Thumbs Up to Pollice Verso

I’m sure that you already know that the presidents of gladiatorial games in Ancient Rome, Emperors and other members of the imperial family and the gentry (probably) never used a thumbs down gesture to indicate that the loser of a contest would not be having the chance of going for the best out of three. Instead, the gesture used was possibly the thumb sticking out to the side, indicative of the fatal slash about to be made to the loser’s throat. The reason why the thumbs down myth gained the traction that it has is largely due to a 19th century painting by Jean-Leon Gerome. There was a print of it up in one of the rooms in my primary school – which probably tells a lot of what you need to know about the English primary school in the early 70s. The title of the painting is Pollice Verso – or – Thumb Turned (often give as thumbs down.)

You know, I do find it very interesting the way our memories can use pegs to hold on to juicy bits of information. For a long time I’ve known that hallux and pollex were medical names for big toe and thumb. It was a pair of league questions that did the rounds for quite a long time. But which was which? It was one of those pairs where I would often get confused between the two. Until I remembered Pollice Verso – Pollice clearly being derived from Pollex – which made it a case of thumbs up from me to thumbs down.

When it’s followed by a Bank Holiday I play in a Sunday evening quiz in Pontardawe with my friends Curig and Sian. I can’t do it when I’m working the next day – on a work night if I don’t get to bed by 10pm at the latest then I’m good for nothing the next day. Curig was my head of department at work for many a long year. Sian wasn’t. Sian was a nurse, and so when we were asked “What is the hallux?” she immediately leapt in with ‘Bunion.” Which is actually a good example of knowing too much. For a hallux valgas is a bunion, which kind of makes sense when you know what a bunion is. I insisted on big toe. Just as well it was right. Could have been a nasty moment.

Coming back to recall and memory pegs, one other question we were asked was – Who was the Chancellor of Germany from 1998 – 2005? Now, I will admit that as soon as the first five words of the question were asked I was thinking “Willy Brandt”. As soon as the rest of the question was asked I knew it was Gerhard Schröder. “I think I know, “ said Curig. “It’s not Willy Brandt.” I replied. He’s a good mate so I can get away with acting like a cock like this sometimes. Interestingly the team next to us, who came second, also put down Willy Brandt. Who was never Chancellor of reunified Germany, only West Germany, and had been so a good thirty years prior to the dates given. But – give the number of times that a question containing the words Chancellor and Germany does want the answer of Willy Brandt, it’s a very understandable answer to give.

Incidentally, ‘Pollice Verso’ inspired the director Sir Ridley Scott to make the film “Gladiator” in which Joaquin Phoenix’ emperor Commodus is seen using the thumbs down gesture. A case of art imitating art, I suppose. Print the legend.

Let's Make a Wrong'Un

What links these two questions? A) Who played the saxophone solo on Gerry Rafferty’s mega hit “Baker Street?” B) What were the original names of the pirate underlings in “Captain Pugwash?”

Well, as I’m sure you know, they are questions which both have very popular wrong 'urban myth' answers. The saxophone solo on “Baker Street” was played by Raphael ‘Raff’ Ravenscroft. The pirate underlings of Captain Pugwash were Seaman Willy, Seaman Barnabas, Master Mate and Tom the Cabin Boy. Ah yes, but if you’ve been going to quizzes as long as I have you’ll have been told by a question master that the late Bob Holness played the sax on Baker Street, and that the original names of the pirates were Seaman Staines, Master Bates and Roger he Cabin Boy. Of course, he didn’t and they weren’t. You may even know that Stuart Maconie once claimed to have started the Bob Holness business, and Victor Lewis-Smith claimed the Pugwash prank.

In an idle moment over his bank holiday weekend, I did have a fleeting wish to have created one of this sort of non-question myself, and watched it spread throughout quizdom. It isn’t easy. For one thing, you’d have to have something plausible. Although to be honest, this preliminary hurdle is surely one that should have unseated the rider of the Pugwash question. For another thing, there needs to be the ‘no-really?!’ factor about the invented fact. What I mean by this is it’s the sort of thing which is so interesting that I makes you go ‘No? Really?!” when you first hear it. As a question master, you know that the first time that you ask it, it’s going to go down a storm. So what if it might not necessarily be true? After all, it MIGHT be.

