Next Wednesday, 18th November, 7.45, I’m back as a desperately needy Quiz Master at the Cinque Port Arms, Old Town Hastings. Come to fight for the massive prizes (a bottle of wine) and sheer entertainment (in the event of legal proceedings “sheer entertainment” is defined, for the purposes of this posting, as “the odd laugh”).

Sinister regulars at the Cinque Ports

Hopefully the thought of the small axe-monkey sneaking through your bedroom curtains has motivated many of you to attend the Cinque Ports pub quiz this Wednesday (quiz starts 7.30). For those who may be thinking of not coming may I introduce Monkeys girlfriend; “sinister doll in the shadows”, both are fresh back from their annual holidays with the Wicked Witch of the Norths flying monkeys and are looking for some fun.

So there you have it, quiz on Wednesday or sitting awake night after night waiting for the scratching sound on the windows, an easy decision I think!

Still smarting from being thrown out so many years agao.

Join the worlds humblest man in an evening of Pub Quiz delight, or, if you can’t find that come and be berated at the Cinque Port Arms, All Saints Street, Hastings Old Town (Click here for map) – the “fun” starts at 7.30pm. Spot the wrong answers, marvel at a badly worn bright shirt, gobble down the free sandwiches, heap ridicule on the pedants who take this all seriously, etc.

It’s a quid a person, all, sadly, going to charity and not my bank account.

For those of you thinking of not coming, just study the picture below and hope it’s not next to you in the morning (no threats or anything).

Worse than waking up with me, nearly...

One of the reasons I don’t “do” politics here usually is that it’s such a complex subject and as I get older I’m wary of the semantic straw men we use in place of thought, it also doesn’t get the laughs. I’m also leaning towards the opinion that any discussion deals mainly with the psychology of the participants and the shared pretence that “facts” are involved is moral cowardice. Surely the one thing the internet has shown us is that there is so much knowledge swilling around that anyone trumpeting their grasp of a situation is, er, a self deluded liar.

One other reason I have is that few people seem that interested and almost nobody is interested in solutions beyond bashing each other with their ignorant “pick and mix” tribal beliefs.

Fast becoming a core belief with me is the concept of “always being wrong”. I am. I have changed my mind over thing so many time throughout my life I am amazed that people can keep the same views for more than a few years, and they do. Why?

Then I realised, there are two reason to gain knowledge, 1: find out something new, 2: validate a held view.

This brings us back to all conversation being about personal psychology. The first reason requires confidence the second is an admission of fear.

I know which I prefer, and you?

One of these is a politician, clue: it’s not the one with a pocket watch.

Call me cynical, I’d prefer astute or wise but cynical will do, but are the pubs dying? Now I must admit that my partner in crime and I go out in the week as he spends the week-ends cow-towing to his loved one, but still; the pubs seem to be the haunt of the sad, weird and lonely, mooching at the last bus stop before the abyss. The Jenny Lind is up for sale at £85,000 leasehold, the Crown in High Street £75,000, the Adelade is an empty hulk; a dark place for the odd troglodyte drunk to piss against it’s peeling walls. The new tenant at the Stag has brought a stony resigned face to the job. I think that’s the worst thing; they all have an air of defeat, and not a silent one, a whining snivelling air blaming everything (with some justification in the case of the smoking ban) on circumstances far beyond their control.

Be there or be tucked up warm at home, ah, yes, I can see the issues here…

Oh well, if you want to come and support my egotistical onward march to fame, forty years too late, you’ll be making an old guy happy!

I only called into the pub to see if I was involved with the next Pub Quiz, honest. I can’t remember my vision being blurred till late morning after a few drinks when I was a young man, what happened there?

I will be doing a couple of rounds of the Pub Quiz next Wednesday at the Cinque Port Arms in All Saints Street starting at about 7.20pm, Geography & Music are going to be the questions I’m setting, so I hope to see everybody who reads this (you know who you are!) turning up to join in, it’s a quid each and it goes to charity and not the “Steves feeling the credit crunch but needs to buy a new camera” charity, sadly.

A month ago on one of my pompous rants by a bar I talked myself into joint comparing a pub quiz. I had hoped Shelagh had forgotten but a couple of days ago I got the call, “are you ready?”. Bricks and sh**ing come to mind. I can occasionally talk a good talk but the walking has often eluded me. Tonight was the night so powered by a bag of chips & two pints of cider I “did my thing”.

For a guy who’s all mouth I have a real problem getting up in front of a group, but it seems to have gone well. I did a couple of rounds of questions (Science & Entertainment) and got a few laughs. My problem is that I have a tendency to ramble, big time, you can’t do that with and audience. But in the end a few people came up and said I’d done okay and before I could stop myself I was offering to do it again. Basically I’m a tart and the lure of babes & fame is too much.

It’s war, you hate your team mates for giving dumb answers even if they turn out to be right, the competing teams are just cannon fodder who by some amazing stroke of luck seem to have smuggled in a “ringer”; the bored ex-teacher with too many books and too much time on their hands. The quiz master has a vendetta against you and though they keep mentioning it’s all for charity you know their real game is as the devils representative on earth. And then there’s the pale girl with the black dress and Stevie Nicks aura wafting within inches as she floats around the pub shoving a cattle prod into long dormant hormones, obviously in the pay of another team jealous of your talent. It’s pub quiz night and we loose again, genius is never rewarded in it’s lifetime!

Partner in “crime” John is back for a few days so it’s goodbye to the diet and sobriety. We caught up with each other over a very pleasant sea food platter at Whites in George Street. The big question was should he ask Moritzia (his partner) to marry him. I thought this was a great idea as it supplies another friends wife for me to lust after but he’s afraid she’ll say no, oh well, what will be will be.

On to the Cinque Ports where Sheila’s advice is short on the subject, a resounding no from her meant, in my eyes at least it’s still a great idea: Sheila with her absolutism and insistence in viewing emotional subtlety with a Meccano mind is always a good guide to what not to do.

Ended up in the Hastings arms listening to John Crampton, a cross between Link Wray & Phil Spector; a blues wall of sound. But it was well past my bed time and the world was getting blurry so it was back to the hill with a bag of chocolate Brazils in hand, a perfect end to any evening!

This pictures a bit indistinct, so, an accurate reflection of what I was seeing then.