Of insane Bridge hands, and other things
This evening in the Carlton, the bidding on one hand of Bridge went as follows:
-
2♣
dbl
2♠
-
3♦
4♣
4♠
dbl
5♦
-
-
dbl
-
-
-
…which I thought was pretty impressive. I was the third hand, holding an almost solid seven-card club suit, five hearts to the queen, a small diamond singleton and spade void. In the face of a 2♣ opening, the aggressive 4♣ interference was about the only thing I could do to throw opposition off their stride, consume bidding space and embolden my partner. It worked: my partner only had four points, but nonetheless managed to double a game contract after a 2♣ opening, and bring it down (4♠ would have been doomed as well). Boggle!
In a move even more bizarre than Walkers making vegetarian beef crisps, Bovril is becoming vegetarian. Apparently, BSE scares, and the fact it wasn't halal were hitting sales, so despite its name, it's about to be reformulated with no beef whatever. Again, boggle!
Meanwhile, in the words of news.bbc.co.uk, "Chirac and Blair stress unity". Now that phrase can be read two ways…
It looks like hunting with dogs is finally being banned. I can't pretend I felt very strongly about it, but I certainly think the new law is a good thing on simple ethical grounds, and in a few decades' time people will wonder what on earth made anyone think otherwise.
A coroner has asked Amazon to withdraw a book about suicide after someone read it then killed themself. Amazon is quite rightly saying their job isn't to act as censor. Does anyone happen to know precisely which book the fuss is all about? I'm intrigued, now.
Today in the office, someone came to me with an odd problem: printouts from Outlook Express were extending too close to the edges of the page and getting cropped by the printer. After a lot of experimentation and Googling, I discovered this was because they'd set the margins strangely in Internet Explorer. Yup - Internet Explorer's page setup affects the printing of e-mail from Outlook Express, but they don't put a "Page Setup" in Outlook Express so you can change it. Microsoft software; you've got to love it.
Oh, and I think I may be coming down with the lurgy. My assistant's been off sick for three days, and another guy with desk adjacent to mine was off sick yesterday with much the same chest-and-throat 'flu-like thing. I thought I was OK, but I'm not so sure any more. )-8
-
2♣
dbl
2♠
-
3♦
4♣
4♠
dbl
5♦
-
-
dbl
-
-
-
…which I thought was pretty impressive. I was the third hand, holding an almost solid seven-card club suit, five hearts to the queen, a small diamond singleton and spade void. In the face of a 2♣ opening, the aggressive 4♣ interference was about the only thing I could do to throw opposition off their stride, consume bidding space and embolden my partner. It worked: my partner only had four points, but nonetheless managed to double a game contract after a 2♣ opening, and bring it down (4♠ would have been doomed as well). Boggle!
In a move even more bizarre than Walkers making vegetarian beef crisps, Bovril is becoming vegetarian. Apparently, BSE scares, and the fact it wasn't halal were hitting sales, so despite its name, it's about to be reformulated with no beef whatever. Again, boggle!
Meanwhile, in the words of news.bbc.co.uk, "Chirac and Blair stress unity". Now that phrase can be read two ways…
It looks like hunting with dogs is finally being banned. I can't pretend I felt very strongly about it, but I certainly think the new law is a good thing on simple ethical grounds, and in a few decades' time people will wonder what on earth made anyone think otherwise.
A coroner has asked Amazon to withdraw a book about suicide after someone read it then killed themself. Amazon is quite rightly saying their job isn't to act as censor. Does anyone happen to know precisely which book the fuss is all about? I'm intrigued, now.
Today in the office, someone came to me with an odd problem: printouts from Outlook Express were extending too close to the edges of the page and getting cropped by the printer. After a lot of experimentation and Googling, I discovered this was because they'd set the margins strangely in Internet Explorer. Yup - Internet Explorer's page setup affects the printing of e-mail from Outlook Express, but they don't put a "Page Setup" in Outlook Express so you can change it. Microsoft software; you've got to love it.
Oh, and I think I may be coming down with the lurgy. My assistant's been off sick for three days, and another guy with desk adjacent to mine was off sick yesterday with much the same chest-and-throat 'flu-like thing. I thought I was OK, but I'm not so sure any more. )-8