Learning from Losing at Scrabble Championships

October 30, 2020 Ben Yeoh

A story of what 10 year old me learned losing at National Scrabble Championships

-Games can be all skill, all luck or a mix

-In the luck/skill mixed games hard to know what is skill or luck

-Life events are a mix of “luck” and “skill”

-Hope for the best but plan for the worst

-Mind set is important

-Negative mindset will tilt games away from you

-Even at the best skill, poor luck will lose games as in life.

-Many good outcomes are due to luck as in life

-Stand in the sunshine* when good luck comes - this is for life events or even whole life circumstances.

-Keep a positive mindset even when you lose games. Rolling a double six happens 1 out of 36 times. Play a decent number of games and you will see this often.

-On average, skill in the long run makes a difference - you might never see it obviously and you may never know it’s impact - so you need to keep trying regardless.

I’ve spent a decent part of my life playing games. All types of games, card games, video games, board games.

I was OK at chess, excellent (tournament level winning s a child) at scrabble, decent at Mah Jong, moderate at most video games, decent at backgammon and a variety of board and dice games.

When thinking about games, it’s useful to know if you are playing a luck or a skill game and importantly - what the rules are! It might seem obvious on the rules, but when I draw the analogy with life, I find that people are playing by the “rules” of other games and not their own game. Thinking on games:

Chess is a game of pure skill. There are factors that can influence this skill such as mindset, sleep, hunger but essentially the game is skill. Better players will virtually always beat weaker players.

Scrabble is mostly skill with some luck. Skill in knowing allowable words, word placement and managing rack balance, but a little luck in drawing letters. Better players will often beat weaker players.

Backgammon is a mix of skill and luck. With use of the doubling cube, it has an element of psychology as well making it simpler version of poker. Over a run of games, the stronger players will win (or a computer) but in any one individual game, a significantly weaker player has a chance of winning. A much higher chance than in chess or scrabble.

If you play a decent amount of backgammon, you can find out that a double six seems to happen often enough. One in 36 times. But how does that “feel” in a long run of games?

If you played the best moves and had the stronger position but lose to a double six, does that put you on “tilt” ? You feel the “unfairness” of the low chance luck and the inability to do anything about it - in fact you played all the correct moves but a piece of low probability resulted in a loss.

Or, in reverse, you were losing - perhaps made some poor moves - but a lucky throw saves you ?

I was challenged with this outcome around the age of 10 while playing scrabble. I had qualified for the equivalent of the National Junior Championships in my age category. It was held at the conference centre in Baden-Powell House, off the Cromwell Road (one of the busiest in London) in South Kensington. A detail I recall as event then Baden-Powell was a figure that sparked controversy. He founded the Scouts but is also linked with controversial views on race, and he was supposedly invited to meet HItler to speak about building ties with the German youth movement at the times.

I had never stepped foot in a place of such concerted scrabble. Tables and rows of boards and letters and clocks. Even back in 1988, the fundamental techniques of good scrabble are the same as today.

A knowledge of allowable words (meaning not necessary). Especially 2 letter words, then 3 letter words then common letters / high scoring 4 letters words, words with high scoring letters in and common 7 letter words.

An idea of “rack balance”

And the ability to find words in your rack and place them down.

Back in 1988, I knew all the 2 letter words, most of the 3 letter words and had a decent understanding of rack balance and common 7 letter words.

My main rival knew the 2 letter words but not many 3 letters words, by his admission and he was mediocre at 7 letter words as the longer anagrams he found a little tough.

On paper, I was the favourite but as the day progressed I had bad letter draws and he had good letter draws. My supposed edge in skill could not over come the luck deficit. The day was decided on points scored over a number of games and I ended up second. The trophy I still have (see picture above).

There were the usual truisms trotted out.

You tried your best.

That was an unlucky draw.

Second place is still great.

But 10 year old me was still stuck with the reality that all my preparation was not enough in the face of luck and competition that was strong even if not supposedly at my level.

Children do have this sense of fairness and what might be fair or not and I recall even my rival admitted he was lucky.

Still at this point another truism is trotted out:

Life is not fair.

My 10 year old self had to be satisfied that my process and play had been good, examine where it could be improved further and try again. Or, I had to stew in the unfairness of it all.

Well. It was only a game of scrabble and I had also raised a decent amount for charity via sponsorship. (Never sponsor $1 a point for good scrabble players) So I managed to mentalled resolve to be in the first mindset rather than the second.

