Be Excellent To Each Other

Okay, Awesome Islanders! Here is task three!

In this task, three members of your team are going to tell us a story about an event they were present at or a talent they have or an interesting thing that no-one else knows about - but only one of the stories will be true. The opposing team will be able to ask questions about the stories, and then will have to guess which story is the true one.

Heeeeeeeeere's TASKMASTER!



Okay, Unicorn Power - tell 'em or guess 'em?

Tick tock, Unicorn Power!

Tonight, Matthew, we're going to be...

[curtain of smoke raises]

Guessing First.

let them tell the stories.

Also, goodness me, read about this task about ten minutes ago. Give us a reasonable amount of chance to read and reply, please

Okay, Barcode Bottlers, we need one true story, and two big-old lies in here by 2pm!

Oh, TASKMASTER wants a word:

Well, that seems like a fair enough poi...Oooo-kay...

Tactics for story telling lies?

I wonder if it'd be in the rules for us to post the same story three times, and they have to guess which one of us it happened to? Also, make the event extremely banal!

we can read that!

Superb.

That's weird. I was in the other thread when I posted that.

I shouldn't mention I'm a secret agent for the other team either, should I?

I was on my phone and making lunch! I had to move the computer as we rearranged everything yesterday and hadn't reconnected it. And I was trying to eat as I did all that.

I sat down after that and had about ten minutes to think. It's fine to be swift, but give us just a little time to get organised, please x

obviously not!

My story is not so much a story, more details of a talent.

I am incredibly good at remembering numbers. I know all my credit cards numbers of every credit card i've ever had, I know all my telephone numbers i've ever had, and the majority of numbers that I would need to put back into my phone if I ever lost all my contacts. In the past I have learnt a 200 digit number, just to prove that I could, and I could easily do more.
Ironically, I'm awful at remembering names, or pretty much anything else

When I was a young Kov-ling. I used to be part of Groundwatch, which was a kiddy version of Groundwork. This showed us more about conservation and looking after wildlife, putting up bird and bat boxes etc.

Well one glorious summer there was a big conservation even, being attended by David Belamy. We were quite excited to meet him.
Unfortunately our parents thought it would be fun to enter us into the fancy dress competition. We told we would be a fracking huge ladybird, and I was the middle legs.

I did meat Mr Belamy but not in a dignified way !
 

When I was growing up in Cornwall, one of my summertime holiday jobs was loading and unloading the parcel delivery vans. This was a split shift, from 6am-11am, and then from 4pm-6pm. In the five hours I had spare each day, I would grab a pasty from the petrol station and then go surfing until I had to return to work. The car stank of wet wetsuit all summer. It was awesome. When the surf was flat, I used to visit my friend, Sarah, who lived in a caravan on her parent's farm close to where I worked. She had a few horses and I’d often pop over unannounced and give her a hand doing the more manual horsey type things, like clearing out stables or organising the storeroom. She seemed to appreciate this, and I quite enjoyed it. Every so often, we'd go out together for a short hack around Goonhavern way, her on whichever horse needed exercising that day, and I'd take one of the older, more plodding horses. One day, it was particularly sunny and nice, but no surf was forecast (it had been flat for ages, too) so I went over to see her and we went out. Today I was on Molly, or, as she was known "molly-clops", a horse rapidly approaching retirement. Not only had age taken its toll, due to a particularly nasty disease, she had lost an eye, hence the nickname. I'd taken her before, and was quite looking forward to a relaxed trot to shake off the remnants of a late night out previously. The thing about horses that have lost sight is they really don't like surprises.They prefer to be in known places and so on. I’d been around Molly a fair few times, and it wasn't ever too much of a problem, as all I generally did was watch Sarah do her dressage stuff around the field that had been used to keep sheep in. So we set off, and went down the road, down a track and into the field and trotter up and down a bit having a chat about mutual friends (Sarah was from the girl's private school in Truro. I’d met her through a friend when meeting for chicken* after they finished school one day) and it was lovely. Sarah went on put the horse through its paces (I think she was showing later on, that month) and I ambled about the field on Molly clops, half paying attention to Sarah and the other half on keeping Molly happy, which was easy enough. After about then minutes, I walked Molly past a cattle field ring in the field. Stupidly, the feed ring was on her blind side, and I was too close to it. Far too close. A stick that had become attached to the side of it when it was rolled into position brushed against the horse's flank, and molly really didn't like this at all. This was beyond her usual safety zones. Molly reared up and bolted, for the safety of what she could see to her right, unseating me, and dumping me into the ring, and the quagmire that was in it. Sarah saw Molly running and was able to catch her, and then came looking for me, finding me covered in mud and stagnant water. She found it really funny, after working out I was fine and funnier still when I was stood in the yard in my underpants, her hosing me down and her mother came back. Luckily, I was able to borrow some clothes form her brother's wardrobe and get back to work on time.

