Non Conformist

I spotted this tree, which against all the odds, and significant peer pressure has pursued its own path in life.

Tortuous metaphor aside, Vicky and me went for a cold (bloody freezing) walk with Spartacus to the Park Hall Country park, which despite its name has no hall and is pretty much in the middle of Stoke-on-Trent. Its a brilliant, often overlooked, and on our doorstep. Its a bit like scale version of Canock Case, but with less Brummie day trippers. Not sure who got the most exercise, the dog or us.

Quiz Night (13) The Three Quizzetters

This week we were sadly one team down, with The Campanologists missing in action. So it was down to three teams to battle it out in this week's swashbuckling Meakins Cricket Club Quiz.

It was our very own Debs in the chair tonight, so me and Vicky were left as a bickering duo. Fittingly for an Early Years Practitioner (never call her a Teaching Assistant!) The first half of the quiz went through the alphabet, and satisfyingly the first answer was A for Apple. Less satisfyingly the quiz got harder. By the time we got to Y, we were asked to name the Tent from Nepal made from the skin of Yaks. Amazingly both SixthSense and us came up with the comedy answer Yak-a-Mak. Apparently the answer is Yurt.

The first half also had 20 linked questions with each answer starting with the last letter of the previous one. We only missed out on one answer. What is the name of the young of an Otter (No its a little 'otter jokes please). We figured it had to start with W and end in P. So we plumped for inserting random letters in between and ended up with the stupid answer of WhalloP! The real answer is Whelp.

Half time hotdogs were duly scoffed

The second half was Entertainment questions. We started pretty well but soon descended into the tactic of writing really illegibly, on the off chance it might look like the right answer. This tactic I remember served me well through O levels, but it was never going to fool those Muppets, who were marking our paper. We would have to rely on the throwouts. Identifying TV shows was ok for us. Especially with such classics as The Banana Splits and Wil o' The Wisp. The other was to work out makes of car. For instance "Gracie Fields owned a villa on which island?" the answer being Capri (my suggestion that there might be a Ford Lesbos was clearly misjudged).

So the time had come for the scores.

The Muppets 52 + 12 for the throwouts = 64. ThreeNonBlondes 59+13=72 and the runaway winners SixthSense 74=17=91. That works+ out SS scored 26% more than us. A dictionary definition of a good thrashing!

+ What S is the white part of the eye ?

+ Which Father and Daughter starred in the film Paper Moon ?

+ On which river does New York stand ?

+ What word means the opposite of Zenith ?

+ What model of car is the musical term for quick or lively

Went, Went, Went Joseph

Me and Vicky went to see "Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat" tonight at The Regent Theatre in Hanley. It was Vic's present for my 40th. The Regent is situated in an area signposted as Stoke-on-Trent's "Cultural Quarter". Describing areas as Quarters, I guess is supposed to invoke the spirit of Paris although I doubt anyone could confuse the 2 cities. Unless Paris has a "Slightly depressed, once industrial midlands city" Quarter. Paris may have the greatest art museums in the world, the most exciting architecture in Europe and romance in bucketfuls (not sure a bucket can be romantic). But our Oatcakes are definitely superior to any French Crepe, and we did once manufacture most of Europe's Urinals and toilets. Lets face it if you are desperate enough for a wee, what use is art and romance!

We had a fab night, and the show was even better than I had expected. It featured 3 of the finalists from Any Dream Will Do off the telly. I managed to curb my every urge to sing out loud throughout. This was mainly for Vicky's benefit as she rates my singing as screechy as a tortured cat and as flat as a steamrollered Oatcake. Well, I managed to hold off until at least the encore. The night was a good excuse to get dolled up, although that didn't appear to apply to the rest of the audience, so not only was I the tallest woman there but the most overdressed, so I didn't stand out at all!

Afterwards over a Chicken Dupiaza and Garlic Nan bread (salad if Slimming World are listening) we got onto the subject of my proposed middle name. Vic seemed less than impressed with my proposal of Jennifer Louise Harvey. She seems to favour, with no obvious hint of irony, a middle name of Rapunzel. I think the only fair way is to have a poll. I now have 2 names on the shortlist. Louise and Rapunzel. When I have few more more options, the Poll will be open! Answers on a comment please!

