A View from the Quizmasters - Part 1

We didn't know when we wrote the zine that our quest for the perfect pub quiz team might also help us become quiz masters. But then we got invited to host the quiz at the newly-reopened Greystones (formerly the Highcliffe) pub on Greystones Road. The landlord-to-be approached us with a copy our zine in hand and said, 'You know you've also reverse engineered the guide to the perfect pub quiz? Turns out that reading between the lines, you can pick up some good tips.'

We suppose we should pretend we planned it like that, but we were actually really surprised and delighted and only mildly terrified. Since we'd both lived round there at different points in our collective history, we already felt pretty fond of that neighbourhood, and were really looking forward to it. The week over a foot of snow dropped on Sheffield was kinda tricky, but except for that week (when we wrote the quiz and emailed it and have been verbally abused by Team Renderson's Hellish ever since...) we've presented five quizzes and had a great time doing it.

We're going to keep going, because we've also managed to collect some awesome data from the quiz teams, who've been very willing to help us test Quint's Venn Subject Theory and Jow's Player/Points Ratio Theory. We want to eventually present our findings to the quizgoers. Why? Maybe to give everybody some insight into their hidden awesomeness. Maybe to justify the amount of time spent at the pub. We don't have the answers yet - but we've got lots of questions.

See you at the Christmas quiz, next Tuesday at 9.

The Venns

The Banner Cross Quiz, Sheffield

We ask our friends to review quizzes they attend in order to provide useful guidance to others. They usually oblige and we are very, very grateful. However, sometimes they come back with a review of such epic proportions, thank you just is not enough. The following is a review of the quiz from The Banner Cross, written for us by our friend Liz:

I struggled up the hill on a very wet, cold and windy night, to the Banner Cross pub on Ecclesall Road South, Sheffield. Possibly looking for glory again, I met the group, hoods up, tired and with that same feeling.

The footy was on and loads of Real Madrid (apparently) fans were in, shouting and swearing, enjoying the cheese sandwiches for sale at £1.50 per pack, with no other filling choices left. Bar-maid Jennie, ventures over about 9.30, “Anybodiee wont t' dut quiz? Quid a sheet “, we scurry for our purses before they sell out.

Real fans clear the pub, quite a big quiz audience has appeared around the velour seats in the big, bright living room. Excited, nervous, iPhone fully charged and waiting. Most of the pub nip out for a quick smoke, in the freezing tornado-ridden smoking area, some of the outdoor rope lights have gone and the lavender bush and geraniums are dead. The outdoor TV doors are hanging on the hinges.

Quiz started 10.00 pm on the dot, tellies off as only 'go compare' advert and pre-lim for Saturdays XFactor was playing to itself.

This is a bingo-style quiz with prizes for all four corners, line, full house – I'm sure you get the gist. The questions were quite good and varied, which kicks out the group of 19, average age 25, students studying higher Rumanian Economics. 30 questions in total, but answers given at the end when the numbers on the bingo card were called.. .you still with me? Lots of trivia, TV, old/new music, geography, history and my favourite - the anagram question! On this occasion it was something like anlerio laltmlcih erplninsantt - and it was a 'big place to go when you go on holidays?' No free food. The prize was £11 for first line, 4 free pints (taken within a week) for full house and 2 pints for best quiz team name. The quiz it quite a late finisher at 11.00. Cue lots of arguing, then lights went up.

Rating 3.5/5 - Great, entertaining quiz for a wet night, which makes the brain cells kick in - but finishes a bit late for a school night.

Liz, we thank you for your clear dedication to the quiz cause.

Quiz to the Future!

Please join us at the Showroom Film Lovers' Quiz a week on Tuesday, where we test out that quiz for ourselves and see if we can push their Venns Quiz Rating even higher (friends of Cara Corden, one of our top field reporters, rated it 3/5). We'll also be hanging out with Quizmaster Simon and learning the ways of the Film Quiz. (At this point we should mention that Quint studied film at university, and Jow watches so much telly he has an abundance of metaphorical medical conditions as a result.) We'll report our findings.

