The Pub Quiz Ringer - by Theo

Last Tuesday I got an email from my old student, Javi, inviting me to a pub quiz that Thursday night. I hadn't seen Javi for a while so I accepted; the last time we'd been to a pub quiz together it had been organised by the first school I worked at here in Madrid, Cambridge House, and we'd done rather well, coming second and winning €100 in the process. However, money wasn't the motivation; it would be nice to get out for a change. I also decided to invite my friend Jon (who knows Javi) along as well.

So Jon and I turned up at O'Neils in Calle Principe - as you might guess from the name, it's an Irish pub - to find that, as I suspected, it was yet again the Cambridge House pub quiz. I said hello to my former boss and some old colleagues, then found Javi. Most of the teams there seemed to consist of Cambridge House teachers and their students, with the odd boyfriend/girlfriend thrown in. Not Javi's. He was the only Cambridge House student in the team. The others, Paulo, Pablo and Angel, were Spanish friends of his, plus Pablo's American girlfriend Kasey and a German intern, Karl, who worked with Angel. We then co-opted a Cambridge House teacher, Alanna, as the rules stipulated we had to have a CH teacher on our team, and her US housemate Ryan, and christened ourselves "The Magicians".

It soon became apparent that our team existed for one reason only - Javi's desire to win! We were pretty much all ringers. I was there for the geography and history round (8 out of 8, I thank you) while Angel and Karl ruled the entertainment round, Jon contributed some humdingers to the general knowledge, with pretty much everyone else pitching in at least twice. By the time the final round, music, came we were five ahead of our nearest competitors, guaranteed a podium finish and needing only 6 out of ten to secure first. In the end we only managed 5 (there were some terrible and very modern choices) but it was more than enough - the €150 first prize was ours!

After we split it 10 ways it just about paid for my three pints of Guiness!