Quiz Tour: #3 The Junction Tavern, NW5

When I first heard that The Junction Tavern was doing a pub quiz I felt a nervous flutter of excitement in my stomach. The combination of fantastic gastropub food, great beer, a nice beer garden and staff who care about running a good pub make it a long time favourite of many of the Conquiztadores. If the pub quiz turned out to be as good as the rest of the pub we could have an early candidate for winning the Conquiztadores’ residency. So how did it turn out?

Well, the Quiz Masters were an enjoyably charismatic husband and wife team who wandered round chatting to the teams before the quiz started and encouraged some good banter throughout the evening. The food was the Junction Tavern’s usual high standard although we probably under-appreciated the premium you pay for it as we wolfed it down between questions. The questions themselves were interesting and pitched at a pretty good level although let down by there not being many of them. The format was disappointing, 30 questions loosely grouped into 6 rounds. No picture round, no audio round, no bonus round and all over by about 9:30. The prizes left a lot to be desired too. We notched up our first win of the tour after our Mystery V-P performed admirably in a tie-break situation, but we left with just a consolation bottle of wine after loosing a coin toss to see if whether we get to take home our hard-earned winnings.

It was only the second time they have done this quiz so hopefully they will get on top of the pace and format issues. A trickier problem for them is probably the lack of teams. There were only 5 teams on the night we went and it suffered for feeling a bit empty and quiet. Hopefully they can get some more bodies through the door because with twice as many people and some improvements in the format this has the potential to be a great pub quiz.

Quiz Master(s): 8
Question Quality: 7
Competition: 5
Refreshments: 8
Pace: 4
Format: 4
Prizes: 1
Ambience: 7

The High Point:
Full marks for a good round on assassinations with particular credit to Mrs Smith for knowing who the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated was.¹




The Low Point:
Not spotting the trick question when asked to name any England substitute in the 1966 World Cup final.²




What We Learnt:
That Blue Peter are scrapping their annual to concentrate on apps and that The Who had a singles collection called Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy (not Sir Mix-a-lot as we thought!)




¹ - Spencer Perceval
² - There were no substitutes in the 1966 World Cup Final