Cheating, gamesmanship, on line Scrabble and the 'Cheat detector'.

I'm a bit busy right now with the forthcoming event. Jan has offered to fill in for me on the blogging front for the next couple of days.  I would like to make it quite clear that his views are not necessarily my views... I take no responsibility for what he writes; he is an old man with an old mans temperament.  Here goes:


I have, in my dotage, taken to playing on-line scrabble (the on-line scrabble arena these days is where the blue rinse brigade try to hook up with widowed accountants and Filipina's look for potential husbands).


I pose as a retired bank manager and have posted a photograph of my least favourite nephew! I find it hard to get through an evening without at least one invitation to 'tea in Eastbourne' or a tryst in the local Holiday Inn. 


One thing I have noticed is that a lot of these demon scrabble players cheat! And if they don't cheat they use gamesmanship tactics that would make Terry Thomas blush. My method of dealing with this is to send them a message of admonishment then immediately withdraw from the game; leaving them with a somewhat hollow 'victory'.

                                                                       Wilson Hsu


You see they are all 'stats' whores; they care more for the records of 'games won' than the actual game... In fact they would much rather not finish a game; finishing a game is incredibly time consuming and invariably ends in defeat.


The 'non English speaking' competitors are obliged to resort to computer programmes to play the game resulting in an extraordinary spurious vocabulary a lot of which is gleaned (by the computer) from scientific dictionaries.  These poor souls do not realise that they have become just another part of the computer software... they are not playing the game, they are purely 'interfacing' between myself and their computer. They receive a stiff message from me which requires no computer programme to understand.


I have a feeling that they will not 'Love me long time' after reading my missives.


I did however 'chat' with a wonderful woman who now lives in a dug out home (literally dug into the ground) in australia. I wish there were more like her!


I am resolved to invent a cheat detector... I sense a fortune coming my way!