Quiz Night Blues...

Dreadful night ahead. I use the word in its Biblical sense - a night I approach with mortal fear before the terrible. It is our monthly Quiz Night down at The Dragon Inn and I must as ever attend. Dear George, as with so much in life, is blissfully ignorant of the demon he has unleashed in creating this monster; more terrifying than any fell dragon his namesake might have been called upon to face.

It's not that I mind being found ignorant of so much, or the taunts of my fellow team members who seem eternally surprised that a man with two degrees knows nothing of modern cultural mores. One could even argue that it is a matter of some proper pride failing to recall the precise moment in 'Eastenders' when such-and-such a creature met their just, if unlawful, end at the hands of a long wronged spouse. When first strongarmed into taking part I did make much of the unlikelihood that my own special area of knowledge - the social and economic impact of the Iconoclast controversy in Byzantium - would ever figure prominently in any question asked; and it has not to this day.

No, it is not the intellectual challenge that irritates me so, but rather that as pastor I am not wanting to be spending good pub time having to employ my eirenic skills resolving the inevitable and acrimonious disputes that always arise and which threaten to tear friend from friend, neighbour from neighbour.

Bad enough are the internal team disputes about whether sperm whales can be considered an endangered species in a typological as opposed to a morphological sense. It is muggins here of course who gets called upon to pour the oil of balm on the raging waters of discontent by intimating the validity of either argument, only to be roundly rebuked by both parties who demand I must, Solomon-like, judge for one side or the other.

Worse even than that are the frequent moments when teams turn on poor George as quizmaster and insist his answers are simply wrong; that he has failed in his research and that 1763 simply is not the year in which the Spinning Jenny was first used in this country. (I will accept that most scholars do prefer 1764, though there are some sources that believe 1769 is in fact the correct date as the earlier device was subsequently much modified before being introduced as the machine we now know by that name. See how complex this whole thing is?!)

George may not be the sharpest blade in the drawer, nor the swiftest hare in the field, but he does work hard with his encyclopaedias trying to set challenging yet answerable quizzes and is deeply offended if his labours in that particular vineyard are belittled and scorned. If George is thrown into a serious sulk the beer can be off for a week!

The problem has become far worse recently, as George has taken to using the Internet - a device from the Devil's bottom if ever there were one! - to search for his questions, without understanding that anything and everything can and is said there with no one to admonish error or to correct heresy. He'll grab a factoid from the net and assume it must be true because it is there on his computer screen in front of him. I have tried to enlighten him with examples of net pages dedicated to the most absurd and unbelievable nonsense, but he won't have it. His was a generation that was brought up to trust the written word, howsoever presented, and the result sadly has become quizzes strewn with errors that are instantly and savagely challenged.

And where am I in all this fracas? Why, of course, standing in the middle of the lounge bar attempting to soothe and to mend, when I should be enjoying my ale. Tonight though will be different. I shall abondon the clerical black and don layman's mufti. I don't care if it results in trouble with the Bishop, but when things turn ugly and everyone then turns to me for assistance they will see me sitting quietly there with my pint and my tee-shirt that reads: "I'm so sorry, you must be confusing me with someone who gives a sh1t". That'll teach 'em to leave me alone, I do so earnestly hope and pray!