Yesterday afternoon (as per usual) walked to scrabble club. The usual four at my table, Phyllis, Hilary, young Kev, and meself. We're all about evenly matched (except that Phyllis is marginally the best player of the four of us, having played, and won, at County level). During the first game Phyllis put down 'antiques' onto an S, and from the top right triple score square, scoring 106 points, which included the extra fifty for using all her seven letters, and eventually winning easily. The second game I won by two points from Kev (but all four of us being within twenty points of each other). But the third game was the best when things got totally out of hand. Hilary (a long retired hospital matron) picked out four tiles and became really excited. "Seven letter word coming up ?" I asked. "I think I've got 'cholera'" Hilary replied. "I thought you were looking a bit peaky" I said, and at the same time Kev muttered "You should wash your hands more often". At these attempts at schoolboy humour we all fell about laughing like children, to the extent that the players at the other two tables crowded round to see what was so funny, and old Arthur had to have the joke relayed down his ear trumpet (not sure he got it, or if he did he didn't seem to think it terribly funny). When the four of us had calmed down a bit and examined the situation, it turned out that Hilary had got 'cholera' but it couldn't be fitted in on the board, and eventually Phyllis won the game by a very few points. I do enjoy playing scrabble with people I know well.
This morning as we were leaving the house to walk to Church Ann spotted that groups of snowdrops were in bud in a corner of our garden near the kitchen door (see above photo). It's always cheering to see the first flowers of the year. Makes me feel that spring can't be too far off (I hope).
Goodnight all.
7 comments:
How can there be snow drops? Spring?
We are living in the tundra over here.
I'm nit-picking again, Mike. Are you sure the score for 'antiques' wasn't 107?
Or something divisible by 3 after removing the 50 bonus points.
Pootatu is paying her respects to you, her v-word is 'curtsi'
Hello Lori. I've just been checking the blog for January of 2010 and the same snowdrops were in bud on 24th January - eight days later than this year.
Carl, I've just done the adding up, and her score was 104, not 106 (or 107). The problem is that not one of the four of us in that game is any good at adding up !!!
Cheers Mike, 106 just didn't look right and I couldn't drag myself to the scrabble tile bag to check precisely what was wrong. Personally I find numbers a little more reliable than words... they always mean the same thing despite the tone in which they are communicated... unless their bases go non-Euclidian of course.
Pootatu says scrabble is the best game her v-word is 'tessist' which I read as tess(erae)1st. = tiles first. Of course I might be stretching apoint... perhaps it is just a random jumble on which I supperimpose meaning that was not intended. But of course machine intelligence is involuntary so could never have intention???
I find non PC words tend to leap to mind and sometimes quite rude ones but of course I stick to words acceptable to all - and usually lose.
If I'm lucky I'll get two single snow drops. and I've tried them 'in the green' - if that's the right expression, with no better results.
I like the way your mind works Pat and would encourage you to occasionally indulge in 'freedom of expression' otherwise all those lovely old Anglo-Saxon words will eventually be forgotten to the great impoverishment of our culture.
Hi Pat. The way I play the game is:- if it's in the book it's acceptable. The book we usually use is 'Collins Scrabble words, 2005'. It's pretty comprehensive, if some of them aren't comprehensible.
Hi Crowbard. I don't think either you or Pat need worry. Given the times I hear Anglo Saxon words being MISused I don't think there's any danger of them dying out.
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