Our new weekly get-together leads to more questions than answers, says the Financial Times' Robert Shrimsley.
LONDON: It’s quiz night. Again. At first this seemed like a welcome innovation, a way to maintain contact with friends and loved ones on calls that are becoming increasingly strained by the limits of lockdown.AdvertisementThe Zoom quiz night was embraced with gusto by my wife, who apparently is not spending enough time on conference calls, and she began the task of dragooning the more reluctant members of her family into a Saturday night extravaganza.
This offers you the excuse, if challenged, that the person called when, spiritually, you were out. I am sure there is a phone message for such an occasion: “The lights may be on but there’s nobody home.”Happily, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now offered another excuse, which is that you could not answer the phone because you are busy Staying Alert.
We here in England are watching over the nation. Staying alert. Please leave a message and we will get back to you when we have finished controlling the virus. Relax Britain, England is taking back control.But I digress. The quiz night is a pleasing diversion but it holds its own terrors. For one thing, there is always one member of the call with a booming echo on their speaker that makes conversation resemble a Brian Blessed monologue delivered in a cave.
The quiz itself is something of a diplomatic minefield. It’s fine if everyone is of similar age and background but family evenings span at least two or three generations.
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