Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

The Rainy Day team played away from home yesterday. Our opponents, and generous hosts, were the Kerns, Anna and Gregor, and the outcome was an honorable 1-1 draw. The game was Cranium, which involves spelling words backwards, humming tunes, answering multiple-choice questions, drawing with one's eyes closed and about a dozen other wonderfully diverse activities.

As well as being fun, Cranium is a very clever board game. To win, teams have to make it to Cranium Central — a large purple brain in the middle of the board. To get there, players draw cards from four decks — Star Performer, Word Worm, Creative Cat and Data Head — to advance around the board. The titles describe activities that teams must complete so, for example, if you pick a Sculptorades card from the Creative Cat deck, you might be asked to shape a banana split from apple-scented Cranium Clay while your team-mates try to guess what you're making. Once teams make it to Cranium Central, they have to successfully complete one activity from each of the four decks. The result is that the team with the best combination of skills comes out on top.

Delicious apricot cake, Australian shiraz and a splendid pumpkin soup fuelled the fun. The return match is being eagerly looked forward to.

Diarist of the day: Victor Klemperer, 20 January 1941

"[Dresden] A couple of weeks ago at the Jewish tea downstairs with the Katzes and Kreidles, Leipziger, an elderly medical officer and insurance doctor, garrulously and somewhat boastfully and conceitedly monopolized the conversation; recently Frau Voss comes back enchanted from one of her bridge parties: The medical officer had read so interestingly from a book about the doctor, it is his own life. So now all the Jews who have been thrown out are writing their autobiography, and I am one of twenty thousand ?And yet: The book will be good, and it helps me pass the time. But the old doubt also revived again, whether it would not have been better for me to learn English. Now on the one hand the new reduction in our money is in the offing, on the other the block on American visas has been lifted and it will soon be the turn of our quota number, and Sussmann ?has passed on my documents by airmail to Georg. Wait and see?

It continues to be cold with snow (without interruption since December), apartment difficult to heat, bad chilblains on my chapped and swollen hands."