Eulogy for Mum

Aged 18, The Photo Says on the Back

I don't know if Mum made a plan for life, with all her targets laid out ahead of time and the means of achieving them fully considered. Whether she did or did not, I imagine now that she was ultimately content with how things turned out; for the important stuff at the very least.

So what would her aims have been? Well, firstly, to succeed at her education, which by getting to the grammar school at Okehampton she surely did. She passed her O-levels, albeit vexed that her O-level at maths had eluded her. Then she embarked on A-levels, though she never got to finish them because of the more pressing need to earn an income.

Objective Two, I’m guessing, was to find herself a handsome young man, one who would remain a steadfast companion through the good times and the bad. And despite fishing in a modest-sized pool in rural Devon, she absolutely smashed that one. Aged 15 she met Dad sometime after a church service; then after 5-years of nurturing their relationship, they were married. That’s 1959, when they moved into a flat in Moorfield Grove, part of suburban Bournemouth.

Five years on from that, after setting up a comfortable home at Parley Road, the first of her 4 children came along (that’s me), a set completed three years later with Morris. Whether we all fulfilled her expectations, who can say. One minor disappointment was that neither of the two academic kids got into Oxford (Cambridge, for some reason, was always a cut below in her estimation) and we didn’t study medicine, either. Yes, all four of us in our different ways justified her faith in us.

Of course, life is more than just our life's work. There are interesting and fun things to be up to as well. A keen tennis fan back in the day, and a big fan of Virginia Wade, she even took me once down to the courts at Moordown park for a hit. We used the same wooden rackets she and Dad had used just a few years before. Unfortunately her gammy hip was already a brake on a repeat encounter, so it was a one-time only trip.

Allied to an interest in the social history of Devon, Mum’s overriding interest was researching and writing up our family tree, an endeavour which in those days was a long and arduous labour of love. Many, many hours scouring hefty tomes in local registries and squinting at microfiches. One of the first things she asked me when I moved to London was to spend an afternoon at the registrar of births, deaths and marriages in Holborn searching for this one and that one. Then, 25-years later, when I moved to Reading, I was asked to comb the gravestones at the main cemetery looking for the last resting place of a long gone relative (we found it, too!). 

Her final years weren't easy, the arthritis creeping up on her, each year a little worse. I don't think she made much time for doctors, who seemed unable to make much of a difference to her illness. And she certainly didn’t want to expire in a hospital bed in an anonymous ward somewhere. She achieved her last ambition to end her days in the same house that she had, with Dad, invested so much of herself over the past 63 years. Thank you, mum, for everything.

Some More Podcasts

Those otherwise blank hours of sitting on trains, walking round the park and household chores I continue to fill with podcasts. Many remain the same as earlier years' posts on this page, so I'll limit myself to a few new additions:

• When it Hits the Fan, from a couple of experienced journalists / public relations guys, comes via BBC. It always provides an interesting take on contemporary scandals in the news, and the kinds of often transient stories that we obsess about at the time, but have forgotten a few months hence.
• Smart Cookies is a niche podcast where the urbane host quizzes in-depth a guest on all kinds of subjects, often based on a recently published book. I don't listen to them all - many episodes exceed an hour - but am feeling it's maybe time I became a patron.
• Law and Disorder is an independently produced podcast addressing contemporary and sometimes historical subjects where law is at the heart of the issue. It's fairly high-brow I suppose, but I'm no lawyer and follow most of it without difficulty.
• Page 94 is another alternative take on recent events from the long-lived and estimable Private Eye team.
• Unhedged is a twice-weekly FT podcast about finance and the markets. They do a great job making sense of what could easily be a dull-dull subject.
• PC PRO is roughly an hour a week about computers and related stuff by a group of tech journalists. This is either down your street or it isn't.
• The Angry Clean Energy Guy tries to make his audience feel optimistic about the coming climate catastrophe. Maybe some of us can escape, after all.

