The curious case of our daily quiz
Little grey cells are working overtime by morning tea as people up and down the country tackle our Five-Minute Quiz. Its popularity has surprised even its long-serving mystery compiler. But it’s not just about 10 questions in five minutes. As Bess Manson
The 92 Crew
It’s 6.35 on a bleak mid-winter morning and the ‘‘Crew on The
92’’ are waiting for the purple stout bus to trundle them into town for another day at the coalface.
But it’s the 45 minutes between here in Upper Hutt and there in Wellington that makes their day.
A dozen Totara Park locals, give or take a few, make up the
92 Crew who take the 6.46am service into the city. A couple of them work in Parliament, there’s an architect, an IT bloke, an office manager among them.
To say they are mates is perhaps an understatement. Family might be closer to the mark. They have swelled in numbers since the first few started catching this bus 21 years back.
The posse’s habitat is at the back of the bus – the natural spot for any rabble worth their salt. It’s here they take on the quiz to get the grey matter warmed up for a day at the office.
At times, the crew has expanded to the point where it’s been crouching room only. They have lost a few along the way to retirement and that more permanent retirement in the sky.
‘‘We’re bus buddies but we’re more like family,’’ says Cheryl, who’s been riding the No 92 for eight years.
The quizzing cohort commute into work and home again together on this bus.
‘‘We spend more quality time together than we do with our partners,’’ she laughs.
Like any good group of mates, they rally around their own when the going gets tough. When Cheryl’s husband took a turn, the 92 Crew were there with a card and a whip-round. When Jayne’s husband died they were at her side.
When Moira and her husband were in an accident the bus buddies readied their home for when the couple came out of hospital, walked their dog and organised a meal roster.
When Karen joined the crew 17 years ago, she fell for the standard newbies initiation ruse of dressing up as a fairy.
‘‘I got on the bus the next day all dressed up. I had even had wings and gold glitter fairy dust. Yeah, I fell for it.’’
Danny is a right old lark. He has been known to put ‘‘Reserved’’ signs on the seats at the back to avoid an uncomfortable standoff with other less quiz-inclined commuters.
And so to the quiz. The call to attention happens as the bus rolls past Petone. Roger – quizmaster and ringleader – hollers out the questions so the whole crew can hear.
The answers are accompanied by ridiculous banter and wild trivia. When they get it wrong they sit corrected.
Roger is not averse to a mime, a song, a poem or some other creative way to accompany an answer.
‘‘They’re not a very bright bunch,’’ he says to voluminous protest.
The lights of Wellington are winking now. Morning has broken. The crew drop off unceremoniously as the bus makes its way uptown. Another quiz in the bag.
Glee
‘‘What classic rock’n’roll hit included the line Oh baby, you knoooooow what I like?"
The five women of Glee break into Chantilly Lace, by the Big Bopper.
Welcome to Glee – a club so named because life was becoming a bit too serious for its six founding members.
Friday mornings are for gleeful stories and a bloody good laugh. That’s the rule.
Bev, Amelia, Judi, Jenny and Larane meet at the same time (10am) at the same cafe (Chocolate Dayz at Days Bay, in the Lower Hutt seaside village of Eastbourne) at the same table.
After a chat, they are called to attention. Two more rules: Sit up straight and pay attention, and all electronic devices turned off.
The scoring system – well, it’s a creative one to be sure.
Two points for a pre-emptive answer. Two points for ‘‘answer of the day’’ – a bit of such random trivia as to make it worthy of extra recognition. Extra points for singing/ humming/poetry recitation.
Glee have been known to ratchet up the points to 16/10.
They might add another point if they are OMD (one member down) or if an answer invokes the DWRC (do we really care) clause – a question of absolutely no interest or relevance to them, like someone’s height/weight/ age. Conversely, they may lose a point for embarrassing knowledge – knowing who Barry Manilow is, for example.
If there’s any doubt over an answer, an ethics committee (of one) makes the call.
After the quiz, members start to head off and those remaining will hit the crossword. After that it’s Bev and her Sudoku and that’s a wrap till next Friday.
Live Wires quizzers
The rattling of the tea trolley and the tinkling of china cups herald a sacrosanct tradition at Live Wires: Morning Tea.
At the centre of the table, where 18 staff at the gift and design importing and distribution company in the Lower Hutt suburb of Petone gather without fail at 10.30 each morning, is the Five-Minute Quiz.
They’ve been doing the quiz for 15 years or more. It’s a proper old-school morning tea session. Half an hour of chin wagging and cake munching wound up with some lively quiz action.
The chatter dies down as quiz mistress Britony McLaren rallies the troops.
The whole crew shout out their answers but when they are at a loss Britony looks at the answer and breaks into charades.
She’s clearly talented in this department and they’ve been doing this for so long the team pick up on a wild rendition of a rabbit and the letter A to come up with the correct answer to one vexing question.
‘‘We spend most of our lives together so we are like one dysfunctional family,’’ Britony says. ‘‘We support each other through thick and thin. There’s always a shoulder to cry on or a laugh to be had.’’
This daily ritual is the glue that binds them together. ‘‘It’s really important for us to come together like this every morning and the quiz has always been part of that,’’ says Live Wires director Helen Harvey.
‘‘It’s a lovely focus of the morning tea and a great way to wrap it up. The quiz is our full stop.’’
The mystery compiler
A certain amount of mystery surrounds the identity of the quiz compiler. He is Stuff’s answer to The Stig on the popular car show Top Gear.
With 60 questions to come up each week, his mind is constantly a whirr with trivia.
Cues for his quiz questions come from all manner of sources – what he hears and sees in the media, battalions of reference books, The New Zealand Oxford
Dictionary, and secret sources. People never hesitate to let him know when they think he has got something wrong. He’s no stranger to peevish, triumphant and darn right capital letter-writing SHOUTERS keen to set him straight. People take it very seriously, he says.
Double whammy
Retired quizzers Helen Thompson and Paul Armstrong, from Karori, do the quiz in the morning by asking the questions and again in the afternoon by reciting the answers and trying to remember the questions.
Not as easy as it might appear, Paul reckons.
Ross and Anne Armstrong from the Wellington suburb of Tawa regularly tackle the quiz with their daughter 18,000km away in the United Kingdom via Skype. If they are away from home, they get the quiz sent to them on WhatsApp so they can do it wherever in the world they happen to be.
Last year, the battle over the Five-Minute Quiz spilled out of Maurice and Jenny Horner’s dining room in Karori, Wellington, and on to the letters page of The Dominion Post.
Accountant Maurice complained that there were too many medical questions pandering to the knowledge base of his wife. Jenny retaliated, and eventually even their daughter got in on the game, writing in with a request for a white flag, and perhaps some legal questions.
The Five-Minute Quiz is a morning ritual at Finance Minister Grant Robertson’s office. Staff in Acting Prime Minister Winston Peters’ office warm up for a day of rather more serious questions with the quiz.
So here’s one for all of you: After much quizzing of former editors, quiz compilers, and the more ancient newsroom staff among us we are at a loss as to when we started bending minds around the country. A prize for anyone who can name the year (and prove it!) the Five-Minute Quiz started.