BostonRob2

I think as an investment it does not seem unreasonable. But I think for people to invest they would have to have several million bucks in the bank to make it remotely worthwhile. A million in bonds. A million in urban area land and modern house. A million to play with. Rooster

So Rishi Sunak (or Rishi the Hound in Thai) gets Charles's nod. No place for Boris in the inner sanctum.....yet. Westminster continues to fascinate thru the week. Regards and thanks for reading, Rooster

And he called me a blowhard. Thanks for reading. Rooster

From The Grauniad: "A wilting 60p iceberg lettuce from Tesco in a blond wig has been crowned the winner of a bizarre competition after outlasting Liz Truss’s tenuous grip on power. Seven days ago the Daily Star set up a webcam on the lettuce to see if it would have a longer shelf-life than the prime minister. To add to Truss’s humiliating resignation, the lettuce won". Rooster Attachments area Preview YouTube video LIVE: Can Liz Truss outlast a lettuce? LIVE: Can Liz Truss outlast a lettuce?

The clue is in the very first word of the headline. Good luck with your reading. Rooster

Being a bikie I kind of disagree. But he should be deported for those tattoos. Rooster

The plot thickens. I bet not many people speculated it was "self-immolation". Rooster

That's for sure. I'm touching on this issue in my column on Saturday. Please read it. Regards, Rooster

Oh I will. Now I'm off to get a Big Mac. I can afford the full supersized meal thanks to my winnings... Rooster

Haha! Thanks. The "kids" were marveling about my play of ANTIMUON as the teacher in me regaled them about ANTIATOM, ANTINEUTRINO etc etc that are all excellent and quite likely Scrabble words from science. I fall asleep each night to YT science vids and have checked all the ANTI- words in the dictionary in this regard. Just call me sad. Rooster

How very dare you!! Jim Bowen indeed. I'll have you know that people stop me in the streets and ask for my autograph (non Scrabble people of course) who think I am Robert De Niro. I sign them with "Best Wishes from Bob" Rooster (who admittedly once had "three in a bed")

Put me down I say, put me down now! Rooster

I went to Si Thanya psychiatric hospital in Bangkok many times with my son who is a schizophrenic. We all received excellent advice and guidance about the condition and its treatment. The skills that you mention are what mental health care professionals are able to help people with. Yes, more needs to be done about mental health everywhere but Thailand has the help if people are prepared to accept there is a problem and seek guidance. Sincerely, Rooster

You can look on Facebook for EduPloys or MaxPloys though everything is in Thai. Here are the upcoming tournaments though: 1. 19/20th Nov at Central Plaza Ayutthaya 2. 17/18th Dec at Terminal 21 Korat Next year's tournament dates won't be out until January though we normally play in Chiang Mai in January and Khon Kaen in February. Usually each year there are many tournaments in Bangkok plus others in Udon, Phuket, Surat, Sri Racha, Phitsanulok and, nearest to you, Had Yai. Rooster

How true that first sentence is! With your permission I may use it in my column. Our paths may have crossed but I never worked in those language schools; I was at Bangkok Patana 93-98 then Harrow 98-2013. Funnily Enough ECC became a big sponsor of Scrabble in Thailand in the last ten years and they once gave me a check for 30,000 baht! Happy days! Rooster

Most people who consider themselves writers are put off by Scrabble. They quickly discover that their vocabulary (maybe 30,000 words) is woefully inadequate and if they do start they might actually figure out that the game is actually all about math, not language. Rooster

Heaven forbid! Though GINGER is a great Scrabble word, unlike its banned anagram Rooster

Try Scrabble Go for phones and isc.ro for computers. But you won't see me. Apart from face to face tournaments, I just play with myself. ???? Rooster

Let Google be your friend..... I just prefer not to use my name in news stories like this and in my weekly column. Rooster

Thanks. Funnily enough it was rather "fowl" - I was very lucky overall and should have won far more easily if I hadn't made so many crass old man errors! I played tens of thousands of online games in the noughties but have quit that to concentrate on playing solo otherwise I'd look you up for a game. Online play can be detrimental to my thought processes and I also got tired of being called a cheat and even less savory names. You're in Phuket? We usually have a tournament there at Jung Ceylon, why not look in the next time. You'd be glad you did. Playing online I would suggest you also try isc.ro where the standar of players will be generally higher than scrabble Go. Sincerely, Rooster