One podcast that's now wrapped up for good is Uncle Jim's World of Bonds, which was an excellent potted summary of the bond market once or twice a week. Alas now, the podcaster has retired from financial markets.

Podcasts 2022

Welcome to my annual roundup of podcasts on my listen-to list in 2022. It hasn't been a classic year for new podcasts, at least not of the sort that interest me; and several have fallen by the wayside. This isn't a complete list, but it's stuff that I think has changed during the year.

Discards

Starting with those that I unsubscribed or muted this year: Zero Ducks Given and The Supermassive Podcast finally became too tiresome to listen to, despite the occasional good content. No complaints, because we don't pay for this stuff; and who am I to say that the participants shouldn't (seem to?) be having such a good time when they produce the material we benefit from. But to enjoy it with them, you would need to be there, and of course we aren't. So all the laughing, joshing and in-jokes can fall a bit flat when you're tramping round the park on a Monday evening in your usual hour of evening exercise.

I've also taken a break from Non Censored (Rosie Holt) and What Most People Think (Geoff Norcott). The first because it's all a bit samey, which can get dull when it's a weekly production. Ditto the second, because as a long-time listener and reader of his books, I get to intuit what Geoff thinks most people think. And the interview pieces with other comedians are likely to be interesting only to those also in the trade - I doubt that me chatting with another database dude would interest anyone much either.

Retired

We lost Taking Politics in the spring, which was a surprise and a pity. I realise that producing this stuff must be time expensive, but I'm still surprised they didn't continue on an occasional basis. I haven't heard from David Runciman since.

Looking for some kind of replacement, I quickly found The Rest is Politics, a political commentary with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart. They approach politics from slightly different angles: one is a journalist and former member of Tony Blair's inner circle during his time as Labour PM; the other was a civil servant, soldier, Tory minister and leadership candidate. Originally intended as a debating forum ("disagree agreeably"), there is currently more consensus than dispute. The output might be described as attractive to the enlightened metropolitan elite, which is where I probably am.

To complete politics, the excellent Payne's Politics will need to be renamed as the eponymous journalist has moved on from the FT. But with so much talent in house, I'm confident I'll still be listening to something much like it each Saturday morning as I vacuum Neddyhaar Towers.

Other podcasts to fall into regretted quiescence are those from Andrew Neil, Jeremy Paxman and Mark Nicholas.

New Podcasts

On a related note, I now take In Moscow's Shadows from Mark Galeotti, which is an excellent briefing on Russian affairs. The subject matter is of course topical, and it's good enough to subscribe to with real money, though I don't suppose that's the reason he does it.

Merryn Somerset Webb has moved to Bloomberg and has launched a new podcast, Merryn Talks Money. It looks good so far, but despite the agreeable reintroduction of John Stepek (also now relocated from Moneyweek to Bloomberg), it's early days. This also seems to mean that the Moneyweek production has fallen by the wayside.

Others

The idiosyncratic Dominic Frisby is back with The Flying Frisby, which covers all manner of stuff from promoting his performance art projects to cryptocurrencies and gold. It's short - probably mercifully so - but worth a listen once or twice a week.

I also like Money Makers by Jonathan Davis, a weekly discussion of Investment Trusts, which is much better since its change of format. And of course, I always listen to Uncle Jim's World of Bonds when it's being produced.

Quite why the BBC have cajoled those of us who listen to Inside Science to use their imperfect Sounds app, I don't know. In any case, I probably listen to it less then I used to as a result. Excellent alternatives can be found with Sabine Hossenfelder's YouTube production; and Futureproof from Newstalk, lead by the excellent Jonathan McCrea.

Alan Fraser, RIP

I hardly ever post much at this site (or anywhere else much, for that matter) and today there are two. Both are some words recalling old friends who have recently slipped away. This post is about Alan Fraser, a former member of Beckenham & Bromley chess club and, for some years, a regular member of the club's London League team that I led.