Really Really Small Print : With the precedent as set by Blue Peter's naming of their cat. Jenny Harvey reserves the right to ignore any poll result that will leave her with a ridiculous middle name!

Quiz Night (9) Blonde Actually

Its Easter week for the amlost religious Meakins Cricket Club Quiz. We were 3 non Blondes + 1 this week, with our friend Samantha joining us. Sam is the Blondes music consultant, and with our dreadful record on music recently, we needed the help. Typically this was the first week where there was no music round! We were also accompanied by three of our offspring, Sam, Beth and Abigail. Ostensibly this was due to the holiday period, but the real reason was for an emergency 5th team that we might be able to beat and hence not finish last!

It was Sixth Sense's Gaynor's turn in the hot seat. That meant they were down to 2 members. With the Campos also still down to 2 members, this was a good opportunity for us. It is always difficult gauge a usual strength for the muppets as their numbers seem to range week to week from 4 to something in the mid 20s.

Gaynor started with some Pot Luck. We did ok on this. We did let ourselves down trying to remember the name of the care Richard Hammond crashed in on Top Gear. All of us are avid viewers, but our minds were as blank as our bank paying in books!. We then moved on to the highlight of the quiz. Movie Quotes. Gaynor read out lines from classic movies, with a passion and intensity that moved me! Well I did nip off to the loo! These quotes became longer and longer, until the last question when she pretty much performed the entire last half hour of Love Actually. This was another good round for us. The round following was Only in America. We would have been better for us titled "Only in Weston Coyney and the Meir!" The last round of the first half was on Disasters. This was right up our street, and for this first time we got 10 out of 10. It was nice to see a return for the "Name the Russian Sub that sank? -The Kirsk" question. This is its 3 rd appearance, ranking second only to the "Worlds largest Rodent" question which has made 4 appearances to date. We have adopted the Capybara as our quiz night mascot, and will henceforth make an appearance in every Blondes' quiz!

Half time refreshments. Linda had put on a full spread. I just sat miserable being committed to a Slimming World - Red Day. However my mood lifted when the scores came in. Campos - 28, Muppets - 29, Sixth Sense - 35 and us the Blondes - 28

Second half teed off with a fiendish round on Words, in which Debs excelled herself by spelling Diarrhoea correctly. The next round was right up Vix's street, as our resident Bible and Latin expert. It was titled The Good Book. Thanks to Vix we did really well on this. The final round should have been right up my alley, being on Current Affairs. I was chuffed to remember the name of the Indian Company that had bought Jaguar and Landrover, but the round was too current, and I hadn't listened to the news that day. The main quiz over, we turned to finishing off the throwouts. We had gone as far as we could recognising some leading men from photos. They were an eclectic mix of men. Cant be often that Foggy from Last of the Summer Wine has appeared next to Republican candidate John McCain. The second throwout had tortured us throughout the quiz. Anagrams of Comedy Characters. We eventually thrashed out 13 out of 15. One anagram "A CLEANER RENT LOFT SHY MAN" drove Debs to Captain Ahab levels of obsession, but unlike he, she never got her Dick!

The final scores were in: Campos - 75, Muppets - 79, Sixth Sense 82 and The non Blondes - 93...... We are back!

" When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”...

and so is VICTORY Actually

Sixth Sense - 7 wins, 3 non Blondes - 4 wins, The Campanologists - 1 win, The Muppets - 0 wins

Highlight Questions

+ What is the best selling bottled drink in British bars?

+ What is the chemical symbol for Tin?

+ What film does this quote come from? "I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you'll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord; your ass belongs to me"

+ I which state in America is Mount St. Helens which erupted in 1980 killing 57 ?

+ What is Dendrology the study of ?

+ What was first seen on the floor of the London Stock Exchange, 26th March 1973

+ Which Comedy Character is this anagram. BILLY WAS FAT ?

Quiz Night (6) 12 Angry Quizzers

It was my turn to step up to the plate last night. My first time as Quiz mistress.

