mostly david ephgrave

I may have just reached the apex of personal dullness when I thought to myself whilst brushing my teeth, “I wonder why Listerine stings?” I’m not even going to bother to look it up, as if I did, I’d be admitting defeat. It’s not the sort of thing you need to know, unless you work in dental hygiene; if you don’t, it’s better to remain in ignorance as educating yourself suggests you even care about the mechanics: as far as I’m concerned, I’ll make do with “because it’s makes your teeth clean”. It’s worrying when you realise this is the sort of stuff that crosses your mind. There must have been a point when I’d ponder exciting, magical things, like “What makes the sun so bright?”. Now, I only want to know why my gums tingle when I rinse them with a partly alcohol-based liquid that’s the colour of WKD Blue. Still, at least it stops me drinking it.

Watching both University Challenge teams stare into the middle-distance as they struggled to identify an audio clip of Manic Street Preachers last night amused me. No idea. The screen-grab above captures the precise moment a gap in their vast knowledge became apparent. Well, nearly apparent. Durham Lloyd eventually got it right, but not before a deathly silent twenty-second void had passed. For a third of a minute, eight higher-educated faces displayed the complete range and scope of negative emotions. Kübler-Ross’ Five Stages of Grief crossed their collective visage: from denial, to anger, to bargaining, to depression and then acceptance. If Lloyd hadn’t had a sudden burst of inspiration, I would have fist-pumped the air. My unpleasantness is completely down to jealousy. I see myself as a reasonably intelligent individual; until I switch to BBC2 at 8:00pm on a Monday night, that is. At this point, thirty-three years of obsession for trivia goe...