfpenny. Weirdly, coins in those days all look the same and don't say on them how much they're worth. I would think this would have been confusing. Still, it turns out that mine is a penny, like I've been saying it was all along, which is nice.
Here are the coins, scanned for your fascination:
Left to right, top to bottom:
1966 sixpence - haha, all the sixes. I think this one wasn't part of the "collection" I was originally sent, but was one of the old coins my dad had around the house. They were mostly old pennies, but there was the occasional interesting one, like this. Young-looking Queen Elizabeth II on either the obverse or reverse, I can never remember which is which.
1920 silver threepenny - this is a rather cool one. George V on the back, and I always think a beard looks good on a king. William should grow one, it'd make him look much cooler. Charles is a lost cause, even if he does end up becoming king in the end. Anyway, I remember my dad also having one of the big twelve-sided threepences, but I never saw fit to add that to the collection. There's an old Oor Wullie comic strip where he thinks he's found a half-crown but it turns out to be a silver threepenny (worth a tenth of a half-crown) under a magnifying-glass - that's the kind of plotline that you just can't do with modern coins.
1806 penny - as mentioned above. George III, looking fat.
1882 half penny - added to the collection from my dad's old pile of coins because it had gone a really weird green colour. I'd love to know what this coin has been soaked in at some point in the past. You can just about make out Queen Victoria.
1950 farthing - George VI on one side, a cute little wren on the other. Farthings were cool. By 1950, what with post-war inflation, they weren't being used much any more, but they kept minting the things until 1956, apparently. Useful fact learned from that website - until 1949, coins had 'IND IMP' after the 'FID DEF' bit, but then there was that whole Indian independence thing so they had to change it.
1868 third-farthing - Worth a twelfth of an old penny, and a really titchy little thing. That website isn't clear on whether they were ever in common use in Britain itself, but they were introduced for Malta, which used British currency but had previously had coins worth such a tiny amount.
1852 quarter-farthing - Probably the tiniest coin in the universe, and apparently only used in Ceylon, where the cost of living was REALLY cheap. I think this is an extremely groovy coin to have.
1977 crown - This one was a special issue for Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, and it's something that's belonged to me since I was a tiny little baby. Awwww.
1975 decimal half penny - I remember when these were still legal tender. And when things were cheap enough that you could actually need a half penny. I'm old.
1972 crown - Elizabeth and Philip's 25th wedding anniversary. Don't remember where this one came from.
1985 five pfennigs (Germany) - I've got a few obsolete European coins too. It's good to remember those days before the euro. No king or queen on this one. Bring back the Kaiser, that's what I say.
1980 fifty pesetas (Spain) - A commemorative World Cup 1982 coin, minted two years before the World Cup. They'd have felt really stupid if the World Cup had been cancelled for some reason.
1967 five cent (Holland) - I know nothing at all about Queen Juliana. I should find out what she was all about.
1885 ten centimes (France) - I should try to find some more modern francs and centimes, to remind me of those school trips to France back in the late eighties. Nineteen-eighties, that is. I'm not THAT old.
So yay, groovy coins! I'm almost fascinated enough by the aforementioned website to start collecting the things seriously, but collecting anything nowadays is just a matter of typing into the internet what you want and buying it. Which is no fun at all. I suppose I could get a metal detector and only collect coins I dig up for myself, but I think I'd probably be better off just giving away my collection to some bright-eyed, less jaded young budding numismatologist. Do any young people read this blog? If you do, drop me a line and I'll give you some coins!
Anyway, last night there was a Simpsons episode on Sky involving a coin collection (they really have run out of interesting plots for the Simpsons, haven't they?) and it inspired me to wonder 'did they make any coins with Edward VIII on them?' And since when I get a thought like that I can't sleep or do anything else until it's resolved to my satisfaction, I turned to the internet to find out. Luckily, I quickly came across this excellent website that gave me a quick and interesting answer - they did, but they were waiting for the coronation to issue them, so they never came into circulation - and motivated me to do what I'd been meaning to do for at least twenty-something years, and find out for certain whether that 1806 penny, the oldest coin in the collection, was actually a penny or in fact a halfpenny. Weirdly, coins in those days all look the same and don't say on them how much they're worth. I would think this would have been confusing. Still, it turns out that mine is a penny, like I've been saying it was all along, which is nice.
