Never on Sunday? Well, not quite.

Hi, It’s me again. No, sorry, I don’t come bearing news of when our favourite quiz shows will be starting again. Surely it won’t be that long – I know that the Olympics affects the BBC schedules but I wouldn’t be surprised if Quizzy Mondays aren’t that far away.

Well, things sure have changed on Walton’s Mountain in 2024, folks. Since my last post I bit the bullet and wrote my letter to my headteacher with my intention to retire. I’ve claimed my full teacher’s pension which is due to start soon. Which doesn’t have very much to do with this post but a little scene setting adds a bit of texture to a post, don’t you think? No? Oh well, soldier on.

Back in June was my 60^th birthday. My family threw a party at the rugby club, at the heart of which was a quiz, compiled by Jess and Dan. Lots of people who are very dear to me came, including two of my old Heads of Department from the late, lamented Cwrt Sart School. In particular my mate Curig, who I have seen on maybe two or three occasions since he retired from school in 2012. We’ve exchanged Facebook messages a couple of times and then last week he invited me to play with him in a quiz in a pub in Pontardawe yesterday.

I haven’t played in a Sunday quiz since before lockdown, and yes, this was a conscious decision. My friend John and I throughout the 2010s had fought a losing battle to find a Sunday quiz to play in where the locals wouldn’t mind it too much if we won more often than, well, let’s call a spade a spade, more often than anyone else. It so often happened that we’d find a quiz, and go along one Sunday and try it out. On these occasions we’d win more often than not. Generally the locals would be great about this. Then when we went back the next week and did the same they would be only slightly less great. After a month or two they would not be great about it at all. They would often not even pretend to be gruntled. Some would be noticeably disgruntled. It wouldn’t matter if we refused the prize. If you make a bloke feel intellectually inadequate in his own local, especially if you’re not a regular yourself, then you are on very thin ice.

So I stopped going out on a Sunday. Up until the late twenty teens I’d always had a bullish attitude to this sort of thing – I win a lot of pub quizzes and league quizzes because I’ve made myself into a good enough quizzer over the years to do so. If you want to beat me on a consistent basis, then put the work in to make yourself into a good enough quizzer to do so, and I’ll also give you respect for doing so. – But while there’s individual situations where sheer bloody-mindedness can bring you rewards, in the long run it often turns from being admirable persistence to self-defeating stubbornness. I’d got to the stage when wining a quiz brought me little or not pleasure, and losing a quiz ruined my whole week, and that’s not healthy.

I’d begun my retrenching before lockdown. Retiring from the Bridgend Quiz League was a start, and that was followed not long afterwards by stopping going out on a Sunday. I’d even tailed off going to the rugby club quiz on a Thursday. Then lockdown happened. I don’t want to say much about lockdown because Covid was an absolute tragedy where thousands and thousands of people lost their lives and families were torn apart. Anyone whose family was not touched in this way should just give thanks in whichever way they know best. If you’ve followed the blog  since 2021 then you’ll know that I did pick up quizzing again. There’s been the weekly quiz in the Rugby Club, the monthly film quiz in the Gwyn Hall and on very rare occasions a midweek quiz with one or more of my kids.

So, the Sunday Quiz last night. First of all, Curig couldn’t make it! Okay, that’s life. I didn’t find that out until after I got there. I stayed because I knew he QM from a few years back. In the early-mid noughties I was asked to play for a pub in Pontardawe in the Swansea Independent Quiz League. Steve was the landlord and also team captain. So after the guy Steve asked to give out pens and collect in entry money saw me sitting on my own he offered me to join a team. I refused, although to my credit I did not tell him the reason namely that I didn’t want to have to waste time and energy explaining why their answer was wrong and mine was right. In the end he ignored me completely and dragged this other newbie over.

Fair play to Terry, he didn’t know a great deal, but he knew that he didn’t know a great deal and so didn’t argue with me, which was fine by me. Not very nice of me, but I’d rather tell you the truth.

After round 1 we had a three point lead. Now, I don’t really like picture quizzes very much. I think that they don’t really test knowledge as much as they test recognition, and I’m sorry, but one blonde actress/singer tends to look much like another to me. But at least last night’s picture quiz did reward a little more than just recognition. For example, one of the 10 pictures showed the Pentagon building and asked – In which state is this building? To which the average player will answer Washington, confusing Washington state with Washington DC (which is not the answer anyway!) Another picture showed the Mount Rushmore Monument and asked in which state this could be found. We were also helped by a photograph of Marble Arch, asking in which city it could be found. The team whose answers we marked went for Paris with the Arc de Triomphe and I bet most others did too. We dropped just one point on the second round, so I was pretty sure we’d won.

Several teams tied for second place with 77. We won with 91. And don’t get me wrong, a win is always nice, but this is the kind of thing that sets alarm bells ringing with me. Steve told me that they normally have a different winning team every week. There’s no way that I want to upset this. And I have to conclude that based on the evidence of last night, I’d win here more often than not. So I kind of hope that Curig doesn’t invite me for next Sunday, which I could do, and leaves it until after I come back from holiday.