DIY quizzing
Apr. 27th, 2019 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThe good thing about making the pub quiz a regular fixture in our week is that we son't have to think about it between times; we just head down to the Elm Tree every Wednesday evening. The bad thing is that we don't think about it between times; so on Wednesday evening we just headed down to the Elm Tree, a little bit late, and only when we arrived, looking around for the rest of the team, and saw only two theology professors, did I remember oh, yes, Our Friend the Quizmaster did say that he'd be on holiday this week, But that's OK, it's the Other Quizmaster's week anyway (they take turns, week and week about). And since we were a little late arriving, we didn't realise that whoever was Quizmaster of the Week should have been here by now until drinks had been bought and other regulars started asking us whether we had heard from - or could contact - Our Friend the Quizmaster. To which the answer was no. I remembered him telling the Other Quizmaster that if there was an emergency (OQ has pressures of both work and family, so emergencies were not unforeseen), get in touch, he was within striking distance, but this wasn't much help.
A chat with friends over a drink, and maybe an early night, is not the worst thing that could happen to us, and we were settling down to that. But others are made of sterner stuff. The microphone and answer sheets were found in the cupboard, and a small team of volunteers put together an impromptu quiz from available resources. Mainly, as you'd expect, these were the internet and people's own interests (Durham cathedral and Scott Walker each provided a whole round of five questions).
But one ingenious idea was that since there were ten teams participating, for the final general knowledge round each team was asked to contribute one question. The result was a set of questions which were harder than usual to answer, without being in any way unfair. (Sample question: who knitted Tom Baker's Doctor Who's distinctive scarf? None of us knew the answer, but I knew I had heard this story before).
Edited to insert: Thinking about this in the small hours, I came to the conclusion that it was easier to think of five themed questions than a single standalone: five first lines of novels, five questions about rabbits (blame the influence of Our Friend the Quizmaster and Lagophile). A single question has to justify its own existence; a set of five reinforce each other.
Which leaves only the mysterious absence of the Other Quizmaster, and the worrying likelihood that whatever caused it is not going to be good news.
A chat with friends over a drink, and maybe an early night, is not the worst thing that could happen to us, and we were settling down to that. But others are made of sterner stuff. The microphone and answer sheets were found in the cupboard, and a small team of volunteers put together an impromptu quiz from available resources. Mainly, as you'd expect, these were the internet and people's own interests (Durham cathedral and Scott Walker each provided a whole round of five questions).
But one ingenious idea was that since there were ten teams participating, for the final general knowledge round each team was asked to contribute one question. The result was a set of questions which were harder than usual to answer, without being in any way unfair. (Sample question: who knitted Tom Baker's Doctor Who's distinctive scarf? None of us knew the answer, but I knew I had heard this story before).
Edited to insert: Thinking about this in the small hours, I came to the conclusion that it was easier to think of five themed questions than a single standalone: five first lines of novels, five questions about rabbits (blame the influence of Our Friend the Quizmaster and Lagophile). A single question has to justify its own existence; a set of five reinforce each other.
Which leaves only the mysterious absence of the Other Quizmaster, and the worrying likelihood that whatever caused it is not going to be good news.
