Pheweee!
Quiet on the blog front lately but that's cos it's been quiet for me on the quiz-running front, though not, I should say, quiet on the working myself to the bone front.
I'm knee-deep in putting together a vast amount of questions for a project I think i have to be a wee bit confidential about (can one be a wee bit confidential, it's not the best way to confide a secret is it) but suffice to say I've written 1400 questions in the last week and a half, which, in case you have no frame of reference for the question-writing art, is a lot of questions. A lot of questions, and barely a dent in the full number. Which is making me a bit mental. Hopefully not in a bad way, but my usually sparkling, wide-ranging, polymathic banter is pretty limited at the moment to 'Do you know how many questions I've written today. That's when I have spoken...which is rarely....to other people...which is...never.
Heyho, doing a quiz on Thursday so I suppose I'd better switch vaguely back into the mode of the living. Bear with me...
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Sunday, 10 February 2008
No Sleep til Chelmsford
Who'd have thought that it would take almost as long to get to Chelmsford as Edinburgh? For the quiz on Friday night, the car journey from south London was quite something, and left us with little time to set everything up at the venue. A little problem with connection to the projector sorted, and I was ready to unleash a good three hours heavy quizzing to the good people of Essex.
It was pretty exhausting, actually, especially as my foot is killing me at the moment, and i'd much rather be feet up in front of the boxing on a Friday night.
But the reaction was enormously positive, being told it was 'the best quiz I've ever been to' and one woman lavishing praise and trying to get our contact details while i was trying to read out the final scores. Which was nice, though yet more distracting was another woman who had misheard 19 rather than 90 in one of the final questions (though no other teams had) and seemed to imply that was my fault, likewise implying it was my fault her team was at the back of the room and had trouble seeing the screen for some questions. (The other team right at the back came 2nd of 14 teams so I don't think it was the crucial factor in their lowly position).
Dealing with complaints and queries is all part of the job, and, in some ways, knowing how lairy I get in a quiz or a football match feeling that an injustice has been done, it's nice how rarely any kind of issue isn't dealt with with the utmost ease.
Of course, it helps that we know where our questions have come from and we know how and why they are right, it helps, i think, that one can usually afford to be placatory with a point here or there, but still, I got barred from a pub once for taking issue very strongly with a quizmaster (it goes without saying i was in the right, doesn't it.....) so well done for keeping your cool, people of Britain, you're better men and women than I.
It was pretty exhausting, actually, especially as my foot is killing me at the moment, and i'd much rather be feet up in front of the boxing on a Friday night.
But the reaction was enormously positive, being told it was 'the best quiz I've ever been to' and one woman lavishing praise and trying to get our contact details while i was trying to read out the final scores. Which was nice, though yet more distracting was another woman who had misheard 19 rather than 90 in one of the final questions (though no other teams had) and seemed to imply that was my fault, likewise implying it was my fault her team was at the back of the room and had trouble seeing the screen for some questions. (The other team right at the back came 2nd of 14 teams so I don't think it was the crucial factor in their lowly position).
Dealing with complaints and queries is all part of the job, and, in some ways, knowing how lairy I get in a quiz or a football match feeling that an injustice has been done, it's nice how rarely any kind of issue isn't dealt with with the utmost ease.
Of course, it helps that we know where our questions have come from and we know how and why they are right, it helps, i think, that one can usually afford to be placatory with a point here or there, but still, I got barred from a pub once for taking issue very strongly with a quizmaster (it goes without saying i was in the right, doesn't it.....) so well done for keeping your cool, people of Britain, you're better men and women than I.
Thursday, 7 February 2008
On the National Express
Hello quizlings,
I've been up plying my quiztrade up in the noble city of Edinburgh this week, and will try to refrain from describing it as Auld Reekie if I can.
I love Edinburgh, I've spent a lot of time there and had often thought that one day I'd move up there. However, I think London has spoilt me somewhat now, as for the first time I found its imposing cold, windy, greyness a bit oppressive (maybe just cos my feet were hurting). Still had a nice time, though, and the quiz went really well. I ran it from the DJ booth in a club but resisted the temptation to fiddle with the decks and put my hand over my ear in a studied fashion. My friend John helped me, and he questioned my use of 'The One and Only' as my closing music, as if I was using it as some triumphalist 'I am the Highlander of Quizmasters' music, tho the attention is just to be celebratory music for the winning team. However, I can see how it is, from a viewpoint, a wee bit ridiculous.
National Express has taken over from GNER on the East Coast mainline - Britain's finest train ride - and they are covering the hike in prices with free wifi for all. A nice touch, but it would help if the power was working.
Still, it is one of those journeys which is a real pleasure in itself.
Continuing my list theme from last week, I'll reprint this list that I previously put up on facebook of my favourite ten sights on the East Coast mainline:
Lindisfarne Island & Castle
Arthur's Seat
Forth Road Bridge (from Forth Rail Bridge)
St James' Park/Bridges in Newcastle
Durham Cathedral
Emirates Stadium/Highbury
Bamburgh Castle
Gas towers in Yorkshire
The River Tweed
Angel of the North
just missed: Edinburgh Castle (I never feel you get the best view of it from the train)
Here's a question? Which football grounds do you see on the Train line from Kings Cross to Leuchars in Fife? There are more than just the two mentioned above...
