A close run thing

Yesterday afternoon, that is to say Sunday afternoon, saw a very close game of Scrabble. At the end, it might be thought that I had a comfortable lead, but in the event BH went out while I was holding the 'Q' and a vowel, together scoring 11 points, a penalty of 22 points in this context.

Which meant that the game was a draw, something which does not happen very often. But then I discovered some wrinkle in the proceedings, which meant that actually I had won by 1 point.

Unfortunately, record keeping was not keeping up, so the record of the game is incomplete, an entirely unsatisfactory record of what was, after all, my victory.

For those readers who want to look closely, BH always starts the game, a compensation for the fact that she always keeps score. I forget why we came to this rather uneven arrangement.

While one of those readers who does statistics might offer an appreciation of the distribution of the scores. What are the chances of a draw? Perhaps, to keep things simple, restricting the analysis to games played on Epsom rules.

PS: another tale of banker greed in this morning's FT. It seems that an Italian banker, one Andrea Orcel, has successfully sued Santander for withdrawing a job offer they had made to him: 'A judge awarded him €68m, the bulk of it in remuneration for deferred pay he lost when he resigned from UBS to take the Santander job. It also included “moral and reputational damages”...'. Presumably a sum which will, in due course, be recovered from Santander's customers in the form of overdraft penalties and such like. Just possible, I suppose, that Santander's share holders or insurers will take a hit in the short term. But no chance of Orcel donating the money to his favourite charity, not even to the Royal Society for the Relief of the Suffering of the Widows of Distressed Bankers (RSRSWDB), a hangover from the days when the Italians had kings and queens. The outfit that organises very flashy charity balls in Milan.

References

Reference 1: After Santander court victory, Andrea Orcel aims to win at UniCredit: Italian banker says remuneration fight ‘was the right thing to do because there was no other way’ - Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli, FT - 2021.

Reference 2: https://www.unicreditgroup.eu/en.html. Very cuddly they are too - they even employ Serbs.