I’ve been off travelling around the Balkans for the last few weeks, so I’m hoping for questions like “What is the newest country in the world?”, “What is the second-newest country in the world?”, and “Is Podgorica the most boring capital city in the world?”, the answers to which are of course Kosovo, Montenegro and very much so. But there is not a lot of geography in tonight’s quiz, and by turning up even later than is my habit, not only do I give Oli the opportunity to name the team but I miss the question asking which country has the highest lowest point.

Round one is over by the time I arrive, and although Oli has got us into a very respectable fourth position, I can still berate him for not knowing that the country is Lesotho. And nor does he know that the band whose members included Johnny, CJ, Dee Dee and Joey was the Ramones. So surely, now, with double the manpower, we will storm into the lead in round three. Sad to say, this does not turn out to be the case. As the evening goes on we slump spectacularly down the order, and the quiz ends with the two teams tied for first position about thirty points ahead of us.

The tie-break to separate the teams asks what is the highest possible score for a first move in scrabble. I guess 125, and the answer is 124. I am quite impressed with myself, and feel this goes some way towards making up for our shocking performance, but unfortunately both teams get the answer exactly right. Cruelly denied even this minor consolation, we leave the pub in disgust, wondering how we’ve fallen so far from the giddy heights of two consecutive wins earlier in the year.