Apologies

I have not blogged for four days. This is the longest I've not blogged for since I started, and it feels weird not to be able to fill up what I am certain you are hoping will be hours of your life with words, but the fact is that of these past few days, half have been exceedingly boring and the other half I've spent with my girlfriend, and that's about as much detail as you're going to get regarding that.

I have been writing essays and storyboards, which are slowly coming together, and reading a book I picked up  on impulse in Relay and finding to my enormous gratification that I can actually read it. It's entitled Prisoners' dilemmas and dominant strategies: Game theory, and it's a pretty brilliant read. If you're interested in game theory (and why wouldn't you be?), read the following explanation and then watch the video. You may well learn something.

The video below shows the final round of a UK TV show called Goldenballs, in which contestants do their best to lie to each other to get to this point. At this point, a sum of money is up for grabs, but there's a catch - the players must decide how to split it. Sort of.







Each player has a choice of two balls; Steal or Split. The scenarios play out in the following way:

1. Both players choose Split. The money is split between the players fifty-fifty. Everyone goes home happy.
2. One player chooses Split and one chooses Steal. The player who chose steal walks away with everything; the player who didn't doesn't get anything.
3. Both players choose Steal. Nobody gets anything.

The players, as you'll see below, are given 1 minute to convince the other to choose Split, because that's obviously the most beneficial choice for your opponent to make. Once you've convinced him/her to choose Split, you can then choose Steal and walk away with all the cash.

Of course they're trying to do the same to you. So the pair of you are doing your best to manoeuvre around each other, convincing the other with weasel words and trying not to give away the fact that you're definitely going to choose Steal. This happened a lot, and a lot of people walked away with nothing.

In essence, the question is this: How do you force someone to choose Split, even when they know it's in their best interests to choose Steal?

Like this: (zoom to 2:19 for the start of the tactic)

If you're not impressed with that, game theory's not for you, but in my opinion that's some seriously clever strategy.

Not much else is new; I'm actually starting to pack things away again, but books are hard to keep in boxes - they should be on shelves or, as they are with me, in stacks on the desk. I'm confident about getting a job next year, having spoken to some old pals in the bar trade at home, and decent looking flats roll into my inbox every week or so - so again, some of the stress has gone from there. 

My essay, too, is done and dusted, so I'm suddenly without stress and, without any sense of irony, it's stressing me out. I'm sure I'll come up with something to do before long.

Tantalising

I am exceedingly pleased with today's progress. French class was back up to full strength which meant I didn't have to answer every question. My supervisor has come back - she was away due to some personal matters, of which it is not my place to talk. And I've literally just finished Thursday's homework, so tomorrow afternoon will be dedicated to researching how best to teach two small children English. My mother has already given me spades of useful advice, so I strongly suspect that tomorrow after about 3.30 I shall be sticking, cutting, and writing in big letters with pens that are both colourful and highly addictive, if one gets one's nose too close to them.

I was up nice and early to watch my internet slow down to the approximate speed of a snail in treacle, and so instead I cracked on with the French work that I have just completed. If you have a desire to see a small and - most likely - badly written insight into my imagination, you may find it just here. If you don't speak French, I'm afraid it will be mostly useless, but if five people ask for it in English I shall gather the energy and do so.

This morning was actually full of false starts, now I think about it, because when I got in I sat in the office for a good hour by myself waiting for my supervisors, both of whom live out of town, to come in. As my door to door commute is about five minutes, including checking-myself-out-in-the-windows time, I didn't know that the road into town was absolutely blocked. So I kicked my heels for an hour with nothing to do; one of the dangers of working too efficiently. It leaves one with nothing on which one can work independently.

After lunch my colleague and I coached one of the administrative staff who's a main point of call for all international students and therefore has a pressing need to improve her English. We were interrupted several times, which was really good - it gave us a chance to see her in full flow with students. Remember that we have students who come from Russia, China, Iran...all over the world, and they bring a distinctly different cultural flavour - and English accent. Our colleague dealt with everything beautifully, and it was a real joy to watch her use phrases we'd literally just taught her.

The French class, as I say, was much better, and everyone seemed really energised. Perhaps the break that some of my classmates had taken had recharged their batteries. In any case, it's great to be back, though I think my teacher was less than overjoyed with the two page essay I turned in. I have absolutely got to learn how to edit.

A brief goodbye to my colleagues and classmates and I am home, having passed by the bank to drop off my hard-earned money. The BDE is having a party on Thursday in an ice bar, and three different students have insisted I come. The paranoid part of me has gone full Ackbar:

But the paranoid part of me can get stuffed. I'm excited about chilling with the students.

If that joke caught you by surprise then you have not read enough of this blog.

Oh, yesterday I asked you a question and nobody got the answer right. This is proof that I am making links that are far too far-fetched, even for the great minds who read this. The answer, by the way, was Lancelot, because a golf bag is where one keeps one's clubs. Lancelot is another name for the knave, or the Jack, of Clubs. Like all riddles it's annoyingly simple once you get it, and like all riddle-setters I am a smug twerp whose hat you'd pinch if you saw him.

It won't make me less smug, but at least you'll have a nice hat.

Money makes the world go round

This day has not been one of my favourite days. Weekend buses to my student, A, are once an hour and thus, as you'll imagine, I am always in time for them. I had my book with me, and was reading with an eye on the road, when I saw my bus sailing past.

Sailing is a word that is really only appropriate for boats, because only boats (and ships, I suppose) have sails. It is a word that speaks of regal, gliding motion that disregards you completely.

