Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Real life | 28 February 2013

Two pedantic nerds should not be allowed to come together in a small space. In any case, the guy who runs quiz night at The Black Swan and I have a history of locking horns.

On Halloween, we had a terrible row about Greek semantics. He asked, ‘What animal would you turn into if you were suffering from lycanthropy?’ I wrote down ‘wolf’ and assured my team that we were on firm ground as I happened to be an avid reader of period horror stories.

But when it came to the marking, the pub quiz compère said the answer was ‘werewolf’ and that we couldn’t have a point for writing wolf. ‘Look here,’ I argued, ‘if you are suffering from the mythical disease of werewolfism you don’t change into a werewolf. You are a werewolf. A werewolf is a man who changes into a wolf, ergo the answer is wolf. Not werewolf.’

We argued this back and forth until everyone in the pub was shouting insults at me. So I had to concede. But I went home that night with a heavy heart, wondering what hope there was for this once great nation when even a Surrey pub quiz compère in tortoiseshell spectacles does not know the exact meaning of lycanthropy. So distressed was I, in fact, that I considered boycotting quiz night. But eventually I weakened and decided to give it another go.

This time, it started well enough, with a round of island-naming, but when we got to Food and Drink there was trouble. The pub quiz compère began describing sauces. ‘Basil, pine nuts, parmesan, olive oil.’

I wrote down ‘Pesto’ and my team mates nodded their approval.

‘Chick peas, tahini…’ I scribbled ‘Hummus’ and my team mates nodded again.

‘Egg yolk, English mustard, white wine vinegar, oil, salt and pepper.

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