Robert's ramblings

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Free Cell

My iPhone tells me that I have just won my 564th game of Free Cell. It reliably informs me that I have spent 103 hours and 23 minutes achieving this milestone. Now, that is a serious amount of time to have wasted playing solitaire. But has it really been wasted time? I have come to realise that this game has taught me some interesting lessons on how to get ahead in life.

Let me explain.

To achieve 564 wins has required me to play 713 games, a 79% success rate. But what is remarkable is that I am now on a winning streak of 308 games in a row. How is it possible to move from a 63% success rate in the first 405 games to a 100% success rate in the next 308? There is clearly something going on here. By my calculation, to achieve a winning streak of 308 by chance based on a success rate of 63% would be more than a one in a novemdecillion chance (I looked it up: 1 in 10^60).

Now, if this change of form had been achieved in a business setting, scores of academics and management consultants would be beating a path to my door to discover the ’secret sauce’. Is this simply an application of that oldest of insights, the learning curve effect? Or have I discovered a fantastic new winning technique, that can be written up in a blockbuster best-seller?

The truth is that my change in success was down to the simplest of changes in strategy: I just decided that I would stop giving up when I got stuck. My wife Amanda had told me that you could always win at Freecell. But faced with the hard evidence from my first 405 games, it was easier for me to believe that she was exaggerating or that there was something different about the version of the game I was playing (”it won’t work here”). But eventually I decided to persevere. Use the ‘undo’ and the ‘restart’ button to try, try again if at first I didn’t succeed. Now although this is a simple change in strategy, it is far from an easy one (my longest ‘win time’ is 1 hour 10 minutes). I think there is a life lesson in there.

So now I have a new challenge. Can I prove that you can always win at Free Cell? By my calculation, based on a winning streak of 360, I can be 95% sure that the chances of having an unwinnable hand are less than 1%. To be 99% sure that the chances are less than 1%, I’ll need to extend my winning streak to 500. Or maybe I should just believe Amanda.

You’ll probably think it pathetic that I have nothing better to do than calculate obscure statistics. You’re right, I’d better go and do something more useful. I’ve got an unfinished Freecell game to solve.

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Red Arrows

The family went to Silverstone last Sunday to see what could be the final Formula One Grand Prix there, if Donnington can get its act together by next year. Sadly, unlike our first visit last year, we didn’t get to see a British win, despite Jenson’s dominant form this season. On a brighter note, last year’s rain and mud were replaced by sunshine. Last year, the low cloud cover caused the Red Arrows to cancel their display. This year, they delivered a stunning show in clear skies and sunshine. The parking and traffic control were also significantly improved and as a result our journey home was much faster. We are certainly hoping that Silverstone will get a reprieve, as we really don’t fancy the extra miles that Donnington would involve. Fingers crossed.

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Lobby feature

We realised that it had been some time since we had escaped for a dose of sun and relaxation by the pool. With only a five day slot in our collective calendars, we were somewhat distance and time zone constrained and settled on a few days in Dubai. It had been over 10 years since we had been there as a family and a lot has changed in that time. We expected big and brash and Dubai delivered… with golden knobs on. We expected hot and got 44°C. We expected some of the best hotels in the world and got palatial rooms, fantastic food and an attached water park, complete with ziggurat. What we didn’t quite expect was how expensive the place has become, for example the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu was £40 and a beer was £8. Ouch.

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Finished kitchen

Well, I think we can now finally draw an end to the new kitchen saga. The decoration is done and the TV and Wii reinstalled, so the kids are happy. The weekend project was to put the curtains back up and since they haven’t fallen down yet, I’m going to quit whilst I am ahead. We still need blinds for the kitchen window, but since we haven’t had any for the last 15 years, I am declaring that ‘out of scope’.

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Winchester Cathedral

The orchestra that Laura plays in put on a concert in Winchester last weekend. The concert hall was in Winchester College; beautiful old buildings surrounded by fantastic magnolia trees in full flower. A magical setting for an evening of Bach, Vivaldi and Holst. Wonderful.

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Floor!

Amazing… we finally have a floor. Well, at least the kitchen area is finished. The family room is still to do. Work resumes on Monday.

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The final phase...

Day 131… and works have finally resumed! Floor over the next few days, painting next week.

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All Saints Church, Binfield

We’ve decided we need to get out more. It’s not that we haven’t been busy. We’ve actually been very good lately at getting out to concerts, sporting events and dinner with friends. But we concluded we should do more “going for walks as a family”. So for the last two weekends, we’ve been heading off for a 3 mile walk each Sunday.

For walk one, we were lucky in almost every way. The weather was gorgeous and the walk a scenic one. The only problem was the shoes I had stupidly picked to wear. Within a couple of hundred yards, I already had blisters on my heels and could only complete the rest of the walk by squashing down the back of the shoes and creating a pair of ‘improvised mules’. Which made the whole thing more of a shuffle than a walk.

For walk two, my blisters had mostly recovered and I had chosen my footwear more wisely. I was looking forward to enjoying a nice Sunday stroll. The sun was shining as we finished our pre-walk pub lunch and headed off. Twenty minutes later, the rain was setting in. By the time we reached the half way point, we were in the middle of a gale being lashed by torrential rain. Cold and drenched we arrived back at the car, just as the rain stopped and the sun came out again. Third time lucky next weekend?

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Where is everybody?

It has been great to exchange the business pressures of surviving the credit crunch for the task of trying to stay upright whilst skiing an expanse of fresh powder. Although I must admit that there are some similarities to the two challenges, on the whole it has been a pleasant escape. However, it was impossible to avoid being constantly reminded of the world’s problems. Whether it was the ease of getting a table in the restaurants or the length of the queues for the lifts, there were signs everywhere of the downturn, even though this must have been one of the busiest weeks of the year. What has certainly not helped is the weakness of the pound: suddenly everything is 30% more expensive for us Brits, and Val d’Isère was far from cheap to start with. At least the shops were running sales, so Amanda and Laura got some rather nice new ski jackets with a 30% discount. That made me feel better, almost.

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Snowy garden

So what is it with the weather? Most years we don’t get any snow, but this year the UK seems to be turning into Siberia. I managed to miss the big snowfall on Monday since I was in Madrid. But the kids have been very happy, school closed and lots of snow to play with. Off skiing again next weekend, so I think I’m going to need some beachtime as an antidote soon!