Tuesday, September 13, 2005

07/09/05 Good And Bad At Games

"Brothers and sisters have I none,
But that man's father is my father's son"

Attempting to work out precisely who the narrator of this verse was referring to
used to cause my brain to short circuit as a child.
Of course as an intelligent adult, I can now see that the solution is patently obvious and that the narrator is referring to his second cousin,( twice removed), on the maternal side of his family. Simple.
This conundrum occasionally appeared as a Park family "keep the children entertained" travelling game.
We used to make a weekly visit from South Queensferry to Glasgow to see my mum's parents. This trip generally took about an hour. To 4 small children this represents an extremely long and boring journey.
The most popular in-drive games option was usuaully a "General Knowledge" quiz, where we would all compete against each other.
Questions were tailored by my parents to suit the relative ages of the children. This was a good idea in principal, however the game often ended in raging controversy, as play was suspended due to a barrage of complaints, (usually from my brother or me), about the ridiculously easy questions given to my younger sisters.
On one occasion, I was tied in a cliffhanger of a game with my youngest sister Janie. We had one question each left. The atmosphere in the car was electric.
I was given a tough geographical question which I had to pass on, leaving me devastated.
Janie (aged approximately 5) was then asked what noise a duck makes. I was outraged, and, to rub salt in the wound, was then disqualified for my unabated, vociferous complaints. It still upsets me to this day.
I was denied victory in the cruellest of circumstances. The confidence that victory would have given me could have led me to win "Mastermind" or even appear on "University Challenge", but I was left broken, bitter and defeated with a smouldering sense of injustice.

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