QuizList

Lots of new quizzes to report and also quite a few changes to the listings, which I won’t detail but just be sure to check as far as you can before setting out because things change all the time.  And many thanks to everyone who sent new quizzes, changes and cancellations in – maybe my call for help on this has been answered.  So here arethe new ones:

The Commercial,  212 Railton Road, SE24 0JT, 020 7733 8783, has a Monday quiz.  This is run by no less than former Big Brother contestant Seanie.

The Marquess Tavern, 32 Canonbury Street, N1 2TB, 020 7354 2975 has  started a Tuesday quiz.  Here are some of the details:

The Marquess Tavern quiz is every Tuesday from 8pm and only costs £1 for 40 general knowledge questions. First place wins the jackpot and other prizes vary from a bar tab to bottle of wine to chocolates for things like best team name and tie breakers. Prizes will get bigger and better as our crowd grows.  We also sell extra tickets for a final rollover question. If the number drawn gets a question wrong the jackpot rolls over to the next week (good way to get people to return!).

 The Social, 5 Little Portland Street, London, W1W 7JD, 020 7636 4992,  offers a quiz on the second Thursday of every month and here’s the blurb:

LET’S GET QUIZZICAL at The Social.
Free entry. Free to play
No dress code, no posers.
Opens 7. Quiz starts at 8.30
Dancing till 1am
Tables, first come first served.
 
Maybe it was the dismal quiz I was at last Monday where every round surpassed the previous one in terms of studiedly (is there such a word?) uninteresting questions that got me thinking about defining in more detail what makes a crap quiz.  Then I moved on to trying to work out a formula for an index score of crapness.   

The way I see it, the Quiz Crap Index (QCI) could be the following:
Number of questions about the QM’s pet topics;
multiplied by number of times there have been suspicious results in this particular quiz;
plus number of Mister (Bastard) Men picture rounds.

Obviously, the higher the score the worse the quiz. Now, I think that gives a pretty good indication of overall dismality (another neologism?) and I am only debating whether the number of times there have been suspicious results should be divided by the number of times you have been at that quiz.  On balance, no;  because,  this is the one thing that can’t be forgiven.

Once you have accepted the notion of a Crapness Index (CI), you find you can apply it to many things.  For instance, the CI of a particular geographical area might be derived by the following:
Number of branches of Nando’s;
plus number of closed-down pubs (bad sign);
multiplied by number of pavement cyclists you see within five minutes.

The CI of a Hollywood movie might be:
Number of mawkish words used to describe/sell it;
multiplied by number of car chase scenes;
plus an extra 10 for the presence of any of the following:  Dustin Hoffman, Joe Pesci, Nicolas Cage, Robin Williams, and Meryl Streep. If the last of these is doing one of her funny accents, add 20.

I could go on, but I’m supposed to be working.  Have fun making up your own CI formulae and send me the best!

Next update on or before Saturday 6 March:  I’m going away (explanation of post title).

Two bits of news from QL readers today.  The first is the restarting of:

The Rose and Crown, Stoke Newington Church Street, N16 9ES, on Tuesday nights starting at 8.30.

And no more Balham Tup…  I did say when the recession started that I would find it difficult to keep up with pub closures, and asked people to notify me of as many as possible.  I wonder whether this means the chill winds of change are blowing around the other Tup pubs?

On a couple of occasions people have asked me to have a ‘Wicked Whispers’ column or feature on QL, dishing the dirt on whoever.  I would say this could only end in tears, particularly for me, but I will let you know of one of NC’s suggestions – he wanted me to ask ‘Which Quizmaster was drunk in charge of a quiz a couple of weeks ago?’  I’ll have to leave you ponder on that.

Quizzes where the QM is intoxicated are, in fact, not that infrequent and provide some unforgettable moments.  Who will ever forget the question on ‘electrif-if-fication’ in a Camden town quiz pub, followed swiftly by the barman grabbing the microphone and bravely trying to ask the rest of the questions?  Or the Highgate hostelry where the QM fell up the stairs?  Or the North London pub where two guys who could not even speak or stand…  Sorry, on the last one my memory is playing me false.  They, in fact, were the team who beat us….

It’s Linksville this week, as I bring you news of efforts to organise the biggest pub quiz in the world – some links here:

http://www.bigpubquiz.org/repository/file/33/content_file.pdf
http://pressitt.com/smnr/
help-smash-the-record-for-the-worlds-biggest-pub-quiz/735/

Also, Water Aid’s supporters are trying to have some input to pub quizzes in London on Monday 22  March:  mail me if you are interested in involving your quiz in this initiative and I’ll forward this onwards. www.wateraid.org/uk/

And most changes in the daily listings this week are due to a very kind QuizList reader who checked out a few Monday quizzes for all our benefit, as the result of which I have managed to delete a couple and move others to their correct night of the week.  A big thank you for that!

