It's Been A Year

Yep, it's been a complete year since we first won the Mucky Pup pub quiz!

And I remember it very well. I arrived a bit later than usual, having done the Independent crossword on the train. Charlie arrived very late and ended up on a bar stool. The picture round had photos of famous people when they were kids. We thought Maggie Thatcher was either Trinny or Susannah. We thought Germaine Greer was Maggie Thatcher.

I remember it very well for another reason too. Having that total feeling of "wow" pretty much constantly over the course of the evening. A feeling that's still right here. Being totally amazed and enthralled. Awe inspired, and quite interested. For talks of angry dolphins, Adam, Stan, folding mechanisms and killing Phil Collins that were still to come.

Just wish I'd won this evening to commemorate it properly!

Mucky Pup Quiz Night

Just a quick posting to say that tomorrow night (Wednesday 24th October) I will be the quiz master at the Mucky Pup. Nick and Debs are both unavailable for the evening and they've left the event in my less than capable hands.

So come along and laugh as I probably give the answers out along with the questions and then try to pretend it was a multiple choice question anyway.

I Rock! I Really Do Rock!

Sorry for the self-congratulatory tone of this post, but I've just got back from the Mucky Pup quiz, and I won!

Yep, not "we won", I won. By FIVE clear points!

Due to none of the rest of the usual suspects turning up this week, I decided to give it a go by myself. With the team name "The Sound Of One Man Clapping" I paid my £1.50 in, and came out with £25 and a super-inflated ego.

I must have done surprisingly well in the second half as I was in joint fourth after the first two rounds (despite doing reasonably well, I'd thought) three points off the leaders (a team of two called "Bono Is A Twat") who actually ended up fifth.

There's no grand point to this, just me being very pleased with myself. w00t!!!

Virgin In Quiz Win Shock

Congratulations to our team who won spectacularly well at the Mucky Pup quiz. We were ably assisted by Rebecca/Dave (and I know, it's odd that two girls I know called Rebecca both have male names) whose knowledge of shoes and girl singers (two rounds the rest of us would have struggled on) and odd songs from the 60s virtually guaranteed our win.

Additional kudos to Charlie who pretty much single handedly got the somewhat cryptic picture round.

Me and Jamie just made up the numbers and looked pretty this week.

The Mucky Pup Quiz

Went down to Islington again last night - missed last week due to being in Wales on work business - and was joined by Jamie. Our team of two fought bravely to be joint first at the half, but eventually ended up second by 7 points. Normally, I'd have been delighted with this, seeing as the winning team had five people to our two.

However, I'd been watching the team who eventually beat us from early in the first half. Normally I wouldn't, but as it was unusually quiet this week I could see pretty much everyone quite easily. From my vantage point I was convinced that one of their team was cheating and using his phone to get answers. When he then pulled out a large tube map to find out which four stations on the Underground have the word "Saint" in them, I had my suspicions confirmed.

But generally, I guess I was pleased with the result. Apart from Jamie missing his last train home and leaving his phone and wallet in the taxi before he eventually got to mine to crash on the sofa at nearly 2.30am.

Beaten By An Eastender, Apparently

In my on-going quest for pub quizzes, I went to one at the Maid Of Muswell last night, with Rach Kitchen, her friend Alistair and Rach & Adam Tedesco.

I got there first - at about 7.15pm - and nabbed the last remaining table in the bar (it's not that big a pub), which happened to be right in front of where the quiz master was seated. Everyone else arrives, there's chatting, beer (too many as it happens) and then at about 8.30pm, the quiz starts.

Some of the rounds this week were related to Mother's Day (so had the word Mom or Mum in them, or parts of the answers could follow the word Mother). Did reasonably well, although I felt there were a few too many religious questions. None of us knew what "Irish Moss" was (and it's nothing to do with religion btw), nor did we know which TV Chef's mother was called Peppy.

