The Mallorcan Cockroach Killer

Mallorca.  Out there, amongst the fragrant orange blossoms and gin & tonic & another & another, the 2009 Scrabble tournament was held.  Sounds of bells from the valley of sheep lying in the distant south of poolside tinkled.  Rising early, I did try to write with a pen.  And I can say that I was utterly incapable of that.  Slow writing is not my thing.

This morning, back in sunny London I opened my suitcase to gaze at my trophies.  "World Scrabble Champion" and "Highest Scoring Word" were my winnings.  But something else was in my bag.  It scuttled across the floor.  After a few good screams, I crushed it to death with Jake Chapman's book.  Very appropriate.  Thank you Jake.  The Mallorcan cockroach should have stayed in the posh farmhouse.

Tennis, scrabble, and gin & tonic swilling are jolly good competitive sports.  As far as non-competitive, the blog is the thing.  While I was away, Leigh Caldwell was busily slogging on my site.  Humourously noted by Leigh, his name is "common" and mine is getting past its sell-by date.  A bloglift is in order.

So. Rebranding.  "The Outsider Economist", "Slow Economics" and "The Mallorcan Cockroach Killer" are all contenders.  In keeping with the viral tangent in the news of late, I think Leigh and I ought to rebrand with some hybrid names that reference each other.

Ponder that.  Whilst I go and see if I can get the blood off of Jake's book.

The Class Thing

Missmarketcrash had a delightful game of scrabble last night with the posh mums.  It is easter holidays here in leafy London and the children have been having tennis lessons during the time off from school.  With one child in state school, and, one in private, it was inevitable these two worlds of distinctly different mums would meet each other somehow.  And so they did.

Like the best hollywood kind of drama, the private school mums confided to me last night that they had met the state school mum at the tennis pickup.  And I gather it did not go so well. There seemed to be some kind of general agreement that state school mummy had been dismissive and abrupt. Oh dear.  Like a rabbit in the headlights, I imagine she was terrified by my bunch.  Or, the more sinister implied possibility, she was "ill-mannered".  Oh dear oh dear oh dear.  State school mum was taking my state school child off for a playdate.  Her son is a gem of a boy, full of zest and good manners.  An A-list type of boy.  I do not know state-school-mum well but I am pretty sure she cannot be a savage with such a fantastic child.   I did sputter to the posh mums that state-mum was a super-mum and seemed to have few faults save looking perfect at all moments and being a bit short.  The posh mums did laugh quite a lot afterward addressing the class issue head-on and it all became a bit of a folly.

On the flip-side, after an evening out with some of the new state school mums a few weeks ago, I was on the other side of the class war.  After meeting a group of new mums and being asked which school my son had transferred from.  "DCPS" I mumbled.  And where is you other son? "DCPS" I mumbled again.  A mum at the table took that very opportunity to go silent.  The rest of the table followed suit and an arctic wall was erected. Cigarettes were lit in that quiet cliff-hanger kind of way.   The head mum then began to pontificate how terrible it was that someone could be bumped down the waiting list for such a good school just because some family who happened to live a bit closer had a credit crunch and decided to change schools... How dreadfully direct.  

So. What does Missmarketcrash think about the class thing?  Nothing.  And a lot.  It is an unavoidable thing here.  In a utopia, I'd say as long as you are a good scrabble player, you are in.

I'd rather be playing scrabble...

Missmarketcrash is in the midst of a four day birthday celebration so would like to advise you that the quality of posts may be a bit...off.  Last night, the London Scrabble team kicked off the festivities and brought Missmarketcrash a cake decorated with gold chocolate coin money.  It was heaped on like a pirate's bounty and Team Scrabble looked on with careful anticipation - was Missmarketcrash going to laugh, or, burst into tears?  A trademark giggle from Missmarketcrash calmed the anxious air.  Continuing on the money theme, Missmarketcrash was presented with a series of Lottery tickets.  Now....Missmarketcrash is not the lottery ticket buying sort, but, gosh, her head started spinning.  Missmarketcrash's father once proclaimed (and he was probably parrot pontificating) - he once proclaimed that Lottery tickets were a sneaky tax on the poor.  So then (according to the parrot pontificator), they are useful to the government, inspire happiness, and create a bit of poverty where poverty is not needed.  Hmmm.  That is the current form.  Now...suppose we reverse that.  If there were something that created a bit of a hole for the government, made people sad, and created a bit of wealth where wealth is not needed....

We would then have arrived at the public sentiment regarding the current crisis.

But - I digress.  Back to the Lottery concept.  If ordinary citizens could buy a ticket with the names of companies that one could bail out during the current crisis in different forms - let's say you've got Citigroup, Chrysler, Motorola, UBS, Sun, and Ebay on your card.  There would be a good mix of companies from all over the world represented, and, no two cards would be alike.  If your ticket was randomly selected to be the winning ticket, those companies would be given a golden heart and a cash infusion and the ticket holder would be given a good number of shares (held through a third party) which may or may not be valuable at the current moment.   Deja-vu?  

A Lottery is the oddest kind of game.  It has no reliance on skill and the element of chance is both appealing and repellent (or at least for a control freak such as moi).  It is almost a "something for nothing" exchange as the rewards offered are often a million times greater than the cost.  There are "odds and probabilities", but, they seem almost hypothetical when one gets to the odds on the best prizes.  

Metaphorically and non, I'd rather be playing scrabble...