Friday 5th February: Pub quiz - which player are you?

Every year, our swimming club holds a pub quiz hosted by our chairman, the picture is of one of our answer sheets, as you can see, it wasn't a great round! In teams of six, we all huddle round sipping wine in plastic cups, munching crisps and hoping that we don't come last.

What I love the best is watching the different types of players taking part.

There are the competitive ones, who can be spotted straight away. They're the ones sat bolt upright peering at the opposition with frenetic head movements as if they've become a bird for the evening.

There are those who just want a night out and a natter. They're the ones who, every once in a while, blurt out the right answer. They occasionally have to repeat it because the others on the team have been ignoring them ever since they mentioned they always come last in Trivial Pursuit.

There are those who take control and grab the pen (there are usually two of these on a team and they play a secondary game between themselves for the whole night as the power passes from one to the other). To be fair, these are the ones who answer 90% of the questions, and are usually the more 'senior' members of the party who know what it was like to live in the earlier decades. These people never actually say the answer out loud, instead they grab the pen from their fellow pen-holder and furiously scribble the answer while developing an annoyingly smug facial expression. Having written it faster than you can say "biro", they slam the pen down on the table, push the answer sheet towards the rest of the team, sit back with their arms folded and wait for the other members to huddle round and take a look at the answer. A number of noises and mutterings follow, such as 'Ahhh, I thought it was that ...', and 'Oh, I didn't know that, that's fascinating'. The other pen-holder feels miffed at this point and seizes the writer and sheet for the next question.

And there are those who just love quizzes and get really excited (ie, me). They're the ones sitting on the edge of their seat as the question is being read out, leaning forward and ready to confidently announce the answer. As the end of the answer draws near, you can see them steadily edge back further and further into their seat as they realise that, just like the question before, they haven't got a sodding clue what the answer is.

Sadly, we didn't win, I think we came third in the end, but I did know the answer to the question right at the very end: "Where shall we go now?" As the question came to an end, I knew the answer. There was no slinking back in my chair for this one.

"The pub!" I confidently declared.