Despite being relatively inexperienced in the field, I’m quite a fan of pub quizzes. My first (tentative) foray into this competitive world occurred whilst I was a student at university.
It was the second year of my degree course when I was living off campus, and my housemates and I stumbled across a pub in the town centre that was advertising a quiz night. Our student loans had not long come through, and we were feeling flush and devil-may-care (I may just be speaking about myself here).
We rallied ourselves into a team, rustled up a name, and declared ourselves contenders. Pitting our youth and very specific knowledge (Romantic literature, cognitive psychology, classical music and the intricacies of English grammar) against the worldly expertise of our fellow contenders, we prepared for battle: the game was afoot.
Well, we may have been four bright young things, but we were in a league of our own - the bottom league. We came in last place, and I would be ashamed to acknowledge how poorly we performed, were it not that we were awarded the booby prize - a wooden spoon! For us impoverished students, novices in the joys and perils of cooking from scratch, this was the zenith of all accolades (granted, the cash prize likely awarded to the winning team could have afforded us several wooden spoons, a round of drinks, and a decent meal for all - but that was beside the point).
No team could have been more overjoyed with their booty, and that spoon took pride of place in our kitchen that year, an enduring testament to the naive unworldliness of youth in academia. The next quiz exposure I had was with my husband. For years, we had listened as a mutual friend sang the praises of his local pub and its stellar quiz night, which took place - as many seem to - weekly on a Wednesday.
Eventually, our interest was snared by the enthusiastic description of his regular triumphs, so we decided to mosey along one evening and join in the fun. We neglected to tell our friend that we would be present and, when he caught sight of us ambling in, his face was a picture.
He was regretfully aware that, being blissfully ignorant of pub quiz etiquette, our sole reason for turning up was to form a team with him. With a resigned air, he sidled over to our table, murmuring apologies to his usual teammates, the loyalty he had manifested since records began totally undermined.
I was most disconcerted by the hostile glares his former comrades kept shooting our way but was determined to prove to our friend that he had made the right decision by stealing the crown. Naturally, we lost. Badly. Our combined skill set was dull as a pool of fool's gold in the alchemical gleam of our rivals’ liquid luck, and our friend was utterly humiliated. I don’t know if his old crew ever permitted him re-entry into the band of brothers; they may be forgiven for wondering whether he might have been superfluous to their requirements.
One evening last summer, we formed a team with married friends of ours who were visiting the area on holiday and somehow wheedled our way into what was evidently a supremely popular quiz evening at a local pub. Having revelled the previous night away, none of us was on top form; we struggled even to formulate a team name. At the last minute, we settled for The Lancastrians. This proved an embarrassing choice when a question about the War of the Roses reared its floral head.
As the papers were being marked, the quiz master addressed us directly, enquiring as to whether, in the light of our title, we had given the correct answer. We hadn’t. Nevertheless, despite losing the quiz, we were chosen by the winning team to receive a(nother) booby prize - a car air freshener! Facing a long drive home the next morning, my friends were quietly pleased. Recently, five friends (including our very own priest) and I tootled along to a neighbouring church hall to partake in a quiz occurring simultaneously in parishes across the whole diocese, a charitable venture that included the provision of a meal. We were the sole outside team, but were warmly welcomed by our sister parish, and had an entertaining evening punctuated by hysterical laughter, flashes of genius, and the occasional inexplicable response to the challenging quiz questions. At the halfway point, we were trailing miserably, and expectations were low. Still, we enjoyed our tasty Ploughman’s supper and got stuck into the second half of proceedings with vigour. Our performance seemed to dwindle further as the remaining questions were fired; we spent an embarrassingly long time gazing blankly at each other in consternation, making wild guesses and, all too often, being deplorably wrong.
Eventually, the end came, the overall scores were collated, and the winners were announced - and no one was more surprised than us to hear that our team had triumphed! Our apparently lacklustre performance had concealed a hidden ace: our answers to a series of pictogram-based sheets that we had been circulating throughout the duration of the quiz had gained us top marks by some margin! Our whoops of delight echoed around the hall as we were handed chocolatey treats to mark our victory. Pub quizzes? Forget them. The Great Big Diocesan Quiz - that’s the one for us.
