Thursday Challenge: Shiny

Still getting the hang of the camera, but I hope this works...





More Thursday Challenge

Sunday Scribblings: Skin

[I wrote this pretty much as I thought of it, without really planning, and I'm not sure how it comes across. Well, I'll let you be the judge of that. PM]

There's an old trick quiz question: what is the largest organ of the human body? In my (admittedly limited) experience, people tend to say the liver, but the correct answer is the skin. I wonder why we get this wrong, when our skin is arguably the part of our body that we see the most. Perhaps it's because we tend to think of 'internal organs', while the skin is very much external. Yet so is the nose (for example), in the sense that you can see it on a person's body; but I'd guess that most people would readily class that as an organ. Why do we think differently about the skin?

What is skin anyway? I don't mean in the structural sense of dermis, epidermis and so on; or even necessarily in the functional sense (it keeps in the things that should be kept in and keeps out the stuff that should be kep out, amongst other jobs). I mean, what is skin to us? We say that something is as familiar as the back of our hand, but how often have you actually looked at the back of your hand? (I've read that before, but can't remember where; so I apologize to whoever came up with it first.)

Well, the first thing I notice when I look at the back of my hand is the colour -- or, rather, colours: it's not simply 'white' or 'pink' but a complex mixture of shades that defies easy description -- and of course there are lines of blue where I can see the veins underneath. Looking closer, I see hairs at the base of my hand that spread down my arm; the points which (I assume) are either pores or where the hairs emerge; and an astonishing network of lines. I stare along the back of my hand and try to imagine what it would feel like to be shrunk to microscopic sze and faced with such alien topography; imagine trying to climb over the hills of the knuckles, only for them to turn suddenly into valleys when the fingers are raised...

But the thing is, when I look at my hand, I see a hand, not skin. It's warm to the touch, but the heat comes from blood. And I can only describe the texture as... like skin. So it's strange stuff, is skin: we couldn't live without it, we see it every day; but, in a sense, it's as good as invisible.

Really gets under your skin, if you think about it.

Thursday Challenge: Light

From words to pictures: my first attempt at Dale Hudjik's photographic Thursday Challenge. This week's theme is 'light', so here is a picture of a light:

I did wonder at first about trying to come up with something more imaginative; but then I thought that something like this challenge encourages people to take photos that wouldn't otherwise be taken -- and when would you normally photograph your own ceiling?

Sunday Scribblings: Instructions

[After I'd written the first paragraph of this, I wasn't sure what to do next. Then I remembered something I'd read about a few months ago, and I had my inspiration. I trust that a love or even knowledge of football is not necessary to enjoy this story; can't say I have much of either myself... PM]

Thank you for calling our customer support line. Please listen to the following options and press the appropriate number on your telephone keypad. For service status information, press 1. To learn about our latest products, press 2. For technical support, press 3. For non-technical enquiries, press 4. To learn your future, press 5.

What?

Sorry, we detected no response. For service status information, press...

Yes, yes, I heard all that. I’d been about to press button 3 in an attempt to find out why my broadband had yet again declined to work for no reason I could discern, but that last option – what I thought I’d heard, anyway – had stopped me in my tracks.

I let the menu play through again. There was no mistaking it: To learn your future, press 5.

I’m not a believer in fortune telling or the like; but there must be a natural human reflex for such things, because I heard the tone before I’d even realized I had pressed the 5 key. The raised bump on the button made my finger sore for a brief moment.

What was I expecting to hear? I don’t know. The winning lottery numbers would have been nice, but hardly likely. I suppose I’d imagined that I would be told either something so specific that I would have no choice but to believe it; or (more probably) a platitude so general that it could apply to anyone. What I didn’t expect was a football result.

Congratulations! You are among the first to be offered the chance to try out our new sports predictor service. We have calculated that Pinebury Town will defeat Highbridge Rovers 3-2 in the first round of the NPM Cup a week on Thursday. We invite you to place a bet on this outcome to test our prediction. If you wish to use this service again, just call the same number and choose option 5.

With that, the line went dead.

I wasn’t about to place a bet on the strength of a tip from a computerized voice, even on some side I’d never heard of that was probably lucky to have as many people in the crowd as there were on the pitch. The whole incident promptly slipped my mind.

Until, that is, the following Friday, when I was leafing through the sports pages and came across a story that read: ‘In a surprise victory, Pinebury Town scored 3-2 against Highbridge Rovers in last night’s NPM Cup match. The 12-1 outsiders...’

12-1! I could have made a tidy sum with those odds. Still, it was obviously just a fluke. Sure, it was very lucky of them to guess the result, but even that was probably more likely than one would expect. Still, I was intrigued enough to call again.

