Four Days
Four consecutive days. Four different quiz-things. Well, it gives me something to do and somewhere to go doesn't it?
First up...
Saturday: Quizzing GP
It was a light and not-very-cloudy day in Oxford. I had arrived at the Beefeater pub venue late having forgotten that the Underground has a devilish tendency to muck your travel plans up on a weekend. Did I feel ready for the imminent GP? Hmmm probably, I thought, as I sucked on a lung-stripping filterless duty free Lucky Strike on the pavement like a now typical tobacco refugee *COUGH-HACKING-COUGH.*
Sat in a Jesse-Sean triangle, I didn't really have a problem with the individual questions and I can say that because I still haven't brought myself to running over the glaring screw-ups in the comfort of my own home. It turned out that it just wasn't my day. Crossing out correct answers (Dawn French! NOT Catherine Tart ... I mean, Tate - Freudian slip?), complete brain-farts (where was Gabriel Byrne? Dagnabbit: I would have got that a decade ago!) taking gambles on sheer silliness (whatever) and smudging certain words just to enable my getting away with stuff (slightly naughty) was the order of the day. Sometimes you realise things won't always come together. They stay scattered like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle destined never to be solved that day. So that's what I realised. Indeed, Jesse and Sean's hugely impressive one-two showed they had pounced on the areas I had come apart on (despite Jesse commenting that my British geography was improving ... I said it was osmosis thanks to his team-presence, which could be right. If I was a plant) and I dribbled away points on ill-thought reflex answers.
Knowing that J&S had cleared my score by at least ten points, I was a tad relieved to find that ninth was my final position. That was before I remembered my past GP form. Because this was my worst position in time immemorial (I seriously cannot remember the last time I had ... oh wait, there was Uttoxeter a few years ago. Didn't even make the top ten on that occasion *shudder*) and my worst since last year at Slough.
Does this mean I get one bad result every year (where Jesse deservedly, and in a sure sign of things to come, rises to the top like excellent quality cream ... and is it pure coincidence he does so magnificently at the same event where I tumble from the near-top positions ... hmmm ... he must be into voodoo!)? Thank God then, that this particular mini-disaster came with ten months of the year gone and only global-themed GK events remain for what is left of 2007. I'm very happy to leave the clutches of British bias for the moment.
After seeing the first half of the England-Australia RWC match, the afternoon team competition eventually came with its random member lottery, which I am beginning to find very sociable and fun. I did better with the obscure answers this time, though we continued my infuriating habit of crossing out correct answers and replacing them with too-clever-by-half drivel. To my surprise we were tied at the top with two other teams by the end of an excellent, searching table quiz and so subjected ourselves to a female breast-ligament then when nobody had a sodding clue about that anatomical one, passenger airplane record guess-the-number tie-break.
In tie-break situations, I resign myself to defeat before they even get a chance to commence. I am, admittedly, about as much use as Polish cavalry against a Panzer division when it comes to guessing numbers and records, never being a Guinness fact fan, and in classic self-fulfilling prophecy style our estimate of flying Falasha Jews came up woefully short. Never mind. We should never have rid our answer sheet of "philogyny", and I should always remember that such mistakes in judgement and ill-fated swaps happen all the time and to everyone else in the room.
Rounding off the day, a lovely little ceremony was performed in aid of the new Order of Merit. I received my badge of honour, hilariously defacing-potential certificate and the applause-accompanied confirmation that I had attained Grand Master status by racking up more than 5000 ranking points (but where were the showers of rose petals for the GMs? And the promise of personal bathers? Eh and double eh?). Which was nice. And quietly satisfying. Then, I thought, I may be attending too many of these events, confirmed later by my new national ranking of number two - (now, how did that happen?) and mulled over other quiz-related existential dilemmas? (Please don't retort; I know only too well). Maybe, there is an underlying need to ration attendance and ensure quality control. Don't want to spread myself too thinly, like a too little slither of butter trying to cover slice of bread do I?
On the bus back, as well as discussing which quizzers possessed "The Gift" (nah, not the Cate Blanchett does psychic DVD), Stainer and I debated the reasons as to why the placings were so out of sync with previous form, but we won't mention them here. Question discussion, no matter the innocence of the actual context, published on the web can result in unnecessarily and needlessly offended parties getting in touch, so I'll keep them to myself. Suffice to say, they were pretty obvious conclusions coloured by my acknowledgement that they certainly delved into GK areas I hadn't previously bothered to reach in competition, or had only brushed lightly with the gaze of my attention.
Though, in a "this report must be concluded with laurels galore way": a whole-hearted, gilded set of congratulations goes out to my esteemed colleague Sean's runner-up spot (I marked his paper; startlingly good) and even more so to Jesse on his first Grand Prix win, something I have never achieved. Much admiration is forthcoming and has already forecame (sic). When the questions fall in the right places for my esteemed colleague, he is relentlessly efficient and spot-on. That's a compliment by the way. I was also grateful that Oxford is so close to London. Yep, us selfish London-centric types demand more events closer to the country's major metropolis. I mean: we do live in London: the capital of the world. Why should we visit provincial destinations with nary a Wagamama's and Lush in sight?
Self-flagellating Note: My Perfect Score, dropping Sport & Games, was 124 (with 20 tie-breakers). Bad, bad burn rate this one.
PS
Next, the EQC, where the questions are of large, European portions with a suitably changed content pitch. I am really looking forward to it. Gimme obscure foreign novelists and film directors any day. For they will fill me up and make me moderately happy.
Sunday: President's Cup
Back to the leaky catacombs of The Old Star in Westminster for the start of a new President's Cup season. Last time we played the Mastermind Club, my team - Sussex (yep, just like the triumphant county cricket side he says unconvincingly and in full knowledge that he hasn't seen them play live since he was 12-years-old) - had been comprehensively smashed 51-24, so excuse me for thinking that this time we were going to aim for a modicum of respectability rather than the kind of result that makes you mutter jokey inanities, feel a kind of weird, ghostly shame and want to forget that these damned things called quizzes ever existed.
I decided to muck around with the positions. I thought, why should I always sit at four and always get the butt-end of the question-setter's whimsy? So I put myself at 2 (it sure was weird being sandwiched between two other players; as if I didn't know where to put my now constricted hands and couldn't lounge around legs akimbo at the end. The freedom of fourth comes with unsaid benefits) and stuck my esteemed colleague Bayley on the end. Nic was number one and Kathryn took third. And I think it worked out pretty well.
