Our rocky relationship with school quizzes began many years ago with the following question:
“What is the alternative emergency number to 999?”
On that night all heads turned to my husband Dougie who, being a doctor, was obviously The Man Who Will Know This. He announced with great conviction….
“888”.
No idea where he got this from but we all bowed to his superior knowledge. He was wrong. The actual number was “112”.
Dougie was ribbed mercilessly for years after. Friends would pretend to put 888 into their mobiles as Dougie’s special number and he was teased about the fact that no wonder you can’t get hold of GPs if they have private emergency numbers unknown to anyone else. Coincidently 888 is the number for online poker.
We have been successful on a few occasions, and runner up even more frequently. We have come home and consulted encyclopaedias because we didn’t believe the stupid answers that were given. We were robbed with the question:
“Which country has the longest coastline?”
Confident in our knowledge that it would be Canada because of all the tiny inlets, we were astounded at the answer “Russia” and were proved right when we got home and Dougie looked it up. He still mentions it today…
Since our son has moved up to the local Grammar School, the quiz nights there allow students to participate. Rory is showing all the signs of being just like his father. This was particularly true this weekend when he was desperate to beat the PE teachers who seem to win most years (not always, we have had the exquisite pleasure twice now). One round was about the solar system and I sat back in the glow of parental pride as he took over the answer sheet and scribbled away with authority. Then we came to the question:
“What is the angle of the earth’s tilt?”
Rory wrote down 23.5 degrees but was questioned by myself and another adult who thought that seemed quite high. This made the poor lad waver so he reduced it to 17.5, whereupon someone laughed and said, “Isn’t that VAT?” so he eventually wrote down 8.5. You can guess already that the answer proved to be 23.5 after all and Rory’s other answers were all correct. He was, quite rightly, livid. I can’t tell you how much I apologised.
Mind you, he said there were 47 countries in Africa and there were 53. Bloody useless child!
We came third. The PE teachers won again, not helped by a sports round in which one question on its own had 13 points available for naming the European football teams in this year’s World Cup, plus 5 bonus points if you got them all correct. A gift for them. Not that we’re bitter of course….
Oooh, we love school quizzes. Our children are too young to take part, so they are all adult ones. This year we only came 6th. I blame the other couples. We also love pub quizzes. We are very sad people.
Well if I ever go to one, I want Rory on my team…
He'll be on University Challenge one day…you mark my words.
888 – that's funny. I'll remember that.
I know your table : the ones taking it seriously!! I'm on the "will they never shut up yapping and listen to the questions and if they're only here for the beer why didn't they go somewhere else" table !!!!
Bloody PE teachers and their infernal sports knowledge. It shouldn't be allowed.
@victoria – we always used to blame the other couples too. We had a quiz once where one bloke had said nothing all evening apart from thinking he knew what TARDIS stood for. My husband was sure he was wrong but I kicked him in the shins and we "allowed" the wrong answer to be put down. That was hard haha!
@mummmeee and @deerbaby – he is a clever boy. Takes after his mother 🙂
@kelloggsville – so you're the bloody irritating bunch!! Actually I do try very hard not to get obsessive and competitive but 10 minutes in and I'd kill to win!
@dan – they always have a ringer on their team too. They can't all be bright, surely?
I once sat on a team with two nurses who swore that Alzheimers had a 't' in it….it was two against one so I gave in, and as they were nurses I began to doubt myself….is that a foreign way to spell it perhaps? or a medical one?..anyhoo we lost.
@libby – Great comment – that made me chuckle! That's the annoying thing about quizzes, you doubt yourself constantly, expecially when everyone else disagrees. The fact that you gave in to the nurses' supposed superiority on that question will remain with you for a long time!!
A Freudian slip regarding the poker number perhaps?! The sports question sounds a tad unfair to other mortals I feel. Isn't it odd when our kids get to the age when they do seem to know more than us – and they realise that we have feet (or brains) or clay!
@diney – he tells me it was nothing to do with the poker number which apparently appeared some years after this incident. He says he thought he'd read about 888 in some medical mag (!).
Rory was incredulous that we were struggling with the order of the planets, "That's so easy, I knew that in Year 2". Cheeky little bugger!
Ooh! School quizzes!! didn't know they existed, and fresh from teh University Challenge semi-final (religiously taped every week) am well up for that in a couple of years time…!
@planb – we should start up a team: you, me and Victoria! But make sure Kelloggsville is on another table!
I watched the semi-final last night of University Challenge, so exciting as my old college, Emmanuel, have stormed through to the final. They were never as clever as that in my day, we didn't get past the first round then!
I've never been to a school quiz. One or two pub quizzes but as I'm useless at general knowledge I'm never much help!
CJ xx
I love the fact that your son is equally competitive! I love quizzes and used to be quite good but sadly out of practice as Hubbie hates losing to me when we play Trvial Pursuit. I really should be more diplomastic and not roll around the floor with laughter at some of his answers….