2008 lottery emails omnibus

Each week I send an email to members of the lottery syndicate. I sometimes include a joke or observation, and I usually assign myself a joke middle name. These are my names from 2008:

Wed 02/01/2008
Richard "New Year" B

Mon 07/01/2008
Richard "fingers crossed" B

Mon 14/01/2008
Richard "it could have been me" B

Mon 14/01/2008
Richard "it's not gambling" B

Mon 21/01/2008
Richard "I never win" B

Mon 28/01/2008
Richard "not paid up" B

Mon 04/02/2008
Richard "think lucky" B

Mon 11/02/2008
Richard "next week" B

Mon 18/02/2008
Richard "deja vu" B

Mon 25/02/2008
Richard "small prizes" B

Thu 06/03/2008
Richard "normal service resumed" B

Mon 10/03/2008
Richard "nothing to see here" B

Tue 25/03/2008
Richard "we have a winner" B

Mon 31/03/2008
Richard "nothing to see here" B

Wed 02/04/2008
After having discovered that we'd won £10 on the lottery, but not added it to the prize fund.
Richard "Administrative Error" B

Mon 07/04/2008
Richard "let's put it all on the horses" B

Mon 14/04/2008
Bonus ball 26 wins £55 for Madhu, our only absentee player. She left us several month ago and paid up 20 weeks in advance. She has already had one win, and as we've no way of paying it to her it goes back into her balance. She was due to run out of money this week, and I would have had to remove her from the syndicate, but now she's back up to £55.
Congratulations Madhu! You'll still be in credit when you get back.
Richard "What are the chances?" B

Mon 21/04/2008
Bonus ball 27 came up, and until very recently Rohana had number 27. He recently turned his back on ball 27 and signed up the younger and better looking ball 29. Nobody wins the bonus ball pot this week, so the bot grows to £30 for next week.
Richard "soap opera" B

Mon 28/04/2008
Richard "why do we bother?" B

Tue 06/05/2008
Richard "psuedo-monday" B

Mon 19/05/2008
After a week in which my team moved to a downstairs office.
Richard "bottom floor" B

Mon 02/06/2008
Richard "high roller" B

Mon 09/06/2008
Shameless Self Promotion: My band is playing a show in the Funky Judge in Plymouth on Saturday, We'll be playing some well known rock tunes and some ancient / obscure stuff. We've got a fantastic support band lined up. It's free to get in, everybody welcome. I'd really like it if you came down.
Richard "Big Pot" B

Mon 16/06/2008
After a week in which a longtime syndicate member left the syndicate but not the company.
Richard "Why does everybody leave?" B

Mon 23/06/2008
Richard "repetetive" B

Mon 30/06/2008
Would anybody like to join the most complicated lottery syndicate in the world? It costs £1 per week. We buy a few* lottery tickets every week, and we put the rest of the money in a pot. Each member has a bonus ball number, when their number comes up as the bonus ball, they win the pot. Little* prizes from the lottery tickets are added to the pot. Big* lottery wins are shared out equally.
* "few", "little", and "big" are defined accurately in the lottery syndicate agreement.
Richard "roll up, roll up" B

Mon 07/07/2008
Richard "Another year older" B

Mon 14/07/2008
Richard "copy and paste" B

Mon 21/07/2008
After somebody should have won but failed to pay up in time.
Richard "bringer of bad news" B

Tue 29/07/2008
Richard "one day late" B

Mon 04/08/2008
I opened up my email at the weekend and I had a message from every single one of my favourite bands... It turns out I'd clicked on iTunes.
Richard "comedian" B

Wed 13/08/2008
Richard "back to work" B

19/08/2008
After a week when I'd had to work some nights and some afternoons.
Richard "anti-crepuscular working pattern" B

Wed 27/08/2008
Richard "think lucky" B

Mon 01/09/2008
Richard "monotony" B

Mon 08/09/2008
Richard "we have a winner" B

Mon 15/09/2008
Bonus ball 35 isn't taken so the bonus ball pot rolls over to an absolutely croesian £28
Richard "sesquipidalian" B

Mon 22/09/2008
Richard "endless repetition" B

Mon 29/09/2008
After the week when we welcomed Gary Ratcliffe to the team, and Fast Eddie and I fancied a quick pint after we'd all been out for a meal. We decided to try the newly refurbished and re-opened Breton Arms.
Richard "I didn't know it was a gay bar" B

Mon 06/10/2008
In these dark financial days, we need all the confidence that we can get. In the spirit of openness and re-assurance I am adding the "cash reserves" line to this weekly lottery update. It's just the sum of the member balances, and shows how much money the syndicate has in reserve after prize and ticket obligations. You can see that we are cash rich at the moment, and you will see just how close to the wind we are sometimes sailing. I am not regulated or authorised but by the financial services authority, but I can give you my personal assurance that we are unnafected by American sub-prime mortgage backed assets or other "toxic" debt, and that we are using none of our equity to finance operations. I'm keeping running costs down, and have well defined credit control policies.
Richard "investment portfolio" B

