Brief update
* EUC: rather good. Webcast: not so, it wasn't working. But I have recorded commentary highlights onto dictaphone from an Ireland v Italy group-phase match, which turned out to be a very interesting one to follow. These recordings could yet be mildly useful for the outside chance of a career in commentary that was suggested to me a while back.

* Aunt Maureen is, I think, a christian-pragmatist; she has an authoritarian think-of-the-children streak, but a very well-meaning one, and she has a liberal-socialist streak in her too (at the least, she opposed the Iraq war). The christian spiritualism seems to take a back seat these days, and that is nothing but a good thing considering she is a foster carer. It suits her, she's unquestionably a big kid and has a real affinity with children. That's what she does.

* It is anything but what I do.

* As such, things are rather awkward here, until I get control of either the PC or the TV. With cable!

* Whaddya know, Challenge's Millionaire reruns are at autumn 2003, and today came two undisputed forgotten classics. The second was Rob Mitchell's £218k loss - and good grief, I'd forgotten he'd 'done a Skillings' and stormed through the first twelve without a lifeline. One line here that proves Tarrant would save the Endemol Bunker: 'You've got a quarter of a million. It's your call.' Before that...

*A 17-year-old contestant made it to £64,000 with 50:50 remaining, having used up his other two lifelines in the first seven questions. Now, the primary reader of this blog has been told several times now that in this situation I would unquestionably answer the next question even on a wild guess at present property values. Transposing the utility curve of my 21-year-old self of 2007 back to 1998, I'd be a great deal more tempted to cut and run.

Now, look back again. Late-2003 episode. I'm 21 now, mid-2007. How old was I in late 2003? Yup, 17. More relevantly to this: this was the early phase of the three-year rebellion. My first university application had been made, and my heart was set on Reading for (neither of you will believe this) International Securities and Investment Banking. (Yes, quite glad I changed my mind on that one at least. I'm not mathematical enough for that, nor am I amoral enough.)

Lawks, I don't know what I'd do in 2003. I didn't have the same grasp of utility as I do now - that came with the one UK series of Deal or No Deal before it was replaced with the structurally-identical Noel's Gambling Party some time in 2006. I suspect I'd have gone for it on the grounds of pot odds, which appeared to be what this contestant did too, although he also mentioned 'I'm only here once' a few times - a misunderstanding of utility theory readily encouraged on daytime television three years after this aired originally.

Oh, and he lost. If you really thought this through, even if you hadn't seen this before, you'd have known it was a loss simply because if it hadn't, and he'd gone away with something in six figures, I'd have been able to look up his name.

* May have mentioned this in Birmingham to daweaver, but if not, or even if so, here it is. A fellow Aspie, upon hearing about my independence-driven utility curve, suggested a refinement, one that particularly affects the lower end of the curve; the function should depend upon comfort. Freedom from parental intervention is a part of this, but primarily at the base of the curve, and the argument was that I may have pretty much handled this already. Still won't stop me defining the top of the curve by the property market though, a place to call my own is of enormous benefit in comfort as well as independence. And there's something to affect the curve somewhere; furnishings. The softer the better, generally; I've mentioned my mild hypersensitivity regarding taste, sight and sound in some form, but it applies to touch too (oddly, not to smell; that is, by far, my weakest sense) and I very much have a liking for handling soft textures.