I am always considered likely to be a quiz asset, because I’m old, and yet I’m a huge quiz deficit – not only usually wrong, but with such confident delivery that I make others in the team, who are right, lose their way, like a magnet on a compass. After another stunning defeat, in which we slipped from a mediocre seventh or eighth back to last place, having had 20 points deducted because I poked the quiz guy with a pencil, I’m ready to pass on some basic quizdom.
First, don’t poke the quiz guy with a pencil. Don’t harangue the marking team or try to cut a deal. In fact, keep all extra-team interactions at zero. Forget the captain, forget the person with the best handwriting, choose your most emollient member and make them do the talking for all of you.
Second, the easier a round sounds, the harder it will be. You’ll take a look at “condiments” and think it’s a shoo-in because you know what it’s called when they mix beetroot with horseradish; then you’ll be asked who designed the logo for Colman’s in 1814.
Third, dead wood always gets a bad name in this environment, but good-hearted, neutral players who don’t have much to add beyond “yes, Manchester City sounds plausible” are much more useful than anyone with a strong view.
Fourth, if you really want to help, learn one of the following and forget everything else: the entire London underground map; the county town of every British county; all the Doctor Who leads. Maybe that will make you the hero three times in your life, maybe you’ll never use it, but you’ll stave off cognitive decline. It’s win-win.
Fifth, that song title will come to you eventually; you just have to stop time and cast a sleeping spell over everyone else in the room. If, for any reason, this option isn’t available to you, will you just for the love of God get over yourself?
This is really just a long and very public way of saying: sorry, team; sorry, quizmaster; sorry, other teams; sorry, world of general knowledge.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
