*waves to penelope*

Has everyone given up on the crossword game ? Pity if you have - I was enjoying it before I went away on holiday - and then got frozen out of here. Ho hum. Never mind.

I think it's going around pen, I'm off today as I only slept 2 hours last night because my damned nose keeps dripping! I hope it wears off for tonight..

[snorgle] You hope it wears off ? Well if you rub it too hard it just might !

Wahay - I'm no 1. Thanks to Johnnie Vegas. Shame Frank Bruno's not listed.
[penelopeeee] Good to see you back, albeit in trappist mode - which, when you think about it, doesn't really make much difference in here. Did you have a nice break?
[Everyone with missing voices & drippy noses] It's a nasty virus, this early autumn cold - made my mum quite ill.
[Blob] I fear you may have to tempt the experts back into the Vault with some fiendish clues. Haven't had much time lately, besides, I'm only a learner.

[Chalky] Lovely, thanks. I'm fitter, browner and wiser than I was before. I was working as a volunteer for the National Trust, something I've done several times before and they seem to like me. I have been asked four times now if I would consider being an assistant project leader and I'm starting to break under the pressure. There's something coming in the post and a nomination form has already been sent off. Whoops. :o)

that sounds like a line from a song..

Who's Johnnie Vegas, and why am I glad I bought 86000 shares of him when he was under £2/share?

Mysql failed to start during boot, again, despite me adding the relevant whoojits and doodads. Odd. Still, back again, for a while. Hopefully the new memory won't be flaky.
[DrQ] Johnny Vegas is brilliant, but indescribable (yet not indescribably brilliant, I just can't be bothered).

Hello, I'm smiling lots today. Why? Well, 1) I'm on holiday 2) I found a favourite top that was eaten for a few months by the wardrobe monster and 3) I'm reunited with my laptop (which is more your austin allegro of a model compared to rab's whizzy apple thing, but I do love it dearly) having mistakenly 'Lent' it to my brother a year ago. Has taken me ages though to put the settings back how they should be! But is nice to be reunited with my first (computer) love.

My laptop is at the computer hospital, and I'm bereft without it. Looking around for some other means of distraction, I've discovered a strange kind of primitive "disk" made of sheets of thin white stuff with black markings on them, mimicking words on a screen. I'm not sure what kind of machine I need to read them, as they won't fit in the video, but they're propping the table up very well.

grrr... I HATE colds! I'm sudafed AND sinex and they're not having any effect. At least the pain-killers work..but I'd rather be at work, feeling reasonable well. That's 2 nights now I've only got about 3 hours sleep.

er..I'm ON sudafed and sinex obviously, although if I take any more tablets I may turn into one.. :D [BM]Try your visual interface for that format.

[Snorgle] I find decongestants just dry up my membranes, which is exactly the opposite thing you need to happen with a cold - you're snotty because your body is trying to get rid of the infection via mucus. (sorry to those that have just breakfasted.) There's a foolproof remedy for sleep. You need: Olbas Oil, a thick teeshirt, a lemon, a bottle of whisky and some honey. Apply several drops of Olbas Oil around the neck of the teeshirt. You will be sleeping in this tonight. Boil the kettle. Put two generous spoonsful of honey into a large mug, pour on boiling water and stir until the honey dissolves. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the mug, and top up with a generous slug of whisky. Breath in the steam and drink the honey, lemon and whisky as hot as you can. Go to bed, wearing the eucalyptus-flavoured teeshirt, and sleep like a baby. Works for me - good luck!

Sounds good to me! I've already been using lemon and honey, as its delicious, but I don't usually drink whisky. I think I may try brandy instead. I'm sure I've got olbas oil around, somewhere under a pile of tissues..

