Taking Pleasures Seriously

Generally I like nothing more than pitting my wits against others. Give me a quiz night.

Quiz nights are particularly good because you can take a whole lot of wine and picnic foods and pretend that you are there for the benefit of whatever dubious charity has put the thing on. It may be to raise money to have the gilt re-applied to a private kindergarten’s coat of arms or something, but that isn’t the point.

As the wine and King Island Double Brie slowly disappear, you can focus on crushing all lesser beings with the wondrous breadth of your intellect.

In reality you are just revealing that, for want of anything important to shove into the old memory banks, you have retained all of the words to the Marine Boy theme or can work out who came 5th in the AFL 4 years ago. It is all crap and you would be better off without it, instead of which all the Riesling and Cab Sav makes you more determined than you would be if you were battling for custody of your children or a much loved pet.

My own specialty is to get upset and outspoken when I disagree with the answer they give. I can really get in a huff. A great big hairy huff with all testosterone coming off it.

My favourite was once when my sister was quizmaster. I let go with even more gusto than usual, with the result that she not only didn’t give me the precious single point that I was after, but she didn’t speak to me for a couple of months, then she moved to Melbourne. It was still worth it. I can’t remember what the question was but I was right and they were wrong.

Anyway, said sister was at a quiz night herself a couple of weeks ago. Most of the people she had organised for her table didn’t turn up which is always a risk. Not everyone is enchanted by the opportunity to sit in a draughty church hall with a whole mob of the sort of person that does like going to quiz nights. So her table was light on for numbers, which is a disaster if you want to win. Which is the point, isn’t it?

She was staring defeat in the eye so elected to cheat. I don’t hold with using a mobile phone at one of these things, but the possibility of me participating in a quiz night when I was 800 kilometres away was irresistible.

That evening I was at a barbeque with some friends, so my sister’s table went from having the benefit of 4 minds to having about 28. Of course, we had been doing ourselves pretty well on the beer, wines and spirits, so the advantage may not have been as great as it seemed.

She fielded the first round or two without help, but then the text came through. “What do Piaggio make?”

I didn’t even refer to my barbeque mates. No need. Piaggio make motor scooters – that’s simple, so I sent off the message.

There were a few more questions but they increasingly became the subject of much hot dispute and we often didn’t come up with an answer until it was too late. Still, it added to our evening.

At the end of it all, I insisted on debriefing with my sister. To my dismay, she said that we had been marked wrong on the Piaggio question. The quizmaster’s response was that they make Vespas.

What the bloody hell is a Vespa if not a motor scooter? Did they ask for that level of detail?

I put all of this very strongly to my sister but she didn’t seem interested. They had come a creditable fourth or something and were just relieved not to have been embarrassed. An extra point would not have put them in the prizes so who cares? Indeed, who cares anyway given that third prize in a quiz night is usually something that they found on the footpath on the way in.

I, on the other hand, was seething. The quizmaster was wrong and needed to know it. I was right. They had dared to disagree with me. The arrogance! But she wouldn’t go back and have it out with him. She was off to the pub with her friends.

Such was my rage that I checked it out the next day. Imagine my fury when I found that Piaggio make Vespas but also Gileras (yeah, OK, I had never heard of them but still…) and A FAIRLY WIDE RANGE OF MOTOR SCOOTERS IN THEIR OWN NAME.

So those bloody quiz people can get stuffed. Vespas is not the right answer. It is part of the right answer, but can’t, of itself, be the right answer. If I had been at that damn quiz night I really would have thrown my weight around and scared any number of the emaciated librarians and invalids who people these events.

I told my sister all about it, but I don’t think she was listening. She didn’t care in the least and I suspect could not even remember what I was talking about.

Can this person really be my sister? Well,( for one point), yes she can, but that’s not what I meant.

I will leave you with one that mother told me and it gets me going every time.

“Brothers and sisters, I have none, but that man’s father is my father’s son. Who is that man?”

Mum, on the basis that the bloody thing was apparently called “My brother or myself?” would insist that was the answer. I would say “But mum, it can’t be his brother, he doesn’t have any. Look at it backwards. If I don’t have any brothers, my father’s son can only be me. Therefore you can read it “that man’s father is me” which means that man is my son. It’s simple.

She would just smile kindly and repeat: “My brother or myself. It’s my brother or myself, dear.”