I've been up plying my quiztrade up in the noble city of Edinburgh this week, and will try to refrain from describing it as Auld Reekie if I can.
I love Edinburgh, I've spent a lot of time there and had often thought that one day I'd move up there. However, I think London has spoilt me somewhat now, as for the first time I found its imposing cold, windy, greyness a bit oppressive (maybe just cos my feet were hurting). Still had a nice time, though, and the quiz went really well. I ran it from the DJ booth in a club but resisted the temptation to fiddle with the decks and put my hand over my ear in a studied fashion. My friend John helped me, and he questioned my use of 'The One and Only' as my closing music, as if I was using it as some triumphalist 'I am the Highlander of Quizmasters' music, tho the attention is just to be celebratory music for the winning team. However, I can see how it is, from a viewpoint, a wee bit ridiculous.
National Express has taken over from GNER on the East Coast mainline - Britain's finest train ride - and they are covering the hike in prices with free wifi for all. A nice touch, but it would help if the power was working.
Still, it is one of those journeys which is a real pleasure in itself.
Continuing my list theme from last week, I'll reprint this list that I previously put up on facebook of my favourite ten sights on the East Coast mainline:
Lindisfarne Island & Castle
Arthur's Seat
Forth Road Bridge (from Forth Rail Bridge)
St James' Park/Bridges in Newcastle
Durham Cathedral
Emirates Stadium/Highbury
Bamburgh Castle
Gas towers in Yorkshire
The River Tweed
Angel of the North
just missed: Edinburgh Castle (I never feel you get the best view of it from the train)
Here's a question? Which football grounds do you see on the Train line from Kings Cross to Leuchars in Fife? There are more than just the two mentioned above...
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Can I have a P, please, Bob, etc ad inf
Referring back to what I said last week about people being occasionally too jolly at the start of a quiz, I was at a conference at a hotel in Warwickshire this week running a quiz over dinner and, suffice to say, by the end of the night my throat was dry and my wits had been severely tested.
We'd run a quiz for this company before in a similar format and it had been a relatively quiet, well-mannered affair. There can be a variety of factors which dictate the atmosphere of the evening - things like whether teams know each other, how closely packed tables are, how much they are looking to unwind after hard day, how many women there are present to provide a civilising factor - but it goes without saying that quantity and speed of alcohol intake are the largest element, and that on this occasion there had been plenty of hours in the hotel bar beforehand.
Also important at these over-dinner conference quizzes is that the sound and vision is to some extent out of my hands, as their are professionals at the back of the room in charge. This is fine but can mean you don't control your own mike volume, music etc, so can make me a bit more nervous.
Anyway, as soon as i started I could tell there was a lot of silliness in the air, a lot of shouting out , heckling etc, which is fine with me, because if you rise to it and keep them involved you feel a real sense of having entertained rather than just facilitated the enjoyment. I was pleased with some of my put-downs and responses (tho not so pleased that i'd repeat them here or think they held any genuine comic weight) and the atmosphere was thoroughly convivial and the quiz well-contested. I think the main worry is that there are a lot of bosses and organisers there and they hired a quiz and not a comedian, and they will have had expectations of how the quiz would be which were a bit more restrained.
However, being able to respond to the mood of the crowd is an important part of what we do, and so I came out of the evening feeling pleased enough with it, and pretty sure that people had had fun. I always look at the teams at the back, as they'll be the most likely to drift off if it's not working. As it happened, the two teams at the back were the top two teams, so that was gratifying.
But money well-earned, that's for sure.
We'd run a quiz for this company before in a similar format and it had been a relatively quiet, well-mannered affair. There can be a variety of factors which dictate the atmosphere of the evening - things like whether teams know each other, how closely packed tables are, how much they are looking to unwind after hard day, how many women there are present to provide a civilising factor - but it goes without saying that quantity and speed of alcohol intake are the largest element, and that on this occasion there had been plenty of hours in the hotel bar beforehand.
Also important at these over-dinner conference quizzes is that the sound and vision is to some extent out of my hands, as their are professionals at the back of the room in charge. This is fine but can mean you don't control your own mike volume, music etc, so can make me a bit more nervous.
Anyway, as soon as i started I could tell there was a lot of silliness in the air, a lot of shouting out , heckling etc, which is fine with me, because if you rise to it and keep them involved you feel a real sense of having entertained rather than just facilitated the enjoyment. I was pleased with some of my put-downs and responses (tho not so pleased that i'd repeat them here or think they held any genuine comic weight) and the atmosphere was thoroughly convivial and the quiz well-contested. I think the main worry is that there are a lot of bosses and organisers there and they hired a quiz and not a comedian, and they will have had expectations of how the quiz would be which were a bit more restrained.
However, being able to respond to the mood of the crowd is an important part of what we do, and so I came out of the evening feeling pleased enough with it, and pretty sure that people had had fun. I always look at the teams at the back, as they'll be the most likely to drift off if it's not working. As it happened, the two teams at the back were the top two teams, so that was gratifying.
But money well-earned, that's for sure.
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