Too Hot To Bear

Dad was always a lateral thinker. Also, if something could be said in ten words, he wouldn't waste twenty. Okay, so that didn't rub off on the family journalist, as you can see at Authorblog, where Dave often gets a bit wordy-nerdy. Dad would always caution us against ``unproductive activity'' (management training manuals, Chapter One). When he was Traffic Manager of the Calcutta Port Commissioners, he hated long meetings. Because his office was often the venue for the more high-powered conferences, he developed a novel way to keep them mercifully short.

You see, back in the days before central air-conditioning, only bosses had individual a/c units in their offices. So about ten minutes before the others were scheduled to walk in, Dad would switch off his a/c. Worked every time. In the tropical heat, everyone would stick to the agenda and keep it really short.

A Right Royal Delay

If we're punctual, it's because we inherited that from Dad. Mum had many wonderful attributes, but punctuality was, alas, entirely absent. The year the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh came to Calcutta, Dad had two (highly sought-after) tickets to the special service at St Paul's Cathedral. On this special day, he had Mum organised like never before. Not only was he going to get his wife to the Cathedral on time; he was going to get her there early.

When they got into the car, Dad asked Mum if she had the tickets in her handbag. Mum, possibly miffed at having to hurry in this most unladylike fashion, replied in high dudgeon, asking if he honestly thought she could be so irresponsible as to forget them. Dad held his counsel, drove off - and they arrived with an hour to spare.

At the beautiful, ancient door of the Cathedral, they were asked for their tickets. Mum opened her handbag. Oh, horror. No tickets!

To cut a long story short, Dad drove all the way home, picked up the tickets and returned to the Cathedral - still with several minutes to spare.

Hearts Attack

Dad was one of those people who had a PhD in life. You know what I mean? On one occasion, he was in the UK on a business trip. One weekend he was on a British Rail long-distance train when he noticed a group of locals playing cards.

Dad had eagle eyes and it didn't take him long to work out that they were playing `Find The Lady' - the game that now appears as `Hearts' on most computers. It was a game he had played for years.

Dad feigned interest. More importantly, he also feigned ignorance. The card players explained the rules and Dad pretended to stumble over his comprehension. They invited him to join them, no doubt thinking they'd take some money off a rookie. Dad sat down, deliberately lost a couple of rounds and then cleaned them up good and proper.