The Knowledge

It is a little over 3 months since I stopped work in London. My plan/expectation was that with poker and other reasons to visit, I would probably travel in about once a week in the post-job era.

It has worked out a little less - maybe once every 2-3 weeks. Recently we have been without a 2nd car, also, which tends to mean I favour taking the train. This in turn (when combined with poker plans) tends to imply staying overnight. I can tell you that hotel rooms in central London are in short supply.

What I also notice is that not being in a regular commuting routine means that one is lacking an important weapon - detailed tactical knowledge of the rail network.

This leads to weaknesses and critical errors in the travel game.

For example, on Monday, I was due to travel to Mill Hill for a lunch meeting, then onto Central London for an afternoon appointment.

I checked the timetable ahead of time and found a good one-change route (change at Luton Airport Parkway).

Things went slightly awry when I arrived at the station in good time for the 10:51. The board showed this running late. Alas, without my commuting knowledge, I did not know whether 9mins late was enough to make me miss my connection. I also did not know whether the 10:40 - which I might just make - would stop at Luton Airport. Neither did I know if my connection could be picked up at an alternate interchange.

Whilst I wavered, an update meant the 10:51 was now 12 minutes late. Had I been properly in training (pun alert) I would know whether 12 minutes was in the "change" window. I know generically that East Midlands trains are faster than FCC and I know my originally time-tabled change at L.A.P. would have at least 5 minutes grace.

I was seriously short of data. I also should have been able to evaluate whether a 9min to 12min re-calibration was likely to foreshadow a further slippage or whether we were already in the accurate-forecast horizon.

Anyway, I now decided to take the 10:55 on-time departure by FCC which I knew stopped at Parkway. I had missed the 10:40 anyway by dint of needing to buy a ticket - a disruptive event.

In my state of knowledge-starvation, I had inadvertently purchased a ticket to Parkway instead of my actual destination of Mill Hill Broadway. This meant facing a ticket-buying delay at the interchange point which could potentially see me miss an otherwise catchable connection. This would be a tremendous faux-pas.

Fortunately, I missed the connection by 2 full minutes anyway but I also saw the East Midlands train overtake us so I know that if I had opted to stick with that, I would have been able to miss the connection whilst buying the 2nd part of my ticket.

Arriving at Mill Hill 27minutes late (the interval between services departing Parkway to this non-prime stop), I failed to purchase my Mill Hill to St Pancras ticket on LEAVING the station on the way to lunch - a straightforward safety play.

This allowed me to miss my post-lunch train by <40 seconds which a real benchmark for disappointing results especially since the platform was < 50 metres from the ticket machine.

So, an aggregate of 1 hour late into St Pancras caused by basic knowledge deficit.

This was partly compensated by the knowledge that I wasn't in any real hurry.

Games People Play

As Summer is here (Summer is clearly here in my opinion: I do not accept that Summer begins on 21st June. How could it begin on the longest day of the year?) the boys are playing more in the garden (which is looking lovely, despite football damage to the borders).

They are still playing more on bloodthirsty internet games, but at least they do go outside. Likewise, I am playing more on internet poker games (mind you, that is generally when it's dark).

In any case, the top-rated game at the moment is table-tennis - the "new" table is still a bit of a novelty. Wins by Dad are now a rarity. The competition between Matt and Harry is quite even.

But there are other games on the roster - there is ping-pong (yes, that is different to table-tennis: I only discovered this recently) and badminpong (in which, we use the table tennis bats, ball, net and table but the rally consists entirely of volleys: 116 is the record).

Then there is TABLE table tennis. In this, one half of the folding table is folded up into the vertical position as if one were playing in one-player practice mode. However, the vertical section is manned by the other player who manipulates it slightly to create speed and direction cues for the ball.

In other words, one player uses a standard bat and plays the ball onto the upright half-table but the second player actually PLAYS the table and conducts the rally in this way. After a while you find that the natural flex of the table and the ability to modulate the speed and amplitude of the nudges allows quite a nuanced game.

This week, on the way back from the bottom of the garden, Matt and I invented swing-cricket.

The equipment needed is a football, and a 2-seater garden swing seat. One player (the bowler) has the football and the other (batter) sits in the seat leaving half of the chair open. The bowler kicks the ball towards the empty part of the seat.

