Tonight, in an effort to forge bonds between co-workers where there were no bonds before, our company is holding a quiz night.
My team of four, which includes Mrs Wife, one of my colleagues and his own Mrs Wife, will be up against everyone else from the office as we attempt to prove we're the brainiest of the lot. (In fact, all we should be aiming for is to avoid finishing last).
A quick spell of random questions this morning between myself and my colleague proved one thing - I don't know half as much as I thought I did, and I know considerably less than I did when I was a kid.
As a teenager, I represented the whole of the Brechin area in the Masterkid of Angus competition. And whilst at high school, I appeared on Radio Tay several times as a member of our school's quiz team. (Good God, why didn't anyone tell me to STOP BEING A GEEK!)
Back then, I think I had a pretty good grasp of 'general knowledge' - ie, loads of useless crap that somehow lodged itself in my brain.
But I'm finding that nowadays, that crap doesn't stick as well as it used to. Maybe it's because I have to work for a living and remember relevant facts about the oil industry, not to mention deadlines, which reports I should be working on, which databases I need to update and the like. Or maybe I just don't have the time to sit and read newspapers and magazines the way I used to, devouring information for information's sake.
These days, when I get home from work, I'm quite content to sit in front of the television or play computer games. And no-one ever won a general knowledge quiz through their ability to recall the plotlines from Lost, or the best players in Football Manager 2007.
Or perhaps I'm just getting stupider. Brain cells die and are never replaced - that's a fact of life. And as my head fills with new knowledge, such as information about mortgage rates, the price of fuel and the ins and outs of squirrel sex, maybe there's just no room in my head to remember which is the most common element on Earth (it's hydrogen) or what the Rolling Stones' first single was (I Wanna Be Your Man).
I'm sure we'll found out this evening.
3 comments:
I hope you did well on Quiz Night! I've presented you with the You Make Me Smile award. Congrats!
I am impressed by your childhood credentials.
I love quizzes but always fall down on sport. I'd be the sort of person who could probably answer most of the Millionaire questions but would get put out with £100 for not knowing what everyone else knows about cricket.
So how did you do?
Well, after four rounds, my team, inspired by me, was several points clear at the top of the standings. Unfortunately this was because the first four rounds were Sport, Music, Movies and Famous People. After that, we didn't fare quite as well, finishing in fourth place from eight teams. To compound matters, we were beaten by my boss's team. Although I did win a set of pink fluffy dice in a half-time game of cards.
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