Do you think you need to speak the language to win a top Scrabble match? Think again. Nigel Richards, a 48-year-old New Zealander who was crowned the champion of francophone Scrabble on Monday, does not speak a word of French.
Bushy-bearded, bespectacled Richards is already a celebrity in the English version of Scrabble, winning its world championship in 2007 and again in 2011.
However, this is the first time in history that a player who cannot speak the language of French playwright Moliere has won the francophone world championship, which was contested by 74 players in Belgium on Monday.
Photo: AFP
“AMAZING!” the French Scrabble Federation tweeted — in English.
“Nigel, I love you,” it added.
Federation spokesman Antoine Rousseau said Richards had had just nine weeks to prepare for the competition.
He did so by memorizing all of the possible words in the official Scrabble dictionary, from two to 10 letters. In a three-hour final match, Richards won against Gabonese player Schelick Ilagou Rekawe with a word played on two “triple-word score” boxes — the most coveted in the game.
The federation told reporters that unlike some other players, Richards has a great eye for planning his moves and does not need to shuffle around letters when forming a word.
The New Zealander, a resident of Malaysia, is to participate in more Scrabble competitions in Belgium this week, but with the added challenge of playing a format where all players start with the same letters.
After his win on Monday, Richards received a warm round of applause, but then needed a translator to thank the audience.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
French singer Kendji Girac, who was seriously injured by a gunshot this week, wanted to “fake” his suicide to scare his partner who was threatening to leave him, prosecutors said on Thursday. The 27-year-old former winner of France’s version of The Voice was found wounded after police were called to a traveler camp in Biscarrosse on France’s southwestern coast. Girac told first responders he had accidentally shot himself while tinkering with a Colt .45 automatic pistol he had bought at a junk shop, a source said. On Thursday, regional prosecutor Olivier Janson said, citing the singer, that he wanted to “fake” his suicide
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other