The Ghost of Christmas Quiz Past

Are you one of those people who enjoy a good moan that Christmas decorations seem to be going up in the streets earlier and earlier each year? What? Me? . . . Might be. Well, it’s maybe a sign of old age and increasing grumpy old gittiness that makes me wonder whether the Christmas themed questions start going up in pub quizzes each year?

Probably not, although I did note that I wrote on the same subject in the blog some fourteen years ago! That was about attending a specially themed Christmas quiz in the last week in November – the very same week we are about to embark upon now. My memories of that quiz are a wee bit hazy, and mostly centre on the fact that our captain was a friend we nicknamed Alan the Bookie. It’s not much of a nickname bearing in mind that a) his name was Alan, and b) he was a bookie. Nobody calls me Dave the teacher, well not that I know of anyway. Other less complimentary nicknames, yes, but I digress. Being blunt, if not downright rude, Alan was not much of a quizzer. However he liked other people to think he was. Which is why, when a charity quiz like the one in question came along, he’d pad out his team with ringers like me and my mate John. Which is fine. There have been times when I have been made distinctly uncomfortable by being made a ringer guest player in a cup semi-final, which I had been told was a normal league match, but for the most part I’ve derived a little bit of pleasure from it. It’s not big and it’s not clever, but I have.

Well, as I said, Alan the Bookie liked other people to think he was a champion quizzer. So as the quiz progressed, every time I came up with an answer he’d respond ‘yeah, I know that’. Which stared to get on my wick. So after half time, when the QM asked a question A the B clearly didn’t know the answer to I’d say “You know that one don’t you?” To which he’d say ‘ Yes . . . but what was it again?” or some such.

Well, there we are. Christmas is a time of peace on Earth and goodwill to all, but I a Christmas quiz sometimes not so much. Coming back to the question I began with, I suppose I should confess that I haven’t noticed any Christmas questions creeping into the quiz at the cub. Yet. There won’t be any Christmas questions on Thursday for the entirely logical reason that there won’t be any quiz at all on Thursday. Apparently the rugby club want to stage a rugby match – whoever heard of such a thing? Thin end of the wedge if you ask me.

No longer a chestnut

I’ll be honest with you, I was at a little bit of a loss as to what I was going to write about in this Sunday’s more general post. I’ve settled down to writing about Mastermind on Monday, and University Challenge on Tuesday, and that’s easy enough, and then doing this more general thing on a Sunday.

I did start musing on a subject I’ve written about before, more than once if truth be told, the themed ‘Christmas Quiz’. I haven’t been to one yet this year, but who’s to say that next Thursday’s won’t be? One stray thought that occurred to me is that one question that won’t be asked is “What is the biggest selling UK single never to get to number 1 in the UK?” As I’m sure you know, it used to feature in Christmas quizzes, because the answer was Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’. Until right at the end of 2020. All of which begs the question – which is NOW the best selling single never to get to number 1 in the UK? My far from extensive research suggests that this may well be “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera. Yeah, you’re right, it really doesn’t work as a Christmas question now, does it?

In case you’re feeling sorry for Wham! , don’t feel too bad. Yeah, ‘Last Christmas’ is not now the highest selling UK single never to be number 1 in the UK. However, it now IS the single which took the longest time between its original release and reaching the number 1 slot. Prior to this Tony Christie’s ‘(Is this the way to) Amarillo’ held the record at an impressive 33 years. ‘Last Christmas’ took 36.

I did have a think about other similar venerable quiz chestnuts which have had to be changed or abandoned. To be honest, I didn’t come up with much. Gerd Muller was the world cup’s top goal scorer for 34 years, I believe until overtaken by Ronaldo of Brazil in 2006. Ronaldo himself only held the record for 8 years before being overtaken by Miroslav Klose. Another sporting one which occurs is Jim Laker being the only man to take all 10 wickets in a test, lasting from 1956 until early 1999 when Anil Kumble equalled the feat. Then Sir Garfield Sobers was the only man to hit 6 sixes in a first class over from 1968 until 1985 when Ravi Shastri did it. But then records, by their very nature are there to be broken – apart from being ‘the first’, I suppose.