It must be admitted that it is far easier to fact check in 2025 than it was when I made my first quiz in 1995. For example, Mozart was only four feet 9 inches tall. It would take you less than 30 seconds to disprove his with Google. Pre-internet it wasn’t so easy. But then that wouldn’t really have the No Really factor anyway. So let’s try a little harder. In 1981 Smokey Robinson, who was topping the charts with his song “Being with You” performed the Tweets’ Birdie’s Song on Top of the Pops when one member of the band was taken sick, donning the costume and miming along. – It’s utter cobblers – although I have been told that certain famous pop stars did at one time or another don Womble suits on Top of the Pops when invited by Mike Batt just for the hell of it. So, as I said, utter cobblers and so I urge you to try it in the next quiz you compile – Motown legend Smokey Robinson appeared on Top of the Pops in May 1981 with his hit “Being With You.” He also put on a mask and costume so that he could perform on which one hit wonder on the same show?

Yes! Let’s make it happen.

Never on Sunday take two

Jess and Dan popped round about 6pm yesterday.  They said they were going to a local quiz we’ve never been to before at 8 and would I like to join them. Now, had it been tonight instead I would probably have declined, since I’m off on this summer’s sketching trip in the early hours of tomorrow morning. It’s a mega trip too – 2 nights in Dublin, then five nights in New York City, then one more night in Dublin. Combined 60^th birthday and retirement present, and the reason why I won’t be posting on Quizzy Monday 12^th August for quite a few days. However, I digress and back to last night.

Now, I haven’t mentioned where it was and to be honest I don’t think I’m going to. Yes, I am going to be churlish and negative about it. You see, it somehow managed to be much less than the sum of its parts and for anyone wanting to make their own quiz and host their own quiz it was an interesting demonstration of the pitfalls that you can fall into if you’re not careful.

Timing

We players last night got a lot for our money – which was £1 per player as it happened. See what you think. We were given – a handout with 20 dingbats representing superheroes. Another handout with 20 dingbats representing book titles. Another handout with 12 questions in two groups, both of which were linked by connections. Then four rounds of 20 general knowledge questions each. As a rule of thumb I like more questions rather than fewer questions so this was fine by me. Okay. The thing is though, it does make it necessary to run a pretty tight ship in order to get through it all in a reasonable time. Last night’s QM didn’t start handing anything out until gone 20 past eight, and then he allowed what must have been a good half hour to allow teams time to do all the handouts. Then there was a long break after two rounds. Then another long break between round four and swapping the papers. I would say you could have trimmed anything up to an hour off the quiz and it would have been better for it.

Bad Questions

In which year – yes, there are only so many times you should ever ask an ‘in which year’ question in one evening. One seems optimum to me. There were too many in his one.

What name did so and so and such and such give their baby?

How many eggs does an average hen lay in a given year?

Funnily enough the answer to all of those questions is who bloody cares? Test my knowledge by all means but don’t ask me to play guessing games.

Wording of Questions

If you’ve played in a range of quizzes with different question masters then you’ll know that some are better at this than others are. Last night’s was certainly not the worst. But he really wasn’t great. Case in point – what is the correct full name of the character played by David Jason in Only Fools and Horses. The answer he gave – Del Boy Trotter. Now the thing is he asked for the CORRECT Full name. Hey look, I’ve been around a bit so I put Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter, but there was a bit of a furore and I have to say I was on the protestors’ side. He made it worse when he tried to say that he had made it clear that he wanted the Del Boy name – he didn’t. Not quite as bad as Dai Norwich insisting that Genesis had recorded “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” because , and I quote “I was listening to it earlier today.” Not far off though.

