It's a Trivial Pursuit

Welcome, springlike reader, as the coming of the equinox heralds longer days and balmy weather. Or at least, longer days for those of you in Northern climes, and balmy weather for those of us down here in California. In truth we've had a surprising amount of this rare substance called rain this week, but it looks like normal service will be resumed very soon.

As we head into the second year of the pandemic, we're getting used to doing all manner of things in the comfort of our own homes, with just a video call for company. And so it was that last weekend, Helen took on a cake decorating workshop, hosted from the East Coast by the wonderful Josie. In just 3 hours she'd turned various different raw ingredients into a rather wonderful cake, with liberal applications of unique tools and inventions along the way:

The Maestro at work

Before long this rather splendid vanilla cake with layers of buttercream and caramel was ready for tasting. I have to say, it was quite sweet:

Attentive readers will notice plenty of sprinkles on this cake (hundreds and thousands to our UK readers). We've been finding small clumps of these all over the kitchen ever since. They may well be breeding.

Helen also brought a 1981 US edition of Trivial Pursuit home, which she'd purchased from her library volunteering duties. Key to any Trivial Pursuit session is context: when was the game made, and in this case, where? Well, it's pretty clear that to a US audience, questions about college football are supposed to be pretty easy, and questions about European geography are considered rock hard. Here's a typical question card which I suspect our UK readers will struggle with:

And in true Jeopardy style, what are the questions for which the following are the answers?

Now as I mentioned, any questions about European geography are considered very difficult in this game, it seems, but there's also an element of second-guessing required. So when the question is where are the famous Kew Gardens?, a hilarious exchange ensues. "Well... they're in Kew! And the station is Barnes Bridge, so I wonder whether they mean that it's in Barnes? But given that this is American... they probably just want me to say that they're in London!"

And yes. The correct answer is 'London'.

The game is from 1981, so it's very much of its time, and a knowledge of 70s American current affairs comes in handy. There are a lot of questions about Watergate, the Vietnam war, and the Kennedys. When asked for North American cities that had hosted the Olympic Games, I had to remember that Atlanta didn't host until 1996, and we also learned that the Americans consider Mexico City to be in North American (this simple European considers it Central America, so it's nice to be educated).

Anyway, we're having a lot of fun learning what it is that Americans do and don't know, and also filing away the useful fact that the University of Tennessee's football team is nicknamed the Volunteers. You never know when knowledge like that will come in handy!