Been a while
since I posted something which isn’t about a quiz show, hasn’t it? It’s not
because I haven’t been quizzing either, but, well, I’m conscious that I do end
up repeating myself a lot, and so without anything that new to say about
quizzing I’ve tended not to say anything.
It all goes
back to last Sunday. Now, I’ve thought long and hard about whether I should
actually bring this up on the blog or not, but enough vacillating, and here we
go. After all the unpleasantness at the Twelve Knights a few months ago John
and I haven’t been back to it, and have only gone to the other Sunday night
quiz once a fortnight. We never take the prize if we win, but even so by only
going once a fortnight it means that other teams can win at least every other
quiz. As it happens the people in the quiz we go to are absolutely lovely, and
I’ve an awful lot of time for them – but nonetheless we’ve had enough
experiences in the past where we’ve seen the other teams’ attitudes towards us
start benignly and eventually go sour over a period of time that I don’t want
to risk it happening through overkill.
Time was,
maybe 20 odd years ago, when you could pick and choose between pubs which had a
home made quiz on a Sunday evening. I don’t know what it’s like round your way,
but in my part of South Wales when you find one now you want to cherish it.
What I do find, though, is that when I find one, sooner or later I’ll get asked
if I’ll make a quiz for one of the Sundays. Not that I mind this at all.
However, a couple of months ago I was asked in this Sunday quiz if I could
produce one, and so I did. I wrote it to the standard of the easiest kind of
quiz I ever do for Aberavon Rugby club. Nobody was at all nasty about it when I
asked the questions in the pub, but in all honesty looking at the scores it
proved to be too hard for that pub. Surprisingly they asked if I’d so another
one a few weeks later, and so I did. This one I made even easier. It was still
too hard. Then again I was asked if I’d do last Sunday’s quiz for them. I went
out of my way to include the easiest questions I could this side of an insult
to the intelligence. The scores were still lower than they usually are in
pretty much any other quiz in the pub.
Now I want
to stress this next point. It has nothing to do with the intelligence of the
teams who play there. Just chat with them for a few minutes and you’ll soon see
that. For another thing, they do better on every other quiz I play in in the
pub as well, which I don’t tend to think are any easier than the one I produced
on Sunday. For example, the winning team on Sunday scored 26 out of a possible
37. OK, not so bad, but it is when you think they are normally at about 30 out
of 35. All I can think of is that I just haven’t clicked with what sort of
thing I need to be asking. Maybe.
Does it
matter? Well, everyone who’s played in one of the 3 quizzes has been perfectly
nice and kind about it, but it matters to me. You see my philosophy about
setting a pub quiz is that you’re not trying to beat the teams – you’re not
trying to find out what they don’t know, they’re trying to find out what they
do know. I don’t want people coming up after the quiz saying ‘I’ve never heard
of t etc. etc.’ I want people saying ‘ I was really pleased with myself for
getting that one right’. Well, it’s just something I have to work on. As for
this week, well it will be my turn on Thursday to be question master at the
rugby club. Now, if I get that one wrong, then I really will be unhappy. Watch
this space.
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