QUIZ TIME

I tell you what, they take their Christmas VERY seriously in this part of the world. Either that, or the whole village boned up on Christmas trivia before last night's Christmas Quiz at the pub.

Jeanette, Kate and I formed a ladies team which we called The Three Wise (wo)Men. We would have been six, but three fell by the wayside after too much fizz at the 70th birthday party earlier in the day. We paid one pound each to enter ($2) and the pub also provided mince pies to sustain us during the quiz, and chicken and chips afterwards. A bargain!

First of all we had to identify pictures of various celebrities dressed up as Santa. Most of the pictures were either fuzzy or taken at some considerable distance, adding to the degree of difficulty. We managed to identify David Beckham and Sean Connery but stumbled over a very young Elvis, Brad Pitt and Jack Nicholson. This one of course was easy (answers to me in 25 words or less on a postcard, please):



Then the real business began. Here is a sample:

• What was the name of Rudolph's father?
• What instrument was Silent Night written for?
• Which of its machinery did Addis Brush Company use to manufacture its first Christmas trees?
• What sustenance do Danes leave out for Santa?
• What was Cliff Richard's last Number One Christmas hit?
• How many children did Bob Cratchit have?
• What year did NORAD start tracking Santa's journey around the world each Christmas Eve?
• Who sang Fairytale of New York with The Pogues?

Now questions such as this tell me one of two things - either my childhood was dismally deficient when it came to learning about Christmas traditions and I fall asleep before the TV specials; or the landlord of the local pub is trying to self-destruct by implying he is far brainier than any of his patrons. Regardless, the only questions I knew the answers to were:

• What is the star sign of someone born on December 25th (the same as mine)
• What colour are mistletoe berries? (but everyone else on the team knew this too)
• What town was Jesus born in? (ditto)

The Three Wise (wo)Men scored 16 out of 39 and tied for bottom spot with - how embarrassing - the only other team to include an Australian. This is not good for national pride.

The winners managed 29 correct answers which publican Catherine declared a very low score, although she conceded that even she couldn't get any of the pictorial questions which her husband had researched (Ha! Told you!). Mind you, the winners did have the largest team with six of them. However, they beat Paul and Gilmour who always win, so there was much jollity about that.

Landlord, another round please!