Awesome!

The fourth annual Archangel Michael & St Bishoy Church Trivia Night last Sunday was everything it promised … and more (about 20 degrees Celsius more!) Yes, it was hot: and I’m not just talking about the competition. The scorching November Sunday evening had us wondering just how bad global warming might become.

Yet somehow, a couple of hundred dedicated quizzers managed to keep their grey matter from liquefying and focused on the challenging questions. It was great to see Team 2 Kool 4 Skool there for the first time, representing the teachers of St Bishoy College. While their spelling was atrocious (write that out properly a hundred times!) their general knowledge was dazzling. They just beat out Team Hectic Kebabs into third place overall for the night. No prizes for guessing what was on the minds of the fourth place getters, just two sleeps away from 43 days of fasting.

But in the final run, it was the syntactically challenged Team Awesomeness versus the imaginatively named Team Insert Names who battled it out for the shiny new trophy. And when the final scores went up on the electronic score board, it was an awesome victory for the awesome Team Awesomeness, while the second place getters were left to insert their names on the runner-up certificates. Well done to a team who have been there or thereabouts in every trivia night so far.

No doubt you will want to know how Team MIB fared. Yes, the team made up of the clergy and their families struggled bravely through questions from maths to nautical navigation. Had we known there would be points up for grabs for being able to catch a lolly thrown at you with your mouth, we might have practiced! It’s not that easy when you have to deal with the wind-drag on a moving beard. Then there was that hope-crushing crashing out of their entrant in the Speak-for-60 seconds-without-saying-the-word-‘and’ competition. 59seconds! We was robbed!

I’m not trying to make excuses, mind you. But I will point out that we did improve two whole places to come 6th this year. At that rate of annual improvement, I expect we should win the competition in 2012.

Not that it’s about winning, of course. It was a lovely night of good natured fun and fellowship, the kind of occasion that brings people closer together in love and Christian unity. Once again, I am left feeling incredibly honoured to be serving among a group of such dedicated and mature youth who designed and ran the night with very few hitches indeed – may God bless them all.

Now for next year, do you think we might have a few more questions about religion, and astronomy, perhaps?

Pretty please?

Fr Ant