RSS

Contact us

Saturday 22 November 2008

Tough competition

Jeremy Clarke reports on his Low Life

‘Whatever happens,’ said a bloke on the team at the next table rancourously, ‘we mustn’t let the students win.’ I’d not taken part in a pub quiz before and I’d always imagined them to be polite, melancholy affairs. This one, when we arrived ten minutes before the start, was noisy, chaotic and overcrowded. The students were staying at the field-study centre on the outskirts of the village and were out celebrating the end of a project. The locals were annoyed with the students for monopolising most of the tables. Also, perhaps, for being younger, better-looking and better-educated.  Well, an education is one thing, and general knowledge another, and the man spoke for many in his determination to prove to these young students that the accumulated fund of useless information stored in his head was greater than that in theirs. 

Our quiz team had driven over from the next village, a distance of about three miles as the crow flies. You’d think we’d come overland from China via the Silk Route, such was the team at the next table’s surprise at our presence there. We were four: Brian and Rose from next door, me and my Mum. On paper, it was a promising team. Rose knows everything. Anything she doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing. Why she isn’t running the country, I don’t know. Her partner Brian is a keen sailor and knows about the sea. I’m not bad on capital cities and dogs, and my Mum knows a fair bit about God. If all else fails, she can pray for us.

We got off to the worst possible start. The first round was called ‘Doors and Entrances’. The quizmaster came around distributing a sheet of paper to each team. On each sheet were photographs of 16 village front doors. We had to write down, she said, to whom each of the front doors belonged. Of course we hadn’t a damn clue about any of them, not living in their village, and nor had the students. Brian very much resented the self-satisfied looks we were getting from the team of locals on the next table, he said. He had a good mind, he said, to go over and ‘kick some ass’.

More articles from: Jeremy Clarke | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink  |   Comments (1)

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Advertisement

Spectator Business | Apollo Magazine

Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2008 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved