Dreamscape: Where learning requires example

As you dream of it

It was eerily like real life, but then what are dreams but multidimensional realities played out in the vast mines of the mind where treasures are found and fortunes are created in ways that the imagination is tested of its limits if there are any?

I found myself attending a function at a girls’ school, probably a Founder’s Day and some girls were lined up in two columns as if to give a sword arch parade to their honoured guest, their worldly famous and most successful alumna.

The field was down below and access to it seemed almost impassable at first sight, just as you have in dreams, the easy becomes immediately impossible and the impossible suddenly possible, like you have waved a magic wand.

I was there unawares

I eventually found myself at a vantage point to view the proceedings as a guest of sorts and too prominent to be overlooked after chatting to some of the girls. I had a feeling of déjà vu like I had been at rehearsals for this event somewhere and nothing happened after I was first called to participate and so nothing was learnt about what to do.

I was apprehensive and the more I asked about what was expected, the less I was informed of protocol or practice, it was like everyone assumed I knew and thought my inquiries were unserious and silly. I did not even know what the guest of honour was going to do, I thought I would observe and maybe learn something.

I did not know

To the strains of music, the guest arrived and passed through the parade to the end singing an apparent folk song that was a traditional game at the school on that day. She had done this many times before and part of it was a call-and-response activity between her as the lead and the guests or girls she selected to ask to attend a function and what food they would prefer.

You were not to take the enquiry literally but provide an excuse for not attending and a back-and-forth of teasing and questioning in order to persuade you ensued until someone made the mistake of mentioning food. Guess what happened, I was the first she called out to and I mentioned food.

Hear the derisive laughter and astonishment that I should have known not to have answered as such and it was when she moved to the next guest and her answer was the typical excuse that I realised my faux pas, but I was never in that situation apart from the other time when no one offered to explain the rules of the game.

The assumptions that ridicule us

It transpired as I made conversation and enquiry that this was a core Yoruba tradition that I could have learnt and enjoyed in childhood. Though, when they learnt I was not born in Yorubaland, they somewhat accepted why I made the error. It left me thinking of the gaps in my learning of Yoruba cultural activities, my knowledge of the language was not enough, there was more to culture than that.

On reflection too, we agreed that phrasing an appropriate enquiry to get the kind of information to prepare me for that situation would have been nigh on impossible. If only the guest of honour had selected someone else first, as matters acculturation are best bequeathed through example. Just because my apparent oddness makes me prominent enough to be selected first does not imply, I would be ready or in the know of what is expected.

Do not assume if you have expectations, at least discreetly try to elicit enough information to be sure the game is not ruined by those called to participate who are totally unaware of the rules.

Bowling toffee

Standups at dawn

In the mornings, nature compels a situation over which many would not have any control but to endure as a part of life experience that might be shared with another if the occasion presents. What it represents and it portends can be expressed in various ways not demanding much detail except where one is aiming for some kind of competitive prize.

Be it one where pleasure or excitement replaces the awakening moments of the rising of the sun, there is a lot of warmth and love to live in and embrace. Companionship accords a mystery that can defeat the best of those who can string together words in ways that astound.

To dip and usurp

Yet, at the rising of that star in the east is the rising from slumber and rising to perform as bowls to different deployments can be touched in the course of the day, from what nature frequently demands, to that which nature requires for sustenance and the many sports where bowls and bowling give us a spectacle of nature to revel in.

To the few that are given the gift to know that bowls can be touched like being called to a priesthood of the anointed and endowed, the bats you have been given for the game of life and the way you wield them in winning your games can only be cause for envy even as you can be proud of who you are. You wonder if there are repeating daily rituals that have been missed by the less observant.

Blogs - Bowling coffee

Better luck next time, England

I feel the pain of defeat

It was the summer of 2010, and I was on holiday from the Netherlands in Spain when the World Cup final taking place in South Africa became the focus of my day. I was in my Oranje (Orange) strip, found a friendly Dutch pub and gathered with fellow supporters to cheer our team.

