The conspiracy game ..
Here in the Bellender Arms we organise a Pub game once a month.
Here in the Bellender Arms we organise a Pub game once a month.
Tik&Tok
We are quite lucky, we, the many, who frequent the Bellender Arms, Julie and Fred keep us up to date with what’s trending on TikTok, things we often find surprising and are sometimes keen to try. Julie reported that eating oranges in the shower was trending, she had tried it but replacing exotic oranges with local organic Red Devil apples. She reported being unimpressed and the taste of apple mixed with shampoo and soap was not one she intended to acquire, even though her teeth felt especially clean afterwards.
The conspiracy game ..
Here in the Bellender Arms we organise a Pub game once a month. Unlike many Pubs who organise a quiz we had decided a while back to invent our own game, which of course would rapidly become a tradition. Inventing a game was a complicated task even for the elite thinkers who congregate in the Bellender Arms but we managed it in the end. We call it the Conspiracy game and the rules are very simple.
Start with a news headline of the day
Divide everyone into small groups of 4 to 5 people
The game consists of inventing the best conspiracy theory to go with the news headline
When the bell sounds each group turns over their sheet to reveal the news headline that has been chosen.
Whoever is running the bar sounds the bell and it’s off for 17 minutes of furious thinking, discussions and scribbling
The time of month had come around again and we all gathered in the Pub for the latest challenge. It was going to be a tense evening as there were as many tourists as locals and we locals always like to come out on top. People settled into their groups and started to look impatiently at Stewart who was taking turns running the bar. This was his first time ringing the bell and he was understandably a bit nervous. The D# of the bell eventually rang through the building followed by a loud rustling as the sheets were turned over.
Inspired by an article in the New York Times the theme for the evening was ‘the origins of Covid’. The noise level soared as people started to discuss Covid origin theories. Some banging on tables could be heard, a beer glass was knocked over and a sleeping baby in a buggy and a puppy had to be moved to the Snug as the language started to become fruity. Things were off to a good start.
It’s always surprising how quickly 17 minutes goes and the bell sounded again to signal the end of the first part of the game. The second part involves someone from each group expounding their theory and trying to convince everyone of its validity. This was always great fun and teasing the speaker is allowed.
Without wanting to be heightist, a very tall tourist demonstrated a great talent at public speaking and defended his group’s theory with verve and alacrity.
“Our theory is simple and easy to verify.” He stated. “Ex nihilo nihil fit.”
There was a pause as people quickly checked what this meant on their telephones.
He continued “Country A had noticed that their population was ageing and this would cause economic difficulties. They contacted neighbouring Country B who had developed a range of viruses to see if they had one which affected older people the most. The leaders of Country A then leaked this virus into their local population. A multi-national parcel delivering and online store noticed what was happening and realised that if everyone got locked down this would create a boom for their services. Together with Country A they added the virus to their parcels and enabled it to spread quickly around the world. The proof of this is that 87% of people who got Covid had also received a parcel from this company.”
You may be wondering how we choose a winner, well we don’t, this is the job of Aristotle the Pub dog. For some reason he would always bark whilst people are presenting their theories, we measure how long and loud he barks each time and this tells us who the winner is. Well, this evening Aristotle seems to be in an apoplexy listening to the above theory and the decibel meter showed that this group had won by a very long nose.
It seemed that Aristotle had really appreciated the subtle mix of a tiny amount of fact and a lot of fiction coupled with an almost unnerving cynicism. Always good indicators of a great conspiracy theory.