Quiz Night

Today was Christobal’s birthday. I headed off to fitness and wellness class at 9:30, and when I came back, Christobal rang my flat, and I put my head out the window shouting “Feliz Cumpleanos!” (Happy birthday in Spanish.) He was disappointed because his brother had sent him a present from Spain, but they delivered it to the wrong flat, and someone had signed for it – after searching almost every flat, he finally found it.

To celebrate his birthday, Michaele and I headed to the ever-popular Tescos supermarket bakery section. They have cakes for everything. There are small cakes for £4.00 that have the major football teams on them for victory parties. There was a Liverpool team cake with the key footballers faces printed on the frosting. There was also a crazy frog cake. Crazy frog, which most of you have not heard of, is a small-animated frog that sings a song that has been deemed the most annoying song in the world. The funny thing is that it went to the top of the charts, beating out Coldplay’s recent single – and it is a popular ring tone choice. Once you’ve heard it, you’ve heard it enough. The cake featured a small candle that would play the crazy frog song when lit. We decided to go for the generic Tesco chocolate cake, and we headed back to the kitchen where we met Stephanie, Themos, Joanna, Teripsi, Despiona and Cristobal. After he had blown out the candles, Punaam, one of Michaele’s flatmates came into the kitchen. We asked her to sing Happy Birthday in Hindi, and she sang a beautiful song as we clapped along.

The next destination was a pub called ‘The Goat.’ The Goat is located on High Street, a 2-minute walk from our dorm. When you walk in, it has the immediate feeling of being someone’s house. There is plad carpet, overstuffed chairs, a fireplace and friendly people. Michaele, Cristobal and I were the only ones to go, and we were the only students in the entire place. The space was relatively empty, and a man came to our table announcing that it was quiz night, and handed us a sheet of paper with 50 numbered blanks. We chose “The Ligers” as our team name – a nod to Napoleon Dynamite (a movie that has yet to hit the shores of England). Looking around the pub I assumed that these people were quiz night regulars, there was a table called “the bookies,” a group of 5 guys, all wearing glasses that eagerly awaited the start of the game, there was also a man with his white Scotty dog that walked around the pub saying hello to everyone with a lick, and some other individual players. There was no stage, just a young Irishman announcing the questions from one side of the bar. The first category was Television and Film, (or Fillum as he would say.) We immediately knew that we were going to be at a disadvantage with questions like: what was the name of the policeman in the movie “Top Cat.”… or Who is the star of the Channel 4 drama “Elizabeth.”

The categories moved on to sports, music and then general knowledge. After a while we noticed another student sitting at the table next to us, and he seemed to be another quiz night regular – quietly saying “yesss!” when he would get an answer right. He started seeing that we were having some troubles – even the Irishman giving the quiz would constantly look over and say, “how are you folks keeping up?” Once we hit the music section, Oliver, the student, would sneak over when it was a real stumper, and tell us the answer. He only did it a couple of times, but it was a huge help.

My favourite question was “Which England player has retired from pro Rugby to ‘spend more time with his family?” To think that there is only one player that has such an excuse is funny in itself. When we looked puzzled, the host said… “c’mon! Its really easy!”

It was time to turn in our papers. Within no time, he had tallied up the scores, and began announcing the results. “In last place… The Liggers?” “The Ligers!” we loudly corrected him. He had a puzzled look on his face, as he had obviously not heard about the mythical Liger (bread for its skills and magic.) There was a small cheer for us among the pub, as we were very happy with our score of 16 out of 50 correct.

After the winners were announced. The owner of the pub came over and congratulated us for participating in the event, and handed us a box that contained a nice pint glass from the pub. The old man was very nice, and really enjoyed talking with us. He learned our names, and said that since we were so far from Home (the US) that if we ever felt lonely or lost, to just come inside the Goat and he would serve us free dinner and tea on their nice patio. It was an incredible night, and we truly felt the hospitality of the Goat.