That was my bus. It glided past silently, regally, and ignored me completely.

I yelped. There is no other word for it; a sound escaped my lips that was more canine than human. I tried to catch up, but a bus is powered by horses. I'm only powered by my legs. Five minutes of running later and the only thing I was closer to was a heart attack. The bus was still ahead, and making ground. I gave up. Suits were not made for running, and neither was I.

In any case, that meant I turned up to teach the lesson thirty minutes late, and as those who are close to me know, I despise tardiness in other people and, consequently, even more so in myself. I was in a pretty epic fit of self-loathing when I arrived, and it wasn't helped by A's niceness. He is as nice a guy as anyone could hope to meet, but when one is in a fit of self-loathing one rather wants to be loathed.

In any case, we cracked on with Mathematics, that joyless and beautiful structure. Reviewing it in my dotage has given me new respect for my teachers of the subject, and a new love of it - helped in no small measure by the excellent book I'm reading, The Ascent of Money, which charts the whole history of that elusive thing. So far I have learnt about inflation, hyperinflation, the East India Trading Company and some background to the Merchant of Venice, so if you are at all interested in Finance, Economics, the world and its history (which, to paraphrase all coppers everywhere, can be summed up as "Follow the money.") then I urge you to buy/borrow/download a copy at once.

Being half an hour late pushed my lesson half an hour later; that extra half hour meant I missed the one bus an hour and would have to wait another hour and a half for the next - buses over the weekend take an hour for lunch. I can't get my head around that at all, but that's what happens, so I walked home. The descent is far easier than the ascent, and the sun shone out of a gloriously blue sky. It's still cold enough to crystallise the breath from one's nostrils but not so cold that being in it is unpleasant, and I enjoy that weather. All the fun of the sun without the hideous heat.

I called my little sister on the way home to wish her happy birthday; she appears to be suffering from amnesia and a hangover of epic proportions, so I wish her a speedy recovery from one, if not the other. Her birthday means that our little clan is now entirely adults, but I hope to spoil her one last time before we all start doing grown-up things like getting jobs and settling down.

More reading this afternoon, as well as laundry, mean I am utterly chilled and relaxed before starting work tomorrow. I confess I will never understand people who lie about on weekends, especially students who are strangers here - a year, a precious year, and you spend hours of it doing what you can do anywhere.

People are crazy. Which seems to be the overriding theme of the book. Honestly, it's a great read, can't recommend it enough.

In other blog news, my friend +Claudia Mangeac is moving to London to pursue a life in fashion. It's a cutthroat world and she'll need all the help she can get, but she's also going to be the next big thing - so go show her some love. She blogs here.

Reflected sound, as of underground spirits

I write this listening to Le Roi Lion. Those readers with sharp eyes and quick brains will note that Roi bears a passing resemblance to the English royal, which in turn is linked to the latin rex - as in Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is a vile mongrel of a word, containing Greek, Latinised Greek, and Latin. It means Tyrant-Lizard-King, and is quite frankly overkill. Clearly there's some overcompensation going on for those tiny arms.

Some people may well have not noticed, but it's Valentine's Day today. I've written at length about this particular festival, and if you are interested in reading that soft and squishy part of me, then I invite you to click here for love.

Otherwise, we shall say no more about the subject.

I only did a little translating this morning - some coding that a much smarter person than I had created needed its user-facing language translated - and spent the rest of my time deleting the records of alumni who'd died. It's a weird thing to do, scrubbing away the evidence that they were alive, but there's not much point in the in the automated system continuing to send out birthday cards and invitations to dinner. All the same - once our bodies have died, all that's left is echoes, and here I was systematically destroying one of those echoes. As I said, odd.

Lunch was spectacular again; the quality of the food keeps improving and I'm incredibly pleased by that. I'm eating more fruit and veg than I've ever done so take note, prospective third year abroad-ers - your complexion will clear up, your body will tone itself naturally, and your mind will leap like a salmon in spawning season.

I kid. You're going to eat way too much good food and have to be rolled home like the delicious cheeses on which you've been gorging yourself. You could be taken up to Montmartre and released, and virile young French men and women would chase you.

Cheese chasing. It's a real thing.

Because if there's one universal language, it's stupidity. Personal favourite moment is at the end, when a guy going at full pace sees what can only be described as a brick outhouse disguised as a human standing with shoulder pointed forward. Going fast, it has been said, doesn't hurt at all. Stopping suddenly - that's the kicker. Poor guy, he absolutely collapses. With friends like these, who needs enemies. Or kidneys, apparently.

My afternoon has been spent further expanding the inventory and an hour lesson with my favourite economist, who's given me homework. This is the problem with teaching teachers, it becomes something of a stalemate. Half the lesson is given over to checking each other's work.

In any case, I've got something called The Ascent of Money, which sounds marvelous, and have an article authored by the man himself about whether OPEC is still a cartel.

My brain is expanding in exciting ways.

In other blog news: Mary-Lyne updated her blog en masse, a French phrase which means while at church, and it's viewable here. The riddles are fiendish.

Finally: this blog will likely hit 10,000 views -

.gif stolen from http://www.crushable.com/2012/05/10/entertainment/nbc-cancels-parks-and-recreation-30-rock-community-wtf-888/

over the next week, and it's Valentine's, and I normally despise writers who break the fourth wall but -

To every single reader, from Finland to France and from Canada to Australia, you reading this means a huge amount to me.

You know, even if the Finns could perhaps be doing a little more.