Supermarkets, Showers and Scrabble

While the cleaners were in the house this morning, I nipped over to Sainsbury’s for a grocery shop (where once again I stole a photo of the beautiful flowers they were selling). They don’t seem to stock Mr Muscle shower spray there any more, and it irks me that I now have to stop off at ASDA on the way home to buy it there.

I managed to dodge the showers in the morning, but wasn’t so lucky later on when going over to the monthly games afternoon (which I haven’t been to for about three months). A few raindrops started falling just after I stepped out of the front door, and increased quickly and quite substantially for the exact duration of my walk. The sun came out just after I arrived, and I played Scrabble in damp clothes for a couple of hours with Alison and Carol, comforted by tea and biscuits which always make everything better. There was a game of Cluedo going on at the other end of the table, which at some points sounded like it might come to blows, though I did chuckle when one participant asked in confusion “is the game over now?”. As we weren’t bothering to keep a scorecard, didn’t consult a dictionary, and were allowing abbreviations, plurals and other dubious words, our rounds of Scrabble were nicely laid back. I don’t think we even declared winners actually. I may not lack ambition, but the word “competitive” has never been in my dictionary. Life’s too short for animosity such as the following -

“Monopoly may also end in tears, but its tensions are cruder, lacking the infinitely subtle shadings of irritation and acrimony provided by Scrabble”.

Craig Brown (b.1957)
British journalist, political sketch-writer, satirist and biographer