Another Saturday, another fabulous Quiz Night. Tonight it was Richie's turn to handle the baton, he took it in both hands and skillfully manipulated it until we were all satisfied. There were a few new rounds interspersed with musical interludes which had me and Ms L dancing...real dancing, not some virtual approximation, we got up and threw shapes...you have got to love Luther Vandross!!!
Let's address the elephant in the title, Richie had a nonce round. Nonces have been a running joke in Quiz Night, nothing sinister from us, just something we all abhor. No one on our weekly get together has any time for paedophiles, we are all normal Northern people, it is in our DNA to look after each other and anyone who hurts children is shit out of luck in our circle.
Kudos to Richie for making the 'nonce' round so entertaining. An anagram with a clue that leads on to a question about sentence length. It may sound sick but, in our group, it was a comedic interlude, a chance for us to laugh at a common enemy. Thank you, Richie, for having the stones, and the skill, to pull this round off.
It wasn't all about miscreants though, there was a Soap Opera round that we did pretty badly in - I'm looking at you Ms L! - A fabulous 'True or False' round, a 'Celebs In Lockdown' round which had pictures of people who looked like what the Daily Mail would no doubt describe as 'a threat to national security' and my favourite round; Gogglebox!
We love Gogglebox, actually, we adore it. We have watched every episode of every season of every variant of Gogglebox ever transmitted on British TV. I'm not joking, we have signed up to ALL4 just to watch Gogglebox Australia (if you haven't seen it, get on to it, it is great). So when the questions were announced I knew we would ace it..but we didn't!
And that is the beauty of our quizzes, you reckon you have a handle on it but you don't, each week it is different, each week it is eye-opening, each week it is boss.
The quiz is always good but the company is better. I love the 15 minutes before it starts were we all gossip like housewives about what we did this week. Highlights tonight were Mitch returning to work and being given a hand wipe for health and safety reasons and Gill & Mark going for a leisurely cruise on the Mersey on their boat and coming back with a thousand-yard stare after a white knuckle ride!
Oh, and Zoom has now stopped their free meeting thing that everyone has been using. I have had to sign up for a contract to make Quiz Night happen. To be honest, we have had 20 weeks of a premium service for free, we can't complain about paying £2 each per month to continue using a system that is integral to our weekend entertainment. Fair enough Zoom, we will call this one a draw.
So, in summary, tonight has been another success. Gill and Mark had to duck out early (we are all thinking of you), the rest of us thoroughly enjoyed Richie's quiz. The interruptions are, in my opinion, as important as the quiz as they are a chance for us all to gab and have that social interaction we are all still longing for. Richie marshalled the banter skillfully, his quiz was great. All in all another successful night.