See what you think of this one. Which University was attended by Stephen Hawking? Right here’s the facts – he did his bachelor’s degree at University College Oxford, and his PhD at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. So the correct answer is both. Which is what I put. What’s more I even specified he did his first degree at Oxford and his PhD at Cambridge, What answer did the QM give? Cambridge. In a way I could have understood it if he’d said Oxford, being his first.

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Now, before I make my last point, I’d better explain that we did actually win. Our original score was given as 94. – Are you sure? – I asked the team that marked it. They sheepishly realised that they had not added on a handout score, which gave us 114. Bearing in mind the difficulty of the dingbats and connections – and we only dropped two points on them all – I felt we’d probably win comfortably. No, the second placed team had 111. There are a number of explanations – I don’t know he quiz well enough to suggest how they might have done so well.

a)There isn’t a very thriving competitive quiz scene in Port Talbot and surroundings but it’s possible that he other team are just a very good team who only play in his quiz.

b)Its quite possible that the same questions get recycled a lot in this quiz, so what might be difficult to newbie teams might be very well known to the regulars.

c)Maybe there was what we could euphemistically call some sympathetic marking between teams.

Who knows? Not me. Cheating? Not impossible, certainly, especially bearing in mind there was a cash prize, but if anyone was cheating they didn’t do THAT good a job of it.

However, despite winning the money I think that all four of us were rather disappointed. I’ve made some suggestions why in the comments above. Personally I think it was more the timing and the funereal pace than anything. I much prefer it when a QM is well versed in the fine art of getting the hell on with it.

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.

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.

Quiz in Aberdare

What, me? No, I don’t. I’ve done it once in the last five years, and that was a couple of years ago. Hey, stop that. Wash your minds out with soap. What I mean is going to a new quiz I haven’t played in before, as a ringer.

I wasn’t planning to do so on Tuesday night, either. This is how it all came about. A few weeks ago my middle daughter Zara moved to Aberdare where she was moving in with her partner Matt. On Tuesday afternoon she rang up Jess and asked if her and Dan wanted to go to try out a quiz in Zara and Matt’s. Poor old Dan is suffering from a nasty cold at the moment, and he’s trying to make sure he is well enough to come to the quiz tonight. I hope so. It won’t be the same without him. Jess doesn’t drive, so to cut a long story short she asked if I wanted to go.

Now my answer should probably have been – lovely idea, but not on a school night. There was a time when I could get to bed as late as 11:30 on a school night and be fine for a day’s teaching afterwards. Not now. I figured out quite a few years ago now that this particular kite ain’t going to fly no more. Or to put it another way, I need to be in bed by 10:30 on a school night, and 10 pm is even better. It’s one reason why I stopped going to the rugby club. Then they moved the start earlier, and away we went.

However, it is a long time – probably a couple of years – since I played in a quiz which is completely new to me. And what can I tell you – I fancied having a go. So off we went. Now, it may be that you’re not familiar with Aberdare. With the state of the road network between Neath and Aberdare being in a bit of a state of flux at the moment, it currently takes about 40 minutes to get there from Port Talbot. It’s worth going, because the centre of Aberdare really is rather charming. (Cut the travelogue and tell us about the quiz, Dave.)

So the quiz started at 8:30 in the Bute Arms in Aberdare. Lovely pub. I think that the question master probably put it together himself. We began with 5 in the news questions, then 15 general knowledge. Then a music round of 15 questions took us to half time. I have to be honest, I thought that the QM did a good job with the music round, having pop questions a few of which went back as far as 1960, and even a couple on classical music.

By half time we had 29 out of 35. The QM announced the scores from 5^th upwards. Third place was on about 19. Then he announced the second place team were on 28. This caused them a little bit of consternation. Jess went to the bar to get a round, and one or two of them gave her a wee bit of an inquisition. Jess is a bit of an old hand at this game now, and she gave them the ‘no, we just had a couple of lucky guesses (we didn’t, there was no luck involved in them at all) we’ll probably crash and burn in the second half’ you know the sort of thing. Obviously I don’t know, but I’d guess that judging by their score they probably win every week and aren’t used to facing a real challenge.

