EDitorial ± 26-Oct-2005
And Now, From Ipswich
...it's the quiz of the week! No Nicholas Parsons at the Novotel last Friday night but nine teams of six keen to play their part in a charity quiz event. Me & wifey had been invited along as part of a friend's team, and were keen to relive our glory days of five years ago (cue Bowie) when we twice --- two times on the trot, natch --- won the Mellis village quiz as part of Ask The Family. Back then I wrote something on the web about our proud achievement, about which a fellow competitor complained at the next event. Ee, this internet thing's been around forever.
Our team name on the big night: Universally Challenged (groan). My own suggestions were dismissed out of hand:
Do you know what's better than getting a question right? It's getting a question right, then being overruled by other team members. Happened three times (Io & Europa are moons of?) in two rounds (number of dogs in a greyhound race?), and gives a chap great credibility (days over which a decathlon is run?) with future answers, even when they're wrong.
Thankfully one of the more alert teamsters had spotted that the pop round was worth double points, and thus would be the one on which to play the Eddie Waring joker. Which we did, and promptly got a whopping max of 40 points. Whoosh whoosh! Credit here to another teamster who knew his Rod Stewart & Who intros, tho' I helped him out on The Spencer Davies Group.
Compared with the magical Mellis marathons, the questionmaster didn't cut it, truth be told, and so we had little or no clue who was ahead (£1m transfer of whom from Spurs to Ipswich in 1994?) as the rounds advanced. But we had a half-decent last couple of sessions, inc. a cracker on food & drink: consomme, pitta, canape, but not bloater.
And then we were done: Mr QM announced only the name of the losing team --- we'd been marking their answers all evening, and they had JFK as the moon landings pres --- and then straight to the winning team, "Congratulations to Universally Challenged!" Bloomin' heck, that's us!
We trooped up to get our bottles of plonk in a rather befuddled state --- shurely shome mishtake? So, who knows how, but the winning run is on again once more. Oh yes.
Next up: how I cured all known diseases and completed CNPS in three weeks (actually still stuck at n-n-nineteen, much like Paul Hardcastle).
Our team name on the big night: Universally Challenged (groan). My own suggestions were dismissed out of hand:
- Feeders
- I Blame The Parents
- So Very Tired
Do you know what's better than getting a question right? It's getting a question right, then being overruled by other team members. Happened three times (Io & Europa are moons of?) in two rounds (number of dogs in a greyhound race?), and gives a chap great credibility (days over which a decathlon is run?) with future answers, even when they're wrong.
Thankfully one of the more alert teamsters had spotted that the pop round was worth double points, and thus would be the one on which to play the Eddie Waring joker. Which we did, and promptly got a whopping max of 40 points. Whoosh whoosh! Credit here to another teamster who knew his Rod Stewart & Who intros, tho' I helped him out on The Spencer Davies Group.
Compared with the magical Mellis marathons, the questionmaster didn't cut it, truth be told, and so we had little or no clue who was ahead (£1m transfer of whom from Spurs to Ipswich in 1994?) as the rounds advanced. But we had a half-decent last couple of sessions, inc. a cracker on food & drink: consomme, pitta, canape, but not bloater.
And then we were done: Mr QM announced only the name of the losing team --- we'd been marking their answers all evening, and they had JFK as the moon landings pres --- and then straight to the winning team, "Congratulations to Universally Challenged!" Bloomin' heck, that's us!
We trooped up to get our bottles of plonk in a rather befuddled state --- shurely shome mishtake? So, who knows how, but the winning run is on again once more. Oh yes.
Next up: how I cured all known diseases and completed CNPS in three weeks (actually still stuck at n-n-nineteen, much like Paul Hardcastle).