Alas! The game did not go our way and I was marooned on an island of jollity, many of us Dutch visitors crestfallen and disappointed as the Spanish celebrated through the night. My lonely walk back to my hotel, a lesson in the cloak of defeat.

More expectation than presentation

Whilst I have been quite happy with the progress of England through the belated Euro 2020 tournament, I have tempered excitement with much realism. No game was won until the final whistle was blown, though I only watched the last 10 minutes between England and Germany, and we exorcised the demon on our backs.

In supporting Nigeria and England, the level of anxiety is just too high for me to watch a live match, for the semi-final and the final, I followed the match slightly distracted on the BBC live reporting text webpage, giving it a glance every few minutes and hoping for the best.

Better luck next time

If anything, I have never been caught or enamoured by football nationalism or jingoism, each game had to be played on the field in the heat of the moment by the team eking out a clear win or they are left at the mercy of penalty kicks in which we have had very little luck.

That England got to the final was a commendable surprise, but they were to meet a formidable opponent, the statistics of the game suggests Italy had the most possession for little reward. I dared wish there would be a celebratory outcome, but it would not have mattered apart from my joining in the euphoria of the many.

There would be analyses and commentary regarding England’s performance, but the game is over. There are aspects of managerial leadership that should be up for learning lessons, Gareth Southgate, did a good job of preparing the team for the challenges they faced. I literally sat this tournament out like my 7-month self in 1966 when we won the World Cup. Better luck next time.

Thought Picnic: The reality beyond the augmented

Another life of games

Some events just overtake the newswires in a way that you wonder what is going on. One such issue within the week of the morass of #Brexit with the Tories squaring up and the Labour Party falling apart, terrorist attacks and any other bad news was something called Pokémon Go.

By definition and I refer to Wikipedia, Pokémon Go is a free-to-play location-based augmented reality mobile game developed by Niantic and published by The Pokémon Company. It utilises GPS and the camera of compatible devices to capture superimposed Pokémon characters in different locations.

What has made it big news is the uptake of the game that has exceeded the records of other kinds of mobile telephony games in such a short timeframe.

Now, the only mobile telephony game I play is Sudoku, yet, I wonder about computer-based neologisms like 'gamer', indicating a person who plays games. Though I have also come across ‘gaymer’, apparently, a gay person who plays computer games. I am not a fan of neologisms that change nouns into verbs or convert activities into nouns.

Realities abound

However, this is a digression because I read an article in the Time Magazine where Matt Vella writing for the Technology section analysed the Pokémon craze within the context of augmented reality. The Pokémon Fad Shows the Unnerving Future of Augmenting Reality [Yahoo! Tech], in the closing paragraph, he said, “The fundamental question AR (Augmented Reality) will ask of us will likely be: How do you coexist in a world where people literally see things you cannot?”

Maybe Augmented Reality presents this alternative world, but there is a more present world that we coexist in but dismiss, the one where you literally see things that others cannot. I have seen things that others could not and that terrified the hell out of me, besides having heard things that others could not too.

A vivid imagination

I wrote about an episode where a discussion between my aunt and our house boy covered bizarre stories of the paranormal, to my fertile and impressionable young mind of 10, I found that I had enough of a vivid imagination to bring these thoughts into my reality. That night, my parents having guests, I cleared the table and took the dishes to the kitchen.

As I laid them there, I was scolded and told to take them to the washing area in the unlit backyard whereupon in the dark there appeared a tall red-chested fiery beast, I thought I had seen the devil and I let out a terrifying scream. Everyone came running out to see what the tumult was, whatever I told them, they dismissed as I trembled, so completely shaken and eventually went to bed.

Blog - The damage done when parents fail to listen

Blog - Child Sexual Abuse: When parents are dismissive

A terrifying reality

I woke up in the middle of the night, sandwiched between two friends in bed when I heard two words, “Pufau! Pufau!”, this is the first time I have written the words, I do not know what they mean, but I always have goose bumps remembering this. Again, that terrifying scream, a dismissive father and a concerned mother came out to comfort.

