Or – things I wrote on the train while half asleep this morning, following a weekend of heavy birthdaying. Mine, as it happens. I’ve been olded.
Trivia tourettes – the compulsion to spout flimflam at inappropriate times. When being sent down by a magistrate, the young lag would shout ‘there is only one breed of cow indigenous to the Northern Ensweer peninsula’, or ‘Poldark wasn’t real, although his dog was based on a real dog’ – as opposed to ‘that’s the third time you’ve sent me down, you rotter’. Which, of course, would be inadmissable as evidence. As would any of the trivia he recited. Unless he perhaps came across the trivia will performing his offence – eg on reading the host’s New Scientist in the middle of a burglary, should he be caught short. Or becoming engrossed in Wikipedia while performing a Nigerian 419 scam or needing to refer to the 1996 Haynes’ Owner’s Guide to the Vauxhall Carlton in an attempt to hot-wire the vehicle.
Then the idea could be extended to Trivia Roulette – who could come up with the most obscure fact while still remaining broadly on topic. And then we’d all be employed by Radio 4 and be chums with dead comedians.
Of course most men of a certain age are well used to Trivia Top Trumps, aka ‘Going to the Pub’. My twenties would have been immeasurably more, um, quiet, had I not known and been rewarded with endless amounts of completely pointless information. It probably said something about my ability to retain this information that my role in the pub quiz team was generally to offend members of my team and think of the team name, occasionally at the same time. In fact, so regular was my capacity to cause offence and or random outbreaks of giggles that the landlord created a special prize for me to win each week (generally the contents of a Kinder Egg). Without this incentive, who knows if such winners as ‘Default Horse’, ‘My wee smells of nuts’ or ‘Fiona’s repeated Question 4 so many times that I have lost the will to live’. (more…)