We are the champions

09 Feb 2012 by Chris Boughton

As regular followers of my blog will know, I take part in a pub quiz most Tuesday evenings with my wife and some friends. The maximum number of people per team is six and we usually have between four and six of us. Obviously the odds on winning are significantly better if there are six of us compared to say just four, although we did win narrowly with just four of us at the beginning of January. I am pleased to report that we won again last week. That is now two wins out of three in 2012 and this time we won by a six point margin. I briefly considered modesty and not mentioning it in this blog but almost immediately relented and have decided unashamedly to allow indulgence to prevail. I think I even made a contribution on a couple of easy questions! For some strange reason I recognised an old photograph of Raquel Welch in the picture round and dragged Gordon Haskell’s name out from somewhere (former member of the 60s pop group King Crimson). However the for me highlight of the evening was in the music intro round. A very short burst of the intro from a song is played from which the artist and title of the song has to be identified. One of the songs was the Peter and Gordon track ’Please Lock Me Away’ from 1964. This was easy for me to recognise because it was the first pop single I ever purchased when I was just 11 years old. It was a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic and was written by Lennon and McCartney. Paul McCartney was going out with the sister of singer Peter Asher at the time which gave the duo huge publicity. I only had an old gramophone to play the record on with a very dodgy speed control lever making it very difficult to obtain the required 45RPM setting. It also had a very thick playing needle that steadily deepened the record’s grooves as I played it constantly despite the unreliable speed setting. Forty seven years later this amusing saga came flooding back and also made a small contribution to our team winning the quiz last week. The music intro round of seven pop songs all came from the 60s this week which was the teenage years of four of the six in our team, so not surprisingly we got them all. The picture round showed actors in scenes from 20 films from the 60s too and we correctly identified 18 of these. This obviously gave us a huge advantage over the younger teams, but then we have had to endure weeks when recent music and celebrity pictures have dominated.

So what has this all got to do with Parkinson’s disease (PD)? Well I currently have a very bad lower back with almost constant spasms and pain, which is almost certainly Parkinson’s induced. I have suffered in this way before and hopefully it will eventually go away as it has before. In the past a combination of medication, careful exercise, massage, application of heat and ensuring my back is well supported when seated has eventually cured the problem. But whilst my back is very painful I am grateful for any distraction I can get. The pub quiz this week took my mind off the discomfort for nearly three hours, so a big thank you to Peter and Gordon, Raquel Welch and Gordon Haskell for their unwitting pain distraction therapy. If my back permits I am joining some of my fellow degree course students at another pub quiz on Wednesday night this week so hopefully there will be more pain distraction therapy there too.

Pain is a much under-reported and under-researched aspect of PD in my experience, and consequently it is a PD symptom for which there is limited guidance on how to manage and control it. My strategy to try and ease my back pain this week starts with a massage on Monday afternoon, followed by a pub quiz on Tuesday night, another pub quiz on Wednesday night and another massage on Friday – unless anyone has any better ideas!

About the Author

Chris Boughton
I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) in February 2004 at the age of 51 having experienced undiagnosed symptoms for at least 4 years prior to that. My wife and I have five adult children and three grandchildren. We are fortunate in that we live in a lovely rural part of the east of England, with King’s Forest situated nearby for my much needed, therapeutic dog walks. I spent most of my working life involved in electronic, mechanical manufacturing management within the Worldwide Broadcasting industry and I am extremely lucky to have travelled extensively through my work. Since I was diagnosed I have dedicated much of my time to researching all aspects of PD and trying to both support others with this illness and raise the profile of PD. As well as writing a blog on this website, I administer an internet patient forum for people with PD which I set up in September 2008 and it currently has over 150 members. I also administer the forum’s Facebook, Friends Reunited and Twitter pages. My younger son recently ran in a half marathon race to raise funds for the Cure Parkinson’s Trust. I am currently studying for a BA (Hons) in English and History as a mature student.