Here are the coins, scanned for your fascination:
Left to right, top to bottom:
1966 sixpence - haha, all the sixes. I think this one wasn't part of the "collection" I was originally sent, but was one of the old coins my dad had around the house. They were mostly old pennies, but there was the occasional interesting one, like this. Young-looking Queen Elizabeth II on either the obverse or reverse, I can never remember which is which.
1920 silver threepenny - this is a rather cool one. George V on the back, and I always think a beard looks good on a king. William should grow one, it'd make him look much cooler. Charles is a lost cause, even if he does end up becoming king in the end. Anyway, I remember my dad also having one of the big twelve-sided threepences, but I never saw fit to add that to the collection. There's an old Oor Wullie comic strip where he thinks he's found a half-crown but it turns out to be a silver threepenny (worth a tenth of a half-crown) under a magnifying-glass - that's the kind of plotline that you just can't do with modern coins.
1806 penny - as mentioned above. George III, looking fat.
1882 half penny - added to the collection from my dad's old pile of coins because it had gone a really weird green colour. I'd love to know what this coin has been soaked in at some point in the past. You can just about make out Queen Victoria.
1950 farthing - George VI on one side, a cute little wren on the other. Farthings were cool. By 1950, what with post-war inflation, they weren't being used much any more, but they kept minting the things until 1956, apparently. Useful fact learned from that website - until 1949, coins had 'IND IMP' after the 'FID DEF' bit, but then there was that whole Indian independence thing so they had to change it.
1868 third-farthing - Worth a twelfth of an old penny, and a really titchy little thing. That website isn't clear on whether they were ever in common use in Britain itself, but they were introduced for Malta, which used British currency but had previously had coins worth such a tiny amount.
1852 quarter-farthing - Probably the tiniest coin in the universe, and apparently only used in Ceylon, where the cost of living was REALLY cheap. I think this is an extremely groovy coin to have.
1977 crown - This one was a special issue for Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, and it's something that's belonged to me since I was a tiny little baby. Awwww.
1975 decimal half penny - I remember when these were still legal tender. And when things were cheap enough that you could actually need a half penny. I'm old.
1972 crown - Elizabeth and Philip's 25th wedding anniversary. Don't remember where this one came from.
1985 five pfennigs (Germany) - I've got a few obsolete European coins too. It's good to remember those days before the euro. No king or queen on this one. Bring back the Kaiser, that's what I say.
1980 fifty pesetas (Spain) - A commemorative World Cup 1982 coin, minted two years before the World Cup. They'd have felt really stupid if the World Cup had been cancelled for some reason.
1967 five cent (Holland) - I know nothing at all about Queen Juliana. I should find out what she was all about.
1885 ten centimes (France) - I should try to find some more modern francs and centimes, to remind me of those school trips to France back in the late eighties. Nineteen-eighties, that is. I'm not THAT old.
So yay, groovy coins! I'm almost fascinated enough by the aforementioned website to start collecting the things seriously, but collecting anything nowadays is just a matter of typing into the internet what you want and buying it. Which is no fun at all. I suppose I could get a metal detector and only collect coins I dig up for myself, but I think I'd probably be better off just giving away my collection to some bright-eyed, less jaded young budding numismatologist. Do any young people read this blog? If you do, drop me a line and I'll give you some coins!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Concerned about my kettle
My kettle seems to be malfunctioning in an alarming kind of way. Two times now I've turned it on and left the kitchen, then come back at the sound of a loud splash to find that it's somehow flung boiling water in vast quantities all over the kitchen surface.
I'm mystified as to how it's doing this. It's a normal upright jug kettle, with no holes in it except at the top, it wasn't more than half full to start with, and I don't see how it could have ejected half of the water that was in it while remaining upright. It seems to defy all the laws of nature and makes me worried that it's come alive and is angry with me for some reason. Possibly because I don't drink tea or coffee and seldom have reason to boil a kettle. I was thinking of turning it on and watching it to see exactly what's happening, but it might be an even worse explosion next time and would leave me looking like Father Bigley. Plus there's the fact that watched kettles never boil, so I'd be standing in the kitchen for the rest of eternity waiting for something to happen. And I've got to work tomorrow.