The first four options were the same as before, but the fifth had changed to: For our sports predictor service... I wondered briefly how they knew I’d picked that option before; then I thought, well they’re a computer company, they probably recognize my number or something. I wasn’t too happy at the prospect of my number being logged, but before I could continue on that train of thought, there was a message playing in my ear:

So you’re back. Good result, eh? We hope you spent your winnings wisely. And if, for some bizarre reason, you decided not to follow our advice and take a gamble, we hope you’ll reconsider this time. The second round of the NPM Cup takes place in a few weeks, and we predict that Pinebury Town will once again win their match, this time four goals to nil. Why not try it out? What have you got to lose?

Quite a lot, actually, I thought to myself. But who said I had to risk what I couldn’t afford? I could just place a small bet – a pound, say – just to see what happened. I wouldn’t win much, but that wouldn’t matter, because I’d just be testing the water. Yes, that would be fine...

So I placed my bet – just one pound, no more – and collected my winnings the day after the game, when Pinebury had won with the precise result that the line had suggested. Perhaps there was something to this after all. I called again.

Ah, good to have you with us again. We trust you are now convinced. And we have a scoop for you that could turn into a genuine money-spinner. Pinebury Town have been doing rather well of late – well enough that people are starting to take notice. Expectations will be high in the quarter finals of the cup. But here’s what we know: they’re going to lose, scoring one goal to the opposing team’s three. Bet you no one will see that coming – except you, of course...

Hmm... I thought it was worth a look at the odds, at least. And the line was right: the experts agreed that Pinebury were on course to win, and there would be a major upset if the team lost. Worth a flutter? Yes, I thought so – at a different bookmaker’s, of course; wouldn’t want them to get suspicious if I ‘guessed’ the right result of two matches in a row. And guess correctly I did, much to my delight – if not to Pinebury Town and their fans.

There were two rounds left in the NPM Cup, and it will not surprise you to learn that the ‘sports predictor service’ was correct for both of them, and I made a decent amount as a result. Now I wanted to know what was coming next, seeing as the tournament was over. I dialled the number and pressed 5.

Well done for staying with us throughout the NPM Cup. We hope you are now assured of the value of our service and want to continue using it. No more freebies, however: we request a one-off fee of £1000. Yes, it’s rather steep, but think how quickly you can make it back, and more besides. To continue, please have your credit card ready and press 1.

It was all very well them saying I would make it all back, but a thousand quid is still a lot of money, and what if there was a catch? I procrastinated for a few minutes, then the voice spoke again.

Alternatively, to discover the secret of life, press 2.

My finger hovered over the keypad, unable to decide what to do.

Sunday Scribblings: Google Magic

This is my first venture into the world of Sunday Scribblings, a weekly writing challenge where the idea is to write something based on a prompt. This week’s brief was to pick a topic and do some research around it. I got a puzzle magazine in the post on Friday, which is perhaps why my thoughts turned to crosswords. In particular, I wondered why the American and British varieties look so different.

So, the first crossword puzzle appeared in the New York World in 1913, though it was compiled by a Brit – one Arthur Wynne of Liverpool. He called the puzzle a ‘word-cross’, and it was quite different from today’s crosswords, being a diamond shape with no black squares. It’s reproduced on Will Shortz’s website here.

Crosswords spread throughout other American newspapers in the 1920s, with the first book being published in 1924 (beginning a series that continues today). American crosswords commonly have a different shape from Wynne’s word-cross, but have a similar ‘cluster’ structure.

An adaptation of one of Arthur Wynne’s puzzles was published in the British Pearson’s Magazine in 1922, making it the first UK crossword. The first British newspaper to feature a crossword puzzle was the Sunday Express in 1924. Cryptic crosswords appeared in British periodicals soon after, pioneered by Edward Powys Mather in the Saturday Westminster and the Observer. They were introduced to America in 1968 by none other than Stephen Sondheim.

Frustratingly, the articles I’ve been reading online tell me that, over time, British crosswords adopted their familiar ‘grid’ pattern (which I already knew!), but not why. And I can’t find anywhere that does tell me why. Ah well, never mind.

But while I’m on the subject of different crossword styles, here are some from around the world. Crosswords in Germany and Brazil often have clues in the grid itself, like this. Japanese crosswords have their own distinctive style of grid, with one syllable per white square, rather than one letter as with other languages.

And how’s this for a word: the technical name for a crossword setter is a ‘cruciverbalist’.

My sources for this piece were Wikipedia, AskOxford and Will Shortz’s site.

Here goes...

So, I've been inspired to have a go at some of the creative projects dotted about online. I don't know how it will turn out, because I've never really done anything like that before, but it should (I hope!) be fun. This blog will keep track of my efforts.