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Yes, it was an entertaining and stimulating performance, as
one would expect of Nature's Voice on local ABC radio. However, if Ian and
Mark are going to alternate in doing these I do hope there is not going to be a
'gotcha' race. From muttered asides by Mark that I believe I
overheard I fear there might be some thunderclouds building there, and I
would hate to think that naive tryers like myself were going to get
caught in the middle of it.
My own brave little team did quite well at the start, but
faded as the evening wore on. I fear I might have been partly to
blame, for the following reason. At night, as a sleeping aid, I
customarily try a few memory games with such things as bird names. I
have found that one of the more soporific is mentally listing all bird names
that contain a reference to a mineral. By the time I get to ten, I have
usually nodded off quite satisfactorily. As ill-luck would have it - and I
am certainly not attributing any blame to Ian here - we were asked to perform
that very ritual right at the climax of the quiz. Personally, I didn't
mind getting a bit comatose on Wednesday night, but since then when I try the
same thing as a sleeping aid, I suddenly snap wide awake, and, my wife tells me,
shout things like 'no, no, not a water dragon' ...
Speaking of the ABC, it did not escape my notice that when
'our' little bird music test was perpetrated again on the radio
yesterday the person-administering said, cunningly, 'just listen to these
two and see how easy it is and ring in' and then played the only 2 of the 10
excerpts recognisable by a person who had followed a normal kind of life up
until then. I can understand why she didn't play a couple of the hardys by
way of inducement to those battlers out there in
local-ABC-land!
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