Awful Day - A Quiz that made me feel old.

I don’t know if I would have done it on Wednesday, had it not been the fact that I’d had such a bizarre and awful day up to that point. Awful? Well, see what you think. I do my breaktime duty once a week in the school where I teach. On Wednesday I saw two boys down the corridor knocking lumps out of each other. My colleague and I both shouted as we moved rapidly down the corridor but of course the red mist had come upon the two boys and they carried on, as a small crowd formed.

Well, what would you have done? The professional associations probably advise teachers not to risk personal injury by getting between the children fighting, but in all honesty instinct takes over. Your job is to keep the kids safe. So I put myself between the two, hoping that having to go through me would make the more aggressive one back off. Fat chance. He barreled into me, knocking me over. Now, being as it was break time I had my mug of coffee in my hand – lukewarm by this time so no danger to the kids. Still, I ended up on the floor, drenched in coffee and my knee hurting like hell. At first I thought I might have seriously hurt myself, but the pain receded. I got up, the boys had been taken away for the whole incident to be unraveled and sorted out. Adrenaline was now working its magic and I was in a sort of gung-ho, “Yes, of course I shall teach my lessons drenched in coffee, and what’s more, I shall build the school an extension in my lunch hour if you wish!” frame of mind. Thankfully wiser heads prevailed. Cover was provided for my lessons, and it was suggested that if I went home to change then I might well find it hitting me more once the adrenaline had ebbed.

Sorry to shock anyone. But I was one of the lucky ones. I don’t think that either child intended to physically hurt me. However research by my own association shows that a totally shocking and unacceptable percentage of teachers are physically attacked each year in school, and a huge majority of teachers receive verbal abuse. It’s not media hype. It really happens.

So, I got in the car to go home. At the roundabout to get onto the M4 motorway, my car's brakes seized up. By putting my foot to the floor I managed to get the car across the roundabout and park in the nearest car park. This was at about 11:30 am. The AA guy eventually managed to get the car to the garage by about 4pm.

You’ve got the point anyway. Wednesday was not a good day. So I did nearly say no when Dan and Jess invited me to go with them to a quiz in Mumbles. But when Dan said that it stared at 7:30, and we’d be probably home before 10:30 I thought again. The quiz is run by one of Dan’s colleagues at work. £2 entry and the winning team scoops the pot. You know the sort of thing. It did occur to me that there might be tears before bedtime if we won, but that was a bridge we could cross when we got there.

The quiz in Aberdare a couple of weeks ago was a good, honest pub quiz. This one, well, it wasn’t great. I mean it was okay, but had a couple of things working against it. The quiz consisted of four rounds and a handout. The handout was a number – I can’t remember exactly how many – pop and rock group band names rendered in emojis. I would imagine the vast majority of the teams had them all correct like we did. Then the other four rounds began with General Knowledge, and ended with History. In between we had rounds on video games, and then the Spice Girls. In this particular quiz the team with the lowest score chooses a theme for the one of the rounds in the next quiz. Last week two teams tied, and one of them chose video games while the other – you can work it out.

The first thing that grated on me a little bit was the rounds of play your cards right between rounds. Everyone stands up. Dealer draws a card. If you think the next will be higher, put your hands on your head. If you think it will be lower, put them on yer bum. If you’re wrong, you sit down. Last one standing wins a free drink. Okay, it’s not my cup of lapsang souchong, but I can see the appeal to the regulars. The other thing was, if someone gets caught cheating on their phone, then they have to come out and put on a dunce’s hat. This happened once. However, we marked for the cheating team and judging by three or four consecutive great answers, their cheated answers had been allowed to stand. Odd.

Well, look, the first time you go to a new quiz you’re guests and you act on your best behaviour, so we didn’t make a fuss. We still won anyway. The prize was just short of fifty quid, which wasn’t bad. We drank up, checked that the coast was clear, and made a beeline for the door. The postscript was that when Dan went into work and spoke with the question master the next day he said that there had been quite a bit of discontent with our win – who were they? – never seen them before – only came for the quiz – took the money and left straight after – you know the sort of thing. And no, I certainly shan’t be going back any time soon. I didn’t enjoy the quiz that much if truth be told. I didn’t mind that the quiz was full of twenty somethings – good luck to them, they are the future of the pub quiz. But when all is said and done it was no place for an old feller like me.