Always a reliable team member, Alan would often score well against much stronger opposition, especially if the game didn't go on too long. One in particular, when we were playing a much stronger team, Alan's opponent noisily complained about having to play someone with such a low grade relative to his own. He played quickly and carelessly, whereas Alan played in his normal, unhurried style. The next thing we knew, we're one point ahead as Alan won a rook for nothing, leading to more noise as his opponent had to resign and leave in a huff! He was very pleased with that result, and rightfully so.

I only play the odd weekend tournament, but whenever I did there was a very good chance I'd find him there, and we would exchange the usual pleasantries, and gossip a little about mutual acquaintances. And if he wasn't there, he was usually playing elsewhere. He really did play an awful lot of chess, by anyone's standards.

I sometimes wondered whether he occasionally "managed" his grade, perhaps making draws at tournaments where he stood no chance of winning, just to ensure that he wouldn't be pushed up to a higher graded section in future events. Or maybe it was just the stamina failed him in better positions, who knows. In any case, the only occasion I remember playing him myself - an end-of-season, time-handicapped fun event - and he beat me!

Alan was a quietly spoken chap, but with a surprising sense of humour, happy to share opinions  that might be considered controversial within the small world of UK chess. There's a little more, with some pictures, here.

Farewell, Alan.

Nigel Jones, RIP

I was saddened to read of the death of my old work colleague, Nigel Jones, this week. We'd been colleagues at the ill-fated IT Partners, a consultancy setup by the computer manufacturer, ICL, just before the early-nineties recession. Nigel was a really nice guy who had a senior operational role there, whilst I was still pretty wet behind the ears (as they say). One of relatively few to be on paid client work, Nigel was working in the UK and all-over, whilst somehow managing the workload of a county councillor.

I only learned of his death last night, whilst repeating the story of how "a friend of mine became an MP by mistake". This was Nigel, who stood in his local constituency of Cheltenham for the Liberal Democrats in the 1992 election. At that time, Cheltenham was a safe Tory seat, and Nigel was not expecting to change that. However, it was too soon it seems, for the citizens of Cheltenham to accept a black MP, official Tory candidate or not. The rightfully aggrieved losing candidate was John Taylor, who has an interesting later story of his own.

To his shock and horror, Nigel was returned as the MP for Cheltenham.

I can still remember talking to him about his unexpected career move in the office the following week. It was a mixed blessing, he said: an MP's salary was less than he currently had, and although I'm sure he was excited by the challenge, there was the danger of being dumped out at the following election and struggling to re-establish himself in a career where five years out of the business is a long time. He needn't have worried, as Cheltenham returned him again and again, until in 2005 he entered the Lords.

We met by chance a couple of years later on a train to Paddington. He didn't seem to be having much fun: MPs were subject to a lot of abuse, he said; and there wasn't great support for day to day duties. He'd just come from a ceremonial tree-planting ceremony at a Swindon hospital. But there was no hole for it, and the ground was frozen hard. They'd had to implore the press photographers not to show that Nigel was holding the tree just to keep it from falling over, as it couldn't be planted in the ground. Funny story, in its way, though he was to suffer a much worse insult in 2000, when he was attacked by a sword-wielding, mentally ill guy.

Farewell, Nigel.

Podcasts 2021

I now subscribe to a good few cricket podcasts, too many to digest all their output. Probably the best of them are Wisden Cricket (from the magazine of the same name) and The Analyst Inside Cricket (Simon Hughes and Simon Mann). The latter is more frequent but shorter, the former the opposite; both have their place. A shout out to Zero Ducks Given, a pro-am combination that can be fun to listen to, though the banter sometimes palls - you need to be there to appreciate it. Also, The Grade Cricketer, an Australian weekly, is engaging if you've got the time (almost always an hour plus). During the year we lost The Drinks Break, which was great when it started, though I'm not surprised it ended, as I guess not many productions even break even, let alone justify the time spent. Unusually, they made it clear on Twitter that it's ceased to be, rather than leave everyone wondering.