Okay, there are our stories!

Let's see Unicorn Power pull them apart!

Trooper - what is your current credit card number?

Obviously i'm not going to post my credit card details on the forum.

A PM will be fine mate.

Mali - I just can't stop laughing at your story! How old would you have been?

19, it was the year before I began work at the train station as a vacation job.

Where did you come up with the 200 digit number from?

Trooper, how do you know that you could easily remember more than a 200 digit number?

It was a printout of numbers given to me by a housemate at uni. (I was proving my talent )

I don't "know" as such, but 200 was easy, I have no reason to doubt I could do more.

Mali - how did you know Sarah? When did you learn to ride a horse?

Sarah went to the private girl's school in Truro. We first met when I was 17. I had gone down to meet my friends from the school (I sang in a choir with them, awesome way to meet girls, that) after they had finished for the day for drinks in town, and she was friends with them. We used to hang out a fair amount as we frequented the same palces.

When I was 14 or so, I went out on my first hack, and then a year or so later at school camp we spent a day riding horses. After that, I relied upon the good nature of my my friends to use theirs.

I don't care if MaliA is lying or not; he's awesome.

Trooper - what system do you use or remembering long numbers? And how long did it take to memorise the 200 digits?

It's not really a system as such, the only thing I do that has any traditional system about it is to chunk up the numbers and remember each part, then chain them together.
It's more that, for me, long numbers have patterns in them and those patterns "feel" different. Each number and set of numbers has a different feel to it, each chunk of numbers has patterns in it that I can remember. A 1 has a very different feel in my head to a 7 or a 9 for example.
The best way to describe how numbers feel to me is like a song or music. You know how when you listen to a song, you find you know all the words, even though you couldn't sing them all without the music? You remember the start of the song, and each line of the song falls into place as the song plays. That is the same for me with numbers, I remember the start sequence and how the whole chunk of numbers feel, the rise a fall of each number and how they relate and once I have started the number I can feel what the next set of numbers will be.
I guess the best way of describing it is that I sing the numbers in my head, but that really isn't what it is about. It's difficult to describe, and this is the best explanation I can use to tell people when they ask, even though it is only part of how it works in my head. It's kinda like a synesthesia thing, but with "feel" instead of colours.

It took me about an hour to remember to 200 digits as I recall.

If this is true, we will be testing you at the BBQ.

it won't be a new experience I can assure you, you can imagine what it was like at uni when people found out...

Kov could you talking me through, step by step, how to put up a bat box please?

Firstly get a template of the bat box. Which is similar to a bird box, but with the entrance at the bottom.

Cut it out, cut the grooves on the back board so they can walk up.

Nail it together.

Find tree get ladders, nail box to tree..

Team Unicorn Power believes Trooper to be telling the truth.

Okay Barcode Bottlers - which one of you was telling the truth?

While we wait for the reveal, could Unicorn Power start getting their stories ready for a midday kick-off?

The person telling the truth was.....

Kovacs!

Trooper was a big fat liar!

Numbers with "feel"? 200 digit number learnt? WTF guys?

200 wouldn't be too hard.

Then we'll test you at the BeexBQ.

Oooooooooooooh so it's a bad shout from Unicorn Power!

Barcode Bottlers, please choose someone to be evicted from the island!

KovacsC and his chums all had to share one giant ladybird costume? Pics please!

We did. I was about 10. Will ask my mum.

With much regret....


We have decided on the TheVision.

Sorry dude..

Bugger... That's alright though, my boss will probably thank you for it.