Compiling the quiz, reminded me of (not) doing homework from school, as i found myself desperately finishing everything off last minute. Any sensible person would have just ripped off the whole quiz from the net. Not me of course, My stupid arrogance meant I had to handcraft every single question to be the perfect specimen. Of course being me, the reality never quite lives up. My biggest mistake was trying to base a series of questions round our 4 team names! Trying to think of 5 interesting questions based around "Campanology" proved somewhat difficult. In the end I had to stretch the concept to include a question on "Carry On Camping" (see what I did there).

Due to help help on a question from my blog reader Brad in California, the quiz has now been renamed the Internationally Renown Meakins Cricket Club Quiz.

I kicked off with a question based around a TV doctor named after Sherlock Holmes? (I am clearly obsessed with this man!) I thought it was clever but everyone couldn't quite understand the concept of the question so I has to rephrase the question a couple of time. This stuff is more tricky to do than I thought. What a pity Jeremy Beadle passed away recently, he was good at quizzes!. I settled into my stride. Must admit my diction and delivery is hardly that of a Magnus Magnusson (another dead person! whats up with my references), so of course there had to be plenty of rereads. Everyone seemed happy enough with the first section on Films and Telly, but when I announced the next topic was Politics, I got a general consensus of "Oh No"s. I was also away all through the first half of either glares of hatred or smiles of realisation, depending on the question in my direction, from my depleted team mates in the far corner. i wasn't totally sure they would ever speak to Me again after the quiz. Would that be a good or bad thing..you decide! One thing I did notice about the "Blondes" sans Jenny, is that they didn't argue half as much as when I'm there. Don't know what that says about me. In the break we dined well on sandwiches and chips.

Second half started badly for everyone with sport and then I moved on to my Team Name themed questions. These seemed to go down quite well, with some good laughter all round! The quiz was finished off the the throwouts. These were 3 pages of pictures to identify. Buildings, Sit-com characters and Car Insignia, plus 5 questions where you had to list 5 things. Such as name the 5 boroughs of New York.

I am going to leave you all with a modicum of tension. I wont reveal the scores yet as Vicky has promised to do me a report from the quiz floor.... to follow

"Googlewhipped"

I made the mistake of introducing Vicky to the world of Googlewhacking, via Dave Gorman’s DVD. I have been "persuaded" to have a Googlewhack Showdown (Sounds like a great idea for a new TV game show, eat your heart out Alan Partridge!) This will involve Laptops at 3 paces (The distance from her sofa to chair) The winner is the first to find a ‘whack. We are meeting for lunch and knowing us, all we are going to do is shout random pairs of words at each other
Subsequently I am desperately trying to think up some obscure unconnected words. Trouble is, because I’m hungry (no change there) I can only think of food words!
....”Trouser, Stroganoff” I wonder if that will work. Mustn’t cheat and check first.
There really must be better uses for a day off work

For more on Googlewhack please see http://www.davegorman.com/

Quiz Night (5) The Revenge of The Sixth

"A game of 2 halves". This football cliche was perfect to describe the "Blondes" performance in the phenomenon that is,
The Meakins Cricket Club quiz.

It was the turn of a Lynne from the Sixth Sense to set the quiz. This coupled with one of the Campos recovering from surgery meant that 2 of our rivals were below full strength. We were back to our fighting weight of 3. Vicky and Debs wisely declined to join in my suggestion that we do a group huddle followed by a cry of "Go non Blondes" with arms raised! I did argue that I was the only one with real team spirit, but I expect they were both right in their opinion, that I am on occasions, a complete idiot! The quiz started intriguingly with an odd one out round. The sort of pointless knowledge needed for this was right up our street. We scored well with our knowledge of the names of the cars in "The Wacky Races", and who was an Elf in "Lord of the Rings". We had definitely found our level. We continued to score well until we hit the far to academic subjects of History and Geography
Half Time...mmm... sausage sandwiches and chips
Scores were in: Muppets - 24, The Campos - 32, Sixth Sense - 33, Blondes - 38!
Wow..5 points clear...How could we lose!! (very easily actually)
Second half was 25 questions in a bingo card style, meaning if you got a line first you got a bonus 5 points. We were woeful scoring a measly 12 out of 25. Our tactic of wild guessing and squabbling did not seem to be effective. On marking Campos got the bonus 5 for a line and Sixth scored an impressive 20 points. They were now leading us by 3. We needed to rely on the throw outs for salvation. The throw outs were about recognising Screen Kisses and cartoon rabbits. Surely with our love of kissing (not each other!) and all things Rabbitty (wish I knew the Latin term for this. I can only think of bovine or ursine!.. mmmmmm pork & beef) we would be fine. Of course we weren't. Our ability not to look at the pictures properly meant we lost more points. As the final scores were called out our deepening gloom came to fruition. 4th place Muppets 76; 3rd place Blondes 83; 2nd place Campos 87; 1st place Sixth Sense 90 points
2008 results so far
Sixth Sense 4 wins
3 non Blondes 3 wins
The Campanologists 1 win
The Muppets 0 wins
Question Highlights from tonight
+Odd One Out - Albert Einstein, John F Kennedy, Leonardo da Vinci, Marco Polo ?
+Which pop group consists of David Peacock and Charles Hodges ?
+Who provided the voices for Danger Mouse and Penfold ?
+What are the most Northerly & Southerly capital cities in the world ?
+Which actors famously kissed on the beach in "From Here to Eternity" ?
+Who was the first person to circumnavigate the globe ?
and the real "Head Scratcher"
+If February is the shortest month, which is the longest?

