Quiz night

Our usual monthly expats took a quizical turn this week, Ian decided to treat us to pub quiz.
Some months Expats might only 4 or so of us die hards, drinking and chatting the evening away but the promise of something different enticed most of bookgroup to come along to Lulus, so the effect was that there were more than 20 of us making up 7 teams ready to play for prizes provided by Leslie behind the bar.

It's been a while since I took part in a quiz of any kind and although I will confess to being rather competitive I will also admit to my shortcomings, my general knowledge is rubbish (I usually rely on Simon ( who has a sponge like ability to absorb and retain trivia) to hide my ignorance) or as I commented on FB - my knowledge in general is rubbish. So despite looking forward to a quiz night I was also a little hesitant, did I really want all my expat friends to see the extent of my ignorance?

Sneakily, when it came to making up teams I blagged my way into 3 Lions which consisted of my German teacher Muna (who is gorgeous but hideously intelligent with an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things film) and Kamesh who may in theory be equally clever but who when it comes to general knowledge turns out to be no better than me...in fact he might even be worse...

Ian's quiz followed a bingo style format, which took at least 3 explanations before our team understood what we were supposed to do. We were all presented with a grid of 25 squares and told to write the answer to each question in any of the boxes (remembering to put the number of the question in the box as well - quite important that bit) then the answers would be read out in a random order (is that right? Can one really write 'random order'...?) The first team to get a row of answers (horizontal or vertical) or all 4 corners correct would win a prize, and then the team with the most correct woud win the top prize. Still with me?

What gave the quiz an amusing twist was the fact that there were many different nationalities (Venezuelan, Mexican, Indian, German, American, English) taking part in what was an English pub quiz although everyone would pass as a native English speaker (with the exception of the Yanks that is!!)

I wont bore you with all the questions but here are the ones that caused the most entertainment, for various reasons:

- by what name is a chinese gooseberry commonly known? To which Marianne asked "what's a gooseberry?" (she's Mexican/German/American or some combination) The answer of course is kiwi fruit (we put Lychee...my fault, although neither of the others had a different suggestion.

- what breed of dog is Scooby Doo? I hadn't got a clue but when Muna was writing 'Danish Dog' (it must be the literal English translation of the German) it clicked that obviously he's a Great Dane.

- in what American state is the Grand Canyon? The Americans were all pretty smug as the rest of us debated where the hell it was. Muna & I both said Arizona but were over-ruled by Kamesh who declared it was definitely in Colorado...as I said earlier, his general knowledge is no better than mine, because of course although the Colorado River flows along the bottom of it, the Grand Canyon is actually in Arizona.

- what does a camponologist do? We had no idea, Muna wanted it to be something to do with maps but I pointed out that that's cartology, we put stamp collecting and then changed it to watchmaking knowing that neither was right...Emma in another team turns out to be a closet god botherer and so knew immediately that the answer was bell ringer.

- who is Maurice Micklewhite better known as. Another question to which we had no clue. Kind of ironic really seeing as earlier in the day Muna and I had been talking about books we were planning to read, next on her list is the autobiography of Michael Caine - I'm sure if she'd only read the first page we'd have got that one right!

- what was the maiden name of Prince William's bride, Catherine? Brought a howl of laughter from the assembled as most of the teams had had at least one person watching the wedding at my house on April 29th!

- who is Stefani Germanotta better known as? We were unsure and one third of our team was out of the room at the time, so I scribbled the name down and then for some reason wrote Lady Gaga. Muna came back and disagreed with the answer but couldn't think of a better answer. Good job, because Gaga it was!

We ended up being the first team to get 5 questions in a row correct (black, Middleton, John Steinbeck, Great Dane, Pink) and so won a prize (margaritas and a bowl of tortillas and salsa) didn't win the overall prize of getting the most questions right though as we only got 16/25 whilst Emma, Michelle, Lawrence and Trudie got a whopping 22 - brainy swots!

All in all it was a great night out, the quiz was entertaining and didn't take up the whole of the evening so that we had enough time to chat before, during and after! Looking forward to the next one already!

Thanks Ian!



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