Mr London Street Balboa and the return of Fascinating Fact Friday

Regular readers with a long memory might recall the thrills and spills of Fascinating Fact Friday. For those that don’t, every Friday Gemma and I come up with a suitably fascinating fact which we then present to Iain. He then, in his capacity as our resident Solomon, adjudicates which is the most fascinating. The winner gloats, the loser sulks and Iain gets to feel even wiser than usual. It’s all part of our ongoing quest to make life in Bracknell feel a bit more like a theme park and less like a business park.

The last time I blogged about it, Gemma had just gone 3-1 up in the series and was insufferable. And actually that was the last time it happened – leave and working from home have got in the way for a whole month. So today’s resumption of hostilities had all the significance of a fascinating fact based Rumble in the Jungle, or Thriller in Manila. A Crackle in Bracknell, perhaps.

It hardly did wonders for my confidence that Gemma started playing mind games around Wednesday. She had a fact, she said, so fascinating that I needn’t even bother turning up. She was going to go 4-1 up she said, at which point the competition would be as good as over (notwithstanding that we’d never agreed minor incidental points like when someone would be declared the overall winner). I started to panic. I couldn’t think of anything, and Gemma smug is not something anybody needs to see.

From there on in I was struck with inertia. My preparation was non existent. There was to be no Rocky-style montage of me running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art leafing through the Encyclopaedia Britannica (for more reasons than I can realistically list here, most of which should be blindingly obvious but you get my point I'm sure). In fact I didn’t even get as far as sitting on a bench in Forbury Gardens frantically flipping through the fascinating but hardly educational publication that is Take A Break magazine. The morning of the contest dawned to find me without a fascinating fact and staring defeat in the face. But then, through the magic of the internets, I tracked down something interesting. Maybe, just maybe, like Rocky I had a chance after all.

At about 10.45 we traipsed to the kitchen – Iain, Gemma and me. Such is the fame of Fascinating Fact Friday that Mandy and Cornish Rob joined us, keen to hear the facts on offer. It was a hushed throng that stood there stirring their coffees as I read out the two contenders:

FASCINATING FACT A
If a piece of the sun the size of a pinhead were to be placed on Earth, you couldn’t safely stand within 90 miles of it.

FASCINATING FACT B
Dolphins are born with moustaches, but due to a natural depilatory process they drop off after a couple of days.

Silence descended on the rapt audience. I don’t think they were expecting facts of this calibre. Then, Rob spoke. He preferred Gemma’s fact. Mandy was next. She thought it was tricky but on balance, she too went for Gemma’s fact. I saw the grin break out on Gemma’s face. She thought it was in the bag. All eyes turned to Iain. His was the only vote that counted, the judge, jury and executioner of fact-dom. Our posh sailing colleague had magically been transferred into the Emperor Nero of Bracknell. Would it be a thumbs up, or a thumbs down? (Iain would look splendid in a toga and a laurel wreath, but that’s another story). Then he spoke.

I’m not one to blow my own trumpet so I’ll just say this: 3-2. Which fact would you have gone for? By the way, now I've won I can safely say that I reckon Gemma was robbed. But Fascinating Fact wins are like goals - good or bad, they all count.

Since my friends at work found out about the contest today I have been sent lots of fascinating facts. Apparently Johnny Cash was the first Westerner to hear about Stalin’s death. It turns out that Madrid is the only European capital city not to be situated on a major waterway. Hull City is the only football team with a name entirely made up of letters you can’t colour in. The tin opener was invented 48 years after the invention of the tin can. A duck’s quack doesn’t echo and nobody can explain why.

I could have saved these up and wheeled any of them out on a subsequent Friday and been in with a good chance. But I’m putting them in here partly because it’s a Friday and everyone needs the occasional riveting snippet of information and partly because, like Rocky, I’m going to win this thing on my own (and yes, I know he had that seedy old trainer but even so it sounded poetic). Or just feature in an increasingly embarrassing range of sequels. It could go either way.

On the funbus home today Mikey, Cornish Rob and I were euphoric to have survived another week at work. We had the weirdest conversation.

MIKEY: You’re from Hook aren’t you Cornish Rob? Do any famous people come from Hook?
CORNISH ROB: Just Justin Rose the golfer. (pause) Although my estate agent was kind of infamous because he murdered his wife. He shot her in the face with a shotgun.
ME: Jesus, how come?
CORNISH ROB: Apparently the marriage was in trouble and he went off to the Netherlands on a break. He came back determined to save it so he brought loads of sex toys from Amsterdam. She apparently wasn’t interested so he went a bit mental and bumped her off.
ME: That’s a bit of an oversensitive way to deal with a knockback.
MIKEY: Did he get a good valuation?
ME: I suppose he might have been planning to unload in her face anyway.
CORNISH ROB: I know! Talk about a nasty discharge.

The woman in front of us started tutting at this point. But that was okay as “Have a nice Dave” was pulling up opposite the station. A pint in the Blagrave Arms, with its distinctive whiff of piss and urinal cakes, beckoned. And beyond that? Weekend, stretching out as far as the eye could see.

P.S. Karma Snackra Position #71 – In The Bath. Disgusting!