Now I am aware of the Sussex habit of building a five-to-seven point lead at half-time, then somehow conspiring to completely blow it in the second period, purely because we like shooting ourselves in the foot over and over again. This knowledge was always loitering in my mind, sowing nasty doubts, even when we won one round 10-0. Call it my natural paranoia (what did William S Burroughs say? "Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts" Perhaps I should aim to be even more paranoid), despite such an astonishing score (astonishing for the teams of the calibre that play President's Cup at least, but maybe not if the questions set are preternaturally suited to one side of the table). But such a lead-spurt was never going to be overhauled and never was. Sure, there were some idiotic answers from yours truly - for one, I took a punt on one of Botticelli's living years and came up at least ten years too recent - but the other side were making more (uncharacteristic) blunders.
Finishing victorious 44-30 it was an excellent all-round performance from the entire team - 16 moi, a crucial 12 from Bayley, 8 each for the others - which makes a bloody welcome change. I still shiver in remembrance of my non-contribution to our crushing Quizzerdamerung defeat away to Cambridge last season, and was thankful that this set hadn't ganged up on my beery and aircraft-related P-Cup frailities, and hadn't thrown up more questions requiring answers like "Alfriston Clergy House" (English heritage? I have too much heritage already to keep a decent handle of all of it matey). Phewey indeedy.
So a hugely satisfying overture to the President's Cup season, which I always enjoy on account of scoring more on the harder subject matter (Tuesdays? Mild bah! There was an "action painting" question last Tuesday! Who do you think the answer was? Joan Mitchell? Jack Tworkow? Albert Kotin? You're joking aincha?). Now I just have to remember to book our venue for the next round, something that I tend to characteristically and unfortunately (in the case of our penultimate 2006/07 fixture) leave to the last minute, like the silly bastard I am capable of being on very regular occasions.
But one thing is for sure: I shall never utter the word "cadenza" in front of Kathryn ever again. I'll leave the musical terms up to her and others who know what the hell they are talking about (me and my stupid scan-hearing for key words rather than absorbing the question in its entirety).
The Friendly, MY Friendly, Oh Yes
And you know what? My infamous, specially written and completed a mere hour before friendlies have been softened up somewhat, something emphasised by Gavin when he commented that the combined match total was 41 points at the halfway stage. Am I dumbing down? Well, you have to if people aren't going to start shrinking from you in confusion and horror. I really hate the moments when you get total silence from eight players, so I have worked concertedly to make sure this doesn't happen too often in the future. Except when I am compelled to ask questions on Japanese castles and the prefectures they are located in. Despite my knowing that hardly any quizzers know any of Japan's prefectures. I felt I had to do it. Just had to. Nothing could stop me. Not even good old reason could prevent from typing things of which no-one had a bally clue.
(Sussex won by a fair distance thanks to Gavin taking my place. Unanswered questions are marked *)
President's Cup friendly 7/10/07
Round 1
1A Married to fashion designer Nicole Farhi, which English playwright's early dramas include Slag from 1970 and Knuckle from 1974?
DAVID HARE
1B Which veteran actor played Professor Yana in the latest series of Doctor Who, who was later revealed to be the title character's nemesis "The Master"?
DEREK JACOBI
2A Which 37-year-old actor played "The Master" in the same series when the Time Lord was forced to regenerate, going on to assume the name Harold Saxon and the post of British Prime Minister?
JOHN SIMM
2B Welsh rugby union legend Gareth Edwards played in which position?
SCRUM HALF
3A Which of the sciences derives its name from the Egyptian word for "earth"?
CHEMISTRY
3B David Hare worked with which controversial English dramatist on the 1973 play Brassneck, whose other early works include Christie in Love and Magnificence?*
HOWARD BRENTON
4A Welsh rugby great JPR Williams mostly played in which position?
FULL BACK
4B Which of the sciences gets its name from the plural Greek word for "of nature"?
PHYSICS
Round 2
1A Known by a single-word name, which American female pop singer had a 1982 no. 1 with I've Never Been To Me?
CHARLENE
1B In which Prefecture is Himeji Castle, the most visited castle in Japan?*
HYOGO
2A Also known as the 1st Baron Crathorne, which Tory politician was forced to resign as a result of the Crichel Down Affair in 1954?
THOMAS DUGDALE
2B Known by a single-word name, which German female singer had a 1982 no. 1 with A Little Peace?
NICOLE
3A Which actor is associated with the famous misquotation "Judy! Judy! Judy!", though the closest he ever came to saying it was "Come on, Judy" and "Oh, Judy" in the film Only Angels Have Wings?
CARY GRANT
3B Formerly the 6th Earl of Durham, which Conservative MP was forced to resign due to his involvement in a prostitution scandal revealed by the News of the World in 1973?
LORD LAMBTON or Viscount Lambton or Antony Lambton
4A Designated a "National Treasure" by the Japanese government, Matsumoto Castle is in which Prefecture?*
NAGANO
4B Which actor is associated with the famous misquotation "Oooh, you dirty rat!", though he did say "Mmmm, that dirty double-crossin' rat" in the film Blonde Crazy?
JAMES CAGNEY
Round 3
1A Which Ethiopian athlete recently set a new marathon world record in Berlin with a time of 2 hours, 4 minutes and 26 seconds?
HAILE GEBRSELASSIE
1B Set in 2003, the women's marathon world record is held by which athlete?
PAULA RADCLIFFE (2:15:25)
2A Who was chosen as Time magazine's first non-American Person of the Year in 1930?*
MAHATMA GANDHI
2B The world's largest particle physics laboratory, by what name is the Swiss-based European Organisation for Nuclear Research commonly known?
CERN
3A Which Italian composed such operas as Alfred the Great, Emilia of Liverpool, Anna Bolena and Roberto Devereux during the 1820s and 1830s?
GAETANO DONIZETTI
3B Who was the first female to be deemed Time magazine's Person of the Year in 1936?
WALLIS SIMPSON
4A Most of the current activities at CERN are based around the building of the so-called "accelerator of the future", the LHC. For what do the letters LHC stand?
LARGE HADRON COLLIDER
4B Which Sicilian composer produced such operas as Bianca e Fernando, Zaira, La sonnambula and I puritani during the 1820s and 1830s?
VINCENZO BELLINI
Round 4
1A As seen on a t-shirt sold by the website Philosophyfootball.com, which French existentialist philosopher said: "In football everything is complicated by the presence of the other team"?
