Links to Chapter One and Chapter Two
Edmund slipped and shivered through the snow until he eventually found the Witch’s castle. It looked quite creepy, but bolstered by thoughts of Turkish Delight (oh, his Saracens – and the Scarlets were his favourite Welsh side), he crept through the imposing main gate.
He found himself in a courtyard filled with statues. They had snow settling on them, and they all looked very sad. Near the gate, there were a couple of magnificent Lions, and then he spotted a statue that looked very like Lucy’s description of Mr Iknus. There was a collection of stone rugby balls, and what looked like a few referees. (“Those referees probably deserved it,” thought Edmund.)
Suddenly, Edmund was rooted to the spot by a chilling low growl. He turned his head to find himself staring into the eyes of Maugrim, chief of the Witch’s Very Secret Police.
“Come,” said Maugrim, “Her Majesty is expecting you.”
* * *
“What!” said the Witch, not at all friendly like the last time, “Have you come alone? I told you to bring the Daughters of Maeve and the other Son of George.”
“B – b – but,” stammered Edmund, afraid of her icy stare and stern manner, “I couldn’t get them away from the Beavers. They were all talking about the return of Paulan to Narnia.”
The Queen turned even paler, if that were possible.
“Paulan!” she muttered to herself, “No, it cannot be possible. My spells are strong.”
Before Edmund knew what had happened, she had crossed the room and spear-tackled him with one strong arm. “Tell me all,” she said, preparing to drive his head into the ground.
Edmund, quaking with fear, told her all that he knew.
The Witch released him with a thump on the floor, and clapped her hands to summon her minions.
“Harness the springboks and prepare my sledge immediately! Get my dwarf! Maugrim: take the swiftest of your wolves, go to the Lodge, and kill the children and the Beavers. If they have already gone, then proceed to the Stone Stadium.”
In the twinkling of a drop goal, the sledge pulled up, driven by a dwarf who looked suspiciously like a scrum-half. Edmund was bound, and unceremoniously dumped into the bottom of the sledge. There wasn’t even any Turkish Delight.
* * *
“Susan,” said Peter, “Where’s Edmund?”
“I – I don’t know. Now that you mention it, I haven’t noticed him for a while.”
“Ah, children,” said Mr Beaver, “I’m afraid he’s gone to see the Witch. We must be on our way quickly.”
“What?”, said Lucy, “No, surely Edmund would never betray us.”
“Daughter, I’m afraid he has the look of one who is in the Witch’s favour. How long that favour lasts is another matter.
“Did anyone notice when he left? Did he hear that Paulan is on the move?”
Nobody was quite sure.
“Then we must be off at once. Mrs Beaver, please pack us up as quickly as you can.”
Mrs Beaver – for of course it’s always the females who are prepared for anything – had already got nearly everything ready for travelling. She had a pack ready for everyone, and they were off in less time than it takes to reset a scrum.
* * *
They had a long, cold and weary journey, and stopped after some hours at a safe hiding place, where they cast themselves down on the floor, covered themselves with the blankets kindly provided by Mrs Beaver, and fell asleep immediately.
They were awakened at dawn by some faint voices, which became clearer as they drew closer.
“Ho, ho ho! Go left! It’s on!”
“I’m straighter than that throw-in.”
The children rubbed the sleep from their eyes and looked in confusion at the Beavers.
“It’s Father Jiffy and Father Nige,” beamed Mr Beaver. “The Witch’s magic has kept them from Narnia for so long, but her enchantment is fading. The voices of rugby have returned to the land.” They rushed outside to find a volley of rugby balls flying through the air, and the snow at last melting.
Ovally Balls 
Brookter – ha! I’ll have to watch that later.
I was looking at your maths course yesterday and was inspired to do something like that*. I am doing a business analyst course right now but it’s really…. Dry.
Something like further maths (I already have an A level) or philosophy or something that I haven’t touched at all.
*I’m also inspired by how much Mrs Craig’s is enjoying her interior design course which is far more technical than we both expected.
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Brookter – Re lockdown haircuts, I might shave my head on the weekend, just because my current style is more ridiculous.
