The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing...

So, assuming you follow me on facebook you'll know it's 2am and I can't sleep, can't decide if I want to either... Anyway, that's not important.

I would like to talk to you all about a subject I know plenty about, and yet still know nothing about either. Pub quizzes.

Since the discovery of alcohol, landlords have tried to lure in custom, while at the same time trying to bleed every penny. Thus the ritual of a pub quiz was born, with the assumption that by the time it's finished every participant is too drunk to remember who won.

Cynic, I hear you cry! Heretic! (I'm not hearing voices yet, don't worry, it's a turn of phrase). Well, let me assure you, nothing is further from the truth. I love pub quizzes, I believe people who say it cuts into valuable drinking time simply aren't quizzing correctly (similar problem with darts and pool players).

Anyway, I love them because I am a font of useless knowledge, my cup runneth over with seemingly pointless facts. For example, the first words spoken on the telephone were 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you'. The first line of the hobbit reads 'in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit' and from that single line 6 books, several short stories and a collection of poetry was written and a whole world was created. And the word dinosaur translates as 'terrible lizzard'.

You probably knew all of these already, even if you didn't know you knew them. And that is what makes pub quizzes such a brilliant idea, you know the answers, but it takes a few drinks before you'll trust your instincts. There's a theory, one I actually believe to be true, that instinct should always be followed, because our minds cannot explain why we know, but given time we would reach that conclusion anyway.

However, I am actually rambling now, so I'll leave you with a thought from Terry Pratchett:

'(his) body didn't produce any "natural alcohol", and he estimates that (he) was about "two drinks below par". This meant that when he hadn't been drinking, he was beyond sober - he was "knurd". Thus he saw reality as it really was ("first sight"); stripped of all the mental illusions that most people construct in their minds to get to sleep at night ("second sight").'

I feel I am very much that way inclined, I need a few drinks before I know what's going on.

Until the next time...