Random conversation starters

As the lockdowns come to an end, you may find yourself once again being invited to public gatherings with friends and families. As it's been so long since we were all allowed out to socialise, some people may find that they're a little out of practise at the art of conversation.

"If I could invite five dead people for a meal,
I'd choose people who don't like eggs!"

If that applies to you, then here are a few random conversation starters to help get the discussion going...

1) If you could bring back five dead people and have a meal with them, who would you choose?

A girl I used to work with answered this question on facebook. For her 'meal with the dead', she named four famous people and also her Auntie Muriel.

Rather amusingly, her Auntie Muriel replied, "Thank you for thinking of me."

Oops! Looks like she wasn't quite dead yet! #HardToKeepTrack

A cat sized giraffe,
pictured for illustrative purposes.

2) If you had to scale a wild animal down to the size of a cat, and that wild animal would be a new type of pet, which animal would you choose?

I reckon cat sized giraffes would be pretty cool. As would cat sized gorillas, although I suspect they would be quite mischievous, so with that in mind my preference would probably edge towards cat sized giraffes.




3) If you could scrap one law, which law would you get rid of?

In the UK there are loads of stupidly pointless laws so ideally there's a long list of laws that I'd like to get rid of. For example, until 2008 it was illegal to bake or sell a loaf of bread in the UK unless it weighed 400 grams or multiples thereof.

Can you imagine making a bread related call to the local police...

“Hello, yes. I'd like to report a crime. My neighbour has just baked a loaf of bread weighing 467 grams, which is in blatant contravention of The Bread Act of 1963.”

Anyway, thankfully that ridiculous law was revoked in 2008, so instead I'd scrap some of the tax laws so that citizens pay less tax, especially income tax.

It's crazy to think that as recently as September 1913 - just over a hundred years ago - there was no income tax in America. Instead they raised revenue from import taxes. That's the direction I'd like to head back towards. Sadly though, we've been brainwashed nowadays into thinking that corrupt multinational corporations with zero loyalty to individual countries should be able to import unlimited quantities of goods for free, while hard-working citizens should have money stolen from their wages on threat of prison.

Buy bitcoin.
Wise advice for any time travellers.

4) If you could give your younger self some advice, what would it be?

My advice would be either, 'Buy bitcoin!' or 'Bet on Leicester City to win the Premier League in 2015/16'.

That's not really getting into the spirit of the question though, so if I was following the spirit of the question then I'd probably give myself some health related advice on how to stay fit and healthy.




5) If you could have the ability to read people's minds and know what they really thought of you, would you want that ability?

I think for me it would depend on whether I could use the power selectively. I certainly wouldn't want to know what everybody in the world thought about me! However, for one or two people it would be quite interesting to know their specific thoughts.

Generally though, I don't really care what other people think, so even if I had this ability I probably wouldn't use it that often.




6) If you could swap places with any famous person on Earth for one day, and live their life for them for a day, then revert back to yourself at the end of the day, who would you choose to trade with, and what would you do while you were them?

A crime scene which definitely wasn't caused by
****** *******, because they're not a murderer.

This question opens up a lot of possibilities, but I think I'd be tempted to use this scenario for the betterment of mankind.

With that in mind, I'd swap places with someone who is regarded with suspicion of being a murderer, for example ****** *******, but who has never been prosecuted for their crimes, then once I was that person I'd confess my crimes on camera, and also provide any evidence I had to prove my crimes.

Editor's note: "Charles, you can't make unsubstantiated claims like that! Our legal department will have a fit! I've therefore taken the liberty of censoring out the alleged murderer."
Charles: "Oops! Sorry, ed! Apologies for mentioning that, er ... Horace Cabbage is a murderer. *wink wink*  Yes, I, er ... definitely didn't change the uncensored name for legal reasons."

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That's it for this week. If you've got any other interesting conversation starters, then feel free to leave a reply in the comments, and maybe I'll use your idea in a future blog post.

Here are a few more randomly themed blog posts:
Random Star Wars thoughts
Random thoughts on aliens
Random thoughts (part 9)