12 Month Anniversary

Well, we’ve made it, you and me. Sometimes it wasn’t easy. Sometimes it wasn’t even the least bit interesting, but we did it. It’s been a full year since I revived the blog. Yippee. For the record, not including this one I’ve made 142 posts since 26^th August 2021. That’s comfortably more than 2 posts a week.

So, what’s the big story today? Awww – you know exactly what it’s going to be. The quiz at the club last night. If we won, then I would have won every quiz that I have played in for a full 12 months. Now, if this isn’t a story of mine that you are following – and who would blame you if it isn’t – I think that I should stress that I have only played in the Thursday night quiz in the rugby club, some of the monthly film quizzes in the Gwyn Hall, and three times in the Tuesday night quiz in the 6 Bells in Coity. With the Gwyn Hall it is Adam, Fran, Dan and Jess who do all the heavy lifting, while I’m really catching a ride on their coat tails. With the Rugby Club, only one of those wins was in a quiz where one of the other teams boasted a serious quizzer. Nonetheless, when you consider all that can go wrong for you in a given quiz – basically any team can win given the right set of circumstances, and any team can lose given the wrong set of circumstances – I’d be lying if I said there was no sense of achievement at all.

I’d like to think that I can stop counting now. Because, and I’ve said this before, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we lost a quiz in the club now. But there’s the rub. How do you do it? How do you bring that situation about? Oh, don’t get me wrong, we are going to lose. But when will that be? I do not know, says the big bell of Bow. It’s hard, because I just find I can’t not try. I’ve said before that although I give many wrong answers, I don’t do so deliberately, and I can’t do so deliberately. But it’s even worse than that. I find that I can’t not try. I’ll give you an example. Last night we were asked for the name of the novelist who occasionally aids Hercules Poirot in his cases. Now, I don’t watch Poirot – that’s my wife’s department. She was there last night as my mother in law is in town and wanted to come as well. Neither of them could remember. The easiest thing would have been to just say – well, we don’t know – and leave it blank. But I kept cudgelling my brain, trying to remember from all the times Poirot has been on – and the name Ariadne surfaced. I wrote it down. I could have just left it as the first name, and then bemoaned my bad luck as getting so close but not close enough for the point. My mind wouldn’t let me. I kept up with the cudgelling and a faint echo fo the name Oliver surfaced. I shoved it down. Point gained. Now, at this point we were comfortably ahead and highly unlikely to lose. It didn’t matter in the great scheme of things, but I couldn’t stop myself from acting like it did.

I think that my son in law Dan has the same attitude too. Case in point, we were asked – why was Rachel Blackmore in the news in 2021? – I knew that I asked this in the New Year quiz, but I also knew that it had gone out of my memory. Dan did the cudgelling thing himself, and he came up with that she won the Grand National. Well, the horse did a fair bit of the work, but you know what I mean.

As a team we all had a good night, I think. Adam had a couple of corkers, and in round 6 or 7, out of 10 questions Jess had three of them nobody else had. Mrs. Clark had a couple, and I’m not trying to be mean when I say that this was something of a first for her. Alright I am being mean. Jen, my mother in law had at least one as well. We’ll be a similar sized team next week. I say only similar sized, because Dan is actually question master next week. Which means we get the music round – yay. Love the music round. I have no intention of doing one next time I do a quiz, whenever that may be, but I do love the music round.

So, if you’ve been with me during he past 12 months, all I can do is thank you very much, and promise I will do my best to keep going for the next 12 months.