Things I know now…

I learnt two things at the weekend: I can lipread birds – well a certain African bird anyway, and I like pub quizzes… and if that’s not a fulfilling learning curve for the weekend, what is?

So let’s start with the pub quiz. I’m not usually a fan as I find them hard to follow and by the time someone has relayed the question to me, someone else has usually got the answer. But last night, while sipping water – I had already had a caipirinha that day with some chocolate raisins, and one drink is my limit on a Sunday after Saturday drinking – I finally got what it’s all about.

You see, Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words’ housemate was there and she very kindly offered to scribble down the question at breakneck speed for me to read and wow, she is one fast writer. This meant I could participate the same way as everyone else – and between us we did quite well… in rounds 1 and 2 at least.

I was thankful for my strange interest in bizarre, little-known communities which led me to recognise the flag of The Pitcairn Islands. My current interest is the independent state of Frestonia but alas, there were no questions on this. We were all a little stumped on the tube stations question and none of us realised that a ‘Spicy Wag’ was in fact Victoria station and we also did not realise that triangulated is an anagram of adulterating… clever huh!

Such a fan I became of this certain pub quiz that I spoke to the guy afterwards to see if there was an easier way for me to follow it without causing RSI in FWKBW’s housemate’s hand. He was lovely and said yes of course, he would simply reserve the best table in the house for us so I could see him and lipread him, which won him considerable brownie points.

Now for the bird – I met him at London Zoo and he was rather cute – but then apart from some vultures, I thought absolutely everything I saw, and met, that day was cute or gorgeous. You should go and check this bird out, he had a bedhead kind of style going on with his feathers and a very endearing face. I watched him for a while and all of sudden he opened his beak and apparently made a noise… which to me looked like it should be low and throaty. And what do you know, it was!

Then there were the gibbons – how I loved those. Until now, I had never felt much affection for gibbons on account of my first hearing specialist having that name and me having strong feelings of dislike towards him. But these guys were amazing – they flew through the air with the greatest of ease and I was actually a little bit jealous – I mean imagine if I could do that at the climbing wall.

Did you know that Gibbons sing? I didn’t either and was dying to see if I could lipread them, too – but apparently they mostly do it in the morning – so if anyone fancies a pre-work trip to London Zoo to hear the gibbons sing, let me know…