Tag: Family

Showtime

Eleven months ago, I inexplicably posted my student essay analysing Oasis’ Be Here Now on this blog. Complete with its footnotes, too. I can’t imagine many people were very interested in that, but if you were one of those uninspired readers, then fear not. I reckon you might be intrigued by what happened two days later, when I went off to London to do something altogether more exciting. Something that has, until now, been a secret from many – the quiz show Pointless, to be precise, alongside my cousin Matthew.

It was a brief adventure – lasting just over a day in total – but it was still unlike any other I’ve ever embarked upon. Matthew and I are both keen quizzers, but when he first tried to rope me into joining him in January 2023, I wasn’t sure about venturing that far out of my comfort zone. But what’s life without a few risks? All I can say now is that I’m glad I did!

I knew the show would be broadcast eventually, but once we’d filmed it, it just became something that was slowly approaching from a long way away. Life went on. We genuinely didn’t know when to expect it, and we told anyone who asked just that, sometimes on multiple occasions every week. It got old very quickly – so imagine how we felt when we finally got our airdate.

Thursday 3 October 2024, at 5.15pm, on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Tomorrow night, in other words (at least if you’re in the UK). I am excited and bricking it in equal measure, and I think a few other people might be feeling the same. It’s not every day you get a primetime audience, after all. Maybe you’ll be among them? If you are, I hope that you enjoy it, and that I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself.

I’ll see you on the other side…

Mason

Baby, Only You Can Burn Out This Fire

I saw that title as a piece of graffiti on a wall when our train pulled into Barcelona a few weeks ago, during our family holiday (it’s a beautiful city for another blog post). There was a lot scrawled over the crumbling, dusty stonework as we rattled along the tracks. Much of it was either meaningless to me or difficult to understand without a working knowledge of Spanish – but I was still drawn to each explosion of colour as it passed. By the time I spotted those words I was almost in a trance, but they snapped me out of it. I immediately found myself thinking about them.

As far as I could remember, they were the only words I’d seen in English since I’d read the signs at the station we’d left. Where had they come from? What did they refer to? Who – if anyone – were they aimed at? All of those questions would remain mysteries, but in that moment I felt they were speaking to me. I just wasn’t quite sure how to interpret them. Perhaps burnout can be defined as one of two things – either the widely recognised state of having drained oneself completely, having given something your all, or the opposite. Extinguishing what keeps you fired up, just through pure apathy. Admitting defeat and letting it win.

I probably sound like some kind of ridiculous lifestyle guru, but that’s not my intention at all. A couple of weeks ago, I got some news that will be tricky for me to process, but I also know that I can’t let it wash over me and blow that spark out. I have to look at the bigger picture, see what’s good about it and smile – because I’ll only have myself to blame for the consequences if I don’t. Who’d have thought that the view from a train in Spain could have given me such a handy motto as a reminder?

Mason

Ja, La, Za

In my first post of 2023, I want to talk about that weird limbo week between Christmas and New Year. It brought many delights, among them the chance for Mum, Dad and I to spend time with my brother Louis and his boyfriend Ali, who came down from Birmingham for the festivities. Of course, these largely consisted of a great deal of eating and lounging, but we did also set time aside for a few games – including a couple of rounds of Scrabble. Let me tell you, playing Scrabble can be a real experience in our house, particularly if Louis and Ali are involved. While we’re all capable of spending a nice hour or two rubbing along without causing any disagreements, more often than not, we tend to very vocally challenge certain words that appear on the board. The boys are particularly prone to coming up with questionable suggestions.

Take the other night, for example. Once Louis, Ali, Mum and I had started playing, we were quickly faced with the age-old obstacle of a board on which large parts had been blocked off early. Certain Triple Word Score squares were impossible to reach, and elsewhere there was no room to spread out anyway, leaving us with no choice but to pick up what points we could with shorter, less rewarding submissions. This was where the disputes arose, and they continued without end until the final stages – the most notable of these concerned the three words you see at the very top of this post. You might be forgiven for thinking that they’re barely words at all, at least not in English. According to our 2012 Scrabble Dictionary, however, they’re not only clearly defined, but they’re all permitted in the game. ‘Ja’ is, of course, the German for ‘yes’, while ‘la’ is included in its capacity as the sixth note of the musical scale. ‘Za’, meanwhile, was the one that infuriated me most of all, since it merely appears to be an American colloquialism for ‘pizza’. A colloquialism – and an abbreviation too – allowed in Scrabble? Surely not. I think the game is going downhill, and I reckon any normal player would agree with me, but Louis and Ali are not normal players.

Louis won in the end. There may only have been seven points separating him and Mum in second, but we all know what it was that put him ahead – this farce has reminded us to get an updated Scrabble Dictionary, so we don’t have as many issues in future. It was a lot of fun, though, and while it might seem like a random story for me to tell here, it’s the kind of daft memory you want in black and white for posterity. There are good vibes, and I’m not actually going on an anti-Scrabble rant (hopefully you can tell I’ve written this with tongue planted firmly in cheek). I’m sure you’ll agree it makes for a fitting post to start the new year with – one that I hope will have plenty more good things in store for me. The first post I write next January will reflect on much more than just a board game, I’m sure of that…

Mason