….the capacity for a word or phrase to have many meanings.
Like, ‘woman up’.
That’s what Mr TLF said when I responded in a less than confident manner to our erstwhile programme editor’s invitation to join his team for the SBYS non-league football quiz. Something to do with what TLF knows about non-league football being able to fit on, not the back of a packet of bacon fries, but on the back of a single bacon fry. Actually I’m not sure if a bacon fry has a back and a front?
Anyway. The point is when Mr TLF said that phrase, he meant, “I think you should attend a quiz during daylight hours, that doesn’t intrude too much on our weekend and you will be home relatively sober and at a reasonable hour.”
Whereas TLF thought he meant, “Feel free to attend a quiz that starts at 7.30pm on Satday night, do not hold back on the booze, make sure you attend post quiz drinks in The Crown and then roll home about half past midnight. Oh and if you can do a comedy walk where you grab the door handle of your taxi but your legs keep going then even better.”
And it’s not even like we won. There was no magnificent quiz victory to celebrate, just a mild hangover to nurse from the slightly chilly environs of what the French probably don’t call ‘la maison de la chien’, which is where TLF spent a good part of Sunday, accompanied by the bitter sting of defeat and a recognition that I had let my team captain down.
His team, Lenny Piper’s Magic Underpants, was of course up against it from the start. A debut from a less than confident and less than knowledgeable TLF, an untested formation, and no pre-match team talk. Even with star performer Barry Hilliard on side, he was always going to have a problem.
But perhaps not quite as much of a problem as our Quiz Meister, who had foolishly implied in some pre-quiz bantz that the SBYS meeting minutes might be of questionable accuracy. These are of course penned by my own paw and the phrase, “IF, you can trust the minutes…” is one you say at your peril and TLF did of course not let such a slight go, raining much abuse in the direction of the man with the question sheets. But of course he who wrote the questions, has the last laugh…well until the music round.
Our very own Jeremy Paxman in action
Apart from an unhealthy obsession with Kidderminster Harriers, it was a brilliantly researched (if impossible for us ignorant TLFs) and brilliantly delivered quiz and hats off to Mr Michael Hill for an excellent evening. Mind you if he questions my minutes again, there’ll be trouble.
Not letting it go Fox
Quiz stats Championes!
Attendance: Six happy teams, of varying numbers
Final score: I think we finished fourth but to be honest it was a blur by then.
Questions answered correctly by TLF: About six and five of those were celebrity photos.
Questions where TLF is embarrassed to have got it wrong: Two. I didn’t recognise Ken Loach and then the one where I really thought the answer was Coalville Town but I didn’t like to overrule anyone. Yes, that Coalville Town, the one I lived in for the first 18 years of my life.
Re-fuelling: several packets crisp and bacon fries
Liquid nutrition: hmm Quite a lot of Stella and then quite a lot of Amstel. Wouldn’t like to put a number on it but the sum of TLF pints consumed definitely exceeded the sum of TLF correct answers