Mon 13/10/2008
Richard "recruitment officer" B

Wed 15/10/2008
Richard "think lucky" B

Mon 20/10/2008
Richard "big win next week" B

Mon 27/10/2008
Richard "sixteen times table" B

Mon 03/11/2008
Richard "got to be in it to win it" B

Mon 10/11/2008
Richard "lovely weather for motorcycling" B

Mon 17/11/2008
Richard "fingers crossed for the MOT" B

Wed 19/11/2008
After I made a mistake checking the lottery numbers.
Richard "lessons have been learned" B

Mon 24/11/2008
The week that the lottery results email was sent at coffee time, rather than first thing in the morning.
Richard "late results" B

Mon 01/12/2008
Richard "I never win" B

Tue 09/12/2008
Richard "I should have applied for 'come dine with me'" B

Thu 18/12/2008
Richard "Season of joy and goodwill to all men" B

English is no piece of cake

Anybody learning the English language has my sympathy. Let’s think about the word “piece” which means a portion or part. Except “A piece of cake” might mean either a section of a cake, or trivial, facile. “A piece of piss” only means trivial, never a quantity of urine. “A piece of me” seems to means an argument or fight with me, while “a piece of my mind” means a tirade or scalding. “A piece of furniture” doesn’t mean a portion or part, but a complete item of furniture. “A piece of the action” means a share of the profit and associated risk. “A piece of shit” has nothing to do with faeces and everything to do with inferior quality. The situation is no simpler when we talk about a “piece” by itself, it means a gun, except when it means a sculpture or a painting.

Knitting vs Rock and Roll

Throughout 2005 the celebrity magazines and lifestyle supplements have been telling us that knitting is the new rock and roll. What nobody seems to have noticed is that rock and roll has slowly become the new knitting. Today  rock is as safe and acceptable a hobby as knitting, it's done mostly at home by small polite groups of friends. There are lessons and clubs, mothers drop children at after-school rock drumming lessons, the youth go to welcoming and well organized practice-rooms while bands covering the Rolling Stones or The Who play fetes and cruise ships.

Once upon a time rock and roll was dangerous and exciting, aggressive, antisocial, and hated. When people first heard Hendrix's guitar they though it was unlistenable. Once when The Doors  performed "The End" there was a riot and the concert had to be closed down by police. Rock music (or heavy metal, or punk, or grunge - pick a decade) used to be a rallying point for the outcasts, the dispossessed, the angry and neglected youth. When a real band was playing the police were on standby, parents were worried.

Forget knitting, it looks more like inner-city gun crime is the new rock and roll.

quiz - with answers

1) Which balding, sport jacket wearing local celebrity is it usual to see either drinking heavily, Singing Karaoke supprisingly well, or walking towards some pub or club, but virtually nowhere else?
Bonus point: What is his real name?

The Birdman, his real name is John Allen.

It's very difficult to explain the Birdman to someone who hasn't experienced him, but he's a very popular harmless local nutter. Whenever he walks into a pub, which he does frequently, a ripple of conversation will fill the whole place with one person telling the next that the birdman has just come in. Then there will be a brief period during which people that haven't seen the birdman before will receive a rough explanation of who he is, and the more generous or drunk revellers will clamour to buy him a drink. There is litterally nowhere in Plymouth with a bar that he doesn't frequent, he even arrived at one of my friend's house-warming parties. You never see him doing mundane, non-alcohol related things like shopping or going to the launderette. He works in the prepared veg industry, and his mother was a piano teacher. He says that he got his excellent musical ear from her side of the family. Nobody but nobody knows for sure why he's called the birdman, but he once told me "it might be cos o' how I dances".

2) What unit of time is equivalent to 20.16 min?

One millifortnight.

There is a geek system of using the most cumbersome and outdated units of measurement called firkin-furlong-fortnight where the fundamantal units of mass, length, and time are the mass of a firkin full of water, the furlong, and the fortnight. In the VMS operating system there a numerous tuning parameters which are defined in microfortnights or millifortnights.

3) Holders of which position have been lost to, amongst other things, gardening accident, spontaneous combustion, and choking on vomit?

'Spinal Tap' drummers.

I suppose you just have to be a fan of the band to know this.

4) What is a large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical device, similar in function to a FET but constructed out of glass, metal, and vacuum. Characterized by high cost, low density, low reliability, high-temperature operation, and high power dissipation?

Valve.

This definition is taken straight out of the 'new hackers dictionary'

5) If I bought seats U580 through to U585 and thought I had bought 5 seats, what type of counting error have I made?

Fencepost error.

