MasterChoke

Am I the only person in Australia who hates MasterChef?!

Australia’s number one television show once again blew the ratings out of the water with its ludicrously popular second series.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with it (which is in itself quite an enviable achievement), MasterChef is a reality show in which amateur cooks compete with each other to produce the fattiest, sugariest, and most cholesterol-laden dishes possible, in order to see who has the honour of being crowned Australia’s Most Unhealthy Chef.

At first, I thought the aim was to see who of a randomly selected bunch of boring, everyday Australians was the best cook. However, this illusion was dashed a month ago when the unanimously agreed ‘best cook’ was eliminated for being too boring.  This is slightly ironic, because the following week, the second-best cook was eliminated for being too mean.

Don’t get me wrong; I have no problem with reality shows lauding and vilifying people on the basis of personality, or emotion, or whatever the hell they want, to be honest.  But please don’t call it ‘MasterChef’; call it Big Brother, or Survivor, or Question Time.

I’m sure you’re wondering how I know so much about the show if I hate it so much.  Unfortunately, my darling girlfriend (who is both rational and intelligent) and her similarly charming housemate (who is similarly intelligent and sensible) fell victim to the cultish spell that is this Channel 10 cash cow, and thus my hands (and the remote) were tied.  The same thing happened last year during Farmer Wants a Wife, a reality show based on an equally preposterous notion, though at least with a little romantic comedic value (the only sexual chemistry to be seen in the MasterChef season was when the rotund judge Matt Preston devoured a chocolate tart).

I simply don’t understand MasterChef’s popularity, but clearly I’m on the outer on this one, so there must be something I’m missing.  I mean, there’s no way the majority of Australians could be wrong, no way the majority of Australians would ever blindly anoint something so nonsensical, so ridiculous, so unintelligent, as their number one choice.  Right?

Wait, when’s the election again?

Combining business with pleasure

Starved of chess action in between tournaments (and even more so following my office IT’s decision to block all chess blogs and forums at work), I decided to organise the inaugural Treasury Chess Championships.

Perhaps it’s the sorts of people attracted to both chess and economics, or perhaps it’s just the Canberra cold, but the interest in the tournament was quite impressive.  There are 26 players in the tournament, including complete beginners, “I used to play in school” amateurs, players with decades-old ACF ratings, and a top seed rated just above 2000.

Of course there have been the usual mismatches in the opening rounds, probably exaggerated by the large strength differentials, but overall the level of enthusiasm and vigour has been quite impressive.  A bunch of players have gotten stuck into learning how to notate and use a chess clock, looking up chess openings, and even getting me to go through their games.  More significantly (and surely the sign of a successful tournament), there has even seen a bit of sledging and competitive banter among the participants.

As impressed as I am by the players, this has reminded me just how tough it is to be an organiser.  I can’t remember which grandmaster it was who said that any player who feels like insulting an organiser should be made to organise a tournament themselves first, but this is exactly right.  It’s a thankless job, but definitely necessary, something us players would do well to remember. 

At least Treasury seems to be getting behind this event, with our social committee promising to provide a trophy for first, and an article in the monthly magazine scheduled for August.  Even our café staff declared that chess seemed ‘cool’ in our building.  Could it really be?

Now if only IT would unblock the chess sites…

Oranje shame; Smerdon bested by mollusk

Stroopwafels - pretty much the only perk to the Dutch defeat

Well, the greatest sporting show on earth is over for another four years.  Spain has triumphed with the perfect Swiss Gambit, losing the first round and then swindling their way through to the final.  (Of course, the Swiss Gambit is not a traditional ploy for knock-out competitions, but it was always going to be a stretch getting one last chess analogy into the football World Cup…)

My tipping record pretty well matched the low expectations many have given me after my chess World Cup effort.  After unsuccessfully  predicting Australia’s ascent through the qualifying stages, as well as a Germany-Brazil final, I naturally tipped the Dutch Oranje to win the cup.  At least I can claim that this last prediction was based more on emotion than reasoning, given my Dutch affinity, but I was sadly disappointed.

To me, the Dutch are traditionally known as happy, tolerant, and liberal people, and, as national football styles are supposed to reflect national cultures, I expected a more sportsmanlike display from the Oranje.  Five yellow cards in the first half, including a sickening kick to the sternum, and a continuation in the second that led to one red card and grounds for many more, was hardly inspiring.  Sure, the Spanish team has dived more often this year than the ASX 200, but that doesn’t excuse the global epicentre of tolerance producing football gamesmanship not worthy of a juvenile detention centre lunchtime break.

