Let's Get Pub Quizzical, Quizzical!

The pub quiz. It's a bit of fun really. You and some friends group together. You allocate 'specialist areas' to each other ("Well I'm good at sports, we've got them covered" "Yeah, and I'm good at the ongoing plight of the African Seabear, it's a guaranteed extra mark!") like you're the fucking Justice League of quiz teams. You make up a funny name so you can laugh when it gets read out (E. Norma Stitz and Hugh Jardon).All in the noble aim to win a gallon of beer. It's fun right?

Wrong.

The pub quiz is testing you on general knowledge and all other stuff you've picked up through your life. So essentially fail at the quiz, and you fail at life. Not only have you failed at life, but you've failed at life against people who have already failed at life by virtue of them usually being regulars there. It's not just "a bit of fun" now is it?

IS IT!?!?

Our team has lost so many times, it doesn't bother us anymore. We just assume that everyone there has nothing better to do with their time away from the dole queue than absorb information from every encyclopedia the world has to offer. Then again, why choose encyclopedias when there's Wikipedia? It's actually a true test of how fast your mobile internet really is, searching for and finding the right answer within about 10 seconds (If you were looking for porn, you'd have found it 9 seconds ago). Hell, if your internet can't do that, I'd go complain. It should be every humans basic right to cheat at the quiz!

There's also the 'If All Else Fails' answer. You know the one, where you're asked a question that you don't know, your mates don't know, the internet doesn't know, but you've gotta put something. Ours is 'King Solomon'. To us, King Solomon has simultaneously been the ruler of every relevant empire, the name of a bridge somewhere we didn't know, the left back for Leeds in the 1970's, a medical condition that affects the liver and the anagram of 'Serbian afar ace'. You never know, he may have been the answer. He wasn't. But he could have been, and that's all that matters.

It's okay losing by a huge margin (we can tell how likely this is by the amount of 'King Solomons' on the answer sheet), you don't care, because you knew you didn't have a chance, it's when you're close when it hurts. "Argh, we were one off!" and that's when you start having a go at each other for giving the few wrong answers "THE ONGOING PLIGHT OF THE AFRICAN SEABEAR WAS YOUR SPECIALIST AREA!" until you get some ruddy perspective on things and realise you've just failed at life. It's a vicious circle. We have actually reached the dizzy heights of the tiebreaker before, "How tall can a Great Redwood tree grow to?" but failed on trying to get the closest answer (370 foot they can grow to if you're curious). As if we knew trees could grow that tall. So you all trudge off back to the table ("next week eh lads?") and bitch about the winners for a bit. Then to compound the quiz misery (quizzery?) it's karaoke time!

Fucks sake.

Take Me Down to the Universe-City, Where the Grass is Green and the Girls Are Pretty.

Hello, it's been a while.

In the whirlwind of a month that will go down in the history books as 'August'. I've been on a two week holiday (the weeks were like a threesome with Katy Perry and Jo Brand, one good, one bad), watched films, panicked about Results Day (Judgement Day, but worse), got drunk, panicked some more, got into university on Results Day and then got the fine example of technical excellence which is the very Macbook I type this out on now as a reward for my effing intelligent self.

My dad told me an amusing story once that seems semi-relevant here:

"Me and my mate Rob were going round town, when we were your age, and we saw these two good-looking lasses. So we went up to them and said 'Alright, you're very attractive' and all that stuff. And they smiled and said 'The feeling is mutual'. Well me and Rob just stared at them thinking 'Have they just took the piss out of us?' and we walked off. We got home, checked the dictionary to see what 'mutual' meant, and just went 'Fucks sake...'"

Thank Darwin it's nurture, not nature that matters, otherwise I'd never have gone on to study English at University. Well looking forward to it, give people outside of Doncaster the chance to meet the phenomenon that is Dean John Morris. I'll stop being big-headed now. Not really looking forward to living off a budget though, we've worked out that my ass is going to be surviving on just £55 a week. Some weeks are probably going to involve doing favours I won't be proud of, just to scrape enough money to buy a Cuppa Soup because it qualifies as both food AND drink. And that's if I haven't had to sell my cups!

Packing the stuff makes me feel painfully aware of the normal life skills that I'm finally going to have to learn, mainly to do with cleaning. I have managed to navigate through 18 years of my life without ever having to use a washing machine or iron my clothes. People will see me in the launderette approaching the machines like some foreign space object; "What? You're saying the cycle creates a hurricane that washes my clothes? Surely you're lying!". I can cook, which is good. Well, I say cook, I can read instructions on the food boxes, it's the same thing really. To be honest, I'm hoping my roommates are like the ones from that Carlsberg advert ages ago (y'know the one with the 3 hot women who cooked, cleaned and watched football?), surely that isn't too much to ask?

It is strangely close, I move into my room next Saturday, then have two full weeks of, socialising, learning the geography of Huddersfield (i.e: nearest cash point, KFC, Home Bargains, Burton, best nightclub) and getting pissed out of my face. Then my university education begins! Also hoping to try and get into the Student Radio there, after the success of mine and @lukegibbs seminal podcast 'The Top 5 MB Moments'. So I can phone your granddad and tell him I had sex with his granddaughter, that seems like something the public would go for......