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
1B Who is the current Governor of the Bank of England?
MERVYN KING
2A Mark Elder is Music Director of which British symphony orchestra?
THE HALLE
2B According to a Philosophyfootball.com t-shirt, which French post-structuralist thinker, who died in March 2007, said: "Power is only too happy to make football bear a diabolical responsibility for stupefying the masses"?*
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
3A Depicted on a £50 banknote issued in 1990, who was the first governor of the Bank of England?
SIR JOHN HOUBLON
3B Named from the Tahitian word for "good" though the spelling of the drink is two words, which rum-based cocktail was supposedly invented at the Trader Vic's "Polynesian-style" restaurant in Oakland, California in 1944?*
MAI TAI
4A Which gin and brandy-based cocktail was invented by Ngiam Tong Boon for the Raffles Hotel between 1910 and 1915?
SINGAPORE SLING
4B The Russian opera company director Valery Gergiev joined which British orchestra as principal conductor this year?*
LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Round 5
1A The 1978 film The Last Waltz documented which rock group's final concert at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco on November 25, 1976?
THE BAND
1B In which West African country did Mathieu Kerekou become the first black African president to step down after an election in 1991?
BENIN
2A Which 17th century Italian physician gives his name to the renal corpuscles found in the nephrons of the kidney and white nodules or splenic lymphoid nodules found in the spleen?
MARCELLO MALPIGHI
2B Owner of German company Beiersdorf, Oskar Tropowitz gave which skin and body-care brand a name meaning "snow-white" in 1911?
NIVEA
3A Yahya Jammeh recently claimed he could cure HIV and AIDS with natural herbs. No one would listen to him if he was not president of which West African country?*
THE GAMBIA
3B Which Italian physician identified the eponymous "apparatus" in 1898, whose primary function is to process and package the macromolecules such as proteins and lipids that are synthesised by the cell?*
CAMILLO GOLGI
4A The chemist Graham Wulff gave which name to a Procter & Gamble brand of facial moisturiser skin products in 1949, chosen as a spin on the word "lanolin"?
OLAY
4B The 1984 concert movie Stop Making Sense edited together footage from three gigs played by which rock band?
TALKING HEADS
Round 6
1A Which professional body, whose motto is "Est modus in rebus" meaning "There is a measure in all things", are known by the abbreviation RICS?
ROYAL INSTITUTION OF CHARTERED SURVEYORS
1B Which Apollo 8 crew member became the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968 because he was born in Hong Kong?
WILLIAM ANDERS
2A With which well-known writer did Charles Dickens collaborate on the stage play and novel No Thoroughfare in 1867?
WILKIE COLLINS
2B Becoming mandatory on August 1 of this year, what does the acronym HIP stand for in a property context?
HOME INFORMATION PACK
3A Who became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space as a paying spaceflight participant in 2002?
MARK SHUTTLEWORTH
3B The structural formula of which organic acid is represented as CH3COOH?
ACETIC or ETHANOIC
4A The simplest carboxylic acid, the formula of which acid is represented as either HCOOH or CH2O2?
FORMIC or METHANOIC
4B Dickens published his travel book American Notes in 1842 and another travelogue four years later about which country, the title including the words Pictures from ...?
ITALY
Round 7
1A Which London street has been acclaimed as the world's most expensive shopping street in a recent survey by Colliers International?
OLD BOND STREET
1B And which street in Manhattan did it only just pip to first place?
FIFTH AVENUE
2A Which lovely-named Hungarian footballer became the first substitute ever to score a hat trick in a World Cup match in 1982?
LASZLO KISS (against El Salvador)
2B Which British rock group's albums include Machine Head, Who Do We Think We Are and Burn?
DEEP PURPLE
3A Which London train station was designed by Lewis Cubitt and built in two years from 1851 to 1852?
KING'S CROSS
3B Which Hungarian footballer was the first player to score two hat tricks in World Cup matches, doing so in the same tournament in 1954?*
SANDOR KOCSIS
4A Which British rock group's albums include Master of Reality, Sabotage and Never Say Die!?
BLACK SABBATH
4B Opened in 1854, which London train station was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and was the original western terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground railway?
PADDINGTON
Round 8
1A Founded in 1917, which Dutch art movement is also known as "Neoplasticism"?
DE STIJL
1B Which county cricket team have the one-day name, the "Steelbacks"?
NORTHANTS
2A Which county cricket team have the one-day name, the "Royals"?*
WORCESTERSHIRE
2B On this day - October 7 - in 1571, which naval battle saw the Ottoman Empire decisively defeated by the Christian West for the first time?
LEPANTO
3A In the nursery rhyme, Hey Diddle Diddle, who or what "laughed to see such a sight" as the cow jumping over the moon?
The LITTLE DOG
3B The name of which Parisian art movement of the 1890s, meaning "the prophets" was coined by the poet Henri Cazalis?
LES NABIS
4A On this day in 1985, which Mediterranean ocean liner was hijacked by the PLO while sailing from Alexandria to Port Said?
ACHILLE LAURO
4B In the nursery rhyme, what did Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son steal?
A PIG
Spares I would never ask in a match situation and certainly didn't after the eight rounds were done
What is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System?
PLUTO
Which financial services company sponsors the cricket's county championship?
LIVERPOOL VICTORIA
Which American scientist has just announced that he has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals, thus creating artificial life?
CRAIG VENTER
Which Austrian paediatrician gave his name to a severe autism spectrum disorder after he discovered children in his practice in 1944 who appeared to have normal intelligence but lacked non-verbal communication skills and failed to empathise with peers?
HANS ASPERGER
Monday: Pub Quiz
(Sorry, Chris. When I said I was "going to Putney to see a friend" I meant I was going to try and win a pub quiz jackpot and fill my pockets with much spare change, like a very lucky and inviting beggar)
A change of venue for my usual trivia-related Monday night stop-off, Stainer and I headed down to The Fox, Putney, on his informing me that QuizQuizQuiz had a roll-over jackpot in the region of £150 going. As my esteemed colleague had mentioned, he never usually won the specialist round despite his undisputed pedigree. Teams with names like "Splinter Cell" would score maximums in the music, film & TV rounds, whilst we would lag behind by two or three every time, making us doubt our own intelligence and yelp theatrically in frustration. Every time.