FENCEPOST ERROR n. The discrete equivalent of a boundary condition. Often exhibited in programs by iterative loops. From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet long with posts ten feet apart, how many posts do you need?" (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10.)
I have to say that nobody got this right, either my education was non-standard or all of yours was deficient.

Best wrong answer: "Schoolboy type"

6) Where would you buy a half yarder?
Bonus point: What do you receive if you consume the whole thing?

Cap'n Jaspers. You get a badge.

Cap'n Jaspers is a long established fast food stand on the Barbican, one of their delicacies is an 18" long hotdog served in a french stick and called a half yarder. If you eat the whole thing you get a stylish badge (I typed 'badger' there first time) bearing the legend "Half Yard Club". In case any of you want to see the badge, I'm wearing one on my coat.

Special mention to Rob Mccarthy who owns another Half Yard Club badge.

Most Frightening wrong answer: Anne Summers

7) What does dl do in vi?

Delete one character to the right.

vi is a unix text editor. It is interesting in that it takes about 6 months of practice and tuition before a new user can perform even simple edits to a document. One of the reasons that it is so hard to use is that every letter on the keyboard has a special meaning (rather than just inserting that letter into the document) 'd' means 'delete' and 'l' means 'right' honestly.

8) What happens at GUPA-P?

They fit tyres.

GUPA-P is a tyre shop in Coxide. I include it here because it's a favourite janner haunt, and it sounds like it might be a technical term.

9) Why would it be funny to refer to a business which specialises in removing laquer and anodizing from metalwork as "Diamond Lil's"?

Because they do stripping at both places.

"Diamond Lil's" was a filthy little strip joint on Plymouth's salubrious Union Street.
Special Mention to Rob Mccarthy, who has been there, and probably seen the birdman in there.

10) What is the second rule of robot club?

The second rule of Robot club is "No Smoking".

In Spaced series two there is a parody of 'Fight Club' The dialog goes something like this.
Host: The first rule of robot club is you do not talk about robot club, the second rule of robot club is you do not talk about... No sorry I've made a mistake. The second rule of robot club is no smoking.
Tim: Why aren't we allowed to smoke?
Mike: Shh, we're not supposed to talk about it.





First place: Rob Mccarthy - 9 - Janner Geek Second Palce: Dee - 6 Third place: Kris, JohnW, Morven - 4.
Rob and Dee, come and get your prizes when you're ready.

quiz

This is a quiz which I wrote for the staff at work. It is designed so that you have to be a Plymouthian and a geek to score highly. I should have just given the prize to Rob McCarthy straight off.

1) Which balding, sport jacket wearing local celebrity is it usual to see either drinking heavily, Singing Karaoke supprisingly well, or walking towards some pub or club, but virtually nowhere else?
Bonus point: What is his real name?

2) What unit of time is equivalent to 20.16 min?

3) Holders of which position have been lost to, amongst other things, gardening accident, spontaneous combustion, and choking on vomit?

4) What is a large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical device, similar in function to a FET but constructed out of glass, metal, and vacuum. Characterized by high cost, low density, low reliability, high-temperature operation, and high power dissipation?

5) If I bought seats U580 through to U585 and thought I had bought 5 seats, what type of counting error have I made?

6) Where would you buy a half yarder?
Bonus point: What do you receive if you consume the whole thing?

7) What does dl do in vi?

8) What happens at GUPA-P?

9) Why would it be funny to refer to a business which specialises in removing laquer and anodizing from metalwork as "Diamond Lil's"?

10) What is the second rule of robot club?

Date Report 2

At approximately 2:30 pm Monday September 9 Richard Redacted recieved a telephone call at his desk in the Redacted offices within the ITTC building of Tamar Science Park. The call was originated by Redacted, the senior receptionist at the ITTC, but she introduced herself as "The Science Park liason officer for getting people together". During a brief and awkward telehpone conversation Mr Redacted was reminded of, and asked his opinion of a recently departed junior receptionist called Redacted. He was lead to believe that Redacted would appreciate a call from him, and would be ameneable to the idea of a personal rendezvous. Mr Redacted agreed to call her, and was supplied with the number of Redacted's mobile telephone [Note1].

[Note 1
A Nokia 3310 fitted with an optional cover which displayed the Cadbury's Flake logo and livery.]

Mr Redacted worked for the rest of the afternoon on the development of a software product called "CONTROLSITE". He left work at approximately 5:30pm and arrived at his own residence [Note2] at approximately 5:55. He then spent approximately 1 hour devising a way to carry his guitar[note3] on the motorcycle[note4] that he had borrowed for his commuting.

[Note 2Redacted
Note 3
A Rickenbacker 360v64 six-string electric.
Note 4
A partially worn out Kawasaki ZZR250, registration number Redacted.]