No real change in the science podcasts though I do find time for The Supermassive Podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society. It's a really rubbish name to be honest, but the content is interesting, and being monthly is about right.

On the news and general affairs front, I can't help but subscribe to the daily (4-minutes) Coronavirus Global Update from the BBC, surely a venture we all hope can be retired in 2022. My preferred news podcasts though come from the Financial Times, notably the weekly Payne's Politics and the week-daily FT News Briefing. A new (to me) is Chinese Whispers by Cindy Yu and The Spectator.

For investment, the MoneyWeek Podcast is often excellent, especially when Merryn is engaging with her sidekick, John Stepek. Chats with fund managers, which are a big part of its output, are often soporific fare however, something which is also now true of the Investors Chronicle. The Chronicle has lost some key people this year, two of whom (John Hughman and Phil Oakley) now produce Quality Shares Podcast, though it's irregular. All in all, this parting of the ways seems to have resulted in less than a zero-sum output.

In the miscellaneous category, honourable mentions go to The Lock In with Jeremy Paxman (long-form interviews of interesting people), The Perpetual Chess Podcast (better and better it gets, though I sometimes wish it were shorter), and Atomic Hobo (a bit niche, this one). And I can't ignore What Most People Think, the excellent no-ads production from comedian Geoff Norcott. It's in two forms: solo where he shares his views on this week's news and social media storms, and the interview format. His guests are usually other comedians, though the chat is not as comedic as you might expect. All in all, I prefer the monologue version, though that puts me in the minority, apparently.

Currently dormant but expected back in the new year is The Lazarus Heist, from the BBC, which is a documentary on cyber warfare in relation to North Korea. One we may have lost is FITV, another niche production (journalists based in the Falklands, basically) that I would have probably never subscribed to were it not for the yearning to hear something different during Lockdown.

More Podcasts

Looking back two years to the last time I chose to blog about podcasts, I see that most of what I described then I continue to subscribe to now. No point in going over these again, so here are three new podcasts.

What Most People Think

This is a weekly organ for Geoff Norcott (you know, the alternative voice on The Mash Report) to provide his unashamedly right-wing take on recent events. I don't mean crazy, head-banging right-wing, but a thoughtful and well argued alternative opinion.

Sometimes it's just him, other times he does an interview with someone largely but not always sympathetic to his opinions. The only odd thing is the obsession with counting the quantity of swearing from the previous week - just skip this rather tedious curiosity, which appears every week without fail.

Like most podcasters, Mr Norcott seeks reviews on something called iTunes (have I spelled it right?), which is not a service I use (theological reasons). So instead, here is my take, albeit I doubt I'll get much publicity for the podcast, which is a shame because it is worth the time.

Uncle Jim's World of Bonds

This is obviously a niche - "for professional investors only" - but it's nevertheless an authoritative 5 to 10 minutes every few days about the bond market and allied subjects. No advertising, and you do get some funky background music that I at first hated but now tolerate. I have no idea why it's "Uncle" Jim, but don't let that put you off if you're a "professional investor" and want some informed background chat to your morning coffee.

13 Minutes to the Moon

The story of how humankind voyaged to the moon and returned. Over two series and 20 episodes, it's presented by Dr Kevin Fong as part of a BBC documentary. It includes interviews with some of the people who were there, which given the interval of time since the moon landings is maybe one of the last times this will be possible. Highly recommended.

The Worst Move On the Board

After some lamentable play by Black (me) at this weekend's excellent Bristol Winter Congress, I thought I'd share this position. Black has just captured the pawn on g2.

After 18 moves, White to Play

Frankly, I deserve to lose this; the lack of development reflects a callow attempt at setting a trap for white early in the opening, which he calmly sidetracked. My knight has been driven back to its starting square, and there is little to hope for. White, who had played quite slowly the whole game, now moved instantly and with a flourish, having obviously foreseen this position a move ago.

