Monday, November 26, 2007
Bry and Nige on the Town
Tonight, Nige and I - both natty in top hats and tails and swinging ebony sticks - will repair to the Cafe Royal to take part in the Pen Quiz as the Jose Mourinho and the Sven Joran Eriksson of the Literary Review team. Nige will, like Gerard de Nerval, be walking a lobster on a lead and I, like Ronald Firbank, will dine on a single pea. We did this quiz last year, though I didn't mention Nige as he wasn't then my co-blogger. Then as we slumped to elegant defeat - winning is so tasteless - we took to giving 'Polly Toynbee' as the answer to every question. This year, we need a fresher, more imaginative approach. I will propose 'Ed Balls', though I am prepared to consider alternatives. Jeremy Paxman may work as he is asking the questions. I trust he will spare us his famous contempt.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
don't come all Jez Archer on us, mate!
ReplyDeletesorry, that's Jeff Archer - the Paxman reference threw me.
ReplyDeleteWhen was PEN founded? Who were its first three presidents.....hope you are in training Appleyard and not just 'dressing up'! Alastair Darling would be a good team refrain. I'll be dragging along the anchor.
ReplyDeleteAre spats permissible with tails?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI recently wrote a two hundred line mock heroic poem on Jeremy Paxman and his socks so I'm quite jealous that you'll be in his company. For that reason, I'd suggest not mocking the good man.
ReplyDeleteInstead, can I suggest that 'Bill Oddie' is a more fitting answer to any question?
If Trivial Pursuits is anything to go by, "Napoleon", "John Lennon" and "Desert Orchid" are safe answers to most questions.
ReplyDeleteStarter for ten, incorrect interruptions will incur a five point penalty. Name the three countries in the world which contain none of the letters from the word MACKEREL...
ReplyDeletePossible answers are the nineteenth century, Spanish and Salman Rushdie. Yep. Let me just check. Yep, those are the right answers to every question.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, every history question can be answered as follows: 'The rich were getting richer, the poor were getting poorer and the middle classes were rising.'
ReplyDeletecan't for the moment think of any such countries, Ed
ReplyDeleteGood luck. Sounds like a very enjoyable evening. Does your lobster have a name? Otherwise, it might not be allowed to answer those tricky questions to which only a crustacean could possibly know the answer. Unless, that is, Nige is spending this afternoon perfecting his skills as a ventriloquist ...
ReplyDeleteFiji. What are the other two, Ed? I'm trying to work here, and now you've gone and distracted me.
ReplyDeleteTogo.
ReplyDeleteDjibouti
ReplyDeleteThe lobster's called Gerald, Mark, and he's hot to trot. I intend to have him sitting on the table, and I'll pick him up like a telephone and hold him to my ear every time he has an answer (he'll signal by nonchalantly waving a claw). This must be within the rules.
ReplyDelete"Winston Churchill" is also the correct answer to all questions, unless the category is biology, in which case it is "photosynthesis".
ReplyDeleteFiji, Togo, Djibouti. Correct. If you're not already at the quiz, know this - the longest horse race in the flat season is the Grand National.
ReplyDeleteBest of British.
I watched University Challenge tonight, and it turned out the correct answer was 'biogenesis'.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised to hear Magdalen College, Oxford, pronouced as 'Maudlin College'. All these years, I thought they were two different Oxford colleges.