Friday, September 1, 2006, 11:52 PM
What you see here is a player's eye view of a very addictive game called blob. The player in question is myself, and I am holding what could qualify for one of the worst possible hands in blob.
I am not aware that the rules of blob exist on the web, so I feel it is my duty to record them for posterity. Then you will understand why this is such a skanky hand.
Between 3 and 5 players can play the 'proper' version of blob. A full pack of cards is shuffled, and each player is dealt ten cards. The aim of the game is to predict how many hands you will win once all of the ten cards have been played out (I'll come to that).
If four of you are playing and player A dealt, then player B starts by announcing how many out of the ten s/he will win. This is written on a gridded scoresheet. If you have really high cards, you'll win quite a few (four or five), whilst if your cards are low 2s, 3s and 4s, then you could even announce that you will win no hands(also known as 'tricks') at all. Players C, D and A then follow in turn by declaring what they will win. The last person to declare (in this case player A) cannot announce a number of 'tricks' that adds up to the total on offer. So if player B said 3, player C said 2, player D said 4, then player A may not call 1, as this adds up to ten, and means that everyone can get what they intended. That would be boring; someone has to stuff up.
Player B then plays the first card (let's say it's a diamond), and the remaining players have to play a diamond. Whoever placed the highest diamond wins the 'trick', takes it, and places their next card on the table. If s/he wishes to win many tricks, then they will play a high card, however if they wish to win no more than one, then they will play a low card.
If a player can't follow a suit (and this will happen pretty often), then s/he can choose between trumping it (using a heart), or getting rid of another card in another suit. But the golden rule is that you are only allowed to trump when you cannot follow suit. Having lots of hearts is therefore rather cool - you can beat the ace of spades with the 2 of hearts if you want.
At the end, at least one of you will have not won what they intended. These individuals have blobbed, and the eventual winner is the person who 'blobs' the least number of times as you play with an ever-decreasing number of cards (ie - you next deal 9 cards, then 8 and so on). If two players have the same number of blobs, then the number of tricks is taken into account. Should you be careless/unfortunate enough to blob each and every time, then you have achieved 'death by blob'. You know who you are.
Playing blob is highly-addictive, and has given rise to its own subculture among people I have played. I have had many a late night with 'The Godfather', 'Lucifer', 'Beelzeblob', 'Euroblob' and 'No Hearts Buchanan'. We have seen many monumental battles won and lost at ungodly hours.
All of this explanation is intended to tell you why the photo above is of an appallingly bad hand. No high cards, and no weak ones to throw away - just middling numbers, which can go either way. It was a long and thoroughly unproductive night. But I loved it.
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Tuesday, August 29, 2006, 11:51 PM
A moment of unrestricted joy in the supermarket today. Those clever people at Gillette have only gone and made my year. As any man who has summoned the willpower and concentration for a morning shave knows, more blades is better. When Gillette brought out the Mach 3 all those years ago, my initial reaction was one of disgust. I mean, they'd let us hack away for so long with our two-bladed playthings, hiding the blatant truth that shaving is really only worthwhile once you've got a three-bladed razor. I mean, for a start, there are three blades, doing the job at the same time. And it's pretty difficult to argue with pure fact when it's put to you like that. Plus there was that advertising with the jet fighter and all those chicks.
Anyway, not to be outdone, those crafty schemers at Wilkinson Sword recently went and trumped it with a four-bladed design. That put a whole new complexion on things, and Gillette must have been rocked to their very foundations to see their arch-rivals pull off such a masterstroke.
I would love to have been a fly on the wall in their boardroom as the chisel-jawed Gillette executives paced the room and gnawed on their MontBlancs. You had your three, and someone's gone and raised you to four - what are you going to do about it?
I would have personally feared for the wellbeing of the company if Gillette could not pick themselves off the canvas and deliver a manly reply with their latest product. They not only managed to come out with five, but with eloquent mastery of the two-fingered gesture at the Wilkinson Swordsmen, they also whacked an extra blade on the back of the razor. This acts as a spare. I think, but it may also be there to deter any competitor from taking it apart for analysis.
Now the spotlight is on Wilkinson again. This time, it is serious business, and they need to keep their heads. They will be reeling and presumably looking to trump Gillette's five with their own six-blader, but my valuable advice would be to toally wrongfoot their foes and deliver a knockout blow with a seven-blader. Gillette would have pre-emptively started work on a seven-bladed model (intended as an answer to Wilkinson's expected 6-blader), and it is doubtful whether Gillette could still recover from a dent in its pride like that.
We truly live in fascinating times, and I for one will be watching aisle 16 of my Sainsburys with the same attentiveness as a seasoned boxing commentator.
Last one to ten's a pussy.
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Monday, August 28, 2006, 11:42 PM
If ever there were a contest for cretinous acts of building design, this one would top the 'entrances and exits' category. Located a full fifteen feet above a concrete pavement in the Hamburg suburb of Barmbek, anyone unfortunate enough to leave the building via this exit is likely to end up in hospital. Whether by accident or design, the hospital is actually only 150m away. Great way of drumming up business.
With wonderful irony, there is an official sticker on this door that says "Mind the step". Whoever said that the Germans have no humour was clearly having a laugh.
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Sunday, August 27, 2006, 11:30 PM
Tucked away in the corner of a large Hamburg hairdressing wholesaler, I encountered these three stunners. Before you ask out loud what business I had being in a large Hamburg hairdressing wholesaler, you should perhaps first ask yourself whether you were in a more interesting outlet at the same time.
Exactly. You were in Clintons Cards, weren't you?
Anyway, these ladies didn't seem too talkative, but they had huddled together to protect themselves from the gaze of rather dodgy-looking male dummies with excessively long pornstar moustaches. It appears that German trainee hairdressers learn their craft on dummies, rather than people, which makes perfect sense to me. Once you get back to Britain and walk down the street, you'll start to wonder why we don't have the same rule. I am now kicking myself for not having photographed the irate-faced dummy model of a bloke with a moustache that hung down to where his collar would have been, as if he had just woken from a botched hair operation. Still, these three seemed to have a more serene, purposeful look about them, so they make pic of the day.
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Tuesday, August 22, 2006, 08:26 PM
This man was photographed in Belsize Road at about 1 o'clock this afternoon. He is suspected of grievous sartorial harm, including gross misuse of mittens, braces and brand new brogues. We also suspect illegal possession of a pair of England football socks. He was last spotted indulging in a fag and a packet of crisps on the corner of Harben and Belsize Roads. The public are warned not to approach him, as it is understood that these clothes were not being worn for a bet. 
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