lifestylesupportguru

Category: Quiz

T.I.M or S.O.W

I’m back again! Did you miss me? I have been incredibly busy over the last few weeks, dashing up and down the A1 (it’s nicer than the M1), being expelled from a medical practice (more of that another time), being gently questioned by a doctor to whom I offered a place in the Sixth Form several years ago (thank goodness; I think that’s why he described my blood pressure as ‘good’ – he was repaying a favour), the occasional lunch – and I DO mean ‘occasional’, since they seem to have dropped off alarmingly in recent months – and waiting in for wine deliveries.

Today, however, I wish to offer you a little questionnaire, because I know how much you enjoy discovering your inner self and that is exactly what the Lifestyle Support Guru is for – helping you to find the real person inside, as opposed to the one you show to the world, that jovial, laughing person who is wailing and weeping on the inside because Greggs has run out of vegan sausage rolls and you wanted to show how ‘woke’ you are by eating at least one!

The question today is: are you a T.I.M or a S.O.W.? Or both? I have finally discovered my Achilles’ Heel – I am BOTH! However, this is not necessarily a Bad Thing since it shows that I am able to relate to, and understand the pain of, mere mortals who do not have the inner knowledge and self-perception like what I have got (although I haven’t yet eaten a vegan sausage roll, but I’m sure that will come). You simply need to consider the following situations:

1. Turning Into my Mother (T.I.M.)

When you go into a shop, do you feel the need to explain exactly why you need whatever it is you intend purchasing? If your answer is ‘Yes’, then you are turning into your mother. I found myself doing this today when I explained just why I wanted the vitamin tablets I was considering purchasing – it was because my eldest sister had suggested trying them and when my eldest sister suggests something like that, I know it’s worth listening because she knows EVERYTHING (well, about vitamins, anyway). My next-eldest sister doesn’t know QUITE everything, but that’s not her fault, because she was born after Eldest Sister, so she has had less time to learn EVERYTHING (about vitamins).

2. Silly Old Woman (S.O.W.)

While you are explaining in great detail just why you need whatever it is you are purchasing (although this should be unnecessary if you are buying, for example, incontinence pads), do you notice the shop assistant’s eyes glazing over? You may be concerned that she is developing a rapid form of cataracts, but fear not for her health – it is only her way of confirming that you are a Silly Old Woman, just as you had feared, boring everyone within close vicinity with tales of bunions, hip replacements, the need to visit the toilet far more often, how many tablets you take a day, turning up the volume on the television, bemoaning the fact that ‘that nice Terry Wogan’ seems to have been replaced by a shrieking harpie who interviews little Tarquins and Arabellas about their violin-playing skills rather than recording risqué Janet and John ‘playlets’.

Please do not worry if you are male (or ‘would rather not say’) and think that you do not fit into the above categories. T.I.M. is non-gender-specific and S.O.W. can easily become S.A.M. – Silly And Male – or S.O.N.G.S – Silly Old Non-Gender-Specific – or S.O.T. – Silly Old Transgender. There, that should cover everyone!

Are you a T.I.M. or a S.O.W.? Test yourself! Goodnight!

A Sad Day

It is with a heavy heart and an ineffable (lovely word!) sadness that I have to tell you that, I, the Lifestyle Support Guru, have had to make an executive decision and withdraw the privileged status of ‘Honorary Welshman’ from one of the select few on whom this honour has been bestowed. Some of you may know this person, since I have referred to him in previous posts. It is none other than TT, the Tiny Tyke!

‘How has this unprecedented event come about?’ I hear you cry. ‘We know that he has accompanied you on trips to Pontypridd, Llandudno, and other places such as Rugby and Market Harborough on rugby weekends, supporting Wales with almost as much fervour as a REAL Welsh person (except when Wales is playing England, of course, but allowances can be made).’

Let me set the scene …
The TT enjoys nothing more than a quiz, and he has a wide range of knowledge, although he can be a little impetuous at times in his eagerness to give an answer, as was the case when he was involved in a head-to-head fastest-first tie breaker where the LSG was question master some years ago:

LSG: What was the name of Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner in ‘A Christmas Carol’?
TT: Bob Marley!
I couldn’t speak for laughing at the thought of Bob Marley and Scrooge Jammin’ together!

At other times, he cannot be talked out of an answer if he’s convinced he’s right, especially if he’s got the pen:
The TT was in a team of four, one of whom was a French teacher (although TT was unaware of this at the time) – this is an important point to keep in mind.
The question was: ‘What is the English name for the French wine area of Bourgogne?’
TT immediately wrote down ‘Bordeaux’ and could not be talked out of this answer, even though the French teacher tried to tell him it was ‘Burgundy’ and that the English name for Bordeaux is … Bordeaux. (She modestly didn’t tell him about her linguistic qualifications!) It was the LSG who had to put him straight at the end of the quiz.