I'm mystified as to how it's doing this. It's a normal upright jug kettle, with no holes in it except at the top, it wasn't more than half full to start with, and I don't see how it could have ejected half of the water that was in it while remaining upright. It seems to defy all the laws of nature and makes me worried that it's come alive and is angry with me for some reason. Possibly because I don't drink tea or coffee and seldom have reason to boil a kettle. I was thinking of turning it on and watching it to see exactly what's happening, but it might be an even worse explosion next time and would leave me looking like Father Bigley. Plus there's the fact that watched kettles never boil, so I'd be standing in the kitchen for the rest of eternity waiting for something to happen. And I've got to work tomorrow.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Work, sort of
Half of my department are on holiday, and the office is dead quiet for the bit-between-Christmas-and-New-Year. Which is annoying, because I've got quite a lot to do, and I can never work when I'm on my own in a quiet office. For some reason, my productivity is much higher when there's somebody else there nattering away for me to ignore. If I'm sitting in silence, my mind wanders and I find myself drawing pretty colourful pictures in Excel. Someone come into the office with me tomorrow and sit nearby, talking about the weather, so I can get some work done!
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Horror of the Cheque Guarantee Card
"Flaming Nora!" Philip suddenly yelled, flinging his dinner plate across the bathroom and watching as it shattered in the washbasin.
"Is there a problem?" Samantha asked, perceptively. "Dinner too hot? Unusual choice of dining location causing distress? Sudden memory of past events causing alarming realisation? Existential angst of a non-specific nature?"
"The third one," Philip said, grimly. "And also the other three. Spaghetti was so hot it had melted into a bubbling pool of goo, sitting on the toilet to eat is uncomfortable and disturbing and the universe is cruel and overwhelming. But the main thing is what happened earlier this morning. Remember when I asked Cecil to return my library books while he was out in town?"
"No," said Samantha. "Did that happen?"
"I videoed it," Philip said, standing up and dragging Samantha by the hair into the living room. "I video everything now, because you never remember anything I've done. Watch this."
Philip put a tape into the VCR and pressed play. The screen showed Cecil sitting on the living room floor, cutting his toenails, and Samantha lying in bed reading a book. Philip then emerged from behind the camera. "Right, that's recording," he muttered. "Now if I have any reason to reference this conversation to you in future, Samantha, I'll have proof that it happened."
Samantha looked up from her book and said "I'll remember. I'm reading a book about how to have a good memory. It's by Ben Pridemore. Or Bridmore. Or something."
"Hmm," Philip said. "Anyway, Cecil, you're going into town today, aren't you? Good. Return my library books, would you? Here's my library card and here's fifty pounds to say thank you."
"Cheers," said Cecil, taking the card, the banknote and his leave, without even waiting to put his shoes on.
"You see!" Philip enthused. Not the Philip on the screen, who was pulling funny faces into the camera for his own amusement, we're talking about the Philip who just came out of the bathroom and played this tape for Samantha. He continued "Did you notice?"
"That Cecil didn't take your library books when he left the house?" Samantha said. "Yes, that was strange."
"No, I leave my library books on the front lawn," said Philip. "It was the card! That card I gave Cecil wasn't my library card! I took the wrong card out of my pocket! Cecil's got my cheque guarantee card!"
"He's got your what?" asked Samantha, scratching her head.
"You know, my cheque guarantee card," Philip repeated, unhelpfully. Samantha punched his face until he explained further. "It's the early nineteen-eighties, and the normal means of paying for goods and services is by means of a cheque, presented to the cashier accompanied by a plastic guarantee card. The cashier then copies the number of the card onto the back of the cheque and thus makes it legally binding or non-refundable or something."
"Oh," said Samantha. "I thought it was the year 2008."
"Ho ho," Philip laughed. "I think you've been reading too much science fiction set in the year 2008, Samantha. No, it's about 1983, I think. Give or take. Margaret Thatcher, Dexy's Midnight Runners, radios made of wood, all that kind of thing. Now we'd better chase after Cecil before he takes over the world!"
He made a packed lunch, a gesture for Samantha to follow him, his exit and his way to his car, while Samantha followed behind, querying "What? Takes over the world? I thought the card only enabled him to guarantee cheques in your name, with your signature, to a maximum value of fifty pounds. And also, did libraries use plastic cards in 1983?"
