Quiz Night

Every year, St George's PTA hosts a quiz night. If you are not British, you are asking yourself what is a quiz night? So let me explain. If you are British, you can skip this part. A quiz (typically set in a pub) consists of people forming teams competing against each other by answering a series of questions. Questions are organised into rounds which are themed and are generally about historical events, current events, pop culture.

Marc & I formed a team with some other parent's from Sebastian's Year 1 class: Joy and Trevor (Jamie's parents) and Jane and Rob (Ben's parents). We had done no preparation (some take quizzing very seriously!). When we turned up we gave our team the Know Hopes. Our single ambition was to not embarrass ourselves (and our children) by coming dead last.

Last night's categories included film clips (which we did well at) and TV theme songs (not so good). There was one category about computers on which we scored a perfect score (10) surprising ourselves!

We weren't really paying all that much attention to the scores, feeling quite confident that at least we weren't in last place. We took a break halfway through for dinner and enjoyed some more wine and beer with a curry. Upon returning from our meal we realised we were in 5th place (out of 17 teams!) We thought, well, that's nothing to be ashamed about!

But then things became all a bit surreal as we found ourselves at the top of the leader board. We were in 1st place! For the last 3 rounds!!!! the last round started with all of us staring at each other with our mouths gaping open in disbelief. Here we had been thinking we would be lucky to not finish last and instead we found ourselves in first place.

The last round was was a hard one and whilst we didn't perform badly, we weren't at our best and we got pipped at the post. We missed first place by 2 points. If only I'd written down Matt Willis and Crime and Punishment.......But we don't care. We are soooo happy to have come second. We had a great team and each individual brought a vast array of obscure knowledge to the team. We plan on reassembling for next year and this time we won't be beaten.....or at least we won't come last!

Well done to Head Master Mr Roger Jones for MCing the event. He did a fabulous job of making the questions very clear. Martin Stanford (of Sky News fame) who is a parent at the school, did an amazing job of setting up the multimedia. Sara, his wife showed incredible dedication in handing out and collecting answer sheets. She even took a tumble to the floor. What a trooper!

Mostly, I want to say thanks to the our team, Know Hopes! We really enjoyed our night. We discovered hidden troves of knowledge and talent. We got to know each other a bit more (Metamorphosis, Joy?). And we laughed. It was a great night for all!