Notes on Slough
Not my finest hour
I should have written about the Slough GP a bit earlier. No, wait. That's what Jesse said to me. Because he came second.
He no doubt wants me to write things like: "An absolute peach of a performance from my compadre Jesse Honey at only his third GP. I was extremely impressed with his assuredness in many of the sections and think the lad is going places. Rock solid. He did us proud. Fantastic guy. Fantastic quizzer. If he plans a town as good as he quizzes, then I want to move there."
Yeah, Jesse, like I would write anything like that. (Pst ... He scored 9/30 in the sports and leisure round - hee hee)
As for me. Hmm. If you have clicked on the above link you might have noticed that, yes, I won another genre and got another bottle of wine I'll give away (no offence, but my family history precludes me from embracing the joy of winning some free vino ... I like DVDs far more. Actually, I bought about six more today, coming on the heels my 22 DVD spree earlier in the week. If I did the same thing with bottles of wine people would think I was an alcoholic with a serious enough problem to warrant my entering hospital with cirrhosis of the liver within the next three days). But forget that. I had my worst performance for two-and-a-half years. To be honest the questions didn't quite suit me. The paradox is that if they were harder I would do better than a few of the people above me. Heavens to think where I would have finished if Moby and Kevin turned up. Oh right. I would have come 9th.
In the end I blame myself: I was thinking about heaping my ordure on the wind direction, the depressingly mundane surroundings of Burnham, the position I slept in the night before and possibly, the negative energy that was emanating from the portraits at the side of the hall, but that won't do. It's all me.
Initially, I didn't perceive any problems. I mean, I finished the paper in 20 minutes flat. I tried to discipline myself by going through every question with a fine toothcomb and still I mistook one or two for questions that were completely different (seeing a sportsman where they were asking for a racing circuit). But then as ever, I got impatient and fiddly and went outside to have a smoke, came back in to check again in a futile fashion and ended up reading that book (French Revolutions by Tim Moore) that I still haven't finished after three weeks.
I'm looking at my paper now. Ouch. Ooh. Aargh. Howlers galore.
Here are my top five boo-boos
1. Putting James V and not James IV as the Scots king who died at Flodden
2. Crossing out the post-WW1 hyperflation year 1923 and putting 1924
3. Having the Visgoths not the Vandals sack Rome in 455AD
4. Writing the female version of hurling is shinty not camogie
5. Mistaking Neptune as having Titania for its largest moon, and not Uranus. Any comedic association bypassed me. Again.
There are many more and I shan't dwell on them, apart from saying I need to tighten up on some areas and do a bit of a spring clean on the numerous confusions that have and do beset me.
The team competiton was a different matter. We brought Pat back into the fold and ended up winning about 20 per cent of the points, though I think we chucked away quite a few points through silly errors: my choosing Younis Khan over Mohammad Yousuf as the Lords 2006 double centurion, not trusting myself more to say that's James Cagney singing because I have seen his George M Cohan biopic (we thought they asked for a lady, so went for Ethel Merman) and so on and so forth. They stack up and annoy. Just a pity that most of the Milhous lads weren't there. For obvious reasons.
Since we had five on our team and a few of the trailing teams had four, people went on about their point averages being higher. This was a weird little reversal of our protests at Northampton in January. The winning team had five players, we had four, and they won by a single point.
Working out our points average and having a little moan to accompany it had never entered my mind. Well, having the mewling moan accompanied by the annoying "I thought we were only allowed four people. THEY HAD FIVE, dagnabbit" hissy fit. If this trend is to continue, why don't some of us starting doing the team event on our own. Then we can say, I had the best point average therefore I am the best team; the stats back me up. Stats don't lie.
Oh, I'm just joshing. It's not our fault that the BHs have this cunning way of attracting players of a certain calibre. Or assimilating them into the collective and merging them with our brilliant hive mind, if you want to put a Borg-ish spin on our recruitment methods.
We don't offer them Abramovich-like inducements. All we say is, oh they look quite good and they haven't got a team and we have room for one more and then we email them or approach them with whispered words: "Tsk. Do you want glorious permanent runner-up success in every quiz you do? It will be so bittersweet, but our time will come. JOIN US". Then, after they have made clear their desire to become one with the brokenhearted, we sacrifice a kid goat and smear the fresh, still warm blood across their foreheads as we all chant in unison: "Oh Bamber, Oh Magnusson, Oh Paxman, Oh Robinson: Bless this new member. May he help us bring death swiftly to our enemies and extreme discomfort to everyone else who quizzes against us". From that moment on they are ours. Forever.
By the way
This is my 200th post. I really should have done a quiz, but I am still writing the buzzer quiz questions. Current completed count: 80 starters/60 bonus sets.
Don't worry, the quizzes will be back. With a vengeance.