Alas, his visualisation at the end of Round 5 was impaired, and he chose The Worst Move on the Board, leading to mate-in-two.

And so, I achieved third place and enough cash to buy a really good bottle of whisky.

The Energy

We know how it finished, but what might have been...

😲#bbccricket pic.twitter.com/2F77zxccJh

— Test Match Special (@bbctms) August 26, 2019

Mesmerising for 90 Seconds

The pendulum motion pic.twitter.com/NLr6uPrlFc

— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) May 16, 2019

The Podcasts

I’ve been a regular podcast junkie since 2006 when I connected up my new Sony Walkman[1] to the Internet and found I could sync quickly and easily with the BBC.  I’ve now upgraded to the excellent Podcast Addict which tells me that, so far in 2018, I’ve spent 24 days – yes, 24 whole days – listening to podcasts; that’s more even that last year’s 15 days and 5 hours.

To make some kind of sense of that, I thought it was time to blog what it is that I’m spending my commuting and exercise time actually listening to.  These aren’t my “recommendations” are don’t represent a comprehensive trawl of the vast number of podcasts out there.  Comment below if you have suggestions of your own.

News and Politics

It’s hard to beat The Economist: Editor's picks for a weekly review of the news.   And for a roundup of the week’s news in politics, it’s FT Politics.

I particularly like Talking Politics for a pure-politics play whose subject is not dictated solely by recent events.  It’s sometimes a discussion group, other times an interview and occasionally even a lecture or briefing.

For more detail on specific issues I like both The Briefing Room and The Inquiry. 

For an interview with active politicians that won’t make you scream at the radio, try Political Thinking with Nick Robinson.

Science

My favourite weekly magazine programme about science is Futureproof with Jonathan McCrea, which is just that bit more snarky than BBC Inside Science.  I also take Nature Podcast, which luckily overlaps with Futureproof only rarely.

Two podcasts that aren’t news-driven are Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe (a cartoonist and a physicist explain the “big-questions” of universe) and I’ve just begun with The End of The World with Josh Clark.

Finally, I always listen to Physics Frontiers every fortnight or so.  It features two very well informed physics guys who kick around a topic at the frontiers of modern physics.  Now, if I’m honest, there’s no doubting this is highbrow stuff that mostly sails right over my 1982 physics & astronomy BSc, but I can’t stop tuning in anyway.

Cricket

The Analyst Inside Cricket is either an incisive weekly summary of recent cricket played, team news and so on; or, during major England matches, it reports daily from the front.

I usually listen to some of Test Match Special, but the feed can become overloaded with post-match player-interviews (overrated), lunchtime guests and so on; and then nothing for weeks.

Switch Hit Podcast comes every few weeks and is worth listening to.

And finally, I would love to see a relaunch of The Drinks Break, mostly because it features the estimable Elizabeth Ammon.

Chess

OK, so this is niche, and there aren’t too many to choose from.  Joel Benjamin’s weekly video is excellent, but you’ll need a subscription if you want more than the 5-minute preview.

Perpetual Chess Podcast is an interview format, often quite long, and not always do I finish.  The best are by people who’ve done more in life than just play and teach chess for a living.

The excellent Chess: The Full English Breakfast is now only rarely available, but a must-listen when it does appear.

Society and Culture

The high-brow In Our Time is always worth listening to, although I don’t always get to the end of the more obscure arty subjects.

Making a recent re-appearance is Wireless Nights, a documentary on what some people get up to at night.  I also like Trending, which highlights a topical subject from social media.

Investment and Business

The 10-minute business-news podcast, FT News Briefing, is essential early morning listening and similarly Investors Chronicle each week.  The latter is especially good when John Hughman is in the chair. 

Although only rarely appearing these days, Stuff that Interests Me is Dominic Frisby’s mouthpiece for his off-beat views on gold, Bitcoin and libertarian politics.  Always interesting.

Others

I’ve just started with CYBER, a discussion programme about information-security that looks promising.

