Know-it-all except your name

It’s not surprising that, after 39-and-a-bit years, my wife still gets irritated by me.

But, nothing grinds her gears quite as much as when I show off after getting a TV quiz answer right.

The other night I was almost unplayable as I punched the air in triumph after getting the million-pound question correct in Who wants to be a Millionaire, hosted by Jeremy Clarkson.

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The question was: Who was the only British Prime Minister never to have also served as foreign secretary? The options were: A: Winston Churchill. B: Alec Douglas-Home. C: Anthony Eden. D: Harold Macmillan.

I’d heard it before and knew it would be A. I’ve got lots of other bits of silly, irrelevant information stacked away in my memory.

For example: We all know (or should know) that the Russian satellite Sputnik was the first man-made object launched into earth orbit.

But do we know what *Sputnik means? I did – and so did two of my mates who were on our Trivial Pursuit team years ago in Namibia.

No-one else knew and when the answer was revealed, the Windhoekers in the pub thought we’d just landed from outer space.

Not long afterwards, we were banned from the local Trivial Pursuit circuit because they thought we were “ringers”.

Not before we’d won a couple of hundred rands and cases of wine each, though…

My wife and I have developed the habit of watching The Chase and, generally, I am pretty good at answering the quickfire questions and then the multiple choice ones.

I read once that, to keep your mental faculties sharp as you age, you should do crosswords.

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I used to do quite a bit of that years ago – the cryptic, British, not the easy, straightforward ones in America – but these days I love doing the daily Worldle puzzle online.

You have to guess the country by seeing its outline and are given a certain number of guesses, each incorrect one giving you a clue in terms of distance and direction.

Wordle – the word puzzle in the New York Times – is also entertaining. You have to guess a five-letter word and get six chances, with wrong or incorrectly-placed letters being indicated.

Mind you, having said all that, if you are introduced to me, I will forget your name five minutes later… *Sputnik means “Traveller” or “fellow traveller”.