Which is the best pub quiz night in Stroud Green/Finsbury Park?

Donna

My friends and I want to try out some pub quizzes in the area. Which one do you think is the best? What days are they on? Any help would be much appreciated! Donna

ShaunG

Monday in the Fullback is lively and not too tough - lots of teams and often close result. If you want proper testing questions try Thursday at the Beaconsfield on Green Lanes - but rather sparsely attended. I think the Old Dairy and Shaftesbury do ones but haven't been.

graeme

Is the answer "VENIZIA!!??"?

graeme

<a href="http://www.film-quiz.com/">Bigger boat film quiz</a> at boogaloo is great and well run but be prepared for a tragic nerd overload.

miss annie

The Monday one at the Swimmer on Eburne Road is good. They also do really great food. If you're feeling brainy the hardest quiz in London is at the Prince of Wales in Highgate.
I like the quiz at the Fullback, a good mixture of people join in. Keep meaning to go to the one at the Dairy as it could also be combined with snacking on the lovely scotch eggs, but I keep forgetting to check which day it's on 'til it's too late.

Donna

Thank you! Please keep them coming...

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andy

We've won the Prince of Wales one, so it can't be that hard.

miss annie

@Andy
Blimey, you must have a crack team of quizzers - it is generally acknowledged as London's hardest quiz

andy

I think we just got lucky with the rounds. I think there was a round on Stone Roses album tracks, a round on League One football and round on 1980's Eddie Murphy films.

miss annie

Wowzers, you did get lucky - one of our rounds was on Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

yagamuffin

We go to the Fullback on Monday nights. It's usually good, they have a different quiz master every week - some are easier than others.
We are getting more and more annoyed with the super teams though, last week the winners had 10 (ten) people. That's just not cricket.
The Salisbury also does Monday nights, not been for a year but it used to be really good.
The Dairy does it on Wednesdays (I think). We did it once and won, but there was only about 5 teams and the guy counted the scores wrong!

ADGS

Well, my experience of the Dairy has always been that they can't run a pub, so being unable to run a pub quiz either seems par for the course.

Re: large teams, I once went to a quiz in Crouch End (think it was the Queens) where you were penalised by a point for every player over (iirc) four. Which seems like a sensible handicapping system.

miss annie

They used to run a similar handicapping system in the Alex (now Villiers Terrace or somesuch) in Crouch End.
Not sure if they are still doing the quiz in Kiss the Sky but that was quite good and the quizmaster was a sweetie, and an excellent mixologist.

staplejack

Hi all can anyone remind me when the FF pubquiz starts? is it 8pm or 9pm? thinking of wandering along tonight...

TIA

Gas Powered Ninja

Quiz starts 8:30 - 9 usually.

I'm going to start going to the Stapleton's on Monday. There was a 10-man team last night at the FF. I mean, what's the point?

miss annie

I didn't know that the Stapleton hosted a quiz. Might give that a whirl next week.

Gas Powered Ninja

Miss Annie - first one next Monday. It's hosted by a comedian who's local and is free!

ActionVerb

@GPN - any idea what time it's on? Think it may be time to wheel out our two-man quiz team. We came last in the Park Tavern quiz and got a can of Heinz Tomato Soup as the wooden spoon prize. The joke's on them, because it was actually rather nice!

Gas Powered Ninja

@ ActionVerb - 8pm on Monday the 18th. The host is Wade McElwain (?).

staplejack

@ GPN 10-man team wasn't me, I didn't make it.

If the Stapleton comedian is anything like the stand-up on their opening night, I'll give it a miss.

Arkady

I will be there with my team, legendary serial victors of the Shaftsbury quiz. We must break you.

Arkady

Any idea if there is a team size limit?

miss annie

Yes, this is one occasion where size does matter.

Gas Powered Ninja

@Arkady - unknown. I may bring a stick to whack team over 6.

I am a man of small and petty values.

ShaunG

@GPN - what team were you? My team of one and a half (late arrival) were also beat last night - didn't realise it was to a team of double figures....

Gas Powered Ninja

@ShaunG - "Tour de Farce". We at most have 4 usually, but where down to 3. We tend to perform er....moderately. We're the Pub Quiz equivalent of Blackburn Rovers.

ADGS

I'm not actually sure whether I've been in during that period, so perhaps things have changed under your reign. But the last time I was there - early 2009 sometime - and the couple of times before that, there was a repeated problem with a) drinks running out (happens occasionally anywhere, but if it's endemic at a venue, then there's a problem) and b), the bit I can't forgive, no pint glasses on pumps/reversal of pump/other indication that given pints were unavailable. This is an incredibly simple thing to do, and a failure to do it only breeds frustration and wastes the time of both staff and customers.

sophie

did anyone go to the stapleton quiz last night? if so, what did you think? i'm going to be restrained and just say it wasn't as much fun as i'd been led to believe it would be. partly because they weren't doing food, and it was freezing cold despite the fire. but otherwise the pub seems nice, i'm just not sure about the quizzers (edit: i meant the quizmaster, not the participants). FYI the quiz there is apparently not a regular monday thing. next monday event is on the 1st of november, which is a comedy night featuring "all professionals, no amateurs, and definitely some people off the telly". the best name they came up with was mark "roy walker's son" walker.

Arkady

I was too ill. What was the 'game show format' like? And how about the comedian host?

sophie

oh i'm so glad you asked. the game show format was non existent. except for two questions at the end where two people had to stand up and hold up a card with a letter on it. the comedian was just a man with an unnecessary microphone. he didn't make a single joke, so i can't judge whether he would be funny or not. in questionmaster terms, he was mean and jobsworthy. he was factually incorrect on a number of questions and was not even willing to give half points. i know it must be hard for quizmasters to stand their ground, but really, he should be flexible if he is wrong. in one round we missed out an answer on the sheet and so had the rest of the questions in the wrong boxes. so i asked him if he could read some of them out so that we could sort it out. and he just read out the last four (question we missed was the one before) then said he wouldn't read any more and we had to suffer. and he specially went to get his microphone to say this. he didn't even tell us where we had come in the ranking, he just read out the top two. we asked him afterwards, he asked for our team name and we had changed it slightly (to be hilarious) but it was still clearly recognisable and he said, oh well that probably affected your score then, and just left it. he had a computer gimp who changed the slides on the powerpoint presentation. every question was on a big screen, rendering the host pointless. the slides were really nicely presented, but for me this just isn't in the spirit of a pub quiz. he said that next time they would have some kind of automatic scoring system on the screen. he also said that it was working up to being filmed for digital channels and that they were testing the format. and eventually it will be on itv. whatever. it's not a proper quiz. positive points: 1) it was free. 2) there were 9 rounds of 20 questions i think: one music (modern stuff eg. j. bieber, k. perry, t. tempah), one logos, one police mugshots, loads of pop culture & current celeb gossip/news, very few general knowledge. 3) the prize was a £50 bar voucher my main complaint: it was stressful and it didn't make me feel clever, even when we got them right.