"Some did, I think," Philip mused, starting the car and driving off at top speed. "I mean, some do. We live in a major metropolis, let's say Nottingham, with a big library that is experimenting with a new computer database system and barcode reader. It's primitive, granted, but it's a major step up from the old paper-based records. Admittedly they probably don't need to scan the borrower's card if he's only returning books, but I forgot that in the heat of the moment."
"Right," said Samantha, fiddling with the car radio. "But what about the taking over the world thing? And if it's 1983, shouldn't this car have ashtrays in the doors?"
"What are you, a historian? Just shut up and wind down the passenger-side window using the time-period-accurate non-electric handle, will you? I think I see Cecil," commanded Philip.
"Noticed your mistake?" Cecil laughed, running alongside the car as it sped down the motorway at sixty miles an hour. "Too late! I've already taken over the world, Philip, and granted myself the ability to run at up to sixty-three miles an hour! And all thanks to your cheque guarantee card!"
"Only sixty-three?" Samantha gasped. "Then there's still a chance! Accelerate, Philip! If you can drive faster than Cecil can run, everything will be okay again!"
"There's no need to state the obvious, Samantha," chided Philip. "But we've got a problem. We're driving an Opel Kadett with numerous mechanical defects, similar to the one that George Pridmore drives around in right now in 1983, and I'm not sure it can get much faster than sixty-one mph!"
"Try pressing the accelerator!" Samantha urged. "And not the brake! Put it into the highest gear available, fourth I suppose! Sound the horn! Turn off the radio so that the slight vibrations caused by the jarring music of Culture Club don't slow the car down!"
"Good ideas," Philip said, doing all those things. The car sped up slightly, reaching a speed that, as best Philip could tell from the old-fashioned and inaccurate speedometer, was in the region of 62.9375mph. "No good!" he bellowed rather more loudly than was necessary, considering that Samantha was sitting right next to him and the radio was off. "We can't quite outrun Cecil and the car will explode if we keep pushing it so hard!"
"Then all is lost! Woe!" exclaimed Samantha, melodramatically. And indeed, all seemed to be lost, but just as the car was about to explode and shower the M1 Northbound with shreds of tacky orange metal debris, Cecil stumbled over a snail and fell flat on his face.
"Hooray!" Philip and Samantha chorused, bringing the car to a stop in front of him and getting out to see if Cecil was alright. Cars and lorries honked their horns and swerved to avoid them as they wandered cheerfully across the carriageway and helped Cecil to his feet.
"Ah well," Cecil mused philosophically. "Ruling the world was fun while it lasted. Here's your cheque guarantee card back. I returned your library books, but then the library closed down due to computer failure. That's 1983 for you!"
"Ha ha!" they all said.
"Is there a problem?" Samantha asked, perceptively. "Dinner too hot? Unusual choice of dining location causing distress? Sudden memory of past events causing alarming realisation? Existential angst of a non-specific nature?"
"The third one," Philip said, grimly. "And also the other three. Spaghetti was so hot it had melted into a bubbling pool of goo, sitting on the toilet to eat is uncomfortable and disturbing and the universe is cruel and overwhelming. But the main thing is what happened earlier this morning. Remember when I asked Cecil to return my library books while he was out in town?"
"No," said Samantha. "Did that happen?"
"I videoed it," Philip said, standing up and dragging Samantha by the hair into the living room. "I video everything now, because you never remember anything I've done. Watch this."
Philip put a tape into the VCR and pressed play. The screen showed Cecil sitting on the living room floor, cutting his toenails, and Samantha lying in bed reading a book. Philip then emerged from behind the camera. "Right, that's recording," he muttered. "Now if I have any reason to reference this conversation to you in future, Samantha, I'll have proof that it happened."
Samantha looked up from her book and said "I'll remember. I'm reading a book about how to have a good memory. It's by Ben Pridemore. Or Bridmore. Or something."
"Hmm," Philip said. "Anyway, Cecil, you're going into town today, aren't you? Good. Return my library books, would you? Here's my library card and here's fifty pounds to say thank you."
"Cheers," said Cecil, taking the card, the banknote and his leave, without even waiting to put his shoes on.
