Week 7This week’s skill is logic: there are two chemistry sets on the big patio outside the main living area and assorted chess sets and telescopes scattered around the rest of the house and garden.
Alys seems shocked.
Come on, Alys. It isn’t as bad as all that. Is it?
Apparently it is. (And, incidentally, I’ve just noticed that Alys has lost weight while she’s been in the house. All the swimming they’ve been doing between skilling periods, presumably.)
I really don’t know why she’s fussing. This lot have already proved perfectly capable of ignoring inconvenient skilling objects. Of course, chess is supposed to be fun – but then, so are musical instruments and easels
.
And ignoring the logic objects proves to be equally easy. The chairs are quite convenient…
…but that doesn’t mean they have to use them for the intended purpose. As so often before, the housemates are perfectly happy to pick their way around skilling objects to get on with the important business of chatting or berating each other’s ignorance.
As a small distraction from the lack of progress in logic, Terry becomes the second person to earn a social group trait, again through nerd influence. She becomes a supernatural skeptic, because it seems to suit a stage magician.
The end of Wednesday arrives without a single logic point being gained. I was afraid of this. So, OK, time for Plan B. Di moves out of the HoH suite and isn‘t replaced. From now until, um, whenever (Sunday morning?) they’re into extra time. The first one to learn logic becomes Head of House. After that it’s Rethink Time – and we’re probably looking at another skill.
Most of Thursday goes past as uneventfully as the previous three days. At last, late in the evening, someone sits down at a chessboard and fails to pull out a book.
Di is clearly tired but she’s already shown herself to be one of the keenest learners in the house. Can she stay awake for long enough to pick up a skill point?
Progress is slow but she doesn’t give up. Around her, everyone else retires to bed. Di’s determined.
And, at 12.25 am on Friday, she becomes Head of House for the second consecutive week.
Unsurprisingly, Terry is up for eviction again. She’s joined by Alys, who’s too quiet to have made much of an impression on her housemates..
As in previous weeks, living on fast food and
alcohol fruit juice hasn’t exactly encouraged meticulous housekeeping.
And what’s the solution? Tidying up? Don’t be silly.
Obviously, you just eat outside and wait for someone else to clear up the mess. (And, inevitably, the someone else turns out to be Grim.)
Alys thinks she knows who’s likely to be kicked out.
She follows her usual maxim: when in doubt, read. (And she’s noticed that Jake and Vish’s room is now free, so that she can read in peace.)
The other resident bookworm was slightly slower off the mark but he’s appropriated Burl’s bed as a reading space.
On Saturday morning, India, who’s been pretty well-behaved so far this week, waylays Simon outside the bathrooms.
He doesn’t seem to know what to do with a blown kiss.
Then he decides. He doesn’t like it.
India’s outraged. Why can’t people cope with a bit of harmless flirting? Well, two can play the ‘horrified rejection’ game.
As Simon slinks off in bewilderment, she tries out chat-up lines on Terry instead.
