Mark Mason

The main benefits of dog ownership are well-known – you get companionship, unconditional love and the exercise that comes with taking the thing for a walk. But there’s a side-effect that no one ever mentions: having a dog teaches you what it’s like to be famous. I’ll be sitting in a café, happily reading a book or doing a sudoku. Then someone appears. ‘Do you mind if I say hello to your dog?’ ‘Of course not,’ I reply. They start fussing about him, and there’s a brief exchange in which the essentials are disclosed. ‘Ralph’, ‘lurcher’, ‘we think he’s eight – the rescue centre guessed he was three when they picked him up off the street, and that was five years ago’.

When you play a game – cards, backgammon, chess – should you listen to your head or your heart? Do you sit there coldly calculating the odds, or do you go with a hunch, gut instinct, your sixth sense? It’s a question I’m discussing with Marcus du Sautoy as we sit in the Beaumont Hotel in Mayfair, enjoying one of their regular games evenings. Even if our subconscious picks up on someone’s body language without us registering that that’s what we’ve done, it’s still reason Marcus laughs when I mention the head or heart choice. ‘Head, of course! I’m a mathematician.’ His latest book, Around the World in 80 Games (which I reviewed for the magazine) examines the games he’s encountered on his travels.

Welcome to the month that faces backwards to last year and forwards to this – which is why it’s named after Janus, the Roman god of transitions, who himself has two faces. Read on to discover January’s trivia, including a joke from Stevie Wonder, a mistake by David Blunkett’s officials, and the reason Heather Mills thinks her daughter is musical … 1 January 1900 – Nigeria becomes a British protectorate. Today the country is home to approximately one-fifth of the world’s black population. (230 million out of 1.2 billion.) 2 January 1921 – premiere of the play R.U.R. by the Czech writer Karel Capek. The play gave us the word ‘robot’ – the roboti are artificial people used to perform tasks for humans. 4 January – World Braille Day.

This month’s timely trivia includes a canny England footballer, an endangered Lady Astor and a confused Nicholas Parsons. Oh, and we learn how many cups of coffee Steven Spielberg has drunk in his life … 1 December 1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first female MP to take her seat in the House of Commons. One of the regular visitors to her country house Cliveden was Baroness Trumpington, whose young son enjoyed sledging in the snow there. ‘Adam’s other main entertainment,’ wrote Trumpington in her memoirs, ‘was travelling up and down in the lift. He also, to my shame, headbutted Lady Astor.’ 2 December 1697 – St Paul's Cathedral is consecrated.

This month’s crop of trivia includes a secret about the Tube map, the US state that’s named after Elizabeth I and something Jimi Hendrix had in common with Winston Churchill…  1 November 1947 – birth of Nick Owen. The television presenter and Luton Town fan has a lounge named after him at the club’s ground – to which he was once refused entry. ‘You can’t go in,’ said a steward. ‘It’s packed.’ Not being a ‘don’t you know who I am?’ type, Owen simply walked away. He heard someone say to the steward: ‘Don’t you know who that is?’ ‘Haven’t a clue,’ came the reply. ‘His name,’ the steward was told, ‘is in bloody great capitals above your head.’ 2 November 1889 – North and South Dakota are granted statehood in the US.

When a building’s construction requires the closure of a nearby airport, you know that the building is tall. But that’s the thing about the Square Mile at the moment – it’s so successful that the only way is up. The cranes on 22 Bishopsgate (rather than the building itself) reached such a height, as the skyscraper neared completion, that they exceeded the permitted limit for City Airport, meaning that for a few short periods the airport had to halt flights. As you stand in Horizon 22, the viewing gallery that has just opened (tickets are free but booking up fast), looking down at nearby streets is like reading the A to Z. But while 22 Bishopsgate might be head and shoulders above its neighbours (912 feet, 62 storeys), there are plenty more office towers on the way.

This month’s trivia takes in the reason football became known as ‘soccer’, the reason iPhones have virtual keyboards rather than real ones, and the reason Spiro Agnew once made a hurried departure from a Spectator lunch. Agnew once attended a Spectator lunch at which one of the other guests was Barry Humphries 1 October 1909 – the Secret Service Bureau was founded. This soon became the Secret Intelligence Service (or MI6), its first head being Mansfield Cumming, who operated out of his apartment in the building that now contains the Royal Horseguards Hotel. He signed his documents in green ink with a ‘C’ (both colour and initial are still used by the head of MI6).

Thinking of adding another six strings to your bow? You wouldn’t be alone – lockdown inspired plenty of people to learn the guitar. The trend may have lessened as people return to the office, but it has still meant UK and European sales for the guitar maker Fender are £5 million higher than before Covid. The company say that almost half of its guitars are sold to people playing the instrument for the first time. Should you follow their example? The short answer is ‘yes’. The same instinct that gets you holding a tennis racket in front of the mirror means that when you progress to the real thing, the one you want is a Fender Stratocaster. Buddy Holly played one, which was why Eric Clapton wanted one. And after Eric Clapton played one, every guitarist since has wanted one.