- Quint

The Kids are Alright

Bert and Ernie help spread the word through the Sesame Street website and organising a bottle-cap collection.

We like a good portmanteau word.

It's like a verbal Venn.

We bring you...

Charticles.

Boss, Genius, Atheist, Soap Star

How it all started (maybe).

We saw this and quite liked it.

-The Venns

Review x2

The new quiz at the Uni Arms: 4/5 for definite. It'd be 5/5 if it had either more than twenty questions, or a few Seinfeldian feats of strength. The quizmaster is both equally likeable and completely different to Tophat Tim of yore, but it still somehow works. Please go along next time, as there are prizes to be had - we won book tokens in the random draw.

Our friend and frequent Venns teammate, John, (circles of knowledge: horror, Americana, rockabilly music, British stand-up comedy) had a recent unexpected quiz experience, and he's gonna guest blog it for us.

-Quint


Andy Nyman's Quiz From Hell!!!

Frightfest is a film festival that has been held in London every year for over a decade. It has been described, over the years, both as 'The Woodstock of Horror' and 'A Bunch of Geeks.' Since I started going six years ago, Charlie Brooker, Rob Zombie, John Landis, Guillermo del Toro and George A Romero among others, have all shown up - either to screen their latest film or to show a highlight of something in the works. It is held every August Bank Holiday in London's Empire Leicester Square cinema and comprises of 26 films (plus shorts) on the main screen and some more on the second screen.

Frightfest had a quiz several years ago, which people complained was too easy, so, in response, they made it more difficult. The winner that year got 13 out of 20 and, needless to say, the quiz was dropped the following year, not to return for a number of years.

This year saw the glorified pub quiz return in the form of ‘Andy Nyman's Quiz From Hell!!!’, scheduled on Sunday morning between a French film in which a crazy lady kidnapped travellers to feed to her zombie miner offspring, and a Mexican film detailing the exploits of juvenile gay cannibals.

Making full use of the massive Empire 1 screen behind him, screening video clips and photographs in a high quality presentation to the 900 participants, Nyman ran through forty questions in categories ranging from 'What happens next?' to 'Movie Monsters' over about half an hour. Between questions, Nyman was quipping and joking while people quickly wrote their answers.

The one round which had everyone talking was the soundtracks round: in all twenty questions, it was a basic “name that tune” set up, but for question twenty, they played twenty seconds of a horror film theme, Question twenty-one was nineteen seconds of another piece of music, and so on until the end, when he played just one second!

The familiar strains of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street were placed between more obscure titles from films like Dusk Till Dawn and American Werewolf In London. As each one played, whispers of, 'Fucking hell, I know this...' and, 'That’s on my iPod, but I don’t know it,' could be heard. From about fourteen onwards, it started getting difficult. Then we hit the last one: a single blast of strings which could only be one movie, the unmistakable Psycho.

After the following the short film showcase, Nyman blasted through the answers to some expected cursing and groaning, and finished the quiz with the trailer for his West End show Ghost Stores. Due to the showcase overrunning, we had just ten minutes to run outside for daylight / food / fluid extraction and return for the next movie, The Mexican cannibal film We Are What We Are. Which was really good.

The one quiz question which bugged me through the showcase: Frankenstein, the Mummy and Dracula have all been played by Lon Cheney Jr. and which other actor? 


Answer: Christopher Lee.

In case it comes up on a quiz, Andy Nyman is an actor in films and television shows including Dead Set and Severance. He is also the main guy behind Derren Brown’s magic shows, and the co-writer and director of West End show Ghost Stories, which is playing until February 2011, and which I intend to see.

-John

The Venns @ The University Arms

Well, we didn't win the Union quiz prize money last week, but we're looking forward to the return of the University Arms quiz at long last!


