A Pattern of Behaviour

At the moment I'm listening to the audiobook version of Richard Dawkins' best-seller, "The God Delusion". Somewhere around 7 hours in, there's a brief discussion of the best-selling children's game "Chinese Whispers", sometimes known as "Telephone".

It reminded me of my own experiences of playing this game. I think I was introduced to it when I first went to school, so I guess I must have been five or six years old at the time.

The rules of the game were explained. About 10 or 20 of us sat in a circle, teacher would whisper a phrase or saying in the ear of child number one, who would then whisper that in the ear of child number two, and so on around the circle. At the end of the circle, the remaining phrase would be revealed, now entirely mangled and errored-up by the process of being whispered and passed on through the miniscule brains of five-year-olds who were, of course, so much less clever than I was.

This game did not strike me as at all interesting, although I immediately saw a weakness in its construction. Clearly the maximum humour would be obtained if the phrase at the output end was wildly at variance with that of the input. Instead of relying on the normal process of five-year-olds mishearing and/or misunderstanding the essential information that is being passed on for your yuks, why leave it to chance?

So it was that day that the game proceeded, thus:

1. "Jack and Jill went up the hill."

2. "Jack and Jill went up the hill."

3. "Jack and Jill went up the hill."

4. "Farmer Brown Milks His Pigs By Midnight"

5. "Farmer Brown.. what?"

Skilled readers may be able to guess where I was sitting, from the above text.

"Farmer Brown Milks His Pigs By Midnight" is absolutely, genuinely, the phrase I used. I'm not sure why I should still remember it, 30 years on. It is, of course, an entirely incongrous phrase. It doesn't come up on Google at all, which just goes to prove what an artistic genius I am, having had a phrase of my own since such a young age. I expect it's even my own personal copyright, and everything. So no printing it on T-shirts without my permission.

It might even make a good title for a book. Preferably a book all about me, with words and chapters that were written by me... Yes, I must be sure to write this down.