[Snorgle] Excellent. I think it's a combination of the steam clearing your tubes immediately before bed, the vitamin C and cleansing action of the lemon om your throat, the soothing of the honey (and it has healing qualities too), the topping up of fluid intake for the night, and of course the immediate knock-out effect of the brandy or whisky which sends you to sleep before you know it. I once gave this to a flatmate who was distressed because she was so uncomfortable with a cough and a cold... she hated the idea but I bullied her into drinking it and within five minutes I heard snoring coming from her room. :o)

Hello from Dresden. I came prepared for vast expanses of brutalist architecture and am pleasantly surprised to find large open spaces, old buildings (the opera house is particularly fine), not to mention fabby restaurants and bars. German cities have a tendancy to be a bit thin-on-the-ground nightlife-wise, but not this one. The conference is going well, although I don't think I'm whoring myself around as much as I should be given that my contract runs out next year. Oh well... [Blob] Re crosswords - I think there's still demand. Once we're back up to full numbers I'm sure things will continue again. And, to be fair, you weren't frozen out, you just lost the URL. Which is not the same thing at all. [Colds] Hmmm... feeling a little funny today in the head and throat department but I am not getting a cold. Oh no.

Viruses are stupid. Ok, so they barely register as life forms, but if they did useful or interesting things, then maybe our bodies wouldn't go into overdrive to eject them. They could, for instance, turn our fingernails red, (without pain or swelling) or make our hair go an interesting shade of turquoise, and everything would be fine! But oh no, they have to and reproduce by making us miserable. I say we should ban them until they get their act together!

I'm back in work, as I was able to sleep last night. I don't know if it was the brandy, honey and lemon, or just that the cold is getting better anyway, but I'm happy. I can't function on 3 hours sleep. I probably would have taken today off too, but I'm supposed to be covering for my manager tomorrow, and I needed to get up to speed. At least it's quiet this morning.

[penelope] So. This NT assistant project leader thingummy. Would that be full-time? Like a proper job? Would you have to resign from your shiny new PR job? Like a *BIG* decision?
[snorgle] I've got a sniffle-in-the-nose and a tickle-in-the-throat which is a bit worrying. Especially as it's my daughter's thirteenth birthday tomorrow and our home is going to be invaded by nine [yes NINE] newteens for a 'sleepover'. I must be bonkers. Brandy, honey and lemon now top the shopping list.
[rab] Nice to hear news of Dresden, me ol' china. Although I lived in Germany for 11 years [child of the forces], the cities of East Germany were but names with disquieting connotations and never to be visited. The closest I came was a longish spell in Berlin which I remember as a gloriously spacious city. Even though I was young, I still have a sense of the amazing architecture and the night-life. However, the salutary reminder of its isolation from the west came during my train journeys to boarding school which crossed the eastern zone. At the checkpoint, the window blinds would be firmly lowered and we were instructed to stay in our seats and not move under any circumstances. The train travelled really s-l-o-w-l-y, just to add to the tension. I really must return to the area if only to rid myself of these residual childish fears.

For any fans out there, announcement on the BBC News page: Doctor Who to return in a new series, scripted by Russell T Davies, and produced by BBC Wales.

[Chalky] Nope, not full time - just the odd week or weekend on a voluntary basis, mopping up teenage tears, giving tool safety talks and eating instant soup. Nice to be thought of as being capable though - I never even thought I was grown up until now.

PANTSMC IS DOWN!

DrQ]Lets hope its just an upgrade.
Although I have not seen Graham III around the boards for a while, my congrats on going to No 1 on Celebrity MC , together with that evil_edna you've turned the table upside down. (Do you think that will entice Darren back? I do hope so.)

Hullo folks. Haven't been online much, though have now at last got a modem sorted on my home computer, so have been updating my celebdaq thing occasionally. Once I have a job sorted so can justify spending ages on the internet I'll probably be seen a bit more around here...

Oh, and thanks for the congrats...

NIK - DO NOT GO TO THIS PAGE!!! Most likely this is a Lycosa godeffroyi, seen this morning on the way to do the washing, downstairs. The ruler is actually a little closer to the camera, so the scale isn't perfectly accurate. A medium-sized common wolf spider.

DAMN that's big! It looks sort of velvety, was it really hairy?