Maybe if I do that I’ll start telling people to ‘fookin smash im’ and only wear track suits.
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We’re moving out of the lockdown now and hairdressers/barbers have been open since last Monday. Keeping my Brian Cox-like locks for a wee bit, though.
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Brian Cox could never do this. I once spoke to a BBC science tv producer who thought the Ascent of Man was brilliant, but said they’d never do that again. “We’ve moved on” she said in a rather superior tone.
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Again, ‘snot a competition.
Also, fucking hell OT.
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Have been developing some ridiculous lockdown facial topiary. Got quite attached to it now.
Desperately need a haircut. Kidz are trying to persuade me to shave my heid. Actually half tempted by a no.1 all over.
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Grown a lockdown beard. It is very white – adds about 20 years on. Not sure whether I’ll keep it when we go back. Did get a wee beard and hair trimmer and to keep my flowing locks in check. Tend to keep my hair fairly short anyway – its just a wee bit shorter than normal. I think I’ll be happy to keep my hair like that in future.
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Chimpie – I’m going to be going that way. Maybe retain a mohawk* for the bank holiday lols.
I think I’m also going to shave boy no1. Mrs Craig’s says ‘no’ but she can’t be everywhere at once.
*is that cultural appropriation like the not racists? Not sure if it matters in Kent tbh.
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Ha. Back in early April the kidz requested mohicans, and got them on the understanding that it was only time they’d ever have it supported by us as parents. Looked a right pair of wee punks.
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Looked a right pair of wee punks.
That’s the point chimpie!!! It’s been on my bucket list furra while so I’m going to do it.
When I had the opportunity to do it before I was worried that I’d look like a bellend. Now I realise that I do anyway so where’s the harm?
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Go for a fauxhwak, craigs.
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Craigs — that’s sounds good! There are some really interesting courses out there. Not sure which one I’ll do next — philosophy sounds good to me too. Let me know which one you choose…
Anyway, here’s today’s “I’ve just sat through a lecture on Probability and now you get to answer a question as well” quiz.
1. 1000 goes
2. 2000 goes
3. 4,800 goes
4. Longer than 4 billion years.
Enjoy…
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Tomp – can’t change now
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Mrs B cut my hair the other day, using level 6 on a beard trimmer. It seems to have left everything the same length, but thinned it all out a bit. Not sure how, but it’ll do for now — no need to go crazy…
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@brookter
Gambling is non-ergodic. Much of the time you’ll be bankrupt before you get there.
“Never cross a river that is on average 4 feet deep”.
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OT,
I think that’s why they put the ‘stop when you’ve lost your stake rather than your house’ limit in the question. But assuming you don’t trigger that, how long to reach £2k?
Plus:
1. I had to look up non-ergodic; and
2. You’re barred from answering anyway because you know too much.
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Brookter – I’ve enrolled in the course so will get back to you!!!
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Craigs — the Fat Chance one? Excellent. I’m sure you’ll find it a lot easier than I do…
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First impression, 4.
i and 2 don’t make sense as answers. 3 is too neat with the 48%. 4 seems outlandish so I’ll go with that.
Now to try and Do the Math.
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Tom,
[spoiler]
Outlandish and correct apparently… This type of question is called Gamber’s Ruin… Basically, if you’re going to gamble, splurge it all seems to be the only answer, or better still, don’t do it at all.
[/spoiler]
OK, so spoiler tags don’t work on the blog. Oh well.
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DCI, I think you’d lose all your money slightly quicker.
Best way to do this, if you don’t want to wait over a billion years to lose all your money, is to do what I do and put some cash on Scotland to win the Grand Slam every year.
Next year, mind, I’ve just got a feeling that next year’ll be the one,
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I recommend that book OT put up on probability. You’ll learn why you shouldn’t let dentists xray your kids and why population breast cancer screening is a bad thing. Also why you should bin probability notation when talking to humans.
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Professor Brian Cox has discussed probability in some depth:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w78gr
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Brookter – I err towards answer 4. But I’m not sure why. Maybe because I am not a gambler in any way.