Here's our review of the old one, which had a special mention in the zine:

The University Arms (retired)

We kicked the asses of the 'Saved By The Bell' team (our name for them) twice, including a rematch in the last quiz ever. This quiz was awesome because it had games rounds in between quiz rounds, with a prize for each of those as well. One week we won every single games round but then came second in the quiz. More brawn than brains, I guess. The quiz-master graduated and moved south, but not before giving us his lucky top hat. 5/5. -Quint

Hope to see some of you there tonight. It starts at nine, and we'll have some zines.

The Venns

Tonight at the Union

Tonight, after several hours of much-needed sleep, Quint will be at the Union quiz in Nether Edge with some more zines, hoping to win the raffle so we can print some more. Jow will be fielding your requests and emails. Wish us luck.

From The Venns zine:

"The Union, Nether Edge (weekly): 50p entry. Excellent ambiance, very difficult but in a good way. Thirty questions including a picture round, winning team gets a gallon of beer but there's also a one-in-six chance of winning a prize draw fora pot of cash from the entry-fee takings. Rollovers mean the quiz gets more and more crowded each week until someone wins the sometimes hundred-quid pot. Lovely quiz-master wtih excellent floral shirts, lots of free food for most tastes. Get there super early to get a seat, or you'll be standing looking awkward near the gents by the time the quiz starts at 9:30."

Late to the Table, Our Misspent Youth, and Dinah Shore

Our research now includes a fully tested hypothesis about 'meeting friends at the pub' swiftly becoming 'turning up late and unintentionally to a pub quiz, sleep deprived, while nursing hangovers'.

It wasn't pretty.

It was also rather humbling receiving the dregs of a quiz sheet, proffered by undergrads (and their prof, to be fair, who was one of the people we'd actually come to see) who'd done all they could and were hoping we'd know the answers they'd missed. With a bit too much hubris, Quint grabbed the quiz sheet.

After a few minutes of perusing their sheet, we both realised that for all of our eclectic knowledge, we could only be sure about answers involving films of the '80s. (Non-specific undergrad, "We have no memories of the '80s at all, and few of the '90s.")

The highlights:

• We got two wrong because we broke our own rule 3, several further answers wrong because we seem to have forgotten everything we ever knew about pop music, and were complete no-hopers for the rest. But we followed rule 8, and that's the important thing.
• There was a meaningless debate with someone unfamiliar with the quirks of American first names about how Dinah actually was a name, and was spelled D-I-N-A-H, and that there could be more than one person with that name, because it was, after all, just a name, a common name, if you were from America.
• The answer was not Dinah Shore, but Dusty Springfield.

Through our haze, however, we were easily able to discern that the quizmaster was completely lovely, though, and we will go back on purpose next time, and bring zines, and do it a proper review, perhaps while drinking orange juice.

The Venns

The Venns at The Showroom

The Venns will be at The Showroom tonight for Friday Night Live (http://www.showroomworkstation.org.uk/fridaynightlive).

Come along if you want to chat, throw around ideas or just throw questions at us.

Printed and Available.

So the zines are printed, which means we have an actual THING to show for going to the pub so much, other than just the occasional feeling of general malaise.

This is the front cover:

Some inside bits and bobs:

And a close-up of that pie chart comparison:

We're gonna take some copies to the Rutland Arms quiz tonight at 9 in town and leave one on each table, if you wanna come down. Spares will be available for a pint, or the price of a pint for those who want their own. If you can't make it this evening, stay tuned or 'like' us on Facebook to get more updates.

Cheers,

Quint and Jow

Welcome to The Venns.

The Venns is a zine, comedy show (coming soon) and research project about finding the perfect pub quiz team. (We'll let you know when we've found it.)

If you would like more information, or to sign up for updates, email us at nowandvenn@gmail.com or become a fan of The Venns on Facebook.

Cheers,
Quint and Jow