Happening every theme round, this was incredibly annoying, a sensation made even more grating by our tendency to cross out right answers (Thorpe Park, the blue flag for the safety car in F1) and swap them with complete bollocks conjured up from our increasingly addled minds. Starving since I hadn't eaten since lunch, the only prizes we contented ourselves with were the mini-Crunchie and Caramel bars we won through merely getting our sheets to the markers faster than anyone else in the pub, and which I ravenously gobbled up, even though I haven't eaten Cadbury's miniature chocolate bars since I was aged, oh, about 14.
But the real raison d'etre of why we found ourselves doing a quiz which Stainer thought was probably beneath me (erm, maybe ... I had expected worse and more vulgarity if I am honest) was the general knowledge jackpot round. Get more than 17 and we would be getting a sizeable haul of pound coins. This was, he said, the round he always did best on.
With the self-induced pressure on I yielded two vital answers (Begbie from Trainspotting's first name and the Queen of Sheba's country of origin) while we worked out, with mighty good fortune, that farming was the subject of the first Radio 4 broadcast. We only screwed ourselves on, naturally, my bete noire among many other nasty beasts, Monopoly, with our obliterating a written-down £200 for the cost of a train station and substituting £250 instead. Would this cost us? Would bloody Monopoly and its tragic tendency to appear in quizzes I did do us in, well and truly? Won't people please stop asking bloody questions on bloody Monopoly? "Not bloody likely" comes the certain response from Pygmalion fact fans.
In the event we scored a very satisfactory 19 with every one of our dodgy answers yielding a surprising point, but had tied at the top with a far larger gang of suited and booted blokes seated to the back of myself. Thus, the tie-breaker, in which the a member of one of the teams would quiz-duel with the other in a first-answer-shouted-out and first-to-three correct-answers situation would decide the booty's final destination.
I know my speedy shouting skills do not compare (see the blasted TPQ final; I know I haven't and never will) with Stainer's buzzer prowess (and my already acknowledged rubbishness in a tie-break pub situation), so he went up, putting the matter out of my relieved hands. And ye gods, he was fast on the first two before latching on to a mistake by our opponent (Seneca's Roman emperor: he said Claudius, Stainer then dived in with the guess Nero), making it three and home.
We were enriched to the tune of £164, though, as always the sweet tang of mere quiz victory made the thought of all that excess coinage slightly more insignificant. We also won, as I noticed, because the jackpot round was the one part of the quiz where a need for relatively obscure, all-round general knowledge skills was needed. The time-worn quiz know-how did out in the end. I was worried that I would spend the whole evening whacked upside the head by the trashiness of all that had come before (not that trash is bad; you know I love it. But when young teams of eight are massed against your lonely duo, you are far more likely to lose crucial points thanks to their paying attention to the cartoon series Dungeons & Dragons and new Sugababes number ones, whilst your mind wandered onto far more rocky GK terrain. Random reflections: How I missed the George with its requirements for the only double landlocked countries. The strange thing is that I realised we would more or less score the same on our own).
And there's nowt like wandering through Putney getting horrible Fifteen-to-One flashbacks (for East Putney was the Regent TV Studios' underground stop) whilst weighed down with coins in every possible pocket. And there's nowt like paying debts back to people with silly change over the next few days (well, it is practically free money, but it is still money. That's why it's called money). Therefore, Jesse received my league subs in his predicted "I knew you were going to pay me back in your own twatty" way. This particular quizzer was only too happy to fulfil his twatty expectations of my good self with a plastic bag of representative brass, silver and gold. It's lucky he doesn't like hanging around arcades or it might have been money completely lost to gambling and video games. Or maybe, that's just my recalling my own seaside youth misspent in such glorious locales as Smart's glued to Final Fight because I thought my Amiga version sucked. TO THE MAX. These blog ravings always come back to me, don't they?
Tuesday: Quiz League of London
QLL top of the table clash. Down in Streatham, south of the river. A big one. We were all very nervous going into this match on account of our previous not-so-top form and tendency to gabble when the opportunity to answer on our own questions arose. So we took it slow. We chewed the cud a bit more. And lo, we didn't lose our nerve and resisted all easy incitement to surrendering to the pressure.
Atletico had been in sterling form during the start of the season, racking up scores of which we were incapable of reaching in our first two matches. We feared we could lose if we had been as sloppy as we had been at the Carpenter's Arms (um, could it be an atmospheric thing? THAT staircase odour). Instead, with Bayley switched to two and scoring a mighty 19, we eagerly took the bonuses and feasted on their errors (Fischer and Karpov? Nooo, Stuart!!). When the shadow of a few cack-handed jitters started affecting our game, thankfully it was too late: the match had long been decided in our favour.
It was over pretty quickly too. Good then, that we let out a collective sign of relief that suggested we had been holding our breath the whole time. The final scoreline was 53-39. My contribution was 14. Comprehensive is one tame adjective that could be used to describe it. Perhaps, we were lucky. Perhaps Brian's flashing 60th birthday badge played havoc with Atletico's mojo. I dunno. Yet I was thinking after two rounds that going first with this question set was a blessing indeed. Sometimes, that's how the question pairings go.
Anyway, next up is the second form team, the formidable Nomads. My esteemed colleague Jesse is missing, gallivanting somewhere fatuous and lovely quite possibly, so this is one instance we get to find whether he has become the BH talisman. Now that is a scary thought. Are we going to miss him when he's gone, the 13th Floor Elevators could sing if we specially commissioned Roky Erickson to write a QLL Tuesday night specific theme? In other team and far less tangential news, he who found Jesse in a random pub and inducted him for better or worse into the Trivia Life as Samuel once anointed David, Stainer, re-emerges from his Alex Ferguson-style retirement like a phoenix rising from the digital ashes of a large e-mail bidding farewell and wishing good luck to the BH squad, while Mark returns to the team hoping that he isn't bemused by stuff of a British hue. Pray godspeed classical composer and military history questions to wherever he may sit.
Assuming captain duties in his place and being the oh so gleeful recipient of a passing-the-baton-hee-hee-see-how-it-feels-to-organise-it-all-for-once e-mail from the aforementioned vacationing quizzer, I must sort out the post-match sandwiches (oh yeah, I'll sort them out. In ways you couldn't possibly imagine! Ha ha ha and chortling maniacally on and on ... like a rogue caterer) and ponder player positions and our gosh-darned tactics. Has Bayley proved that the second berth is where he is most effective? Do you even give a crap and am I boring you into sleepiness with such blog-meanderings? Let's not chance it. Ta ta.
