Detached Scrabble

Following the second picking noticed at reference 1, we took a little afternoon Scrabble. The brain must have slipped a gear as, instead of including the score card in the snap above, I included my tea cup. Mildly notable in that I have eased right off afternoon tea - the sort with caffeine anyway - certainly for the duration of the present heat wave.

More notable in that BH scored two long words, more or less at the outset: 'neaten' and 'strainer', with the second of these earning her the bonus 50 points for using all her tiles.

But running down the detached score card proved more challenging, with my suspecting that vagaries of scoring were disturbing the hunt. But I am fairly sure that we got there in the end, with my 'quest' knocking up 78 points towards the end of the game, in the right hand column. I think the system is that I am always the right hand column: creatures of habit.

Sadly, once again, albeit by a very small margin, we failed to make 600 points, the bar for a truly notable game. Note that the penalty for left over tiles in the case that one of us goes out, which is usually the case, does not affect the aggregate, as our rule is that they are deducted from one score and added to the other. Something I need to confirm from the rules printed on the box.

As it happens,we last made 600 points just over a month ago, during another wave of heat, as noticed at reference 2. As it happens also, we are scheduled to take pork soup again for lunch today.

PS: and while we are on pickings, we were given some local figs that same day by a neighbour. Something we more usually take in dried form, even though the brick figs of our early married life seem to have vanished, along with brick dates.

This morning, for some reason, I associate to a yarn about the closing years of the reign of the Emperor Augustus, paranoid about poison in his declining years. He would only eat figs for his breakfast if they still had their early morning bloom on them, which could be inspected for the tell tale perforations of the poisoner's pin. But I cannot put my hand on it this morning.

Gemini goes for the Robert Graves account but goes on to remind me of the one from John Williams, which I have also read. I wonder if the same story is rehearsed in both? On a supplementary, Gemini is clear that Williams did not use it, little better than ancient gossip, cleverly recycled by Graves.

So not completely unreasonable for him not to have mentioned Williams in the first place, without needing a supplementary. But I suppose he might of reminded me of the gossip angle.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/07/second-picking.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv6.blogspot.com/2026/06/for-hot-day.html.

Reference 3: I, Claudius - Robert Graves - 1934.

Reference 4: Augustus - John Williams - 1972.

Group search key: 20260723.