Climbing quiz

I haven't climbed in about 100 years. Or maybe more precisely, since summer 2022. The last thing I did with the climbing club was, I think, more than a year ago, attending the AGM. That was in the Beacon climbing hall, and we did the AGM, but we didn't climb. 

I was going to be back, in the same climbing hall, and again to not climb. One of our members had sent an email around saying there would be a quiz, and it might be fun to join as the club. That sounded like good fun! I travelled up with Charlotte. We were the first ones of the club.

We caught up a bit, and looked at the climbing, until the other three arrived. We were complete! And not much later, the quiz started. There was a picture round that you could already do; you were just handed a piece of A4 with eight pictures on it you were expected to recognise. We didn't do very well. It was: a picture of an animated television show that didn't ring a bell with any of us, a childhood picture of someone we figured would've grown up to be a professional basketball player, a childhood picture of James Hetfield, a picture of someone the others decided was an 80s British racing driver, but they couldn't think of his name. Then a flag, the snowman from Frozen, a still from a movie, and an old picture of a young man*. This snowman was easy; we all knew his name. I think I was the only person who recognised James Hetfield. I had my use! And then we submitted some guesses for the rest. This was not an auspicious start.

The James Hetfield picture 

Then the other questions followed. Most of them were general knowledge. There also was one round that was sport, and another round that was climbing. I was absolutely totally useless in these two rounds! I think I did best in the music round. They just played some intros and we had to guess the song. We didn't know them all, but I remember born slippy, no surprises, still D.R.E, für Elise, and firestarter. So basically, the 90s and Beethoven. This quiz was clearly not aimed at a young audience! Which suited us fine. I am sure I was lowering the average age of our team.

When everything had been asked, we swapped answer sheets with a neighbouring team, and we marked each other's work. We hadn't done very well. That's okay!

In the end we had a shared third-from-last place. I'm not quite sure how many teams there were; you can’t easily get an overview of that café area. But quite many teams. By the time the scores were announced it was 10 pm, and we all wanted to go home. I had had an actual beer; this was a wild night for me! I had been thinking we should take a team picture, but I was so busy wanting to go home, and having to go to the loo first, that I forgot.

I was glad I had gone. In between thinking about stuff such as which female team has won the most football World Cups, and who invented the leap year, we had some useful club discussion. We have pretty much stopped being a climbing club, and are now a general outdoor/sport/leisure club. The club has been paddle boarding! And I am not attracted to that, so I hadn't joined in. But our plans were doing more things that don't involve actual climbing. There was some mention of the Anglesey coastal path. If we are going to go do that, I will join if I can! It's just nice to sometimes do that's sort of thing with nice people! Maybe next year this club will feature a bit more prominently on this blog…

Ps the answers, as far as I can remember: no idea about the TV series as I had never heard of it, LeBron James, James Hetfield (of course), Nigel Mansell, Mozambique, Olaf, Cloverfield, a young Stalin.