For years now, there has been a question that has eaten away at me, without ever getting close to resolution.
The question is fairly simple; how do people know ‘stuff’ and I don’t seem to?
Let me explain. Recently, I attended a local quiz night, which was great. Superbly hosted, a real community feel, everyone having fun and a few beers. But by attending, it reminded me why I rarely, if ever, dip my toe into the quiz scene. It’s because other people know stuff about a variety of topics, and regretfully, I don’t seem to.
Now, you may be reading this and thinking to yourself, ‘ok, you are probably being a bit extreme here’. I wish I was. There were 40 questions up for grabs. Guess how many I confidently knew the answer to? Really, I am too embarrassed to tell you.
Mind you, you can consider me a bit of a visionary as I did predict my poor performance prior to the event and nobody in my team could dispute it. I sat round the table, as question after question was posted, watching my teammates debate, discuss and come to a satisfactory conclusion on a variety of topics. I frequently acted as drink fetcher, to make myself useful.
The thing is, there should be no excuse for me not knowing stuff. One category was about kids television programmes, from yesteryear. Trust me, having a 17 and 9-year-old, you name the kids’ programme, I have watched it…over and over. Plus, I used to be a kid! But that is my point, you can name it, but I can’t. Nil points.
I did get excited at one point (as did my teammates), when a music question was posed. I thought now was my time to shine. But whilst I knew the singer was Lionel Ritchie, I couldn’t remember the group he was in. Nil points, again.
Another opportunity; five anagrams of football teams. Come on, I thought, you can do this. I couldn’t. I heard a wee boy, about 7 years of age, stage whisper to his mum that the first answer was Leicester City; he got it within seconds. I would have been there all night.
I then start to have a little conversation with myself, around ‘why do people know the answers to lots of questions and I don’t’. I did well at school. But ask me to give you the French term for ‘Spring’, as was one of the questions, and there is no point in my finger reaching the buzzer.
I have concluded that whilst I was clubbing my years away in Scotland, everyone else who attended this quiz stayed at home studying encyclopaedias in the knowledge that one day all of this ‘stuff’ will gain you a point at the Greetland Football Club quiz in the Community Centre.
You know what made it worse? At various intervals during the evening, people would come up to me and say ‘I bet you are really good at quizzes’. Thanks for that.
PS Do you want to know one of the few questions I did get correct? Which instrument brought down the walls of Jericho. A religious question, which is probably a nod to my preacher Grandfather. I only hope they repeat that question in the next quiz!