That learning I have fairly well managed to apply to many life events as well. There is an enormous amount of luck that governs our lives and we are simply not in control. Some of the luck will be catastrophic, some will be great - but through either case the mind set is important.

I’d like to say I eventually won a major scrabble tournament. I never did. I didn’t win the second and final year I played either, although I was unsure if I was better than my rivals that year.

There is another noteworthy effect of losing/winning games. Some times, when you lose a game to a poor piece of luck or even poor skill this affects your future decision making adversely.

Games players call this going on tilt and playing on tilt is bad as it leads to more game losses and typically worse game decision making.

This applies to life decision making as well. It’s typically por to make decision when on tilt either emotionally eg in an argument or when something major might have gone wrong.

Conversely, winning games can make you overconfident at times and also impact your decision making.

Still another lesson on winning is both to be gracious but enjoy yourself. Gracious under pressure, gracious when losing, gracious when winning. But to enjoy the moment in the sunshine. It will rain. It’s perfectly OK to enjoy the moments in the sun.

More than that.

Life is about enjoying those moments in the sun as well.

In that sense, I think the stoics had a good set of ideas on overcoming and being sanguine with setbacks, but the epicureans have a good idea in enjoying the happy moments when they come.

“Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
a medley of extemporanea,
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
and I am Marie of Romania.”

-Gertrude Stein

JK Rowling on benefits of failure.

Me on Life Advice.

Far Flung Civilisations

September 28, 2020 Ben Yeoh

I’ve been thinking about far flung civilisations this week. Scientists think they may have detected phosphine in Venus that would be a potential sign of life. (NYT article)

Archaeologists and anthropologists have made a strong argument that humans were in the North Americas much earlier - 26,500 years ago - than previously though. Suggests humans could have done long distance travel from earlier than thought. (Smithosonian article covering the Nature paper)... "... For most of the 20th century archaeologists generally agreed that humans who had crossed the Beringia land bridge from Siberia to North America only ventured further into the continent when retreating ice sheets opened a migration corridor, about 13,000 years ago. But a few decades ago, researchers began discovering sites across the Americas that were older, pushing back the first Americans’ arrival by a few thousand years. Now, the authors of a new study at Mexico’s Chiquihuite cave suggest that human history in the Americas may be twice that long...."

I’m still influenced today by my few days visiting the extremely remote Wana tribe in the Indonesian jungle.
From the archive..." Once upon a time I went to visit one of the most remote people on this planet. These people were called the Wana tribe. “ Blog here:

On-line communities, light + dark

July 26, 2020 Ben Yeoh

As I’ve mentioned I’m involved with several communities which live much of their life on-line. Like many human tools they can be used creatively or destructively.

The one Anoushka set up Transport Sparks for young people with transport special interests could not easily have happened in a world Pre-Facebook. It’s brought a lot of community and social value together. We may laugh or be cynical about Zuck’s assertions about the power of connections and Facebook’s mission, but I observe truth to that.

This long form William Davies (Guardian, H/T Anna Gat) looks at the dark side of WhatsApp groups. Where Transport Sparks brings together light. Davies highlights how private groups can breed hate and conspiracy.

One aspect of some successful communities is while there may be a strong on-line component and in fact the group might not survive without a sustaining online platform there is also a real world meet-up component or at least - in COVID times - a video meet up. The group doesn’t remain solely hidden and anonymous, it acts as a catalyst for real world meetups. My own Mingle was a little like that as well.

Anna Gat’s Interintellect has salons as a pivotal focus. Transport Sparks have transport meet ups. Climate Action Tech has meet-ups real world and now online as well. British American Project thrives on its conference.

That said some gaming communities are almost all on-line. The MiiVerse community was a wonderful community. Sadly, there was little money in it - only social value and it was decommissioned by Nintendo.

On balance, I remain positive on humans. From this flows, I feel on balance positive about social media, platforms and communities and I feel positive about free speech and sharing ideas - even bad ones (thoughtful articulation of this importance by recent Paul Graham essay on conformity here) - as I think on balance we can add up to a better world despite all the challenges. Perhaps that’s one theme you can find from Thinking Bigly too.

