I have been busy all day setting the questions for this week's Rock Tavern Pub Quiz. As regular readers will know, setting the questions is normally the prize for winning the previous quiz, and I would love to stand before you today - well actually sit before you because I have a touch of sciatica - and proclaim that I won last Friday. But I didn't. The team that won didn't fancy setting the quiz, so I grovelled around and offered to do it for them. As they agreed, it is the only way I will ever get the opportunity to set the questions. I am, I fear, not one of life's winners.
I managed to get through childhood and youth without winning anything, although I once got a school prize for turning up. I remember when I was lecturing going out and buying an elaborate trophy to be presented to the College Chess Champion, confident in the knowledge that I had never seen anyone else play chess in the building. To be on the safe side I scheduled the competition during the long summer break when there would be neither students nor staff within checking distance of the place. Just as I was about to award the trophy to myself, the Caretaker turned up, sad down, and mated me in less moves than it took him to open the boiler house door. He still has the trophy to this day.
However, this is not one of my normal self-pitying rants, as I am pleased to announce that I have just been awarded a degree of recognition by being listed as one of the Top 50 Over 50s Bloggers in the latest issue of Saga Magazine. I share this honour with the likes of Ricky Gervais, Jon Snow, and Samuel Pepys (Good gracious, are you really over 50 Sam?). Can I just say thank you to the kind people at Saga Magazine for listing me and ask whether it would be possible for them to send me a little trophy for my desk-top. Nothing elaborate. A little plastic thing would do. I will even pay for it myself, get it made and send it to them, so they can send it back to me. But with my luck they will probably send it to Samuel Pepys.
You're a winner in my book. And I do find delight in your wry humor. Thanks for sending cheer across the pond.
ReplyDeleteHow very kind Barbara, thank you.
DeleteCongratulations Alan!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant, good for you. That will increase your readership I imagine. I'm sure they'll enjoy your musings as much as I do. Though why they think you're over 50 escapes me.
ReplyDeleteI think you're a winner, too. Congratulations for the recognition.
ReplyDeleteSamuel Pepys nominated you, for your self deprecating ways!. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteHey, congratulations on being listed the top 50 in Saga Magazine.
ReplyDeleteThat's great, Alan! Just proves that News from Nowhere has struck a chord somewhere. More power to your elbow!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, congrats on your acknowledgement. I must admit that I am a recent convert but your blog deserves that recognition. I have just recently returned from lovely Shropshire where I stayed with my wife's family for a about two weeks and had an absolute ball there.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the pub quiz. I have played it before and (no boasting, I swear!) I wiped the floor with the opposition when it came to language and music. It helps that my mother tongue is Spanish (hence, a connection to Latin) and that I can speak French and German. As for music, I was very surprised to know the names of bands from the 60s I had never even heard before. Yet, that's what reruns of Top of the Pops on BBC2 do to you. :-)
Greetings from London.
Well done Alan. There must be a tee-shirt if no trophy.
ReplyDeleteI gave blood one time and they listed the donors in the paper. My name was confuse and they put the name of my boss Larry Blaker and not me. He didn't give blood but got the credit. I hope your trophy isn't damaged when it arrives.
ReplyDeleteI used to go to the quiz night at the White Bear in Hampstead. Another table always won. And, selfishly, the same group attend every other local quiz I've ever been to, including charity quizzes for the Free Church and the North London Hospice. And they win those too. Which is a bit dispiriting for the rest of us. So I feel for you because my lot very nearly won once only we lost a point because the quizmaster insisted Heidi was set in Austria. Which it ain't.
ReplyDeleteHow did your questions go?
Well done you! ( I wonder if that entry ever made it—posthumously, of course— into the "diary".)
ReplyDelete"Eighty percent of success is showing up." ~ Woody Allen
ReplyDeleteIf Mr. Pepys had written a blog, all his words and wit would take second place to an essay like this, Alan.