At approximately 7:00pm Mr Redacted rang the mobile telephone number which he had been given earlier in the day, ascertained that he was speaking with Redacted, and introduced himself. Redacted was immediately embarrased, and appologetic for his having been encouraged to call her. Despite her embarassement and some retisance she agreed to meet with Mr Redacted for a drink and a chat. Upon a discussion of their various schedules it became apparent that the most convenient time for them to meet would be that very evening. Mr Redacted then wrote down a brief set of directions which lead from the foot of the Saltash bridge[Note5] to Redacted's family abode[Note6].

[Note 5
Cornish side, god help me.
Note 6
Just off Wearde Road, St Stevens.]

Mr Redacted informed Redacted that he would change his clothes and make himself a snack, and expected to arrive at approximately 8:00pm. In fact Mr Redacted ate a small quantity of cheese, and 2 thick slices of chorizo. He ironed and donned a pair of trousers and a shirt and then refeitted the acoustic matting and rear seats to his car[Note7]. He made a cursory attempt to clean dust and rusty water stains from the rubber footwell mats with a rag moistned with WD40. He refitted the mats, filled the car with petrol, and departed towards Saltash.

[Note 7
A 1982 Renault 4 GTL. Registration number A394FPA]

In the direction towards Cornwall the Saltash bridge required no toll payment, or passport control stops. Mr Redacted followed the directions that he had written down and pulled up outside Redacted's house at approximately 7:55pm. Upon ringing the doorbell he heard Redacted's voice inform some other occupants of the house that she was going out, that she would see them later, and not to bite anybody[Note8].

[Note 8
The latter coment at least was probably directed toward the parrot which also resides at that address.]

Redacted was dressed in a tight fitting light coloured top, and low waisted, very tight fitting jeans which laced up where a fly would traditionally be fitted. She is relatively short[Note9] with light, nearly blond hair. She is generally slim apart from archbishops[Note10][Note11].

[Note 9
She had within the last few months encountered a Great Dane that was taller than she was.
Note 10
Official Catholic Church Official Breast Size Scale

• Vergers        Smallest
• Deacons
• ArchDeacons
• Bishops
• ArchBishops
• Cardinals
• Popes          Largest

Note 11
Taking into accound the overall size of the woman they could concievably be guaged as Cardinals.]

Mr Redacted drove himself and Redacted to "The Holland Inn" following her directions. During the time they spent there they consumed

• 2 bottles of Smirnoff Ice
• 2 pints of Bass shandy
• a soda-water with lime
• and an orange juice.

They discussed at some length the chain of events which had lead them to be there, along with various items from popular culture and anecdotes from their lives.

It transpired that Mr Redacted had found Redacted personable and very attractive throughout her employment at Tamar Science Park, but was under the impression that Redacted was considerably less interested in him. In fact Redacted was deeply taken with Mr Redacted, but felt unable to inform him. She had confided in her colleagues and her mother of her desire towards him, and had often hoped that she would find the right opportunity, and the nerve to say something to him. Mr Redacted had seriously considered before eventually rejecting the idea of inviting Redacted out for a meal to celebrate her birthday[note12] several weeks previously. It became clear that Redacted would have been almost certain to have accepted such an invitation.

[Note 12
23rd]

The first reference to popular culture of the evening was Redacted's question to Mr Redacted of whether he has seen, and if he had enjoyed the film "Moulin Rouge". He answered that he had seen it, and that he didn't like it in the least, and in fact he considered that Baz Luhrman[note13] owed him two hours of his life back. Redacted was obviously non-plussed by his views, saying that she judged all people on how they liked that particular film, and that Mr Redacted might as well leave now. Happily her views of Mr Redacted seemed to improve slightly as the evening progressed.

[Note 13
The director of Moulin Rouge.]

During the time they spent at "The Holland Inn" Redacted was often embarrassed, and awkward in conversation. At one stage during a discussion of "The Graduate"[note14] Mr Redacted suggested that Redacted might like to view the film version at his house, in Response Redacted spilled a good proportion of her drink down the front of her top before sheepishly accepting the invitation.

[Note 14
Mr Redacted had lent Redacted the novel "The Graduate" during her employment at Tamar science Park.]

The pair left the bar after 3 drinks and took a short, and essentially unrewarding drive through the unlit Cornish countryside. They then stopped the car outside Wearde School[note15][note16] where they admired the view of the Tamar Valley[note17] and discussed directions to Mr Redacted's place of residence.

[Note 15
Redacted Completed her education at Wearde Comprehensive School
Note 16
Wearde is pronounced as "weird"
Note 17
From the Cornish side god help me.]

It was agreed that Redacted would attend Mr Redacted's house the next evening to watch "The Graduate" and to continue the process of aquainting themselves with one another.

During the evening, physical contact was limited to a dig in the ribs (delivered by Mr Redacted) to punctuate a particularly weak pun, and a brief peck (on the lips) as Mr Redacted helped Redacted from the car outside her house.