I'm writing this third roundup of the day in unfortunate circumstances, because there was no parking to be found anywhere close to my usual Sunday quiz, forcing me to turn back straight away without stopping. An unfortunately wasted evening, but it does at least afford me time to do this, so let's get to it.
Quiz #131 - Sunday 9th July, Turf Tavern, Carlisle
J was on holiday and M working tonight, so I was looking at doing the quiz solo. Except that JDSS looked to be short a couple of people, so I asked them if I might join. I was accepted, though it turned out Other J & S were just late, so we were a team of 6. The last person was a friend of theirs along for the ride. I was definitely confident about this quiz going into it, which meant I could be unusually relaxed for once.
We started as we meant to continue, with 8 on pictures and a further 9 on current events, The first of the lists was the 5 living US first ladies. The first ones were obvious enough - Michelle Obama, etc, but Reagan's wife died recently so that meant either Ford or Carter, and then working out their first name. Carter it was, and J got that for a full 5. We also got 5 on the countries that border Argentina. With a Spaniard and a Frenchwoman in the team, it was unlikely we'd miss those, so another maximum it was.
The Alpha Links round was one of those where I'd have probably stood a decent chance at getting most of them even without the advantage of the first letter. Between us all, the round stood no chance, and fell to the last question with ease. Our 4th consecutive full house followed on the Hidden Link, the link itself being obvious from the first question. Any answer to a question about an Italian revolutionary is going to be Garibaldi, and that meant biscuits. The question about the French town of Nice was amusing, given the demographics of our team.
By the Wipeout round we were pretty sure we'd already won, but still debated over whether to take a percentage shot on the Dalai Lama based on his real name. We decided not to, as we didn't need the extra point, but it would have been right. There was a couple we just didn't know, but it was immaterial anyway. 48 is definitely my highest ever score at this quiz, but to be fair the outcome was never in doubt, as me with JDSS was rather unfair to the other teams. I doubt the host would even allow me to regularly join them (my first win at the quiz was with Other J & S alone), and in any case I'm loyal to J and M. A quizzing ronin I may be, but I'm a loyal samurai once I've found a team. An excellent result all the same, and I'm very glad to have experienced this night.
Result: 48/55 (87.27%), 1st/8
Quiz #132 - Monday 10th July, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (K)
Summer holiday season seems to be affecting the hosting schedule, as to be expected. G did his quiz as usual last week, but we were back to K again tonight due to S being away. I was asked if I could have my own quiz ready for next week, in case P were to forget, but I was assured he would not, though he was himself absent this week. I was present for that discussion as I was with P's team, No Kan Do. I think I'll be with them tomorrow too, which suits me just fine!
This week began with GK, as per usual (though not always) with K. A couple of mixups aside, it was a great start as we got 18.5/20. Better luck on Geography this week? Not really, 9/15. Could have made it 10 but I was confused as to the wording of a question about US timezones and went for 6 rather than 9. Should have trusted my gut and insisted on the latter, and done the same with Smyth's Sea, which is on the Moon.
TV was next, and this was stronger - 12/15 on this, with a few solid contributions from myself. Unplayed music is definitely not my forte but I did know a few, including the Bartman which was one the others may not have gotten. 13/15 in total there. A 15 question picture round was divided between logos and dingbats. All of the latter fell to us, mostly me with a couple of great answers from the others, as did 6 of the 7 logos. 12/13/14 - I like that!
This was looking good so far, but played music ended the quiz, and we could only manage half marks with 10/20. It was introductions, divided into 70s and Golden Oldies, which definitely caused us problems. Fortunately that didn't matter too much, as we had tied for 2nd with Big Tam's. They had done considerably better than us on the last round, and we'd have won if we'd done the same we could have won. We did miss some obvious ones, which is unfortunate, but no matter. Bring on next week!
Result: 76.5/100 (76.5%), joint-2nd/unknown
Quiz #133 - Tuesday 11th July, Ship Inn, Dumfries
I was somewhat despondent going into tonight's quiz, as S & A were both absent. I attempted to join the NCP, but as it happened, B and A were both present. I didn't hugely rate our chances in the face of strong opposition, but we'd give it our best. We were also joined by another guy, M, who works for the same organisation I do and who used to be a regular member of the Roof Rax at the Granary. They also used to come to the Ship, though they haven't been in an age. Still, we were happy to accept him into our ranks at last, after many failed attempts to coerce him into joining me and L at the Granary!
M joined us most of the way through GK, and was unfortunately unable to help us better or 5, but that was enough for 2nd. We dropped one to 3rd after Sport, but I'll almost always be happy enough with 7 on that subject, especially this quiz's version, so I've no complaints. Round 3 was Science and Nature, and I must admit that I was disappointed with 7/11 there as I know I can do better. We actually took the lead with that though, so we still must have done better than the competition.
