Weekly Roundup, W/E 25/08/2017

It's still too early to say if I'll keep on writing general posts about my quizzing life, as I have done the last few weeks, but I'd like to think that I will. That means I can perhaps keep these posts, long enough already as they are, somewhat focussed on what they're meant to be about. Of course, there will inevitably be overlap, as my life and quizzing are one and the same. Still, day-to-day pub quizzes are but one aspect, albeit the primary one, of my quizzing activities, and it's nice for these to have their own place in the blog.

Where was I at the end of last week, again? Just checking last week's roundup...oh that's right, my 150th quiz and a damp squib of an evening. So that's my starting point. Here goes with this week's reviews...

Quiz #151 - Sunday 20th August, Turf Tavern, Carlisle

Happenings This Week

I'm writing two blog posts tonight, this being the first that I'll post but the 2nd that I'm writing. I prioritised the weekly roundup, and have just finished writing it after 4 hours of work. 3 certainly, even when you discount things like getting dinner and screwing around online. Anyway, I do like the idea of posting a regular, non-structured update about things generally every now and then. I won't commit to a regular schedule with these as I have done with my roundups, but I'll try and post them frequently all the same.

Status Update

Okay, I feel like I owe you guys an update as to how the weekend has gone, so here it goes.

Weekly Roundup W/E 18/08/2017

It's weird that I've already done basically a large post that covers the sort of random nonsense that serves as the preambles I write for these roundups, as it leaves me with basically nothing to say in these opening lines.

Quiz #148 - Sunday 13th August, Turf Tavern, Carlisle

When Is A Day Off a True Day Off?

The above is a simple enough question with an obvious answer - when you're taking a break from something that you will actually go back to. It's the "going back to" part that I tend to struggle with, as part of my life-long battle with inertia.

See, I took 2 days off this week. One was planned, the other spontaneous, but I agreed with myself at the outset that I wouldn't do anything related to quizzing on Tuesday or Thursday night. That is, I wouldn't watch, write, listen to, blog about or participate in any quizzes at all.

The reason I did this is that I needed the break. Badly. Normally I have the opposite problem, with much of my 20s being spent seemingly procrastinating from life itself, trapped by a combination of anxiety, laziness and lots of other things as life passed by and my peers moved generally forwards. Don't worry, this post isn't a rehash of the mammoth one from a week ago, and won't be nearly so long. It's just something I need to discuss, and it saves me the hassle of doing it in pieces in this week's roundup.

Weekly Roundup, W/E 11/08/2017

It's all very well talking a good game about hope and optimism for the future, what I want to achieve, etc. Until I actually do anything it's all just words on a page. Last week I backed up those words with a very successful holiday trip. But that's nothing I can make a comparison against, because those were new quizzes. Consistency, that's the key to accurately judging performance over an extended period.

So last week was perhaps a better test of the "new me" as it were. I wasn't expecting miracles, but I was hoping for a strong performance, and a better attitude regardless. Let's find out how I got on with those quizzes.

Quiz #145 - Monday 7th August, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (K)

Weekly Roundup, W/E 04/08/2017

In my last post I wrote...a lot. A lot changed for me in the hours and days after the epic QuizFest. Obviously enough, by the time I started my next week's quizzing, I hadn't processed all that. I left the quiz on Sunday, but as expected, I was hungry and eager to get to one on the Monday. Just to be clear, I did a quiz every day this week; 3 in the New Forest area, one in Stafford on my way back home...and one back at home, at the Laurie Arms on Friday.

This could be another long review, especially as my holiday means I'll need to explain the format of the quizzes I went to, but fortunately I have a lot of good things to say about my week. So let's get to it!

Quiz #140 - Monday 31st July, Fox & Hounds, Lyndhurst

QuizFest and a Change in Perspective

Last Sunday, during my holiday to the New Forest I left a quiz half way through. I've only ever done that once before in almost exactly 3 years of serious quizzing. Thus begins perhaps the most important post I've ever written in this blog. It's largely stream of consciousness; I don't know exactly what I'm going to say here, it will be long but is worth reading if you follow this blog and/or my quizzing activities.

I shocked myself by leaving that quiz. The only previous time was on my first visit to Nottingham, when I accidentally went to a student music quiz that I left just after it started. The quiz itself isn't very relevant, but I'll get to that later anyway. 

That it happened was immediate evidence that QuizFest the day before had shaken me to my core, opened my eyes to a new reality. In some ways, it was meant a genuine change to the way things will now always be. In others, it meant snapping out of of some unfortunate denial and complacency that had taken hold of me. That's what this post is about, and it's important because things won't be the same anymore. To be clear, it's a good thing; ultimately it's only net future positives I'm discussing here.

First though, what was QuizFest, exactly?

QuizFest

QuizFest was amazing. It was a one-day quizzing extragavanza, a chance to meet and greet celebrity quizzers such as Chasers and Eggheads. For non-Brits, The Chase and The Eggheads are two of the most popular gameshows here. The Chase also has an American version, but there's 5 Chasers here (one of whom is the guy who does the American version, Mark Labbett), 3 of whom were present. Eggheads gives teams of amateurs the chance to face some of the very best quizzers in the country, including 6-time world champion Kevin Ashman.

Weekly Roundup, W/E 28/07/2017

Usually, I have something to say before I get into the meat of a weekly roundup.  Today, I have nothing. Which isn’t strictly true, I have a huge amount to say, but none of it is strictly relevant to this, the week before last. I was at QuizFest last Saturday, see, and my perspective has been significantly changed by that. Before I can review the week’s quizzes that followed that, I’ll need to put up a separate post explaining what I mean. For now, I’d prefer to reflect on things as they actually were, before all this.

I suppose I do have something to say in that regard. The week before this one was utterly chaotic, and that didn’t really change as this one started, since Monday was to be my 3^rd quiz and I was woefully underprepared. The quiz itself was ultimately written, but as Sunday’s first quiz of the week loomed, it still wasn’t fully printed. An inauspicious beginning, but I shall reveal what happened beyond those busy hours…

Quiz #137 – Sunday 23^rd July, Turf Tavern, Carlisle