Ear, ear

I was watching QI last night – it’s a fabulous opportunity to absorb random facts and figures and a great source of revision for future pub quizzes.
It was during this programme that I discovered that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, claims his left ear is there for purely decorative purposes. I guess meaning that he is deaf in that ear – but what a brilliant way of describing it.

Following this train of thought, I suppose in a way it means that both my ears are there for decorative purposes, too. That, and holding my glasses up I guess. But do I really give them enough attention – should I ensure that they are always looking their best – I mean how much do people notice each other’s ears?

My Pa likes his ears – one has a frilly edge from where my Great Aunt Wanda Nut accidentally trimmed it when she was meant to be cutting his hair when he was a child. She also once nearly gassed him with a lamp (does this give away his age?) but that’s a whole other story.

I guess, aesthetically, I have been quite fortunate with my ears – they are not too big or too small, they each have a nice little lobe for hanging earrings from, and they certainly don’t stick out. But I guess I don’t really relate the deafness part of me to the two bits of cartilage sitting at the top of my jawbone. To me, they are something attached to my head. My hearing, on the other hand, is something inside my head that no one can fix, get to, or apparently it seems, even really explain very well.

When Eldest-London-Cousin was very little she had an extremely quiet voice and if I was looking after her and couldn’t hear her very well, I used to tell her that my ears were poorly. She would then spend the next 10 minutes examining them, staring at them and trying to work out what on earth I meant.

Deafness is not a visible disability. In most cases the ears give very little away about the hearing prowess of their owner… people will jug-shaped ears are not likely to hear better than people with little ones tucked in so neatly they barely show.

Should I be thankful for this? Absolutely! Although, this morning when I was sat on the bus, engrossed in a Freya North book it would have been beneficial for the person who, by the look of disbelief and desperation on their face, had been asking for me to move and let them out of their seat for quite some time, to know that I was not rude but aurally challenged. And, in the meantime, I am going to make my ears as decorative as possible… therefore all diamond earrings will be gratefully received…