After the break then, round four consisted of 15 on Film and TV. We took 14. Then the QM announced that this week’s ‘guest’ round was – drum roll please – food and drink. Apparently the first four rounds are always the same category but the last could be anything, it changes each time. It really isn’t our best subject, but thankfully many of them were obvious or were old quiz stagers and we took 12. Which gave us a grand total of 29 and 25 for 54.

The QM lost a little of my sympathy for drawing out the announcing of the results. After all we all knew it was a two-horse race. The third placed team’s score was announced – low 40s I think. Then in second, with 50 and a half points, the team which we had christened The Hairy Bikers. Alright, we didn’t know if they actually were bikers, but they were certainly hairy enough. So we had won. Which meant that Zara and Matt now have a tab behind the bar of £40 to spend howsoever they wish.

I can kind of see why the hairy ones were upset, which they were. After all, it’s a heady thing is being the top dog in the quiz in your own backyard, and you get used to it. When a team comes from nowhere and knocks you off your perch at the first attempt it can be hard to take, especially if you’ve already mentally spent the £40 prize. It can make you start questioning the legitimacy of the winners’ performance. Now, we were in plain sight of all the other teams and the QM for the whole quiz so they could all see that we weren’t using phones. I have to say though, the way that one of the Bikers bellowed at the QM “What was their score ? WHAT WAS THEIR SCORE ?!” was not in the best traditions of sportsmanship.

We had a brief chat with the question master before we left. He said how nice it was to have a new team come, and said he hoped we’d come again. Oh dear. There’s no way that I could do this again during term time. Honestly, I was like a dishrag all Wednesday – and not in a good way either. It was just gone 11pm when I got back, and I’ve been paying for it since. Not only that though. Even if it was an option, I know what would happen if we did start coming on a regular basis. I’m not saying that we would win every week. I think we’d probably win enough though that within a few weeks the comments about ‘only come here for the quiz’ ‘bloody quiz professionals’ and the like would start, and a really rather nasty atmosphere would develop. I’m not just saying this, it is something I’ve had too much experience of over the last few years.

So there we are. A one off it will remain. Thanks Bute Arms, but trust me, it’s better that it ends this way for both of us, in the long run.

I guess you should never say never

I am officially a man of straw. I posted this on the blog on 2th October last year –

“My son Mike played in a quiz in Coity in Bridgend last Tuesday. His team came second, and he told me that when they had a chat with the team who won, my name reared its ugly head. I’m not exactly sure how – but it did, and the other team’s reaction was words to the effect of ‘Oh God, he’s not going to start coming here, is he?” According to Mike they calmed down a bit and seemed mollified when Mike told them that I hadn’t been invited, and even if I had I probably wouldn’t come because I only go to one quiz anymore, and I’d only started going back to that one recently. Mike reckoned that they’d been part of the Bridgend Quiz League during the years I’d played from 2010-16. Their argument went something like this – “This is just a nice friendly quiz, and nobody takes it that seriously.” Then it went something like this – “If he came we’d never have a chance of winning.” Honestly, I’m not making this up or embellishing it to big myself up, this is what they actually said.

You know, I have a nasty little metaphorical quiz devil that pops up on my shoulder sometimes and whispers suggestions in my ear. Nowadays I rarely listen to it, but there was a time when, If I’d been told something like this, then I would have made a point of going to the quiz the next time it was on. Yes, I’d have justified it to myself with the observation that there was a disconnect between their two statements and that if nobody takes it that seriously then you wouldn’t care if you don’t win. There was a time when I’d have said that if winning matters that much to you, then start learning stuff, make yourself a better player and increase your chances that way, rather than just hoping that a better team never turn up. But that was then. Now, I can honestly say that I hope they enjoy the quiz, and I promise that I won’t be there.”

I had a phonecall last week. All of Mike’s team were unable to play on Tuesday, and would I like to come and play? I did think about before agreeing. However it was guaranteed that I would be home by bedtime – absolute latest being 10:30 on a school night. And it was going to be a one-off, Mike’s own team coming back to play next week. So what the hell?