It would be great to have a couple of more teams. So if you are near to Stoke (sorry Brad), free on Wed nights, got 2 friends and like hotdogs, drop me an email

Quiz Night (4) The Campanologists Strike Back

Well, this week we were tragically down to 2 non Blondes .Vicky selflessly commited herself to her work, instead of joining in our weekly humiliation (If last week is anything to go by) . This week it was the turn of Norma from The Muppets to set the quiz. Instead of the gimicks and random categories that usually make up our quiz, this was 72 question of Hard Core General Knowledge! For us it started badly and then got gradually worse. There was controversy from the off. "What North American port has the name meaning White House?" "North AMERICAN?" came the cry from at least 1 one us. She confirmed that was the question. Debs said "Its Cassablanca" I typically poo pooed this saying its not in America. Of course I was later shown to be wrong! (or the question was wrong, either way no point!). The first half continued in the same vein. We strugggled with other querstions like "Harpaxo is a phobia of what?". The break came as a relief.Good for me, it was hotdogs on the menu (On a Red Day, for fans of Slimming World. So the dogs were sans bread! ok it was just sausages then) We turned our minds to the throwouts. One sheet was criptic clues to British Town names (eg "Ma's feeling better?" or "The director's order for the striking cast?" - The first correct answers posted on a comment wins absolutely nothing!) The other sheet involved guessing nursery rhymes from the last lines. I was confident, Debs being a classroom assistant she was bound to know the nursery rhymes! Turns out kids don't learn nursery rhymes much these days (I think they are better with Rap Lyrics), but fortunately Debs was really good at the cryptic town names. Scores were read out for first half. Muppets 22, 3 non Blondes 27, Sixth Sense 34 and The Campos. 37. We were done for!!. No way back from that... The second half questions seemed even tougher. A question came up on "Which animal has the longest tail?" Where was Vix with her QI book of Animal Facts when we needed her. The temptation in the mobile phone age to cheat and call her was palpable. But 3 non Blondes have nothing if not our intergrity (Plus we would have been caught!!)The quiz ended with the lovely question "Mesothelioma is better known as what condition? (Better known by who!! Not even Dr Gregory House would know that! mmmm I wish Dr House made house calls!!) ..We had marked Six's answers and thought we had made up ground. The final scores are in..Look away now if you dont want to know! In 4th place The Mupps with 58, 3rd The Blondes with 59, 2nd The Sixes with 61 and the clear winners (after 4 weeks of 2nd places) The Camps with 69. Though we were disappointed, we were genuinely pleased for the Camps as they have been so unlucky recently (And it still leaves us joint top!)

Next week we will be back to full strength...so probably last again!

Sixth Sense 3 wins

3 non Blondes 3 wins

The Campanologists 1 win

The Muppetts 0 win

Quiz Night (3) The St Valentine's Day Masacre

Last nights quiz was a new low point for the once magnificent 3 non Blondes quiz team, and that includes the by now infanous Christmas debacle.

