More About The Pub Quiz

Since this blog is supposed to be about my efforts at turning myself into a brilliant quizzer I really should try and update it every so often. I could try for example chronicling my experiences at the local pub quiz. Questions that came up that I didn't know the answer to, or did but couldn't remember, or did and could remember and then cite the most interesting examples. Or I could ramble on about my developing training techniques - waxing enthusiastically when a particular method is new and refreshing and apparently successful, or how once what appeared to work well now has fallen behind whichever most recent fad. Or I could list all the modes of learning and rate them in terms of how effective I think they are. Or I could just write about all the wonderfully interesting things I am learning as I throw myself into the infinitive pool of information out there in the vain hope that some of it will stick. Or I could try and write in such a way that all of the above is covered by practicing my rusty writing skills around whatever subject I choose that is definitely germane to a quizzing blog.

So much for the opening. I had to get that out of the way. Perhaps we should begin at the beginning. General knowledge for the purpose of quizzing might be defined as a vast repository of information that is general only insofar as differing individuals of differing ages and genders and experience and are the bearers of any of a multitude of information that is held within their own personal repertoire of individual knowledge. That is to say, all the information exists, but its spread among an infinite number of individual human brains. People do different things, read different books, listen to different radio shows and watch different films.  They studied different things at school, college and university and they studied differently. They do different jobs have specified interests and obsessions from the run of the mill to the arcane. People travel about differently, think and talk and read and listen and smell and dream differently about different things. Some can remember everything they see and hear, others struggle to recall anything. But still the latter group can surprise with their knowledge whilst the former group cab struggle when tested. It is almost impossible to categorise and make sense of. But there it is, sitting at the head of the quizzing table, This nebulous thing called general knowledge formulated in a questioning format that may or may not trigger something inside your brain where for some reason possibly unknown to you, you either know something about it or nothing about it. So who in their rigt mind is going say with any sense of conviction and a complete lack of understanding of hubris, that they are good at general knowledge. Not me that's for sure.

So, where do we go from here? The answer as far as I am concerned is to consider my own person experience.  I used to think I was quite good at general knowledge. I always did quite well during the 80's obsession with trivial pursuit and I remember being a pretty dab hand at Sale of the Century and the Sun quick crossword. I had a couple of advantages over some people as well. I was infatuated with words and vocabulary and burned my way through the canon of English lit with the untrammeled zeal of the converted. I read dictionary's for fun, and tried to remember quotations and aphorisms sufficient to amaze  everyone I knew with the breadth of my learning. All of which was fine since all the other questions were both easy and repetitive.