I’m shattered. I’ve spent the last five days in Spain enthusiastically adopting the ridiculous Spanish habit of not eating until 11pm, going out for drinks after that and then thinking about possibly going to club at around 5am, although they won’t get really busy until nearer 6am. But Ivan’s emigrating to France shortly, to spend nine months studying mediaeval history in Paris, so I stagger up Highgate Hill to arrive just in time for the quiz.

Ivan has come prepared. At the slightest hint of a dispute arising, he unfolds a poster of the planets which came free in the Guardian, and which shows Neptune looking slightly blue-ish. Despite lingering bitterness and resentment from last week we are doing pretty well after the first two rounds. Questions like ‘What country is entirely surrounded by South Africa’ are music to our ears (it’s Lesotho), but it’s not all plain sailing. Australian landlords normally specifically ban the use of Durex for what purpose? Fuck, we think, but it’s not that. Apparently it’s for sticking up posters, because durex is what those crazy people down under call sellotape.

As always we think we can do well on the beer round. The answer to a long and tortuous first question involving Guantánamo bay and a Cock and Bull story is Michael Winterbottom. Alain Prost used to drive for McLaren. Ivan knows what a mercer is and we know that England football managers are the connection. We get all five questions right and so it’s down to the tie break. How heavy was the biggest conger eel ever caught in British waters? We say 4.5 stone, thinking that would be one hell of a fat eel. The other team who got five out of five think it was over 12 stone. I’m revolted at the thought of an eel as heavy as I am, but they’re almost exactly right, and we are forced to buy our own drinks this week.

Distracting us as the quiz goes on is a photographer from the ”Telegraph”. A book of quiz questions, compiled by the organiser of the quiz Marcus Berkmann, is going to be serialised in said paper over the coming months, and they’re after suitable images to accompany it. Ivan does his best to look photogenic but just can’t quite pull it off. The photographer takes a photo of me, and then one of my hands, writing down an answer. Ivan looks upset.

The rest of the quiz passes by without us ever really hitting form, although Ivan redeems himself slightly for his outrageously wrong suggestion a few weeks ago that OJ Simpson was offered the lead part in Ghost. Who’s film career began with The Towering Inferno in 1974 and ended with Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult? This time, it is OJ. But it doesn’t help - when the final scores are read out, we’re yet again in fourth place, the proverbial ‘just outside the money. And then, in a clear sign that it’s all completely stitched up, the quiz setter wins £200 on the snowball question. We storm out in disgust, vowing not to return for at least a couple of weeks.

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