England's greatness

Sometimes a thing is most notable for what it does not feature, or include. Sherlock Holmes once solved a case by noticing that a dog had not barked at a particular moment; John Shearman once offered a novel and pleasing reading of an installation by Verrocchio by suggesting that the absence of most of the apostles implied that the Florentines who coursed through the city streets beneath the niche could think of themselves as those apostles.

Some of my spare moments of late have been occupied by a pleasant game available on IPhones, called SongPop Free. It's essentially a variant of Guess that Tune, in which players compete by trying to identify the singers or titles of five songs at a time, as quickly as possible. I can hold my own in Classic Rock or Nineties Alternative, but when it comes to Today's Hits, or Modern Rap -I haven't been allowed to unlock the more historical, or classical, categories yet - my limitations quickly surface. And so I find myself relying heavily on the processes of deduction and elimination. There are only four options for each tune. And so if a song is by a teen diva, well, I can rule out the options involving male singers. And if the snippet that I hear doesn't have any relation to the offered titles, that can prove helpful, as well. Let's go with Rihanna, or Ring the Alarm - and so on.

Cleo, apparently, plays the same game, or uses the same strategy, in perceiving the world around her. While driving home the other day, I decided to give her a little game-show format quiz, of sorts. Cleo Dahlia, I began, in my best and most syrupy Hollywood voice, welcome to the quiz game. And so we dove in: How do you get to the top of the mountain, in Cape Town? On the cable car, responded the little voice in the back. And what can you get at the top? Popsicle! Okay, then: can you name one thing that you remember about England? A pause, and then: No school!

Hmm. Well, she's right: when we were in Winchester this summer, she didn't have to go to school. Granted, L. and I were too busy enjoying the medieval cathedral, the walks along streams, and the inviting pubs to think too much about that. But, yes, come to think of it, there was no school in England.

Just one more reason to remember, fondly, what we'd already celebrated for other, more obvious reasons.