TLW66 - Nomads Results

Slavonic Scrabble baron and ex Skoda test driver Ivan Oddcat continues hisalternative Scrabble A to Z.C.ls for CharismaWell, some say you've got it or you haven't. (I had it once, but a good doctor in Kievsorted it out and I haven't had any trouble since). But what happens when you had itbut lost it. How do you put the zing back in your game? I feel some reminiscencescoming on....Estonia, 1978. My mail-order Scrabble accessory business had run into a spot oftrouble. The Estonian Chief Trading Standards Officer had kicked up a fuss over mynovelty glow-in-the-dark tournament tiles - some nonsense about radiation levelsand the odd extra finger or two - you know how these official types like to nitpick.Anyway, I was at a loose end for a business opportunity and I'd noticed that a lot ofmy Scrabble-playlng friends were, well, a couple of blanks short of a bonus shall wesay. I figured that the therapy game might be a good line to move into for a while.So I sign up for one of those postal courses, send off my twenty krooni and a coupleof weeks later, what do you know - I'm qualified. Certificate and everything. I rent asmall office, get a good deal on a couple of those reclining leatherette analyst chairs.(One for the client, one for me - a precaution in case I get one of those whining "mylife's so depressing, I keep picking Vs and Is" merchants). Hey presto - I'm yourlocal Scrabble shrink.Well, word soon gets around the Scrabble circuit about my new line of work andpretty soon I've got a queue of washed-up tile-pushers at my door desperate forsome psychoanalysis.I get the expected bunch of obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferers. Some had wornholes in the bags from continually recounting the tiles. Most kept going over timetoo, the ones that hadn't broken their clocks by stopping them every two seconds tocheck the score. Fortunately I had some stock left over from a previous businessventure. The Oddcat Industrial Chess-Clock (constructed from recycled Russian tankparts) was ideal and I threw in a free Oddcat Indestructible Tile Bag too. These weremade from the same material used for Latvian trawlermen's underpants and asidefrom a slight aroma of haddock, were tailor-made for the most compulsive ofrummagers.Another case on my books was a multiple-personality sufferer. (For professionalreasons, I shall refer to him as player X, Y and Z.) He proved more of a challenge,