Frequent Production equals successful internet production

June 23, 2020 Ben Yeoh

I’ve managed for the last 2 years or so a fairly consistent 2x a month newsletter. It would be net better if I was 1x a week (although there’s slightly higher churn for those who don’t like quite so much email / newsletters), and I don’t advertise it and there’s almost 1,000 subscribers now - mostly friends and contacts. My blog has been at about 1x -3x per week and backs up the newsletter.

I think I’ve understood this central lesson

“... successful internet production is frequent production. …” this is what you see in Instagram and other social media. Relevant, thoughtful and authentic helps but frequent production is the crucial component.

Tyler Cowen - who is one of the most frequent and well read economics blogs of all time - expressed that view and he applied it to what Magnus Carlssen is doing to on-line chess. Cowen himself is one of the most prolific bloggers alongside being well read.

Scott Alexander had done the same with his Star Slate Codex blog, before he took it down in a problem with the NY Times potentially exposing him in a friendly article.

I think it’s also part of Elon Musk’s genius.

It’s not necessarily that same for all types of production - I’m not sure live theatre is the same, but as more events move on-line, it’s something I am dwelling on.

Tyler on Chess: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/05/the-new-economics-of-chess.html

Scott Alexander on deleting his blog: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/22/nyt-is-threatening-my-safety-by-revealing-my-real-name-so-i-am-deleting-the-blog/

Fathoms: the world in the whale | Rebecca Giggs

June 5, 2020 Ben Yeoh

When you “review” the book of a friend, the review is never a review. This is - if we admit it - like all reviews because we can only bring our own biases, histories and sensibilities to all the work we read and view. A reader completes a book. A viewer completes a painting. An audience completes a performance. If it is ever complete.

In another life time - or maybe another chapter of life - to be a reviewer like the polish poet Wisława Szymborska. Her reviews have several lifetimes of insights on life and the world and - readily admitted - her biases - some collected in her “Non-Required Reading”.

I have three thoughts amongst many to share on Rebbeca Gigg’s new book, Fathoms: The World in Whale. The power of three has been with us for centuries so I shall stick with the threes.

The work is beautiful
The book tells you about whales but in doing so tells you what it means to be human
To me, this is a tale of hope and a tale of catastrophe - which is part of the story of humans and of whales and of our earth and our time on it.

On Beauty

What is poetry? If poetry is dancing, to standard prose’s pedestrian walking then this is poetry.

Take this opening passage:

“.. I helped push a beached humpback whale back out into the sea, only to witness it return and expire under its own weight on the shoreline. For the three days that it died, the whale was a public attraction. Locals brought their children down to see it. Then out-of-towners came, too. People would stand in the surf and wave babies in pastel rompers over the whale, as if to catch the drift of an evaporating myth. The whale was black like piano wood, and, because it was still young, it was pink in the joints under its fins. Waves burst behind it, sending spray over its back. Every few minutes, the whale slammed its flukes against the wet sand and exhaled loudly — a tantrum or leverage. Its soft chest turned slack, concertinaed by the pull of the swell. At first, the mood was festive. People cheered each time the whale wrestled in the breakers. Efforts made to free it from a sandbar in the morning had been aided by the tide. That the whale had re-stranded, this time higher up the beach, did not portend well for its survival, but so astonished were the people in the crowd, and such a marvel was the animal, that hope proved difficult to quash. What the whale inspired was wonderment, a dilation of the ordinary. Everyone was talking about it, on buses and in kiosks. Dogs on the beach, held back by their owners, swept flat quarter-circles in the sand with their tails. A few had their hackles up. How the dogs imagined the whale — predator, prey, or distant relation — was anyone’s guess, but they seemed keen to get a closer look. At sunset, armfuls of grease-blotted butchers paper — chips and battered hake — were passed around. The local surf lifesavers distributed zip-up hoodies. Wildlife officers, who had been stand-offish with the gathering crowd, relaxed and delivered some lessons on whale physiology. ..”

Now imagine a juxtaposition and breaking like this:

I helped push a beached

humpback whale back

out into the sea

only to witness it return and expire

under its own weight on the shoreline

For the three days that it died

the whale was a public attraction

People would stand in the surf

wave babies in pastel rompers over the whale

as if to catch the drift of

an evaporating myth

The whale was black

piano wood

still young

pink in the joints

under its fins

Waves burst

behind it sending spray over its back

Every few minutes the whale slammed its flukes

against the wet sand

At first the mood was festive

People cheered

What the whale inspired was

wonderment

a dilation of the ordinary

Everyone was talking about it on buses and in kiosks.

