Tue 17th Feb 2009

This evening’s pub night featured similar quiz related aspects of last Tuesday. This time, we were in a different pub playing on a gaming machine rather than competing as a team. The entry fee was the same (a pound each down the slot), but the quiz on the machine generally lasts minutes rather than hours – which is just as well for a busy soul like me who lives such a fast-paced existence (I’ve still some unfilled plans from Saturday to catch up on). Another difference between the two different quiz-types is the wildly varying difficulty of the questions. Initially, the machine will build your confidence with really simple ones; something along the lines of
“Who is the wife and co-presenter of Richard Madeley?”
a) Keith Chegwin
b) Judy Finnegan
c) Michael Finnegan
d) Judy from the popular seaside entertainment franchise ‘Punch & Judy’”.
But as soon as it looks like a cash win is a distinct possibility, the questions go from ridiculously easy to ridiculously difficult. One question we were asked in order to win a pound was, “British band Cud were on which of the following recording labels?”

Pop Music happens to be my specialist subject. I am aware that Cud were a late eighties early nineties British indie band who had a couple of minor hits that shot straight into the lower reaches of the top 100 before disappearing straight back into obscurity. This was back in the days when ‘indie’ music was sheepish, nerdy, underachieving, a bit rubbish but ultimately lovable, as opposed to the late 90’s big supernova anthems which welcomed a following of beer-boys and terrace hooligans. Seriously – how’s anyone supposed to know that? I’d be surprised if even the members of Cud themselves could tell you, never mind anyone else.

Despite the machine’s level of specialization (or cheating, as I like to call it), amazingly I got the answer right. This was satisfying because it’s not like I was a Cud fan or anything, I just had a weird inkling that turned out to be correct (or guesswork, as I like to call it). I enjoyed the feeling of beating the machine when it was so transparently trying to get one over on us with such an obscure question. We were so happy in fact, that we celebrated by putting the pound back into the machine and losing it properly. But I felt sated. At least we lost it on a question that was fair.