Who would think Germany would get so many medals at the Winter Olympics?!

Charles C

Fierce and feisty (but friendly) competition at the quiz last night saw the first half finish with just six points between the teams. Along the way, we learned: saltwater crocodiles have the most powerful bite of any animal; Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the world not to contain a river; and, Norway and Germany were joint top in terms of 2018 Winter Olympics gold medals.

At close of play, power duo “The Last Prince” won the consolation Smarties and my prize for highest score on a points-per-person basis but not before showing us very impressive knowledge of marine creatures, namely the vampire squid. Just ahead of them, taking the bottle of wine, “Angelo’s Angels” delivered a solid quiz, doing particularly well to know that at her death in 1976 Agatha Christie was Britain’s wealthiest author. A fraction ahead of them came “Dr Quiz, Medicine Woman”, who, as well as winning a free drink, proved deep expertise on the subject of explorers, knowing that Amundsen beat Captain Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole. I even received some sympathy when relaying how my wife said she wouldn’t stand for us naming our child ‘Falcon’ after Captain Scott.

“Fishermen’s Friends” put in another punchy quiz performance in what was a bunched up pack of scores. They were particularly quick on the Leicester City anagram and did well to remember the first name of Easyjet’s founder (Stellios). “Heaven Knows We’re Quizerable Now” did superbly to get all 3 of the available points for the Justin Timberlake – Rock Your Body lyrics question. No easy task given they had to cast their minds back to 2003. (Was it really that long ago?!) In that year I was reliably informed “One Of Us Holds The Wines & Spirits Educational Trust Level 2 Honours” were ‘still in shorts at prep school’ (they still got the artist and song title though). As it was, they proved unmatched on celebrity recognition, getting the Zoe Kravitz-Rita Ora face combo with only a small amount of internal team strife. Thankfully their resident alcohol expert (the one with the fancy-pants qualification) got the answer for what ABV stands for in the drinks industry: ‘alcohol by volume’. Great work.

A dynamic quiz from “Uncivil Servants” saw them earning the second highest score, even getting 3 points on the movie snapshots. Sadly, a three-way tie for first place meant they didn’t walk away with one of my coveted packs of consolation sweets. Wrestling a tie-breaker on the world record for the greatest distance rolled across a set of gym balls (88.4 metres), “The Rookies”, (superb on the musician identification questions), and regular favourites “Fake Quiz! Sad!”, (3-from-3 on the tube stations and the song lyrics as well as getting the Deal Or No Deal question exactly right) just missed out. They were slightly further away with their guesses than “Alternative Fur Duchyland”, who had demonstrated excellent quiz range, from a ‘turkey’ being the term for three strikes in a row in ten-pin bowling to rodeo being the equine sport where riders are protected by a ‘clown’, and won the £40 bar tab.

The jackpot question saw teams guessing the record time taken to visit all 270 underground stations (16 hours 20 mins). “Last Prince Of Scotland” were comfortably the closest and faced the five envelopes with a calculated stare and a determination to get the cash. After almost no delay, they ONLY WENT AND WON! Picking the correct envelope, the £156 was theirs. £78 each of Cold. Hard. Cash. It was as easy as that. Jackpot returns next week. See you there. #onlytheduchyarmshastheanswer