By sunrise, a part of the whale that ought not

to be outside of it was outside of it

A digestive organ

frilled and bluish

The whale’s billiard-ball eyes tumbled in its head.

I palmed an unremarkable

shell that sat for months afterwards

furred with dust on a ledge in my room

until it was lost.

And from the follow on passage:

“...Though we were shivering, the whale, only metres away, was boiling alive in the kettle of itself. That night a group of us slept lightly in the dunes, arrayed like question marks and commas on the white sand. Our minds cast to the cetacean huffing beyond the swale, then swooped back into cloudier visions. Surfers arrived in the early hours. Bouncing down to the water’s edge, they stood watching. I woke and brushed a second skin of pearly sand off my cheek, my shoulder, one thigh. Were those sharks, raiding a lux channel tipped up by the moon? Hard to tell. We resolved that the whale had been washed too high on the beach for any shark to reach it. Rinsed by pewter light, every detail was particular and peculiar. Ridges in the sand. Plants like handfuls of knives. It felt cold. It felt cold, to us. By sunrise, a part of the whale that ought not to be outside of it, was outside of it. A digestive organ, frilled and bluish in the foam. The whale’s billiard-ball eyes tumbled in its head, and its breathing sounded laboured. The sharks slid into vapour, a squinting rumour. No blood on the tideline. People stayed back from the water’s edge nonetheless. Swept slantwise, shallow waves smoothed, over-smoothed, smoothed. I palmed an unremarkable shell that sat for months afterwards, furred with dust on a ledge in my room, until it was lost. …”

Is that not poetry disguised as prose ?

The work has a beauty with words and sentence which matches the beauty of whales and sea. Perhaps some might find it overwrought. I find it matches the subject. From the technical science of benzenes to the whale wonderment.

What it means to be human

I’m aware of books that through a single entity tell a tale of humanity.

Humans and Art. (Ways of Seeing by John Berger)

The History of salt. (Mark Kurlansky’s Salt: History)

The life of a building on the Southbank of the London river Thames (Gillian Tindalls’ The House by the Thames: and the People Who Lived There)

This book is the same for whales. Humans have lived with them. Hunted them. Saved them. Polluted them. Rescued them. Captured them. Eaten, burnt and exploded their blubber. Sought to understand them. Continue to be eternally confused.

And so this history and retelling is a lens on humans.

“... From a detailed article on the development of PCBs and other benzenes, I discovered that these widely used, artificial compounds — eventually extracted, at scale, from coal tar — were first engineered by chemists as isolates from gases rendered out of whale oil. This was during the era when whales were a global commodity and a proto-energy industry — their fat sheared off by whalers and distilled to light lamps, grease machines, process textiles, and fuel the late stages of the industrial revolution. What a cruel and intimate historical loop: whale bodies provided the base chemistry from which the precursors to PCBs were extracted, and now, so many decades later, the legacy elements of these substances came to rest and accumulate in the living animals. …”

This is a tale of hope and a tale of catastrophe - which is part of the story of humans and of whales and of our earth and our time on it.

While this is a telling of the eco crises and extinctions and pollution and how symbol of the green movement in whales has become polluted, it’s also a telling of the power of change of the capacity of humans to change - how we have changed - how we will change - for better or for worse.

If you’d like to know more about the history of whales and humanity, check out Rebecca Gigg’s Fathoms. (Amazon Link)

Links:

Humans and Art. (Ways of Seeing by John Berger) (Amazon Link)

The History of salt. (Mark Kurlansky’s Salt: History) (Amazon Link)

The life of a building on the Southbank of the London river Thames (Gillian Tindalls’ The House by the Thames: and the People Who Lived There) (Amazon Link)

How to Fail, Malcolm Gladwell edition, Elizabeth Day

April 18, 2020 Ben Yeoh

I find podcasts too slow. Typically, I've read transcripts as faster. I haven't found the nuance of listening has added significantly. You do lose tone and inflection but not the core messages. However podcast are so popular - and not looking to slow down any time soon - and many fail to provide transcripts. Thus I've started to dabble in them. The upside to an atypical late night sleeper child is using the enforced time to try new experiences.

I've listened to a few of Elizabeth Day's podcast, How To Fail.

