Word Twist

I have a new addiction. It is very serious and is beginning to impinge on my life and ability to function socially. My new addiction is called “word twist” and you can play it on facebook. It is essentially an anagram game where you try and get as many words out of a mix of letters, but you can play against your friends, it is incredibly addictive and I am having issues. I was seriously addicted to online scrabble for quite sometime and I still dabble occasionally but there is nothing like the fresh hit of word twist. Driving home the other day I was trying to put the person in front of me’s registration plate in to words and came up with the amazingly boring statement: “If you have a B and a G, then you can use every single vowel with them; bag, beg, big, bog and bug”. There was no one else in the car with me, so not only am I insanely boring I am just insane.

I have always loved doing quizzes and trivia games. I blame the parents. Without making us sound too odd they used to record University Challenge and then we’d play it as a family and keep score. Having just read that back I realise it’s really odd. Even now if I go and stay with them they will have stocked up a couple of episodes to play at some point over the weekend. I’d say my first pusher was my grandfather. When I was in sixth form I never used to have any lessons on a Wednesday so would pop in on him during my study time when of course he would be watching 15-1 and Countdown. I would have loved to have gone on 15-1, I think there is something very noble about competing for 50 weeks, going through games after games to be rewarded with a bit of old pottery.

I was a child who got obsessed by things, learnt everything I could about them and then found that led to a new one. Sadly this wasn’t with anything enjoyable like My Little Ponies or Barbies. My first obsession was with flags. I am laughing as I write this as I really don’t know why. There was a book that I used to get out the library (and you could tell that I was the only one that got it out) that had all the flags of the world in it and I learnt them. I used to make my brother test me.

Then came my monarchy obsession. I am able (and believe me as gifts go it’s just above being able to get a sound out of your armpit by shoving your hand under there and pumping up and down) to recite in order all the Kings and Queens since Henry VII and (if that wasn’t dull enough) can tell you the current line of succession to about 15 place. Lady Sarah Chatto is a name I shouldn’t know. I even had…a Panini sticker book of the Royal family. Everyone else had football clubs and Neighbours sticker albums and I was wandering around the playground desperately trying to swap the Queen Mother for Peter Phillips so I could complete my royal montage. The centre spread was the royal family on moveable stickers at a garden party. It’s a wonder I survived to adulthood and wasn’t beaten to death in the playground. I really need to find some kind of game show which is exclusively Monarchy and flag based. I don’t think it would have much of an audience.