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Brookter – yep, the fat chance course.
Re philosophy, there’re loads of you search the site (I just typed ‘philosophy’ into the engine). There’s one on philosophy and critical thinking which looks interesting.
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“UK bulk buys hydroxychloroquine as potential Covid-19 treatment”
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The covid mask issue seems like a classic case of bench scientists versus applied scientists.
The Chinese have just reported that sick hamsters separated from healthy hamster by mask material didn’t infect them, which is great news if you’re a hamster trapped in a cage. In the real world, people who wear masks go out 2.6 times more often, stay out 3.1 times longer and make 1.6 times less effort to avoid other people.* And constantly touch their face/mask. And go out even when they’re a bit sneezy.
You only need a few mask-wearers out there to remind everyone else there’s a pandemic going on.
* not actual peer-reviewed results from a reputable study.
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Tom,
Well, yes, losing all your money is probably a bit quicker. I know roulette tables were bad, but I didn’t realise that playing conservatively was worse (by millions…) than just splurging the whole lot. I mean, 48% isn’t great, but it’s a bit better than a number with 35 noughts straight after the decimal point.[1]
[1] 1.73 x 10^-35, since you ask.
Craigs,
I hope you enjoy the course… And obviously expect you to give a detailed comparative description of the 3 professors compared to their 1980s equivalents.
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Brookter – ooh coursework already?
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@bk
An excellent common-sense point that will not figure in any of the models.
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TBF, this task won’t take you long – the styles are broadly speaking unchanged, which is comforting.
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It seems to me to on every 100 spins – you lose €52 as the wheel lands on red. So, for the remaining 48 spins – you win back €1 plus your stake – so that’s €96. Effectively, you lose €4 every 100 spins. So, you lose all your money after 2000/4 *100 = 50000 spins.
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What is the probabilty that you leave a message and it kills notablog?
(a) 1%
(b) 50%
(c) 100%
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So if I do 1000 posts I generally kill the blog 5% of the time on average. But this needs to then be weighted by:
a) the bullshit % which ranges up to 95% on top of the average depending on how much bullshit I am spewing.
b) bloodborne. Add 15%.
c) who I am insulting (chimpie, cat, the Welsh lunatic fringe) which generally takes 3% off the average.
d) the fat tail factor Nassim was talking about yesterday which performs witchcraft (see bloodborne) to any percentage.
So I guess the answer is 42.
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“Actually half tempted by a no.1 all over.”
Said the same to Mrs Deebee. She wondered out loud how long I was gonna grow my hair for to get to a Number One.
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Craigs, it needs to be weighed against rapidity of posts too. 1000 posts over 10 years wouldn’t kill the blog or slow it down to any great degree. 1000 posts from home to work might create a wee bit of fatigue though. Do you multiply or divide your original equation though? Or just put it on black?
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Let me try my own theory..
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Post
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Toasties
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Washington
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Post.
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Post-nasal
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Drip.
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Oh flip.
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Won fuck all so far. It’s rigged.
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Don’t stress Thauma, only 992 or so to go.
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Spin. Black. Red. Go. Back. One.
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First game I saw in SA was Pretoria University v Joburg University. At 15 that day for UP-Tuks was Warrick Gelant. He was just out of school and this was his first game at senior level. He looked great. I spoke to him briefly later that season at an Under 21 game. He was a nice lad. I followed his career closely after that and was always delighted by his progress as first he got into the Bulls team and then made his Bok debut and even travelled to the 2019 World Cup as a squad player.
I’ve read today that the useless massively over-rated Warrick Gelant has signed for the Stormers.
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Let’s face it TomP, running more than 4 yards without hoofing the ball downfield has always been treated with great suspicion in Pretoria. Like being a blerrie Komunis but worse. Going to the graveyard of backline talent in Cape Town simply confirms Gelant’s uselessness. 50km south of Tshwane would’ve reignited his career, as had been the case with so many others.
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I like Gelant, but I think he lacks that half a yard or yard of pace to be a really great 15. Definitely has an eye for space and good hands and timing. Just short on the explosive pace.
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