Attila the Hun and Smerconish

Thought for the Fortnight

Portrait of Attila the Hun, courtesy of Picryl

So, as Big Bird (of Sesame Street fame) used to sing, “Everyone makes mistakes and so do I…”. Yes, friends, as you know, I somehow managed to press the wrong button after uploading the post below and out it went well before time. It was a first draft, which I like to upload early and then tweak when the mood takes me.

It so rattled me that I immediately sent out the second post effectively saying ‘don’t read it’, which was ridiculous as many (most? all?) of you did and I would have done in your place.

The Big question of the week – leaving aside a few political matters – is what to do now. Several of you said republish; most of you, quite reasonably, said nothing on the matter. So, I have done a few minor tweaks which I would have done before. You will learn a little information (such as Attila’s views of President Trump), but whether you read it again is up to you. And I added the wonderful picture above of Attila the Hun (or Mr Hun, as I called him in yesterday’s Smerconish session), thanks to Greg Carman of

Greg’s Substack

who sent me a set of them.

And, as an extra treat, I decided to send out an extra post in a few days’ time, about my unexpectedly special 83rd birthday.

My husband I have liked watching Smerconish, the news and current affairs programme hosted by Michael Smerconish, since we first discovered it on CNN some years ago. We find his topics stimulating and his viewpoint refreshing.

It has become part of a Saturday afternoon ritual in the Richardson household.

There are normally three or so topics covered during a programme. Each week, as part of one of the topics covered, the programme asks its viewers their opinion on some subject.

Examples of recent questions¹ are:

Should the U.S. take over Gaza? Yes/No

Are you comfortable with your tax dollars funding USAID soft power initiatives such as Sesame Street in Iraq? Yes/No

Who bears the most responsibility for the Oval Office argument? Choices: Donald Trump, JD Vance, Volodymyr Zelensky or All equally

At this point, we tend to pause the programme and discuss our respective answers. We got into the habit of each setting out our own response and then each guessing what the audience response would be. The latter was based on our views of who comprises the likely audience of Smerconish, plus how we think they think.

This always ended with a friendly bet, just for fun. The audience response to the day’s question is always shown at the end of the programme, so our guesses can be checked against that information.

We have each tended to be as likely wrong as right in our guesses (even Smerconish himself occasionally expresses surprise about the vote), but once in a while one of us would get it exactly right. We would have a laugh and then move on.

During the last year or so, our now 15-year-old grandson who frequently spends the weekend with us, has liked to join in. Both his parents are American (his father only via birth parent citizenship, i.e. me) and he takes a lively interest in what is going on there, although he lives in London.

He, too, wants to give his opinion on the right answer, plus what he thinks the audience response would be. He is not unsophisticated on this front and can hold his own in discussion. His involvement has been fine and made it even more fun.

But during the last six months or so, a fourth voice has been joined into the discussion, introduced by said grandson: Attila the Hun.

Why? I don’t know. He just appeared and became an additional participant. In my view, he added fun in the form of a wild card to the whole discussion.

(My husband countered with the suggestion that we add Jesus Christ to the mix, but I put my foot down and said four responses were enough to cope with.)

Knowing what he knows about Attila (gleaned, I believe, from computer games, some internet research and some logical thinking), our grandson works out what the Hun’s views on current affairs in America might be, plus his assessment of the views of the TV audience. (It seems Attila thinks that Donald Trump is too weak and is not a fan.) Sometimes, we have a three-way discussion about this, but the final arbiter is always our grandson.

When it was a simple discussion between my husband and myself, this whole exercise was fairly straight-forward and done solely orally. With four sets of views about audience ratings, however, our grandson decided that the respective responses needed to be written down so there would be no argument afterwards. It gets particularly complicated when the question requires more than a yes-no answer and we then also have to agree, with much laughter, what constitutes a win.

He duly gets a pen and paper and records our decisions. I believe that, for no good reason I can see, he also later records them on his computer.

We have never actually voted on the programme’s website (and I promise, Mr Smerconish, that I would never register Attila’s position on the issue at hand). But a lot of people do. When we started, it tended to be in the region of 25,000 viewers. More recently, it has been 40,000. Yesterday, with a question about what the Democrats need to do to up their game) it was 112,000 from 176 countries, although a lot of votes come in after the programme has been aired.

It is all glorious innocent fun on a Saturday afternoon. Educational for us all. Nobody gets upset about who wins. And you might be surprised that it is not unknown for Attila to be the winner.

Perhaps it is especially fun for Attila the Hun. How could he have guessed, seventeen centuries after his death (d 453, no birthdate found) that he would be making educated guesses about American politics in London?

Next time you are having a friendly argument on an issue, consider how Attila the Hun (or anyone else for that matter) would have responded.

It will make your day.

I love hearing your responses to my writing. It makes such a difference to the process. Do you have favourite programmes that has become a ritual to watch? Do you enjoy guessing audience responses? Have you ever given one minute’s thought to the views of Attila the Hun?

If you are ever feeling in the mood to switch to a paid subscription to my Substack, you will be doing a great service to homeless people in London, as all income from this source goes to a wonderful charity offering shelter and other help.

1 These are questions set by Smerconish, which I found on his website, but some are from his radio programme, I believe. I couldn’t find the set of questions used only on his CNN TV programme.