The pictures were prison-themed dingbats, and while we only got 11/18 and lost our lead, we remained only one point behind. B being a publican himself, Scottish licencing law ought to have favoured him well enough for the specialist subject. It certainly favoured him more than us, since the questions required one to have actually read some of the relevant legislation. The team of lawyers were certainly surprised and happy at the subject, having not, as I thought, requested it. We only got 5, but there's little else we could do.
Music ended the quiz as always, and it was all tracks played before at this quiz this year - which meant I recognised most of them but couldn't get all of them by any means. Big shame, and I hoped for more than 17. It meant we finished 5th, with the NCP 3rd. Not sure who the winners were, but they cleaned up on music, apparently. Truth be told I've never liked the music round being 30 points, but hey, not my quiz. We did decently well in the circumstances, so there we go.
Result: 52/89 (58.43%), 5th/10
Quiz #134 - Wednesday 12th July, Granary, Dumfries
My last quiz of the week was to be the Granary, due to the cancellation of the Grapes quiz that I'd learn about on Friday. Yes, I'll stop banging on about that soon, I promise, it just happens be relevant unfortunately. The Granary is a tough end to the week as it's often a hard quiz, and traditionally one of my lower scoring ones. Though we have demonstrably improved over time, and are now regularly targeting scores in the 30s rather than just the 20s.
This week was only 3 rounds, a classic case of 2 rounds of 20 questions and 1 of 10. It was a busy night, due largely I'm sure to the £150 Killer Question jackpot that had to go that night. I forgot to mention in my last entry that I was called up to answer the question at £125 last week and missed it, but we had potentially a second bite at the cherry this time around.
The first round was the 10 question round, Disney. That's a round that has come up more than once here before, and it's a round we can score on, but it's not great for us by any means. We got 5, which is completely fair. I went against my own judgement on at least one question, but I was insisting on one of my own guesses for another and I don't think it's fair to go for my own answers exclusively; it's a fine line, but I'd rather be fair to the team than right, ultimately.
Film is a much better category for us, usually, statistically among my best. The 1980's though is definitely not a strong suit for L as she's not really a film watcher. I fancied my chances as I've seen plenty of films from the era, but was left bereft as we only managed 7. I'm better on the 90s I must admit, but in general, I just screwed up here. Twice I mixed two answers up in my head, so I can't even call them 50/50s. We should have had at least 4/5 more on this round, and I'll not blame L for it. I even had a correct answer in the wrong box, and we weren't credited for that, which was fair but annoying.
That was the story of the night, really. I genuinely thought we had done better on the "easier" GK than the 10 we had, though I lost track of the scores as the answers were being read out. Again, there were one or two obvious ones we perhaps both could have had but didn't.
With 16 teams, the scores were naturally going to scale quite heavily, and ultimately we were below par in 11th. Surprisingly, we were only 4 points and as many places behind Sporting Quizbon, who haven't been on top form lately. The winning score was in the 40s, which is very very good, we definitely couldn't have touched that.
In terms of the reason I wasn't on top of my game, I think it was mental. I'd been fairly frazzled all day, and I was no better in the evening. There's life stuff going on, it's something I'm trying to address generally as my overall anxiety levels are increasing again. There were plenty of questions I just didn't know, but also errors that were frankly surprising - sufficiently so that I was literally smacked upside the head by the QM after the film round, heh!
Ach well, it happens. I can't say I'm on a bad run generally as I've had some incredible wins lately. Better results will come here too, I'm sure of it!
Result: 22/50 (44%), 11th/16
Week in Summation
This is fairly self explanatory: I started brilliantly but couldn't maintain that, and in any case I lucked into the great result on Sunday by joining a team who are very very tough to beat. With me them forming a super team, there were vibes of the early Ship Inn days when I couldn't join S & A because it would unbalance the quiz. Weirdly though, that didn't feel like my best win because I didn't feel necessary. I contributed certainly, but I'm unsure how many answers they'd have missed without me; not enough to affect the outcome, I'm reasonably sure.
Monday was definitely satisfying, no denying that, and I'll hope to repeat that if I am indeed with the same team tonight, but Tuesday and Wednesday were tough. I need to refresh and recharge, because this is definitely mental.
My upcoming holiday is, again, badly timed considering what else is going on, but I've been looking forward to it for a very long time and I'm determined to enjoy it to the full. Between now and then, I need to try and get stuff sorted out, and productively enjoy any quizzing downtime. This week is looking very light on quizzes, perhaps only 2 in the diary, so I've got some of the time I need. I'm already prepared to virtually write this week off in pursuit of the bigger picture.
Peaks and troughs, you get them in any competitive activity!
Total Result: 198.5/294 (67.52%)
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