First up...
Saturday: Quizzing GP
It was a light and not-very-cloudy day in Oxford. I had arrived at the Beefeater pub venue late having forgotten that the Underground has a devilish tendency to muck your travel plans up on a weekend. Did I feel ready for the imminent GP? Hmmm probably, I thought, as I sucked on a lung-stripping filterless duty free Lucky Strike on the pavement like a now typical tobacco refugee *COUGH-HACKING-COUGH.*
Sat in a Jesse-Sean triangle, I didn't really have a problem with the individual questions and I can say that because I still haven't brought myself to running over the glaring screw-ups in the comfort of my own home. It turned out that it just wasn't my day. Crossing out correct answers (Dawn French! NOT Catherine Tart ... I mean, Tate - Freudian slip?), complete brain-farts (where was Gabriel Byrne? Dagnabbit: I would have got that a decade ago!) taking gambles on sheer silliness (whatever) and smudging certain words just to enable my getting away with stuff (slightly naughty) was the order of the day. Sometimes you realise things won't always come together. They stay scattered like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle destined never to be solved that day. So that's what I realised. Indeed, Jesse and Sean's hugely impressive one-two showed they had pounced on the areas I had come apart on (despite Jesse commenting that my British geography was improving ... I said it was osmosis thanks to his team-presence, which could be right. If I was a plant) and I dribbled away points on ill-thought reflex answers.
Knowing that J&S had cleared my score by at least ten points, I was a tad relieved to find that ninth was my final position. That was before I remembered my past GP form. Because this was my worst position in time immemorial (I seriously cannot remember the last time I had ... oh wait, there was Uttoxeter a few years ago. Didn't even make the top ten on that occasion *shudder*) and my worst since last year at Slough.
Does this mean I get one bad result every year (where Jesse deservedly, and in a sure sign of things to come, rises to the top like excellent quality cream ... and is it pure coincidence he does so magnificently at the same event where I tumble from the near-top positions ... hmmm ... he must be into voodoo!)? Thank God then, that this particular mini-disaster came with ten months of the year gone and only global-themed GK events remain for what is left of 2007. I'm very happy to leave the clutches of British bias for the moment.
After seeing the first half of the England-Australia RWC match, the afternoon team competition eventually came with its random member lottery, which I am beginning to find very sociable and fun. I did better with the obscure answers this time, though we continued my infuriating habit of crossing out correct answers and replacing them with too-clever-by-half drivel. To my surprise we were tied at the top with two other teams by the end of an excellent, searching table quiz and so subjected ourselves to a female breast-ligament then when nobody had a sodding clue about that anatomical one, passenger airplane record guess-the-number tie-break.
In tie-break situations, I resign myself to defeat before they even get a chance to commence. I am, admittedly, about as much use as Polish cavalry against a Panzer division when it comes to guessing numbers and records, never being a Guinness fact fan, and in classic self-fulfilling prophecy style our estimate of flying Falasha Jews came up woefully short. Never mind. We should never have rid our answer sheet of "philogyny", and I should always remember that such mistakes in judgement and ill-fated swaps happen all the time and to everyone else in the room.
Rounding off the day, a lovely little ceremony was performed in aid of the new Order of Merit. I received my badge of honour, hilariously defacing-potential certificate and the applause-accompanied confirmation that I had attained Grand Master status by racking up more than 5000 ranking points (but where were the showers of rose petals for the GMs? And the promise of personal bathers? Eh and double eh?). Which was nice. And quietly satisfying. Then, I thought, I may be attending too many of these events, confirmed later by my new national ranking of number two - (now, how did that happen?) and mulled over other quiz-related existential dilemmas? (Please don't retort; I know only too well). Maybe, there is an underlying need to ration attendance and ensure quality control. Don't want to spread myself too thinly, like a too little slither of butter trying to cover slice of bread do I?
On the bus back, as well as discussing which quizzers possessed "The Gift" (nah, not the Cate Blanchett does psychic DVD), Stainer and I debated the reasons as to why the placings were so out of sync with previous form, but we won't mention them here. Question discussion, no matter the innocence of the actual context, published on the web can result in unnecessarily and needlessly offended parties getting in touch, so I'll keep them to myself. Suffice to say, they were pretty obvious conclusions coloured by my acknowledgement that they certainly delved into GK areas I hadn't previously bothered to reach in competition, or had only brushed lightly with the gaze of my attention.
Though, in a "this report must be concluded with laurels galore way": a whole-hearted, gilded set of congratulations goes out to my esteemed colleague Sean's runner-up spot (I marked his paper; startlingly good) and even more so to Jesse on his first Grand Prix win, something I have never achieved. Much admiration is forthcoming and has already forecame (sic). When the questions fall in the right places for my esteemed colleague, he is relentlessly efficient and spot-on. That's a compliment by the way. I was also grateful that Oxford is so close to London. Yep, us selfish London-centric types demand more events closer to the country's major metropolis. I mean: we do live in London: the capital of the world. Why should we visit provincial destinations with nary a Wagamama's and Lush in sight?
Self-flagellating Note: My Perfect Score, dropping Sport & Games, was 124 (with 20 tie-breakers). Bad, bad burn rate this one.
PS
Next, the EQC, where the questions are of large, European portions with a suitably changed content pitch. I am really looking forward to it. Gimme obscure foreign novelists and film directors any day. For they will fill me up and make me moderately happy.
Sunday: President's Cup
Back to the leaky catacombs of The Old Star in Westminster for the start of a new President's Cup season. Last time we played the Mastermind Club, my team - Sussex (yep, just like the triumphant county cricket side he says unconvincingly and in full knowledge that he hasn't seen them play live since he was 12-years-old) - had been comprehensively smashed 51-24, so excuse me for thinking that this time we were going to aim for a modicum of respectability rather than the kind of result that makes you mutter jokey inanities, feel a kind of weird, ghostly shame and want to forget that these damned things called quizzes ever existed.
I decided to muck around with the positions. I thought, why should I always sit at four and always get the butt-end of the question-setter's whimsy? So I put myself at 2 (it sure was weird being sandwiched between two other players; as if I didn't know where to put my now constricted hands and couldn't lounge around legs akimbo at the end. The freedom of fourth comes with unsaid benefits) and stuck my esteemed colleague Bayley on the end. Nic was number one and Kathryn took third. And I think it worked out pretty well.