[flerdle] Nice pic. Only a couple of days ago I found a real biggie on a wall. I had a really good look at it, should have got a photo. This one was really hairy.

flerdle] Did it manage to get the washing done?

[snorgle] It seemed to have short hairs which were fairly flat against its body, giving the velvety look. So - yes, very hairy. Completely, even. And you might notice a white-yellowish bright spot near its front - that's a reflection off one of its larger two eyes. I should have taken an even closer shot. Next time.

No, but it's going to clean the floor later, if I can teach it to use the mop wringer.

[flerdle] Re-spect! My wife was certainly impressed, pretty much along the lines of "We're never going to Australia!" One question: how does one relocate a spider that size? Or do you just work round them? And how fast doo they move?

OK, that was three questions.

Dunx, I can assure that they can move very fast when they wish to. Usually they are quite docile and just amble about the place but, should you miss on the first attempt at capture, they take off like greased lightning - one second you think you've caught them, next they are five metres away.
My method of capture is a container wide enough to encompass its legs without cutting them off; from above bring the container in line and, quickly and carefully bring it down on top of the beast. The trick then is to get a sheet of cardboard (or similar) to slide between the wall/floor and the container whilst at the same time keeping the arachnid within the container. Given that they are built to fit into and through very narrow spaces this can at times be a challenge.
Yes, they do bite but I understand that whilst it can be painful it is certainly not a life threatening experience. Like most snakes they would rather just get out of the way and will only have a go at you if they have no other choice (e.g. If you get into bed with one!) For the sake of your good wife I might mention that such a situation is so rare as to be non-existent, although someone once said it happened to them. My son is quite happy to let these things walk over him, through his hair and the like ... me ... err, err. I did have one run over my hand - many years ago - when I pulled the mail out of the letter box; it was quite soft and not at all like I would have expected. Truly!

Whoops! How the 'eck did that 'appen?

Answer: It didn't. I had a double post up there a minute ago ... must go and see the optometrist methinks.

You rang? :-)

This one, when I tapped the bucket, ran away quite fast, doing a couple of little skips/bounces as it went. I have caught them for relocation using the method Dujon described, but usually I just leave them alone. And yes, I've seen much bigger, Dunx, but let your good wife be not afeared - the big fellas like that really are quite harmless. And soft/light/delicate/shy.

They still give me the heebie jeebies, flerdle! Anyhoo, about time I went to watch the final of the local aerial ping-pong game. Not that I care, but seeing as your local team is in it, I'd best keep up to speed ... ;-)

I watched it with friends/relatives; some delightful play, and some dreadfully disastrous play (one fumble is brought clearly to mind). Ate lots of junk food, watched it on tv with the sound down, but with Roy & HG on the radio, it was hilarious. Keep an ear out for them next weekend with the other unmentionable code's final.

[Dr Q] Let's hope it's just a computer crash that will right itself soon. Unfortunately, Mr Pants himself wasn't the person who actually *programmed* the MC server, he was just its host - i.e. the one with the password-access power to start and finish games. (Surprisingly, perhaps, the password is not "Badgerline" - I've tried it, and it doesn't work. ;-)

The actual programmer of PantsMC, apparently called Tim, has completely disappeared from the net years ago (and never, in any case, played MC, being no relation of the _tim_ who appeared on Old York and was infamous for Really Bad HTML.)

(PantsMC was, despite its best intentions, probably never the equal of the Old Delphi server...)

Still down at 8.38 pm.

STILL down at 11pm! Neeeeeeeeeed to play! have moves to make! People to put in nid! *getting withdrawal symptoms*

Still down..oh dear!

Can anyone join in? ... :-(

Greek restaurants seem quite common here in Dresden, and we have just returned from brunch at the local one. We seem to have got a bit of a reputation with the staff who seem very keen to take the mickey out of us at any opportunity. The local pub seems to employ only the most beautiful staff. Inge seems to be the most favourite, although there are a few votes for Steffi. Yesterday afternoon we were in town and tracked down a huge, beautiful palace that somehow we missed on Tuesday. Last night we ended up in a bar that had a woman dancing away in a box, and who wore a range of increasingly scanty outfits for each session. At first we were rather nervous about entering the establishment, but it turned out to have quite a normal, mixed clientele. I do like Abroad. Especially an Abroad where there are no spiders, and my pants stay up. Here endeth the second dispatch.

