Mama needs a new pair of shoes

Last week, we had R's parents stay with us for a few nights. They do this every year, on their way home from France to Northern Ireland. They take the ferry over, stay with R's sister in the Isle of Wight, then with us in Brighton, then with his brother in London, and then make their way home. It's a nice little tradition.

On the Wednesday night, I made delicious leek and tattie soup, with homemade bread. YUM YUM YUM! I've really gotten into the habit of making soup from scratch and it's amazing. I followed up with chicken and bean soup on Friday when R was sick, too.

On Thursday, the parentals were super keen to do a pub quiz.

The one we normally do is on a Wednesday, at Zuma, so I went a-huntin' for a quiz on Thursday night. Hmmm, turns out there aren't many in Brighton. Luckily, I managed to find one in town, at a slightly shady looking pub, called the Chequers. We went for some greek food at a lovely restaurant called Estia, and then headed over about quarter to nine. Boy, has it heaving. We had to stand in the dark corner! It was actually really nice to branch out a bit and try a new quiz, just for a bit of change. We started off really well, with a perfect round, and kept doing good on each round. As he would mark about 2-3 rounds a time, you didn't actually know how well you were doing for big chunks at a time. We finally handed in our last 3 rounds, and were several points ahead at this point. But it was getting late, close to midnight, so we were tempted to head off. But the jackpot for the night was pretty big, as they do a roll over each week if it isn't won. So we decided to wait and see how we did.

Finally, we got our paper back, and we hadn't done that well. Made some silly mistakes. Oh well, we thought, it was a fun night. He started doing the scores, from lowest to highest, and turns out....we tied for first place! Holy moly!

So we had to do a tie breaker - the question was "In 1970, how many children in Britain were members of the Tufty club?"

???????????????????????????????

R and I just looked at each other and said WTF. But! R's parents are teachers! So J leaned over and said, "In 1970, EVERY child in Britain was a member of the Tufty club - your school was automatically registered. Put 3 million." Hmmm, sounds a bit off to me, but what do I know?

So we handed over our answer, and waited to see....and the answer was 2 million, with the other team guessing only 300,000! WOOOOT WOOOOOT!

thanks Tufty

But it doesn't end there. Once you finally win, you still have to go through the gauntlet of...the draw. So I stepped up, and looked at the three straws - one for a bottle of wine, one for a case of beer and one for the jackpot - which hadn't been won in a month. I decided to go with the left one, for our 2 lefties (R and his mom). Everyone around me was chanting WINE WINE WINE WINE. I looked and.....

we won the friggin money! £132! Yippee! I haven't won that much money....ever? Brilliant! R (too?) generously put £20 behind the bar for the quiz master and bar staff, and off we went. We've decided to put the money aside for Christmas funds this year, which is such a relief.

Zuma just doesn't seem as exciting now....

take THAT pifco

What is this, you may be asking yourself. Well, that is exactly what Ronan and I were thinking Wednesday night for the pub quiz. Luckily, it was this little bad boy that won us the quiz.

After an okay Science & Nature round (10/16 points), and a great music round (32/32 using our joker) we get to the picture round. Now we know everything else, but we can't for the life of us figure out what this film is. That definitely looks like a picture of a naked man at the bottom. And in B&W we couldn't figure out if it was the beach (looks like sand) or snow (they all seem dressed in big coats). A bit more squinting lead us to realise perhaps they were asian (hey, she looks like Lauren!). More thinking, more thinking. The only asian british stuff I could think of was Bend it Like Beckham (which this most certainly is not). Then Ronan said, well isn't there an asian film called Bhaji on the Beach? Ehhhhh, what? 'Is it by the chick who did Bend it Like Beckham?' 'I dunno'. 'Is it on a beach?' 'I dunno'. 'Should we just go for it?' 'I guess so...'

Lo and behold, we got it right. How on earth?

After a shaky sports round (10/16), we were up by 6 points, feeling pretty good. I wanted to win, but as long as we beat PIFco (they are the fugly team that drink lots of wine and laugh horrible obnoxious fingernails on a chalkboard laughs, with 6 people on their team compared to just little ole me and Ronan), I was happy. Felt pretty good at the end, looking forward to seeing our score.

Quiz master hands back our sheets, and I'm so bummed to see we only got 27/36, for a final score of 95 - and we're told PIFco got a perfect score. I HATE PIFCO! I HATE THEM WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS, YOU BASTARDS! So as he reads the scores in reverse order, I sit there sulking the biggest sulk possible, muttering madly about my hatred for PIFco. 'Tied for third, with 93 points...blah blah, and in second...' 'i hate you PIFco, i hope you get attacked by rabied monkeys' 'with 94 points....' 'whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?' 'PIFco! and the winner tonight....with 95 points....the Pea Funks!'

So, as you can see, we owe our win (and the pot of £25) to little ole Bhaji on the Beach, worth 2 beautiful points, that allowed us to finally kick PIFco's ass. Long live Gurinder Chadha.

I'll save my harrasment by the lisping frenchman later on that night for another day...