Tonight’s quiz setters are Keith and Anne, and their quizzes normally include at least one question about motor racing, which I like, and one which is some kind of pun, which I don’t so much because I’m rubbish at getting them. Example: what kind of alcohol can a child buy if ice is added to it? Liquorice. Groan…. Tonight’s, though, has neither. Though we struggle in the first round, Pete and I start to pull ourselves together in the second round, and get better from there. By the start of the fourth we’re only just outside the money. Normally this is the point at which we fall apart, but somehow tonight we manage to score almost full marks on the final round. We haul ourselves into third for our first cash of 2009.

Last week I was in Tenerife, and of course that would be the week that an obscenely easy question comes up in the snowball. I find out that Marcus was the lucky owner of the winning ticket, getting the question “What was unusual about the birth of Virginia Dare in 1587?” This is about the first snowball question I’ve known the answer to since about 2006.

Still, on the positive side: a) there is still more than £1000 in the pot, and b) at least Evil Patrick didn’t win it.