A Little Learning Is An Infuriating Thing.

Apologies to my Big Green Thing chum but.................I hate pseudo-professional, humourless, nerdy pub quiz teams.
This rant is brought to you courtesy of a supposed pub quiz Orkney-Bound and I went along to last night. It turned out not to be a quiz in the normal sense of the word but was, instead, a Family Fortunes-style test - you know? Name five things George Michael has not rammed up his or anyone else's bottom; Name five things Victoria Beckham has ever eaten, etc.
As the beer flowed, so did the fun. "Name five things designed to be wheeled about", called the quiz master. "Prof. Stephen Hawking and Vanessa Feltz's gut," we scribbled among our answers. "Name five series of books penned by Enid Blyton." "Noddy Gets Down and Dirty" and "Radical Marxist Development and The Workers' Control of Factories in a Neo-capitalist Western Society", we wrote.
Not surprisingly, we didn't win the shellsuit and year's supply of Wife Beater lager which together constituted the first prize up for grabs but, Hell, we had a hoot.
It got me thinking. We had a laugh because EVERYONE else there was having a laugh. There is, however, usually at least ONE team devoid of any chuckle muscles at these nights out - Yes! That fucking pseudo-professional team.
They are nearly always the same. There is a supposed leader who the others look up to in awe. He is the type of insecure wanker who joins Mensa and drones on about how high his IQ is to anyone stupid enough to listen. He is invariably a skinny, bearded, sandal-wearing twat who smokes a pipe, last smiled in 1932 and spends his sad, pathetic existence away from quizzes swotting up on the name of Alexander the Great's favourite goat and who is the 23rd tallest person in Swansea.
He is invariably accompanied by the following: a fat, sweaty, computer geek-type with a schoolboy haircut, two ugly bints - one bloated, the other anorexic - both wearing floral print dresses and "comfortable shoes" and a po-faced, acountanty-looking accountant whose idea of casualwear is his shabby, grey work suit with an acrylic, hideously loud, round-necked pullover worn over his shirt and tie, a la Tories relaxing at a weekend brainstorming session! They are usually teachers, librarians, IT weirdos, accountants, teachers, teachers and teachers!
While everyone else gives their team a name like "Beryl's Bags" or "Nigel's No-Hopers", they jot down some massively pompous Latin or Greek phrase at the top of their answer sheets, smiling smugly to each other every time they do so. (They should, of course, be compelled by law to call themselves Nietsche's No-Marks!)
It's always them who quibble over the answers. "Oh, I think you'll find that Snetterton's Compendium of The Banal lists golf as Attila the Hun's THIRD favourite hobby, NOT his second." Fuck off!!!
Like primary school children, they curl their arms around their answer sheets while writing, in case anyone dares to copy. Fuck off!!!
They always like to be first up with their completed sheets and make snotty comments to each other which are meant to be overheard by everyone, like "It's so easy this week, it's embarrassing". Once again, fuck off!!!
They always win, obviously, but, having pissed everyone off with their pomposity by the end of the evening, they walk up to collect their prize to a complete absence of applause or congratulations.
I have a way of lancing this boil on the bottom of life. Pub quiz prizes should be things which these arseholes would rather die than win. Things like hemorrhoid cream, sweet German white wine, membership of the BNP or a season ticket at Milwall.
They would soon stop turning up, spend their evenings at home instead and consequently realise what meaningless, pathetic existences they were leading and so kill themselves. Harsh but fair.
Fuck 'em. Pro quiz teams can go to Grantham.