Backgammon IRL

I've been playing backgammon for donkeys years. I started in my late teens, or possibly early twenties. A few friends together, with beer or pot or both.

We would experiment with variants, such as acey deucey, and tric trac, and with different starting positions, like starting with all the men off the board. We'd even play for small amounts of money. But we never used the doubling cube.

Dutch coffeeshops used to almost always contain backgammon sets. Why backgammon? I really don't know, but they did. Last time I was in Holland, this custom was rapidly disappearing, and they seemed more like cyber cafes. I hope it doesn't die out completely.

Anyway, when I discovered the internet, one of the first things I did was start playing backgammon online. I've done so ever since, and I've gradually improved as a player, and now I'm capable of holding my own against some good players.

Backgammon is a mixture of luck and skill. You use the dice rolls you're given to maximise your chances and limit the options for your opponent. It's called Backgammon, or "The back game" because if one person ends up far enough behind in a game, they often get the opportunity to turn things around. Using the doubling cube properly is another important thing to be able to do. The stakes are initially set to one. Either player can double the stakes by offering the cube to their opponent. The opponent can either forfeit the game, and lose the current stake, or can accept the cube, after which the stakes are 2. The player that doubled can not double again until their opponent has doubled. The doubling cube is a form of psychological warfare!

Anyway, tonight, I went to Liverpool, where the Liverpool backgammon club holds a monthly meeting. There were about 12 people there, and I got to play real matches against 6 of them.

Some of them take things very seriously! There are rules and etiquettes to follow that just don't occur in online play.

For example, a player's turn doesn't end until they pick up their dice. If you roll your own dice before then, it's considered very bad form, and the player who hasn't yet finished his turn has the option of forcing you to either re-roll, or use the roll you took.

You must roll your dice onto the right hand side of the board. this presumably avoids confusion, although given the previous rule, how the two sets of dice could mistakenly interact is hard to explain.

Most of the players there tonight were of quite a high standard. A few were less so.

I beat a good player in my first match, partly because of some outrageous good luck. I lost to a very good player in my second match. Then to a less good player in my third match. I lost by the shaving of a gnat's whisker in my fourth match, to a very good player, and again in my fifth match, before beating a poorer player in my final match.

It was good fun, and I shall try to go to more in the future.


driving lessons in Wallasey?

Out and about... (slight reprise)

OK. You know the format. I tell you about my bikeride. I show the route on Google Earth, then I set the bit I videoed to music.

This time, instead of heading north, I went the other way. I had no clear objective in mind apart from just following the river southwards. I'd seen a bit of cycleway that ran along the dockside and wanted to give that a go, but in the end I went much further, to Tranmere Oil Terminal. Going south, it wasn't as traffic free as my previous ride had been. There were points where I had to travel along, or next to, some busy roads.

At Tranmere Oil Terminal, it was no longer possible to follow the banks of the river. I'd have had to ride along a 50 mph dual carriageway, or through New Ferry and Rock Ferry (Yes, it's what singer Duffy's album title comes from) Noisy, polluted and more dangerous, (the road, not the duffy album) which ever way I chose, so at that point, I turned around and retraced my steps.

My route took me around the back of Wallasey Town Hall, an impressive enough edifice, especially from the banks of the river, more so than from the road. I suppose they were trying to impress the people across the river, It took me past the ventilation shafts for both Mersey Road Tunnels. The newer, Kingsway tunnel's shafts are a modernist concrete. The older tunnel's brick built shafts are more art deco, as is a lot of it's associated architecture. You can read and see a whole load of stuff about the Queensway tunnel at the excellent CBRD site. This includes a video trip through the tunnel, (not set to music) and a written and photographic history. The Birkenhead shaft kind of reminds me of the Empire State Building.

                                                                                                        (image from here)

My trip also took in Birkenhead Priory, a 12th century monestary, and I think Wirral's oldest surviving structure, the two ferry terminals in Seacombe and Woodside, and the enormous shibuilding hall of Cammel Laird shipyard

I suppose Elvis Costello's "Shipbuilding" would have been an appropriate tune to put the video to, but sadly it's too short.

However, Elvis Costello's excellent "Tokyo Storm Warning" is exactly the required 6 minutes and 24 seconds.

Sadly, as I climbed the hill up from the river back to my street, one of my pedals broke. I won't be doing any more cycling until I've got that sorted.

