by Occasionally one of my students does something extraordinary. That happened this afternoon. I gave her an IELTS writing exercise, where she had to write a letter about sub-standard student accommodation. Twenty minutes, a minimum of 150 words. As always, I had a go at the task at the same time. Hmm, too much noise? Problems with the heating? Too far away? What should I write about? These questions posed no such problems for my student. With barely half the time gone, she gleefully said “Done!” and presented me with a letter easily good enough to get the grade she’ll need when she does the exam. If she’d actually used the last ten minutes it might have been just about perfect.
Dad recently acquired a 9-carat gold pocket watch that his great-grandfather (or to be specific, his dad’s dad’s dad) had received as a present from work. He showed it to me over Christmas. For some reason he was happy to throw it away, or get some money for the gold. It’s a double hunter, meaning it has a lid on both the front and back. The case (monogrammed on the back) has been battered a bit, and the glass is missing, as is the second hand. We couldn’t get it to work. I told Dad I would take it in to one of the watchmakers here in Timișoara; he might be able to do something. The shop, on Piața Libertății, was a delight to visit. Every type of clock and watch, and piece of clock and watch, and tool for mending clocks and watches, was on display. Old cuckoo clocks were going off, left right and centre. It was like visiting a clock museum. Fitting the theme perfectly, the pocket-sized man who dealt with my great-great-grandad’s watch was about seventy. Two hours after handing it to him, I went back to find he’d got the mechanism going. Tick-tock, tick-tock. It might have been the first time it had tick-tocked for half a century, perhaps more. Unfortunately he didn’t have a glass that fitted, nor a second hand, but that’s a start.
The Australian Open is back, with its crazy hours. Last night a match didn’t finish until nearly quarter past three in the morning. We’ve also got a new tie-break rule. There are (sadly) no more advantage final sets; instead there’s a first-to-ten tie-break at 6-6 in the decider. Even if it feels gimmicky to me, there’s nothing wrong with the new rule as such; I just think the old one was better. We’re now robbed of the kinds of drama-filled long final sets we’ve seen at the Aussie Open in recent years, such as in both the Djokovic–Wawrinka matches (2013 and 2014) and both marathons Simona Halep was involved in last year. If they wanted to change it, I’d have preferred it if they’d gone down the route Wimbledon has done: a normal (less gimmicky) tie-break to seven points at 12-12. But that’s not what they did, and we’re now in the slightly mad situation where all four grand slams have different systems for determining the winner of close matches. The French Open is the only one to retain a no-limit deciding set, although I can’t imagine that will be for long. If I had to guess, I’d say they’ll eventually plump for the Aussie system.
Towards the end of last week I got hooked on the BDO world darts tournament. This isn’t the biggest and best tournament in terms of standard and prestige (that would be the PDC worlds) but it has that pleasant eighties feel about it. The story for me was really the women’s tournament, with Mikuru Suzuki of Japan steamrolling her British opponent in straight sets in the final, walking on (and off) to the strains of Baby Shark, doo doo doo doo.
Eighteen games of Scrabble in 2019 so far, and I have a 50% record. Last weekend I got utterly taken apart, 574-313, in my biggest loss ever. That took my record for 2019 to 4-9, but to my surprise I followed that up with five straight wins, including (in my final game) a 557-336 victory where I out-bingoed my opponent 4-0, two of my bingos scoring in the 90s.
I’ll leave discussion of the Brexit shambles until next time.
