Pub Quiz Report #1 :: 12:44 AM :: easyjetsetter

Welcome to the first of a new weekly feature here at EasyJetsetter. But first, a wee note to send you in the direction of Tim Worstall's Britblog Roundup #16, featuring yours truly. I should be honest here and point out that in my crusade to be a little more "male" (pushy) in my blogging activities, I nominated myself. It took a bit of umming and ahhing about integrity and such, and then I thought, oh bollocks, once won't hurt, it gets someone whose opinion I respect reading. Of course, as comeuppance for my egomania, tabulas was down all afternoon. Go figure.

It was an evening for celebration: Audrey has returned from her first trip back to the states for a while, encompassing a wedding and a college reunion. Born in France, but American, she found the sign on a hardware store "see-through windows sold here" particularly amusing, invented a new word that is a combination between "binge" and "splurge" (blurge) and had a problem with all the touching, full-body hugs that Americans do. So we were welcoming her back (gingerly, at arms length) and, since we have a fair amount of Belgians (four) on the mailing list, we were also celebrating the win of a Belgian woman at Roland Garros, the French Open.

Update: asJulien points out, she is indeed french speaking, and three-quarters of our belgian participants are flemish. But, sorry Julien, she is STILL NOT FRENCH, no matter how much you wish she was.

In addition, I can exclusively reveal to you now that Audrey and Adam are indeed together and very happy, thanks to a certain someone that we all know and love (me) introducing them. They do not in fact live next door to each other, but overlook each other's balconies in the same building, and spent most of the evening whispering into each other's ear. Although it seems thoroughly unfair to me that you can find someone a few paces away from your front door, when others aren't so lucky on the distance front, I wish them all the best and expect a very nice present.

The quiz is held at the Highlander pub in the 6th arrondissement at 9:30 pm, and is generally packed, hot and smokey. I generally wear clothes that need to go in the wash anyway, as I always come out smelling really bad. Tonight's attire, in honour of my first painted toenails of the summer (deep rouge noir) was some very sweet black open-toed high high heeled mules, that just arrived last week with the parents. A lot of people said I was looking really good, by which they meant: a) your hair's been cut at last and b) taller.

I started going to this pub quiz because the boys that run funky paris invited me along, and when they went to Thailand for a month I had to make up a new team. The funky boys, as they shall henceforth be known, are now our arch rivals, the Thailanders.

Tonight was a very quiet night: Paris has been hopping all day, with the 2012 bid march and fair on the Champs Elysees (cool photos here at Negrito) and the final of Roland Garros, while the expat world has been watching the Lions play. So the pub was more sparsely populated than usual, which boded well for at least second place.

In attendance were: Audrey, Adam, Veronica, Mariann, Annika, Annika's brother Raoul and Katrien's friend Nick, whom none of us had met before, but no Katrien. We divided up into two teams, as the limit is five to one team. Mine was, of course, the Easyjetsetters, and the others based their team name on a mild stutter that came out of my mouth (blame the long island ice tea) when we were talking about spies: the CCIA.

The questions came thick and fast. Last week, we were presided over by a Frenchman who spoke very heavily accented english and who rushed through the questions, and every time the pub erupted into a mutter of anger at this lack of pub quiz propriety, he would shout into the microphone "please shut up! I am French! I speak not good English! I am the one who asks the questions! Shut up and listen to me!" who was replaced this week with a genial Scottish chap called Dave, who refused to believe I was from Glasgow, and delighted Adam by saying I was from England.

The format is generally about 30 questions, plus 10 pictures that are generally stills from films that you have to name. Tricky questions included one on what "hypnophobia" is, which is the only animal with four knees, and the actress whose name is an anagram of "a guys own riviera." In a sneaky move, the film stills were replaced with album covers.

Apart from a brief shouting match between me and Adam ("U2!" "Stone Roses!" "U2!" "Stone Roses!" It was Travis) the evening was relatively calm apart from me calling Adam racist for doing a bad imitation of Dave's accent. I hung my head in shame every time they made fun of his manner of saying "six" like a bunch of prepubescent mongooses, and almost died when Marian shouted "what about question dirty sex?"

We all switched papers and marked, and the Thailanders won to win a bottle of champagne (again!), the CCIA came second, to win a bottle of wine, entirely due to their stupendous team name, inspired by me. Where did the EasyJetsetters come you ask? Let me quote our host Dave: "And in fifth place, which in Scotland we like to call last...."

There is always next week.