It's not Christmas without mulled wine and Cliff Richard

So I'm told, anyway. Of course, I've never before had a Christmas with mulled wine OR Cliff Richard, who has apparently been dubbed the "British Elvis". I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a recommendation or a warning.

A German student made mulled wine at the office party on Friday evening. This involved really cheap alcohol and fire.

Meanwhile, the Santas have taken over London. Last night, as I walked home from the Go club, every few yards there was another group of friends all dressed as Santa. I also saw one court jester and one chicken; I'm not sure what those were about. At Borough Market yesterday morning there was a larger group of Santas shouting, in call-and-response protest style,

"What do we want?"
"Christ-mas!"
"When do we want it?"
"Now!"

No pub night

Brenda and I tried to go out for a beer this evening for our usual Thursday night pub night, but alas, every pub was packed. At least, all those in central London near our office were full and overflowing. Everyone's out for Christmas. It's unbelievable. Tomorrow night, the office next to ours is hosting a party (maths grad students, mince pies and mulled wine... not necessarily one's first idea of a good time, but we'll see). The plan is to go to our local pub afterwards, but I don't know if we'll be able to get in the door.

Shèng dàn kuaì lè

Our Chinese teacher gave us Christmas cards tonight! On the inside, they say "Shèng dàn kuaì lè" (Merry Christmas) and "Xīn nián xìng fú" (Happy New Year). They're written in Chinese of course. She said she started out writing each stroke very carefully so that we would be able to read them more easily, but she soon gave up. So, though the characters look nice, I don't think I'd recognize even the ones I supposedly know. (The only ones I know are "kuaì" and "lè", which we learned from "Happy Birthday".)

London Open

The London Open is coming up! I'm so unprepared. I haven't been playing enough (as usual) and I haven't been doing enough problems. I have still been looking at pro games on Go4Go.net on a daily basis. Plus I'll get to visit Guo Juan just beforehand; there's always hope for osmosis.

The London Open is a big event (92 people have signed up already) that ends the year: it starts on the 28th of December and ends on New Year's Eve. The games are long (1.5 hours each, plus byo yomi), which is great news for me. They'll probably be upset that the tournament will take much longer this year, since I will actually use all of my time.

There's also a pair go event, so I'll be on the lookout for a good partner.