Quizzers and chips

So I did my swotting for tonight’s Quiz Night by revising the capital of Burkina Faso.

It had been a particularly demanding and full-on day at work, only slightly alleviated by cake, so I decided to make limited African geography my specialist subject.

It’s been several years since I’ve been to a Quiz Night but there was a time when it was a regular event of the week.  Mater was the writer-downer for the team but unfortunately, being a bit deaf, she insisted on repeating every answer at elevated volume so that the teams all around benefitted hugely.

Her specialist subject was soaps but she was almost completely unable to remember any actor names so could only ever name the characters. But all was not lost – her friend was very hot on popes, horse racing and the second world war.

The joy of the quiz wasn’t the winning – because we only did, jointly, once – it was the spotting the team who WOULD win… usually a group of four quiet blokes with manky T shirts and creased old trousers.  They generally won, apart from the week a quartet of strangers arrived, wearing manky sweaters and creased old trousers.  It was like Gunfight at the OK Corral only with pens and paper. It was whispered that the interlopers were in the Premier League of the Gloucester Pub Quiz League. They won, amid much simmering resentment and we never saw them again.

The quiz was run with by a spectacularly grumpy quizmaster who would brook no argument and verbally abused his quizzers. It was excellent.

This evening’s quiz was quite different. Scores were not announced between rounds so you had no idea where your team lay in the big scheme of things, there was a disastrous Song Lyrics round (for us) there was a bit of bingo and bit of raffle and only one African geography question. We were nowhere near winning but we did have laughs and chips and and the quiz did raise a goodly sum for charity.

I’m saving my Ouagadougou for another day.