General Ignorance

I'm pretty good at pub quizzes. When I go to a pub quiz I expect to be there or there abouts when the winners are announced. I started quizzing regularly around 94/95 in Canterbury and I always had this ability to fish answers out that I didn't even know I knew. One case in point was the following question:

Which British composer wrote an aria entitled 'motherfucker'?

Walton, Arnold, Handel? None of them seemed right. From somewhere, at the last minute, I came up with Michael Tippett. It was correct, and from that point on, any answer plucked from nowhere was known by our team as Tippett of the week.

Much of the skill in quizzing is making educated guesses if you don't know the answer. You come up with a shortlist of answers and discount those that don't fit the bill. Often this leaves you with two options invariably including your first thought. In that case you should always go with your first thought. Cognitive scientists will tell you this is because you subconsciously processed the question as soon as you heard it and called on knowledge that is salted away at the back of your mind to come up with the answer. It's not foolproof but you would be suprised at how often following your instinct works.

This all came to mind a few weeks ago when I was at the Northampton Quiz Grand Prix. Pretty much every month the creme de la creme of the quizzing world (plus me) get together in a different part of the country to take part in some intensive competition. You start with the individual competition: 6 genres, 30 questions per genre, 80 minutes to complete your answers. Yes we really do sit exams for fun! Your worst genre score gets dropped leaving you with a score out of 150. I had my worst grand Prix performance in terms of score and ended up just on the downward slope near the top of the bell curve (approx 40th out of 62). But there were positives to be taken from it. I remained strong in my best area - entertainment and I picked up some points in my weak subjects - science, classics due to some revision I had undertaken in the lead up to the event. Nonetheless it was a disappointing result.

After lunch there was a round of buzzer quiz matches (think University Challenge). My team lost by virtue of a, not buzzing in quickly enough an b, when we did being rewarded with bonus questions on things we didn't know, whilst c, the other team got bonuses we'd have been alright on. Such is the way of things.

There was a film based bingo quiz where we performed very strongly. Whilst we didn't win (due to the bingo nature of the game) we did outscore the winners and the team with the current European numbers 1 and 2.

Then I came into my own. There was a team quiz in a pub quiz style but much much tougher. In the rounds on film, music, tv etc I shone. We were in a good position but in the end fell by the wayside. And who should crop up in this quiz? My old friend Tippett. Based upon my experience of over a decade ago, when asked about a classical piece debuted in the 60s Tippett came to mind. I was right, alas my team over-ruled me.

After dinner there was more buzzer quizzing and general chat. The quizzing fraternity is really, in general a fantastic body of people and I am booked in for the next Grand Prix in sunny Wakefield on March 3rd.

So how did I get into all of this? Well, I currently attend 2 quizzes per week. One a general knowledge pub quiz and one a music quiz. Then one night myself and my partner were in a local pub when we noticed a different type of quiz going on. 2 teams of 4, a question master, and questions that were both hard and interesting.

After the match was over I approached the home team and offered my services if they were ever short of a player. I ended up playing for the rest of the season and in that time we only lost one game. I was now hooked on higher level quizzing. Unfortunately the quiz league folded at the end of that season and I was now suffering withdrawal symptoms. Then by chance I found out about the 2006 Northampton Grand Prix and went along. It was brilliant. Not only did I perform suprisingly well but I was in the company of Mastermind winners, Brains of Britain, two Millionnaire winners, two Eggheads and the reigning British, World and European champion - Kevin Ashman.

After that I only managed to attend one other Grand Prix in 2006 (Slough), but I did compete in the European Championships in Paris last December. That is a post for another day.

Future posts will also cover my subsequent quizzing adventures and also progress on my master plan to improve my quiz performances. But enough for now. Until next time.