So it was a team made up entirely of members of my family – Mike, me, son-in-law Dan and daughters Zara and Jess. It wasn’t bad at all, either, 6 rounds of 10 questions, and a picture handout. Each round had a linking theme I think, and we came a cropper on ‘the Queen in from 2000 to 2012’ I think. Thankfully I think all of the other teams must have come a cropper on that round too. I think that with in the news questions, they have a very limited shelf life. Just because something is newsworthy now, it doesn’t mean that it will be at all remembered 10 or more years later.

Yeah, alright, we won, pretty comfortably. Thankfully the Bridgend league players didn’t get upset because they weren’t there. So I think I’ll get away with it as a one off.

Time was when I would go to three quizzes a week on schoolday evenings, an even do a fourth if I could find one. Not now. Granted there was parents evening in school on Monday. To put that into context, imagine doing a full day’s work. Then having a 20 minute break, then starting again and doing another three hours work on top of that. After Monday I was exhausted at work for the rest of the week, and so going out on Tuesday wasn’t the smartest decision that I’ve ever made. By my reckoning I have a good 2 and a half years left before I can think about finishing, and so while I’m still teaching I can’t see me regularly doing more than just the one quiz a week.

Pub Quizzes and me

I don’t write much about the pub quizzes I play in any more, do I? Well, that’s partly because I don’t play much in pub quizzes any more. For a long time I was playing the Bridgend League on a Monday night, the rugby club on a Thursday night, and a range of different pub quizzes on a Sunday night. Go back a few years further, and I would often play on a Tuesday and/or Wednesday.

One of the main reasons I don’t keep up this schedule any more is that I can’t. If I’m not in bed by 10:30 at the latest, then I really struggle in work the next day – sad but true. John and I stopped going out on a Sunday a couple of years ago. Basically, you find a new pub quiz. You go along, and the first time, people are lovely and welcoming. You win and everyone seems happy for you. Win 4 times in a row and it’s a different story. I just got to the  point when I didn’t want the bad feeling any more.

As for the league in Bridgend, I really enjoyed playing in it for 7 years or so. However, I didn’t really enjoy playing last year all that much – I wasn’t even going to play in the season, but our friend and teammate Brian passed away, so I stepped in. I didn’t want to carry on playing begrudging the time, and so I quit at the end of last season. 

Which just leaves the rugby club. I’ve been going since the summer of 1995, playing or setting quizzes, and there’s always been a good reason why I haven’t been able to go – being out of the country – work – whatever. In the last 12 months or so I’ve missed a couple of quizzes simply because I couldn’t be bothered. I don’t tend to post about the rugby club quiz now because, well, I don’t know if anyone in the quiz ever reads the blog, but if anyone does, I wouldn’t want to upset them with my unreasonable gripes and moans. Besides, normally I’ve got over my whinging by the weekend.  

However, I do want to get this moan out of my system. It’s one thing when the question master gets something wrong, and you don’t get a point which you should have had. It’s another thing totally when you dredge your memory, come up with an answer you’re really pleased with, and THEN the question master gives a wrong answer. 

Our question master last Thursday is one who’s quiz I would try hard to avoid missing, and I really like. He usually does an old fashioned type of quiz, where almost everything he asks is within the range of what I think is reasonable to expect a quiz team to be able to at least have a pop at answering. Thursday’s was a bit more way out in some of the questions, but still fun. He asked this question : -

Who did Princess Diana call Squidgy in an intercepted phone call? – well, that was very much the gist of it. Now, you may well, as did I, have noticed the problem with the question. For Diana did not call ANYONE Squidgy in that phone call. She was the one being called Squidgy. Now, the obvious answer would be James Hewitt, since he was the ‘cad’ who had the much publicised affair with Diana to which she admitted in the famous Panorama interview. And to be fair, I wrote his name down at once. Then I had an instant feeling that this was wrong. I dredged my memory, and came up with the name James Gilbey, who I was sure was the James in the phonecall, and it was Gilbey who called Diana Squidgy. 