Back to full strength we started the quiz with a completely misplaced confidence. The theme of the quiz was Valentines Day. It became clear very quickly that not only did we know very little about matters of the heart, but there was precious little love flowing through our team. It started with me winding Vicky up by critisising her handwriting and moved on to an almost full on spat over which King Henry VIII wife died my which method. By now Vicky and me were by now staring in totally opposite directions like strangers on a train, desperate not to make eye contact! To call the atmosphere frosty would be an understatment equivalent of saying that the band Venom play pleasant upbeat rock music (This reference is for one person only... you know who you are !) Debbie did manage the difficult task of balancing a dignified approach to our tiff whilst desperately trying to recall the 4 members of the Bananasplits. By the time the scores were read out at half time, we were already 10 points off the pace. With the onset of food at the break, a truce had broken out in the hostilities and we were now merrily arguing the toss over our outstanding unanswered questions. The second half was much more successful. We held our own on the general knowledge and beat the other teams on the throwout sheet. Alas the cause was already lost. The results were in..In 4th place 3 non blondes. We had gone from heroes to below zeros! 3rd place for The Muppetts, 2nd went to the Campanologists (Not for the first time!) and our arch enemies Sixth Sense were victorious! However we were not last after all..We had a secret weapon. I forgot to mention that Vicky's daughter Beth and Debbie's son Sam had joined us due to it being half term. We managed to provoke them into forming their own team so "The Chav Kids" were born. Now dont get me wrong they both did really well due to Beth's knowledge of Henry VIII wives and Sam's obsession with James Bond films. However they did score less than us so technically we weren't in last place! I always new there had to be a use for kids!

Point of note...Due to our disastorous showing coinciding with Debbie and Vicky quaffing a bottle of wine before we left home. I am now insisting that, just like Footballers abstaining from sex the night before a match, our team must abstain from alcohol for at least 24 hours prior to a quiz meet. Now myself being the only non drinker in the team, I dont think my suggestion went down well with my team mates already naffed off with my supercillious atitude that night.

Well to bastardise the end of Gone With The Wind "Tomorrow is another quiz"

Sixth Sense 3 wins
3 non Blondes 3 wins
The Campanologists 0 wins, (but loads of 2nds)
The Muppetts 0 wins

Vicky's Birthday - The Madness of Queen Vic

The week end started with Vicky's seemingly 2 day long birthday. The "celebrations" started Friday night round at Debs. The 3 of us were accompanied by Vicky's daughter Beth, Debbies' son Sam and Beth's friend Abigail, all are aged 10 or 11.Oh and of course the whirlwind that is Debbie's, slobber on legs Boxer dog Marley. The kids are all great individually, but like a vodka bottle, petrol and a soaked rag, they can be a volatile mix. The night had a low key start. Debs sat kneeling in front of the soaps, transfixed like a cat watching a goldfish. Vicky sat in her pre alcohol state "lifting" the whole mood with her views on turning 34. I sat with Beth and Abs on the 2nd slowest laptop in Stoke, trying to induct the kids into the dark world of the Blog. By the time the Soaps had finished Vicky had moved into her Trans Alcohol state, and with almost relish we moved to the kitchen for a game of Cranium, or Curriculum as Sam called it (Kids are clearly under too much pressure with these SATS, we never used that word at 11).
Now playing a board game is akin to adding a lit cigarette lighter to the bottle/petrol/soaked rag mix. After some heated negotiations over teams i.e which kid is stuck with which "adult" we ended up with the following 3 teams "Team Blog" consisting of Beth and I, "The Trumpeters" (the meaning sadly became obvious) Abigail and Vicky and "Gangster Marls" Sam and Deb. The game was a mix of, Charades, Pictonary, Rapidough, Trivial Pursuit, bad humming and arguing over whos turn to read the question! with only one brief walk out. The whole thing seemed to last an eternity, and by nearly midnight we had all grown tired and irritated (well when I say all, I mean the adults!). It must be noted for the records that Beth and I were leading. After a disharmonious version of "Happy Birthday to Vicky", the kids retired to butcher some songs on Singstar, while the 3 of us indulged ourselves in some group navel gazing, in turn out-trumping each other with the pitifulness of our lives! My God, if this is what we're like at a 34th birthday, whats it going to be like at my 40th next week. (Please remember I am still technically in my 30s). By now, well entrenched into her alcohol phase, I foolishly suggested that Vicky could not fit into the chest freezer (this I knew this was only going to have one outcome!). Me and Debs joined the kids in the lounge, Vicky mumbled unconvinccingly about going to the loo. For the next few minutes we listened to the rustling, crunching noise from frozen peas, et al being removed from the freezer. After a while Debs, who appeared oblivious to Vicky's doomed endeavour, said with utter conviction that she couldn't find Vicky and that she was starting to panic. The rest of us, particularly Beth and I, steadfastly refused to be drawn into Vicky's madness, prefering instead to let her eventually give up, from wherever it was she was hiding (Beth totally has her mum's card mark). Anyway, after a failed attempt to hide in the freezer, a short lived and obviously cold spell squeezed in the fridge Vicky had settled for balancing on tiptoes in the tiny pantry, trying in her words to "Act as if she was the salt!". Vicky was clearly pleased with herself at this feat, Debbie was just releived that she had found her and Beth just breifly looked up, well used to not encouraging her mum's behaviour. Afterwards everyone bar me (for obvious reasons) attempted to do handstands with mixed but mercifully uninjured results. We left around 3am.
We had to make an an irritating diversion to an all night petrol station for fags (I am always reminded of Eddie Izzard's description of a line of murderers queueing up for a Twix) Of course me and Vicky couldn't end things there, so we spent another hour coming down to melancholic Elvis tracks. I finally went home at 4am. I am now realising it was a mistake to give Vick a the "Qi Book of Animal Ignorance"as part of her present. I am no doubt going to be persistently regaled with zoological trivia over the next few days.
.....Worryingly there were still 20 hours of Vicky's Birthday left

