Quiz Tour: #7 The Colonel Fawcett, NW1

After a long winter break with only the traditional Christmas games of Trivial Pursuit to sate our quiz cravings the Conquiztadores are back and hungry for victory (moral, if not actual). First stop on the 2012 hit-list was the newly renovated Colonel Fawcett (previously The Camden Arms which by all accounts was a bit of a dive). First impressions of the pub were good, nice décor, buzzy Camden crowd, interesting beer selection. The menu looked gastro-heavy and reasonably priced but the food ultimately turned out to be disappointment as the portions were tiny, leading DV to quip when we were accidentally brought a second portion of pork belly “ah, there’s the other half of my food.”

The quiz itself suffered as only about half the pub’s clientele were participating so there was a lot of background noise and no great sense of camaraderie between the scattered teams. The quizmaster was fine, although he was also the DJ, and it showed as he had put a lot of effort into 2 rounds of song clips which made up about half the quiz and the rest of the quiz felt like it had been downloaded from the internet 30 minutes beforehand.

Despite music not being the Conquiztadores strongest subject I think we did pretty well but as the quiz didn’t actually start until after 9 we had to desert the pub to catch trains and buses home before finding out the final scores and how well we had fared. All in all, the Colonel Fawcett seemed like a nice place to have a drink but I can’t see us returning for food or quizzes in the near future.

The Scores:
Quiz Master: 5
Question Quality: 4
Competition: 5
Refreshments: 5
Pace: 3
Format: 4
Prizes: 2
Ambience: 4


The High Point:
Knowing that ‘Eye of the Tiger’ first appeared in Rocky III, even if we were marked wrong on the night as the quizmaster erroneously thought it was Rocky IV.

The Low Point:
Over-thinking what the quizmaster deemed obscure by guessing that the David Bowie song featured in the ‘Music from films’ round was from Christiane F. rather than the not at all obscure Labyrinth.

It wasn’t this song but I challenge you to watch this without cringing!

What We Learnt:
That Camden apparently annually contributes 1% of the total economy of England. Although I am not entirely sure that statement makes much sense.