My own children had been saying to me about their cousins: ‘J bought the girls a Nintendo DS each for Christmas.’ And I’d say ‘Really? That’s nice.’ Nintendo is the magic word: it’s a gaming thing. I switch off. Blah blah blah – no interest.
I saw the actual ones that J bought the girls for Christmas when I got to my parents. They were exactly what I thought they were: little plastic, handheld computer things. Still no interest – though irritation began to seep in: Ach, this modern world… (OMG, how OLD am I?)
Then I went to Manchester, where my seven year old god-daughter had a new Nintendo DS with brain training on it. Oh, really? ‘What does that do?’ I ask.
My vocabulary is reasonable – probably better than average – but when you’re surrounded by writers, as I am here on the blog and readers (among bloggers, friends and family) it’s probably not brilliant and let’s be honest, I like words and I can always have more in my head, can’t I? But I do have a SERIOUS problem with recall.
I know that word … yes I do. It’s on the tip of my … and then someone else supplies it. As a result I’m totally and utterly useless at crosswords, which makes me seriously pissed off – and even wondering if I might have some slow form of Alzheimers.
Part of Husband’s and my courting (OMG, how OLD am I?) was sitting over lunch in the Union Bar doing crosswords (I know, we were such a racy pair.) He’s a scientist which I think must mean the filing system in his head is pretty good (certainly if you compare his side of the bed with mine this assumption makes perfect sense) and he so fab at recall (I’m not even going into the standard of his cryptic crossword skills). Anyway, I didn’t let myself down too much since the standard of newspaper he bought in those days was pretty low! But it’s always bothered me.
So now I have a remedy: I am the proud owner of a Nintendo DS with word power and brain training programmes on it.
There’s going to be no stopping me.
And just for fun: guess which side of the bed is mine?