Now I am aware of the Sussex habit of building a five-to-seven point lead at half-time, then somehow conspiring to completely blow it in the second period, purely because we like shooting ourselves in the foot over and over again. This knowledge was always loitering in my mind, sowing nasty doubts, even when we won one round 10-0. Call it my natural paranoia (what did William S Burroughs say? "Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts" Perhaps I should aim to be even more paranoid), despite such an astonishing score (astonishing for the teams of the calibre that play President's Cup at least, but maybe not if the questions set are preternaturally suited to one side of the table). But such a lead-spurt was never going to be overhauled and never was. Sure, there were some idiotic answers from yours truly - for one, I took a punt on one of Botticelli's living years and came up at least ten years too recent - but the other side were making more (uncharacteristic) blunders.
Finishing victorious 44-30 it was an excellent all-round performance from the entire team - 16 moi, a crucial 12 from Bayley, 8 each for the others - which makes a bloody welcome change. I still shiver in remembrance of my non-contribution to our crushing Quizzerdamerung defeat away to Cambridge last season, and was thankful that this set hadn't ganged up on my beery and aircraft-related P-Cup frailities, and hadn't thrown up more questions requiring answers like "Alfriston Clergy House" (English heritage? I have too much heritage already to keep a decent handle of all of it matey). Phewey indeedy.
So a hugely satisfying overture to the President's Cup season, which I always enjoy on account of scoring more on the harder subject matter (Tuesdays? Mild bah! There was an "action painting" question last Tuesday! Who do you think the answer was? Joan Mitchell? Jack Tworkow? Albert Kotin? You're joking aincha?). Now I just have to remember to book our venue for the next round, something that I tend to characteristically and unfortunately (in the case of our penultimate 2006/07 fixture) leave to the last minute, like the silly bastard I am capable of being on very regular occasions.
But one thing is for sure: I shall never utter the word "cadenza" in front of Kathryn ever again. I'll leave the musical terms up to her and others who know what the hell they are talking about (me and my stupid scan-hearing for key words rather than absorbing the question in its entirety).
The Friendly, MY Friendly, Oh Yes
And you know what? My infamous, specially written and completed a mere hour before friendlies have been softened up somewhat, something emphasised by Gavin when he commented that the combined match total was 41 points at the halfway stage. Am I dumbing down? Well, you have to if people aren't going to start shrinking from you in confusion and horror. I really hate the moments when you get total silence from eight players, so I have worked concertedly to make sure this doesn't happen too often in the future. Except when I am compelled to ask questions on Japanese castles and the prefectures they are located in. Despite my knowing that hardly any quizzers know any of Japan's prefectures. I felt I had to do it. Just had to. Nothing could stop me. Not even good old reason could prevent from typing things of which no-one had a bally clue.
(Sussex won by a fair distance thanks to Gavin taking my place. Unanswered questions are marked *)
President's Cup friendly 7/10/07
Round 1
1A Married to fashion designer Nicole Farhi, which English playwright's early dramas include Slag from 1970 and Knuckle from 1974?
DAVID HARE
1B Which veteran actor played Professor Yana in the latest series of Doctor Who, who was later revealed to be the title character's nemesis "The Master"?
DEREK JACOBI
2A Which 37-year-old actor played "The Master" in the same series when the Time Lord was forced to regenerate, going on to assume the name Harold Saxon and the post of British Prime Minister?
JOHN SIMM
2B Welsh rugby union legend Gareth Edwards played in which position?
SCRUM HALF
3A Which of the sciences derives its name from the Egyptian word for "earth"?
CHEMISTRY
3B David Hare worked with which controversial English dramatist on the 1973 play Brassneck, whose other early works include Christie in Love and Magnificence?*
HOWARD BRENTON
4A Welsh rugby great JPR Williams mostly played in which position?
FULL BACK
4B Which of the sciences gets its name from the plural Greek word for "of nature"?
PHYSICS
Round 2
1A Known by a single-word name, which American female pop singer had a 1982 no. 1 with I've Never Been To Me?
CHARLENE
1B In which Prefecture is Himeji Castle, the most visited castle in Japan?*
HYOGO
2A Also known as the 1st Baron Crathorne, which Tory politician was forced to resign as a result of the Crichel Down Affair in 1954?
THOMAS DUGDALE
2B Known by a single-word name, which German female singer had a 1982 no. 1 with A Little Peace?
NICOLE
3A Which actor is associated with the famous misquotation "Judy! Judy! Judy!", though the closest he ever came to saying it was "Come on, Judy" and "Oh, Judy" in the film Only Angels Have Wings?
CARY GRANT
3B Formerly the 6th Earl of Durham, which Conservative MP was forced to resign due to his involvement in a prostitution scandal revealed by the News of the World in 1973?
LORD LAMBTON or Viscount Lambton or Antony Lambton
4A Designated a "National Treasure" by the Japanese government, Matsumoto Castle is in which Prefecture?*
NAGANO
4B Which actor is associated with the famous misquotation "Oooh, you dirty rat!", though he did say "Mmmm, that dirty double-crossin' rat" in the film Blonde Crazy?
JAMES CAGNEY
Round 3
1A Which Ethiopian athlete recently set a new marathon world record in Berlin with a time of 2 hours, 4 minutes and 26 seconds?
HAILE GEBRSELASSIE
1B Set in 2003, the women's marathon world record is held by which athlete?
PAULA RADCLIFFE (2:15:25)
2A Who was chosen as Time magazine's first non-American Person of the Year in 1930?*
MAHATMA GANDHI
2B The world's largest particle physics laboratory, by what name is the Swiss-based European Organisation for Nuclear Research commonly known?
CERN
3A Which Italian composed such operas as Alfred the Great, Emilia of Liverpool, Anna Bolena and Roberto Devereux during the 1820s and 1830s?
GAETANO DONIZETTI
3B Who was the first female to be deemed Time magazine's Person of the Year in 1936?
WALLIS SIMPSON
4A Most of the current activities at CERN are based around the building of the so-called "accelerator of the future", the LHC. For what do the letters LHC stand?
LARGE HADRON COLLIDER
4B Which Sicilian composer produced such operas as Bianca e Fernando, Zaira, La sonnambula and I puritani during the 1820s and 1830s?
VINCENZO BELLINI
Round 4
1A As seen on a t-shirt sold by the website Philosophyfootball.com, which French existentialist philosopher said: "In football everything is complicated by the presence of the other team"?
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
1B Who is the current Governor of the Bank of England?