And a mention for Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy, which is an unashamedly laddish discussion mostly about sport, cars and so on.  The first two series were excellent - surprisingly so - but it’s maybe reached the point where the opinions and anecdotes are now being recycled.

To chill for a while, I go to the Hypnagogue Podcast, of curated music.

---

[1] Amazing device, the Sony Walkman. A tiny screen and only several millimetres deep, it could also sync video with the iPlayer for a few years.  I still have it now.

I don't normally circulate videos but....

This is the best video ever pic.twitter.com/K065H6RJfQ

— Keith (@lad) July 20, 2017

Draw!

Playing through a games collection on this dreary Sunday afternoon in January, I came to this position.  White has an extra piece but black has a dangerous-looking mobile pawn centre with no less than three passers.  White to move.  Intrigued to see how it turned out, I turned the page and... "Agreed drawn!".  White offered, black accepted; and it all happened behind the scenes during the adjournment.

Had this happened today in a game between two top players, there would surely be protest from amongst the paying public.  Why would you not want to watch this lop-sided position play itself out?  The game itself had earlier been a disaster for black, who'd blundered a whole rook just out of the opening.  Surprisingly he played on and his persistence paid off.  White, who was the author of the games collection, reckoned he was in poor form; that's putting it lightly; even I usually win games against my peers with this kind of extra material.

In case you're interested, the game is Botvinnik - Bronstein, 9th match game, 1951; and I'm referring to  Botvinnik's Best Games, Volume 2: 1942 - 1956.  Botvinnik was +1 in the 24-game match at the time but the match ended drawn, so Botvinnik retained his title.

For what it's worth, when Komodo and Stockfish played the position, they made a draw.  Whether the punters' frustration was expressed in the media of the time, I don't know.  But probably not at the match venue itself, which was Moscow; protests by citizens at the time weren't well tolerated by the authorities.

There's a short, grainy video of the match venue here, and if you look a little further, you'll find another video where Yasser Seirawan lectures on this game; I'm just about to give it a go.

On Square Roots and the Number Line

I've recently been thinking that it's time I took another look at mathematics, which was a subject that occupied a lot my thoughts as a kid right up until my early twenties (when career took over all the available brain space).  With that in mind, I recently read Marcus du Sautoy's excellent book on the limits of our knowledge.  My attempt at a snack-sized review is here.

One of the nice proofs reproduced in the book was the one to show that the square root of 2 is not a rational number; that is, that that it can't be represented as a fraction (a/b).  The proof is short and easy to follow (find it on Wikipedia) and the result is satisfying because of its sheer scope.  Despite there being literally an infinite quantity of numbers, you will never find a number that is the exact square root of 2.  And you can do that with absolute certainty without even breaking into a mental jog, the proof is that simple.

Anyway, when I was reacquainted with this proof I remembered that many years ago I was really not that impressed by it.  There seemed to me to be an obvious intuitive argument that it had to be so.  It's all a question of there not being enough space on the number line to fit in all those square-roots.



Think about it: from 1 through 9, say, there are an infinite quantity of intermediate numbers; and if we map each of that infinite multitude to its square-root (or higher root, for that matter), the number line of the roots is squashed up relative to the number line from which is originates (it ranges only from 1 through 3 in the above example).  It seemed obvious to me that there simply couldn't be enough room on the number line for every number between 1 & 9 to map to its own unique root in the range 1 to 3.  After all, there may be an infinite quantity of numbers between 1 and 3, but the infinite quantity of numbers between 1 and 9 must be greater, mustn't it?

The standard proof that root-2 isn't rational is certainly more definitive than my (admittedly informal) argument; but mine seems to imply that there won't be cube roots, fifth roots and all the way up.  Or at least, it seems to be on first glance.

