The last Sunday in the month is Quiz Night in my local pub. It’s always a good laugh and it attracts people from the village and surrounding area. Our pub is a small friendly rural one, and has been owned by the same family for 140 years now. Like many rural pubs the current recession does it no favours, and events like Quiz Night are essential in keeping the pub going as a viable concern.
Like many pubs that run Quiz Nights, there are a number of regular teams, be they a group of mates, or members of the same family, and occasionally an ad hoc team put together on the night from whoever wants to have a go, but is on their own. There are also two regular teams who come from neighbouring villages. The team I am part of is one of the more established ones, but we’ve been knocked down to three regular members for some months now as two of our gang are unable to make the pub on quiz nights nowadays, but we usually put in a good showing and have picked up the occasional win or second place. Last night we were joined by a local lady farmer, who was on her own due to her normal team members being unavailable.
The Quiz took the usual format of 30 questions on general knowledge put together by one of the pub regulars. Last night was graded as a medium difficult one, but in my mind it was slightly easier than some we have had with the same grading. However, discussion at the bar with some of the younger customers pre-quiz revealed that they thought many of the questions were aimed at older people and that they would never do as well as the older entrants.
Maybe the youngsters are correct as our team took first place with a decent 28 out of 30 questions answered correctly. Not bad for a team of three farmers and a retired DJ and writer with only a fifth of a degree between us!
For once, there was an outright winner (us) and second place was also clear, so the prize money was shared out without resort to tie-breakers. In the past the tie-breaking rounds have often gone on for some time before a winner has been declared, but not last night!
There were no contentious moments last night really, unlike in some previous quizzes when things have got quite heated over what could be accepted as an answer and what couldn’t. Also last night there were no allegations of cheating, either by snatching a look at an answer paper on an adjoining table, or a quick pop outside, ostensibly to have a ciggie, but really to have a quick Google search for an answer via a smart phone!
Without giving anything away, our team are now quite well versed in the art of Black Propaganda and disseminating false information. It was quite amusing a quiz back to see that a team alongside us had changed their answers as a result of our antics before final marking!
Anyway, a good time was had by all, our team members were all three pounds and fifty pence better off each, although I think that soon found it’s way back across the bar. But as we always say, it’s the taking part that’s important, rather than the winning. It’s a small, but important, part of our village life and long may it continue!
AMAZING bargains for the UK!
