Best way to maximise the amount you can recall of what you have been taught is to review it after a day, a week, a month, a year, noting errors in your recall at each stage and concentrating on correcting them. I can vouch for the fact that it works, it's just that I for one was always far too lazy to do it properly.

sooooo.....what's happening?

[ZK] I am feeling delicate after a bloody good wedding yesterday. Recovering with the liberal application of tea and TV.

Hello ZK - good to see you again :-)
Hello pen - good to see you as always :-)
I'm spending a bit of time on here 'googling' for 3 Characters for the quiz tonight. It's my turn in the chair and the last round involves giving information in 3 stages about a person and the scores are 5,3 or 1 depending on when the correct answer is given. I'm trying to be really fair and not choose subjects that the team I belong to will be able to answer straight away and score maximum points. Oh - and I have to cook a roast chicken dinner for 5 for around 5pm.

Yum. I chose E M Forster, Peter Gabriel and Otto von Bismarck and have aimed for some tantalising first clues ...

He had a country house built, called Schloss Kroechlendorff (been there, got the sweatshirt), and he said, "God made Austrians by crossing Bavarians with humans."

[Raak] So how do we tell him apart from Peter Gabriel?

[Darren] Costumes. Gabriel will either be a giant flower or a fox, Bismarck will be a slightly camp military type.

[rab] Does being 'darlinged' give you a hangover the next morning? ;o)

[Chalky] I seem to remember [from my O-level history (over 25 years ago, eeek)] that OvB introduced Kulturkampf where he sought to reduce the power of the Catholic church in Germany, fairly successfully. He also tried to "kill socialism with kindness" - which was an interesting concept that mirrored Tsar Alexander's ill-fated attempts at liberalisation in Russia. Blimey it all comes flooding back ...

Bismarck was great. He seems to have been prejudiced against more or less everyone apart from upper-class Protestant Prussians - remember he referred to Disraeli as "that old Jew" in a tone of grudging respect! And he had a dodgy tache too.

[pen] Is it supposed to?

[rab] There seems to be a problem with Stations Revenge. There have been a few attempts at killing it so the unmasking can begin. Is it possible for you find out what the problem is and post the cure?

[Bismarck trivia contributors - thanks] Yes - it was an enlightening bit of research, however, I still can't find out the proper name for his trademark pointy topped helmet. Or indeed what type of creature nested in his 'tache.

Whoops. The reason why the game won't end is quite amusing, if you know anything about Perl regexps. I'll put the fix in tonight - will need to check it works first, so am nervous about doing it in situ...

[rab] in situ as opposed to ...?
[Inks] Further to my abrupt 'Why kill it?' - um.. it's still quite new - it's moving along at a steady pace - not every 'move' has been made yet - I just think there's some mileage in it compared to a couple of the other MC games.
and another thing ... ROSIE!!

[Chalky] I was just curious, but I am more than happy to carry on playing, are you?

[Chalky] I think he means he's deeply worried someone might try winning the game while he's working on it - big bangs, flashing lights, tape spewing on floor, "MALFUNCTION - DOES NOT COMPUTE," sparks, demolition of The Institute, "the reactor's gonna blow," alarms, emergency lighting, "dive! dive! dive!" and so on.

This new Chorkee - is it Chalky without glasses? Or perhaps the bizarre offspring of Chalky and Uncle Korky? Or maybe a very small Cherokee?