Hokay …
So I was chatting away yesterday and the subject of Scrabble came up.
Now you all know I'm a mild-mannered and uncompetitive sort of guy (alright … Fess up; who said "HA!"?), but put me in front of a Scrabble board and I morph into a complete and utter bastard; a twisted, cruel and evil torturer of the haplessly ill-educated.
I've even been known to cackle.
Being a black belt, fifth dan pedant, the complete Oxford English Dictionary is LAW!
We'll have none of that "Official Scrabble Words Dictionary" crap! That's just a gimmicky tie-in for ignorant twats with no vocabulary.
I am a Jedi master of OED arcania and in particular, that Scrabble-winning endgame coup-de-grace, the high-scoring two or three letter word that nobody's ever heard of.
I revel (indeed I wriggle and writhe with sensual glee) in such words as "fid" (a conical hardwood pin used by sailors to splice rope), "dzo" (a hybrid cattle from the Himalayas), "xi" (fourteenth letter of the Greek alphabet), "ewt" (a kind of newt; I kid you not), "ax" for axe, of course, "od" as Reichenbach's arbitrary name for a force, and many other splendid words guaranteed to cause a fight over the Scrabble board.
Complain that it's not in the so-called "official" non-dictionary and I'll beat you to a pulp with the OED and I'll be sure and use every single volume in amusingly painful ways.
And don't even THINK about using a non-word from that cretinous charlatan Noah Fucking Webster. Try "color" and I'll kill you without further warning.
So …
That leads me to what popped back into my mind yesterday from the dank cellars of what remains of my memory; a competitive game a couple of decades back.
This was a local BBC radio organised thing. The prize was a trip to Moscow, which - being of the Anarcho-Syndicalist persuasion I was eager to win.
I didn't win, by the way. Some bastard ringer from London beat me by two points and I had to go home with £250 to spend in Jarrolds, the local department store.
My little tale today comes from the semi-final, where I was paired with an evil and bitter, calculating hag in the disguise of a nice little old lady.
We were up against a time limit and getting toward the last play and it was neck and neck.
Playing with an audience and a panel of judges (A fester of judges? A midden of judges? What is the word?) seemed to bring out the nasty in people and this nice little old lady was being a real bitch.
We were desperately blocking any high-scoring squares and frustrating one another at every move; jaws set into grimaces and steely glares flashing murderous hate across the table.
Last move …
The hag-lady laid first and was suddenly twenty-nine points up.
BASTARD!
But in her greedy haste she had left an opening. Had she gone for a lesser score somewhere else on the board she may well have beaten me, but her overconfidence left a tantalising triple-word score square naked and vulnerable.
My only problem was that the perfect word was not … er … the perfect word to use in front of a little old lady and a family audience.
Fortunately I am an evil, twisted bastard with no morals …
I called a judge over and he concurred - somewhat blushingly - and I laid my tiles.
V - 4 (triple-word score)
U - 1
L - 1
V - 4 (double-letter score)
A - 1
on a triple word score to give me forty-five and the match!
Bwahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!
Her face was a picture.
I love being a bastard.
Hee hee hee hee hee.
Anyone for Scrabble?
22 comments:
Er... sorry i'm washing my hair on that day.
Trust you to get in vulva. LOL. I love scrabble too. Like you i'm competitive (not quite so scary though, in fact not even close). I'm quite swotty like you too. I'm never more pleased than when my father rings saying he's stuck on the last crossword clue - i like to get the answer out of my mouth at machine-gun speed. What made us like this, Dive?
Radio Four and a grammar school education, Lynn.
Plus of course a good dose of snobbery. Hee hee.
"Anyone for Scrabble?" Never will we play Scrabble. I like to play without keeping score, and I like using words like "dog" and "cat." Beyond that, my vocabulary crumbles.
Funny story, though.
You're not going to beleieve this but I only played scrabble a few times when I was a kid and I hate it. I liked games that involved women and drinking more.
I used to drive a 1975 Vulva until it had a crash.