As my father returned to bed and I sat in the living room with my mother, this beastly creature appeared again to me and I was the only one to see it and thankfully, that was the very last time I saw it, but that night was the beginning of a life-changing experience and the crash course lesson in the power of fear and terror.

Don’t dismiss it

Yes, children also sometimes see, hear, feel or experience things that others cannot, but not just children, it can happen to anyone and that episode is by terms their reality, a reality pooh-poohed, dismissed, rubbished or ignored. The child left bereft of comfort and support in what is a rather grave situation, life for that child can be hard.

This is not augmented reality, but an existential threat to mental health, the consequences of which can definitely be life-changing especially to outlook and confidence.

I know, the need to understand and empathise, the need to make some allowances for realities in the lives of others we may not understand or perceive, yet, the senses of the affected are heightened and besieged with stimuli that only they can respond to and describe in terrifying detail.

Dismissing the personal evidence will not eradicate the situation, it would rather accentuate the isolated circumstance that person is in. In such settings, help is needed and professional help at that.

Social Media Engagement: Attributes observed playing games

Another observation

Obviously, it is unscientific of based a whole set of presumptions on an experience that has hardly lasted 24 hours, but one will be hard-pressed not to draw conclusions already.

As I returned home yesterday from a lovely rendezvous with my growing circle of friends made from social media activities that included the rather usual lunch that had a fine lady exhibit her mastery of Nigerian cuisine, she not being remotely African, I reminisced about the many people I have met in person through blogging, tweeting and on Facebook.

Scrabble in motion

The train journey back to Amsterdam was uneventful until at one of the stops a passenger boarded and as he was fiddling with his phone as everyone who has a smartphone does nowadays, out of the corner of my eye I saw he was playing a game that looked like Scrabble.

A few days ago, I did a search on the Android Marketplace for Scrabble and I ended up with a word puzzle – Word Game – which had some addictive qualities working against the clock but nothing like the tradition game.

Rather than be a peeping Tom, I asked the man if the game was Scrabble, it wasn’t but it was a Scrabble clone of sorts called Wordfeud.

Handling the little things

He said he was playing multiple games using different dictionaries with friends all around that world and I thought, when I get home, I will try it out.

Wordfeud is available for use with mainly European languages on the iPhone, Android and Windows 7.5+ platforms with the programmers having the good sense to differentiate between English (US) and English (International) – they deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for just that alone.

There is a premium version that removes all advertisements whilst introducing other features. The board and game is intuitive enough and each language has a different alphabet set with weights and frequencies differing according to the selected language.

A really good imitation

It was not long before I saw the dissimilarities between Wordfeud and Scrabble, the scoring on the board is different with the premium squares allowing for more interesting play, the ratings on the latters also differ – it is amazing how much trivial information one can recall from years of playing traditional Scrabble.

It offers the basic moves as play, swap or miss with the shuffle function that allows for rearranging the letters to form new words but no penalties for wrong words, you are alerted and allowed to reply your turn. There are helpers like Wordfeud Helper and Word Fraud, yes, you can get help without your opponent knowing – such dishonesty, alarming indeed.

Tardy responsiveness

However, the reason for this blog is to highlight an interesting trait I have found which I do believe is a pervasive social media problem.

Apart from Skype calls, most interactive engagement systems are asynchronous, very much like email, you send a message and you cannot pre-determine when a response will be received. In a phone call, there is usually an unstated length of a pause before either party enquires of the other is still in that conversation – that is usually not available for Instant Messaging, Twitter, Facebook or games that are played online.

For this purpose, Wordfeud has given each player 72 hours to respond in play before that player automatically forfeits the game.

Appreciating the situation

My question is why start a game you will not conclude and why is there is no sense of commitment to complete a game you have started, albeit with strangers?

In 8 games that I have started since yesterday, only one has been completed, 2 resigned before 10 tiles had hit the board and one gave up before placing anything.

