The mild wild West

It was a black night. The landscape was black, the rain was black and the sky was very black. I was even dressed in black. The rain was unrelenting and bounced back angrily from the pavement while lightning cracked the sky.
I stood facing the building for a few second, had a quick glance around, then pushed open the door. A dozen pairs of eyes turned to look at me while the barman looked down at the glass he was polishing. I ordered a drink and took a seat in a corner.
The door opened again and all eyes turned to look at the four figures, all dressed in black, who stood surveying the scene. Their eyes met mine and I stood to face them.
That was as dramatic as the whole evening got. Joan, Robbie, Pam and Effie - the other four members of 'Way Out West', our quiz team from The Argyll, Ullapool - were in town. We were in South Queensferry for the Scottish final of the Great British Pub Quiz.
Although it obviously increased our chances of winning, I was actually disappointed with the fact that there week weren't dozens of rival teams. Anyway, you can only beat what's in front of you and, like a cerebral Mo Farrah, we stretched our lead as the night went on. We won an unusually tasteful trophy and some cash. But, more importantly, it meant we qualified for the Grand Final of the Great British Pub Quiz in Villa Park, Birmingham.  And so it was, that last weekend, we flew from Inverness to Bristol, then caught the train to Birmingham to stay overnight in an hotel - all for a quiz.
The final was very different to the Edinburgh final. A quite grand affair, in Aston Villa's function suite, with professional lighting, a full Audio-visual set-up, electronic buzzer rounds, a whole team of people collecting and marking answer sheets, a rather impressive buffet and free beer! The whole thing was very organised and professional, and was co-hosted by Mark 'The Beast' Labbett (from ITV's 'The Chase'). The only trouble was, there were (gulp) 25 teams.
Well, it was a fun event, but we didn't exactly excel. There were a couple of buzzer rounds, which proved to be our downfall. One was a gamble round where there were big points to be won for gambling on an answer as early as possible, but you would lose points for an incorrect answer. We just played it too safe and waited too long to be sure of not making a wrong answer, but missed out on the big points. As a result, we finished a rather lowly 18th. However, we were made a big fuss of by the hosts and the organisers, simply because of the 1000 mile round journey we had made, and consequently, when we were presented with our regional champions trophy at the end of the night, we probably received the biggest cheer of the night.
So, congratulations to The Lions (who won), and 'thank you' to the hosts and to Punch, who sponsored the quiz and made such a big fuss of our team.
We almost didn't bother going to the final, because it was such a long journey, but we agreed it was all worthwhile in the end and hope to get through to the final again in the future.
Way out West will ride again. Yee Ha!

Red, white & bloom

I caught some of the (slightly excessive) coverage of the Jubilee. I'm not the most patriotic person, but I'm always in favour of seeing hundreds of thousands of people enjoying themselves. Just a shame that the weather made everything look reddish-grey, grey and greyish-blue.
As far as the weather was concerned, it was the opposite here. And this coincided with the Highlands at perhaps their most colourful. In addition to the usual blues and greens, the scenery is awash with splashes of almost every other colour imaginable.
The trouble is, I am useless at remembering plant names. I know that the yellows are Gorse, Broom and Laburnum, and I think lots of the mauve stuff is Rhododendron, or is it Azalea? And the green bits are definitely grass.
No, botany is not my bag. Jane knows it. She puts loads of time and effort into our garden and tries to educate me in these matters, but, for some reason, I find it hard to absorb all this knowledge she has. Ask me what was the b-side of Tommy Gun by The Clash? In which geological period was Portland stone formed? Which 1975 film won the 5 major Oscars? What is the formula for calculating the volume of a sphere? What is the capital of Bhutan? Who scored the winning goal in the 1971 FA Cup final? Twin Peaks centered on whose murder? And (hopefully) which is the only circular British road sign with three arrows on it? I could answer all of these for you. But ask me what a Begonia looks like and I wouldn't have a clue.
I often join one of the teams in the weekly quiz at The Argyll, Ullapool, where, fortunately, there are very few gardening questions. In the last couple of months the quiz has had an extra frisson of competitiveness because, in addition to the usual prize (a pizza), the top team over a period of 8 weeks will go forth to some quiz final in Edinburgh in August. We had a sticky couple of weeks, where The Pact, a team of schoolteachers, beat us, but, overall, we, Way out West, qualified to represent Ullapool in the capital. I shall keep you informed of our progress.
Many locals pretend to eschew the Queen and the Jubilee but, in last night's quiz, the highest scoring round for most teams was...... The Jubilee. I did have one panicky moment when the questionmaster asked 'Who has recently appointed as the manager of Liverpool FC?' Everyone on the team turned to me (Liverpool are my team), but I had a mental block and I couldn't think! Luckily, it came to me before the end of the round. At the moment, the name Brendan Rogers doesn't have the same resonance as Shankly, Paisley, Dalglish, or even Benitez, so perhaps I could be forgiven.