Archive for 2007

More evil than Evil Patrick

Dec 18, 2007 in Pub quizzes

It’s the last quiz of 2008, and only Oli and I have made it up here for Patrick’s Christmas special. If the quiz is anything like the normal Patrick fare of poetry and classics we could be in for a grim evening. Oli says he’ll leave before the beer round if we don’t [...]

Two thirds of the team is operating on Bolivarian time

Dec 11, 2007 in Pub quizzes

Oli has managed to get to the pub long before I turn up, which is no surprise but he seems angrier than usual this week. Stu turns up quite some time after even me, and I join Oli in slating his slack attitude to punctuality. Oli names our team in homage to Hugo [...]

Barry George doesn’t kill people, guns kill people

Nov 16, 2007 in Pub quizzes

Just three days after our last outing, we’re back at the Prince of Wales for a one-off charity quiz. It’s strange being in the PoW on something other than a Tuesday night, and the quiz is also a little bit different to the strictly-followed PoW format of two rounds, then a beer round, then [...]

Offensive and against all sense of British decency

Nov 13, 2007 in Pub quizzes

To everyone’s astonishment I arrive first this evening. I bag a spot by the fireplace and give evils to two people sat at a nearby table, hoping they’ll be leaving before the quiz. But it turns out they are two friends of Pete’s so all is well.
We start reasonably well, especially when the [...]

Quizmasters

Oct 23, 2007 in Pub quizzes

It’s us in the hotseat again. Due to a series of miscommunications between us in the previous few days, we turn up to find we’ve got 70 questions between us instead of the required 40, and we have some whittling to do before things get under way. In the best tradition of quiz [...]

Sod the old git, bring back the ginger pisshead

Oct 16, 2007 in Pub quizzes

The team tonight is me, Stu and Pete. We agree that it’s been a while and it’s definitely time we won, or at least got some money out of our evening. We start with a good first round, correctly identifying Jools Holland as the author of Barefaced Lies and Boogie-woogie Boasts, and Eric Gill [...]

Prince Philip, in the tunnel, with the white Fiat

Oct 09, 2007 in Pub quizzes

The team tonight is me, Pete, Stu and Stu’s new flatmate Ian. In their youth, Stu and Ian appeared on an Irish schools quiz television programme, losing in the first round but apparently in the most exciting round ever seen, in which they clawed back a 17 point deficit to take the lead with [...]

Dusk ’til Dawn 2007

Oct 06, 2007 in Endurance

Two years after our first outing, we returned to the forests of Norfolk, hoping to put our SITS experience to good use and improve on our 2005 performance here. Surely, after we’d finished a 24 hour race, a 12 would be easy?
Setting up
In 2005, ridiculously, we’d arrived barely two hours before the start. We found [...]

Gordon Brown gives us a general erection

Oct 02, 2007 in Pub quizzes

I am an astronomer. Astronomers need to use telescopes. Telescope application deadlines come twice a year, every year, at the same time of year, without fail. Somehow I have never quite got to grips with this system, and this year I decided to go on holiday to far-flung parts of Eastern Europe [...]

Bulevardul Unirii

Sep 18, 2007 in Eastern Europe 2007

Bulevardul Unirii

I walked from the palace all the way down Bulevardul Unirii, which was another of Ceauşescu’s grand projects and is a few metres longer than the Champs-Élysées. Apparently some historic parts of the city were bulldozed to make way for this, but despite this I quite liked it, probably because I was again reminded of [...]