Matthew Abraham: Remember how we all used to be fascinated by the weather?

There was a time, not very long ago, when we knew how to talk about something else. Must it be so hard to move past the C-word, writes Matthew Abraham.

Listen, don’t mention the C-word. I mentioned it once but think I got away with it all right.

The C-word is on everyone’s lips but hopefully not in our lungs. It’s been there since March last year and isn’t showing any signs of going away. It’s the word that starts with C, almost rhymes with floated and ends with the number 19.

It won’t be mentioned in this space today because I’m experimenting with a challenge dreamt up by our son.

He’s decided not to engage in conversations that involve the C-word, the single word that has, in the space of 18 months, gone from nothing to something that is so instantly recognisable it needs no translation anywhere on Earth. This countercultural decision is just a little perverse. Not sure where he gets that from.

Before we start, a warning. Don’t think this’ll be a doddle. The first sentence of this piece is a lift from the John Cleese character Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers episode The Germans, in which the excruciatingly bigoted Basil attempts to serve a table of Germans without mentioning the war. In a bout of woke madness, the BBC recently dropped the episode from its archive but soon reinstated it with a moral health warning.

Chief public health officer Nicola Spurrier in the spring time, promoting mask-wearing in the Rundle Mall sun shine. Picture: Keryn Stevens

If you accept the “don’t mention the C-word” dare, you’ll find it quite tricky. Because we’ve talked about little else since its arrival in March last year, it’s now hard to recall what we used to talk about before then. It’s like the Death Star of conversation.

So, to navigate the C-word Challenge, you’ll need a few suggested conversation-starters to help you survive the next encounter with a friend in the toilet paper aisle at Woolies.

Remember how we all used to be fascinated by the weather? Then make that your safe ground.

If they mention the C-word, just steer the conversation like so: Yes, indeed. But boy, hasn’t it been cold and wet? It’s just like the winters we used to have
as kids, isn’t it?

Then, as you throw a box of face masks and hand sanitiser into the trolley, casually fire off a few weather stats before they get a chance to regroup. Yep, been quite a winter all right, and it’s only just the start of August. I was reading the Bureau of Meteorology’s synopsis for Greater Adelaide in July and it says it’s been much wetter than average with severe winds at times. Tell me about it, haven’t had the boat out for weeks.

By now they should be enthralled so don’t take the pedal off the metal. In fact, for Greater Adelaide as a whole, it was the wettest July since 2016, with several sites either having their highest total July rainfall on record, or for at least the past 20 years.

Time for a little humour to break things up: Mind you, mean daytime and night-time temperatures for July were within 1C of average at most sites across Adelaide and the Hills. I reckon BOM needs to invest in a new thermometer. Haha.

See how easy it is if you just arm yourself with some fascinating resource material?

By the time you both get to the new Arnott’s Gluten-Free Tiny Teddies, you’ll be yacking about isobars and cold fronts like a couple of regular Keith Martyns.

Crows star Taylor Walker has been a talking point. Picture: Getty Images

I reckon even Professor Saint Nicola Spurrier, should she bump into your trolleys, would forget all about the C-word and regale you with her backyard rain gauge records for the past 25 years.

If you find the chitchat flagging, don’t be shy about tossing in a bit of global warming denial to ginger things up.

Or change gears completely by musing about the true identity of the Somerton Man, or what Tex Walker said that’s got him sin-binned for a racial slur or maybe how you almost threw your Census letter in the recycling bin because it looked like junk mail.

Don’t abandon the challenge if, like Basil Fawlty, you accidentally drop the dreaded word. Persist. One of the rules, so I’m belatedly told, is the C-word clock resets every midnight. Maybe this could be the start of something big.

During the week, our challenge inventor sent the family a group text: In the spirit of my anti-Covid discussion challenge, I’ve been thinking of other things to talk about. So … how do we want to do Xmas presents this year?

The dreaded Christmas pressies discussion? In August? That’s a C-word conversation we could all live without.