Return of the vegetables!
Tonight was the night for the annual quiz organised by the Medical Foundation for the Care of the Victims of Torture, aka The Quiz Where They Have The Organic Vegetables.
Also known as The Quiz Where You Really Want To Come Second, because, as you may remember, last year we won and were fobbed off with bottles of wine, whereas in 2009 we were runners-up and got the vegetables!
We didn't actually think we were going to get anywhere near the objects of our desire, this time, because our team was down to three of the usual five - in fact, the team organiser rushed in just before the quiz started, and her husband arrived just as the third round, on science, was ending, which meant we grabbed him screaming "Forget about taking your coat off! What is the structural modification of oxygen which is harmful in the lower atmosphere but beneficial in the upper layers?" (in fact, it turned out we'd got that one right already, but he did sort us out on shrews). The delay was caused by a tyre on their car blowing on their way home from a day out, so it was quite lucky they made it at all, and he'd had to detour to feed the cats, which was why our team was called "Waiting for George".
So we made a bad start, and did spectacularly badly on sport (four out of ten - and the only cricket question was "Who won the County Championship?" which a roomful of Mancunians was likely to know perfectly well). But we did improve a bit, and were consoling ourselves that, given most teams had five or six members (and the table next to us whose papers we were marking had seven), we were probably doing better per capita than most. Then, to our surprise, we found that we had risen to fifth with two rounds to go (George played another blinder in the music round), and we actually finished joint-second with Hacked Off. So there was a tie-breaker, which both second-placed teams got right, at which point we said "We'll share the vegetables!" I'm not sure how many were in Hacked Off - it looked like five at least - but I'm sure I ended up with about a quarter of the box again.
I got a red cabbage, and half a jar of butter beans (split with a lady from Hacked Off, who said I could have the jar as she had jars coming out of her ears - so do I, but this is a very nice one) some red potatoes, some carrots including one born to star on That's Life, a leek, some beetroot (we think), tomatoes, jerusalem artichokes and green leafy things.
The only snag with coming second in this quiz is that it's always held on a Sunday (specifically the first Sunday of November) and I shop for vegetables on a Saturday. So I have rather a lot of stuff to work through now...
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
Also known as The Quiz Where You Really Want To Come Second, because, as you may remember, last year we won and were fobbed off with bottles of wine, whereas in 2009 we were runners-up and got the vegetables!
We didn't actually think we were going to get anywhere near the objects of our desire, this time, because our team was down to three of the usual five - in fact, the team organiser rushed in just before the quiz started, and her husband arrived just as the third round, on science, was ending, which meant we grabbed him screaming "Forget about taking your coat off! What is the structural modification of oxygen which is harmful in the lower atmosphere but beneficial in the upper layers?" (in fact, it turned out we'd got that one right already, but he did sort us out on shrews). The delay was caused by a tyre on their car blowing on their way home from a day out, so it was quite lucky they made it at all, and he'd had to detour to feed the cats, which was why our team was called "Waiting for George".
So we made a bad start, and did spectacularly badly on sport (four out of ten - and the only cricket question was "Who won the County Championship?" which a roomful of Mancunians was likely to know perfectly well). But we did improve a bit, and were consoling ourselves that, given most teams had five or six members (and the table next to us whose papers we were marking had seven), we were probably doing better per capita than most. Then, to our surprise, we found that we had risen to fifth with two rounds to go (George played another blinder in the music round), and we actually finished joint-second with Hacked Off. So there was a tie-breaker, which both second-placed teams got right, at which point we said "We'll share the vegetables!" I'm not sure how many were in Hacked Off - it looked like five at least - but I'm sure I ended up with about a quarter of the box again.
I got a red cabbage, and half a jar of butter beans (split with a lady from Hacked Off, who said I could have the jar as she had jars coming out of her ears - so do I, but this is a very nice one) some red potatoes, some carrots including one born to star on That's Life, a leek, some beetroot (we think), tomatoes, jerusalem artichokes and green leafy things.
The only snag with coming second in this quiz is that it's always held on a Sunday (specifically the first Sunday of November) and I shop for vegetables on a Saturday. So I have rather a lot of stuff to work through now...
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.