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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The day after Boxing Day, and half of us are on the floor...

Happy Families
To be honest, it's a miracle we're still speaking to each other. We had our annual Christmas Quiz last night, a family bonding ritual which is now in its third glorious year. It started in 2009, when my then-10-year-old niece spent the week leading up to Christmas preparing five pages of questions for us all to answer, little knowing that by Boxing Day we'd all be at death's door, and barely able to answer the phone to a doctor, never mind a question on the history of Manga.

Despite that, it proved to be the highlight of the festive season (narrowly beating the moment that Lisa threw up in a bin), so we repeated it under slightly better circumstances last year. It's now on the verge of becoming a family tradition, and the main reason we all meet up at Christmas.

Last night's quiz featured five rounds, for which we were divided into two equally-matched teams (we gave them Amelie in return for a tin of biscuits), and the whole thing was scored out of 64. Now, you might think that questions set by a 12-year-old would be simple. And they were. But not as simple as the contestants. My parents' team scored 36. Which I thought was pretty poor. Until we scored 29.

I think the lowlight for me was when my sister-in-law suggested that Kilimanjaro was the highest mountain in the world. And was promptly believed by my sister. I had to point out to them that it's been climbed by Chris Moyles and Denise Van Outen. And even then, they weren't convinced. Fortunately things picked up when I spectacularly named the singer who wrote 'Party in the USA' by Miley Cyrus, after which we attempted some sophisticated sabotage by sending Amelie into the opposing camp with instructions to tell them that Cheryl Cole's aged fifty.

I saw red when my niece asked us to "Name the band in the picture below"...

?
... but our biggest failing was in the round which appears every year without fail: an entire section of questions about my niece. To ensure fairness, my team included her mother, while the opposition had her father. The round was scored out of 17, and featured questions about her likes, dislikes, friends and hobbies. Naturally, with insider information from her Mum, I was expecting maximum points for our team.

We ended up with 8. They got 4. And she's not even adopted. Admittedly, no one could have guessed that her favourite food is something she hasn't eaten for two months, but when it came to naming her first high school, I think we could have done better. My sister-in-law walked her to the gates, and she still got it wrong.

2 comments:

jon the bassist said...

Is it a tribute band to Ross Kemp called Kemps Campers?

Phil said...

It's not. Personally I'm just disappointed there are only four of them. If they get a new member, they can be the Famous Five with lashings of ginger beard.