Another way of coming at this question is to consider what the decimal expansion would be of a number that is the square-root of any integer that is not a square number (1,4,9 etc.).  Clearly, the root has to end with a non-zero digit after the decimal point.  And when squared, the final digit would need to equal zero for the square to be an integer.  But when you square all the digits from 1 through 9 you don't find any that maps to zero; the square of any decimal number will in fact have more digits after the decimal point than the putative root itself has.  Hence, there are no integers other than square numbers that have a square-root that can be expressed as an exact decimal; and in fact, no number with a single digit after the decimal has its own root either.

Anyway, glad to have got this off my chest after all these years.  In writing it down, I suddenly thought about how we express numbers that aren't whole.  The whole numbers each have their own symbol(s) that are unique to themselves, whereas the non-whole numbers are expressed only as the output of a computation using whole numbers (a/b); they don't have their own unique symbolic representation and I'm not sure that it would ever be a useful thing to do.  Which makes me wonder about how real they really are, or as Leopold Kronecker, a 19th C. mathematician put it: God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man.

AH

Cut my nose to spite my face?

See the sell trade, around early October?  That's based on some fundamental analysis, believe it or not; no doubt the recent share price action biased my judgement.  But it seems I sold right at the bottom of the trend.

The buy at the end of the month is a reinvested dividend, done automatically and there to taunt me as the share price rose strongly over following weeks.  Until Friday.  And now, this morning the smug satisfaction as the buyer who took the shares off my hands finally gets their comeuppance.  Even though my dividend-in-shares has suffered equally, I feel so much better.

How daft is that?

Verona Joyce Bennett, RIP

Joyce Verona Bennett, 1917 - 2013

Today I was at the funeral of my grandmother, who checked out around Christmas time, a few days shy of her 97th birthday.  It was a short and unremarkable service, but interesting nevertheless and I'm glad I went.

I'd completely forgotten, for example, that her given name was not in fact Joyce (the name she always used), but was actually Verona.  And whilst I knew that she'd travelled fairly widely around the UK and Europe, I didn't know that she had taken her first and only journey by aeroplane - from Exeter to Bristol - aged 93.  She'd made the trip just for the experience, apparently.  I hope that I can also reach such an age and have new adventures of my own.

I'm not going to labour the point, but I'd guess that 1917 was not an auspicious time to be born as a female to a family of modest means in a small provincial English town.   Getting pregnant at 21 by a soldier who then dissappeared off to war (the offspring of this congress being my mother) hardly improved her prospects. Nevertheless, she did prosper.  No doubt the widespread upheaval within society that war with Germany precipitated was a good opportunity.

Mum was mostly brought up by her Grandmother, but not without difficulty.  Being an unmarried mother in 1940s Britain would have probably been a drab and colourless affair, not helped the inflexible attitudes of the local Christians.

Yet, despite all this, she managed to to steer a life-course that was sufficiently interesting to merit a feature article in the Sunday Independent (more news to me) and a couple of Channel 4 documentaries (which we had all watched, agog, wondering what she might disclose about our hitherto unknown blood relative).

I remember her as a feisty lady of strong opinions, and as my Dad once said, she would likely have made impressive use of the opportunities that being born into a later age would have given her.  Not that I think she was in any way dis-satisfied with her lot.

Farewell, Grandma.

A Season of Cricket, 2013

When Whitchurch on Thames CC suffered some sort of IT failure that resulted in the loss of the whole of last year's averages, I was just a little peeved about it.  So this year, I thought I'd keep a record through the season of my performances, just a little something to keep the focus as the season heads through those difficult months of mid-summer when the batsmen are getting themselves into form on flat pitches.

The purpose of this little post is to update myself on how the season went in numbers.

In a great summer of cricketing weather I managed to get in 35 matches; probably some sort of record.  Of these, 13 were for Mandarins, the rest for WCC or their opposition (1), who were short.

