» Pure Ignorance

Never let Tania near the buttons...
Myself and a few mates were playing on the Millionaire machine in the pub a few years back.

For once it's actually being quite generous and we're up to a fiver. Up comes the next question:

"Whose catchphrase was 'I'm Free!'?"

We all smile at each other in that smug way people do when the question is an obvious one and they're feeling all superior.

"I'll get this one." Says Tania, leaning forward and pressing the screen.

DUM DUM DUM!

"I'm Sorry" Says Chris Tarrant (on the machine obviously - he's not in the pub or anything) "Thats the wrong answer."

Tania, if you're reading this then i hope to god that you now know that Nelson Mandela did not walk out of prison after twenty odd years and, in front of a crowd of anti-apartheid protesters and half the world's press, say

"I'm free!"

In a camp voice.
(Fri 7th Jan 2005, 16:45, More)

» Weird Traditions

The Annual Pictionary Tournament
Every Boxing Day my immediate family (parents, brother and 2 sisters) visit my Aunt's house for a post-christmas dinner and (now that everyone is of legal age) a general piss-up at some point during which we will play the dreaded Annual Boys vs Girls Pictionary Tournament.

At some point lost in the grand mists of time (early nineties I think) my Aunt got a Pictionary game at a car boot sale and now, every year, we have to endure this travesty of an event.

Not that Pictionary is a bad game, of course, its just that we (the boys) the never lose.

You see for some reason my Dad, Uncle, Brother and Myself are the motherfucking A-Team of Pictionary.

What my Dad lacks in mental faculty and ability to draw, he makes up for in his uncanny ability to roll a 6 on demand. My Uncle may think that "only poofters draw" but for some reason God has blessed him with the ability to completely shit on women's thought processes with a single word or gesture, turning their minds to jelly when they are on the verge of getting the right answer. I've seen him prevent them from guessing the word "Window" with only an Obi-Wan style wave of the hand.

The grunt work is done by myself and my brother, who seem to share exactly the same kind of bizarro mental processes. This enables us to guess exactly what the other one is trying to convey within 10 seconds of it being put to paper - stick man holding a frying pan with his head on fire? That'll be Andre Agassi then. Stick Man with a blob on his head? Gorbachev! Five Stick men in a row wearing flat caps? The Jarrow Marches!

It used to be funny, it used to be enjoyable, but you know how something is funny at first, but after endless repetition it stops being funny and just starts being downright embarrassing?

After 12 years that's what its like.

For the last 4 we've given them a half-a-board head start for fuck sake!

Every year, the female members of the family give this event a bigger build up than the bloody FA Cup, we've ever caught them practicing for god's sake, yet every year we win and the whole saga ends in tears and recriminations.

We can't even let them win - we tried that in 2003, but the plan fell apart when my dad turned out to be as about a convincing actor as Keanu Reeves. The controversy alone was almost enough to end my aunt and uncle's 25 year marriage until both parties agreed to strike 2003 from the the Pictionary record and never speak of it again.

Of course we can't just not play though - its tradition...


-- insert shitty length joke here ---
(Fri 29th Jul 2005, 19:58, More)