What Have You Learned? Summarise in no more than 350 words

I mentioned to a friend in passing a couple of days ago that having done my first stint as QM in the summer holiday of 1995, this month has seen the 28^th anniversary of the first quiz I compiled. Somehow it seems fitting that I was QM on Thursday last. In fact it was a pretty close run thing. There was traffic on the M4 – well, that’s the usual state of affairs, I meant there was non-moving traffic on the M4 – come to think of it that’s quite a usual state of affairs as well. Pip and Ollie and I stopped a few times on the way from Worthing to Port Talbot to ride a couple of trains as it happened, and we didn’t cross the bridge until gone 6. That’s by the by.

Still, when I mentioned this auspicious anniversary I was asked this question – well, what would you say you’ve learned through compiling all those quizzes over the years? Blimey, what a question. I fobbed the questioner off with ‘I’ll have to have a think about that and get back to you. “ Well, I’ve thunk about it and this is what I’ve come up with:-

·       Most obviously, I’ve learned a lot of answers to quiz questions I would otherwise never have known. It’s made me better at weak areas and areas of knowledge I was never interested in for their own sake.

·       I’ve also learned about quizzes and how they work, and gained something of an insight into the question setter’s intentions. This too has helped make me a better quizzer. I have no doubt that, as decent a quizzer as I was by 1995, I would never have reached the podium in finals of 3 of the greatest and toughest broadcast quizzes and twice become Brain of Mensa if I hadn’t been a question master.

·       It’s taught me something about the sheer joy that can be shared in a good question – something I’ve also used in the day job as a teacher when possible.

·       It’s taught me how little I actually know which is a salutary lesson for anyone.

·       It’s made me even more of a pedant than I already was – which is probably not quite so salutary.

What it hasn’t necessarily taught me is to be more tolerant of other question masters, and that’s something I would really like to work on.