I should have written about the Slough GP a bit earlier. No, wait. That's what Jesse said to me. Because he came second.
He no doubt wants me to write things like: "An absolute peach of a performance from my compadre Jesse Honey at only his third GP. I was extremely impressed with his assuredness in many of the sections and think the lad is going places. Rock solid. He did us proud. Fantastic guy. Fantastic quizzer. If he plans a town as good as he quizzes, then I want to move there."
Yeah, Jesse, like I would write anything like that. (Pst ... He scored 9/30 in the sports and leisure round - hee hee)
As for me. Hmm. If you have clicked on the above link you might have noticed that, yes, I won another genre and got another bottle of wine I'll give away (no offence, but my family history precludes me from embracing the joy of winning some free vino ... I like DVDs far more. Actually, I bought about six more today, coming on the heels my 22 DVD spree earlier in the week. If I did the same thing with bottles of wine people would think I was an alcoholic with a serious enough problem to warrant my entering hospital with cirrhosis of the liver within the next three days). But forget that. I had my worst performance for two-and-a-half years. To be honest the questions didn't quite suit me. The paradox is that if they were harder I would do better than a few of the people above me. Heavens to think where I would have finished if Moby and Kevin turned up. Oh right. I would have come 9th.
In the end I blame myself: I was thinking about heaping my ordure on the wind direction, the depressingly mundane surroundings of Burnham, the position I slept in the night before and possibly, the negative energy that was emanating from the portraits at the side of the hall, but that won't do. It's all me.
Initially, I didn't perceive any problems. I mean, I finished the paper in 20 minutes flat. I tried to discipline myself by going through every question with a fine toothcomb and still I mistook one or two for questions that were completely different (seeing a sportsman where they were asking for a racing circuit). But then as ever, I got impatient and fiddly and went outside to have a smoke, came back in to check again in a futile fashion and ended up reading that book (French Revolutions by Tim Moore) that I still haven't finished after three weeks.
I'm looking at my paper now. Ouch. Ooh. Aargh. Howlers galore.
Here are my top five boo-boos
1. Putting James V and not James IV as the Scots king who died at Flodden
2. Crossing out the post-WW1 hyperflation year 1923 and putting 1924
3. Having the Visgoths not the Vandals sack Rome in 455AD
4. Writing the female version of hurling is shinty not camogie
5. Mistaking Neptune as having Titania for its largest moon, and not Uranus. Any comedic association bypassed me. Again.
There are many more and I shan't dwell on them, apart from saying I need to tighten up on some areas and do a bit of a spring clean on the numerous confusions that have and do beset me.
The team competiton was a different matter. We brought Pat back into the fold and ended up winning about 20 per cent of the points, though I think we chucked away quite a few points through silly errors: my choosing Younis Khan over Mohammad Yousuf as the Lords 2006 double centurion, not trusting myself more to say that's James Cagney singing because I have seen his George M Cohan biopic (we thought they asked for a lady, so went for Ethel Merman) and so on and so forth. They stack up and annoy. Just a pity that most of the Milhous lads weren't there. For obvious reasons.
Since we had five on our team and a few of the trailing teams had four, people went on about their point averages being higher. This was a weird little reversal of our protests at Northampton in January. The winning team had five players, we had four, and they won by a single point.
Working out our points average and having a little moan to accompany it had never entered my mind. Well, having the mewling moan accompanied by the annoying "I thought we were only allowed four people. THEY HAD FIVE, dagnabbit" hissy fit. If this trend is to continue, why don't some of us starting doing the team event on our own. Then we can say, I had the best point average therefore I am the best team; the stats back me up. Stats don't lie.
Oh, I'm just joshing. It's not our fault that the BHs have this cunning way of attracting players of a certain calibre. Or assimilating them into the collective and merging them with our brilliant hive mind, if you want to put a Borg-ish spin on our recruitment methods.
We don't offer them Abramovich-like inducements. All we say is, oh they look quite good and they haven't got a team and we have room for one more and then we email them or approach them with whispered words: "Tsk. Do you want glorious permanent runner-up success in every quiz you do? It will be so bittersweet, but our time will come. JOIN US". Then, after they have made clear their desire to become one with the brokenhearted, we sacrifice a kid goat and smear the fresh, still warm blood across their foreheads as we all chant in unison: "Oh Bamber, Oh Magnusson, Oh Paxman, Oh Robinson: Bless this new member. May he help us bring death swiftly to our enemies and extreme discomfort to everyone else who quizzes against us". From that moment on they are ours. Forever.
By the way
This is my 200th post. I really should have done a quiz, but I am still writing the buzzer quiz questions. Current completed count: 80 starters/60 bonus sets.
Don't worry, the quizzes will be back. With a vengeance.
posted by That Quiz Guy at 5:18 PM
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