A Good Reason to Love England: Pub Quiz Night

How can it be that we have lived here for over a year, and I only just experienced my first Pub Quiz Night? I am so disappointed thinking of all the random evenings we spent at home, when we could have found a baby sitter and played - no, competed in a pub quiz!

I went with some of the British girls I know - this is a thoroughly British affair, so you need at least one person with the right accent at your table for credibility. I can't even remember the name of our team - something about chocolate, I'm sure - and now that the questions have all been asked and answered, I'm sad that I didn't at least contribute some creative ideas for our name, since I was totally sub-par on the "general knowledge" of the quiz.

First of all, there's a Pub Quiz Caller (I really wanted Matthew to think of a better name, but he thinks Caller is right - it's a Bingo Caller, so why not Pub Quiz too??), and our dude was pretty into his role, rolling his 'r's for emphasis and everything. He could have given Alex Trebek a run for his money.

And second of all, I thought it would be more of a 'yell-out-the-answer-as-soon-as-you-know-it' event ---- don't even think about it! They give you a piece of paper, and you have to confer with your table mates about the answer.

 
I made my rookie-ness obvious when I used my phone to take some photos, including some of the seriously intense team behind me, and my friends quickly stopped me for fear we would be accused of cheating! Seriously?! Who would cheat at a pub quiz, and secondly, who would care if someone else was cheating! :) 

The points are tallied at the end (you have to swap papers with another team, for honesty's sake) and the only people who win a 'prize' (read: stale candy) are the losers! The team that won is clearly the same team that wins every week, and when their name was announced, every other team booed.

The questions were, as you can expect, awesome.

• Name the manager of the 1968 Manchester United team. We actually had an answer to this, because I said to our group, "Who knows this kind of stuff??" and my friend Kate said, "Sam would", referring to her husband. So we wrote down, "Sam Wood." We were wrong.
• A "hairstreak" is a type of what species? We guessed deer (!) but were so, so wrong. Here is the answer. 
• Who was assassinated by Nathuram Godse in 1948? At first our team was all, 'maybe it's someone Israeli, because wasn't there a war there in 1948?' but then I said, "Godse? That sounds Indian. Maybe it's Gandhi?" and it totally was Gandhi! I am so proud of me.
• What booze is in a carbonade flamande? And for bonus points, from which region is this booze? We seriously guessed on this - cognac and France were both wrong, wrong, wrong. 
• From what seed does mace come? I was only half-surprised when my friend Liz knew the answer. Liz is the kind of gal who just knows all kinds of random stuff.
• Who discovered the vaccine for rabies? I actually knew this one, but having dismayed my group with all my other inane answers, they left it blank.(If you had heard some of my suggestions, or rather, long silences when the question was asked, you might not have believed me either.) If you think you know the answer, check here!

The best thing about Pub Quiz Night was the recommendation to have "proper cider". I drank a pint of Old Rosie, and since I wasn't contributing anything productive to our group's answer sheet, I had a second cheeky pint. And then I almost fell over, because Good Old Rosie is 7.3% alcohol. Yay Pub Quiz Night!