Who am I? Confessions of a trivia tragic

California's giant redwoods belong to the sequoia genus.

As a child, I owned a picture book showing a Volkswagen in a tunnel carved through the trunk of one of these sky-scraping conifers. On another page, there was a photo of a monorail. Other than the rather homesick-looking grove over near Canberra airport, I can't say I've ever seen a redwood in the flesh but I did manage to ride Sydney's monorail before it was quietly dismantled one night and flogged off on Gumtree.

Once, around the same era as when I'd be poring over my boy's big book of transportation, I followed my father's hairy legs through the bush to locate the tallest tree in NSW.

It was called the "The Grandis". We peered up into its canopy, hugged it (no viewing platform and fence in those days) and walked back to the car.

On a different occasion, a similar expedition was undertaken to a place called "Burning Mountain"; an isolated scar of smoky sandstone under which some coal is on fire. We traipsed around the inhospitable hellscape, wondering if our sneakers might melt, then walked back to the car.

Thanks to the internet, I can reel off a few facts about these unassuming tourist destinations. The Grandis (Eucalyptus grandis aka flooded gum) is about 77 metres tall and about 400 years old. The seam under Burning Mountain (Mount Wingen) has been smouldering for about 6000 years and moves one metre south every 12 months.

I'll try and remember these stats because I like trivia. I like tormenting my children with trivia. One of my go-to gems is: "Did you know 'sequoia' contains all five vowels?"

As promised, a sequoia is special. Vowels are special, so is trivia, especially trivia about vowels.

When the kids say beer-ahh, near-aah or here-ahh, I hit them with: "What's that called?"

"What?"

"What you just said, how you said it ... that sound in the middle, there's a special word for it ..."

"Dunno."

"Diphthong! It's called a diphthong!"

"Great, thanks. Mum says you're weir-aahd."

"That's another one!"

Trivial Pursuit is to blame for my irritating polymathic affliction, as is my mother, who views Hasbro's blockbuster board game more a blood sport than a pleasant family pastime.

Recognising she might have had a protégé in the making, she once left a book called How to Win at Trivial Pursuit for me to find on my doona when I returned home from school. She pulled the same trick with the puberty manual, What's Happening to Me?

It's embarrassing to admit which one was more well-read.

To this day, the best night of my life was playing Trivial Pursuit at a friend's birthday sleepover before retiring to watch the new-release video of The Last Starfighter.

Anyone else who saw that movie as an 11-year-old knows I'm not joking.

MORE B. R. DOHERTY:

Trivial Pursuit pursued me to university. A dorm mate, who became a great friend, was a tragic for the game. He'd been something of a champion at his posh Sydney private school and hauled his heavy blue box with him to continue his winning streak on new intellectual property.

In hindsight, it was cruel to humiliate him so publicly but at least he learnt not to underestimate kids from the sticks.

Mum, who could well be in her 90s by now, still attends weekly trivia nights, as if 1983 never ended.

I've always suspected she was disappointed I didn't grow up to be Tony Barber. Not like Tony Barber, mind you, but the Tony Barber.

"This is my son, Tony Barber, he hosts Sale of the Century."

"That's not Tony Barber."

"Yes it is."

Sale of the Century (or $ale etc for the purists) was an updated version of '70s TV show $25,000 Great Temptation, also hosted by Barber. Sale premiered in July 1980, and just a year later, Trivial Pursuit was unleashed on a global population as yet blissfully unsegmented as gentle Science & Nature buffs or that hardcore Geography crowd.

It was a golden age of general knowledge.

Just as attendance was compulsory when mum had the itch for Trivial Pursuit, Sale was required viewing.

Shadow-boxing Barber was marvellous (not so marvellous, however, we bought any of his Christmas albums) as were co-hosts Victoria, Delvene and Alyce. The mute models in the Gift Shop exuded a yacht-rock exotica straight out of a Le Specs catalogue, yet never seemed to take themselves too seriously. Neither did Pete Smith, quite an achievement for a disembodied voiceover man. Adjudicator Fran Powell was the personification of incorruptible. We rooted for the carry-over champs, crossing our fingers they'd score an extra 25 bucks in the Fame Game. We at home craved our very own "diamond-set stickpin from Bruce & Walsh" and dared to dream of winning "the lot", thus earning the right to "Let's go shopping!" (admittedly, the lustre of the showcase began to wear off by the time they brought in the Holden Apollos ... and Glenn Ridge).

It's not that the popularity of Sale was anything new. Australia has always been a trivial nation with a broadcasting heritage replete with hands on buzzers. We've always respected our quiz champions (some become federal ministers) and are subordinate to our quiz masters.

So, given my upbringing, it feels almost treacherous to be turning away from trivia.

I can't stomach quiz shows any more. It's true (not false), there are just too many of them but it's mostly the hosts who turn me off. They lack that old-school blend of vaudevillian charisma and authority, coming across, instead, as too contrived, too smarmy, too bloated and arrogant or too under police investigation.

I never caught the pub trivia bug and the integrity of ubiquitous radio phone-ins are surely compromised by search engine-enhanced brains trusts. Similarly, my cold nights of raising funds for the pre-school by sitting around tables of semi-acquaintances as we pick at torn-open chip packets and list Olympic cities beginning with "M" are over. I'd rather just make a donation, and, besides, the bloody teachers always win.

It was great, however, to have been a kid on the ground floor (or, the lounge room floor) of the '80s general knowledge zeitgeist and when thinking back on those simple days, there's really only one thing to say ...

Keep smiling, and bye for now.