Hard to spot but Wally from ‘Where’s Wally?’ was definitely with us

Charles C

People often say “every day is a school day” and despite it being the summer holidays (and me leaving formal education some X years ago), we all walked away from Wednesday’s quiz a little smarter. We learned Bob the Builder’s cat is called Pilchard; the Rubik’s Cube was first launched in the 1970s; and, teetotaller Donald J. Trump prefers American wine to French wine (Quelle surprise!).

At the end, “Guillaume Guillaume” won the consolation Smarties, having shown us good knowledge of Playstation’s Crash Bandicoot. Just ahead of them, with the best score (by some way) on a points-per-person basis, “The Doubtful Guest” won the bottle of wine, even knowing that heliophobia is fear of the Sun. Ahead of them, having been very quick on the Policy Academy anagram and spot-on with the colour of the Simpsons’ fridge, came “Les Quizerables”. They were swiftly followed by “Knowledge Is Porridge”, who had a particularly superb second half, getting all three of the cryptic tube stations and the Skyfall badly explained film plot conundrum. Just half a point more, “Scoop, Muck & Dizzy” also delivered a good performance, with 3 from 3 on the ‘Christina Aguilera – Beautiful’ lyrics question and on which building one would see a brass sign with the words ‘First Lord Of The Treasury’ (10 Downing St).

Pushing even further into the quiz stratosphere, “Damon F**king Hill” were excellent on clouds and right-angled triangles. Just beyond them, “Exquiztential Crisis” showed tremendous trivia range, from the artist Edgar Degas to the cars of Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Quiz In My Pants” showed their mettle again, and were the only team to recognise the face split photo of singer Camilla Cabello. The rebranded “One Of Us Played International Tennis” (just back from Wimbledon?) returned to raise their quiz bar even higher, with an especially majestic second half, and were the only team to know Einstein was Time Magazine’s Person of the 20th Century and also know that Turkish coffee is made from beans that have been ground to a powder. Amazing stuff. One of these weeks, they will win. Mark my words.

Tied for first place, “We Hate Richard” (excellent on cartoon character identification), “Lizzie Maguire” (specialists in knowledge of peppers, both in terms of Red Hot Chili Peppers music videos and how it is Dr Pepper that claims to contain 23 flavours), and “The Rookies” (unmatched on celebrity identification) faced a tie-breaker on the number of weeks Stephen Hawking’s ‘A Brief History Of Time’ spent on the bestsellers’ list (237 – if you’re asking). The Rookies had the closest guess and the £40 bar tab was theirs.

“Knowledge Is Porridge” provided the closest guess for the jackpot question on the fastest cross-channel swim (6 hours 57 minutes!!) but didn’t manage to pick the right envelope and the cash went un-won. A rollover for next week sees the cash reach £155. That’s right. Cold. Hard. Cash. Come and win it. We’re looking forward to seeing you there. #onlytheduchyarmshastheanswer