This paper suggests (H/T Tyler Cowen, see end) that we don't share our failures. It appears that people fail to realise that there is enormously valuable information in failures. Arguably more than in successes. Despite efforts at school to teach FAIL = First Attempt in Learning.

Elizabeth Day has hit upon a *winning* podcast formula. She has a rather amazing host of guests coming on and discussing their failures. Or rather, of course, discussing their learnings that "failure" has revealed.

One episode already has been echoing with me all week. Malcolm Gladwell spoke of three learnings amongst other rather thoughtful matters.

Gladwell was a high performance runner aged 16. But, at that age, he already knew - or thought he knew - he wouldn't go on to be an ultra elite runner. So, he gave up running. Thinking that the point of running and races was to win and be the best. Decades later, Gladwell started running again. He found he really enjoyed running. He considered not learning that earlier as a failure. The goal of running was not winning and Gladwell missed out on an activity that would have given him much pleasure over the decades.

Gladwell is a mediocre cook. When people come to his house to eat, they don't have to worry about the food. The food will never be elite. They only have to worry about enjoying themselves.

The pressure of not having to win a race revealed a deeper truth about the activity.

Gladwell once made a major error in misquoting a controversial intellectual. This was all about race, IQ and the bell curve. The error revealed the nature of his own biases. These type of biases his work was arguing against.

Gladwell discovered a friend of his was alcoholic. But, he hasn't stood by her in a way he would have wanted. It's complex but he considers this a failure of his friendship. The observation sparked a conversation on the nature of friendships through time.

There's a bunch of nuance and other ideas you gain from this podcast. It's a recommend from me.

Ofc, easier said then done - learning from mistakes...

Study on failure to share failures…”Failure often contains useful information, yet across five studies involving 11 separate samples (N = 1238), people were reluctant to share this information with others. First, using a novel experimental paradigm, we found that participants consistently undershared failure—relative to success and a no-feedback experience—even though failure contained objectively more information than these comparison experiences. Second, this reluctance to share failure generalized to professional experiences. Teachers in the field were less likely to share information gleaned from failure than information gleaned from success, and employees were less likely to share lessons gleaned from failed versus successful attempts to concentrate at work. Why are people reluctant to share failure? Across experimental and professional failures, people did not realize that failure contained useful information. The current investigation illuminates an erroneous belief and the asymmetrical world of information it produces: one where failures are common in private, but hidden in public….”

Links to Elizabeth Day’s podcast How to Fail.

Pink was not pink, the colour as we know it. Cultural change.

April 18, 2020 Ben Yeoh

Pink was not the colour pink
Cultural Change in Taiwan

I was reminded that pink was not the pink we know:

Look up the word pink in the dictionary, and you’ll probably find a lot more definitions than you might have expected.
As well as being the name of a pale red color, a pink can be a small flat-bottomed sailing vessel, a juvenile salmon, a chaffinch, a decorative hole or eyelet, a stab with a dagger, a foppish dandy, a tiny fragment, and (thanks to Chicago’s Pinkerton detective agency) a private eye. Besides that, as a verb pink can be used to mean “to narrow” (especially the eyes), “to wink or blink,” “to make a metallic rattling noise,” “to apply rouge,” and “to attach or cut a decorative trim” (which is why scissors with jagged blades are called pinking shears).
But of all the word’s meanings, the oldest on record is one that appears in only the most comprehensive dictionaries: pink used to be yellow. Or rather, pink used to be the name of a murky yellow-green color—or, as the Oxford English Dictionary explains it: "A yellowish or greenish-yellow lake pigment made by combining a vegetable colouring matter with a white base, such as a metallic oxide."
A “lake” pigment like this is an organic dye or artist’s pigment made insoluble by combining the organic material required with a metallic compound. (In this context, lake has nothing to do with bodies of water, but instead comes from lac, a dark red resinous substance produced by certain trees.) It just so happens that the pigment the name pink was originally attached to was made from vegetable matter that created a murky greenish-yellow tinge.
In this sense, the word pink dates back to the early 1400s at least, and in fact, it wasn’t until the mid-17th century that pink came to refer to the pale reddish color it does today. But why the change in meaning? And why, for that matter, name either color pink at all?

Steamed fish, Chinese wok style

April 4, 2020 Ben Yeoh

If you don’t have the right size chopsticks then use a wooden spoon.

-I dust off my wok to steam a fish

Steaming Fish

A wok is supremely versatile. Outside of Asia, Westerners typically only know of stir frying. A wok can stew, pot roast, smoke and steam. A Chinese home cook, making do, needs no other cooking pot.

