This Was Blackpool
No, I've Got a Better One: VIVA BLACKPOOL!
European Quiz Championships 2007 ... AT LAST! (Part 1/3)
Trust me to finally write about the Euros when I had forgotten practically all of it. Actually, I'm not even sure I was there. Was I? But writing stuff up in a quasi-psychic attempt to summon up memories that may never have been formed in the first place, I realised I remembered quite a lot: about 6000 words of it. Maybe, it has something to do with being a good quizzer. Memory and everything. Recall etc.
So here it is.
My incredibly self-centred, almost entirely internet link-lacking GIMUNGOUSGANTIC REVIEW of the things that went down in the Blackpool version of the Savoy one November weekend. Last month.
I once had a wonderful little photo to distract you from the eye-numbing wordage, you know. Yet disaster struck. Or more specifically, my sleepy right elbow. My lovely Blackpool sunset was lost in a mug of cold black coffee. A picture that could not have better misrepresented the heinous meteorological horrors that beset the gathered quizzers. I needed it to remind me that the weather wasn't all snapping, harsh, cold, relentless sheets of unforgiving rain and punishing wind that tried to shove you into the enraged Irish sea or oncoming traffic.
Now I will cut down the EQC weekend into its constituent quiz parts starting with...
Crazy Dutch Guys Quiz: 2nd=
Just the three of us too: Harald, William and myself. I was obviously on the Crazy Dutch Guys' wavelength, except when it came to that ruddy Never Mind the Buzzcocks imitation round. They sounded like they had been gurgling on a ganja blunt too far for most of the time (hey, those crazy Dutch stereotypes are SO true). But, of course, questions on Coming to America - the film that taught me the hilarious vocal power of the F-bomb - are just about the greatest ever devised in the history of quizzing. Unfortunately, our pop culture knowledge was not quite good enough to best the entire room, but then we were missing a player. Perhaps on purpose, who knows? An absentee is always a good excuse.
Pairs: 6th
And Stainer and I were doing so well. Just like last year. Joint first for four rounds or otherwise nudging the top spot intently and then, the fall. A mighty one. Lucifer had nothing on us. Somehow our brains ceased to function during the penultimate round and then completely gave up the ghost during the final 16-question stretch. We forgot to compete when it mattered. We made the wrong American cyclist choices. We put Sri Lanka when it asked for PM Bandaranaike. An obvious sign of united derangement. Another one came in the form of my not putting down 3-Iron when its DVD stands on one of my shelves: a shelf I pass every time I leave my bedroom as I comment to myself: "I really should watch some of these films. After all I have paid a pretty penny for them. Or maybe it is a symptom of my pop culture shopping addiction ...", and so on in mirth-ridden inanity. We could have got a hat-trick of trophies: three lovely shiny shiny plates of silver (I did get a hat trick of prizes, but one of them was a book. Which I already owned (albeit in hardback form. Albeit in an imported version I had paid top dollar for. Ho-hum. And they weren't silver plates, of course. The IQA ain't made of money. However, I do have stylistic literary devices to consider.)
Club: Champions - That's goddamn right!
And don't you forget it. Kevin passed by in the midst of the quiz battle to say he and the rest of his Milhous Worriers had practically given up due to the esoteric nature of the questions. I think all four Broken Hearts (Stainer, Bayley, Mark and I) did a double take as if to say we were coping pretty well, we were certainly not complaining about the pitch of the difficulty (this is Champions' League standard. I wouldn't expect anything else) and that it was quite enjoyable really. Honest. And somehow I knew that Israeli martial art "krav maga" as seen in The Bourne Ultimatum and some terrible Shannon Elizabeth movie I had the misfortune to come across whilst roaming the barren wasteland of Sky Digital, was destined to make some appearance this weekend. It has the tang of Pan-European competition possibility about it, and so it did. Mostly however, I was vastly impressed by BH Mark (as opposed to Mark BTW) and his deep literary, classical music and historical knowledge. It was amazing. If Mark improves his sport and British stuff he could be a threat in the more common quizzing arenas (please expel all thoughts of a judiciously placed sniper in order to combat him. He's a nice guy that Marble Arch hookers are apparently drawn to). But you know, we be the AC Milan of European quizzing now. Which means we can let our domestic challenge go to seed. Or maybe not. I could also make more asinine football comparisons. No, I will do. I believe I have made in the region of 124 on this blog since its inception and such a habit will never cease.
