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It's a puzzle
Oct. 6th, 2009 11:31 amI was preparing for a phone call last night with an old friend. In an effort to not just witter on about myself, I tried to think of other topics of conversation. One which sprang to mind was an old favourite -- obituaries. So I had a glance through the recent columns in The Guardian, thinking to myself as I went along that it was a pretty sorry bunch (and not just because they were dead). When Keith Floyd and Keith Waterhouse are the best that you can muster (esteemable though both of the gents are/were) you aren't really ranking with Beckett or Joyce.
And then I cam across an obituary for Albie Fiore, with a picture. Not that I would have said to myself "surely not THE Albie Fiore?" It's not a name likely to crop up more than once. But the picture confirmed that it was in deed the Albie I had known from more than 30 years previously, whom I last bumped into around Museum Street some 20 years ago.
Albie had been one of the Games & Puzzles crew, editing the Puzzles section and latterly one of the several who was paid peanuts by Graeme Levin to edit the whole magazine. What I did not know was that he would also become a provider of crosswords for theGuardian and the FT.
As I mentioned these passing moments to my friend I was asked "was he a South African?" (I had mentioned that serial entrepreneur Mr Levin was from SA) to which I replied, "no, he was a Southendian". For Southend-On-Sea was his original home. "Did he have a good innings?" enquired my friend. "He was 63," I replied. "That's not a good innings". "Well, that's all relative, isn't it?" I said. "I mean, if he had been a 14th century court jester, the court would probably have said that he had had a good innings if he reached the age of 63 ... if they had invented cricket in those days, which they hadn't".
+++++
With the future Conservative government anxious not to pay me a pension for a further year (something which I would not be churlish enough to claim was "my" money, because I know that my National Insurance and Tax has actually gone to pay the pensions of millions of others already retired and laughing at us continuing workers from behind their hands) and with the job situation at work, er, "fluid" (that's the nicest way I can put it) the future for Birks Inc is as uncertain as it has been for some time. But I'm not losing any sleep over it at the moment, not least because I am at work at the moment. But I'm not losing sleep at night, either. Things are so much better for me now than they were in 1991 — when I seriously wondered when I would ever work again, or early 1994, when the prospect of ever actually being debt-free, let alone owning a property, seemed an impossible dream — that the mere prospect of being in a situation where I just have to be modestly careful with my cash is not particularly scary.
And, hell, I won £25 in the work social club monthly draw. As I said to our divisional CEO when she saw me pick it up and she said "that was lucky!" I had to reply that "yep, Lucky Pete. That's what they all call me".
++++++++++++
I've been running well at the tables since the start of the month, and it's important for me to bear that in mind when playing (in order to avoid winner's tilt), but also not to say to yourself "gawd, this luck must end, I'd better play cagily". The added confidence that running well brings can be a virtuous circle in that you tend to play a little bit more cavalierly on the button -- a move that can be very profitable when the man OOP goes chicken before you do. But if you do it too often the whole edifice quickly comes crashing down.
_____________
And then I cam across an obituary for Albie Fiore, with a picture. Not that I would have said to myself "surely not THE Albie Fiore?" It's not a name likely to crop up more than once. But the picture confirmed that it was in deed the Albie I had known from more than 30 years previously, whom I last bumped into around Museum Street some 20 years ago.
Albie had been one of the Games & Puzzles crew, editing the Puzzles section and latterly one of the several who was paid peanuts by Graeme Levin to edit the whole magazine. What I did not know was that he would also become a provider of crosswords for theGuardian and the FT.
As I mentioned these passing moments to my friend I was asked "was he a South African?" (I had mentioned that serial entrepreneur Mr Levin was from SA) to which I replied, "no, he was a Southendian". For Southend-On-Sea was his original home. "Did he have a good innings?" enquired my friend. "He was 63," I replied. "That's not a good innings". "Well, that's all relative, isn't it?" I said. "I mean, if he had been a 14th century court jester, the court would probably have said that he had had a good innings if he reached the age of 63 ... if they had invented cricket in those days, which they hadn't".
+++++
With the future Conservative government anxious not to pay me a pension for a further year (something which I would not be churlish enough to claim was "my" money, because I know that my National Insurance and Tax has actually gone to pay the pensions of millions of others already retired and laughing at us continuing workers from behind their hands) and with the job situation at work, er, "fluid" (that's the nicest way I can put it) the future for Birks Inc is as uncertain as it has been for some time. But I'm not losing any sleep over it at the moment, not least because I am at work at the moment. But I'm not losing sleep at night, either. Things are so much better for me now than they were in 1991 — when I seriously wondered when I would ever work again, or early 1994, when the prospect of ever actually being debt-free, let alone owning a property, seemed an impossible dream — that the mere prospect of being in a situation where I just have to be modestly careful with my cash is not particularly scary.
And, hell, I won £25 in the work social club monthly draw. As I said to our divisional CEO when she saw me pick it up and she said "that was lucky!" I had to reply that "yep, Lucky Pete. That's what they all call me".
++++++++++++
I've been running well at the tables since the start of the month, and it's important for me to bear that in mind when playing (in order to avoid winner's tilt), but also not to say to yourself "gawd, this luck must end, I'd better play cagily". The added confidence that running well brings can be a virtuous circle in that you tend to play a little bit more cavalierly on the button -- a move that can be very profitable when the man OOP goes chicken before you do. But if you do it too often the whole edifice quickly comes crashing down.
_____________
