Booze and Brains

No this is not a post about any new obscure survey propounding the beneficial effects of booze on your grey cells. This is the name given to a weekly quiz conducted by a pub called NightWatchman out here in Bangalore. They claim that they have been holding this for the past 6-7 years on a regular basis on Thursdays. One of my roommates made me aware of it and we decided to pay a visit and check it out. We ordered a pitcher of draught beer and nestled down comfortably. It started around 9.30 pm, the ambience was similar to any of the other innumerable pubs of bangalore, dull lighting, dense seating arrangements, decent but not too loud music, and jazzy shirts for the waiters( here it was a combo of pink and orange).

The QM was a guy called Mark Rego , looked like an Anglo-Indian, this community has done quite a lot for quizzing in India, starting from Neil O Brien to "The Rack-your-Brain"( inspite of my not so high opinion, Derek is one of the most popular QMs around) . Rego seemed competent, had a good voice, and decent quizzing acumen. One can find out the quizzing knowledge of a QM by finding out his comments on some of the wrong answers, whether he gives some insights on them or acknowledges their relevance/irrelevance . Here for example there was a question "Which brand's mascot is known as the proud lady", we guessed "Rolls Royce" , the actual answer was "The lady in Columbia Pictures", then after seeing the answers he said that the lady in RR is called the "Spirit Of Ecstasy". Which I knew, but still went for it, due to lack of a better guess.

Coming back to the quiz, the way it worked was.

• All tables are given numbers ( max 4 people in a table) , if you have a group more than four you have to play separately.
• Tables are given about 30 cards to write their answers.
• The QM asks questions one at a time, after he is done , you write the answer in your card ,along with the table num and pass it to a person who comes to collect.
• This doesn't go on continuously, after each question there is a gap in which the music is played, or better put whenever the song stops a Q is asked.
• The QM has a sheet in which he marks the points for teams after each question, he also announces after every 5-6 ques what are the scores for the teams.
• A rough back of the hand calculation that I did was that for 30 Q to progress in this way it will take 30*5 = 150 min (5 min per song). Also the rhythm or josh wasn't there, because the wait was to long. but thankfully he had a couple of "rapid-fires", in which he passed a paper, and then asked 5 questions in a row, and collected it pronto.
• total questions asked were around 30 odd, most were for 1 point one or two were worth 2/3.
• In one rapid fire there were two choices given, with negative marking. Even passing entailed negatives, so one had to compulsorily answer.

Prizes: All team scoring 25 or above get one pitcher free . The winning teams table bill is waived. Plus vouchers are given for jeans, bunge jumping etc.

Unfortunately we missed out narrowly, we had scored 25 points, but due to negative marking we slipped up to 22. The last bonus question he asked was for 5 points, "Who is the father of donald duck". i thought i knew it, and racked my brains hard, but guess the combined effect of 3-4 glasses of beer and the blaring music rendered my efffort fruitless.

BTW the answer was "Quackmore".

Some other questions were.

Who are known as the Hibakushas (Japanese atom bomb survivors)

The Swiss Guards protect whom? (Pope)

Whose cricketer's autobiography is "By God's Decree"? (Kapil Dev)

Who owns Garfield ? (John Arbuckle)

If Batman is Bruce Wayne , then what is Robin's real name ? (Dick Grayson)

Which soccer player's jersey has been retired by Napoli ? (Maradona)

Overall it was an entertaining experience. Now you know where I will be this thursday evening :) .