Disappointing.

Almost as disappointing, but at least slightly more humourous, was the sentience of my fellow spectators during the game.  I admit that a 4am start is a little unpleasant, but of my five co-watchers,  at least three fell asleep, and one spent a fair chunk of the match playing rugby league games on his iPhone.  (In his defence, two of them are the co-founders of footyfootyfooty.com, so it could almost be classed as work-related.) 

Ah yes, the world game.  Confusing Australians since 1788.  Still, I was there, shouting at the screen, decked in my orange top, orange head band (okay, tie), and my infamous ‘naked-cycle’ Amsterdam undies.  We even had Dutch pancakes and a sad, Coles-bought excuse for stroopwafels to really get into the Nederlands culture (Fi was supporting Spain, but is usually willing to compromise where pancakes and sweets are involved).

Of course, my tipping tragedy of a zero percent strike rate was perfectly balanced by Paul the Octopus’ incredible run of eight correctly tipped matches.  Amid calls for his demise into various culinary dishes, insults pertaining to his mother’s morality, and even a declaration of sovereign protection by Spain’s leader, the octopus has certainly become the most famous sea-dweller of this world cup.  Chance?  The maths would suggest otherwise.  Conspiracy?  Hard to believe, given all matches were tipped well in advance.  Fate?  Possibly, but unlikely.  Still, the chances of me picking every result incorrectly are similarly astounding, so if Paul is to be crowned the football oracle, I feel I should at least get some consolation prize as the predictor of doom.

Plus, Paul is only expected to live another year or so, so I’ll be the one around in 2014.  Get ready to bet against me, guys.

Uruguay exploits touch-piece move; Karma finally found

So the debate continues to rage over Uruguay’s deliberate handball on the goal line to snatch a remarkable, controversial and unexpected victory against Ghana.  News forums and blogs have shown quite a split consensus over whether such a foul brands the culprit, Luis Suarez, an unsportsmanlike villan, or a national hero.  Even former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has weighed in, calling Ghana the true winners of the match.

Personally, I don’t know what all the fuss is about.  It seems simply logical that in such circumstances, when a goal would have surely been scored, a penalty goal should be awarded.  Rugby has the penalty try; in tennis, a successful challenge to a call wins the point if the umpire declares it would have been so.  And it’s not as if they don’t have the video technology to do it; heck, if the video ref had been introduced, perhaps Englishman Frank Lampard’s incorrectly disallowed goal would have boosted England to, well, a 4-2 loss instead.

In chess, of course, we have it easy.  If you touch a piece, you have to move it.  If you make an illegal move, the players go back to when the move was made, thus taking the game back to ‘what would have happened’.  Not that our sport isn’t without its controversy as well, of course: our cheating scandals have to be much more imaginative, as the infamous ‘Toiletgate’ episode demonstrates.

Well, at least justice was served to some extent, with Uruguay going down to the fancied Oranje of the Netherlands in the semi-finals.  Karma?  In South Africa?

Ah, so that’s where she got to!