Once again, this ride took me about 10 or 11 miles. In this case, I gained/lost about 580 feet in altitude along the length of the ride, from a high point of 89 feet above (mean) sea level to 0 feet above sea level. Because I went somewhere and came back by more or less the same route, the elevation profile is almost symmetrical.

Now, here's that nice Mr MacManus with some lovely images of the Liverpool skyline, and Egremont Promenade.

We're only living this instant.

Sherlock strikes again!

Today, the weather was clement!  So I girded my loins, and wound my merry way to the allotment. I was digging up the last of the spuds, when I noticed a curious thing.

You can see the skyline of Liverpool from the allotment, and today, the concrete pole that used to be called St John's beacon, but what is now the Radio City Tower looked almost as if it were on fire,  except what appeared to be rising from it was not smoke, but cloud. This column of vapour rose from the horizon right up to the cloud base. I briefly toyed with the notion that someone had nuked Manchester, but that seemed unlikely, and there are no reports of such a thing occurring on the BBC's news website.

So I suspected  a power station. But how could I be sure? I couldn't drive in a straight line from the allotment to St John's beacon, and then beyond. Too many buildings and fences and gardens and rivers in the way. But I could create a line using the power of Google Earth!

I made a placemark at the base of the beacon.



I made another placemark at the allotment.



Then I lined things up and let the "camera" drift eastwards.

We passed over Wallasey and Seacombe, then out over the river to the centre of Liverpool. Then out of the commercial heart of the city and into the suburbs. To Wavertree and Netherton. To Tarbock Green and Farnworth. And there! Directly in front of me was Fiddler's Ferry Power Station. I placemarked that too!

And as you can see, they line up perfectly. Google Earth was also able to tell me that the direct, as the crow flies distance from Allotment to Power Station is 15 miles. Or, if you prefer, 2,415,015 centimetres.



The wonders of modern technology!

Edit:

Wait! There's more! Those 2 million centimetres took me over hill and down dale. And Google Earth knows exactly how up the hills were, and how down the dales were too. And it's given me a topological profile of the terrain between Love Lane Allotments and Fiddlers Ferry Power Station.

My life is enriched! Thank you once again Google Earth!

As you can see, the river Mersey is a flat, sea level bit to the left of the profile. We head down to it, and up away from it, soaring up to a rarified 225 feet above sea level in the Edge Hill area of the city. Watch out for nosebleeds and blackouts before you float gracefully down to a mere 50 feet above the briny towards the end of the trip. 50 feet lower than the starting point, at an average slope of about 1.5%. Nothing that a good stout pair of walking boots couldn't cope with.

Seriously, I've been using this thing for quite a long time now, without necessarily looking deeply at every aspect, so it's still got some surprising tricks up it's sleeve! To access this function, click the ruler button on the top bar (between the planet button and the email button) then simply click on a point and move your mouse pointer to a different point. You'll see a line. When you want to make the other end of a line, click again.

But you're not just limited to individual lines. You can do complete and complex journeys by combining lines to make paths.

As you can see from the picture above, I've just found that we drive 2.5 miles to do our shopping run at Asda. I could use Google Earth to work out  a shorter route. The possibilities are endless!

I might have found myself.

See this?



This:

53°26'4.23"N, 3° 4'13.05"W is how the New Brighton Promenade area looks from above.

The road just above the row of houses is a road that runs parallel to the prom. Sometimes, the tide breaks over the sea wall, and the prom is closed. Then the road acts as a relief road, and can be fairly busy. Usually though, the bulk of the traffic just goes on a big long straight run along the prom. Then Coastal Drive, as it is called, becomes a nice open and quiet bit of road, with a couple of easy roundabouts and nice wide tarmac. Ideal for learners. I spend a lot of time in such places. Especially with people who have only just started to learn.

There are two learner vehicles (with roof signs) just above the white car in the middle of the screen. Back in 2005, I was teaching in a black Peugeot 206. So it's just possible that I'm sat in that black car with the white speck on its roof. Tell you what? I'll zoom in a bit closer.



Can you see me?

I have blue eyes and probably needed a shave, if that helps.

I'm still in a black car, but now I work for myself. If you're looking to learn to drive, in Wallasey or Birkenhead, or Wirral or anything, and you're particularly keen on learning in a black car, well I'm yer man!

De do doh dont de doh?

a? a? a? a? a? a? a? a?

There's a lower case "a" close to Liverpool airport. Y' know worra mean, like?

I nearly crashed into it. That's how I know. See previous post.

Liverpool airport is on the outskirts of, well, Liverpool...

53°21'36.29"N, 2°48'26.53"W



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