New life

A good question

Zenga Longmore

What runner was Sports Illus- trated's 1954 Sportsman of the Year?' The question came from the dreaded orange (`sports and leisure') section of Trivial Pursuit, the questioner was my old friend and bush-tea salesman, Clawhammer Jones Bingo. We, the pursuers of the trivial, were baffled. A game of TP had seemed such a good way to round off a social afternoon at Claw's flat. After all, there were six of us there, just the right number for the game: Self, Olumba, Uncle Bisi, the Claw, the Claw's temporarily reconciled wife Laverne and their nine- year-old son Stickleback. Omalara, the lucky seventh, was excused on account of her age, and was indulging instead in serious pursuits such as pulling Christmas decorations off the tree and arranging them on the floor.

'1 am ashamed to say, I have no know- ledge of — ah — the required reply,' said Uncle Bisi, hanging his head sadly on his chins. 'You don't know!' cried Claw, in a sudden burst of excitement. 'How the dam' blast can anyone know? These horange questions too flippin' hard. I vote they go, and I am unanimous in this! [Loud cheers] Okay, high roller, roll the dice!'

'Tsst! You too stupid,' complained the elegantly coiffured Laverne, smoothing her smart black leather jerkin, a present from herself to herself. 'Stickleback knows more than your fog-brain self.'

'True, but we ain't got up to 1954 in history, innit,' the youth informed us. `Give me a pen and Tippex, and I'll change all the orange questions to ones that people know how to answer. We'll call the new orange questions, "Stickleback asks". You can all help me, and our new game might get famous.'

Our game was adjourned as Laverne and Claw vanished into the kitchen and re- turned with a delicious meal of rice and pigs' tails. Then, the sports questions eradicated, we sat down to devise replace- ments. Uncle Bisi began. 'Write this, young man, "How many ground-nuts are sold on an annual basis at Onitsha market, and what is their value in sterling?"' Claw mopped his brow, 'Whoa there, man, that's harder than the first question, dem! How come you think of such a hard one?'

`Because, my dear fellow, ah, I am a highbrow.'

'You can't be — a heyebrow goes over the heye.' Laverne frowned at him from the pile of colour supplements she had been perusing.

'Here's my question!' shouted Stickle- back, 'What country had three kings at the same time?'

We all became interested, marvelling at the success of the National Curriculum.

`Albania!"Yugosl avi a!" Serbocroatia!' `Must be an — ah — African country with imperalist boundaries drawn round three kingdoms.'

`Uganda!"Mali?"Well, what then?' 'Orientar! Like in the song, we three kings of Orientar!'

The party broke up shortly after this. Olumba, Omalara and I returned home to find the hippies next door playing deafen- ing rock music. Knocking forcefully on their door, I asked them to play their drums a little more softly.

'Will do, right. Peace, love, and good will, man.'

`Anyway,' I asked, balancing Omalara on my shoulders, 'what with the Middle East situation, how come you're not in the streets chanting "Sad! Sad! Saddam Hus- sein"?'

'This isn't Vietnam. We don't dig Ay- rabs, man, 'cos why should they have all that oil, not us?'

`Well, why not?'

This unfamiliar thought caused the hip- py's mouth to sag silently open. Resisting the urge to stick a piece of left-over crystallised fruit into it, I went indoors.