Woks are robust. Nigh on indestructible. If like me, you don’t use it that often, you can scrub it up, oil it and re-season. A wok is low maintenance. No more trouble than non-stick pans, where you either have to try and gently care for the non-stock surface or suffer its erosion.

Finding myself back as some time chief cook of the family, I’m dusting off recipes and techniques from a time when I cooked more often. I’m still focused on swift and easy to prepare meals. It may surprise you to know that this steamed fish dish takes 15 minutes to prepare and cook.

What triggered the dish was walking past our local fishmonger. We’re making an increased effort to shop local and within walking distance where possible. This was before full lock down.

I used to love looking at fish, seafood shops and markets. The old fish market in Tokyo still remains an abiding memory from years ago. My 8 year old, O and I were walking past the fishmonger. Much like I used to with my parents. I tempted him in to look at the fish and suggested we buy one to cook. We looked for fresh, bulging, glossy eyes, bright gills and shiny skin. We ended up with a whole sea bream of a size that fits in a wok or two small sized hand spans.

The fishmonger guts and descales the fish, although it’s not too bad to do at home.

At home, we brushed off the wok. We found 4 chopsticks. We had as we almost always do, some ginger, spring onions and soy. O cut 3 slashes in the fish either side. We inserted peeled, slices of ginger and in the cavity. Prep done.

We arrange the chopsticks to form a hash tag # shape on the base of the wok, so it can raise the fish a few centimetres off the bottom where the boiling water sits. We lay the fish on the chopsticks, when the water is boiling and cover the wok. Eight minutes later, the fish is steamed.

Wok steaming reminds me of my Mum cooking, my old Malaysia family home and distinctly Chinese cooking aromas.

To finish it off with a piece of theatre, slice the spring onions over the fish and pour hot oil over.

It crackles and splutters in a fun way, while softening the scallions and slightly tightening the fish skin.

I usually take a few table spoons of the fish water, add in a two tablespoon of light soy sauce and a splash of rice wine or mirin for a light sauce.

O wanted to eat it all. I managed to persuade him to share some. Yum.

Steamed Fish, Chinese wok style

Ingredients

1 whole white fish (such as sea bream, sea bass or pomfret) cleaned with head and tail intact
Fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into eight.
Light soy sauce ( 2 table spoons or to taste)
1 tablespoon rice wine or mirin (marsala, or sherry, or can skip)
6 or so spring onions (scallions), typically white and light green parts only (but I don’t mind the darker parts), sliced into thin strips (can skip)
Flavourless oil with a high smoking point eg groundnut (can skip)

Equipment

Wok
Trivet or 4 chopsticks

(A fish steamer works if you’ve ever bought one)

Prep

Have gutted and descaled fish.
Peel and slice ginger
Make 2 to 3 slashes in the fish on either side.
Insert ginger into slashes and in gut cavity.
(I have done the dish skipping this. The ginger adds a slight spice tang, and if the fish is not super fresh also counters residual odors. The slashes helps identifying when the fish is cooked and helps the steam penetrate more fully, but the cooking is robust to this)
Lay trivet or 4 chopsticks in the bottom of wok.
Heat water until steaming.
Slice the spring onions into thin sticks

Cooking

Lay fish on trivet when water is boiling.
Cover and steam for about 8 minutes.

(You can check at 6 minutes. The fish eye will pop open and you can see the flesh is cooked through white when booked.)

Remove fish to plate
Take a ladle of residual water, add a tablespoon of mirin and two table spoons of light soya sauce to taste. You can lightly simmer for 1-2 minutes if you want to thicken the sauce.
Place spring onions over fish.
Heat two table spoons of oil, until hot but not smoking.
Pour oil over spring onions and fish at table for some theatrics. (Keep clear!)
Add soy sauce mixture.

Serve with rice and greens.

Fuschia Dunlop on woks: https://firstwefeast.com/features/2016/10/how-to-cook-with-a-wok/woks

My thoughts about chicken rice - why it’s my favourite dish and what it says about culture and migration.

Do we need more David Chappelle?

April 3, 2020 Ben Yeoh

“Jokes aren’t only about laughing” Tyler Cowen on podcast (paraphrased by me).