So the answers are given out and everybody marks everybody else's papers. We are then stunned to discover we're joint seventh(!) out of about 13 teams. So after the quiz I ask to see our answer sheet. First of all, our totals for round 4 & 5 are both incorrect (two more points to us) and secondly, one of our answers that was correct in round two was marked as being wrong (another point to us). Turns out we're actually joint third. Which is much better.

Still miles off first, though. The winning team, who had Billy from Eastenders in (but I barely recognised) and someone who used to be in Eastenders (who I failed completely to recognise) got a frankly unbelievable 60 out of 65. And 5 of those 65 you only get if you get all ten right in the last round. I shouted "Google, Google" when their score was read out. Then had to explain to them I hadn't been shouting "Loser, Loser" at them.

But I think we'll be going back there in a couple of weeks to see what the quiz is like then, as the quiz master told us he was planning on changing the format.

Tomorrow it's the Mucky Pup quiz again, then next Tuesday I'm going to try the one at the Ranelagh despite them poisoning me twice out of the past five times I've been there.

Coming Second

Nothing vulgar, it just seems appropriate.

Came 2nd in the quiz last night after a couple of weeks of not doing very well at all. The regulars (me, Suzi and Jamie) were joined by first-timers Nat & Ryan, and between us we got all of the picture round correct. The usual shambles in the music round contributed to us failing to win, but a decent second place earned us £10 and a bottle of wine.

Newcastle came 2nd last night as well. Only in much more shambolic style.

Second Amongst Quiz Teams, First Amongst Normal People.

As you can probably guess, we came second in the Mucky Pup quiz. Which was a fine result all round and a great team effort. Special mention for Suzi, who despite not being born in the UK like the rest of the team, was absolutely brilliant at the marathon round which involved saying what dot on a map related to which place name (and this is trickier than you might think, particularly in the Midlands). And a further special mention for not killing the guy sat behind her who kept banging into her chair.

The overall winners of the quiz, or weirdos as I like to think of them, not content with Nick's quiz, actually had their own quiz amongst themselves afterwards! Freaks the lot of them.

Winning Quiz Team Name

"I Bet That You Look Good On Rohypnol"

Easy target (Arctic Monkeys + Date Rape drug) won £5! Didn't do too well in the actual quiz itself, mind. Still, there was only the two of us, and the one that wasn't me is originally from Botswana, so not particularly good at knowing who Trevor & Simon are.

Finally!

After many, many weeks of trying, we finally won the Mucky Pup pub quiz last night!

At the end of the first half we were about fourth or fifth, behind the brilliantly named "Quiz Team Aguillera", despite us only getting four questions wrong. The marathon round this week was photos of famous people when they were young. We did pretty badly at this - but not as badly as everyone else as it turned out.

Some of the ones we got right were a young Eminem and a young David Frost (who looked a lot like Mark E. Smith does now). Some of the ones we got wrong were spectacular. Zoe Ball? Nope, Leonardo di Caprio. Jimmy Hill? No, that would be John Cleese. Margaret Thatcher? No, that is Germaine Greer. Her off Trinny & Susannah? No, *that* is Margaret Thatcher. My favourite of the evening though was one we thought was; Maureen off "Driving School"; Anne Robinson, or, Ann Widdicombe. That would be a young Demi Moore...

There's some of the pictures (including the Demi Moore one) here

Music round went fairly well, and we pretty much cleaned up on the final round - Teen Pop Bands. A fantastic team effort getting the names of all the members of The Monkees, only let down by Hanson's insistence that "Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good" was by the Beach Boys.

Anyway, £60 between 6 of us, isn't a bad return.

Another Dismal Quiz Display.

After coming fifth by myself last week, I was hoping that having Hanson with me would actually help. It didn't and we came seventh. That said, we did win £5 as we had the funniest team name "Evil Super Villain seeks; Romance, Poetry, Walks and World Domination". But financially we did better than we've ever done, up £1 each.