a scruffy ruffian
I mostly listened to Johnny Flynn and the Mountain Hares playlist
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Tailor of Panama by John le Carré
Screen
Louis Theroux: A Place for Paedophiles
Louis Theroux: Surviving America’s Most Hated Family
Louis Theroux: Gambling in Las Vegas
Louis Theroux: Under the Knife
Louis Theroux: Law and Disorder in Johannesburg
I made this game up based on the eye color riddle.
Identify the color of your headband.
Place all the headbands into a bag, and ask each player to close their eyes, remove a headband, and place it on their head, before opening their eyes. Every player is allowed to see the color of any other player’s headband except their own. Everyone knows how many headbands of each color there were at the start, but not what is left in the bag.
All players sit in a circle and the first player makes a statement about how many headbands they see, for example:
I see one red headband
The next player now has a choice, they can increase the number of the headbands by one, or the change the colour, for example:
I see two red headbands
or
I see one green headband
Play continues around the circle either increasing the number or changing the color. Players are not able to decrease the number even if they change the color.
If at any point a player believes that the statement a player has made is not true they are able to challenge it. The player who made the statement must then identify the players who have those colour headbands. If they are correct then the person who made the incorrect challenge is eliminated. If the statement was false then the person who made it is eliminated.
When a player’s headband is revealed via a challenge then they must all return it to the bag and draw another. After a challenge the game begins at the start, without the player who was eliminated.
If a play feels that it is impossible to make a true statement according to the rules above then they have the option to make a statement about two colours, for example:
I see four red headbands and three blue headbands
This has never happened when I have played the game as someone always wins before this point.
At any point during the game any player is able to shout “stop”, and announce the colour of their headband. When they do this they remove the headband from their head. If they are correct they have won the game. If they are incorrect they are out of the game.
Now the total number of headbands is reduced so the game play begins again with the player to the left of the player who announced their colour making a true statement about how many headbands of a certain colour they see.
This game can be quite short, so it probably makes sense to always begin the statement of the number of headbands at one.
Like The Jack of Hearts this game has the benefit of allowing players to remain in the game for as long as they choose, or eliminate themselves at any point, simply by guessing their headband colour.
It is usually possible to deduct the colour of your own headband quite quickly once you understand how it’s done. This might mean that the game can’t be played many times by the same people, but I’ve never had the chance to play it more than once with the same group anyway, so I’m not sure.
I tried to make a game based on the story of Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts:
In the end the game bears little resemblance to the story in the song, but it’s pretty fun.
You will need
Kill the Jack of Hearts (well get him wet)
Separate the same number of cards as players, making sure one of them is the Jack of Hearts. Place the loaded water pistol in the centre of the table. Deal the cards to all players, face down on the table. Every player looks at their own card.
As soon as the cards are dealt anyone is able to grab the water pistol and shoot it at another player. Once shot the player reveals their card, if they are the Jack of Hearts, the player that shot them is the winner. If they are not the Jack of Hearts, they are still in the game (it was just a flesh wound) and they leave their card face up on the table. The player that incorrectly shot them is now imprisoned (eliminated from the game) because they shot the wrong person, and their card is removed from the table. The gun is then returned to the centre of the table.
The play continues until someone successfully shoots the Jack of Hearts.
The Jack of Hearts can also win the game by shooting everyone else. However because the gun must be returned to the centre of the table between each shooting this is a difficult thing to achieve!
You might think its not necessary to play with a water pistol – can’t we just point? In my experience this doesn’t work because many people might want to shoot at around the same time and it results in arguments. Having a physical object to grab eliminates this ambiguity.
You could probably play without water in the water pistol, but it is a lot more fun when there is a real threat of getting wet!
The challenge in this game is to try to work out who is lying about what card they have. In my experience, the best way to determine what card someone has is to ask them and see their response. Because there is no turn taking this means the conversation can get quite rowdy and heated, but this is all part of the fun of the game.
There are several other things that makes this a good fun game.
I have been experimenting with a new game based on a game theory game called “The Pirate Game“. My version is the same but with a few modifications to make it fairer for all participants.
