Pub Quiz

This week I’ve been to a pub quiz.

My girlfriend had been telling me about this pub quiz for months. “It’s great, Ryan. You go in and the first round is a picture round. It’s likely this week’s one will be about the Oscars. You’ll be good at that- you know your films. Then they’ll be some general knowledge questions. They have a break in the middle where they give out Pulled Pork rolls. The meat is exquisite. But the rolls are something else. A good roll can really elevate a sandwich can’t it? Take it from being food and transpose it into art. Don’t you think? Then, there’s the music round. They play 10 seconds from a tune and you have to guess what it is. You’ll be good at that, Ry. After, we’re back to questions on current affairs, so revise Today and Newsbeat this week. Cover both stations, Ry. We have to be political and populist if we want to take home the prize. The biggest mistake people make is to think reading the broadsheets is enough. They forget that it’s General Knowledge, not Question Time. I mean we’re not trying to negotiate a ceasefire in Donetsk; we’re trying to win a meal in a pub. It’s a nice quiz though, Ry. All the money raised goes to a charity. So we can feel doubly good when we win.”

Now I was excited.

The pub quiz I usually attend has no such variety. The quiz is read by a listless Scotsman, who doesn’t so much present the questions but filibusters them. His pace so stately he could profit by offering tours around it. He reads the fifty questions, one after the after, with an enthusiasm that suggests he’s doing it against his will. My theory about him is this: I’m guessing that following a charisma bypass he's been on long-term sick. Subsequently Atos, the disability OFSTED, have come along and declared him fit for work. Hence, his position as weekly quizmaster. Alas, a man who has had his personality removed is now forced to perform a role that requires one. Another victim of the Coalition’s attack on the unemployed.

I arrived at the quiz with my girlfriend. I was going to be on a team with her family. Now this brings pressure. You don’t want to appear too smart and too much of a know-it-all. Because let’s face it: pub quizzes are socialist only on the surface. They’re quasi-co-operative. In reality everyone’s acting out of self-interest, praying their intelligence holds up. So if you answer all the questions and single-handedly secure your team a meal voucher, don’t expect to be invited to that meal. Expect to be exiled and not invited to your own wedding. Likewise, you don’t want to get too many questions wrong. That will make the parents think their daughter has gone into the dating bookies and backed a dumb horse.

It is for that reason – and that reason alone – why I was so mediocre in the pub quiz. I couldn’t have been more mediocre if I tried. After unraveling William Pitt The Younger from the Prime Minister’s anagram round, I was worried that I was going to look too smart. So from then on – intentionally – I answered a few questions wrong. To an onlooker, I would have looked like a simpleton. Like a six foot waste of university education. In reality, I was playing the fool. I mean who in their right mind would answer the question, "Complete the famous phrase: ‘All roads lead to …" with the answer "the motorway."

 Imagine saying that seriously in front of prospective in-laws.