The other four have been in play for as much as 17 hours, one of which is quite near conclusion. I have decided I will rather be beaten than resign the game and I will most definitely avoid a default.

Wordfeud has options to alert, remind and prompt when it is my turn and I have switched all those options on.

The interesting thing is in a short chat session with one of the tardy, she; yes, she has a female username said she was still in the game but was simultaneously playing multiple games – in other words, I had to be patient.

I would not know if the trick is to win but drawing out the game interminably, I am however glad that Wordfeud does not allow you to resign if it is not your turn.

Playing vulture

If anything, besides the addictive qualities Wordfeud might bring to bear, it allows people to divide their attention in such a way that they are not committed, attentive or engaged to the chagrin of some.

It could also be that the players will rather default than resign or hope that the game is forgotten especially when they are performing badly in the game so as to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat – not with me.

This vulture is a patient bird and regardless of the social media construct, I will ensure I am courteous and responsive to all players that have been randomly selected – niceness should be pervasive, regardless of level of acquaintance, though, I do recognise in certain forums, some people just seek to expose your evils.

Official Scrabble loses to Collins Scramble Allwords

Games for a child

I think I have been playing Scrabble for about 32 years, my uncle has just returned from the UK and he brought us a few board games, Scrabble and Monopoly.

Thankfully, I lived in a home where my parents had a sense of fun, whilst my mother sometimes wanted me to revise my schoolwork, what I learnt in class was enough to get me a good examination result – I am glad they exhibited a keen interest in a lively childhood than many typical Nigerian parents afforded their children.

I do remember that my mother spent her salary raise given in the Udoji review on buying my first bicycle.

The Scrabble lifestyle

In any case, Scrabble became the social ice-breaker, you made friends through battles on the board, in school competitions you won prizes and even played for money.

I am sorry to say, it was not designed for the dyslexic, you had to be able to spell right and if you didn’t, you hoped that your opponent(s) were unaware and you took away the spoils with high scores.

Obscure words, smart placings, multiple words on premium squares and everyone wanted to take you on to serve you a whopping defeat only for you to triumph.

The rules are clear, some house rules too like – timed turns, tiles placed on board must form part of the word for that turn, reusable blanks – anything to give the game a bit of excitement.

The matured player always played within the extents of the dictionary used to adjudge the words spelt out on board, in many cases it was the Chambers’ Twentieth Century English dictionary until we got hold of the Original Scrabble Words where two-letter word plays might just have you storming off in a tirade of four-letter expletives with the confirmation of the four-letter word – lost – as your gift.

No rules for fools

Rules are there for a purpose, any game without rules is a riot, a barbarian’s orgy, a lascivious bounty of reckless abandon to which there can be no restraint.

The news today [1] should have arrived 5 days earlier on April the first when Mattel the copyright holder of Scrabble announced a rules change which was not tactical or functional but just a typical lapse to invite stupidity into the pretence of being erudite, to "introduce an element of popular culture into the game", they said with vacuous glee.

Proper nouns would be allowed – this would include names of places, people, companies or brands – whilst it is not a free for all since it would be restricted to a Collins dictionary word list; woe betide the place, person, company or brand who has not seen the business and competitive opportunity of being able to brag about being a new Scrabble word.

Brand your game

Honestly, that rule change creates another game that could better be distinguished as Scramble as the fashion victims with their trousers halfway down their legs jive with Burberry as chavs, drinking Courvoisier with their LV caps and Gucci teeth wearing a mix-and-match of Crocs on one foot and Jimmy Choo’s on the other – all legitimate words of Scramble.

Only Scramble can best describe this change as a sense of chaos, disorder, the lack of rules and a riot of meaningless jumbles of letter arrangements that would be comfortable in, well, the game Scramble.

To call this game Scrabble would be sacrilegious to the extreme, tantamount to having the players of a typical game of football carry the ball with hands into the net and being able to score in any net for your team – ditch the goalkeepers, they are useless.

