Wednesday 19 October 2011

Quick Quintet: Actual Conversations

There used to be a time when you could have endless pointless debates in the pub about anything at all - when did Ziggy Stardust take his final bow; who scored the winning goal in the FA Cup Final of 1957; in how many films did Doris Day star with Rock Hudson; you know the sort of thing.


Now, if you ruminate on any sort of question of this nature, someone will irritatingly whip out their smart phone and tell you the answer. Okay, so it may be smart, (or smug) but it ruins all the fun - at least you should waste a good half hour discussing it first. 

This is why they may be good for virtually anything, but smart phones are the death of (pub) conversation. In the last week or so, I have whiled away many pleasant minutes (if not hours) with the family deliberating such pressing issues as:

5 Recent Conversations which didn't involve a Smart Phone:
  1. Does what goes up always have to come down?
  2. If fish spoke English, which species would have what accent?
  3. Why is some 80s music shockingly bad when some is excellent, and why do Americans and Kiwis generally prefer the former?
  4. When does attractive confidence become ugly arrogance?
  5. If you could live in any era in history, when would it be?

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