But back to Maths. In many ways Maths sums up my life. Let me explain.
I don't think I'm being immodest when I say that I would back my ability in mental arithmetic against 99% of the population. For some reason I can add, subtract, multiply and divide in my head. It's something I grew up with.
In the top class in Kinsale School we had regular times table tests where Mr London, our teacher, would fire questions at you. We had 50 questions that he would utter like a speeding bullet. 5x3, 8x8, 7x6 9x9. They would come as fast as he could get them out and you only had time to write them down. You didn't have time to think. So it all became automatic. I can't remember how much I scored in these tests but it would have been 48, 49 or 50.
I can still do this. Ask me to do 15x14 and I will immediately reply 210. I would multiply the 15 by 10 to get 150 and then the 15 by four and get 60 and add the two together. It takes much longer to explain that than to actually do it.
I further developed my mental maths skills by working out football tables in the days when they were difficult to work out. I devised games with dice and played entire seasons, working out tables as I went along. I also devised cricket games and worked out player averages.
The difficulty with football in those days was that if teams were on the same number of points their relative positions in the league would be determined by goal average. Today it's done on a much simpler way though goal difference. Goal difference is just the number of goals conceded taken away from the number of goals scored. So if a team has scored 68 and conceded 32 their goal difference will be +36. If they have scored 32 and conceded 68 their goal difference will be -36.
It was much more difficult with goal average where the number of goals for were divide by the number of goals against so in the first of our examples the goal average would be 68 divided by 32 which is 2.12 or 2.13 depending on whether you round the final figure up or down. In the second example the goal average would be - 4.7. And yes I did those calculations in my head without using a calculator.
When calculators came out I used to play a game of beating them. I would get somebody to give two of us a sum say 147+68x13 and would come up with the answer quicker than the calculator. The only reason for this was that I could compute the numbers faster than the person with the calculator could key them in. The answer to the sum above is 2795.
I found that I could visualise the numbers in my head and that helped me with the more difficult mental arithmetic questions.
So that all helped me to pass the 11+ exam and go to the Norwich School where I was put into the top set for maths, obviously worked out on my exam results. Then it all went Pete Tong (wrong).
The sneaky maths people introduced algebra, geometry and trigonometry and various other things with names I didn't understand. And I got totally lost. I didn't for a second understand all this logorhythm nonsense (you see I couldn't even spell it). And when it came to O' levels well I just floundered. I think I have taken my maths O' level three times and failed on all three occasions (it might actually be five). In those days having O levels in Maths and English was almost compulsory if you wanted to go into the sixth form or University or get a decent job. I sailed through English but not Maths.
And so there I was the boy who could do lightning calculations but couldn't pass an exam. And to this day I still don't have a Maths O level of GCSE but I'm very useful for calculating darts scores, football tables, cricket averages etc although everyone now uses a calculator.
I was fascinated by these machines when they first came out and got one as a Christmas present and played with it for hours, just randomly multiplying numbers etc. But when it came to a maths question I still did it in my head or on paper. I never quite trusted calculators. Even today I am more likely to work something out myself than use a calculator. I firmly believe that mental arithmetic is a wonderful way to keep the brain active.
But how is this maths analogy like my life? Well I was good at some aspects and absolute rubbish at others and that sums me up perfectly. I can do things that are no use to man or beast and can't do others that are basic e.g know how to repair something, build something or generally do anything useful.
Anyway that's enough about maths and more than enough for today.