I bowled in all but one of these games, the one being when I was suffering a cricked neck; and got through 217 overs (phew!).  40 of these were maidens and from the rest 809 runs were given away.  The harvest in batsmen for all this was 41 wickets.  That's a pleasing economy rate of 3.73 runs per over and averages 19.73 runs / wicket, striking slightly more frequently than once every 32 balls.  My best numbers came at Goring on the second played match of the season: 8 - 0 - 15 - 3.

Definitely the secret to a good average is to bowl to passive batters, as the openers frequently are; and try to get yourself a fielding team that can catch and run around a bit.  WCC do that creditably, though Mandarins are a little slow on their feet these days.

I collected a rather small number of catches - five - the last one being at the back-end of July.  Note for next year: keep a log of drops, half catches and feeble pretences on cold days that "it wasn't quite there".

The batting doesn't need to be gone into much detail.  Going in as tail-end-charlie in a run-chase is not always easy an easy place to score from.  So maybe an average of 12.46 with the best innings (29*) in October's last fixture is not too dreadful; but then again, there is a reason why I tend to go in this position, and it's not just because I'm opening the bowling.

Looking out for warm days in the spring of 2014.

Tragic Case

How You Know Caissa Has Forsaken You

Strictly between us chess players... My form on the board has been rather poor of late. My team mates know it, and I know it. This is my self indulgent notes-to-self after Wednesday's debacle...

• My pieces are not the equal of my opponents.  My opponent and I are managers of two teams but, on a man for man basis, every piece on my side is a weakling compared to his.


• My pieces get in the way of each other and refuse to work together.   It's as though they are all enemies; of each other, and me.  Some have clearly gone rogue.


• My opponent's moves seem to happen more frequently than mine.  On his turn, he seems to be making more moves than me.  My own pieces seem content to stay at home today.


• I know I'm losing, even in positions which to anyone else would be OK.  I've seen them in books and know, objectively, they're fine; but at the back of my mind, I know I'm losing, if not already flat lost.


• I struggle for ages to find any move that doesn't lose immediately, and yet my position continues to  degrade with every clock tick. On the other side of the board, I see so many resources!  It's inconceivable that, bunny though he is, he won't find the easy moves that'll beat me.


• I know that I'm going to lose this evening, even before the clocks have started and no matter how weak my opponent.  He simply has to turn up and push some wood.  If necessary, I'll help him beat me; and if he's a real patzer, I'll probably selfmate.

Captain Patzer

The Aesthetics of Charting

Although I place very little faith in the predictive abilities of stock-price charts, I can't claim to ignore them entirely.  Quite apart from the simple curiosity of sampling the opinion of other market participants, there is the simple elegance of the chart itself.  The one above is generated by Sharescope, the investment database that I've used for some years now.  It shows the recent decline of the Euro vs. the pound, which seems to have accelerated since sinking below 0.855 on December 12th.

I should point out that the chart is much more detailed on screen, and the package as a whole does a lot more than drawing elegant charts.  If I can claim any aesthetic credit, it would be for customising the chart itself - there are many, many options.


Below is another example, also of EUR/GBP, but over a longer period.  We might conclude that the Euro is merely towards the lower end of the trading range that began in January 2009, but that it might easily sink to 0.8 before finding any support.

Incidentally, I meant what  I said: I really don't take this stuff seriously.  No-one should trade using any of this stuff; I reckon there's about a 50:50 chance that the Euro will follow my interpretation of these charts; as far as I can tell, the EUR/GBP rate is random.

Review of 75 Worst ways to Die

This dark but hilarious book provides an account of 75 gruesome but all-too-real mechanisms by which life can be extinguished. Each process is described in the second person, designed to put you in more clearly into the hot seat. Some are unique (polonium), others the result of bad luck (lightning) and still others are contenders for a Darwin Award (binge-drinking, volunteering to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, using a hair-dryer in the bath etc.).

I never quite worked out what the authors do when they're not penning macabre yet strangely compelling books, but the afterword was penned by a funeral director who has noticed that deaths in the under-25s appear to correlate well with having a tattoo. There are many other arresting anecdotes in this strangely compelling volume.