The Quizling

Day: Monday, Mood: Exacerbated, Prospects: Relentless

Once again I start the week seemingly at the lowest possible ebb, only for that ebb to be plunged further into the cavernous abyss on Monday morning. The enormous injection of despair came courtesy of the weekly meeting, scheduled seemingly by some escaped mental patient for 9.05am. With my mind still mostly concerned with a rather splendid Faberge Egg collection I’d witnessed on the previous evening’s Antiques Roadshow, I was in no position to cope with corporate jargon. In fact with all the talk of ‘work streams’ ‘datasets’ and things being ‘mission critical’ I thought I’d wandered into NASA by mistake. But amid all the budget boredom, health and safety tedium and performance target ramblings came an agenda item I hadn’t prepared for. ‘We need someone to take the bi-weekly silver surfers group’ was the cry. I searched frantically for a button on my clothing that would turn me invisible, and when that failed I decided to slowly slide down my chair and hide under the table. It was too late however. Fate had seemingly intervened, and before I knew what was happening, I was the man that the confused coffin dodgers look to when failing to download pictures of the grandchildren.

Old dogs can learn new tricks. Old people, however, can rarely learn how to use a computer. When the first two hours of the first session simply covers ‘plugging in and switching on’, you know the yellow brick road is indeed long and winding. And Oz is just one double click too far away. For the double click is just one of the plethora of fundamental problems. ‘A double click is 2 clicks of the left mouse button in quick succession’ you say. And what they do is click the right button twice, leaving enough time between the clicks for Neptune to orbit the sun a few times. Then there’s the failure to understand Basic English, should it appear without warning in a small grey box on the screen. And the constant fear that they could create a cataclysmic chain of events by clicking on the wrong icon, as if the library is connected to a nuclear armoury.

Putting aside the techno phobic failings of the elderly, my morning misery wasn’t complete. Attempting to sidle out of the meeting without acquiring further responsibility I was pulled aside by the boss. The annual GJEK inter-library quiz takes place this Thursday night and my presence is expected. Given the temperamental nature of the boss and the unfortunate incident involving his cat and my car, I had no choice but to nod politely and say ‘of course’ when what I meant was ‘I’d rather die a horrible death’.

Day: Tuesday, Mood: Worsening, Outlook: Foggy

The invitation has been made official. Behold the flyer:

It’s enough to make me want to kill. For starters I have no idea what GJEK stands for. It being an Annual Quiz for Librarians, I’d have thought an A, Q, and L would have been certainties for inclusion the pathetic acronym. Then there’s the clichéd WordArt and the cartoon font for imbeciles – each sentence suffixed with the requisite multiple exclamation marks. And contained within the tragic proclamation is the description of what will no doubt be a ‘super’ evening. Trapped in a room full of one-night-out-a year librarians with only my boss and a vegan-friendly buffet for company. Another wheat-free mung bean vol-au-vont? Why, I couldn’t possibly sir…

Then there are the silver surfers tomorrow. Fourteen of them have signed up for it. Fourteen! Mind you they’re all ancient so there’s always the chance of a gentle passing in the night or a slip in the shower to get those numbers down before 11am tomorrow. ‘What is the likelihood I’ll be able to use Ebay before my granddaughters birthday?’ asked one old git today, seemingly intent on purchasing some Godforsaken chavette fashion doll for her offspring’s offspring. She’s got no chance unless she’s talking about her granddaughters 21^st birthday. This is the same woman who mistakes the emergency assistance cord for the light switch in the disabled loo every time she uses it. Every time. Every damned time. Without exception.

Day: Wednesday, Mood: Despairing, Outlook: Frightening

I knew it was going to be tough. I’d prepared mentally. I was ready for slow. In fact I was ready for very slow. Cataclysmically slow I was not prepared for. This was however, the speed at which me and my merry bastard band of silver surfers progressed. Four hours. Four sodding hours it took for them to semi-master switching on. And it wasn’t just 14 of them either. Oh no, we had a couple of freestylin’ old laydees who’d obviously got wind of where da partee woz goin’ down. ‘I’m hoping to do all my banking online’ said one old bitch whilst attempting to switch the computer on using the monitor’s contrast control button. After an age of frustration and a collective total of 39 trips to the toilet (oh yes, I counted) I decided it was only fair to leave them on an optimistic note: regaling them with tales of Nigerian businessmen who are sure to offer them once in a lifetime business opportunities when they set up an email account. ‘And all I have to do is hold their $20 million in my Cheltenham and Gloucester sensible saver account for a few weeks and I’ll get 10%? Sounds marvellous’. It does indeed.

The sadly unavoidable library-quiz was already hanging over me like a radioactive rain cloud. Now it’s been made known to me that not only do we have to take part, but we have to win – at all costs. It seems the boss has got a longstanding unhealthy rivalry with the head of another team – the unbreakable Roger of ‘Mind Your Shelf’. This year, he declares, we’re taking them down. One can only assume he means in the intellectual sense, as oppose to heading into the quiz like a SWAT team and bustin’ a cap in some ass. Whatever that means. It’s now confirmed that the line up for tomorrow night is:

Mike: The boss. Seemingly putting his professional reputation on the line. It’s all or nothing in the high-pressure environment of annual quizzes for information professionals. He’ll be ready and primed that’s for sure. I saw him devouring several volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica as I left this evening. Failure is not an option.