Quiz Night (2) Debbie Does Meakins

"The Sweetie smell of success"

Yay !!! We are back on top of the now infamous Meakins Cricket Club quiz. Debbie's quiz was a triumph. We managed to scrape a victory at the last gasp. At the end of the questions we were locked tight with The Campanologists on 53 points. It was down to the throw out sheets. An eerie hush settled over the room. The pregnant silence of anticipation (*overmelodramitic allert*) was only broken by cry "Could I have the throwout score ofr The Campanologists. "33" rang out the reply. Vicky and me exchanged knowing glances of self satisfication. At last our year of eating chocolates and sweets bore fruit as we outscored everyone by identifying various brands of confectionary through cryptic clues. We scored 35.
It would only be fair to point out that we were aided by Sixth Sense being down to 1 member. I guess they were more accurately down to their 2nd Sense. I thoroughly expect them to be back on top next week. I also think the Campanologists are due a win after 2 close second places

Debs was on fine, school mistressly form as our quizmaster. By the end of the night she was gleefully putting down any heckling as if we were her class of 4 year olds. I am afraid that Vicky will be insufferable now, since she pointed out that we finished a distant third without her and have now won the last 3 times she has been on the team. At least next week Debs will be back to referee our bickering.

3 non Blondes 3 wins
Sixth Sense 2 wins
Campanologists 0 wins
The Muppets 0 wins

Now, in the words of Samuel Peepys "Time to bed". I learnt that tonight!___________________________________

Quiz Night (1) For Whom the Bells Almost Toll

Last night was our weekly quiz night. Our team is the "3 non Blondes" consisting of Vicky, Debbie and myself. We are totaly and inappropriately competetive. Our mighty opposition are "The Muppets", "The Campanologists" and our deadly rivals "Sixth Sense". We had managed to win the last 2 weeks in a row until last night. Shorn of our own Jeremy Clarkson, in the shape of Vicky, who selfishly thought doing her shift at work was more important than the quiz, we finished a distant 3rd. I think "2 Dumb Blondes" would have been a better epithet. The quiz was won by the formidable Sixth Sense with Campanologists a gnats whisker behind (Do gnats have whiskers?, I'm glad that wasn't one of the questions!! (By the way I do overuse exclaimation marks and parenthethies)). Our problem was too many questions on Literature and Art, and not enough on Telly and Pop Music.
The Tally so far for 2008
Sixth Sense 2 wins
3 non Blondes 2 wins
Campanologists 0 wims
Mupets 0 wins

Vicky, Debs & Me - The 3 non Blondes