*getting the shakes*

I've only ever made one move in pants. Things seemed very slow in there - it was weeks before anyone responded (probably as much a comment on my sense of humour than anything else). Welcome Mr Prune!

I like the Pants community, but it does tend to be slow sometimes, and it's not helped by the way the site renders the games as huge tables, which usually only display when the whole page is downloaded. Also, there's the lack of a simulpost detection system. These could be fixed if the site was reprogrammed, of course...

Thanks! I don't know about it being slow - we had things going along quite quickly, then suddenly BOOM! No more pants! For the record, 2.23pm, Mon 29th September, and still no pants. (Sadly not a comment on my social life!)

I looked at Pants but it seemed slightly scary. Those tables look like charts on the wall of my old science classroom. It brought terrible memories flooding back.

Hello everybody, another Pants refugee here. This is my first posting on any other MC related site; I disvovered Pants a couple of years ago and it has proved adequate for my meager needs - until today!! Didn't take me too long to spot some familiar names though! (Its 5.45pm BST on Monday 29th Sept and Pants is still down)

And here's another one. I have played briefly on Not York (before it too vanished) and at Orange, both under different pseudonyms, and I've also been posting under this name at the Lockisseum. Nice place you've got here.

Enjoy your stay, which may be permanent, here at MC5. And BTW, for those of you who aren't familiar with making moves with HTML...

What you type and what appears
<b>foo</b> = foo
<i>foo</i> = foo
<small>foo</small> = foo
<hr> =

---

Yeah, hi all those also from Pants. It's a pity if Pants doesn't come back in some form. Still, there's still this, Orange and MCiOS.

Incidentally, I note the Fortean Times chat forum has started a Cheddar Gorge thread! Heh!

Just out of interest, what other pseudonyms have you been on other servers?

I was Dexter at Orange and Courage the Cowardly Dog on !York. I remember my finest hour probably being on !York, where I managed to goad st dogmael into attempting to pass off "Bugger Me! My Auntie's On The Roof!" during one particularly lewd game of Boardman's: I was using some pretty dubious constructs and he took it and ran the length of the pitch, up the terrace, out the gates and halfway round the world to Auckland before he touched the ball down.

[Angus] Yup, that'd st d.

(please insert the word "be" before the enthusiastic saint's name, there. I seem to have dropped it at a crucial moment)

I like st d. I have a feeling that people thought I was his alterego (probably because of the 'dog' bit) after the MCiOS ban he earned. But just for the record, I'm not.

Has Mr Wildpants been spotted recently? Perhaps he can shed some light on situation. I had a hunch that the server was shuddering to a halt - some of the games have been around for nearly a year now and have all but fossilised. Pants was my introduction to online Crescentfun, so will always hold a special place in my thingy, but life moves on - anyway, I like it here, and there [MCiOS] and that other place [Orange]. Nice people.

Yay - I just did a search on wildpants and found that York is still with us (sort of). I tried to do a link but failed so here be the address: http://madeira.physiol.ucl.ac.uk/people/jim/crescent/

Does anyone want to see pictures of what I saw while walking home tonight? Don't worry... or maybe do... it's... well, it's not a spider...

yes - go-on - don't keep us in suspense!

Ok. I've also moved the spider picture.

Like I said, this isn't a spider. This was perhaps a 45minute stroll from the centre of the city, and it was pretty dark at 6:30pm. It's near the top of the largest hill in the area, which isn't too far from the river. Brisbane is fairly green. I don't know how I noticed it, as it was about 5m away, diagonally upwards. Look here and then here.

I take no responsibility for heebie-jeebies.