It caught fire at the crash repairs one time.
It really was a C**T of a car, so all my friends said.
How many points is that ??
i'm with scout and rich on this one, simple pleasures out here in the colonies. xoxo
(i did, indeed, snort when i read your opening lines, sugar. and yes, in a most unladylike manner!)
Robyn: you are a brilliant writer and wordsmith. I do believe you jest, young lady!
Rich: When played right, Scrabble does indeed involve women and drinking.
Monsieur Benaut!!!! Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!
I guffawed so loudly at that that the whole damned office had to come over and see what I was laughing at.
Savannah: Unladylike snorting is always something I look for in a woman. Hee hee.
Crikey, Dive.
I didn't laugh until I read your reply.
Now I can't stop !!!!
BTW, I used to work in an office full of 'em. Pure porn;- as a learned chap once said.
I wanted to say "erm" after reading M.B's comment but I was laughing so hard that himself called from upstairs "what?"
Actually, the word is "em". You'll know it of course Dive but just in case you don't - take a peek in the OED. It's quite useful on a triple word score.
M.B and I beat his son Henry and Rachel, Henry's fiance, at midnight after about 3 bottles of red, half a bottle of scotch and many beers (of course I was drinking lemonade). Poor Henry was so peeved that his father could beat him at scrabble!
I can't do a crossword to save myself though.
Mme et Monsieur: "em" is indeed a good word; phonetic spellings of alphabet letters are a great way to finish off a game, and almost guaranteed to start a fight. Hee hee.
How about "en" then?
I may have a lot of words tucked in the crevices of my brain, but they are quite often misspelled, and they tend to look a little like the words in Noah Webster's guidebook.
Ay, Mme; en's ok.
Robyn: I'm the one who couldn't even spell "sheesh" in your comments the other day. Hey ho.
Tried to leave a message about 12 hrs ago but the lines get dropping out and I went to bed in disgust.
Glad you liked the scaffolding I actually took the photo in!!!
Re Scrabble - I don't play 'cause I'm useless at games .....well board games anyhow!!!!
Would love to have seen the old dears face - did her mouth go like a chook's bum?????
Some of the sentence disappeared.....
"I actually took the photo in Vietnam for you 'cause i thought you'd get a giggle out of it."
That's weird as i do remember typing it!!!!!
Ah, two out of three Dive. I'm a mere secondary school product. As soon as i left the sorry excuse for an educational establishment, i took charge of my own education. lol!
I don't think I've laughed so hard at a post, or the comments section of any blog ever! This is such a classic story. Are you sure someone there didn't film this, because a video of Dive v. Little Old Lady (LOL!) would get a million hits. I'd even PAY to see it! And Mr. Benaut, I will quote your "car" story the first chance I get!
My grandparents were big Scrabble players (they only used a Merriam-Webster from about 1962, which was extremely frustrating), but unfortunately I didn't quite get the Scrabble gene. My grandfather was really good at all those little strange words that fit into nooks and crannies creating 12 different words, and using an X. I beat my grandfather just once, but only because he had two beers at dinner, which was out of character. I miss playing Scrabble with them.
Jules: Her mouth did indeed go like a chook's bum! Hee hee.
Sorry about your crappy lines. I remember how angry and frustrated mine used to make me.
Lynn: I love the word "product" there. And I agree, I only really started learning stuff after I left school.
Katie: I'd have loved playing against your grandfather; he sounds a wily opponent.
As for Monsieur Benaut's car! Hee hee. I shall say no more.
Okay..no scrabble with you. Ever. Liv can beat me at scrabble. And she is all about those gutsy moves. So...wanna take on a little girl? She may surprise you....
Vulva?? HA!!
You must go to YouTube and search "Seinfeld Delores" and watched the clip titled "Delores!"
Trust me...
Maria: With my schools I am well used to the merciless pounding little girls can give grown-ups at everything we think we're good at. Hee hee.
Lulu: I trust you implicitly.
I just watched it and laughed like a loon.
Now I'm all giggly. Thank you for that.
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