I still think the moral victory was ours

I've just got back from a quiz night. Now I do love a good quiz, and this one was at a school in the shadow of York Minster. Very civilised too, as they provided supper and wine. Apart from the friend who'd invited me along, I'd never met any of these people before, but did that stop me being loud and competitive? Hmmm, that would be a 'no' then.

It was probably one of the longest quizzes I've been to, with 12 rounds, and breaks for the head teacher to go to the cellar for more wine (its that sort of school!). It was quite a bizarre concept in that, if your team was first at the end of the round, one team member had to answer a 'bonus' question. If you got it right, your score remained the same, if you got it wrong, the team lost two points which were awarded to the team in last place.

Some rounds we did well on (books, geography, history, art, tv and film and famous faces), others not so well (I pretty much opted out of 'science, nature and technology', and 'sport'), but we were frequently in the lead, and had to go for the bonus. I was selected to answer on 'books*'. Sadly, when the question was 'what kind of pig is the Empress of Blandings'? I didn't have a clue, as I've never read the book, plus, I don't know any breeds of pigs - all I could think of was 'a black one'!. Conversely when another member of our team had to give the Christian names of all 3 BeeGees and forgot Barry, I was groaning.

At the end of the last round, we were leading by one point, and it came to the tie break. One of the two people on the team who hadn't answered a bonus so far went up. She happened to be French. The question was 'who was Harold Wilson's Press Secretary'? No idea, so we lost two points, and another team sneaked in and won. But, as the prize was a very ugly trophy, I wasn't too worried.

Me, competitive? Well, I may have punched the air a few times when we got questions right!

*I think it was because I was the only person who recognised the opening line of Little Lord Fauntleroy - and it was a lucky guess on my part!