Sunday, January 27, 2008

Noda Receives The 2007 Cock's-Eye 3PMJ Trophy

Noda received the 2007 Cock's-Eye 3-Player Mahjong Trophy at Kodama jansou on Friday 18th January.

This years trophy is in the likeness of a hawk louring on a rock, or a craggy outcrop, or a tree trunk or something. It replaces the misplaced "Bull" trophy* and is a particularly fine piece.

[*See blog entry for Friday January 28: "Never Trust A Japanese Lady With Your Bulls", below.]

Or "pieces" I should say, because if you are not careful one of the wings will fall off.

Unfortunately, the chap in the basement of the antiques emporium where I unearthed this admirable artifact neglected to include two brass pins when he wrapped up the pieces; so we had to make do with matches to hold the wings in place.

The body of the bird is easily detached from the shapeless lump upon which it stands. One false move and the bird will fall off its perch and the plinth will drop off the bottom. That's why Noda is holding the thing so carefully.

I didn't get around to commissioning a brass plate with the legend "Noda - 3PMJ Champion 2007" so we had to make do with paper, biro and sellotape.

The 2007 Cock's-Eye "Louring Hawk" Trophy is expressive of the manner in which the 2007 champion who, after falling to pieces in the early running, got his act together towards the end of the year, soared to a great height on the Grand Accumulated Results Table and loured upon the prey beneath him with a threatening eye. If the hawk has a tendency to fall off its perch, so too, from time to time, does the champion - to the great delight of the other players.

The Louring Hawk is a fitting replacement for the Bull, which was so shockingly disposed of. It surpasses the Bull in size and weight and is such a thoroughly Awkward and Hideous Monstrosity that no further punishment need be inflicted upon our benighted champion and his lady than but one, which is that the Precious Eyesore be placed in a prominent position in the Noda household's display cabinet for the rest of the year.

Or, if the lady will not be gainsaid in her determination to rid the residence of its latest Work of Art, she'll find the Louring Hawk no demure and modest Terracotta Bull to be disposed of with a toss of the hand; no, she'll have her work cut out, she will; she'll have to go about, and about she'll have to go to dispose of this year's Cumbersome and Atrocious Trophy, and no small going-about will that going-about be.

Tim did the honours in presenting the "Louring Hawk" to Noda, who seemed remarkably sanguine in the receiving of it. Part of the cunning plan was to present Noda with an object of such utter ghastliness as to cause him never to aspire to be champion again.

Tim gave a brief speech to the assembled company in which he also paid tribute to the memory of our late friend, Eri, who was amongst us this time last year and hopeful of recovery. 

After Noda had received the trophy, Jaime and David whipped out the cigars they had bought at the new whisky and cigar bar on the second floor of Kemby's. Jaime went for a long Cuban infused with brandy, and David selected a stubby Davidoff. Tonight was our turn to smoke out the mahjong parlour. Fifty-one weeks of the year the Japanese players smoke their cheap cigarettes and fill the parlour with their noxious odour, but tonight they got a shock when the two of us in our smoking humour blazed away for much of the night like Quilp the Dwarf, and puffed out a rich miasma of Caribbean smoke, which turned Mama's freshly painted walls yellow in the twinkling of an eye.

Jaime's was longer, but David's lasted longer. As it was with the smoke, so it turned out to be with the tiles. Noda played a short game and disappeared with the freshly dismantled Hawk having taken everybody to the cleaners and finished on +130. No qualms there then about receiving another Hideous Monument at next year's prize giving...

Once Noda had departed the parlour Ray threatened to take over the running and extricate himself from the bottom of the pile, and in doing so, helped Jaime to chalk up the year's first Yakitori. Meanwhile, Kenyon re-entered the fray to win back his modest first game losses, plus one! 

David had been muttering about how the Davidoff had not raised him very far into the Delectable Mountains. He had spent much of the second and third game fiddling about relighting it and so forth. The Davidoff repaid David's attentions, however, not so much in that Extacy of Relaxation which is the particular reward of a Good Smoke, but in keeping him sufficiently compos mentis to take his advantages when they presented themselves, vide licet in the fourth and fifth games. 

The sixth game, being the last, went to Kenyon and pulled him above the bar, so the final scores for the night were:

Noda +133, -3, --, --, --, -- = +130
David --, -7, -24, +58, +45, -6 = +66
Kenyon -14, --, +15, -34, +12, +46 = +25
===

Jaime -48, +26, -36,** +5, -17, -22 = -92
Ray -71, -16, +45, -29, -40, -18 = -129

** Yakitori

David Hurley

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1 Comments:

At 3:23 pm, January 30, 2008, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It lasted longer only because of your repeated attempts to burn your fingers and/or other body parts off.

 

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