Pub quizzes are an English institution - and one - until tonight - that I had yet to experience. But my friend Olly (who seems to get a lot of play in this blog) changed all that when he invited me to join a team of real-life English people at the "Night of Champions" pub quiz at the Hurlingham Pub on Wandsworth Bridge Road.Now, I am not a pub quiz champion - that would be quite impossible given I have never participated in one before. But clearly they were not checking credentials at the door. I arrived just in time to a flurry of camera crews and exited people drinking beer - and the first question was asked two seconds after arriving at my table (I was running very late coming from work at Canary Wharf - the stupid Jubilee Line had been shut down and the DLR was only running one way).
I made some impressive contributions within minutes. "What is the current U.S. President's middle name?" OOOH I know that - WALKER! "Who was the infamous woman who made news for cutting off her husband's...." OOOOH I KNOW, LORENA BOBBIT!!!!!!!
And.....that was precisely the END of my pub quiz contributions. Later on, I very passionately insisted on two answers I just KNEW were correct, but they were not. (The movie themeline "It's never too late to turn it all around" is from the film "8 Mile," NOT "Vanilla Sky." And Mr. Selfridge coined the phrase "The Customer is Always Right," NOT Mr. Woolworth). I SWEAR I thought the Americans invented customer service.
We ended round one with 10 answers correct out of 25. And I don't think we even got 5 answers from round two. I spent the entire second half only focusing on an anagram we never solved - why did I not see that the letters that form the word "consumerist" also form the word "misconstrue" ??
But despite finishing at the back of the pack, I now know lots of crap that I did not know before. Like, there are 27 cards in a Tarot deck. And Sophia Loren was the first actress to win an Oscar for a foreign-language film. I SHOULD have remembered that scarebs are also known as "dung beetles" and fruit stewed in sugar is a "compote" - but those facts had temporarily escaped me. Until the answers were read at least.
The quiz ended in a tie-breaker between two teams of impossibly dorky men. And an infuriating man named "Just Ralph" or something like that managed to come in third all on his own. Seriously people, get a life already (not that I'm bitter or anything).
I am grateful to my British teammates for letting me take part in this humble-pie eating contest - even though Olly somehow suckered me into paying for his dinner and beer when it was all over.
And.....that was precisely the END of my pub quiz contributions. Later on, I very passionately insisted on two answers I just KNEW were correct, but they were not. (The movie themeline "It's never too late to turn it all around" is from the film "8 Mile," NOT "Vanilla Sky." And Mr. Selfridge coined the phrase "The Customer is Always Right," NOT Mr. Woolworth). I SWEAR I thought the Americans invented customer service.
We ended round one with 10 answers correct out of 25. And I don't think we even got 5 answers from round two. I spent the entire second half only focusing on an anagram we never solved - why did I not see that the letters that form the word "consumerist" also form the word "misconstrue" ??
But despite finishing at the back of the pack, I now know lots of crap that I did not know before. Like, there are 27 cards in a Tarot deck. And Sophia Loren was the first actress to win an Oscar for a foreign-language film. I SHOULD have remembered that scarebs are also known as "dung beetles" and fruit stewed in sugar is a "compote" - but those facts had temporarily escaped me. Until the answers were read at least.
The quiz ended in a tie-breaker between two teams of impossibly dorky men. And an infuriating man named "Just Ralph" or something like that managed to come in third all on his own. Seriously people, get a life already (not that I'm bitter or anything).
I am grateful to my British teammates for letting me take part in this humble-pie eating contest - even though Olly somehow suckered me into paying for his dinner and beer when it was all over.
2 comments:
Hey - hold on I bought YOU supper the other night at a very nice sushi joint!
Ok, fair enough Olly (it was darn good sushi).
And P.S. : I am even WRONG on what I thought I learned - teammate Derek informed me after reading this post that a Tarot deck has 72 cards, not 27. I can't even get the answer right when I was TOLD the answer!
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