World Cup déjà vu

So both England and Portugal exit the FIFA World Cup, and so too do their respective stars, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, having made little more than a smear on this year’s championships.
Following the omission of Ronaldinho from the Brazilian team, we now have the comical situation of watching the Nike ‘Write the Future’ soccer ads in the breaks, despite the fact that it features the world’s top football stars… who are no longer in the Cup. Probably a bit of Karma there in that Adidas is the official sponsor, but then again, who am I to comment on Karma?
In addition to the failure of the world’s richest players failing to deliver, there have also been numerous reports of divisions and personality clashes within various teams. France went on strike and gave up, although at least this time, the Germans didn’t occupy Paris. The English players couldn’t decide whether having an Italian coach, or sleeping with each others’ girlfriends, was worse for team morale, so they decided to do both. Apparently there was even unrest in the Australian team, although nobody noticed.
These stories are not all that surprising. We only need to look at the chess Olympiads over the decades to see that a team of stars often goes down to a cohesive line-up of national ‘mates’ (pun not quite intended). Russia has really failed to shine over the past couple of championships, despite out-rating the opposition by a hefty margin. The English team has a history of divisions, with a famous rift between two of its stars getting so severe that they refused to play on adjacent boards.
Instead, we have seen the unified and ebullient national teams of China, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Netherlands and Norway – generally teams of friends off the board as well – achieve great triumphs. The guys in each line-up work together, eat together, study together and relax together – and nothing means more to them than national victory, certainly not individualism.
The most recent reports have been of disharmony in the Soccer have come from the Argentinean team, but I find these hard to believe. One of the key reasons for Argentina’s success, in my opinion, is the instalment of Maradona as coach. This is a man who has been in love with football his entire life. He runs up and down the sideline like an excited puppy on the edge of water, performing tricks whenever the ball whistles his way. He’s even admitted that he gets the urge to chuck on the shorts and run out on the field, every game. Maradona lives every pass, every kick, every mistake and every goal with his players, and they know it. Having this legend-turned-coach on their side has surely got to be an inspirational factor behind their success.
Reminds me a bit of our own Gary Kasparov. Chess is his first and only love, and you only have to read the reports of his collaborations with Carlsen to see the comparison. He’s gone out of his way to help his successor achieve greatness, and I have no doubt that it’s not only his knowledge and wisdom, but also his passion for the game, that has been passed on. Kasparov even went out of his way to call up Anand and offer him advice during the Indian’s match with Topalov – and given Anand and Kasparov’s own rivalry of the past, you can really see how the love of the game has conquered all ills for the great Russian.
We’ve even got a bit of the same story at home, with our retired legend Ian Rogers showing great philanthropy in helping out the rising chess generation in Australia. Players like Zong-Yuan and myself know full well the impact that having an icon of the game in your corner can have on your results.
Having said all that, and having once again made tenuous links between current sporting news and chess, I am tipping Argentina for the crown. Firstly, a victory by the Albicelestes would justify my argument that the influence and benevolence of a legend of the game can inspire a harmonised team to great success. Secondly, Maradona himself has promised to run naked down the streets of Buenos Aires if Argentina wins the Cup – and surely we can all agree that’s something we need to see.

The world game

I do love the World Cup.  I’m talking football here, by the way, which will no doubt immediately propitiate the non-chess readers.  The concept of a truly world game bringing the globe together in a celebration of culture, tradition and general bonhomie is really something,  And I’ve spent many a late night over the past few weeks glued to the screen as the drama, excitement and history unfolds.

But I have, naturally, a few comments to make.

First of all, you do have to be a little crazy, a little bit of a fanatic, to be able to watch ninety minutes of passing with a very real possibility of not witnessing a single goal.  Have you ever tried switching between channels when there are other sports on?  It just doesn’t work.  I tried watching a Cup game after the rugby league State of Origin finished, and it was just painful.  It was incredibly difficult to go from a high-energy, intense sport where dramatic action presents itself every two minutes, to the more complex patience of soccer.

Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate fully that soccer is an incredibly complicated, tactical game, in much the same way that chess is.  In fact, I think that’s part of its downfall in this regard.  Just as the more naïve spectators are more likely to enjoy watching poker on television than chess, soccer has a hard time competing with other, more action-packed sports in front of a generic, non-affiliated television audience.

Naturally this is an over-simplification, and there are a number of other factors which explain why soccer doesn’t share the same popularity issues that chess faces with the general public.  For one, soccer is heavily ingrained into the cultures of many nations – for some, it’s seen as a way of life, of domestic tradition, rather than just a game.  Another reason is that it’s far easier for the layperson to understand what’s happening in a soccer game, who’s winning, who’s losing, and to understand the commentary, than to comprehend the shifting tides of a chess game.

Still, chess should be able to claim the same position on the world stage as football.  It deserves more in the arena of public opinion.  We deserve a World Cup of chess with the same level of attention, flamboyance and vuvuzelas as this one.  At the very lease, we need the same level of Australian support – after all, as opposed to soccer, at least Australian chess is on the up, right?

Twenty-20 chess, anyone?

Nudge nudge, cough cough

“The reports of my death have been greatly overrated,” Mark Twain once famously wrote.  Indeed, despite comments such as Tim Molesworth’s “You look like death” and Tritty’s “You sound like crap”, I’m finally well enough to sit upright and return to this (unfortunately neglected) blog.

Apparently, it’s some combination of bronchitis and a secondary infection/virus.  Despite Tim’s quizzical claim that bronchitis “is a nineteenth-century disease, right?”, ‘the bronk’, as I affectionately like to call it, seems to have infected a sizeable proportion of Canberra.  Perhaps I’m not the only one who lives in a draughty garage after all?

