“We’d like a lot more questions about show-tunes and a whole lot less about sport…”, I told the quiz-master when she came over and asked us how we were going.

Although I used to be a quiz night regular, it was the first time in a couple of years (maybe more) that I’ve been to a quiz night.

In finding somewhere to take our American visitors (who were very keen to go to a quiz night), there were really only two important criteria: it needed to be on a Tuesday night, and it needed to be reasonably easy for them to find. I was also interested in somewhere with a bit of atmosphere, along with good beer and food prices. I chose “Forresters” in Riley Street, Surry Hills.

Forresters has always been a favourite of mine, as it’s gone through it’s various incarnations. It was also fun to relate to our visitors the history of the infamous brothel across the road. “What’s that over there…?” I was asked.

No longer involved in the detail of daily radio, and so no longer keeping up with the minutiae of the daily news cycle, I struggled a bit with some of the questions about daily news. Ten years ago, I would have known the detail of every major news story. Now, I find myself with a knowledge gap. The same goes with sport, as I no longer keep up to date with all of the detail I once did.

But as our table was a little older than the others, we had a greater knowledge of 70s and 80s pop music, and with a couple of Americans on our table, we blitzed some of those often difficult questions in quiz nights about American geography and sports.