Reg's Quiz

I’ve just got in from the quiz in the rugby club. How does he do it ? Reg produced a quiz which, while it didn’t recycle many of his old questions, showed him falling into several of the traps which can spoil a quiz, and yet he still received a massive cheer at the end, far bigger than any other question master ever receives at the quiz. And I was cheering as loud as anyone else.

To be fair, we did get a rare win over a full Lemurs team, which was sealed when we outscored them by a point each on questions and pictures. But it wasn’t just that. Still, let’s look at those pitfalls first.
* Getting an answer wrong.
It doesn’t matter how many times you ask who was the first person to reach the North Pole, the answer will never be Roald Amundsen – which was the answer that Reg gave. I guess that he’s been watching stuff on telly about the race to the South Pole, this being the 100th anniversary, and put North rather than South by mistake. But it’s the kind of mistake you really want to avoid.
* Asking for two definitive answers to a question, when there are at least 3.
Reg asked – which two men of God have been played on film by Charlton Heston. Moses came immediately. So did Cardinal Richelieu from The Three Musketeers. Then John the Baptist from The Greatest Story Ever Told came too and upset the whole apple cart. As it worked out we gave the two Reg wanted, with Moses and John the Baptist. Which explains why we beat Lemurs by one point, since they went for Richelieu.
* Concentrating on topics you like to the detriment of others
Reg likes 1950s/60s epic films, and so there were quite a lot of these tonight, and in fact a general overloading of entertainment questions.

Well, I could go on, but that’ll give you a flavor. Except that it won’t give you the flavour of the evening. There’s something about Reg, something so appealing that the quiz regulars in the rugby club will forgive him anything. Actually that’s not true. The more things tend to go wrong, the more they like it. Case in point. After round 3, Reg announced that he’d actually left one of his rounds at home. Cue much laughter, cheering, general good-old-Reg – ing. To be fair to Reg as well, there was a halfway decent quiz in there struggling to get out. For example, he asked us which resort had Britain’s first ever no-smoking beach. Now, maybe that’s common knowledge round your way, but I have to confess that I didn’t know it was Bournemouth. Good question.

Well, as I say, we won – cue polite applause – and then Brian thanked Billy for scoring – more applause – and Reg for doing the quiz – standing ovation. They were telling Reg he’d given us all a good evening, and indeed he had. Then Brian announced that I’m doing the quiz for next week. You could practically hear the tumbleweeds rolling down Main Street. Oh well.