The shame

A quick question: Describe the UK highway roadsign for a roundabout.

This week I’ve been in hiding. I haven’t been able to show my face the last few days. In one instant last Thursday night I plummeted from my perch.

There I was, enjoying Bob’s quiz night at The Argyll in Ullapool. It was quite busy for the time of year and there were more teams than usual taking part. Our team, ‘The Devine Comedy’ (a cheesily topical Scottish politics/14th century Italian literature pun) had got off to a bad start, but we were in 2nd place. Smooth-as-coral Bob then asked “Which is the only circular British road sign with three arrows?”
‘Easy… it’s a mini-roundabout. Wait, hang on minute…. Haven’t I seen circular roundabout signs? No… a roundabout is a triangular (warning) sign……’ My thought process continued…. ‘Hmmm, I’m sure I’ve seen some circular roundabout signs….’ And I convinced myself that I had seen circular roundabout signs in both Inverness and Elgin. Bob was starting to ask the next question, so I put down ‘roundabout’.

At the end of the round we swapped answer sheets and Bob read out the answers. “The only circular British road sign with three arrows is a mini roundabout.”
Now, I used to compile and host pub quizzes, so I believe that the quizmaster is always right. This is especially true in Bob’s case as the quizzes are bought in, so he can only read the answer he is given. The trouble is, I had somehow convinced myself that, every day, I saw circular roundabout signs. I could even strongly picture, in my mind, a circular roundabout sign near Elgin leisure centre. So I voiced my objection. After all, it wasn’t just my quiz reputation now at stake, it was my reputation as a driving instructor. My 99% score in my Driving instructor theory test would count for nothing if I got this wrong. Of course, people in other teams gleefully produced Googled pictures of triangular roundabout signs on their smartphones, but my memory had stubbornly tricked me into being convinced that some roundabout signs were circular and I persisted with my claim. I even vowed to produce photographic evidence at the next quiz.
If I had stopped to think about it, I would have logically realised that a roundabout sign could not be circular (a circular sign is an order…. Although that logic doesn’t explain why a mini-roundabout sign is circular). A few days later, I was teaching in Elgin, and I we approached the leisure centre…. “Nooooo!” The roundabout sign there was, indeed, a triangle. I frantically struggled to think of where I might have seen a circular roundabout sign. For the next few days I was still convinced that I had seen circular roundabout signs and I looked in vain for them.

I KNEW that a mini-roundabout sign is circular, so I can’t imagine why I did not put that answer down. “Never mind,” you may say, “it’s only a quiz.” But, to me, my reputations as both a quiz fiend and a knowledgeable driving instructor have been vaporised. Tomorrow night I will have to slink in to the Argyll and hope that no-one remembers to ask for photographic proof of my mythical circular roundabout signs. Perhaps I will sneak in a copy of the Highway Code, just in case Bob asks any more driving-related questions.

Life, the universe and everything.

A quiz for you: (answers are at the end of this post)
1. Name Blondie's 6 UK No.1 singles.
2. Which Dicken's novel includes the characters Bentley Drummle, Mr. Jaggers and Compeyson?
3. Name the 7 capital cities of Central America (from North to South).
4. Which grape variety is used to make Beaujolais wine?
5. Name 7 of Islay's malt whisky distilleries.
6. Which former England captain scored the English Premier League's fastest hat-trick?
7. Which 1996 film starred Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Danny DeVito, Annette Benning, Pierce Brosnan and Michael J Fox?
8. List the 6 geological periods of the Palaeozoic era.
9. Which 6 English batsmen scored centuries in the 2010/2011 Ashes series?
10. Name the six murder weapons found in Cluedo.

I enjoy quizzes (I used to compile and host them in my pubs) and, if asked, I could have reeled off the answers to the above without much hesitation (maybe I would have been a little unsure about whether El Salvador's capital lay north or south of Hondura's capital). Hooray! Bully for me! But, really, this knowledge is rarely of use. Put me in a pub quiz or put me in the instructor's seat of a car and I am very confident in my knowledge.
Ask me something a little less black or white - Which is the best Islay whisky? What should we do with the garden this Spring? Why is anyone interested in what Katie Price does? Is it acceptable to serve Shark's fin soup or Foie Gras in a restaurant? Do any of the clothes in my wardrobe suit me? Why are some drivers considerate in their approach to learner drivers, where others treat learner drivers as though they were something they have just stepped in? Are blood transfusions wrong? Is there a God? - and I am a little less sure-footed in my reply. I have my opinions (apart from where it concerns my wardrobe - I could hardly care less), but I can usually see that alternative opinions may have some validity.

My last post was the result of being repeatedly hassled by telesales. I know the score, they are just doing their job, and they NEED someone to agree to buy adverts (or whatever else they are selling). The simple fact that they were really struggling to sell me something reminded me of a time, when I was much younger, when Jehovah's Witnesses would call at our house. This post has attracted attention from people who were putting 'Jehovah' into their search engines. Now, it is very easy to make cheap, throwaway comments about Jehovah's Witnesses, or any other group of people, so perhaps me posting about something that was slightly beyond the realm of my knowledge was not best advised. As a result, I have made further research and found some of the information quite interesting and even illuminating.
It may be true that blood transfusions have taken place unnecessarily, and it is certainly encouraging that science is looking at alternatives to blood transfusion. However, my opinion is that, if it is the difference between life or death, then it is always necessary.
No-one KNOWS exactly how the universe (and life) was created, there are no surviving witnesses. We have three choices. We can either say "I don't care what happened, maybe there was a creator, maybe there wasn't." We could say "Centuries of scientific research, experiments, data collection and analysis seem to suggest that the universe was formed almost 14 BILLION years ago, the Earth began to form approximately 4.5 BILLION years ago, and life on Earth began, through abiogenesis (organic matter being formed from inorganic matter through chemical processes which have been demonstrated in laboratories), over 3.5 BILLION years ago and has evolved into the variety of life we have on Earth today." Or we could say "God created the universe and all life, but we don't know when and we certainly don't know how."
Now, 'life, the universe and everything' lies beyond the area of my expertise (driving and other trivia), so I only have my opinions. I believe that, until someone discovers a quark, lepton, boson (or any other sub-atomic particle) with God's signature on it, I will believe that some physical reaction created the universe. Similarly, I believe that the WEALTH of fossil evidence (including that of those 3.5 billion year-old microbes) clearly suggest that all life on Earth evolved from very simple single-cell organisms.
I also believe that Katie Price's life should be of no interest to anyone except her friends and close family, and I believe that, even if L-plates were 2 metres wide and in flashing lights, some drivers would still drive dangerously close to them.
But I welcome all alternative beliefs.

Quiz answers:
1. Heart of glass, Sunday girl, Atomic, Call me, The tide is high, Maria.
2. Great Expectations.
3. Belmopan (Belize), Guatemala City (Guatemala), Tegucigalpa (Honduras), San Salvador (El Salvador), Managua (Nicaragua), San Jose (Costa Rica), Panama City (Panama).
4. Gamay.
5. Ardbeg, Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Kilchoman, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Port Charlotte, Port Ellen.
6. Robbie 'God' Fowler.
7. Mars Attacks!
8. Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian.
9. Cook, Strauss, Pietersen, Bell, Trott, Prior.
10. Candlestick, dagger, lead piping, rope, revolver, spanner.