So, what is the quiz-related heinous crime that has been committed by TT? Last night it was my turn to do the Sunday quiz at the local and TT decided to come along since he wasn’t at work today, so he didn’t need an early night. The first ten questions were on St David and St Patrick – in reality, questions on Wales and Ireland – and the very first question was ‘What flower is the national emblem of Wales?’
The teams swap answer sheets to mark, so it wasn’t until the end of the quiz that I was informed of TT’s answer by the team that marked his sheet – he had written ‘Shamrock’! SHAMROCK!!!
TT said that he had ‘misheard’ the question (which was asked twice), but how can you ‘mishear’ ‘flower’ and ‘Wales’ for ‘plant’ and ‘Ireland’?
Tiny Tyke, it will take a lot of grovelling and many more rugby weekends to be considered even remotely for the reinstatement of the honour of being an ‘Honorary Welshman’! A sad day for England and Yorkshire!

True Power

A very good evening to you from the Lifestyle Support Guru! I hope you have all had a thoroughly enjoyable Easter break, despite the cold and wet weather – if you have lived in the UK for most of your life, you should now know how to make the most of your time despite any inclement weather (this includes during the now-laughably named ‘summer’). Your house should be filled with ‘rainy day’ items such as Hungry Hippo, Jenga, Operation, Happy Families, Monopoly, the complete works of Shakespeare, a box set of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings and, of course, a lifetime’s subscription to Netflix. Obviously, once you have turned eighteen, all of these can be replaced by going to the pub (where you may find they have most of these items anyway).
It is through my occasional visits to the pub that I have learned what TRUE POWER is. Do not be fooled by men of little worth such as Trump or Putin or Kim Jong-un, who may try to convince the world that they have TRUE POWER simply because they have nuclear (pronounced as ‘nucular’ by some, just as ‘secretary’ becomes ‘sekettri’ and February changes to ‘Febuwari’, or ‘prostate’ to ‘prostrate’ and even ‘ask’ to ‘ax’ – such strange variations!) power. Nuclear power is not TRUE POWER!

So, what is TRUE POWER? I hear you cry in despair!
I sometimes cry in despair, beloved believers – usually when someone is in front of me at the bar placing a large order one drink at a time and then remembering that he also wanted a packet of peanuts, before turning to his friends (it usually is a ‘him’, I’m afraid) and asking, ‘What did your better half want, Hugo? Was it a Campari and soda or a daiquiri?’, to which Hugo replies, ‘I can’t remember. I’ll go and ask her.’ Hugo then returns and says, ‘She’s changed her mind. She’ll have Sex on the Beach, ha ha!’, at which point the whole group guffaws as if they’ve just heard the funniest joke in the world and some wag shouts, ‘Not here she won’t, Hugo – nowhere near the bloody beach, old thing!’, at which they all guffaw again and another wag points out that there’s a pile of workman’s sand over the road by the building site which might do instead and they all chortle merrily once more! By this time, you are ready to string Hugo and his better half up by piano wire after having stabbed the rest of the merry group with the little plastic swords used for putting the fruit into Hugo’s better half’s cocktail. But I digress…
TRUE POWER is going to the pub and:
1. having one of the ‘regular rowdies’ (who are loud but not nasty) tell you that they deliberately stayed in the town pubs the night before (Easter Sunday) because they knew it was your quiz and they didn’t want to disturb it, as they have done before when they’ve had one or two too many ‘sherbet dips’.
2. having the same ‘regular rowdy’ (who has to be in his fifties!) apologising for sitting in ‘your seat’ because he wants to watch the football, and then, when the game finishes, making a point of telling you that you can have ‘your seat’ back!
This is TRUE POWER, dear devotees, and all done without using the ‘death stare’ perfected over many years of teaching. Now I use the ‘I’m just a little old lady’ smile and the ‘I might cry if you’re nasty to me’ trembling lower lip. Works every time! Sleep well, ardent admirers.

