Rob Gilroy: Making A Stand #29

Don’t you just hate online spam? Irritating, isn’t it? It seems like no matter what you do online, you’re always confronted by people trying flog you their crap. It’s frustrating. I get that many pop up adverts; I can barely concentrate on writing my column.

Anyway, this week I thought I’d talk about my experiences taking part in quiz nights. And oh, would you look at that? It just so happens that next week I’m taking part in the Giggle Beats Comedy Quiz. Gosh, what are the chances, eh? I suppose, if you’ve got nothing on; you might as well come.

I’ll be honest; I’m not an avid pub quiz goer (of which there are many other options out there, not all endorsed by Giggle Beats Event Management Ltd).

I tend not to do them that often and my reasons for that are twofold. Fold one: very few people invite me to them, and fold two: I’m incredibly competitive about the whole thing. Dangerously so.

The thing is; I can’t help but worry that one fold is informed by the other. I’m not saying quiz nights (like the one on 4 November) have ever got out of hand, but I did once throw my Britvic Orange over a landlord after he refused to accept “something that Greggs’ sell” as an acceptable answer for ‘What is Pi’?

I’m sure that’s why I never get invited back. That and the fact that; if I win I’m unbearable – standing on the table, taking my top off and declaring myself King of the Quiz.

This is seen as somewhat premature when they’ve only asked one question – doing it after every round tends to get a bit repetitive, too. What can I say? I don’t win things very often – as any judge at a stand up competition can testify to.

I never used to win things at school; sports days were less a celebration of athletic prowess, more a dull reminder that I would never amount to anything, physically.

My greatest achievement at a school sports day was making second reserve for the discus team. The discus! It’s not even a proper sport – it’s just posh frisbee, a hobby with people watching.

I’d like to think that if I can’t dominate the field (I’m talking sport, not agriculture) then, at the very least, I can dominate the not-field (building?) with my academia. I can’t.

I’m not the most intellectual person in a room, though that depends entirely on the room – if I’m in there on my own; I just about come top.

I can watch Eggheads till I’m blue in the face and even when I’m not indulging in auto-erotic asphyxiation I struggle to answer most of the questions. I’m no Usain Bolt or Garry Kasparov (the chess bloke).

Where I do make up for my many short fallings though, is with trivia. OK, so I’m never going to win University Challenge knowing Michael J. Fox’s real name (it’s Michael A. Fox) but then if Jeremy Paxman and his researchers approach Northumbria Uni about being on the show, they have more problems than I do.

I know trivia. Not important trivia or even particularly interesting trivia but know it I do.

I always have a stash of Trivial Pursuit cards in my wallet to liven up dinner parties. I tend to avoid the blue categories and the green and orange ones. And the brown ones. Oh, and yellow ones too, obviously.

Basically, I hit the pink ones – entertainment. There is nothing I don’t know about entertainment. Apart from all the stuff not covered on the cards, but other than that; I’m like Professor Brian Cox meets Stephen Fry by way of the Radio Times.

This is where I tend to really stand out at pub quizzes (like the Giggle Beats one this Monday 4 November at The Hancock, Newcastle). Give me a question on 70s sitcoms or a Batman fact and – six times out of twenty – I will get it bang on! My hit rate is really quite startling.

I also use a technique whereby – keep this to yourself – if I don’t know the answer to a question, I let other people think up an answer and pretend I’m not sure about it. Then, once the real answer is revealed I say; ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought but you guys didn’t listen to me’. It works every time.

So, I’m going to be putting all of these tricks to good use come Monday night (why the Giggle Beats’ Comedy Quiz, of course!) and I will, no doubt, be crowned the King of the Quiz (© Giggle Beats, 2013).

I know you guys are probably thinking there’s not much point in going then, but who knows – you might get lucky! Especially if there’s a discus round.

• Rob can be seen next at the Giggle Beats Comedy Quiz (he tends to play it down) at The Hancock, Newcastle this Monday 4 November. Entry is £2 per person and the quiz starts at 8pm. 
  
• He will also appear as part of his sketch group – Jolly Mixtures – at the Hull Comedy Festival on 15 November.