Party Tricks

Once upon a time, a little girl had this brilliant idea; it could have been she came up with the idea out of pure boredom. The little girl thought to herself: "If I can memorise the alphabet in ascending order surely I should be able to memorise it in reverse?" So she memorised the alphabet backwards. Next time we meet in person, ask me to do it and I will impress you with my party trick.

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Another party trick I have is I can say the Police Letters Alphabet a.k.a. The Nato Phonetic Alphabet, which goes Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta...Yankee, Zulu. How did you learn this wonderful party trick, I hear you cry? Well, like everything there's always a nice story behind it.

I've always loved men in uniforms. I wonder if that's why I wanted to join the army? While that dream didn't come true, as I failed the interview, years later I got a job working for the Personnel department in the London Fire Brigade - recruiting fire fighters. Not only were potential recruits i.e. guys physically fit, they were FIT. We also got lots of visits from male fire fighters in their uniforms. There is a God!

Whenever there was a recruitment drive, lots of guys rang up to get application forms. Sometimes if the caller's name wasn't one I was familiar with I would ask him or her to spell their names. A lot of the callers used the Phonetic Alphabet to confirm the letters. One day in great distress I cried out: "Lord, why don't I know this alphabet? I need to know this alphabet so I too can impress people with my skill." Those were dark times before the Internet became so popular. In those days, we heard rumours of an information superhighway with unlimited useful/useless data. Not many people had used the Internet or even had access to it. Fortunately, the Good Lord sent me a colleague who had a copy of the Phonetic Alphabet, which I promptly memorised.

Now if anyone asks me to spell Enocia, I can say:

Echo, November, Oscar, Charlie, India, Alpha.

Smart or what?

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? If I can say the alphabet forward and backward, isn't it time I learned how to say the alphabet backward in French? Nah, why would I want to do anything so silly? It's not as if British people would be impressed with my talent. If I ever move to France, I'll consider it.

My next party trick is I can count in Roman Numerals backward, well from 100 to 1. So when I find it difficult to fall asleep, I count sheep in Roman Numerals forward and backward. The problem with this approach is that I'm so busy thinking of what the Roman Numerals are, sleep is the last thing on my mind. I highly recommend that if you want to stay awake, try counting sheep in Roman Numerals. Maybe, I should copyright this idea; I wouldn't want it plagiarised.

If you've ever been through the education system you may have learned another excellent party trick - the multiplication tables or times tables. Here's how it all came about.

Minister of Education:
What should we teach our children?

Adviser to Minister of Education:
Why not get them to memorise the multiplication tables? That will keep them out of mischief.

Minister of Education:
Great idea! In fact I'm going to propose it as a Bill for all children to learn their multiplication tables.

The Bill is approved by parliament and becomes the Multiplication Tables Act, which all children have to experience.

7 x 1, 7; 7 x 2, 14; 7 x 3, 21; 7 x 4, 28; 7 x 5, 35; 7 x 6, 42; ...

While the kids are chanting out loud their times tables, their teacher is dreaming of sun, sea, and Sangria.

Am I a better person for memorising the times tables? Yes, I'm so blessed for knowing my times tables. I wouldn't be the person I am without them! Yeah, right!

I once watched a documentary about Kim Peek, the real Rain Man and inspiration of the film Rain Man. Kim Peek is considered to be a savant, the polite way of saying he's a bit of a "know it all."

"He reads a page of text in about 10 seconds (about a book per hour) and, apparently, remembers everything he has read, memorizing vast amounts of information in subjects ranging from history and literature, geography, and numbers, to sports, music, and dates. He can recall some 12,000 books from memory. Peek can also do formidable calculations in his head..." Kim Peek

While Peek's party tricks are very impressive, I know someone who can do even better. He's called Mr Google. Ask Google anything and he comes up with the answer in an instant. Google doesn't care whether the answers make sense or not, He just knows his stuff. There are many other Savants like Mr Google but I prefer Google.

My favourite party trick is I am joyful for no reason at all. Now that's one party trick I'm always happy to share.

Enocia

Related articles: Counting Sheep; Party Pooper