Monday, November 13, 2017

Sports equality blamed as woman wins World Duvet Wrestling title again



Men have called for an end to sports equality after a woman was crowned World Duvet Wrestling champion for the 33rd year in a row. 


Men are at a genetic disadvantage, claims Muir

As British champion Emma Bradford celebrated her win, a growing chorus of male competitors complained that their gender puts them at a disadvantage. 

The calls were led by Nathan Muir, the most successful man in the competition’s history, having reached the quarter-finals in 2009. He had to retire after suffering frostbite at the European Championships held in Turku, Finland, in February.

Muir lost out to the Finnish junior champion Märrkä Tärrkämakkinen, 17, who won all three rounds of their qualifying tie. She secured her win with a move that leaves the user wrapped in a triple layer of duvet resembling a Swiss roll. “It’s almost impossible to counter the Triple Montreux,” lamented Muir. “I managed to get my little toe into a crevice, but it was like she had steel bands around her. So I lay there freezing till the 6.30 alarm ended the tie.”

Doctors are hopeful Muir will recover some feeling in his lower legs and keep most of his toes, but he has been advised not to compete again.

“I’ve given everything to this sport,” Muir told reporters, “But no man will ever succeed in monopolising a duvet in a straight struggle with a woman.”

With apologies to the Daily Mash

Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Review: The Naked Trader's Guide to Spread Betting: How to make money from shares in up or down markets

The Naked Trader's Guide to Spread Betting: How to make money from shares in up or down markets The Naked Trader's Guide to Spread Betting: How to make money from shares in up or down markets by Robbie Burns
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a bit thin, padded out with anecdotes and appendices. Much of it is obvious, a lot of it is available elsewhere and it can be quite repetitive. But some of the tips are useful and I found some tips and tricks that could improve my CFD trading or help me if I went into spread betting itself.

It doesn't do itself any favours by using the standard self-help book layout, beloved of snake-oil salesmen and charlatans, and employing the desperate exclamation mark in a pathetic effort to be likeable. And those jokey asides are exceptionally tiresome. One of them is funny. The other 200 aren't.

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Sunday, August 20, 2017

Review: Time of My Life

Time of My Life Time of My Life by Alan Ayckbourn
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ayckbourn going through the motions: a few standard tricks (fractured time sequences), a few stock Ayckbourn characters, some fun dialogue and good opportunities for actors whatever their abilities. There are some very good quips and lines, and some scenes (usually with the waiter) where a bit of hamming for laughs is thoroughly justified, but no deep insight into the human condition.

Not all Ayckbourn plays date badly, but this one is fraying a bit. The northern family made good is a 70s throwback: the businessman, the fearsome matriarch and the two browbeaten sons; while the mistaken identity scene between Adam, Maureen and the waiter is straight out of a 70s sitcom.

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Thursday, July 27, 2017

Review: Salt

Salt Salt by Fiona Peek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Two couples, four dinner parties: Nick is a journalist who does carpentry on the side – not to make ends meet but bring the ends at least within sight of each other – while his wife Rachel is a former musician whose income from giving lessons don't bring those ends much closer together. Her multiple miscarriages and Nick's glacial progress on his novel symbolise the couple's failure to achieve and conceive.

Nick's old university friend Amy and her husband Simon are everthing Nick and Rachel aren't: they have children and jobs, with Simon's work in the law ensuring they are never short of money. But their friendship is unshakable – until Amy and Simon use an unexpected and un-needed inheritance to bail their friends out and gratitude slowly turns to resentment.

Fiona Peek's debut play is funny, sharply observed and often poignant. It's also the most difficult script I've ever had to learn. Every movement has to be precise, while there are several lines that change the subject completely, such as offers of food or drink or Simon interrupting a discussion of Amy and Nick's university years with an anecdote about a compensation case. Every play has some of these logical jumps, but Salt has far more than most.

And then there's the eating and drinking. Amid all the quick-fire dialogue, all the characters have to prepare food, eat it, share it, open bottles, recharge glasses, drink and open more bottles. Not only must you make sure your glass or plate is empty, you even have to make sure the bottle is empty when it's your cue to get another. And of course, you've got to make sure your mouth is empty when it's your turn to speak, though sometimes you have to speak with a mouthful of food and do it so everyone in the theatre can hear you (NICK: "You're just a bitter, pre-menopausal old hag who's … God this is fantastic"]. And this isn't just one difficult scene; it's the whole play. And spare a thought for the backstage crew who have to prepare the food.

Get it right and you'll have a cracking night's entertainment (I hope we will: at the time of writing we've got a week till first night). But don't under-estimate the amount of work required.

It also has the odd flaw: Nick's short speech about Rachel and the baby in the final scene makes no sense at all in the context of what has gone before:
"At last I've got them home. [Where from? Hospital maybe?]. The same rush all over again [Again? What rush? From where to where?]. The second coming [What was the first?]. Took him to Kew yesterday. First family outing [So did this baby spend its first three months in hospital? If so, would you really take him to Kew straight off and then leave him with friends the next night?]".
It reads like a reference to something that was cut from an earlier draft.

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Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Review: By Blood Divided

By Blood Divided By Blood Divided by James Heneage
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It would be unfair to call this bubblegum literature, but it's not literary fiction either. It deserves four stars because I rattled through it in five days and enjoyed the experience. What more could you want? It succeeds at what it tries to do and lacks the pretension to be anything more than it is, which is an adventure story set in history.

Heneage stays true to the events surrounding the fall of Constantinople in 1453, while deftly mixing historical characters and fictional ones. Mehmet and Minotto come out much worse than their historical selves, but the need for villains makes this forgivable.

Some of the dialogue is a bit clunky at times, with characters explaining to each other things that they already know, and on these occasions it's faintly reminiscent of the dreadful Mongoliad. But it's not enough to spoil the enjoyment.

Maps are provided, which many readers will find invaluable, but the character list has a major flaw in the the death dates are given for historical figures. That's a big spoiler, given that one of them is a central character who only dies in the penultimate chapter.

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