In the end, it was down to the 20-question picture tie-break. Belgium's Clockwork (Trogh - described in one English quarter as "European quizzing's true prodigy", Derycke, most excellent quizfolk one et al) and Broken Hearts each had 60 points. After some silly blunders (slap our foreheads and smash our craniums with rounders bats: it was Durer! And crap my brain inside and out and wear it as a bonny little hat, it was a freakin' tilapia), we relied on our early recognition of the picture round link as being We Didn't Start the Fire (having quickly discarded Sergeant Pepper as a possibility, we realised there must be a musical listing link between all of them; though this was helped by my as then unrealised and now never to be fulfilled mission to set an entire league-style friendly set on the subjects mentioned in the Billy Joel song).
So it was good we, or more truthfully Stainer who's unduly schizoid-nuts for this pop marlarkey in a way that will puzzle me for all eternity (remember David: tongue-in-cheek, tongue-in-cheek), knew most of the lyrics and the names and the faces and so it proved crucial: gaining us five more points than Clockwork.
GET IN!
And you know what, it felt quite good, nay transcendent in a light-headed, mmmm this is nice way, having been the only English team to consistently get to grips with the all-round demands of a highly testing quiz and, erm, win the thing. We smiled and chirped at each other in that weird satisfied fashion that surprised victors do, myself hands in pockets like a total indie scruff and eyes receding into smug slits through which the defeated world was viewed anew, waiting for some euphoric shower of winning light to rain down on us. But no: of course, it didn't come. It was just a bloody team table quiz. Instead, we lined up against a wall like a bunch of white collar criminals on day release to be photographed by Erik, one of our highly friendly beaten foes in the Clockwork team. I looked particularly git-ish and eminently punchable, and if I were on Eggheads exuding such a facial expression then surely millions of irate viewers would be quickly lining up to kick my testicles into space orbit. We then slouched off to the next mind-scrambling ordeal that awaited us - choosing from the hotel's delightful menu of stodge and ewwww it is making me feel nauseous please take this warmed-up pig feed away.
(End of Part 1. Part II to come tomorrow)
European Quiz Championships 2007 ... AT LAST! (Part 1/3)
Trust me to finally write about the Euros when I had forgotten practically all of it. Actually, I'm not even sure I was there. Was I? But writing stuff up in a quasi-psychic attempt to summon up memories that may never have been formed in the first place, I realised I remembered quite a lot: about 6000 words of it. Maybe, it has something to do with being a good quizzer. Memory and everything. Recall etc.
So here it is.
My incredibly self-centred, almost entirely internet link-lacking GIMUNGOUSGANTIC REVIEW of the things that went down in the Blackpool version of the Savoy one November weekend. Last month.
I once had a wonderful little photo to distract you from the eye-numbing wordage, you know. Yet disaster struck. Or more specifically, my sleepy right elbow. My lovely Blackpool sunset was lost in a mug of cold black coffee. A picture that could not have better misrepresented the heinous meteorological horrors that beset the gathered quizzers. I needed it to remind me that the weather wasn't all snapping, harsh, cold, relentless sheets of unforgiving rain and punishing wind that tried to shove you into the enraged Irish sea or oncoming traffic.
Now I will cut down the EQC weekend into its constituent quiz parts starting with...
Crazy Dutch Guys Quiz: 2nd=
Just the three of us too: Harald, William and myself. I was obviously on the Crazy Dutch Guys' wavelength, except when it came to that ruddy Never Mind the Buzzcocks imitation round. They sounded like they had been gurgling on a ganja blunt too far for most of the time (hey, those crazy Dutch stereotypes are SO true). But, of course, questions on Coming to America - the film that taught me the hilarious vocal power of the F-bomb - are just about the greatest ever devised in the history of quizzing. Unfortunately, our pop culture knowledge was not quite good enough to best the entire room, but then we were missing a player. Perhaps on purpose, who knows? An absentee is always a good excuse.
