Who wastes time ?

Not that I need an excuse to waste time pottering around the house, but the weather has been so awful it’s pretty much put paid to any ideas I had of using my half term week off for trips or visits to places of interest. As a teacher I do sometimes get people discussing the long summer break ( which never has been 6 weeks, by the way, thanks for asking ) with me, and wondering out loud whether I get bored during it.

No.

Let me qualify that. I’m not saying that I don’t have periods of total inertia, but that’s more to do with being unable to make up my mind which of two or more options I should do first. I’m put in mind of something I read that Sylvia Plath once wrote about seeing herself starving to death in a fig tree because she couldn’t make up her mind which of the figs to eat. So, anyway I thought I’d tell you what I’ve been doing to improve the shining hour over the last couple of days.

I’ve spent not a little time compiling questions. It’s not my turn at the club tonight, and for all I know maybe it won’t be next week. Still, it’s bound to come soon, and my way of thinking was I’m stupid if I don’t put a stock of quizzes together while I’ve got time, rather than putting myself under undue pressure during term time. I’ve tried to do it slightly differently from normal. Usually I’ll do one quiz at a time. I tend to think in terms of broad categories, and put the same category headings into each round. So basically I know that for each quiz I need 8 of this, 8 of that, 4 each of those , and so on. Then I slot them into rounds. This time though I’ve been gathering questions in their 40s and 80s, rather than 5s and 10s. It’s interesting doing it this way, although it does make you realize how samey a lot of your stuff is between quizzes. It made me realize this anyway, so hopefully they should see a change in the club in the next half dozen or so quizzes I do for them.

Then there’s Triviador. Although I was recommended this one by Daniel quite a while ago I never got round to playing it. If you haven’t found this for yourself yet, it’s on Facebook. Basically it’s a trivia duel between three people, who try to answer faster and more accurately than the others in order to slice them up with swords , or shoot the with cannonballs. Yes, a philosophical work, for certain. Be warned, though, it is rather addictive.

Unfortunately I haven’t had a trivia games Marathon as happened at Easter. The twins are preparing for their exams,. and so that’s been put on hold. Bit of a shame since I have collected a couple more trivia games since Easter which I wanted to try out, but they’ll keep, I suppose

I’ve only played in one quiz so far this week. That was the Dyffryn Arms on Sunday. I’m really going to have to try to find another midweek quiz by the end of July so that I can go during the summer holidays. I don’t know, two quizzes a week seems like famine rations to me at the moment. On Sunday I walked in and there was Rob, his wife Pam and some of the guys from the Thursday night team, plus a couple of others too. John wasn’t available, which left just me, with my daughter Jess along for support. So you can imagine how delighted I was that we managed a draw by the skin of our teeth.

I had a lovely email from Glenys Hopkins, asking if I’d like to join the Mastermind Club. I say join, but actually it’s more of a case of rejoin. I did join a few years back, but lost the standing order form and basically dropped out through sheer inertia. Well, your Dave is not the sort of chap to refuse a request from a lady, so I’ve set the wheels in motion there, and hopefully that will all go through OK now. If you’re not sure what I’m on about, basically membership of the Mastermind Club is open to anyone who has been a contender in any version of the show – Original BBCTV – Radio 4 – Discovery – revived BBCTV. I think I’m right in saying that as an organization specifically for people who have taken part in one particular quiz show it’s unique, and I certainly think that in itself is worthy of praise.

Oh, there was the little matter of the Jubilee going on as well, I suppose. Our street party, which was going to be held in the park down the road since we are on a main road, was rained off. All in all it’s been a little restrained. I was going on 13 when the Silver Jubilee happened, and even in suburban West London people made quite a fuss about it – lots of bunting, and decorations, and souvenir tea towels being displayed in front windows as I recall. Mind you, when you compare it to what happened when the Queen drove past my house for the Golden Jubilee, maybe a more restrained celebration is no bad thing. Ten years ago the Queen drove past us , on her way from the station to Margam Park, a couple of miles down the road. The royal roller glided past us, then just 20 yards down the road a local character did something rather unexpected. No names, no pack drill,but she is, well, how can I put it ? Well, let’s say that she is a card carrying member of the oldest profession, or as I think Ronnie Barker put it once , what her profession is I’m not telling you on this programme, but here’s a clue, they have jam on them and appear at teatime. She jumped right out in front of the car, and, erm, completely exposed herself to the royal personages. They never put that on the local news bulletins. Thankfully she wasn’t around when the torch went past.

I don’t know – and people think that teachers just waste their time during the holidays !