No Power

You may have heard in the news that there was a fire at a power station over the weekend that left large parts of South London without power. Well, I was living in one of those parts and our power didn't come back until about 10pm or so. Fortunately we managed to avoid quite a lot of it through not being at home (we went out to a pub quiz, but more on that later). Now I had thought that living without the internet at home was pretty annoying, but living without electricity, that is really boring. My brother had come to visit and our initial response was 'We have nothing to do'. We managed to stave off boredom before the quiz through a mixture of poker (he won) and Arimaa (I won). Other than the obvious TV, PC, music systems, that didn't work, there was also the subtler gas boiler; the gas worked, but the ignition switch didn't, and similar for the hobs (though we had matches for them).

Anyway, back to the quiz. We had managed the usual score of knowing enough to not humiliate ourselves, but not enough to actually win anything. However the main prize in the quiz is a jackpot of accumulated entrance fees that had reached over £600 through not being won for a while. To win you have to have your ticket number picked and then succeed in 6 cards of higher-lower. Aces high. Well we got picked . . .

Consola went up to play.

1st card is a 7. Now Katie and I have an annoyance with the quizmaster in that he always claims 7 is in the middle, when, with Aces high, 8 is actually in the middle. So we told Consola to go higher.

An 8. Consola turned to us again. With one lower card gone, the choice had to be higher though it was almost 50-50.

An Ace. In your face quizmaster and your 'you should go lower than an 8' crap. At this point Consola actually said higher as her next choice, but was fortunately given a chance to change her mind.

A two. Going well after initial tricky cards. Consola again turns to us for advice and we assure her that higher is the right choice.

A King. I'm now mentally spending my share of the winnings. Consola turns again and we motion lower back to her.

An Ace.

No. Fuckin'. Way

The whole pub cheers and jeers and we return to our seats humbled. The next attempt doesn't win either so next week it'll probably reach around £800 plus, so, as they say, maybe next time.