Pairs: 6th
And Stainer and I were doing so well. Just like last year. Joint first for four rounds or otherwise nudging the top spot intently and then, the fall. A mighty one. Lucifer had nothing on us. Somehow our brains ceased to function during the penultimate round and then completely gave up the ghost during the final 16-question stretch. We forgot to compete when it mattered. We made the wrong American cyclist choices. We put Sri Lanka when it asked for PM Bandaranaike. An obvious sign of united derangement. Another one came in the form of my not putting down 3-Iron when its DVD stands on one of my shelves: a shelf I pass every time I leave my bedroom as I comment to myself: "I really should watch some of these films. After all I have paid a pretty penny for them. Or maybe it is a symptom of my pop culture shopping addiction ...", and so on in mirth-ridden inanity. We could have got a hat-trick of trophies: three lovely shiny shiny plates of silver (I did get a hat trick of prizes, but one of them was a book. Which I already owned (albeit in hardback form. Albeit in an imported version I had paid top dollar for. Ho-hum. And they weren't silver plates, of course. The IQA ain't made of money. However, I do have stylistic literary devices to consider.)
Club: Champions - That's goddamn right!
And don't you forget it. Kevin passed by in the midst of the quiz battle to say he and the rest of his Milhous Worriers had practically given up due to the esoteric nature of the questions. I think all four Broken Hearts (Stainer, Bayley, Mark and I) did a double take as if to say we were coping pretty well, we were certainly not complaining about the pitch of the difficulty (this is Champions' League standard. I wouldn't expect anything else) and that it was quite enjoyable really. Honest. And somehow I knew that Israeli martial art "krav maga" as seen in The Bourne Ultimatum and some terrible Shannon Elizabeth movie I had the misfortune to come across whilst roaming the barren wasteland of Sky Digital, was destined to make some appearance this weekend. It has the tang of Pan-European competition possibility about it, and so it did. Mostly however, I was vastly impressed by BH Mark (as opposed to Mark BTW) and his deep literary, classical music and historical knowledge. It was amazing. If Mark improves his sport and British stuff he could be a threat in the more common quizzing arenas (please expel all thoughts of a judiciously placed sniper in order to combat him. He's a nice guy that Marble Arch hookers are apparently drawn to). But you know, we be the AC Milan of European quizzing now. Which means we can let our domestic challenge go to seed. Or maybe not. I could also make more asinine football comparisons. No, I will do. I believe I have made in the region of 124 on this blog since its inception and such a habit will never cease.
In the end, it was down to the 20-question picture tie-break. Belgium's Clockwork (Trogh - described in one English quarter as "European quizzing's true prodigy", Derycke, most excellent quizfolk one et al) and Broken Hearts each had 60 points. After some silly blunders (slap our foreheads and smash our craniums with rounders bats: it was Durer! And crap my brain inside and out and wear it as a bonny little hat, it was a freakin' tilapia), we relied on our early recognition of the picture round link as being We Didn't Start the Fire (having quickly discarded Sergeant Pepper as a possibility, we realised there must be a musical listing link between all of them; though this was helped by my as then unrealised and now never to be fulfilled mission to set an entire league-style friendly set on the subjects mentioned in the Billy Joel song).
So it was good we, or more truthfully Stainer who's unduly schizoid-nuts for this pop marlarkey in a way that will puzzle me for all eternity (remember David: tongue-in-cheek, tongue-in-cheek), knew most of the lyrics and the names and the faces and so it proved crucial: gaining us five more points than Clockwork.
GET IN!
And you know what, it felt quite good, nay transcendent in a light-headed, mmmm this is nice way, having been the only English team to consistently get to grips with the all-round demands of a highly testing quiz and, erm, win the thing. We smiled and chirped at each other in that weird satisfied fashion that surprised victors do, myself hands in pockets like a total indie scruff and eyes receding into smug slits through which the defeated world was viewed anew, waiting for some euphoric shower of winning light to rain down on us. But no: of course, it didn't come. It was just a bloody team table quiz. Instead, we lined up against a wall like a bunch of white collar criminals on day release to be photographed by Erik, one of our highly friendly beaten foes in the Clockwork team. I looked particularly git-ish and eminently punchable, and if I were on Eggheads exuding such a facial expression then surely millions of irate viewers would be quickly lining up to kick my testicles into space orbit. We then slouched off to the next mind-scrambling ordeal that awaited us - choosing from the hotel's delightful menu of stodge and ewwww it is making me feel nauseous please take this warmed-up pig feed away.
(End of Part 1. Part II to come tomorrow)
posted by That Quiz Guy at 6:07 AM
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