Conversant

Today’s choice of word from The Daily prompt is “conversant” which is defined as to be familiar with or knowledgeable about something, which is very useful to me as I should have no trouble with this topic as I am conversant with any number of subjects, although not necessarily the ones you may wish to know about.

I think it safe to say, my head is rammed with useless information and trivia which I can regale at the drop of a hat, most of the time. However rather like taking part in a pub quiz all of it seems to have escaped me, just at the moment when I most need it.

One’s just popped back into my head, the last words of Donald Campbell as his jet power boat Bluebird flipped and somersaulted, breaking up as it came down and hit the water as he was attempting in 1967 to break the 300 mph record on water were; “I can’t see anything, I’ve got the bows out, I’m going!” Bluebird disintegrated but his teddy bear mascot called “Mr Wopptit” floated and was retrieved but his body and the boat were not recovered until 2001.

The Titanic had two sister ships called Britannic and Olympic, the largest of which by gross tonnage was the Britannic and the two cranes in the Harland and Wolff ship yard in Belfast were called Samson and Goliath I imagine due to their enormous size, yet more of the useless facts I am conversant with.

My boast earlier of having a head full of trivia is rather failing me just at the moment as usually I can spout off nonsense sufficient to put the strongest of men to sleep and yet today I’m struggling.

Maybe not, for I have just had a flash of inspiration, either that or I’m having a stroke; it always takes six turns of the wire on a champagne bottle before the wire opens and you can open the bottle, always twisting the bottle whilst holding the cork.

You may or may not be conversant with the alleged story of how the cats eyes in the road were invented. Apparently a chap was walking home from the pub somewhat worse for drink when a cat came walking towards him in the road, it’s eyes shinning in the moon light. What a brilliant idea thought the fellow and went off to invent the cats eyes, of course had the cat been going in the other direction he would have invented the pencil sharpener.

It’s getting late in the day now and I’m having trouble dragging any more trivia from the recesses of my mind, having said that of course, the minute I press the button to publish this my mind will be flooded with rubbish on a scale resembling a tsunami, the meaning of which in Japanese is harbour wave. See, it’s started and I haven’t even pressed publish yet, just a quick one, karaoke in Japanese means empty orchestra.

That’s enough for one night, I’m off to be conversant with a few cans of lager, some awful television and finally my bed, so until next time, I wish you goodnight.