“I make fun of poor people because I see myself in them” David Chappelle

“When you make jokes about Trans people, doesn’t that normalise us?” Daphne (trans) as told to Chappelle

David Chappelle was offending everyone.

I was camped out in a boring Boston hotel after my own show was cancelled (due to the start of COVID distancing) and after four days of non-stop activity at a healthcare conference I thought I’d do an activity which I can’t get to at home.

No. Not watching the adult channel. Close.

Putting on offensive comedy on Netflix.

Comedians - and the stage - occupy a special place in our free speech system. I’ve arrived at the view that it must be cherished even when offensive or particularly when offensive.

Comedians are special because their role is to tell jokes... and in doing so they reveal us. If you go to a comedian on stage or Netflix, you are going to their church, their home.

That home is a sacred space to tell jokes and offend everyone and in doing so reveal all aspects of our humanity, dark and light.

That’s not to say that those jokes and views are above criticism or even condemning what might be said. To defend a comedian’s right to tell jokes is not the same as being indifferent to those jokes.

That said, Chappelle made some subtle and not so subtle arguments for himself in “Sticks and Stones” which I found fascinating.

It starts with the title - yes words can be offensive - but do they ever hurt like sticks and stones? We can argue for mental stress but Chappelle made an interesting joke (and a running theme) about how few people would actually go about shooting up a school - causing violence in real life is a league different from telling jokes.

He acknowledges the peoples he pokes. He pokes at the poor. He pokes at celebrity. He pokes at Chinese. But then, he offers a small private disclosure. His wife is Asian. She hates his Chinese impression joke. He doesn’t tell it at home. Unless they are really fighting. Another joke. Passion. Love. Humour.

He goes on to let slip

“I make fun of poor people because I see myself in them”

Chappelle was poor (or so he implies). Now he is rich and happy for it. But he does know what it is like to be poor. And in this, he is also poking fun at himself, in part.

This idea is a notion in common with David Sedaris. Perhaps a comedy writer pretty far away from David Chappelle. First name notwithstanding.

Sedaris makes fun mostly of himself, and then oft times of his family and those he meets. But mostly himself. He has written (and now spoken on “Masterclass”) about this. This self humour can dig at a deeper truth, can be funnier for its self-recognition in us all and to an extent diffuses the challenge on picking on another class of person - which might seem unfair or bullying. That Sederis does this mostly in essay form rather than stand-up (though him performing his essays comes close to stand up).

Sasha Baron-Cohen (Ali G) has achieved this very effectively in parodies. Even more so, to my mind, in a sketch where part of the joke is him speaking in hebrew. His Jewishness is both a defense and a heightened offence / joke - if you can know enough to understand the language or his own history.

Back to Chappelle. There’s an argument about words with a producer. The words or terms he can or can not use on air. Chappelle fires back but I can say “nigga” all I like! This evokes the defense of talking about yourself as more acceptable. To that possible answer, Chappelle also extends and rebuts: “But I am no nigga.”

There’s a joke about letters. LBGT letters. (He seems to have missed the Q). (It’s perhaps not super funny, nor as offensive as it could be.) There’s a joke about rape. A woman has to leave. She was raped and she can’t stay. He answers:

I am sorry you were raped. But it’s also not my fault.

This is also in his space. His comedy den. And the vibe is in danger of snuffing out. He goes on and in the middle of the audience a trans person, Daphne, keeps laughing. And laughing. And laughing. And Chappelle is nervous coming into his LGBT jokes. And Daphne keeps on laughing.

Later they drink and Daphne tells him:

“When you make jokes about Trans people, doesn’t that normalise us?”

And the way Chappelle tells the story, it comes as a revelation - I think that’s Chappelle’s technique and charisma but he uses it to good point. LGBQT+ have in some sense become mainstream, because a mainstream-ish comic can poke fun. (see end for the counter to this)

Chappelle towards the end recounts a humble-brag story. He is hanging with the great and the good. Chris Rock - from comedy legend - brings round a crowd including the Mayor and Senator Kamala Harris. This is as Obama is in the early stages running for office. Kamala tells Chapelle to speak to Obama and dials him up. The call arrives at voicemail, but Chappelle sends his advice - the same for being a black kid at a school shoot out or almost any time - crouch low and run in a zig zag pattern.

Fast forward. Chappelle is waiting, post a media event, with Obama and other runners. Obama is last and makes his way to Chappelle. Hitting him up in a hug, the way Chappelle has been acting it out all along, and whispering in his ear: “I got your message...?”

