He's quite an important person. Pretty well as high up as it's possible to get in the organisation. He doesn't play on this - that's not his style at all - but nevertheless I'm only too aware that he could, if he really wanted to, make a serious impact on my future ability to pay the mortgage and eat.And he was standing at my desk. "I don't want you to consider this as just a simple request," he says, a grim but determined smile playing on his features, "more of a definite mandate - a must-do."
That smile was still there. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my colleague two desks down hiding herself behind her PC monitor and looking really busy all of a sudden. What could this mean? Was there some company-wide project I was about to lead? Was there a crisis to be managed? Was this going to define my waking hours for the next 12 months?
Time moved on. Veeerrryyy slowly. He spoke again.
"Pub Quiz - 1st November. You're on my team. I plan to win. I'll only accept your being on holiday as an excuse if you can show me booked plane tickets."
No pressure, then.
Is the Pub Quiz a peculiarly British invention? I suspect it is, but I do wonder if it represents some form of modern-day echo of practices lost in the mist of history. Does it hark back to a spoken tradition, perhaps? A time when the knowledgeable elders of the tribes would gather to test each other on myth and fable, maybe? Is it a relic of an enlightened age, perhaps, when intellect was valued as much as physical strength?
Or is it just a whole load of blokes trying to remember who played Olive in "On the Buses" and the 1958 FA Cup Final winner?
(Anna Karen and Bolton Wanderers (2-0, Lofthouse on 3 and 50 minutes), just in case you were wondering.)
3 comments:
I do love me a good pub quiz night (I've heard them called trivia nights stateside as well)!!! So much fun, but also a reverence to the town nerd is paid on those occasions.
Happy nerd= smooth-running society.
And the really cool thing is - we won tonight! Yay - continued employment for another year/few months/whatever.
You know who wrote the definitive entry on pub quizzes for the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy? Moi, that's who.
P.S. It's a long story why I'm called FG there on the Beeb and Matt is Sporky, but that's where the two of us became sporky.net.
Post a Comment