QuizList

… and quizzing has definitely hit its summer lull.  I was at only one regular quiz this week and numbers were well down; I hear from my mates who go to a lot more that numbers were down in other venues as well.  Start of the summer holidays, some good weather, and sport (I suppose).

I keep trying to update the list and note that the Spoons on Colney Hatch Lane has changed its name to ‘Keenans’ - looks a bit brighter but as regards quizzes I’m not sure whether anything is running at present.  Here’s the only new (to me) quiz I’ve been notified about:

The Hurlingham, 360 Wandsworth Bridge Road, Fulham, SW6 2TZ, 020 76109816.

and frustratingly I don’t even know the night of the week…

The prize for best team name given out at a charity quiz I was at was awarded to:  ‘667 - the Neighbour of the Beast’.  What’s the consensus on that?

Let’s just consider quizmasters and -mistresses for a while.  There are many good ones (and speaking of which, I hear Pat who used to do the Oxford Arms in Camden Town has a new quiz, but my informant neglected to memorise the location…) but there are some who are drunk on their own little bit of power and influence and who have broken many a quiz and quiz-player’s will.

Here are, from my point of view, is the countdown of the top five crap quizmasters and their comments.

5.    Only at 5, largely because I didn’t witness it, was the female QM who berated a good team for ‘taking money from my boys’ (ie students who sometimes attended the quiz).  However, I did witness her refusing to give out prize money because the person who went up to claim a winning score  was not the person who had purchased the quiz sheet. Good riddance to that quiz.

4.    At 4 is the QM’s uncle (apparently), who was doing the scoring (badly), and when I queried his addition on our sheet he said ‘If I’ve scored you wrong I’ve scored everyone wrong, so get lost’.

3.    At 3, higher because he was usually terrible and I encountered No 4 only once, is the QM who, again when we queried our score, said ‘You’ve been given a score for the round and that’s it’.

2.    At 2, and  it would have been top just for the sheer awfulness of No 1, is the QM who offered a joker on all rounds but then decided to add an extra question to Round 3, given teams who had picked that round in advance a distinct advantage. When I objected he said ‘Who cares - you’re not going to win anyway’.

1.    And yes - nothing can beat number 1.  The scene was described in a post a couple of weeks ago - when the drunks won the quiz.  A mild debate broke out about a football question (why is sport so controversial?) and the QM said ‘Well, even if I had marked you right on that, you still wouldn’t have won’.  That opened the doors and I made a comment about the ‘winning’ team who seemed to have obtained their answers from the cosmos somewhere.  Thing is, if it had just been that night, it might have passed by and been chalked down to experience, but we went back a few weeks later and were screwed even worse;  that was described in a very recent post though I made no connection between the two nights.  I’m not quite sure which of his comments is the worst, but possibly his saying ‘Welcome back’ when we returned for the second time is the most insincere - the ones listed above were just stupid semi-bullying comments, basically.

So that’s quizzing’s rich tapestry, nothing new this week and check whether Sunday is football-affected this week…

Back from a largely quiz-free zone, with news of a Wednesday night quiz:

The Stinging Nettle,
55 Goldhawk Road,
W12 8QP.
(020) 8743 3016.
Some Dublin quizzes are listed on this site, but many go off for the ’summer’. I will indicate the ones which appear to do this but it’s worth checking around September if there are any pubs of particular interest to you.

Firstly, this is the last post until approx 21 June, as I’m going away.

Secondly, we have two newly notified quizzes in East and North London:

Nightingale, 51 Nightingale Lane, E11 2E, 020 8530 4540 (Monday quiz).

Clifton, 96 Clifton Hill, NW8 0JT, 020 7372 3427 (Wednesday quiz).

Lastly, and this is nothing to do with either of the quizzes mentioned above or others visible in recent posts, we have:

QuizList Quizmaster’s Guide on How to Fix a Quiz So Your Mates Win.

Rule 1: Let one of them come up while you are marking the sheets and engage you in a long discussion, during which it is possible that a couple of answers are changed.

Rule 2: If they have left a blank space for one of the answers, write the correct answer in, using the same pen you use to mark the quiz.

Rule 3: If you’ve asked a question about a music group, and their answer is wrong but is a rough synonym for the group’s name (e.g you wanted the answer ‘The Ruts’ and they’ve put ‘The Furrows’), mark it right.

Rule 4: Cross out their total score and write in a higher total.

Rule 5: If you’ve done all that and it’s still only enough to put them in a tiebreak, improvise.

Rule 6: Finally, show your contempt for all other teams by leaving the answer sheets lying around the pub.

And for those of you who wanted me to say more: sorry, but that’s it… maybe one day we’ll return to the topic of the quiz night where all that happened.

Obviously the south-west of London is where it’s all happening quiz-wise. It would be nice to hear a report of any of those listed below.

Well, I said I’d write about the awful quiz we were at some time ago, but as I left it a few weeks, its awfulness might be fading. Started well: expensive drinks but okay bar, friendly quizmaster, interesting questions, even a music/entertainment round which we had dreaded (for some reason) was fine. Because of where I was sitting I was more aware than my team mates of a few drunk guys to our right, permanently on mobile phones (and also outside when smoking) and making a big racket about some of the answers. Alarm bells started ringing when the answers were read out and they cheered virtually every single one… then, strangely enough, they were announced as the winners. ‘Oh, XXX doesn’t look too pleased’, one of them shouted, referring to someone sitting near me.

At that stage another punter went up to the QM and complained and she may have used the dreaded ‘c’ word (cheating). Things were made worse when the victorious team loudly demanded ‘their’ winnings a couple of times and then announced to the pub in general ‘We’ll be back next week to take your money again!’.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. I haven’t seen anything as blatant as this since the early days of mobile phones. If the noisy team weren’t actually obtaining answers I don’t see how they won, given the state they were in and that they were acting like people who had never played a quiz in their life. Of course, like the other punter, I stupidly felt obliged to say something to the QM and got some blustering in return. Reminds me of the time I said something to a bus driver about someone causing trouble on the bus and his reply was ‘Actually, you’re the only one giving me hassle’. Come to think of it, he didn’t say ‘actually’, as his vocabulary probably didn’t rise to words of three syllables.

Friends are prepared to give the quiz another chance so we shall see…