In the world of the humble brag, Chappelle has elevated himself to the highest echelons of our elite power circles.

With graft and stories and words and reflections and

I think - maybe - he deserves to be there - in our folklore - our kings and queens have had their jesters - and they can be awful people -

For jokes aren’t only about laughing

They reveal who we are to each other.

Even in a time of COVID, that’s worth remembering.

On the other side here’s a Guardian piece critical of Chappelle

And here’s Buzzzfeed’s Obaro:

“...And in a surprise epilogue to Sticks & Stones, he tells another story about Daphne, a trans woman who attended several of his sets in San Francisco and laughed hard at every joke. Afterward, according to Chappelle, they chatted at the bar and Daphne thanked him for “normalizing transgenders.” The audience at the Broadway theater, where Chappelle told this story, applauds loudly. It’s cringe-inducing — such a blatantly cynical, familiar move out of the old “I have a marginalized friend, so I can make this joke” playbook. (When Louis C.K. joked about his black friends who have stood by him, I imagine he must have been talking about Chappelle.)...” Article here.

And finally, here’s an NPR conversation on it - highlight perhaps that Chappelle is provoking us into having a conversation.

I suppose in my own thoughts, I was less concerned about whether he was funny or not - his special has 99% on rotten tomatoes for audiences (40K+ reviews vs 39% on critics [17] ) - but on whether his free speech and right to offend was worth protecting.

I think it’s worth protecting - and the 99% audience approval can perhaps speak to whether we need an awful jester of our times.

I make a relate point in my blog on whether we need more Joe Rogan?

…I listened to Billy Connelly on podcast. Amongst other insights (listened to comedians if you want to have a pulse on politics), Connelly suggested that the time of old comics and offending was past and certainly eg racism wasn’t necessary any more in comedy. I hadn’t considered how comedy has also evolved over time….

OMG first used in 1917 in a letter to Winston Churchill

February 22, 2020 Ben Yeoh

OMG was used in a letter in Winston Churchill in 1917. 🤯

John “Jacky” Fisher was an admiral and naval innovator, who began World War I as First Sea Lord but resigned in 1915.

“…During his time as Second Sea Lord (1902-3) Fisher began putting into practice his reforms for the navy; his major achievement at this time was the Selbourne Scheme of entry and training for officers in 1902, which was a common entry and training for all naval officers, and to ensure that in the age of mechanisation all officers would have a familiarity with engines. In 1903-4 Fisher was Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth, from which position he could superintend the establishment of the Royal Naval College at Osborne, where new Cadets received their initial naval training. He also served on the Esher Committee, whose recommendations, accepted by the Cabinet, called for a reorganisation of the War Office, and Committee of Imperial Defence.

On the 21st October 1904, at the age of 63, Fisher became First Sea Lord. His main preoccupation was to prepare for the coming of the war with Germany, and developing a more powerful fleet He was responsible for the launch of the first ‘all big gun’ fast battleship, using the new turbine engines. HMS Dreadnought was launched in Portsmouth in 1906, combining great speed with immensely increased gun power. It rendered most of the fleet obsolete at one stroke. Fisher also oversaw the developments of the submarine with its torpedo weapons. The rapidly changing face of the navy brought hostile criticism from conservative parties both within the navy and without. His greatest rival, Lord Charles Beresford, appointed Commander in Chief of the Channel Fleet, became more and more estranged with Fisher and at odds with the Admiralty. Finally, when his command was terminated in 1909, he made public his criticisms of Fisher and his reforms. Fisher remained in office until January 1910 but was succeeded by Sir Arthur Wilson, who was sympathetic to his reforms. During his period in office, he was awarded with the Order of Merit in 1904, appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) in 1908 and in 1909, was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Fisher of Kilverstone, a Norfolk estate.

In 1912 he became chairman of the Royal Commission on Oil Fuel. This had been another of his interests during his term in office and resulted in the adoption of using oil fuel in all new ships being constructed. In October 1914, he returned to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord, in which time he was involved in ship construction. He became at odds with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill over the proposed Dardenelles campaign. Fisher believed that the persistence in attacking the Dardanelles would jeopardise the success of the major naval strategy of the war, but was forced to concede and allow the campaign to take place. As the campaign unfolded and became clear that it was a hopeless one, he became more and more discontented and resigned his office in 1915. …”