Before I get down to the rez, Let me just second Mark’s post below. Spy Ring looked brilliant, played like Ludo on Tamazepan. It is quite possible that I had a later version of the game which used the almost impenetrable code of reading mirror writing as the key to its secrets. Don’t even start me on Swindle, the game of antique auctions. (Waddingtons – so much to answer for.)
Anyway, last night I spent a jolly evening in the pub, celebrating yet another of my friends 30th birthdays. With us was an Arsenal fan. Being an Arsenal fan is a interesting mixture of fan types. Going great guns in the league, they are absolutely abysmal in Europe. As such you get to suffer at least a touch of the ying and yang of supporterdom (without the kaflooey of your club going bankrupt which keeps much of the rest of professional football going). Anyway, last night in the Champions League Arsenal played Dynamo Kiev, and said fan was scurrying home to catch the highlights.
Without going all “Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads” on you, I made a brief comment to try to keep him in the pub. The game was over, what would another half hour be. To whit I used my oft noticed skill at lying and told him the score. A fictitious made-up score. His face fell (mainly because I told him Arsenal had lost). Then repenting I told him it was a lie. He was not sure if he believed me, but unpicking my timeline for the evening showed there was no way, short of listening to a portable radio in the toilets, that I could know. So he skipped off happy.
Imagine my horror this morning waking up and discovering the actual score of the game was 2-1 – to Kiev. The self same score I had guessed at the night before. Maybe I should be playing this predict-o-score game of ILX…