Good King Hal, Good Queen Bess and Will Somers from page 462 of the new Kays Catalogue.For the third year running I was hosting the annual South Somerset National Trust Pub Quiz at the Royal Oak Pub in Barrington. The first year I ran the quiz I was very proud of my questions thinking they were good and hard. At the end an elderly lady came up to me from the audience, shook my hand and thanked me for making the questions so easy. I was miffed. I was annoyed. My male ego had been pricked. The following year I really went for it - some of the questions were practically impossible. By halfway through the quiz some members of the audience had actually attempted suicide rather than go on with the brain cell hammering they were receiving. At the end some of the audience complained about how tough the quiz was. So for the third year I had to pitch it at just the right level, and after the show ended I think I got it about right. The winning team and second place were only one point apart at the end. The winning team's score was 85 points - however there was another team of youngsters from the kitchens at Barrington Court and their final score was 14. Bless. Matthew Applegate and co seemed very pleased. Even the Visitors Services Manager from Montacute seemed impressed, but I still have about as much chance of beating Usain Bolt over 100 metres as I have of this bloke giving me a chance to do a show at the House.
Wednesday morning had me up and early off into Taunton for a return visit to Parkfield Junior and it's wonderfully original Head Teacher - Mr Sides. It was great to see everyone again and we had a really wonderful time with some great children. Their costumes were all brilliant and they had some fabulous knowledge of Tudor times. Everyone seemed to have a good time, and after a very pleasant lunch we launched into the afternoon session. Much noise, lots of shouting and laughter, and the jousting session was another great one. Once more the ladies sealed a memorable triumph which makes the scores now:
GENTLEMEN 3 - 8 LADIES
Parkfield is one of my favourite schools - great kids, lovely teachers and one of the most idiosyncratic Heads you can meet anywhere. Wonderful. Half term now - taking James to stay up at my parent's in Wales for a few days then back with a trip to the Isle of Wight in early November!
1 comment:
Oh yes. Setting pub quiz questions can be extraordinarily difficult.
Whenever I've set pub quizzes, I've run all the questions past the guys who would normally be in my team, to check that they're suitable. This usually ensures that there are none that are ridiculously difficult or ambiguous.
In general, we always reckoned it was better that people should finish the quiz with more right answers than wrong ones, otherwise they'd be discouraged from taking part in future.
It's also helpful for any Quizmaster to have a couple of "glamourous assistants". Unfortunately, my assistants were Chemical Al and Reallyfatbloke.
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