So I changed my answer to Gilbey. Later checking when I got home revealed that I was correct. Of course, the answer that the question master gave was James Hewitt. 

AS I said, I really like the question master, so I said nowt to him about it – an act of remarkable self control on my part given my past track record. But I’m annoyed – 1) because I didn’t get the point for what I felt was a good feat of memory – 2) I was pretty sure that he was going to give the answer Hewitt, and I didn’t play the man and not the ball.  

Actually, I was remarkably restrained all evening, considering that I was looking over to a nearby team who were matching us point for point, and watching one of their number holding his phone in his lap, looking up answers. All I did was look at their skipper, shake my head and say 'It's not on you know.' I'd like to think that I wouldn't have had a hissy fit if we hadn't won. But we did, so thankfully that wasn't put to the test.

It would be a lot easier if I was nicer, or failing that, just a bad quizzer. . .

I’m not ashamed of it. Well, not very. No, not that, I mean playing online quiz games. When I’m not working or marking, and I’m watching something on the telly with about half of my attention I’ll sometimes play a quiz on the laptop at the same time. If you’ve been with LAM for a few years you may remember previous posts on games like Superbuzzer. I’ll come back to that. Well, I’ve hardly played on Superbuzzer for over half a year, mainly because I’ve been devoting all of my online quizzing time to a game called Quiz Panic. It’s a multiple choice quiz, with the point being to get to the correct answer more quickly than the other players. There are a number of challenges – for example – answer 10 consecutive questions correctly – and when you have completed 10 challenges, then your onscreen character – a ‘quizzy’ – evolves. Look, nobody said this was highly intellectual, right?

The problem is that once you’ve completed 100 challenges, then your quizzy has become as evolved as it is ever going to be. Maybe they’ll expand it at some future time – who knows. However, for now, once you’ve completed 100 challenges, then that’s it. You can still play of course, but there’s no great goal to it other than keeping winning. So of course it’s lost it’s allure. In the last few days I’ve been back to Superbuzzer, and let’s be fair, these few days have reminded me about one of the things that made Quiz Panic more alluring for the last half year or so. On Quiz Panic, there’s no chat.

Put simply, I’d forgotten just how ignorant, rude, and let’s call a spade a spade, vitriolic some of the players on Superbuzzer actually are when you beat them, or in extreme cases, even when you don’t. I’m sorry to say it, but judging by past experience, and by the experience of the last few days, we Brits are among the worst. I mean, it’s inherent in the DNA of pretty much any game that there is at least a chance that you are going to lose. Yes, I hate to lose, especially to lose a quiz, but it’s going to happen from time to time, and if you can’t cope with that, then you’re better off not playing in the first place.

You might say -  ah, yes, well this is just one aspect of the phenomenon by which people will use the supposed anonymity of the internet to say things to other people which they would never dream of saying face to face, and there’s certainly something in that line of argument. I don’t say for one moment that this is limited to quizzing. Yet in my experience there’s something about quizzing which brings out the petty-mindedness, ignorance and rudeness of a certain type of individual. In the last 18 months or so I’ve stopped going out to pub quizzes, with the exception of the Thursday night quiz in the rugby club. That’s a special case, being that I’m a regular setter, and my team don’t win most weeks. There’s several factors which have resulted in this outcome, but one of them has definitely been the fact that John and I would find a new quiz, and start attending. We’d be welcomed for the first few weeks, but if we won the majority of quizzes for more than a couple of months, then the nastiness would inevitably creep in from at least one of the regular teams and/or the question master(s). A few years ago this only had the effect of spurring me on – the more another team were nasty and made it clear they didn’t want us to keep coming, the more determined I’d be to be back and try to win the next week. Now, though, I don’t need it. Whether it’s fair or not, I don’t want to be the cause of the nastiness and bad feeling any more.