Both DOUGHNUT and DONUT are of course acceptable Scrabble words as they should be. As a teacher in the past I would encourage students to learn both. The US Scrabble dictionary was based on many collegiate dictionaries such as Merriam Webster and the UK one was based on Chambers. These helped to form the current international lexicon that is also added to and monitored by Collins. There are more than a million words in English but only a quarter of a million (approx.) that are acceptable in international and Thailand based Scrabble. Rooster

There are no competitions for Thais only. Scrabble - as I intimated in my long post to you just now - crosses language and cultural as well as generational barriers. I have played for Thailand, being warmly accepted into the national team long before I became even a Thai resident. It's not an Olympic sport though it is in the Thai University Games. Come to a tournament, there are one or two other people born abroad who take part. It's a very welcoming community to all nationalities. Rooster

Thank you. The question about the advantage gained through being a native speaker over non-native is debatable, however. Yes, there will be many words, especially longer or obscure ones that are unlikely to be played in Scrabble but which a native speaker will never forget or question because most everyone knows them (HACKSAW, GAZUMPED, CHICKPEA for example). Almost nobody in the world Scrabble community would , however, suggest that being a native speaker is much of an advantage. It can be a detriment. Being a native speaker comes with a lot of baggage, not least of all being aware of words that are NOT in the Scrabble dictionary. Many of the best Scrabble players - and Thailand has had two world champions and many youth world champions - come from all over Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia and Singapore. Most of these are second language speakers of English. They have sat down for years using various tools and computer software to read and swat the Scrabble dictionary. Not Chambers, not Oxford...the Scrabble dictionary only. They know to a great degree of accuracy what is and what is not an acceptable word. Yes, I do too, but I have learned this by the same method as them and had to "unlear" vocabulary. The greatest English language player of all time - Nigel Richards of New Zealand (Google him) won the highly competitive French championships by reading the French Scrabble dictionary for just six weeks. Eidetic memory and strategy far in excess of computer software aided him. The French and French speakers principally from Africa hailed him as their greatest champion of all time as he continued to beat them in a language he could not speak let alone tell you the meaning of the words. Scrabble, you see, is more about mathematics than language. You can think of each word as a collection of joined symbols or symbols with numbers. Nigel says Scrabble is ONLY mathematics. The combination of the "words" and their numbers with the numbers on the board forms the basis of the game. I have been playing Scrabble in Thailand for 30 years. I ranked #1 in Thailand for only 6 weeks in 1996. Most of the time I have hovered around 8-12. The Thais are incredibly good and many have been an inspiration to me as well as personal mentors. The same goes for many non-native speakers from countless countries where I have played (and mostly been beaten at) Scrabble. In my column this week I am going to write about how Scrabble led me to turn my life around and gave me a purpose in Thailand. It won't be about Scrabble itself, more about how using a game can help with mental issues and issues of addiction and compulsive behavior. I know that you are someone who has suffered the consequences of addiction and this is true for me too. I hope that you will read it as you may well find that there are correlations in your own life and maybe lessons to be learned as we move on with our lives. Sincerely, Rooster

There are many divisions for school children. I was competing in the Open section that also contained many young guys and ladies still at school or uni as well as seasoned professionals. My opponent in the final Atiruth is someone I have known since he was a kid in school 20 plus years ago. We are evenly matched. In the preliminaries I was beaten by him and two guys under 20 who played exceptionally well. The kids look on me as a mentor and inspiration. They are highly respectful of me and my achievements especially in keeping going at age 61! Yes, I'm a "seasoned wordsmith" but there are many kids who have studied the dictionary and have huge vocabularies and are keen to understand the strategies involved in winning. I was very lucky in this tournament and made terrible mistakes but somehow managed to hold on. PM me if you'd like to get involved in playing competitive Scrabble. Foreigners are just as welcome as Thais. In this field there was a Sri Lankan guy studying at Chula. Come and try it! Rooster

Confirmation once again about our wonderful Bangkok. And once again the bumpkins come out in droves to harp on about the Thai countryside. When will they stop this denial?