93 Men in a Boat (5) : The Know-it-all

"I'm glad we're going to Samoa rather than Tonga," said Mr Know-it-all to me one evening over dinner. "It's so much nicer."

"Really" I replied. "Have you been there before, then?"

"No" he answered.

"Well I've been to both before, so I think we will have to agree to differ on that one..."

Now anyone with half a brain might decide to shut up at the point or perhaps change the subject. But that's the point of course. Mr Know-it-all only has half a brain, so he's not going to be out off by facts!

"Pago Pago has one of the most dramatic harbour approaches in the world", he went on.

"Really? Well it's got some quite pretty hills either side but I wouldn't have said it was particularly special."

"Oh, no" he went on. "You're absolutely wrong on that one!"

"Well," I said, "as it's in U.S. Samoa I can only assume you read that in an American guide book?"

On another occasion, a couple more clever bastards were lecturing me about a boat called the 'Atoll Explorer' that sails around the Maldives. They've been on it twice and it is, of course, the only way to do the Maldives you know. Well, sorry guys but I've been there 7 times and it certainly isn't the only way - although it is one of the most expensive!

And then there are the snorkeling know-it-alls or 'Pratfish' as I call them. These are the ones who leap in the water, yell their heads off at each other, swim flat out at a full crawl whacking their fins on the surface of the water and then complain afterwards that they didn't see any fish. Well of course you didn't, you dopey sod! You scared them all away!

But my favourite type of pratfish is the 'Finless Pratfish'. In my humble opinion, anyone stupid enough to throw himself into open water in the Pacific Ocean without wearing fins has a serious death wish.

Several years ago, we were in the Seychelles and three of us went off the beach snorkeling. One of us had no fins. We hit a strong current and decided to go in  - rapidly! Unfortunately, we hit an undertow and couldn't get in to the beach. It was a case of 2 feet forward and 3 feet back. And even worse, the one without fins was getting swept out even faster.

We linked arms and used our fins to work with the inward surges and managed to do 3 feet forward and two feet back. Slow progress, but at least it was progress and we lived to tell the tale, but without our fins, our friend would definitely have drowned.

I told a couple of finless pratfish this story. One listened, but the know-it-all didn't. I told him that if he decided to drown himself there was no way I was coming to help him.

Death by stupidity is a common but none-the-less terrible thing...