Then there was the business with the league last year. I didn’t write about it at the time, because I didn’t want to risk potentially spreading any more bad feeling. Basically, a resolution was made at last year’s AGM to change the constitution of the League to make a new rule that anyone who a) lived outside the town, and b) had won a national quiz competition would be ineligible to play in the league. As far as I know, I was the only person playing at that time to whom both of these criteria applied. The resolution was defeated, partly because it had not been put forward in the correct fashion, and partly because fewer people were in favour of it than against it. I tried very hard not to treat it personally, and while my ego can even accept that there may well be people out there who just find my personal qualities so objectionable that they have no wish to be in the same room as me for a couple of hours twice a year, I think that the fact that my team completed the league and cup double every year since I joined may have had something to do with it as well. Which is not to say that this success is all down to me at all, for we’re a team, not one individual player. I’d guess that I’m probably a more identifiable target due to the Mastermind thing.

Had this happened three or four years earlier I’d probably have been a bit more bullish about it – along the lines of, look, if you don’t like getting beaten in the league, then why don’t you get better at your quizzing? Do some work for it etc. etc. etc. But the fact is that I used to play in the Neath Quiz League back in the mid and late 90s. That was a league which folded, and it was only years later that I found out that some of the teams quit playing partly because the league was being dominated by one strong team – the one I was a member of. The last thing I want to see is this happening again. So what I said was that I would not play this year. However, that didn’t mean I wanted our team, the Explorers, packing in as well. So I also said that I would drive team members to the matches, ask questions if required, basically do whatever was required to keep the team playing in the league.

This was all well and good for the first few weeks of the season. Terry from the Thursday night quiz in the rugby club agreed to play, and everything seemed ok. However, sadly our friend and long time teammate Brian was taken into hospital, and passed away from a long term illness. We tried to find another player, but to no avail. Frankly, I thought that the idea of us playing with only three players while I looked on would have been ridiculous. So I filled in, and have been doing so since November. We’re now at the stage that with 6 games left to play we only need to win one more to be mathematically certain of winning the league. And don’t get me wrong, that’s not down to me. The team won all of their 5 or 6 league matches without me at the start of the season, and there’s no reason to think that they wouldn’t have won any of the subsequent matches if I hadn’t. But it does worry me that I have not been able to keep my word, and that the underlying perception of what’s happening in the league won’t have been changed by what has happened this season, albeit that we were knocked out of the cup. So I’m wondering if I need to just say – thanks for the fun and the memories – and walk away from the team completely next year. If they can keep it going themselves, as I hope that they can, well and good, but if they can’t, then l maybe just have to accept that. Because if I involve myself in any way, I won’t be able to stop myself from filling in and playing if I’m needed. Let me be clear about this. I don’t want to stop playing, I still enjoy the Monday nights very much. But in all honesty I don’t know if it’s doing the league any good if I continue. I haven’t spoken to the team about this yet, but it’s a conversation I’ll need to have sooner rather than later.

How easy is easy enough?

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. 

Back into Quizzing

I don’t know if you’ve ever had an enforced lay off from quizzing for a couple of weeks, when you’d normally go to two or three quizzes every week, but I find it a very disorientating experience. In the normal run of things, the only thing which would make me miss quizzing for this length of time would be a visit to Spain, and even then I’d get in a crafty quiz if I could find one. I won’t go on about my illness over Christmas – I’m starting to even bore myself about it now – but I worked out the other day that due to said illness I went from the 18^th December right through to the 4^th January without attending a single quiz. That’s worse than famine rations, that’s starvation rations.

It’s just as well I went out on Sunday, though. I wasn’t feeling completely recovered, but knowing that I was definitely going back to work on the Monday I thought that I needed to give myself a little reward, and so attended the quiz in the Fox and Hounds in Blackmill. This is a little gem of a quiz. It’s home made, there’s a small and regular number of teams who attend, who are all very friendly, there’s no prize for the main quiz, and the questions are all pretty wide ranging. My best mate John was still in Hong Kong, so Jessie said she’d come, and so off we went. Now, I say that there’s no prize for the main quiz, and that’s not strictly true. The winning team wins 4 free drinks, but we never take them and always pass them on to the 2^nd placed team. There is also a prize for the jackpot question, though. The jackpot is always a number question.