Depending on the speed and height of the shot, and the skill of the batter, many results are possible. The most resounding effect is if the seat is swung in such a way as to make a sweet connection with the incoming ball producing a strong rebound which may travel for 4 (rolls onto the patio) or even 6 (lands beyond the gravel path without bouncing).

Of course, such a shot may be caught.

A yorker can strike the cross-beam below the seat and result in a clean-bowl. Other rules are quite complex depending on the way the ball hits and interacts with the various parts of the seat.

A full set of rules for an international match have not yet been agreed at the governing body, but a $200MM series to be funded by a secretive billionaire is being discussed.

Lying Low

No posts on any of the blogs for the past couple of weeks, as we have been on holiday in The Maldives. We've never been there before - one reason being the long travelling time.

I had not given too much thought to what it would be like there. Everyone associates it with idyllic beaches and so on, and in fact it is stunning.

What I had no idea about before going is just how different the geography is to most places - even compared with, say, Caribbean islands.

The key thing is just how small and flat the inhabited islands are. Our resort was on a piece of "land" that was about 700m long and less than 20m wide. And the highest point of the landmass is about 2metres above sea level !

The other really remarkable thing is how clear and shallow the sea is. It's about 3 - 4 feet deep for as far as you can swim. From the air, you can see how the individual islands are sitting in these shallow lagoons which are doted around in the deeper Ocean surroundings.

And the colour of the sea is literally aquamarine. Very beautiful.

Awards Season

Last night was presentation evening at Brickhill. We went last year, of course, when Harry unexpectedly won the Most Improved Player award in the U-11 team. This year we went for the last time, since Harry has decided to retire from the team.

We know the parents of the team much better now and we hope to keep in touch with them since they are a great group to know. The social aspect to the team is a really strong feature.

Karen, along with Andy & Rebecca (and Sarah who wasn't there last night), did a really top-class effort on the Hawks tombola. We were not able to buy any tickets, really, since 80% of the contents was ours to begin with ! If you are reading this blog then there is a fair chance that some of the content came from you originally at a birthday or Christmas !

Karen also helped out with the behind-the-scenes presentation work.

Harry was obviously not in the running for any footballing awards, but Sandra arranged for him to be presented with the matchball, signed by all the playes and coaches etc - which was great. I even got a departing-reporter gift which was a nice thought.

We are sad to see Harry leave the team but we are glad he was part of it for nearly two seasons.

The full report of the award winners etc is on the Hawks Blog.

Window on the world

Recently a friend gave me a 2nd-hand PC to replace the one I had to return to work.

This was certainly useful, as choosing a new PC is a pain. The difficulty was that the PC had been gathering dust in an office (the previous user having moved on) for a while. In the meantime, everyone had forgotten the password.

Attempts at remembering or guessing the password failed. It was becoming rather a frustrating problem. However, I was pointed to a tech forum which gave instructions on how to reset the administrator password.

I have obviously heard how windows is supposed to be rather leaky from a security perspective, but never gave it much thought.

Quite a revelation ! This was a completely legitimate password reset, but it was still rather amazing what can be done with the right knowledge.

The procedure required no more equipment than an original Windows XP disk. It then involved rebooting the PC and interrupting the boot with a particular sequence of keystrokes. This led to a "secret" menu where, indeed, one could reset the administrator password (and do other low-level tasks).

Obviously, with a new admin password, the whole PC is opened up and I was able to proceed as necessary.

Blind Justice

Matt and Harry continue to be very taken by the table tennis. I enjoy it too and it's fairly close between the three of us.

Yesterday during a winner stays on series, I was playing Harry whilst Matt lay on the lawn face down. Matt was able to score the match by sound alone. He had to be told when there was a let, but apart from that he could apparently follow the progress of the point from the sounds of the ball hitting the bat and table and the rhythm of the rally, which is is obviously broken when the ball hits the net or is not returned etc.

Harry believed Matt was in fact peeping and could see, but as a non-skeptic I am inclined to accept the feat on its merits.

nb - Harry was the big winner last night with a 5-match streak.

Good Form ?

Yesterday I had occasion to fill in a form for an online bank account. Name, address .... OK

Occupation ?

Lots of choices offered, but which is correct ?

Unemployed ?
Retired ?
Homemaker ?
Self-employed (in which case, professional or non-professional).
Studying ?

I went for Other in the end.