Quiz

Saturday night was another quiz night, a friend who's a member of the American Women's Dusseldorf Club (I think that's what they're called) had organised for their group to have an 'International Couples Quiz Night' and as all we had to do was wander down the hill to Lulu's we thought we'd go.

Kick off was slightly delayed due to the quiz master getting lost, in Kettwig (which isn't huge) He rang the bar to say he was outside St Josefhaus and how should he get to us, intructions were given and we waited, and waited. He rang again, still lost, so we sent two husbands out to find him, they headed off up hill from the bar, and then 5 minutes later went past the window in the opposite direction.

The format of the quiz was the same as the one that Ian uses, the bingo style, so the expat regulars (me and Emma) didn't need the explanation of how the quiz worked given by Ve, everyone else looked quite bemused. As usual there were five round of questions, we had wine, holiday destinations, a picture round, trivia and nursery rhymes, here are a few of the questions;

1. which is the largest of the Canary Islands?
2. what colour is the majority of English wine?
3. what substance weighs less as a solid than as a liquid?
4. you're buying tickets for the cinema, is it cheaper to take one friend twice or to take two friends once?
5. along which river are the majority of Germany's vineyards?

I missed the picture round because I had to take an emergency phone call from a 10 year old girl who was reluctant to go to bed without me being there (goodnees knows why, she usually manages it without having her hand held*) I sorted the problem out by having a chat with the babysitter (elder brother) and promised him that I wouldn't make him get out of bed until 11am as long as he put his sister to bed patiently, the way he would with other people's children when he's being paid to do it. My fellow team mates managed the picture round without me, all apart from one question, which I didn't know either - the pictures were all of different board games and merely had to be named, I'd have been able to contribute to that round as well if I hadn't had to stand outside negotiating a peace treaty**.

I had high hopes at the beginning of the evening, managing to get onto Emma's**** team, I should have paid heed to her when her husband defected to the team of two on the next table, claiming they needed him more, Emma said then that he was better than her, and he was - by two whole points. Good job he can't usually make it to quiz nights, truly a force to be reckoned with. We ended up with 20/25, not enough and we weren't first to get either 4 corners or a row, that'll be the last time I get to be on Emma's team I bet, truly ending her winning streak!


1. we put Tenerife (which is correct) and then changed our minds to Gran Canaria, which is clearly a misleading name.
2. white.
3. Simon didn't like the wording of this question, saying it should be about density and not weight, we evenutally put water, which is correct.
4. two friends once of course.
5. Rhine.


* please note that she's not home alone, but in the care of her elder brother.
** when I'm finished with this parenting lark*** the U.N. will be able to make use of my negotiation skills.
*** although I get the impression that parenting is one job with no end date and no 'get out of jail free' card either, just golden handcuffs!
**** at expat quiz nights Emma usually wins, if not a row then the overall quiz, her goal (when Ian was quizmaster) was always to get 25/25, while the rest of us just tried not to get too embarassingly a low number!