Well spotted. Looks like a healthy little bugger as well. :)

I take it you don't work for the Brisbane tourist office then?

Is there any chance next time of climbing the tree to gett a bit closer? I'd be interested to see the pattern on the back of its head.

err... no. The tree was fairly spindly and a bit rough, and in someone else's yard. And I'm going away on Thursday, and it'll probably be gone :-(

[Inkspot] or have a look at this; best enlargement/detail I can do.

... and sorry for any incoherence/misreading/whatever I might be doing right now; text is always hard to hear tone, Inkspot, and I'm currently suffering bad, bad hayfever, and extreme tiredness... g'night all. *falls off chair*

Aww, poor flerdle. We should treat our snake snappers more considerately. Here, have a hankie.

I wish I lived in a country with things like that. Just my luck that the only foreign place I've been in for any length of time was New Zealand, where the most interesting wildlife is a pom pom on legs.

Still no news I take it? ten to eight tuesday evening, and still no pants!

[BM] What, a dust puppy?

The PantsMC player profiles page is still up and working. I have sent MWP an email at the address you send your profile, though what good it'll do I don't know. I haven't had a reply yet, but it was only about 24 hrs ago.

Probably just my perspective, having ducked out of the whole MC circuit for a while (and having stuck solely to !York before that), but this place has a feeling of the afterlife, or a nuclear fallout shelter about it - in the best possible way. There's a lot the same, familiar faces and games, but somehow you always end up thinking about the ones who're missing, and the classic games of the past.
Did I really just type that?

The esteemed MWP has been spied in the Lockisseum, and said more or less that the outage is probably permanent.

I hope the games can at least be recovered...

Well, at least that would give me closure on the red name issue! I wonder if a new MC site will spring up elsewhere.

[Rosie] That was because the player profiles page was hosted on Mr Pants's own VirusPlanet server, not on Cream.org.

[JLE] The new one that Alfredo García has is on Geocities. http://www.geocities.com/pantsmcprofiles/profiles.html

Tuj] !York had inbuilt character because it had lived a bit. This site has an embrionic character of its own and is fertile ground.

[bob] And also because the move from Old York to Not York was pretty much seamless - !York was up within days, and Old York carried a redirector page to the new address. So there was pretty much continuity there, which the disappearance of York *without* replacement doesn't achieve.

Two dead links on the front page. I shall leave them there as a reminder to whoever to get an archive together which I will link to when put in place. Mind you, I can't see why !York at least couldn't be made live again.

On a more positive note, if there are any Pants refugees wishing to take residence here then I offer my warmest welcome to you all, and could even be convinced to get a new game going in celebration. In fact, I wonder if it's time for a couple of new games now that the current ones have been running for a while. I might nominate Centurion as a possibility, as one that never really caught on.

[rab] One of the most popular games on Pants was Animal, Vegetable, Mineral. Perhaps that should be added here?

I loved AVM & A - an excellent game for bringing out the competitiveness/stroppiness/impatience in some players - snorgle's obscure polecat being a memorable example. heheheheh. Blimey, I'm reminiscerating already.

Dammit - it was a caracal lynx! You think you'd remember..

So it was. I didn't guess it anyway, despite frenetic googling.

(Dr Q, Chalky) I agree. It would be nice to see that. Also Jeopardised, which for non ex-Pants members I should explain meant you were given an answer and had to provide a question. I think we can take it that Pants is as dead as the Norwegian Blue, but if not, and only "sleeping" I have to admit I'll be back, as old habits die hard. One of its best features was the chat space available in all the games.

[Rosie] I think you'll find the very thing in Orange MC.

[Rosie] I agree wholeheartedly (including the return should the server finally cool down.) Whilst Pant's format was in some ways limiting that particular facility was most useful, in that one could quickly scan recent entries and 'have a think' and whilst doing that have a chuckle at the comments. Rab, I'm not complaining!