Supermarket Sweep – A Little Quiz

A very good evening from the Lifestyle Support Guru! Tonight, I am going to ask you a few questions that will help you work out your place in society. Clearly, as the LSG, I know exactly where I stand – my place in the very top tier of society is assured as I rub shoulders with kings and queens, princes and princesses, film stars; however, I am equally at home with those of a more rough-hewn nature – teachers, pub landlords, coach drivers, those people who are the salt of the earth!
The questions are based on my own experiences, as always, since I would never ask you to judge yourselves unless I had judged myself first – of course, I came out as a model citizen. The rest of you may find it a little more difficult to reach such a pinnacle, but you must always strive, even if you are unlikely to match me – that is something that only a very, very, very small number (in fact, probably none) will ever achieve.
Anyway, on with the quiz:
1. You are in a supermarket (let’s say Morrison’s; other supermarkets are available, but they had the best beer offer that day) with your sibling, and have stocked up on basics – beer, wine and chocolate – and you head for the nearest (and shortest) queue and unload your trolley. An old couple joins the queue immediately behind you and you can see that the female half of the couple is looking at you and your sibling in a rather angry manner, tutting and shaking her head (the male half is looking increasingly embarrassed). (Sibling hasn’t noticed any of this – he is too busy looking lovingly at his chocolate, wondering if he can open the (very large) packet of Maltesers before you’ve got through the checkout.) You wonder what is making this old woman so cross – maybe she thinks you haven’t got a proper, balanced diet in your trolley. Silly old woman! You then realise that you have accidentally joined the ‘Ten Items, Express Checkout’ queue, which is why this old bag is so incensed – you have TWELVE items in your trolley! Do you:
a) Apologise profusely to the hag and start loading the items back into your trolley so that you can go to another queue?
b) Apologise profusely to the ancient hag but stay where you are because you’re next at the checkout and reloading your trolley would take more time than going through the checkout?
c) Apologise to the checkout assistant and say you’ll move to another queue?
The obvious answer is c) because the checkout assistant has noticed this seriously deranged female monster becoming more and more angry over something incredibly petty. She says – loudly and often and with a smile – that, since there are two of you, you are allowed TWENTY items on her till and, even if you weren’t allowed that many, TWELVE items is hardly a hanging crime (well, not in the UK… yet).
2. You are on the committee of a local group that is trying to raise funds for an event in the summer (Fashion Show, May 4th; Picnic on the Green, July 8th) and you have been asked (or maybe you volunteered – my memory blurs) to find out which supermarket does the best offer on boxes of wine for the Fashion Show (did I mention it’s on May 4th?). Do you:
a) Go straight to a price comparison website for supermarkets?
b) Go straight to the Tesco website?
c) Go straight to the Waitrose website?
If you chose a) or b), then you are a reasonably balanced individual (Tesco seems to have reined in its ambitions to rule the world for now, so I am happy to look at their website, even if I can’t quite bring myself to go into the actual store). However, if you chose c), you need to reassess your understanding of ‘society’ – ‘Waitrose’ and ‘box of wine’ do NOT go together. It may be that you need to see a counsellor to understand that we are NOT ‘all in this together’, or at least not as far as Waitrose is concerned when its ‘essentials’ range includes avocado, sirloin steak and tortilla wraps. Looking for a wine box in Waitrose is like looking for a photo of a fully-clothed Kim Kardashian – it just isn’t going to happen!
Two questions are enough to cope with for now – challenges should be realistic and present goals that can be reached and I believe that these two offer enough to consider for the moment. Coming soon – a moral dilemma involving Wagamama. Sleep well, Faithful Followers!

Quizzical

A very good evening to you, beloved believers, as I sit and listen to possibly the worst karaoke version of ‘Killing Me Softly’ I have ever heard in my life.
It seems so LONG since I last offered any advice on living life to the full and I realise some of you may be wondering if my inspiration has dried up and if you will have to search elsewhere for another guru to guide you through life’s thickets and tangled undergrowth. FEAR NOT! I have been a little busy of late – shopping, lunch, shopping, lunch, visit to Doncaster, shopping, lunch, shopping, lunch, visit to Oldbury (near Birmingham), shopping… you get the idea. Actually, I had written a piece for you on being pretentious in a taxi, but I can’t find it now, so that will have to be for another time.
As you know, I have a vague, passing interest in quizzes, but FEAR NOT! I am not about to test you on your knowledge of geography or sport or the first ten presidents of the USA (although I am sure there are those among you who actually know this! Why?). No, I am going to ask you to contemplate the responses of a team of bright young things in a recent quiz at my local. Actually, when I say ‘bright young things’, I’m lying – one of those words is incorrect, but I leave it to you to decide which one.

quizzical

And FEAR NOT! I am not going to spend time bemoaning the dismal lack of knowledge of today’s generation, as so many others do. That is unfair to those who do have a wide-ranging general knowledge as well as a good understanding of politics, economics, history, philosophy, literature, maths, socio-economics, business, psychology, chiropody, finance, neurosurgery, rocket science…

Here we go:
Questionmaster: What is a John Dory?
Bright Young Things: A tandoori? It’s an oven; yes, put down ‘oven’. They use it in Indian restaurants. Tandoori chicken, that sort of thing.

Q: Who is the patron saint of animals?
BYT: Anoraks? Patron saint of anoraks?
Another BYT: No, it was ‘patron saint of adenoids’. I’m sure it was. Who’s the patron saint of adenoids?
Another BYT: What are adenoids?

Q: The giant panda is the symbol of which organisation?
BYT: Chinese panda? It’d be the symbol of China. Yes, put China.

Q: What are the first three words in the Bible?
BYT: I know, I know – Book of Genesis! (You can’t fault the logic here!)

Before you accuse me of making fun of a group of BYT with hearing difficulties (as if I would!), let me explain that the reason they didn’t hear some of the questions correctly was because they were constantly talking, even when the questions were being asked. Needless to say, they didn’t do very well, but FEAR NOT! They had a jolly good time and found it hilarious (and not unexpected) that they came last.
As they were leaving the pub, one of them was still asking who the patron saint of adenoids was and another was saying, ‘No, no; anoraks, not adenoids.’

Sleep well, dearest devotees. May your dreams be free of anoraks and adenoids (unless you’re Philip K Dick, in which case, you may dream of ‘android sheep’!). 😁

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