On the evening of Tuesday 31st January teams of Hull alumni competed in the 2023 Beat the January Blues Quiz. Alumni were welcomed to the Arts Café in Middleton Hall on the University of Hull campus where we broadcasted to teams at the Counting House pub in London and around the world on Microsoft Teams. This was our first multi-venue alumni event and we were delighted to pit teams from such diverse locations against each other.
The quiz was split into twelve rounds, loosely based on events that took place in each month of 2022. Teams were pushed to the limits of their intellectual capabilities with questions covering geography, business, art, sport and celebrity culture. Only those with a broad general knowledge would thrive (or those who were paying very close attention to the events of 2022). There were even some questions that only those who read the alumni bulletin would have found the answer to (surely all of our alumni?)!
The quiz was hosted by the unwilling but quietly functional David, with online support coming from event organiser Crystal Ness. In Hull, alumni were hosted by Peter Wallace and Jeni Bird, whilst Jack Bourne and Ben Butler entertained guests in London.
The alumni teams competed with a determination to win that only occasionally bubbled over into aggression. Only one contestant was asked to leave as emotions began to run high when it was announced that the winners would have their team name written on the Alumni Office’s ‘Special Board’.
After two hours, with questions covering international tennis, the Euro winning Lionesses, long serving British monarchs, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, and guest appearances from colleagues and students in sport, science and music, as well as TV regular alumna Tracy Borman asking questions on British History, the alumni teams submitted their final scores.
The top end of the league table finished as follows:
- Hull Taverners 54pts
- Unnamed London based team 45pts
- Pheasant Pluckers 39pts
- Hungry Like the Wolf 39pts
- Pete and Paul 39pts
- Beauty School Drop Outs 39pts
- Graham Rhind 38pts
- Unnamed London based team 2 37pts
- Soraya Raza 35pts
- Jackie Weaver Has No Authority 33pts
As promised, the name of the winning team, The Hull Taverners, will reverberate through history after taking pride of place on our Special Board, where we keep track of some of our most important information. Certainly for the rest of this year, we will remember with pride the magnificent performance of our Beat the January Blues Quiz 2023.
University of Hull Alumni Association 