28. Rubik's Cube

I'm waiting to read of the youngster who has been put into care for smashing his parents home to pieces with a sledgehammer and attempting to murder the cat by putting it into the spindryer.

          

His parents will be reported as saying that they have no idea what came over him, as up to date he had been a good boy of high intelligence and a happy disposition, and so far as they knew had no vices. Not even the odd bit of glue sniffing which some of his mates were known to indulge in behind the school bog.

They will be honestly mystified as to their son's lapse from civilised behavior, although will recall, at the court inquiry, that he had recently had a few nightmares from which he had awoke screaming "Left, Right, Left"

I haven't actually read of such a case but, like the riots that have recently plagued Liverpool, Brixton and other British areas, it is inevitable that it will occur when you study the contributary factors which spark such events. This case will have nothing to do with ethnic minority suppression, three million unemployed, lead poisoning or the envy of folk who could only afford a registry office wedding and a honeymoon at Southend after having a recent more expensive do shoved down their gullets until they got sick of it. This case will be due to parental indulgence and pride.

As the average Mum and Dad quite naturally thinks that their pride and joy is the only one that's been cast from the mould and should have no less than any other kid, and is far more capable of succeeding with it than the rest, they got him one.

You must know what I'm on about by now.

Rubik's Cube of course.

This bloke Rubik has a lot to answer for and it's quite possible that his diabolical invention will be the final straw that breaks the finely balanced mind of Homo Sapiens and we shall all do a lemming type Hari-Kari and leave the dolphins to take over planet Earth. 

And the epitaph of Man will not be the mushroom shape of nuclear explosion, but the six sided figure of Rubik's Cube. 

This puzzle can be done, of course, and they sell a book of instructions telling you how. What they don't tell you is how to understand it. They naturally assume you have the qualifications to be able to do so. Like a degree in in higher maths or chess movements of the world masters. The trouble with this puzzle is that it is compulsive, like eating peanuts.

You just can't stop once you've started. 

After a while of twisting and turning the sections and getting nowhere, you put it aside, take some aspirins and turn on the telly. Then as you get up to go for a pee you pick it up and have another go in there. Half a dozen more tries and a couple of dozen aspirins later you sling it aside promising yourself that you'll really settle down and solve it later when you've got time. Anyway, there's no point in wasting time doing something that don't achieve anything, is there ?

Better let sonny have a go. After all you bought it for him and it'll improve his mind and his concentration, which is a good thing ain't it? 

You know that you could do it if you really tried. Just that you ain't got the time right now.

So - sonny cops it. Poor little sod.

And sooner or later the result imagined at the top of the page will almost certainly happen, cos little pride and joy hasn't got Dad's ability to  convince himself that he can do something which his inner self knows he bloody well can't. Not in a month of Sundays.

I suppose Rubik can't be wholly blamed for lumbering the world with such a diabolical toy. Kids toys are so advanced these days that there isn't much joy in any of them, and he just jumped on the bandwagon.

Parents are slightly bewildered when Junior mopes around looking bored and saying he don't know what to do. 

Course he's bored. He's surrounded by masses of electronic equipment designed to make him think and to instruct him. No fun at all. 

He don't have to take off his socks when he wants to count over ten. He just presses buttons on his calculator.

He wants toys he can play with, not instructional manuals designed to make him a genius, which is what most of todays toys aim to do. 

We had none of this problem when I was a kid.

We weren't expected to be adult minded, at least not until we could earn some money by doing a paper round when we had to be knowledgeable enough to realise that any income thus come by was to help out with the family income and not to be frittered away on toys But I don't think that the kids of yesteryear were any the worse for that.

We kept ourselves busy with games that were primitive compared with todays and reading material that was designed to be enjoyed, not to instruct.

Most homes could boast a pack of cards which were in continual use in games of Old Maid, Beat your Neighbour, Chase the Ace, Sliding Donkey, Cheat, Rummy, Banker and Pairs. To name just a few.

If you wanted to gamble it was Pontoon or Brag for buttons.

Games that were easy to understand, but what's more important, games that did not leave you with an inferiority complex or uncontrollable frustrations.

If your brother or your mate beat you at Ludo or Draughts you could always punch him on the nose (if he was smaller than you), or accuse him of cheating (again if he was smaller). If he wasn't then you kept your mouth shut and tried to cheat him, but whatever the outcome of any game, kids weren't left with homicidal thoughts towards other peoples property or the first O.A.P. who happened to cross their path.

The trouble is that you just can't cheat most modern toys. Some of them have even got printed circuits which tell you, through an amplifier, when you've boobed at spelling or doing a sum or whatever, and if all a nipper gets when he wants to enjoy playing with his toy is – “ You are wrong. Do it again. " he's quickly going to learn the satisfaction of saying the first word of Colonel Bogey and jumping on his birthday present.

He don't want to be a genius when he's playing or reading, and he'll mature intro a responsible citizen if he reads The Beano in bed instead of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

I suggest that Rubik be entombed in a pyramid of his blasted cubes and be left to figure his way out of that one.

figure his way out of that one. Without aspirins.

You may have gathered that I've been having a go at it and you'd be right.

It nearly sent me round the twist and that's why I'm worried about the effect it may have on nippers. Well I was until the other day,but now I'm not so sure.

My little grandson, aged eight*, came up to me and handed me a cube with all the colours on their correct sides and said " Mess it up Grandad. Get all the colours mixed up"

I thought he'd done the old trick of taking the squares out and putting them back in correct order instead of turning complete sections as you're supposed to do.

So I twisted and turned the sections  until it was completely jumbled and said "Here you are then. Now lets see you do it", getting ready to calm him with sweets when he went berserk with trying.

He did it in just under five minutes right in front of me, and I'll take anyone who don't believe me round to him and let him do it. 

Well, it's understandable really. He don't stuff his bonce with all this electronic facts and figures rubbish and has inherited some of his Grandad's brains by reading the Beano in bed.

I only ever read about Billy Bunter when I was a kid.


Notes:
* Which helpfully dates this piece to 1981.

Special thanks to Paul Rose for the slight cheat on the photo of said grandson.

If games, retro or otherwise, are your thing, check out Paul's work here Digitiser 2000 You Tube and here https://www.digitiser2000.com/