Judy: The 50-something crone who appears to have been born middle aged. Barely speaks all year, other than to complain about the ‘blatant misuse’ of the staffroom toaster. This will no doubt be her one night out of the year as she’s normally far to busy knitting little coats for her Scottie dog.

Karen: Big fat chubber. Will no doubt arrive by some sort of truck/winch combination. The vegan buffet will have to be of gargantuan proportions in order to support ‘Special K’ and her monstrous appetite. Frequently responsible for the aforementioned toaster abuse, (did you know, with enough effort, you can toast a Victoria sponge…) she’s due for a run-in with miserable Judy, the dog-knitwear maestro.

Me: Hooray.

Day: Thursday, Mood: Tense, Outlook: Unavoidably poor

I’ve got 55 minutes before its quiz time [insert multiple exclamation marks here]. The boss has spent the whole day ‘getting himself focussed’. This seemed to involve doing some kind of Tai Chi/football hooligan hybrid in between double espresso and trips to the toilet with ‘The ITN Factbook 1988’ for extended periods of time. He kept leaping out from behind shelves and from under tables with tedious general knowledge questions relating to the colours of the Gambian flag or the winner of the 1983 World Snooker Championship. Judy wasn’t in today, seemingly having taken the day off to iron her best cardigan and prepare to wow the elder gents on the library quiz scene. Karen was in. Her preparation involved eating a box of Fondant Fancies at record speed before spraying the remnants over anyone unfortunate enough to visit the reference desk.

The boss’s overexcitement meant he had no time for the trivial whingeings of the elderly (for once). It seems the silver surfers could not cope with the breakneck speed at which our journey to cyber hell advanced yesterday. It would appear that next week will involve a return to the land of ‘turning on’ before we can travel to the faraway place known as ‘start program’. That’ll be another 4 hours of my life wasted.

Better go and prepare. I promised Mike I’d memorise ‘The Incredible book of Vatican Facts’ before tonight…

Day: Friday, Mood: Exhausted, Outlook: [Unavailable]

Well, we won. That’s the first thing and indeed the most important. For whoever invented the saying ‘it’s not the winning it’s the taking part’ did not invent it for evenings like the one I witnessed yesterday. Had we I fear my battered corpse would be hanging from the smouldering remains of the library.

I arrived to find Mike sinking his third pint of ‘Old Peculiar’ in an attempt to calm the pre-match nerves. With my boss already slurring his speech I was begrudgingly introduced to his nemesis: the all conquering Roger (who, across the course of the evening and several more beers was downgraded by my boss to ‘Rog’, ‘Rodders’, ‘Roog’, ‘Roddy No-Nuts’, ‘Roddy Loserface’ and finally ‘Spanked Rog’).

First on the agenda was the necessity to think of a witty yet tasteful team name. With ‘Mind Your Shelf’ setting the bar high on the scale of library punnery, it was a tall order. After several suggestions from Karen that involved various brands of biscuits and a stern yet respectable silence from Judy, Mike decided that ‘The Bookend Bravehearts’ had a certain ring to it. Sadly not a ring on which I could tie a rope and hang myself.

Then came the quiz itself. As luck would have it there was a Papal theme to the picture round, which meant my revision came in handy. Mikes cramming served him well until the Old Peculiar took control of his bodily functions at which point his input was restricted to leering over at Roger on the table opposite and shouting ‘Oii wankaaaaahhhh!!’ a lot. Before the final round there was the buffet break. Some pre-planned table choreography meant that Karen was forced to circumnavigate the long way to the buffet, allowing the rest of us half a chance to grab a handful of animal-friendly finger food before she consumed all.

The quizmaster (a man who appeared to be 127 years old and who spoke without moving his face) revealed that the scores were close going into the final music round. When it turned out to be a Rod Stewart medley, Judy took the Bravehearts over the finishing line for a victory. By this point Mike has drunk himself into a coma, but with new of the victory he sprang to life like a cartoon vampire. The shirt was off. The tie was off. Hell, the trousers were off. Christ almighty, the underpants were off. And before I knew it he was starkers. Bollock naked. An apt phrase indeed as he proceeded to climb onto the table of ‘Mind Your Shelf’ and shake his wedding tackle in time to the encore of ‘Maggie May’. This is the same man who has sleepless nights worrying about ‘stationary issues’. I accosted one of the throng of people now clapping in time to the swaying scrotum and asked if we should get him down. ‘Why?’ came the reply ‘It’s the winner’s prerogative! They’ve been like this for years’

I felt it was time to leave. Judy and Karen felt it was time to have a heated discussion the toasting capacity of a Kenwood T330. I fear Karen may have eaten Judy.

So where to from here? The path is unwritten, but one thing’s for sure: once you’ve seen you boss victoriously jiggling his lovespuds in the face of a longstanding rival at the annual librarian’s quiz, you’re ready for anything.