Tonight it’s a story of bitterness and recrimination. We have a team of five - as well as the usual Pete, Ivan and me, my friend John is here because we’re going to Santiago de Compostela in the morning, and Pete’s girlfriend is here as well. Presumably she’s the reason Pete arrived only a little bit late but showing clear signs of extreme hurrying.

Among the questions in round one is this: what else is in the set of objects that contains Ceres and 2003 UB313? As I may have mentioned before I’m an astronomer, and I know the answer is Pluto. John did a degree in space science and he knows it’s Pluto. Ivan’s doing a PhD in mediaeval history so no-one asks whether he knows what the answer is, but it’s so obvious that he probably knows it’s Pluto as well. Pete, though, becomes bizarrely convinced that the answer is Charon, Pluto’s moon. He doesn’t elaborate on why - he just writes it down and then scowls angrily at us. John and I protest but to no avail. When the answer comes back Pete is duly castigated. “OK”, he mutters, “but dogs can look up”.

The second round provides a horrible sense of deja vu. The question is, which Christian sect is found around the Mediterranean, but particularly in Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus. Ivan and I both say ‘Druze’ straight away, but then I begin to doubt it, and think ‘Maronite’ instead. I can’t remember whether the Druze are actually Islamic or not, and Ivan believes in his original answer. I’m not certain, so I don’t push it, and Ivan says that because I said Druze as well, I am not allowed to whinge if I’m right after all on this one. The answer is Maronite. I whinge.

Depite our catastrophes and a general sense of failure falling over the team, we’re not doing badly - just outside the money, but we would have been second if my damn fool team mates had listened to me. Among the round three questions is ‘in what year did women get the vote in Australia?’. We’re offered a choice between 1902, 1922 or 1932. I know New Zealand gave women the vote in the 19th Century so I say 1902. Ivan says ‘and what the fuck does New Zealand have to do with anything?’ and writes down 1932. You can guess who’s right.

The fourth round is OK but we’ve shot ourselves in the foot by throwing away six points, and we end the evening in the worst position, just outside the money. At least no-one wins the snowball.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.