"You see!" Philip enthused. Not the Philip on the screen, who was pulling funny faces into the camera for his own amusement, we're talking about the Philip who just came out of the bathroom and played this tape for Samantha. He continued "Did you notice?"
"That Cecil didn't take your library books when he left the house?" Samantha said. "Yes, that was strange."
"No, I leave my library books on the front lawn," said Philip. "It was the card! That card I gave Cecil wasn't my library card! I took the wrong card out of my pocket! Cecil's got my cheque guarantee card!"
"He's got your what?" asked Samantha, scratching her head.
"You know, my cheque guarantee card," Philip repeated, unhelpfully. Samantha punched his face until he explained further. "It's the early nineteen-eighties, and the normal means of paying for goods and services is by means of a cheque, presented to the cashier accompanied by a plastic guarantee card. The cashier then copies the number of the card onto the back of the cheque and thus makes it legally binding or non-refundable or something."
"Oh," said Samantha. "I thought it was the year 2008."
"Ho ho," Philip laughed. "I think you've been reading too much science fiction set in the year 2008, Samantha. No, it's about 1983, I think. Give or take. Margaret Thatcher, Dexy's Midnight Runners, radios made of wood, all that kind of thing. Now we'd better chase after Cecil before he takes over the world!"
He made a packed lunch, a gesture for Samantha to follow him, his exit and his way to his car, while Samantha followed behind, querying "What? Takes over the world? I thought the card only enabled him to guarantee cheques in your name, with your signature, to a maximum value of fifty pounds. And also, did libraries use plastic cards in 1983?"
"Some did, I think," Philip mused, starting the car and driving off at top speed. "I mean, some do. We live in a major metropolis, let's say Nottingham, with a big library that is experimenting with a new computer database system and barcode reader. It's primitive, granted, but it's a major step up from the old paper-based records. Admittedly they probably don't need to scan the borrower's card if he's only returning books, but I forgot that in the heat of the moment."
"Right," said Samantha, fiddling with the car radio. "But what about the taking over the world thing? And if it's 1983, shouldn't this car have ashtrays in the doors?"
"What are you, a historian? Just shut up and wind down the passenger-side window using the time-period-accurate non-electric handle, will you? I think I see Cecil," commanded Philip.
"Noticed your mistake?" Cecil laughed, running alongside the car as it sped down the motorway at sixty miles an hour. "Too late! I've already taken over the world, Philip, and granted myself the ability to run at up to sixty-three miles an hour! And all thanks to your cheque guarantee card!"
"Only sixty-three?" Samantha gasped. "Then there's still a chance! Accelerate, Philip! If you can drive faster than Cecil can run, everything will be okay again!"
"There's no need to state the obvious, Samantha," chided Philip. "But we've got a problem. We're driving an Opel Kadett with numerous mechanical defects, similar to the one that George Pridmore drives around in right now in 1983, and I'm not sure it can get much faster than sixty-one mph!"
"Try pressing the accelerator!" Samantha urged. "And not the brake! Put it into the highest gear available, fourth I suppose! Sound the horn! Turn off the radio so that the slight vibrations caused by the jarring music of Culture Club don't slow the car down!"
"Good ideas," Philip said, doing all those things. The car sped up slightly, reaching a speed that, as best Philip could tell from the old-fashioned and inaccurate speedometer, was in the region of 62.9375mph. "No good!" he bellowed rather more loudly than was necessary, considering that Samantha was sitting right next to him and the radio was off. "We can't quite outrun Cecil and the car will explode if we keep pushing it so hard!"
"Then all is lost! Woe!" exclaimed Samantha, melodramatically. And indeed, all seemed to be lost, but just as the car was about to explode and shower the M1 Northbound with shreds of tacky orange metal debris, Cecil stumbled over a snail and fell flat on his face.
"Hooray!" Philip and Samantha chorused, bringing the car to a stop in front of him and getting out to see if Cecil was alright. Cars and lorries honked their horns and swerved to avoid them as they wandered cheerfully across the carriageway and helped Cecil to his feet.
"Ah well," Cecil mused philosophically. "Ruling the world was fun while it lasted. Here's your cheque guarantee card back. I returned your library books, but then the library closed down due to computer failure. That's 1983 for you!"
"Ha ha!" they all said.
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