![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Who's Fooling Who?
Dec. 31st, 2005 01:51 amOne of the more humorous lines that appears with some frequency in the chat box when playing online poker is that of "Nice call". This usually occurs when someone tries an awful bluff on the river which you would call with Ace-high. When you have something as strong as a pair of eights, the call is not so much mandatory as up there in the Mastermind section of "the bleeding obvious".
However, our bluffer can't admit to himself "Christ, that was a dreadful bet I made there. Shoot me now". He has to ascribe a quality decision to his opponent. One sees this time and again amongst poker players. Either a call that works (before the last card) is a dreadful call where any sensible player would fold (the usual response to this accusation is "but Phil, I was ahead all the way") or the call on the river is a "great call". Here the response should be "no, it was an obvious call. Just admit to yourself that you made a crap bet". But, of course, you don't say this. And, even if you did, you wouldn't be thanked for it. Instead you partake of the dance to the music of time, and say "I just felt lucky" or (my favourite line) "I nearly folded. Unlucky. Good bet."
Tossers.
+++++
Now here's a puzzling thing. I popped into Oink tonight to do a bit of downloading, and was somewhat bemused to notice that my previous maximum rate of 56kB/s (which I knew was, by current standards, a little bit archaic) had just been thrown out of the window. Obviously my exchange has been upgraded, because my download rate is now rocketing along at 224kB/s, which by my calculations comes in at a max rate of 12Mb a minute. Rock on.
But did BT bother to tell me about this? No. They spend three-quarters of their time faffing about, and when they have something that they could boast about, they don't even bother to tell anyone. Perhaps they want to keep the increased bandwidth a secret, just in case people use it. Ahh, the marvels and absurdities of modern business.
++++++
I caught up with the first three hours of Bleak House on TV this afternoon. I'm not the greatest fan of Dickens, but you have to credit Andrew Davies for a stonking adaptation, featuring a stellar cast. Even Gillian Anderson is good. However, as I looked at the names of the featured actors in the opening sequence, I espied "Phil Davis". Ahh, I said to myself, I bet I know what part he's got his hands on". And, sure enough, up he crops as Smallweed the moneylender. There isn't a performance I would criticize (oh, ok, Johnny Vegas isn't that good, and I'm not wild about the "French" maidservant hortense) but Phil Davis is just awesome. Ever since he made his debut in Quadrophenia Davis has been up there with Ray Winstone (who shot to stardom in the same film) in my books as one of the UK's better actors. And in middle age he's finally getting the parts. Good on 'im.
Dickens on TV clearly needs room to breathe. The last masterpiece was the 12-hour stage adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby which, to my eternal regret, I failed to persuade my girlfriend at the time to go and see (how could anyone not be attracted to an idea of 12 hours sitting in a theatre seat watching a Victorian melodrama?) I caught up with it on C4 on launch night in 1982 and had the pleasure of seeing David Threlfall's brilliant Smike, plus John Woodvine and Bob Peck at the top of their form. Roger Rees, the "star", couldn't compete with these guys.
I suspect that Davies has taken this play as his blueprint for Bleak House, and crafted onto it his inimitable talent for TV adaptations. But you had to admire his opening shot of Gillian Anderson (Lady Dedlock — if Dickens should have been shot for anything, it was his choice of his characters' names) where she is looking through a window straight at camera, bored witless. Immediately we get three shots — straight to camera, side on and side on again (from the other side). Whoops, have we walked into a Chekov play (directed by Bergman) by mistake?
No, just one of Davies' little joshes. Presumably utterly unnoticed by 95% of the audience.
Priceless.
However, our bluffer can't admit to himself "Christ, that was a dreadful bet I made there. Shoot me now". He has to ascribe a quality decision to his opponent. One sees this time and again amongst poker players. Either a call that works (before the last card) is a dreadful call where any sensible player would fold (the usual response to this accusation is "but Phil, I was ahead all the way") or the call on the river is a "great call". Here the response should be "no, it was an obvious call. Just admit to yourself that you made a crap bet". But, of course, you don't say this. And, even if you did, you wouldn't be thanked for it. Instead you partake of the dance to the music of time, and say "I just felt lucky" or (my favourite line) "I nearly folded. Unlucky. Good bet."
Tossers.
+++++
Now here's a puzzling thing. I popped into Oink tonight to do a bit of downloading, and was somewhat bemused to notice that my previous maximum rate of 56kB/s (which I knew was, by current standards, a little bit archaic) had just been thrown out of the window. Obviously my exchange has been upgraded, because my download rate is now rocketing along at 224kB/s, which by my calculations comes in at a max rate of 12Mb a minute. Rock on.
But did BT bother to tell me about this? No. They spend three-quarters of their time faffing about, and when they have something that they could boast about, they don't even bother to tell anyone. Perhaps they want to keep the increased bandwidth a secret, just in case people use it. Ahh, the marvels and absurdities of modern business.
++++++
I caught up with the first three hours of Bleak House on TV this afternoon. I'm not the greatest fan of Dickens, but you have to credit Andrew Davies for a stonking adaptation, featuring a stellar cast. Even Gillian Anderson is good. However, as I looked at the names of the featured actors in the opening sequence, I espied "Phil Davis". Ahh, I said to myself, I bet I know what part he's got his hands on". And, sure enough, up he crops as Smallweed the moneylender. There isn't a performance I would criticize (oh, ok, Johnny Vegas isn't that good, and I'm not wild about the "French" maidservant hortense) but Phil Davis is just awesome. Ever since he made his debut in Quadrophenia Davis has been up there with Ray Winstone (who shot to stardom in the same film) in my books as one of the UK's better actors. And in middle age he's finally getting the parts. Good on 'im.
Dickens on TV clearly needs room to breathe. The last masterpiece was the 12-hour stage adaptation of Nicholas Nickleby which, to my eternal regret, I failed to persuade my girlfriend at the time to go and see (how could anyone not be attracted to an idea of 12 hours sitting in a theatre seat watching a Victorian melodrama?) I caught up with it on C4 on launch night in 1982 and had the pleasure of seeing David Threlfall's brilliant Smike, plus John Woodvine and Bob Peck at the top of their form. Roger Rees, the "star", couldn't compete with these guys.
I suspect that Davies has taken this play as his blueprint for Bleak House, and crafted onto it his inimitable talent for TV adaptations. But you had to admire his opening shot of Gillian Anderson (Lady Dedlock — if Dickens should have been shot for anything, it was his choice of his characters' names) where she is looking through a window straight at camera, bored witless. Immediately we get three shots — straight to camera, side on and side on again (from the other side). Whoops, have we walked into a Chekov play (directed by Bergman) by mistake?
No, just one of Davies' little joshes. Presumably utterly unnoticed by 95% of the audience.
Priceless.
