Ye Olde British Pub Quiz Night

It’s official. Three years in that Californian sunshine as a stay at home mom and I have morphed into an OAP bimbo. A final splurge on the unpacking and I discovered the teenager’s Nintendo DS, and there untouched by time, was Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training game. How could I resist a flutter? Three years ago apparently I had a brain age of 26. Today it was 65.
 

What can be done? I do my best to keep the brain cells ticking over.  I write, I tackle the odd puzzle in the back of Bella, and then of course, there is the treat of my week - Pub Quiz night.

Every Wednesday I make up the numbers with a couple of former neighbours at the pub quiz.  When I used to live in the village, this pub was a quiet sleepy local with a few old regulars propping up the bar. Now once a week it attracts a selection of motley quizzers all eagerly chasing the first prize – a free drink.

Pubs are a unique part of British culture, and I missed them when we were in the US. A pub is not so much a place to drink, it's a social hub, a community centre. Sitting in this pub is like sitting in a friend's front room - without the TV of course (Americans please take note!).

Since taking part, I have learned so much – for example I now know that famous highwayman Dick Turpin was born in the Blue Bell Inn in Hempstead, Essex in 1705 (same question two weeks running) and that Winston Churchill was born two months premature in 1874. It will be forever ingrained on my memory that a bamboo flower only occurs once every 120 years –  a losing tie break question, and when in doubt the answer is inevitably Turkey.  I also now know that absolutely nothing happened in England between  2 and 14 September 1752 when country changed to the Gregorian calendar and the UK lost two weeks.

 

Such useful little gems I can now drop into everyday conversation, but the real reason I go of course is because it’s fun. A few weeks ago the quiz was hi-jacked by a team of six burly strangers. Throughout the course of the evening it became obvious that if these guys were going to become regulars there was absolutely no hope for the rest of us. Who were these people? Where were they from? What’s the fun in knowing all the answers? Was the landlord going to have to revert to loaded localised questions -  name his dog for example - for anyone else to stand a chance of ever winning?

Fortunately this group must have been unimpressed with their low-stakes prize and as yet, have not returned, and I’m proud to say that after three weeks on the trot of being runner up our team finally managed a win. The fact that a regular rival was enjoying a week on the Costa del Sol obviously helped, but I’d like to think brain power had something to do with it. 65 huh!