[Rosie] Two things if I may. Firstly, did you receive a response to your e-mail? My system is doing some odd things at times; it gives me an error message and, at the same time, tells me the mail has been sent. Secondly, you being interested in weather, you may be interested in this site - http://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/weather/?Submit=I+Accept - the site is a good 3000' higher than I, so it's not really indicative of my weather. It's quite a neat set up though.

Was that a Diamond Python? It looks a bit like that to me, not that I'm an expert; my son would give me an instant report, however, he's not here. Anyhoo, they are totally harmless - even I will let one run around me (apart from the neck) they're constrictors.

That was supposed to be addressed to our resident herpetologist. Sorry, flerdle.

Hello Friends from pants. Is nice to meet you all.

I had to be in London today. By 4.30pm my meetings were over so I wandered over to tower bridge to see Mr Blaine. It was not disappointing. The wind was getting up and he was swinging around quite merrily.

Oh. Is he still there?

Presume so. Glad I'm not the only one paying NO attention to stupid Americans! Speaking of stupidity, what's everyone's take on this Russian Roulette gig of Derren Brown's? (Is it odd they have the same initials?)

I hadn't heard about it, so I googled and found this. Isn't this an old illusion in a modern context? Stage illusionists in Houdinis time regularly had members of the audience disemboweled or eaten by lions for maximum shock tactics. What Derren Brown is good at is publicity. If you saw a magician in a local club doing this, you'd probably not bat an eyelid.

I was in London last week, the taxi driver (who had just had an altercation with a large and very tatooed van driver) puttled into the traffic near the Blaine thing. "What's the holdup?" I inocently asked. "Oh, it some f***ing idiot in a f***ing glass f***ing box," taking deep breath to refresh expletive store, "causes nuffin' but f***ing trouble, all the f***ing idiots slow down and rubberneck, pain in the f***ing arse." Glad I asked, really.

Day off today, as it's German Reunification Day, which appears to be celebrated in absolutely no way whatsoever. I'm not sure what one would do - maybe create small model walls and knock them down or something. Anyway, this means that there's no physics lectures (hurrah) and an opportunity to head into town and take some pictures. At least, now that the fog has lifted.

I went to see him a while back. I thought it was actually quite interesting - I was struck by the fact that he's not suspended very high, so you can see him more clearly than I anticipated. At least he's only there for 44 days - Simeon Stylites stood on his pillar for 30 years, and even patriarchs and emperors went to see him.

Rab - are you living/working in Germany?

Just a short visit - two weeks in Dresden on a 'workshop' which is a kind of low-talk-density conference. Back home tomorrow.

[rab] I'm struck dumb - there really is a concept for which the German word is shorter than the English. But I s'pose Einheit is really 'unity'. Reunification (13) is Wiedervereinigung (17) - and rational order is restored. Phew!

In the game AMV is there a limit to how small you can go, as I was wondering last night, about atoms and molecules. Is a uranium atom "mineral" or is it abstract because at that scale it is millions of atoms that make the solid object. Once I started thinking of this (it was late) I also wondered about neutrinos, quarks, string and unstable waves in the 11th dimension (I had do stop somewhere) when does somethig stop being AVM and are sub/atomic particles allowed?

The atom is the smallest possible "mineral", because it, by definition, is an element. Anything underneath that (e.g. quarks, pions, leptons, gluons, neutrinos, photons, etc.) is abstract.

So where's the distinction between mineral and animal? Animals are made of atoms. And we count parts of animals, such as a leather jacket, as animal for these purposes. So a fragment of bone would count as animal, even though it's just a big pile of calcium atoms. So what about a single atom removed from that bone? Is that animal, while an identical atom removed from a rock is mineral? If we say that both atoms are mineral, then the difference between animal and mineral must lie in the form rather than the matter. But then a dinosaur bone has animal form but is made of mineral matter that was never part of the animal. Chalk is clearly a mineral but is made of what was once animals. In fact, given the existence of the "rock cycle", in which volcanic, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks all turn into each other - and into animals and plants and back again - with slow but ineluctable regularity, it seems that there is no objective dividing line between any of our three categories, and it's all just arbitrary.

