Archive for 2008

Moonlight Menai

Nov 09, 2008 in Photography

Moonlight Menai

On a wild windy night in north Wales I was trying to get my new Olympus E420 to work. The icy winds were steadily numbing my fingers, and I couldn’t get the bloody camera to take any photos of the moonlit view over to Anglesey from Caernarfon. I was on the point of [...]

Two pints of Katona blubber and a packet of Iceland crisps

Oct 21, 2008 in Pub quizzes

Ivan’s here this week, for the first time in ages. He has not lost his ability to answer uncannily obscure cricket questions, but neither has he lost his tendency to say the answers to questions just a little bit too loudly. Lionel Richie, Oasis, the Jam and Lisa Stansfield all released songs called [...]

We’re all doomed?

Oct 14, 2008 in Pub quizzes

I used to arrive at the Prince of Wales half way through the first round, but these days I’m getting less punctual and I usually arrive just after it’s finished. This week I miss a question asking for the second to sixth largest countries in the world, which is a shame, because I know [...]

Harry Potter and the Kidney Stone

Oct 07, 2008 in Pub quizzes

I’m early this week - the first round is not yet over when I leap off the bus and into the pub at 9.20pm. I’m just in time to tell the team that the Ealing comedy which took its name from a Tennyson poem. And I also tell them the answer to a [...]

Dusk ’til Dawn 2008

Oct 05, 2008 in Endurance

Our team of four had done a great job at Sleepless In The Saddle, finishing in the top third. But Ian lives in the Lake District, and decided Norfolk was too far away to drive to for the three hours of cycling he’d get out of a 12 hour race. So, it would [...]

A new record for Roger

Sep 23, 2008 in Pub quizzes

Stu’s team name is very prescient - I’ve just bought Music Is My Sanctuary by Gary Bartz, and it’s fantastic. But it turns out he hasn’t guessed that I’ve been buying 1970s funk records, he’s just noting the fact that I’m even less punctual than normal this evening. Working at a university was [...]

Sarah Palin’s three Bristols

Sep 09, 2008 in Pub quizzes

The team is just Stu and I tonight. The only time I’ve done well in a team of two here at the Prince of Wales was when Oli and I cheated, so I fear a challenging evening. Things start badly in the first round when we are asked whether it’s crickets, grasshoppers or [...]

In a world without Don Lafontaine…

Sep 02, 2008 in Pub quizzes

My friend Quinn is here tonight. I met her in Albania, she’s from Australia, and she makes me realise what a horribly anglocentric thing a pub quiz can be. There are endless questions about cricket, counties and television programmes that no-one from beyond these shores would ever care about. That said, I [...]

Greetings! We are representatives of the estate of the late President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, and we have an interesting business proposal for you

Aug 19, 2008 in Pub quizzes

Our team name tonight is Stu’s idea. We like it a lot but feel that Stu should have the honour of writing it out on our team sheet. By the end of the night he’s just writing “Greetings!” and the quiz setters have long since stopped reading it all out anyway.
We are six [...]

Leaving on a midnight tank to Georgia

Aug 12, 2008 in Pub quizzes

After last week’s horrific placing we’re hoping for better this week. Things look good for the first two rounds, but then we collapse spectacularly, scoring just five points in total over rounds two and three. Once again, all our hopes are pinned on the snowball.
There is 600 pounds in the pot. The [...]