Maybe chess might also consider a rule chance, pawns can move in any direction regardless of where they are on the board and the king does no have to bother about being in check.

There is a wisdom that followed the time-honoured rules of Scrabble, just as constutions do not get changed on a whim – those rules have stood the test of time.

Just imagine how cross I would be because my village Ijesha-Ijebu does not appear in Collins Scramble Allwords and Walsall where I was born does, the hyphen is immaterial was we flip the board in unsettled dispute and depart in disgust.

Your name is not in the book of …

There might be the case for discrimination for including certain names and not others because they are Anglophile but Sinophile, Arabic, Asian or African names receive no prominence in the new hegemony of games, gamesmanship and an incipient preponderance of inferiority over those not blessed to be counted amongst the chosen,

No book will be big enough to contain all legitimate names in the whole wide world just because some smart chap thought that was a market for idiots to play Scrabble rather than their consoles.

For once, I wish I were a lawyer; I would be at the forefront of a class action suit and sue the pants off Mattel for this inane insight of faddism that leaves a majority of the global community that is their market place out of the exclusive Collins Scramble Allwords – Oh! Deliver us from this travesty.

I will be back on the matter, I am not finished yet.

* Since Scramble seems to be taken, a synonym might well do like scamper, scuffle or scurry but NOT Scrabble.

Source

[1] BBC News - Proper nouns come into play in Scrabble rule change

The gates of Sony shall not stand

Traditional games for me

Should we call it righteous indignation or holy anger?

Now, I am no fan of what others might call serious computer games that try to imitate reality, simulating the most gruesome aspects of evil committed by human-beings in the quest for some cheap thrill.

The most I have done with computer games is Chess, I did try Monopoly many years ago as graphics resolutions switched from EGA to VGA - that was real come-alive stuff, if you had ever worked with CGA on those now antique IBM monitors that weighed a tonne.

Nowadays, I play Sudoku on my PDA phone, I am climbing up the levels, I enjoy having my brain ticking away on things like that.

A new game has had a major entertainment company incur the wrath of the church - The Anglican Church - that is, in Manchester . The game called - Resistance: Fall of Man uses the backdrop of the interior of the Manchester Cathedral for a shoot-‘em-up game - Do these people have no restraint, are they so inured to the sensitivity of digging up this kind of seemingly sacrilegious act?

License to kill in church

Sony would have us know that all the necessary permission to use the setting of the church in their game was granted. Presumably, they met up with the Bishop and said, we are planning this seriously violent game that we believe would make it to number 1 in the gaming charts, the church can have a percentage of the takings as we use the altar for a bullet-to-heart sacrifice - I think NOT!

Cynically, one can say that Sony did plan to cause this uproar to drum up essential patronage for their game considering the travails of battery recalls they had last year as well as the late launch of their latest games console.

The title - Fall of Man - is ironically the Genesis of the concepts of Christianity; Sony cannot now pretend it was not their intention to seek a respectable religious establishment to exhibit their computerised art of unrestrained murder, it is not reality but it is engaging enough.

Utterly insensitive

The insensitivity of the matter stems from the fact that there have been a number of violent murders in Manchester recently, the cathedral then served as a meeting place to remember and honour the victims, the cathedral in a sense has both been denuded and desecrated by Philistines - uncircumcised in ethical comportment.

As the church leaders demand an apology and a withdrawal of church depictions from the game, one wonders if as a Japanese company, Sony would have had the temerity to depict a Shinto Shrine in this manner when one of the things you should not do there is to engage in activities that makes great noise - Quick! Fit the silencers.

Like Jesus said then, the Church has been built on a rock and the gates of Sony would not stand against it - In fact, this might just be the allegory for the Fall of Sony - Can they repent? I think not; can they be redeemed? Not with filthy lucre - by their acts have they begun to bring on their own downfall - No, I shall not cry - To Hell! They scream and I am not in a pulpit yet.

NB: Wanted! Developers to craft Judgement day - New game by the Church of England featuring the demise of Sony.