Monday Feb 23rd.
Another one of those days. They run into one. Trevor, this
evening, was actually non-controversial and didn’t say anything racist, sexist
or homophobic. I almost game him a gold star!
I had a call from Eva at the pub who called to ask for a
favour. She was going to be short staffed on Wednesday for the quiz (it has changed
days, by popular request) and wondered if I would be up to being the quiz
master (mistress) for the evening. I said that I’d love to have a go. There will
be a free meal for two in it for me and Laura on any other night of the week. I
wasn’t too concerned about a payment. I
just thought it might be fun.
Tuesday Feb 24.
After watching Only Connect last night I decided that I may
base my Quiz Master style on Victoria Coren-Mitchell. Laura offered the
suggestion that Eva may be being very clever and has asked me to be the
questioner so that my team doesn’t win (again). I hadn’t thought of that. Is
she right?
Sally and Olivia are getting geared up for their exams in
the summer. Olivia is a different girl to the shy, rather diffident one who
arrived way back last October. Her Mum says she has shown a great change in a
lot of ways, since she started getting help with her English. I think it might
just be that someone who can give her the time has actually encouraged her and
reassured her that she has a good knowledge base already and that all that was
needed to succeed was a small bit of grammatical work and some tweaking of her writing
style.
Her marks for all her pieces have been much better than when
she was in Year 10. Plus she has written some brilliant stories. Not earth shattering
mini novels but works which have shown she can use English very well.
Laura says Sally is going to be a maths star if she wants to
be. I’m sure she thinks this of everyone. She thought I was until I showed her
that I can be a total duffer!
Wednesday 25 Feb.
I tried on about 10 different outfits before settling on
something sensible and safe for my role as grand inquisitor at the pub. Laura
didn’t help by attempting to have sex with me at each change of outfit. She
eventually asked, why not wear what you usually wear to the quiz? This got me
thinking again about the impression I create with my clothes. What I always
wear? Am I predictable?
She is right of course. I usually wear trousers of some
kind; jeans, chinos, slacks, leggings etc when we go to the quiz. Why go out of my way to be different?
I settled for black leggings and nude t-shirt top with the red lace blouse over
it and then, amazingly, found those items on the floor as Laura was finally able to get me
to indulge her desire.
The quiz. It was done in themed rounds of 15 questions; 7
rounds of ordinary questions and one photp round, this month it was famous
place round the world. The question master asks the questions, using the pub’s
PA and the teams (of four) write down their answers. After each round we swap
the answer papers and mark as we go along. The photo round marking is saved
until last to give the teams a longer time to dredge up their knowledge.
The answers were on a separate sheet for each round so I
decided to have a go at answering my own questions. I came drastically unstuck
on the TV round (scoring only one point) but got all the History and Literature
questions right (30 points for Maia). On the white board I wrote down the teams
scores for each round so they could all see who were the high flyers and who
were the Daily Star readers.
All the way through it was really close between the Scampi
tails and a team called It’s A Fair Cop. They wanted to be called Norfolk n
Chance but Eva vetoed that as it had been done before and wasn’t funny then,
either.
The result: winners – The Scampi tails by just two points
from It’s A Fair Cop. The quiz mistress, playing by herself, would have come second!
The picture round was tricky for quite a lot of people. Masses didn’t know the
Chrysler Building in NY or even the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
I really enjoyed the evening but it was difficult sometimes
as the players did become rowdy and argumentative from time to time.
Fortunately I was able to deal with all of the hassle with calm, quiet
determination, despite wanting to yell at the person objecting to any given
answer.
At the end Laura handed me a glass of Highland Park and told
me I had done really well and was there a chance that the quiz mistress would
care for a f*ck when she’d finished? As we had walked down to the pub, we had a
major goping session behind the surgery, on the path along Coumes Brook, until
a chap walking his dog came along. It is a good job he had a torch and we
spotted his light coming towards us or he might have found a pair of women
entwined round each other with their hands down each other’s trousers! We
giggled our way back home and continued where we had been interrupted; leaving Callie
to wander the back garden with the conservatory and kitchen door open.
Thursday Feb 26th
Another day, another dollar.
Laura has spoken to Mr Carr and if she gets the grade
required for her MA course he can see no reason, at all, why her hours can’t be
increased when she goes part-time at Uni. Rah, rah, rah. He came down and had a
chat with me afterwards to tell me what I already knew as she had detoured to
ARR on her way back to Repro. Mr C surprised me by asking about Mum & Tony.
I was gobsmacked that he knew but hopefully I didn’t show it. I pretended we
had only met at the City hall for the one concert, and that he seemed quite
pleasant.
Don’t tell me he is still holding a candle for Mum? That
would just be silly. Wouldn’t it?
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