According to the Doc, my body was valiantly holding out until after the GRE exam, which meant the infection finally blew out (and thus rendered me at my most contagious) over the Victorian Open long weekend.  Apologies to all the participants who may have contracted my lack of ebullience, including international master Igor Goldenberg, who assured me that at his age, bronchitis was a far more serious threat than losing 20 rating points.

At first I thought the timing couldn’t be worse – a week where I have a three-day, FIDE-rated tournament and then have to move house is hardly the time to be metaphorically licking one’s infected wounds – but it’s surely a better result than sitting the exam at half strength.  Not that I feel anywhere near half strength at the moment, mind you.  I’d settle for thirty percent right now.

A fortnight off work is just a little bit too long, and, perhaps rebounding against the insanity of GRE study before this, boredom has started to set in.  This is compounded by the facts that the new place currently has no internet, and that I’m too drugged out in the evenings on enough antibiotics to comatose a small hippo.  To compensate, I’m watching highlights on the various world news services on SBS.  If nothing else, I’m hoping the bronk might help me pick up a few words in Arabic.

Unbelievably, barely any of the 600 new words I learned before the exam came up.  Quite depressing, and in fact my score for the verbal section was below expectations.  I refuse to be contrite or lugubrious about my vocab efforts, however; I feel far more erudite than I’ve ever been before, and various social experiments have showed that it is now easier than ever for me to drive away annoying conversationalists at parties, simply by listing useless language ad nauseum. 

I am of course a bit disappointed by the score, but hopefully most economics departments don’t care too much for grandiloquence. And besides, despite a mid-exam panic attack, the maths section turned out alright.  I’ll find out the essay scores in a week or so, and will dutifully report back.

Finally, I feel I should in all fairness report that Tim claims he knew all of the words on my previously posted list.  And he did, along with Tristram, help me move house while I was effectively a dead fish walking.  However, Tim still claims that bronchitis is basically extinct, so I’m not sure how much we can read into that.

By the way, anyone seen Karma lately?!

Picking a number

Humble apologies for my delayed posting.  I have been running myself ragged doing practice questions for the GRE.  While I am proud to report that I have indeed expanded my vocabulary by 500 new words (albeit archaic, useless ones that I will never utter), the quantitative side is driving me insane.

Two months ago, I was actually excited to study for and sit the GRE.  I know this is an odd way to feel about an exam, but I think many people enjoy the challenge of a brain teaser or an IQ test, which is what I expected this to be similar to. 

Not at all, unfortunately.  Instead of testing intelligence or even simple mathematical ability, the GRE quant section uses chicanery, trickery and slight-of-hand to deceive respectable students from choosing the correct answer.  Such immoral question-setting strategies as mixing up the units, changing the scale of graphs, and ambiguously defining primary-school math terms, litter the practice sets.  I’m going nuts.

I should have twigged earlier.  All of the practice books and online guides (those not sponsored by the testing company, I should clarify) are unrestrained in their harsh criticism of the integrity of the exam.  “It is not a measure of how smart you are”, reassures one.  “You shouldn’t try to learn math – just learn how to beat the test”, announces another. 

How disillusioning.  You may be capable of calculating Fourier transforms and higher-order differential equations, but unless you can remember whether zero is an integer or a natural number, you’re not going to get the score you need.  And there’s only so many three-digit-by-three-digit multiplication sums you can do at sixty seconds per question before you make an error.  In the words of Samuil Shchatunovski, “It is not the job of mathematicians… to do correct arithmetical operations.  It is the job of bank accountants. ”

I don’t feel any smarter at all.  In fact, exactly the opposite.

I heard an interesting fact the other day.  Americans do better on multiple choice questions than any other nationality.  This no longer surprises me; the US education system, from high school to post-grad, seems driven towards equipping students to succeed on these types of questions alone.  As one of the practice books puts it, “The aim is to eliminate four wrong answers, not to calculate one right answer.”  I’m not entirely sure that’s how the real world works, although the next time I’m at Starbuck’s and have to choose from between five cup sizes, I may start humming the Star-Spangled Banner.

Humble apologies again, this time for the rant.  Really, I’m just getting frustrated by my stupid errors, which is a flaw actually worth remedying for the real world.  Sour grapes on my part.  It just annoys me that I know pages upon pages of Sicilian Dragon theory, but I didn’t know that an object’s width can actually be longer than its length.  The former may be more important in general, but not for the next 72 hours.

