Friday 12 April 2013

Pub quiz

Hello. My names is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I had a really nice evening yesterday at the staff pub quiz held in the staff bar. Our team, the Econoclasts, consisting of me, Jack Cork and Richard Gardener, didn't do very well. In fact we lost out in the first round to the Bibliophile team from the Library. But Jenny Jones was in that team and I did get to have a nice chat with her later in the evening. I might even have a date with her soon!

Actually we did OK on the economics and politics questions (as you would expect). So we knew that the Office for Budget Responsibility's GDP growth forecast for the year is 0.6%, that the new Governor of the Bank of England is Mark Carney and that the full title of Adam Smith's famous book is "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.". We were quite good too on the football and pop music questions. There isn't much that Richard doesn't know about the Beatles and we all spend far too much time watching and reading about football. We know that Sunderland are the Black Cats and Hull City are the Tigers! Jack covers eighties music and I surprised my self in being able to answer a question about Emile Sande. I saw her on Jools Holland's TV programme and was knocked out by her singing. But we fell down a bit on the questions about art, theatre and literature. I know something about the Pre-Raphaelite painters but we couldn't identify which painter had painted which picture. We all knew that Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright but we couldn't say which play Judge Brack was in. It was embarrassing too that we couldn't answer a question on Charles Dickens' characters. Needless to say the Bibliophile team was pretty hot on these areas. And Jane had a very good knowledge of the movies.

The Bibliophile team didn't make it through to the final though, losing out to the team from the Maths Department called the Primes. Actually they were very good and went on to win the final where they came up against a team called The Milky Way, which had two people from the Astronomy Department and the Manager of the Cafeteria.

I had a really nice chat with Jenny after the final while we enjoyed the refreshments that you get at these quiz sessions. I found out that she comes from St Albans, went to Nottingham Trent University and loves travelling and the movies. She even said that she would be happy to come with me sometime to the Film Club which is in town, just behind the railway station. When I told Jack this he said "What! You just left it at as a possibility that you might go out with her to the film club at some unspecified time. Get back to her at once and ask her to go with you next Tuesday evening. They are showing Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. That would be a great movie for a first date." Yes. Perhaps I should give her a call later today and see if she will come with me next week.

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