Quizzical

St Gilles

'..and the next category is Pop Music'

A groan echoes through the bar, but it's really all pretence.

We are in the new village bar attending the monthly quiz - 'Le P'tit Quiz' to be precise. It's only the second time we have attended having been prompted by a friend who wants us to come along.

Earlier in the evening we found ourselves sitting alone at a table, not knowing anyone else other than by sight waiting for the three people we did know to turn up.

The 'new' bar is a rather ugly construction, totally out of context with the rest of the village but proudly constructed by the local village council to house the bar, shop and apparently now, restaurant.

The village always has had a very small shop and bar, poorly attended. About 8 years ago it suddenly shut down, and we watched from afar to see what would happen. Eventually, the property was leased by a couple in their early 40s who ran a small shop and bar once more. We had originally hoped that it might be bought by someone who would run a shop and restaurant, but to be honest, this village is not really a 'restaurant' type of village. As tenants, their landlord being the local council, they were persuaded to move into the new building and run the new shop, bar and restaurant. We have yet to find out exactly what the restaurant is offering. However, the shop is small but reasonably stocked and not seriously overpriced. Last night wass our first foray into the new bar.

Due to a bit of a mix up, we were put with a couple and their son who we had not met before but we seemed to get along very well and (she said proudly) our team came a very close second (close that is to third and not to first!).

The other couple were very pleased that the 'usual' winners were well and truly thrashed this month and a new team took home the winners cup, for a whole month.

It is an ex-pat quiz in English, I should add at this point, but we were surprised at the number of English people who do live very close to us - we don't normally run into any of them, don't see them at the shops or anywhere so although they may get together once a month for a bit of light entertainment, it isn't exactly an 'English enclave' we are living in.

The banter and complaints are the same as you would find in the UK:

'The answer 'fish' shouldn't be accepted when the questions is 'what are the two main ingredients of a kedgeree', called one lady 'it must be smoked haddock, nothing else would be acceptable'.

She was over-ruled (probably by the team who needed a point from 'fish' to stay in the running.

Pop music was the one category we were dreading, but the questions were kind.

- What number relates to the Rolling Stones' nervous breakdown?
- Who was waiting for Robert Di Nero?
- What wasn't it unusual to see Tom Jones do in 'It's Not Unusual'?

We did very well. Surprisingly we also did well on the category 'film'.

But our moment of glory came when one of our team recognised the 'mystery person' was Spike Milligan from the first 5 words of a 25 word clue. He'd hardly said a word all night but his quick response managed to win our second place. Well done to him.

By the way, does anyone out there know the number of grams of fat in a Big Mac?

Would you want to?