Or is that 62 hours?  Damn, forgot to carry the one…

Returning to breakfast as usual

Many thanks for the messages people sent after my anti-Karma day, inquiring as to my heath/car/sanity (mainly the latter, unfortunately).  Your concerns, however obtusely directed, were well appreciated.

However, I can state that we are back to business as usual.  Fi has kindly lent me her purple Holden Barina, which I drive with a masculinity-secured pride.  Work has settled down, I have banned myself from eating any leftovers over a week old, and I haven’t mentioned the Winter of ‘41 since Tuesday.

In appreciation and recompense for your concerns for my state of mind, I have decided to offer you some free consumer advice.  Think of this like ‘Brand Power’ on the telly, except without the hot presenter.  I present to you my personal evaluation of Uncle Toby’s “High Fibre Bites”.

Many people don’t have much time or regard for breakfast; I’m one of them.  Of course, we all know that it’s ‘the most important meal of the day’ – which is total rubbish.  If I didn’t have dinner every night, I can guarantee I’d be a whole lot hungrier than if I skipped breakfast.

Anyway, it is true that it’s a necessary meal, if only to keep one going until lunch.  For that reason, I want more out of my cereal than a couple of flakes – I want to feel like I’m at least eating something heavier than cardboard.  Many Aussies, particularly Aussie blokes, feel the same, which is probably why Weet-Bixis so popular here.  Apparently, the more you eat, the better chance you have of making the Australian cricket team.  Ever tried the Weet-Bix challenge of eating one quickly without any liquid?  Hilarious!

This last piece of trivia is actually Weet-Bix’s one fatal flaw.  No, my childhood favourite was always the Mini-Wheats (not to be confused with Mini-Creeps) – chunky little wholegrain-fibrey pillows with blackcurrant fillings.  And best of all, they can be eaten straight out of the pack as satisfying snack-fodder, no milk required.  Furthermore, as opposed to Weet-Bix, mueslis and other heavy cereals, they don’t go soggy towards the end of a bowl.  Perfection!

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they got taken off the shelves at my supermarket a few years ago.  Imagine my joy to discover they’d been brought back just a few months ago!  The stock is rather limited – perhaps it’s a trial thing – so I naturally bought the entire shelf and stocked myself up for the Winter.  What can I say?

However, I allowed my eyes to wander, and I foolishly bought a box of Uncle Toby’s new range ‘High Fibre Bites’, which looks eerily identical to Mini-Wheats.  Could it be?  Could they actually have improved on perfection?  Surely any brand with the backing of basically every Aussie swimming gold-medalist is worth trusting, right?

WRONG.

The imitation ‘Bites’ are basically filled with air, making it the equivalent of a blow-up pillow to Mini-Wheat’s down-feather-filled, Egyptian-cotton-lined pillowy goodness.  Furthermore, inside each airy bite was no blackcurrant sweetness; only some sort of processed-sugar flavour.  Given that they come in honey and brown-sugar-and-cinnamon flavours, I can only assume that the cereal basically consists of a corrupted version of cardboard and sugar – which, in fact, would probably be tastier.

I don’t look forward to breakfast; in fact, I wish I could start most days with a second lunch.  But I’d at least like to think I’m getting a blackcurrant-bang for my buck, rather than experiencing the displeasure of eating a textbook smeared in glue.

(Now there’s a sentence you won’t hear on Brand Power, no matter how attractive the presenter is.)

Dave’s vote of consumer confidence:  Mini Wheats – High Fibre Bites, 1-0.

DISCLAIMER:My opinions are neither influenced nor sponsored by the makers of Weet-Bix, Mini-Wheats or High-Fibre Bites – nor, for that matter, by Brand Power and its perversely pulchritudinous presenter.

Kellogg’s and Sanitarium:  If you do want to give me money for having volunteered positive publicity for you, feel free.

Uncle Toby’s:  No amount of money would entice me to endorse your product.  Perhaps you should try Stephanie Rice;  I hear she’s a sell-out.

Edit:  I have been advised to remove my witty Paint-edited cartoons of High-Fibre Bites and Mini-Wheats for intellectual-property-rights purposes.  I am currently seeking legal advice as to whether a graphic of someone eating a textbook covered in glue would be defamatory.

Dear Karma

Dear Karma,

Hi.  How are you?

