Manic is one word to describe the first ‘Quarterly Quiz’ at the MAC. Fun is another. As you walk in you are greeted by the sight of a roaring fire being projected on to a screen that occupies most of the reception desk – an electric guitar, pedals and amp are there too. Also there are fairy lights, a small table, a chair, a pint of Guinness and local comedian Paul Currie. It’s at this point you feel under dressed. Starting at the floor he is wearing a pair of perfect white cuban heels and a Ron Burgundy style suit (only in blue). He has teamed all this with shoulder length hair and a wonderful beard. Standing at least 6 feet tall, he is, quite literally, a feast for the eyes.
The Quarterly Quiz happens every 3 months (hence quarterly) and is £5 for a team of 5. It started about 8:30pm on Sunday night, finishing about 3 hours later (for a full nights entertainment it was certainly value for money). As the Quiz started, Paul revealed that he had a different prop for each round. He had a snow hat and goggles for the Geography round (as he made wind noises into the mic and quoted Captain Scott) and a visor and sunglasses for the film round – oh and a rubber hand on a ten foot pole for the “draw a horse” round. Yes thats right, there was a draw a horse round and the results were quite surprising, in a good way. Our team won this round with help from our friends over at The Skeleton Blog, as the rubber hand of fate picked our flying horse to be the best.
Guitar Intros
The other rounds consisted of film, Geography, culture, general knowledge, picture rounds, guitar intros and sport. The picture round, rather ingeniously, consisted of pictures of various bar staff behind their respective bars and you had to guess what bar it was. Extra points if you knew the bar person’s name. The usual “guess the intro” round was replaced by the intros being played on an electric guitar. It’s always great to bring a bit of live music in when possible and this was a fun round.
Currie also conducted the sports round in a “spide” accent the whole way through, like. Because who loves sport more than spides.
Wall of Horse
We didn’t win the overall quiz, but the awarding of the prizes was no less frenzied than the previous 3 hours. The first place winners were disqualified from winning prizes because they had sneaked more than 5 onto their team. The second place winners were also exempt from winning prizes because they were made up of MAC staff. So the 3rd place winners won the 1st place prize and 4th place won the second place prize. Stop me if any of this is making sense…
The prizes consisted of jotters, Lowry prints and colouring in books, tickets to shows at the MAC and vouchers for meals at the MAC restaurant.
The winning Horse
All in all it was a brilliant evening. I was designated driver so ne’er a drop passed my lips all evening and even stone cold sober it was a brilliant time. We’ll be back in 3 months, you should probably get a team together and do the same