I would get incandescent. And so the long night would wear on.

90th Percentile

There is something wrong with my hand – it feels all numb and sometimes it hurts. So I went to the doctor and he sent me for some physio.

I have been for 2 lots of physio so far. The first time I went the fellow tested my grip strength. I wanted to do well and have always seen myself as a big strong guy, so I was quite pleased when he told me that I am in the 90th percentile for grip strength.

I am never quite sure what a percentile is, but I choose to believe that he meant that I am in the top 10% for grip strength. I like being in the 90th percentile for stuff. It boosts my self image. Once I got into the 97th percentile for something. I can’t remember what it was but it would be fair to say that I had a spring in my step that week.

Anyway, when I went back for the second lot of physio, I saw a different person. She was a very nice girl and we chatted comfortably as she went back through the notes.

I was kind of reading along with her and as she got to the grip test results, I started to feel a bit smug. She would be going home that evening to tell her loved ones about the 90th percentile bloke she had treated. I mean, you don’t get one of those every day, do you? Well I suppose you could if you saw 10 patients but part of me believes that I am in a much higher percentile only the tables go in 10’s. I have no support for that belief, it is just what I choose to believe.

However, instead of a sharp intake of breath and an impressed glance over the top of her glasses, she said;

“Oh, grip strength isn’t too bad. I see that you are at 90% of where you should be.”

It is fair to say that part of me died. I thought;

“Hey, that’s not right. I’m in the 90th percentile, not 90% of my capacity. I am nearing superman status, not disabled parking status. Go back, re-read. Be impressed by my might.”

Then it struck me how immensely childish I was being. The point was that my arm was not about to drop off or start hanging limply at my side, drawing pity mixed with revulsion from all and sundry. Sure, she didn’t quite get the detail right, but she wasn’t reading the notes to secretly work out if she would ask me on a date. She was just informing herself about my health.

So I didn’t say anything. In fact, I sucked it up and was my usual genial self for the rest of the consult. But what is it that enabled me, one of the most pedantic and childish of people, to not only perceive one of my own shortcomings, but to respond appropriately?

I have no idea. Could it be that I am starting to grow? Am I maturing? Well, I can’t really see how that could be the case. I prefer to think that I am indeed ill and not myself. I wonder if I do qualify for that disabled car parking sticker.

Tea Leaves

I was reading a novel by Dirk Bogarde the other day. I am a bit fancy like that. One of the characters, who was supposed to be some sort of simpleton, asked “When does it stop being tea and become tea leaves?”

This is the sort of bunkum that always gets me going.

When it is loose and dry, it’s tea. When you put it into a pot (using a teaspoon) it is still tea.

After you have poured the boiling water over it and let it draw, the infusion becomes the tea and what was the tea becomes tea leaves. If you don’t strain it properly you end up with tea leaves in your tea and when you wash the pot out you have to be careful to get all of the tea leaves out. Having already ditched any remaining tea.

Tea to tea leaves, leaving tea. It’s brilliant, like some kind of magic. A secular transubstantiation. It makes me think that there might be something in the reading of tea leaves to predict the future or whatever they do.

Anyway, I could think deeply about this for hours but I chose just to steal it and try to get laughs with it instead. Naturally I intended to pass it off as my own observation. Dirk Bogarde was in movies and stuff, he doesn’t need any more credit. The man was a matinee idol, back when that meant slicked hair and smoking jackets so he can, with respect, get stuffed.

The very first time I tried it out, rather than admiring me for my quirky perceptions, my audient said;

“Hmm. I had never thought of that. It’s the same with coffee and coffee grounds, isn’t it.”

And he was quite right too. The whole thing is eerily similar. Getting the coffee, putting it into the coffee maker (oddly, with a tablespoon- I think you use coffee spoons for measuring out your life instead) then, Presto! You have created a hot drink and some nasty grounds that get all over the sink and spew copiously from any splits in your bin liner.

I had been turning the tea question over in what passes for my mind for days without even thinking of that. He barely paused for breath.

I will never acknowledge that anyone is smarter than I am, particularly in matters that are utterly trivial. Clearly I am going to have to change the rules again so that I can maintain my carefully manipulated self image.

Before I do that, though, I will spend a few weeks mulling over the strange connection between infused hot drinks and the names of their component parts. I am fizzing at the bunghole.