EVERY Scottish parent should be brilliant at pub quizzes. We live in a perfect environment to make it happen after all.
It rains a lot, particularly during the long school holidays and on the long weekends.
So we, as parents, have to find an alternative way to keep the children occupied inside before everyone dies of the cold.
So we pick a quirky museum. Scotland is full of bizarre and fascinating museums that detail our rich heritage in everything from steel making, to peat bogs, fishing, ferries and even cloned sheep.
Nothing fires the imagination of youngsters more than seeing a stuffed, extinct bird like Scotland’s last great auk which is on show at Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow.
It can bring even the dullest of subjects to life for children and provide them with nuggets of information that will last them a lifetime.
However, as parents, museums also gives us licence to read the information, take it all in and then lie to our kids.
I caught that fish, captained that ferry and personally reintroduced the sea eagle to Mull etc.
I was even around when they discovered coal and helped kickstart the industrial revolution, both have crossed my lips at some point I’m sure.
Youngsters lap it up and even forgive you when they discover you embellished the truth somewhat.
But, more importantly, museums and heritage sites also fire up parents’ imagination as we learn things that we didn’t know. These can then be used years later in the most unlikeliest places.
There is nothing more satisfying than scoring a point during a tightly-fought quiz with an answer gleaned in a small and mostly dull heritage site somewhere like Dunkeld which you were only in because it was pouring with rain. Again.
These points should be worth double as they are testament to the great skill of parents to think on their feet and do anything to avoid the hugely expensive play centre down the road.
All museums tend to be fascinating but they have that valuable by-product that can come in incredibly handy when you’re struggling at a quiz.
All parents should have nuggets of information stored somewhere which have been picked up on rainy afternoons.
These can range from where Dolly the sheep is kept, what was the last liner launched on the Clyde and what is the largest peat bog in Europe. They all bring a point and more importantly, make you look terribly clever.
Try it – just not at any quiz I’m at.
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