Last week RH & RG were on their travels, having a stay-cation in the beautiful south-west of England so it was fitting that this week, upon his return, we did RH's Travel Quiz which came with its own tagline: "they say, travel broadens the mind, be prepared to have yours broadened without leaving your living room!"
The questions were based on RH's travels with his work and past holidays so there was a fair bit of variety, with questions on great cities of the world, interesting regions within the UK and also Rhyl.
I had some really good news as Ms L came home from the hospital and was able to join in with the quiz from the comfort of our couch instead of a bed in a ward full of old women with incontinence. Unfortunately, MW & GW had to miss the quiz as they weren't feeling well - we hope they are feeling better soon. CE & VW went dark so we can only assume they were in the pub fighting with WBA supporters again!
As the quiz was about travel I wondered if we were going to have the usual nonce round, RH rather cryptically said: "well, there isn't a nonce round per se..." I was intrigued to know what this round was, turns out it was a bit more, well, murdery. Game on!
The quiz had barely started when SDC chimed in "hang on that isn't a yurt, are you home?" She hadn't realised that RH & RG had returned from their glamping trip the day before, she assumed the quiz was coming live from a field in Somerset!!!
The great thing about the quizzes is the fact that everyone tries to innovate or come up with something we haven't done before. RH certainly managed it this week, it is the first time we have had questions on lighthouses near Plymouth! AM had an advantage as it turns out he is a bit of a pharologists...
Now, we have seen a few weird things happen during the quizzes over the last 6 months; competitors going to bed midgame and continuing to play, someone dropping an eggy boff so pungent that their co-player had to run off and one of the group having to duck out to deal with explosive vomit but this week was a hall of fame reason to leave the game.
EDC disappeared, when we asked where he was SDC sheepishly said that he had gone for an emergency shave...apparently, his beard was hampering his thinking!!! An emergency shave for fuxake! Now, as reasons to nip off go, that is a world...
With EDC now having a chin smoother than a babies bum, we continued with the quiz. This round focused on the castles of North Wales which was a problem for me as I only knew three; Harlech, Conway and Carnarvon but thankfully they came up. An unexpected bonus of this round was listening to RH's welsh pronunciations, it was like he had borrowed Jamie Oliver's big, fat tongue.
You may know that Harlech Castle is a grade-1 listed building built by Edward I as part of his Ring Of Iron initiative and is described as one of "the finest examples of late 13th century and early 14th-century military architecture in Europe" but, according to AM, it's also the home to the best sausage roll he has ever had. High praise indeed for Harlech I'm sure you will agree?
The next round saw RH's tongue tie up again as he consistently pronounced Lynyrd Skynyrd as Lin-rid Skin-rid despite us setting him straight over and over again. It was also the setting for the quiz's first pen toss as AM threw his biro at the screen when he got a question wrong that he thought he should know - impressive stuff mate!!!
It would have been John Lennon's 80th birthday this week so what better way to celebrate one of Liverpool's favourite sons than a round dedicated to his murder. No really!!! Many, many questions about Mark Chapman and the movements of John and Yoko the day he was killed.
Things took a turn for the less macabre with a round about where celebrities were born based on the places RH had visited recently so all answers were either Bath, York, Plymouth/Devon or Rhyl. There were plenty of famous people from the first three places, not so many Rhyl-billies as Ms L called them. Thank God for the band The Alarm, point to us!!!
After a jovial break, it was back to the dark side with a round about the Yorkshire Ripper!!! We lost a lot of points in this round as Ms L was positive about some questions but realised after the answers came in that she got mixed up between the Yorkshire Ripper and American murdered Ted Bundy!!! A couple of days later, SDC sent an image to our WhatsApp group showing her answers - truly disturbing stuff!!!
For only the third time in the quiz, RH's tongue got the better of him as he struggled to say the word 'impotence', repeatedly saying "im-poe-tense" much to the frustration/delight of TC!!! I can't actually remember what the question was about, I just remember laughing - classic quiz behaviour...
So our nonce round was replaced with two murderer rounds, fair enough but I felt a little empty, SDC tried to cheer us up by telling of their idea for their next quiz which involves her posting a clue through our letterbox - The Nonce Doorstep Challenge if you will!!! Only in our quiz world would this be treated as a great idea...what have we become!?!?!?
The quiz came to an end, a great time was had by all, TC was the victor but, as I always say, we all won. The night is about having a few laughs, having a few drinks and answering a few mad questions.
I think the maddest of mad questions came in the hangman rounds. "Name The Beatles song from this clue: _ _ _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _" remember, it is a travel quiz so the answer is obviously BACK / IN / THE / USSSR - yes USS-S-R!!!
The clues were almost as confusing as the format with the round being split into two and the answers for the first round coming hours later. RH spent as much time on the explanation as he did asking the questions - classic quiz behaviour.
There was the usual post-quiz knitting circle, me, Ms L, AM, RH and TC all had a drink and a natter, putting the world to rights. Later TC scared the life out of us when he went to investigate someone knocking at his door at 3 AM. WTAF, don't go and open the door at that time!!! Thankfully it was JC who had come home early!
We had a couple of drinks with JC and watched as TC slowly went asleep on the breakfast bar. It was gone 4 AM when I got to bed, I'd had another great night with great friends. Looking forward to DE's quiz next week, he always throws in a curveball (he was the first to have a Christmas round...in the middle of summer, let's see what Saturday brings!!!)