MERVYN KING
2A Mark Elder is Music Director of which British symphony orchestra?
THE HALLE
2B According to a Philosophyfootball.com t-shirt, which French post-structuralist thinker, who died in March 2007, said: "Power is only too happy to make football bear a diabolical responsibility for stupefying the masses"?*
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
3A Depicted on a £50 banknote issued in 1990, who was the first governor of the Bank of England?
SIR JOHN HOUBLON
3B Named from the Tahitian word for "good" though the spelling of the drink is two words, which rum-based cocktail was supposedly invented at the Trader Vic's "Polynesian-style" restaurant in Oakland, California in 1944?*
MAI TAI
4A Which gin and brandy-based cocktail was invented by Ngiam Tong Boon for the Raffles Hotel between 1910 and 1915?
SINGAPORE SLING
4B The Russian opera company director Valery Gergiev joined which British orchestra as principal conductor this year?*
LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Round 5
1A The 1978 film The Last Waltz documented which rock group's final concert at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco on November 25, 1976?
THE BAND
1B In which West African country did Mathieu Kerekou become the first black African president to step down after an election in 1991?
BENIN
2A Which 17th century Italian physician gives his name to the renal corpuscles found in the nephrons of the kidney and white nodules or splenic lymphoid nodules found in the spleen?
MARCELLO MALPIGHI
2B Owner of German company Beiersdorf, Oskar Tropowitz gave which skin and body-care brand a name meaning "snow-white" in 1911?
NIVEA
3A Yahya Jammeh recently claimed he could cure HIV and AIDS with natural herbs. No one would listen to him if he was not president of which West African country?*
THE GAMBIA
3B Which Italian physician identified the eponymous "apparatus" in 1898, whose primary function is to process and package the macromolecules such as proteins and lipids that are synthesised by the cell?*
CAMILLO GOLGI
4A The chemist Graham Wulff gave which name to a Procter & Gamble brand of facial moisturiser skin products in 1949, chosen as a spin on the word "lanolin"?
OLAY
4B The 1984 concert movie Stop Making Sense edited together footage from three gigs played by which rock band?
TALKING HEADS
Round 6
1A Which professional body, whose motto is "Est modus in rebus" meaning "There is a measure in all things", are known by the abbreviation RICS?
ROYAL INSTITUTION OF CHARTERED SURVEYORS
1B Which Apollo 8 crew member became the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968 because he was born in Hong Kong?
WILLIAM ANDERS
2A With which well-known writer did Charles Dickens collaborate on the stage play and novel No Thoroughfare in 1867?
WILKIE COLLINS
2B Becoming mandatory on August 1 of this year, what does the acronym HIP stand for in a property context?
HOME INFORMATION PACK
3A Who became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space as a paying spaceflight participant in 2002?
MARK SHUTTLEWORTH
3B The structural formula of which organic acid is represented as CH3COOH?
ACETIC or ETHANOIC
4A The simplest carboxylic acid, the formula of which acid is represented as either HCOOH or CH2O2?
FORMIC or METHANOIC
4B Dickens published his travel book American Notes in 1842 and another travelogue four years later about which country, the title including the words Pictures from ...?
ITALY
Round 7
1A Which London street has been acclaimed as the world's most expensive shopping street in a recent survey by Colliers International?
OLD BOND STREET
1B And which street in Manhattan did it only just pip to first place?
FIFTH AVENUE
2A Which lovely-named Hungarian footballer became the first substitute ever to score a hat trick in a World Cup match in 1982?
LASZLO KISS (against El Salvador)
2B Which British rock group's albums include Machine Head, Who Do We Think We Are and Burn?
DEEP PURPLE
3A Which London train station was designed by Lewis Cubitt and built in two years from 1851 to 1852?
KING'S CROSS
3B Which Hungarian footballer was the first player to score two hat tricks in World Cup matches, doing so in the same tournament in 1954?*
SANDOR KOCSIS
4A Which British rock group's albums include Master of Reality, Sabotage and Never Say Die!?
BLACK SABBATH
4B Opened in 1854, which London train station was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and was the original western terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground railway?
PADDINGTON
Round 8
1A Founded in 1917, which Dutch art movement is also known as "Neoplasticism"?
DE STIJL
1B Which county cricket team have the one-day name, the "Steelbacks"?
NORTHANTS
2A Which county cricket team have the one-day name, the "Royals"?*
WORCESTERSHIRE
2B On this day - October 7 - in 1571, which naval battle saw the Ottoman Empire decisively defeated by the Christian West for the first time?
LEPANTO
3A In the nursery rhyme, Hey Diddle Diddle, who or what "laughed to see such a sight" as the cow jumping over the moon?
The LITTLE DOG
3B The name of which Parisian art movement of the 1890s, meaning "the prophets" was coined by the poet Henri Cazalis?
LES NABIS
4A On this day in 1985, which Mediterranean ocean liner was hijacked by the PLO while sailing from Alexandria to Port Said?
ACHILLE LAURO
4B In the nursery rhyme, what did Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son steal?
A PIG
Spares I would never ask in a match situation and certainly didn't after the eight rounds were done
What is the second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System?
PLUTO
Which financial services company sponsors the cricket's county championship?
LIVERPOOL VICTORIA
Which American scientist has just announced that he has built a synthetic chromosome out of laboratory chemicals, thus creating artificial life?
CRAIG VENTER
Which Austrian paediatrician gave his name to a severe autism spectrum disorder after he discovered children in his practice in 1944 who appeared to have normal intelligence but lacked non-verbal communication skills and failed to empathise with peers?
HANS ASPERGER
Monday: Pub Quiz
(Sorry, Chris. When I said I was "going to Putney to see a friend" I meant I was going to try and win a pub quiz jackpot and fill my pockets with much spare change, like a very lucky and inviting beggar)
A change of venue for my usual trivia-related Monday night stop-off, Stainer and I headed down to The Fox, Putney, on his informing me that QuizQuizQuiz had a roll-over jackpot in the region of £150 going. As my esteemed colleague had mentioned, he never usually won the specialist round despite his undisputed pedigree. Teams with names like "Splinter Cell" would score maximums in the music, film & TV rounds, whilst we would lag behind by two or three every time, making us doubt our own intelligence and yelp theatrically in frustration. Every time.