Last Sunday we were asked what was the total area of Bridgend County in square miles. Now, how should I put this – John is the king of the jackpot question . . . and I’m not. I don’t even live in Bridgend, so I didn’t really have a clue. I thought that if it was about 10 miles long by 10 miles wide, then it would be 100, minus a couple of miles for luck, so I plumped for 98. When the answers were taken in the question master announced –“Well, one of you has obviously heard it before. The answer is 98.4 square miles.” Cue much explanation on my part, but nobody really believed that it was a guess. Oh well.

We won the quiz, which was a nice start to the week, but this was followed by our first Bridgend Quiz League match of 2015, against TyRisha. Every year we seem to have one of those nights after Christmas, and last Monday kind of was too. Everything in the garden was rosy until we came to the individual round. I’m not exactly sure how I did it, but I managed to ensure that although at least one member of the team knew the answer to 3 of our 4 questions, the wrong person was matched to the wrong question, and our lead was practically wiped out. In the end we scraped a draw, and I feel a little sorry for the boys from TyRisha, since, if I’m honest, they probably had the better of the match overall, and we couldn’t have complained if they’d have won. We’ve been drawn against them in the cup quarter final, and they may well fancy their chances in that. Don’t blame them if they do.

On to last night, and the end of year quiz. Ah, when I look back to years gone by – going back maybe 4 or 5 years ago, and way back into the mists of time before that, if my team didn’t win the end of year quiz in the rugby club, then I would feel like sulking for the whole rest of the year. How times change. Maybe three or four years ago we had a couple of teams make a mockery of it by using their phones, and since we stopped that, the relative strengths of the teams have changed. On a good night we’re second best, and there’s no point me crying about it. So while I never thought I’d say this, the fact is that I wasn’t unhappy that we were able to cling on for second place last night. Time was when I would try to spend a few nights preparing just for this quiz, but, I don’t know, life sometimes just seems to get in the way of your quizzing. Enjoyed it though, even though the name ‘Uber’ just wouldn’t come. 

Handout Pet Hates

Going over some old ground here, I know. Last night’s quiz in the rugby club was my first one this month, and very enjoyable it was. However, and I’ve said this before on many occasions, I just don’t really like picture handouts. Howard, who produced last night’s quiz, often does other things instead of picture handouts, and I give him full credit for this. Still, last night he announced that he had been intending to do a dingbats handout (it says yes to me) but since Brian had done one the week before he had put this to one side in favour of pictures. Groan. Yeah, alright, I know full well that the vast majority of people who play in the quiz really like a picture handout and prefer it to any other kind, and a significant number might even say it’s their favourite part of the quiz. Don’t get me wrong – it’s my turn as QM next Thursday, and I shall definitely be using a picture handout – give the people what they want. So as I say, I know I’m in a very small minority who don’t like them.  Still, it is what it is, and there’s not a lot I can do to change it.

Now, as I say, when the handout comes round at the start of the quiz, my heart always sinks when I see that there are photographs on it. And my heart sinks even further when I see that there are a significant number of photographs of celebrities when they were kids or babies. I mean, I find it difficult enough to identify straightforward photos of famous people as they are today. Well, last night’s handout was made up entirely of photos of slebs as kids and babies. Granted, a significant number of them have done the rounds before, as it were, but then even some of them I couldn’t remember. Well, that’s just me. I also find that I really struggle with young women – I’ll rephrase that – I find it difficult to tell one twenty-thirty something film/TV/pop star from another. Oh, and premier league footballers , can’t do them either. Or cricketers. Oh, let’s just go the whole hog here – when it comes to photos, unless they are kings and queens, significant historical figures, pre twentieth century writers, or famous buildings, I’m a bit pants. Am I alone in this? What are other people’s pet hates in quiz handouts, I wonder?