Have a look also at a helpful Evening Standard article about some more unusual types of quizzes. I’m very interested in the literary one myself and have put the details into ‘One Off Quizzes’:  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23800894-your-fashion-starter-for-ten.do.

From last week’s cliffhanger, you didn’t guess Roy Cropper, the soap quizzer par excellence?  Must try harder…

New quizzes to know about:

O’Neill’s, 65 Cannon Street, EC4N 5AA.  Mondays at 6.30, £2 per person entry, cash prize plus spot prizes.  Yes, that’s the O’Neill’s chain which boasts the wonderful Smithwicks on draught, best ale in the world.

The Cuckoo, 115 Hemingford Road, N1 1BZ, boasts a new not-so-Fat Controller quiz on Monday evenings, 8pm , with a prize of a meal (for one).  Eddie the n-s-F-C will keep us posted on how this develops.

And check One-Off quizzes for details of EIA’s Year of the Tiger Charity Quiz Night, taking place on Thursday 11 February in Tiger Tiger in Haymarket, in aid of – you guessed it – tigers.

For some reason I got to thinking about what tv or film characters you might meet at pub quizzes, and here’s what I came up with.  Not all of these have actually participated in quizzes, but they represent some of the kind of characters you meet along the way.  Here we go:

Ian Beale (‘Enders):  the kind of person who will stop at nothing to win, just to prove a point.

Mr Garrison (South Park):  someone with a seemingly baffling private life, who has displayed an intimate knowledge of certain tv programmes.

Ken Barlow (Corrie):  not at all boring slightly avuncular older person who doesn’t know as much as he thinks.

McManus (Oz):  someone with an unjustified belief that their liberal intelligentsia credentials makes them good at quizzes.  I seem to remember McM getting a rude awakening on ‘Up the Ante’.

The Fat Slags (Viz, but I may be hallucinating to think they were on tv or film):  nothing at all to do with their figures but their endless ‘na-hah-hah’ing may sometimes be heard at quizzes…

Harry Potter: deeply annoying little twerp who seems to know everything and takes the high moral ground to boot.

Frank Gallagher (Shameless):  yes, folks, I have lost to characters as drunk as that, in a place not a million miles from the village…

But there is one tv character who above all epitomises a certain quiz type, with his endless facts, his equally (to Mr Garrison) mystifying private life, and his slightly on-the-spectrum presentation – who is it?  Answer next week, guesses to me (just for fun)…  cue dramatic music and closing credits!

This week is all about quizmasters.  Now, for a change this doesn’t signal a rant about how awful some of them are, but more about what resources exist and how to find a pub which might want your services.

Some of you will know my day job, some don’t;  in the course of it I sometimes venture into prisons and secure units and once I was asked by someone in one of these settings  ’what do you need to work in your profession?’  My reply was ‘a brass neck’ – not to do with the people you meet there but the frequently objectionable other professionals you encounter.  I would say the same about quizmastering;  don’t go into the area if you’re going to be overly sensitive about criticism of your fab questions and barracking about your accent etc.    The late Professor Propellorhead’s article on this site, http://quizlist.com/articles/thoughts-of-a-quizmaster/, will give you some indication of what to expect;  and we also have Bible John’s dos and don’ts: http://quizlist.com/articles/bible-johns-guide-to-a-good-pub-quiz/.

Quizmastering is a profession you can enter with very little investment – as regards the tools of the trade, all you need is questions (easily obtainable from the Web – see, for instance, this link http://www.quiz-media.co.uk/partners/id/115_6), answer sheets, and access to a microphone.  But how do you find a pub that wants your services as a QM?  The best way is word of mouth – ask other QMs, ask locals about which pubs used to do quizzes and might be interested in re-starting them, and best of all, ask those seasoned pub quiz teams that you just know spend (part of) the week trawling round other quizzes where there might be a ‘vacancy’ coming up.

Now, of course, there are some websites which (formally or informally) offer a matching service for QMs looking for a pub and pubs looking for a QM.  For a start, you can always mail QuizList and I’ll do my best to match QMs and pubs up.  I’m also thinking of creating an area where I can post these details which should remove the need for me to forward mails back and forth, and I will speak to Carl who is the technical genius on this site about doing this.  Will keep you posted. The redoubtable Dr Paul’s mine of quiz information did, I believe, also set out to offer this service, and has details of a book which will help would-be quizmasters  http://www.quiz-media.co.uk/partners/id/115_1.

Another correspondent’s  useful blog on ‘Today in History’ also has some quizmastering facts and a link to a book called ‘The Easy Quizmaster’:  http://todaysthedayquiz.blogspot.com/.

This is only scratching the surface of what’s available – let me know of any good resources I’ve missed.  Quizmasters – keep doing those quizzes, we do appreciate your efforts even though we don’t say it,  but for god’s sake please don’t download that picture round with Mr (Bastard) Men on it ever again…