Agnes in St Andrews: One Quiz is All it Takes

A good pub quiz is unbeatable. With a mind both intoxicated and concentrated, the combo of nerdiness and coolness is at its peak. Ideally you're in a crowded pub with a low roof, sticky seats, and an indoor aroma of sweat and ink that is barely tolerable. After all, if

you’re quizzing in a clean room with sufficient chairs — aren’t you just at school? 

With such an astounding number of ‘neeks’ and smelly pubs, you would think that St Andrews had the pub quiz down to a tee. But, since arriving, my experience with pub quizzes have ranged from pretty fun to lightly traumatic. 

In the second week of the semester, I attended the first — and only — event for exchange students, a pub quiz at the Union about… you guessed it — Scotland. Not only did we feel like tourists, the exchange committee had missed the fundamental aspect of the pub quiz: socialising without socialising. Never meant to be done with a team of strangers, the quiz should be exempt from the pub’s usual curse of incomprehensible chatter during loud music. Swiftly upon arriving to the Union, I realised that small talk at a quiz is like ‘deep talk’ at a rave — totally misplaced. As I tried to spark up a conversation with my team, the girl next to me rightfully snapped: “Can you please shut up? I can’t hear the question.” 

The next pub quiz was on History and Classics in the cellar at Aikman’s. In my prime years of accumulating impractical knowledge as a third year student in a humanities degree, I was longing to dazzle my random knowledge in front of my peers. But the questions were ridiculously brown nosed academic, even for a history student. I appreciate a theme, but for god’s sake, sprinkle in some fun stuff as well – Y2K is also history. The true beauty of a pub quiz is the corny socialism of random topics: My friend might know Dostoevsky’s debut novel, and I might know the winner of the first season of Big Brother, but they both earn us the same salary: One point. 

The last pub quiz I went to was at The Vic. The questions were… pretty good, but had to be answered with some high-tech version of Kahoot, leaving my eyes suffering. Exhausted from my MacBook's blue light, I came to the pub quiz for the true satisfaction of writing with a pen on a piece of paper. It makes me reminisce to simpler days, as I misspell every word without auto-correction. 

The venues and people of St Andrews are practically made for the perfect pub quiz. Sadly, the execution often falls into the classic St Andrean-trap: pretentiousness and flamboyancy. Dear quizmaster, just give us a piece of paper and some strange and fun questions. The rest will resolve on its own. 

Illustration by Ana Brockmann Aldasoro