Seriously, who calls it a 'shadow clock'? Never mind, are you ready for this jelly?

Charles C

The autumn quiz season got off to a cracking (conker-cracking?) start last night, with an energetic but cerebral crowd battling the questions in pursuit of trivia glory. Along the way, we learned that: Aussie Rules football teams have 18 players; Father Christmas has the postcode ‘HOH OHO’; and, a shadow clock is another term for sundial (albeit used by literally no-one in any of the myriad sundial conversations I have had over time).

Power duo “Borneo Function” just missed out on the bottle of wine but scored well on my points-per-person (‘PPP’) metric AND did well to identify the photo of the Whack-a-mole game. Earning the wine, “Hairy Team” did superbly on the three Tom Cruise film screenshots. Just ahead of them, “1 Lesbian & Jen” did well to remember that the English word ‘amnesia’ stems from the Greek word for forgetfulness (reminded me of that 1997 classic by Chumbawamba). “Ugly Sisters” were next, knowing that JFK was the US President that had FitzGerald as a middle name.

Scoring the highest on a PPP basis, wonder couple ‘Nuron’ delivered a solid quiz, even getting 3-out-of-3 on the Destiny’s Child – Bootylicious lyrics question. “F#ck Boris” made their political presence and quizzing prowess known, correctly knowing that Indonesia has just announced it will be changing its capital city. “French For Mushrooms” were also strong, knowing that Sting played bass for The Police and identifying the photo of the girlband ‘B*witched’ (with the asterisk and everything!).

Rocketing back into the top 5, “One Of Us Has A Penis Weighing Less Than 300g” correctly identified the Old Spice logo (tough!) and that the human heart weighs around 300g. “Hughbert Comes To Town” took fourth place, knowing that Kevin Pietersen holds the record for the most test runs by a foreign-born player in the England cricket team.

“Fishermen’s Friends” were back on the podium, getting 3-out-of-3 on the tube stations. First place was tied this week, with new regulars “Quiztopher Bigwins” (excellent team name) having been superb on their Bruce Forsyth knowledge and their Robin Hood/Yorkshire expertise, while “The Prorogues” had been the fastest to the get the scary film anagram. Asking a tie-breaker on the female world record for the marathon saw the two teams within 25 seconds of each other. “The Prorogues” were fractionally closer and the £40 bar tab was theirs.

“Borneo Function” won through to the jackpot round, knowing exactly the right answer to the question on the US-Mexico border. Sadly, the higher-or-lower cards were cruel this week and the £126 evaded them. Still, a rollover for next week sees the cash rise to £170. Come and get it. Lookin' hot, smellin' good
Groovin' like you from the hood, I DO think you can handle this. #onlytheduchyarmshastheanswer