I must apologise for not writing more often, but, to be honest, for the most part, I don’t feel I have to.  For the most part, you seem to do your job commendably well, and I have no real need to interfere, much less comment, on your existence.

On that: I must also apologise for the several occasions recently in which I have used your name in jest, almost as if you didn’t exist.  Very rude of me.

Speaking of rude, however, let me tell you about my day.

I got up a little later than usual this morning, I admit.  You see, I’d been up all night doing practice exams for this ‘GRE’ exam.  You know, the one that is supposed to right my murky life path and send me onwards to doctoral glory.  The one that’s coming up in two weeks; the one that I’ve put my other studies and, well, life on hold for.  Unfortunately, the practice exam didn’t go as one would hope: not only did I fail to make one of the relevant entrance scores, but I failed to make all of the relevant entrance scores, in every section.  No matter; these things happen. Hardly an event worth mentioning.  Realistically, in the long run, all it meant was a late night.

One seemingly innocent consequence of this was that, having gotten up later than usual, there was no hot water.  Now Karma, I know this shouldn’t seem too unusual for a five-person house, but in actual fact, in my house, it is.  And I know this doesn’t sound like an event worth making mention of, but when you get up in the morning in Canberra – in May – in the former garage of a 1970s house that has no heating or insulation, but a multitude of cracks in the floor – it becomes a bit more of an event.

No matter.  Of course, because I was running a little late, I had to park in the more remote of Treasury’s car parks.  And, of course, it was raining.  Again, not an event worth mentioning, you’d think.  Except that it was raining in Canberra – in May – in the morning.

Soaked, shivering and shattered, I began the day at work.  Ah, the public service, I hear you cry!  Surely no room for whining there.  Hardly an event worth mentioning, you’d think.  However, today just happened to be ‘one of those days’, Karma.  In fact, not only was I unable to take a lunch break, but I wasn’t even able to spare the time to run down a grab a coffee.  So unendingly chained to my desk was I that I dug around the fridge in the kitchen near my desk to see if I’d left any spare food from the previous week – I couldn’t go out and buy lunch, you see.

Eureka! I had found a spare container.  Had you really returned to grace my day, Karma? Unfortunately, it had aged deceptively, and I spent most of the afternoon engaged in a vicious three-way battle between stomach cramps and urgent briefings.  I felt like the Germans in the Winter of ‘41,  except colder.  But no matter, Karma; after all, the day was coming to an end!

Not that it was all smooth sailing towards the end of work, mind you.  My computer froze – not once – but three times while I was finishing my projects due by day’s end.  It’s not that unusual for our work network to go down, mind you.  Fortunately, though, it was only my computer crashing.  I say fortunately, of course, because I don’t want to spread this bad luck around.  Not that it’s luck, of course.  These things happen.

Karma, this is where I get just a little confused.  Having been unfortunately presented with three ‘urgent’ tasks, all with a coincidentally simultaneous ‘midday tomorrow’ deadline, to fill my morning tomorrow, I began the sodden trudge back through the cold, dark Canberran rain to my distant car.  Again, forgive me for complaining – these things do happen, I know.  And my house is, after all, a mere 10 minutes from the office.  In fact, so determined was I not to let this day degenerate further, that I was extra-careful on the dark, rainy roads.  Uber-careful, you might say, in quite the same way that Hitler wasn’t in the infamous Winter of ‘41.  In fact, as I approached the last intersection before my house, I slowly, deliberately and correctly gave way to the car coming from my right, just in case.  Hardly an event worth mentioning, you might say.

Until I got rear-ended by the car behind me.

These things happen, Karma, I know.  Hardly an event worth mentioning. Which is why I won’t go into the irony of being a hundred metres away from my front door when I got rear-ended trying to be too careful.  Or the irony involved in having to write down the other guy’s details in the pouring rain.  In the dark.  In Canberra.  In May.

Nor the irony that I can no longer get to work on time tomorrow, and therefore won’t be able to make those midday deadlines.

Hardly an event worth mentioning.

So I’m off to bed now, Karma, in my converted-garage of a room, currently shivering at around 3 degrees Celsius, while my crumpled shell of a car sits limply in the driveway.  I only mention it because, well, somehow it seems worth mentioning.  I know, I know – these things just happen.

In any case, I just thought I’d drop you a line, see how you’re doing and what you’re up to, that sort of thing.  Speaking of which, what are you up to tomorrow? Got any plans?

Fancy a catch-up?

Yours sincerely,

Dave