Offensive and against all sense of British decency
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 first question asks which country had identical twins for its president and prime minister until October this year. We asked almost the same question more than a year ago so we know it’s Poland, and at the end of the first round we’re in third. The second round is good - we can name all four Shakespeare plays in which ghosts appear, and we only drop points on the final questions, when we can only name three of the five tube stations named after pubs. Going into the beer round, we’re sharing the lead with three other teams.
To earn a free round at the bar this week, we have to identify the golfer from the menu they chose for the US Masters Champion’s Dinner. Oli is disgusted - he thinks we have no chance and wants us to hand in an empty answer sheet. But then we realise that most of the answers are quite easy thanks to the validity of crude national stereotypes. Paella? Olazabal. Haggis? Must be Sandy Lyle. Burgers is Tiger Woods, and wiener schnitzel and black forest gateau must be Bernhard Langer. The only one we struggle with is one which is obviously a Canadian because it involves elk, but who the hell knows any Canadian golfers? It turns out Stu does. For the tie-break, we have to say how many of Ferdinand Magellan’s crew actually made it around the world. Averaging our guesses gives us 27. The answer is 18, we’re closest and even with six of us we can just about squeeze a whole round out of £15.
Things take a turn for the worse in round three. The only bright spot for me is an astronomy question - Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka hold up whose trousers? They are the three stars of Orion’s belt, but we’ve somehow slipped into fifth place. All socialising is off in round four as we try to claw our way back into the prizes. After much argument we decide it’s Noel Coward and not Ian Fleming who is buried in Firefly Hill, Jamaica, and we end up in third. But it’s joint third and we need another tie break. How many chinchillas went into the making of Madonna’s favourite coat? Again we apply the average theory for a guess of 67, but for once it lets us down as apparently only 40 were required, and the other team put 30. Thus robbed, we flounce out of the pub in disgust.