TRIVIA

I am sad to confess I have a butterfly mind, moving seamlessly from one subject to another, supping briefly from the nectar of subject 1 then following on with a shallow draught of subject 2. An older generation would describe me as a flibbertigibbet, (a frivolous, superficial person) and I cannot honestly demur. I can absorb information easily and readily remember facts but scholarly study and deep appreciation are really not my forte. Alexander Pope wisely observed:

A little learning is a dangerous thing, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring.

My mentor - the lovely butterfly

But then we all fill ourselves with useless information. It starts at school when someone explains to you The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, most long disappeared, soon supplemented by the Peregrinations of St Paul, moving remorselessly around the Med dismally preaching to the luckless Ephesians et al, or the Course of the Peninsular War from Torres Vedras to Vitoria, a British triumph to be sure, but what is more stale than a 200-year-old military campaign? My scientific education was somewhat deficient and I know nothing of the Periodic Table nor of Boyle’s Law – thank goodness – so I certainly cannot recite them by rote.

I am however an inveterate fan of general knowledge crossword puzzles and my fund of trivia is constantly replenished in this way. I confidently claim to be the only soul in Northern Athens who knows about nematodes (unsegmented worms), scrimshaw (carved article made by a sailor), atropine (poison obtained from deadly nightshade), or Obadiah (Old Testament book with only one chapter). I even broaden my scientific knowledge boasting familiarity with spark-gap (space between electrodes), ionize (produce electrically charged particles) or argon (an inert atmospheric gas). The practical use of this trivia is however not immediately apparent. 

I would claim to know something about politics, which I studied idly at university. But here too in my case the general sweep sinks to the particular, then to the personal and finally to the trivial. When I think of Neville Chamberlain, fine on the home front but hopelessly outmanoeuvred by Hitler, I quickly glance at the merits or otherwise of Appeasement but soon enough descend to thoughts of Neville’s dated high collars and his trademark umbrella. Harold Wilson presided over devaluation and decline but my mental picture of him cannot blot out his Gannex raincoat and his party-trick recital in French of the ingredients of HP Sauce. Nor in my mind is the towering figure of Maggie Thatcher separable from her twinset and pearls and her famous handbag. If Ed Miliband is remembered for anything it will be his epic struggle to eat a bacon sandwich with dignity (he failed).

Neville C with high collar and umbrella

Wilson in his Gannex

  

Maggie and her handbag

Ed Miliband struggles with a bacon sandwich

Yet in truth these little idiosyncrasies bring some humanity to these public figures. No longer are they on a pedestal or remote from ordinary life. I sometimes wish we knew more about our alleged divinities. If Jesus Christ was indeed God made flesh, he must have had human concerns. I think we should become privy to some trivia about him. For example, did he prefer ewe’s or goat’s milk and what was his size in sandals? Alas, too late now to know….


SMD
18.01.15
Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2015