It’s the last quiz of the year.  Ivan is back from Paris, and has been looking forward to nothing so much as a good quiz.  He says living abroad is making him feel more English than ever, which is strange because he’s half-Spanish and half-Croat.  Judging by the evening, living abroad is actually making him [...]

The pub is absolutely rammed this week. With about 70 people crammed in and the fire roaring it feels like the Black Hole of Calcutta, and I feel sure people will start fainting before too long. It’s probably because of the book, even though it specifically requests that readers do not come to [...]

It’s our turn in the hotseat again. I’ve persuaded some of my friends from college to come along and give it a go, and have promised them that it’s not so much that the questions are hard here as that the regulars are some of the die-hardest pub quizzers there are. I am [...]

I got back to Rovaniemi at about 10pm and picked my way slowly through the icy streets to the centre of town. The youth hostel was supposed to have a sauna so I got myself a room there. Weirdly, the hostel itself is unstaffed and you have to get keys and things from a hotel [...]

I found my way from the train station to the bus station. It was only a short walk but a thick layer of ice covered the streets and I slid wildly along, probably causing much amusement for the few Finns who were out and about. They seemed to have no trouble keeping their balance and [...]

On my first trip to Finland I hadn’t seen anything of Tampere beyond the train station. Arriving back there three years later was like a bizarre and intense déjà vu experience. As I had last time, I struggled for a while with ticket machines that unfortunately only display Swedish and Finnish text. I could work [...]

After a few weeks away from the quiz, me and Stu and Oli are back and ready to take it by storm. We feel good after round 1, in a comfortable fifth place from which a strike at the lead seems eminently possible. We know which seas you can find Trabzon, Archangelsk, Qingdao [...]

I suppose we are doomed from the start tonight.  We name our team because we are under the impression that Barcelona have beaten Chelsea 2-1 in the Champions’ League.  Unfortunately we haven’t realised that the Bastards scored a late equaliser, and we look ridiculous.  Suffice to say we do not trouble the money this evening.

Despite the Telegraph’s publicity, the pub is not too much busier than usual. Maybe it’s because Highgate is more of a muesli-eating Guardian-reading sort of place. Or maybe it’s because the article exhorted readers not to come because the pub is too small even to fit the regulars in. Maybe next week [...]

Ivan emigrated to France two weeks ago, but to everyone’s surprise he’s back. He’s off again on Thursday though. I am late, and the first round is almost over by the time I get there, but Ivan seems to be on form. I hardly contribute anything to our answers but we’re in [...]