“I stay out too late. Got nothing in my brain” turned out not to be the case for our teams last night

Charles C

Things hotted up at the Duchy Arms last night as another beautiful, sultry summer evening brought teams together to slake their thirst for great trivia. Along the way, we learned: Ellen DeGeneres is the most followed non-singer on Twitter; Australia has the most species of reptile (1,038!!); and, it’s The Penguin who runs Gotham City’s ‘Iceberg Lounge’ in the Batman comics. A closely run first half – a mere handful of points separating the 13 teams – set us up for a humdinger of a home straight in the second half.

At the end, “Quiz In My Pants & Face” just missed the bottle of wine but won the Smarties but wowed everyone by getting 2 out of the 3 George Michael music videos. Back from a brief quiz hiatus, “Uncle Ian” returned to win the wine and demonstrate excellent knowledge of luxury brand logos. Just beyond them were the re-branded “Spicy J Archers”, the remarkable “Takeshi’s Castle” and the redoubtable, “French For Mushrooms”. The first knowing the name of Nirvana’s first album (Bleach), the second identifying the trio of cartoon characters correctly and the latter being very quick to recognise the photo of the band, Audioslave.

Only one point more, another triumvirate of teams, “S Club Parrty”, “Polly & James” and “Boris Johnson’s Illegitimate Children” (there were so many of them!!!), with SCP getting 3 from 3 on the movie posters, P&J knowing Grand Slams happen in Tennis and Golf, and BJIC knowing that Ross from Friends was allergic to kiwi fruit. Only one point beyond them, “Stokes Is A Kiwi” did superbly to know that Pretty Woman is Julia Roberts’ highest-grossing film of all time, taking $463m at the box office.

Earning a well-fought bronze (some sweeties), “Wedding Cake Table” delivered two perfectly matched halves, and were one of just two teams to know that Edgar Allen Poe is credited as being the originator of the detective fiction genre. Standing next to them on the podium were new regulars “Taking It Back To Old School”, who absolutely nailed the Taylor Swift – Shake It Off lyrics question, even getting the right release year (2014). Unbelievable scenes! A tie-break for first place saw “The Lanyard Experience” up against “Fake Quiz! Sad!” for the £40 bar tab, facing a question on the number of steps which take you to the platform at the top of the Eiffel Tower. FQS got closer to the right answer of 1,710 and the prize was theirs. Heart-in-mouth stuff.

The jackpot question on the peak pigeon population in Trafalgar Square saw returning winners, “French For Mushrooms” win through having battled a range of answers which extended from 983 to 973,312 to get closest to the right answer of 35,000. With their quiz win from only two weeks ago still fresh in everyone’s memory, we were all wondering: “could they win the jackpot too?” And…in a thrilling finale to the evening’s frivolity…THEY ONLY WENT AND DID SO!! Selecting the right envelope, the £144 was theirs. Don’t worry, though. The jackpot resets for next week and there is already over £60 of cold. hard. cash. in the pot. Come and get it. You know it makes sense. #onlytheduchyarmshastheanswer