[Breadmaster] It's only a game!

Going back a bit, I did apply to load the revolver in that Derren Brown thing. I got as far as having to do an audition tape but it never went further. Probably I was just too strange.

[BM] If it is alive/dead but the components thereof have not sufficiently decomposed to the point where it would be considered a mineral by geological standards, then it's animal and/or vegetable. A cricket ball, e.g. is both animal and vegetable. Bone, if that were the object in question, I would list as animal and mineral.

Or they just found the idea of Darren and Derren on stage at the same time to be too disturbing...

[BM] All sounds a bit quantum, to me.
What you're trying to do is draw definite lines along fuzzy boundaries, which looks OK from a distance but when you look closely, well, aren't.

[Darren] "Only a game"? You won't win anything with an attitude like that, my lad!

We had the same argument over SARS when that was a subject -- was it an animal, vegetable, or mineral? A virus is a non-cellular collection of ribonucleic acids which merely attaches to an unlucky living cell and sort-of-passively uses the cell's contents to propagate itself.

I'd claim it's a mineral, but others would have a valid argument otherwise.

And what about mushrooms?

Fungi in general would be considered vegetable.

So do we hope he snuffs it or what? (Refusing to get into highly confusing conversation about anything below sub-atomic level)

Dr Q] How would you class Harry Potter?

[Btd] Animal/Abstract.

I'm staggered they're showing Russian Roulette on TV. There was enough trouble with Jackass!! What the f*ck is going on? In a way, I hope he cops it. Would teach the lads at Channel 4 a lesson, eh? Mwahahaah!

The trouble with all these illusionists doing "high-risk" stunts is that we all *know* they'll survive it. It's like an adventure movie, you always have the nauseating knowledge the protagonist will come through in the end. Of course, there have been the rare occasions where it's all gone horribly wrong, but frankly I much prefer smaller, close-up magic than the hyped-up stuff.

So, you may ask, why did I apply for the Derren Brown thing? Well, having seen his other TV shows, I wanted to see what it would be like, simple as that.

[Dujon] Sorry am late replying, visiting friend near Wollongong, and with travel and all I didn't have net access for 48HOURS!!! I coped though :-). I don't know much about identifying snakes, so can't help you there much, but it did look like some sort of python, and was about 6ft long. I put a closeup of its head (and so some of its pattern) in that same directory, if I hadn't mentioned that before.

There is no problem in distinguishing between A, V and M (provided we can agree on a definition of life). Animals have life and a nervous system. Vegetables have life and no nervous system or brain. Minerals don't have life. The definitions include derivatives of Animal and Vegetable eg leather jacket, plank of wood, as has been mentioned. Inkspot puts his finger on it when saying there is a limit of how small you can go and to reduce it to atoms leads to meaninglessness. Even reducing it to molecules causes great difficulties.

I believe that, in the main, the idea is/was to have a target which is commonly known or which can be readily deduced rather than something esoteric. The whole idea is simply to give participants the chance to exercise logic and have a bit of fun in the process. In my opinion the use of 'string', as in the twine variety, is fine; the use of 'string' in the quantum sense is rather obtuse to most people and thus not in the spirit of the game. We all have our areas of special interest and should avoid the use of terms which are specific to experts (amateur or otherwise) in those fields. Well, that's my two bob's worth. ... :-)

I agree. It is easy to think of words/objects that cross the boundaries, but are they really fun to play? Surely it is the responsibility of the chairperson to set objects that are interesting, logical and entertaining. Dujon] This is my one Bob's worth!

If someone tried to put up something like 'a calcium atom from an animal bone' no-one'd ever get it and they'd be seriously looked down upon in future. I don't know how many bob's that was. Maybe Bob (the dog) knows best.

Agree with all above. Also, from experience, when In The Chair - it's worth considering how attentive you can be for the following few days. DrQ's 'mineral' moved along fairly swiftly, even though there were plenty of questions - all down to the fact that he was 'here' and could reply quickly. Ten bob please.