MIDDLE NAME MASTERMIND

“I came up with a new game,” I said. The lights were out but I could still somehow hear her rolling her eyes.

“Go on then,” she sighed.

“Well. It’s so simple. But when I played it in the car it made me laugh out loud. And then I thought, she’s not going to think this is fun at all, Matt. But oh well I’ll tell her anyway.”

“What is it?” she asked. I stared at the ceiling. I really like our night-time chats.

“All you need is Siri.”

“Go on.”

“I think of a celebrity, then you have to guess their middle name, or predict that they don’t have one. Then we ask Siri, ‘who is so-and-so’ and we find out whether you were right.”

Even I have to admit that this sounds rubbish. But honestly, the euphoria I got when Siri had read out the first few lines of David John Tennant… was unbelievable. Pure joy! Not to mention the tension. Then there’s the underlying reasoning that went into Alexander Armstrong (I got him wrong) and trying to guess whether certain celebrities were using their actual middle name as their professional identity. Thrilling. But probably not for everyone.

“I don’t want to play that,” she said, rolling over, “That sounds terrible.”

I smiled. I’m totally going to start a game on our next long journey. Middle Name Mastermind. Honestly, get one right and you’ll see what I mean. Or. You’ll see what Sammy means. I really like our differences, almost as much as I like our similarities.

Though I think she’ll come to love it when she plays it.