Quislings

I seem to be clamped in the teeth of a new obsession. It's called the pub quiz a form of knowledge check that is devised to astound people into realizing how little they know. I don't suppose it should come as such a great surprise why I've fallen for this activity as a lot of people like a brain challenge of some sort whether they admit to it or not, and for years I have been one of those people. This desire seems to be part of the human DNA.Whether it's a crossword, a game of chess, Sudoku, word games like anagrams or teasers in the daily paper. Or for the presumably less bright, word searches on the puzzle pages of those trashy looking magazines you see open to people scribbling all over on when sat half bored to death at airports. Years ago the would have been Titbits or Weekends though sadly both those estimable improving articles of literature have been put to death. It hardly matters as I'm not interested in any of that. I have however become very interested in the acquisition of general knowledge.

The reason for this can be tracked back to last year when I against my better judgement I allowed myself to be drafted into a pub quiz team .I'd managed for years to avoid this kind of plight.  I don't like going out all that much.  I've always preferred - or since hitting middle age about 15 years ago- staying in and watching TV. Or going out with my partner, or doing something on my own. The thought of sitting around with a bunch of dubious cohorts and being noisy and competitive whilst trying to remember who scored the first goal for England in the 1966 world cup final has always sounded anathema to me. Or trying to remember the sequential names of all the actors who played Dr Who or James Bond, whilst feeling squiffy and bilious from drinking too much beer on an empty and under prepared stomach and knowing that I am going to feel awful as a consequence later that night and the following day.  Not only that  I always thought that pub quizzes were a bit beneath me if I'm honest.  Even though I always quietly assumed that I had this ripe and diverse repository of information in my head that would prove a killer to any alcohol sodden wretch across the sodden tables. And it was probably that little bit of ego that reside in the quite interstices of my brain - that made me believe that I might actually be quite good at this.

And of course now that I don't work, having effectively early retired two years ago, I had nothing else better to do, Or so every one assured me. Had I been able to find something else to do with my time I would have been all right. All my working life I'd been saying to people that I would love to do this do that. Attend this or hat, but since I'm working that evening or night or week-end I was never available. Work was always a cast iron certainty that I could avoid anything that didn't really appeal to me. So these days I'm very light on excuses and exist within a world where there appears to be an enormous improbability of finding some face saving work to fill in the gap,The result of this is that I have now found myself drawn into the murky world of the pub quiz, and despite initial misgivings, am really starting to enjoy it.

But here's the thing, I always thought I'd be a natural. I played a lot of trivial pursuit in the 80s and and different times been addicted to crosswords and word games throughout adult life. I've always enjoyed knowledge and have always been quite good at hanging on to it. I've read quite a bit and have had quite a few interests - enough to make a mildly interesting obituary: this includes film buff, theatre, music fan,social history, the natural world, literary fiction, archaeology art, antiques, languages, etymology and war history. You might say that my whole life has been heading towards this point where I go to the local pub on a Tuesday night and I know the answer to every question that comes up. I mean it's a pub right, hardly a hotbed of learning. I doubted that there were any doctors of philology in regular attendance. Or historians, or writers or map makers or professional medical staff or film makers. Just a bunch of local hobos being asked a list of questions culled form old quiz books the likes of which I would have heard a million times before. Bones in the body 212, ribs 30, How many plays did Shakespeare write: 34 capital of Denmark, Copenhagen which was also the Duke of Wellington's horse. The same duke who brought us the Wellington Boot. Like cardigan and balaclava. A cooper? makes barrels! who knew? Well I did I would smugly inform myself, because I've heard them all before, countless times. And I like pub quizzes because now I get to show everyone just how clever and knowledgeable I am. Except I'm not.

The thing is, quizzes these days are much much harder. There're much harder on the TV. I can remember the days of Sale of The Century when Nicholas Parsons asked things like: what is the capital of France? or where in you body would you find your larynx? The whole family could answer them. The questions seemed to be pitched at the level where most people might know the answers - emphatically most people as opposed to knowledge fanatics. And that's where the differences seems to be today. The questions that appear on most TV quizzes today appear much harder than they used to. This might prompt someone to wonder why that is.

One theory might be that we are living in an information rich age. Every piece of information, every fact that exists or has ever existed is quite literally one one click away. Years ago if an obscure question about some minor character in one of the battles during the Napoleon wars came up - only someone well versed in the period would stand a chance of answering it. Nowadays people carry mobile phones wherever they go that provide instant access to the internet from which anything can accessed. Although a process of research still needs to occur which begins with a question, the answer or answers are found easily without recourse to the sort of effort that research  interrogation used to require. This might involve finding the right book, thinking about how the information might be categorized then reading through paragraphs or pages or whole chapters to get the answer to the question. Nowadays there are electronic sifters called search engines that take the strain and the sweat of finding things for you and provide an instant delivery of information without barely the slightest effort on the part of the person.

So the pocket has replaced the brain.  And since most people these days seem to be hard wired into their phones and therefore the internet anyway the whole panoply of knowledge in existence is available and stored permanently within every person in the western world.