Happening every theme round, this was incredibly annoying, a sensation made even more grating by our tendency to cross out right answers (Thorpe Park, the blue flag for the safety car in F1) and swap them with complete bollocks conjured up from our increasingly addled minds. Starving since I hadn't eaten since lunch, the only prizes we contented ourselves with were the mini-Crunchie and Caramel bars we won through merely getting our sheets to the markers faster than anyone else in the pub, and which I ravenously gobbled up, even though I haven't eaten Cadbury's miniature chocolate bars since I was aged, oh, about 14.
But the real raison d'etre of why we found ourselves doing a quiz which Stainer thought was probably beneath me (erm, maybe ... I had expected worse and more vulgarity if I am honest) was the general knowledge jackpot round. Get more than 17 and we would be getting a sizeable haul of pound coins. This was, he said, the round he always did best on.
With the self-induced pressure on I yielded two vital answers (Begbie from Trainspotting's first name and the Queen of Sheba's country of origin) while we worked out, with mighty good fortune, that farming was the subject of the first Radio 4 broadcast. We only screwed ourselves on, naturally, my bete noire among many other nasty beasts, Monopoly, with our obliterating a written-down £200 for the cost of a train station and substituting £250 instead. Would this cost us? Would bloody Monopoly and its tragic tendency to appear in quizzes I did do us in, well and truly? Won't people please stop asking bloody questions on bloody Monopoly? "Not bloody likely" comes the certain response from Pygmalion fact fans.
In the event we scored a very satisfactory 19 with every one of our dodgy answers yielding a surprising point, but had tied at the top with a far larger gang of suited and booted blokes seated to the back of myself. Thus, the tie-breaker, in which the a member of one of the teams would quiz-duel with the other in a first-answer-shouted-out and first-to-three correct-answers situation would decide the booty's final destination.
I know my speedy shouting skills do not compare (see the blasted TPQ final; I know I haven't and never will) with Stainer's buzzer prowess (and my already acknowledged rubbishness in a tie-break pub situation), so he went up, putting the matter out of my relieved hands. And ye gods, he was fast on the first two before latching on to a mistake by our opponent (Seneca's Roman emperor: he said Claudius, Stainer then dived in with the guess Nero), making it three and home.
We were enriched to the tune of £164, though, as always the sweet tang of mere quiz victory made the thought of all that excess coinage slightly more insignificant. We also won, as I noticed, because the jackpot round was the one part of the quiz where a need for relatively obscure, all-round general knowledge skills was needed. The time-worn quiz know-how did out in the end. I was worried that I would spend the whole evening whacked upside the head by the trashiness of all that had come before (not that trash is bad; you know I love it. But when young teams of eight are massed against your lonely duo, you are far more likely to lose crucial points thanks to their paying attention to the cartoon series Dungeons & Dragons and new Sugababes number ones, whilst your mind wandered onto far more rocky GK terrain. Random reflections: How I missed the George with its requirements for the only double landlocked countries. The strange thing is that I realised we would more or less score the same on our own).
And there's nowt like wandering through Putney getting horrible Fifteen-to-One flashbacks (for East Putney was the Regent TV Studios' underground stop) whilst weighed down with coins in every possible pocket. And there's nowt like paying debts back to people with silly change over the next few days (well, it is practically free money, but it is still money. That's why it's called money). Therefore, Jesse received my league subs in his predicted "I knew you were going to pay me back in your own twatty" way. This particular quizzer was only too happy to fulfil his twatty expectations of my good self with a plastic bag of representative brass, silver and gold. It's lucky he doesn't like hanging around arcades or it might have been money completely lost to gambling and video games. Or maybe, that's just my recalling my own seaside youth misspent in such glorious locales as Smart's glued to Final Fight because I thought my Amiga version sucked. TO THE MAX. These blog ravings always come back to me, don't they?
Tuesday: Quiz League of London
QLL top of the table clash. Down in Streatham, south of the river. A big one. We were all very nervous going into this match on account of our previous not-so-top form and tendency to gabble when the opportunity to answer on our own questions arose. So we took it slow. We chewed the cud a bit more. And lo, we didn't lose our nerve and resisted all easy incitement to surrendering to the pressure.
Atletico had been in sterling form during the start of the season, racking up scores of which we were incapable of reaching in our first two matches. We feared we could lose if we had been as sloppy as we had been at the Carpenter's Arms (um, could it be an atmospheric thing? THAT staircase odour). Instead, with Bayley switched to two and scoring a mighty 19, we eagerly took the bonuses and feasted on their errors (Fischer and Karpov? Nooo, Stuart!!). When the shadow of a few cack-handed jitters started affecting our game, thankfully it was too late: the match had long been decided in our favour.
It was over pretty quickly too. Good then, that we let out a collective sign of relief that suggested we had been holding our breath the whole time. The final scoreline was 53-39. My contribution was 14. Comprehensive is one tame adjective that could be used to describe it. Perhaps, we were lucky. Perhaps Brian's flashing 60th birthday badge played havoc with Atletico's mojo. I dunno. Yet I was thinking after two rounds that going first with this question set was a blessing indeed. Sometimes, that's how the question pairings go.
Anyway, next up is the second form team, the formidable Nomads. My esteemed colleague Jesse is missing, gallivanting somewhere fatuous and lovely quite possibly, so this is one instance we get to find whether he has become the BH talisman. Now that is a scary thought. Are we going to miss him when he's gone, the 13th Floor Elevators could sing if we specially commissioned Roky Erickson to write a QLL Tuesday night specific theme? In other team and far less tangential news, he who found Jesse in a random pub and inducted him for better or worse into the Trivia Life as Samuel once anointed David, Stainer, re-emerges from his Alex Ferguson-style retirement like a phoenix rising from the digital ashes of a large e-mail bidding farewell and wishing good luck to the BH squad, while Mark returns to the team hoping that he isn't bemused by stuff of a British hue. Pray godspeed classical composer and military history questions to wherever he may sit.
Assuming captain duties in his place and being the oh so gleeful recipient of a passing-the-baton-hee-hee-see-how-it-feels-to-organise-it-all-for-once e-mail from the aforementioned vacationing quizzer, I must sort out the post-match sandwiches (oh yeah, I'll sort them out. In ways you couldn't possibly imagine! Ha ha ha and chortling maniacally on and on ... like a rogue caterer) and ponder player positions and our gosh-darned tactics. Has Bayley proved that the second berth is where he is most effective? Do you even give a crap and am I boring you into sleepiness with such blog-meanderings? Let's not chance it. Ta ta.
posted by That Quiz Guy at 2:15 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home