Become the richest pirate
Let’s say there are 5 pirates playing (it does work with other numbers but 5 is good). Decide who the captain is. The person to the right of the captain is the second in command, the next is third in command, and next fourth in command, and the person on the left of the captain is the skivvy.
The captain has been on a successful marauding mission and has gained 100 gold coins. He splits this loot between the 4 crew members and himself. He can decide to do this in any way he wants – he can keep it all, or give it all away. He gives this number of coins to each player and then the players decide whether or not to approve this proposal. If a majority of players approve the proposal then the gold is split according to this plan. If the majority do not approve the plan then the captain is flung overboard into the sea and the second in command becomes captain. In the case of a tie the captain has the casting vote.
The gold is returned to the second in command and he becomes the new captain. The same process now happens for the second in command. , and the third in command etc. until the loot has been divided among the pirates.
This is the first round.
Now the pirates go on another mission and gain another 100 gold coins. This time the player who began round 1 as second in command becomes the captain and the previous captain becomes the skivvy. The round continues as round 1 above.
The game then continues for N rounds, where N is the number of players.
The winner is the player with the most coins at the end of the game.
The main factor that influences how the game is played is whether the distribution of coins is publicly known by all, or only known by the captain and the pirate to whom he is distributing coins. I think the game is more interesting and fun when the distribution is secret otherwise people start doing lots of maths!
I’ve not yet worked out the best strategy for winning this game. I am convinced that the game theory strategy does not work for real humans. To win you need to be good at forming relationships and getting people to like you!
Narcissus bows, his lonely stare
Captivated by the glare
And though his brothers are all there
He knoweth not the others' care
His head so heavy with his crown
His loving gaze is only down
Beguiled by his own fair frown
And drawing closer starts to drown
Above the pool he's on his knees
His own beauty is all he sees
Fixated he begins to freeze
This is the modern disease
Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) – Jeff Tweedy
The Anomaly – Hervé le Tellier
Detectorists (Again)
About 9 years ago I started writing a haiku every day. I’m now up to 3257 haiku. I have recently started another project where I write a new song every day. I would like to get to 1005 songs. I’ve done 26 so far. You can follow along on https://1005songs.wordpress.com/.
A few weeks ago someone on Instagram asked me to write a song for their 10 year old son’s birthday. The brief was simple:
His name is paul and his turning 11.
oscarhuffman_
His birthday is on the 15th of January,
he is like merman,
Unicorns and color blue. Also, his favorite show is the pj masks but he’s in love with spider-man lol.
he love to eat cake a lot.
You’ll probably wanna mention is puppy Chloe too. They’re best friends. Thanks.
His nickname is muffin,
Brief description about him: would be he’s well articulated, a positive thinker, vibrant and he speak Spanish so well.
Core fan of zayn malik – and his all time favorite is ( Let me )
I would love those things about him mentioned in the song
Upbeat and time frame should be 1:30 secs
I thought this sounded like a fun project so I said I was happy to help out. I agreed to it without asking for payment – writing songs is fun and I wanted Paul to have a nice birthday. As it turned out I was offered $200 for my trouble, but this wasn’t my motivation and I was sceptical that the money would ever arrive.
I sent a quick demo at first to see if my idea was on the right lines:
He seemed pleased with this attempt:
Awwnn – Ben this is awesome I love it. When do I get the mp3 format
oscarhuffman_
So I decided to do a better recording and really make it into a nice song for Paul’s birthday. This is the finished result:
However once I sent this it soon became clear that this was not a genunie request but an attempt to steal money from me (I won’t go into the details).
Nevertheless I found it hard to believe that someone say things like this if they didn’t mean it:
I appreciate your talent
oscarhuffman_
I’m a big supporter of talent – I don’t joke with music and writers cause it takes major time and creativity to come up with something
On 15th January (Paul’s alleged birthday) I sent him best wished and asked the user to send me a video of him listening to the song so I could see his reaction. I haven’t heard back…
So instead I’m sharing the song here in case there are any boys called Paul who have a birthday soon! Happy Birthday Paul!
scruffian 