Southside Social Club, Easington Village
I have attended the weekly Tuesday night quiz at Southside Social Club in Easington Village on a number of occasion now. Indeed I am a member of the club and whenever there is a Sunderland match you can tend to find me here! The quiz takes place around 9.30pm on a Tuesday Night and is free entry, open to all with beer tokens as prizes. There are 60 points on offer plus bonuses and there tends to be between 8-12 teams per week.
The bar itself is very nice, there is a friendly atmosphere and its a pleasant relaxing place to be. Again as with all quizzes in this area it tends to be an older crowd but the positives of that are it keeps cheating down. I have never seen any evidence of cheating at Southside which is always a good thing!
Anyway, the quiz itself. As I said it is worth 60 points. No pictures, no music and the only gimmick of any sort is the last few questions. Question 49 is worth 2 points (you give two answers), 50 is worth 3 points, 51 is worth 4 points and 52 is worth 5 points. I enjoy this aspect of the questions and it is something I look forward to at this particular quiz. There are plenty of standard general knowledge questions and old chestnuts in there and some good questions along the way. It usually has a current affairs set thrown in the mix somewhere too!
However, the one downside here is repetition. Many people within the club do complain about this. Basically, the question master does the same thing every week. He will have a singer or group, and ask about 5 questions about them during the quiz.....it's always things such as First number one, last hit single, first top ten etc, where were they born, what year etc. You always know what to expect, last night for example was Dusty Springfield with the first question asking if the name Mary O'Brien was Dusty or Barbara Cartland. You knew at that point two themes of his quiz!
Also always in there are 5-6 questions about a TV show including who stars, writers, names of locations etc....last night was Top Cat but it has been Porridge, Captain Pugwash etc in the past. Again its all well if you know it but having so many questions on the same show can get tiring. There will also be a football club and at different points be asked to know the nickname, homeground, chairman, founding year etc.
Couple in the fact that last night we had 5 on Barbara Cartland, he always throws in an African Capital and a question on an American State Capital and State Nicknames and that gives about 20 questions where you know what is coming.
Is this a bad thing or not? I haven't quite decided. Of course I would prefer a more mixed set of questions and I really do not mind all the questions on Capitals etc as it helps me learn them (and exposes gaps in my knowledge....Juba was one I missed last night!). The questions on TV shows and Singers can get annoying as it leaves a lot of room for guesswork but usually most people are in the same boat.
Another thing the quizmaster does is obviously read Wikipedia's On This Day. Which I have now started to do the morning of the quiz to great effect. It feels like cheap points to an extent but I am going to be posting about this later in the week so will go into it then.
Finally, at the half time interval the quizmaster tours the tables giving out answers, something I really do not like. I tend to try and avoid this but especially when there is only two of us, he heads for our table to provide answers or minor corrections. I can see why he does this, the same reason the Sunday Local tends to mark the first round up to make sure everyone is close going into the second half, and he does always say thankyou to us for attending at the end which is a nice touch but I just do not like being given answers and am too polite to say I dont want any!
With just two of us there last night we didn't really have a shout of any prizes as the questions on Top Cat and Dusty, something neither of us were confident with, as well as the 4 pointer on singers who had hits with "I Only Wanna Be With You" dented our score a little. One team who are regulars, and perhaps the only other team I know of who are regulars on various quizzes in this area, and usually win or are there about scored 44 and we scored 36. Most teams were bigger than us so getting 36 between the two youngest players in the quiz was not bad at all! I was happy with it and with the nature of this quiz and the speciality topics he always picks I always think 30 is a good score on this quiz for anyone, it all just depends on if you know the topics he has wikipedia searched that week.
All in all though, the overall feeling of this quiz is enjoyment and that is what counts. I will be attending this quiz several times throughout the years so I am sure it will be mentioned again, plus there is not much option on Tuesdays around my area.
Therefore, the Southside Social Club quiz on a Tuesday night in Easington Village is a good local quiz in a nice friendly pub. Cutting down on the repetitive topics and focusing on the General Knowledge more would make this the best quiz in the area.
The bar itself is very nice, there is a friendly atmosphere and its a pleasant relaxing place to be. Again as with all quizzes in this area it tends to be an older crowd but the positives of that are it keeps cheating down. I have never seen any evidence of cheating at Southside which is always a good thing!
Anyway, the quiz itself. As I said it is worth 60 points. No pictures, no music and the only gimmick of any sort is the last few questions. Question 49 is worth 2 points (you give two answers), 50 is worth 3 points, 51 is worth 4 points and 52 is worth 5 points. I enjoy this aspect of the questions and it is something I look forward to at this particular quiz. There are plenty of standard general knowledge questions and old chestnuts in there and some good questions along the way. It usually has a current affairs set thrown in the mix somewhere too!
However, the one downside here is repetition. Many people within the club do complain about this. Basically, the question master does the same thing every week. He will have a singer or group, and ask about 5 questions about them during the quiz.....it's always things such as First number one, last hit single, first top ten etc, where were they born, what year etc. You always know what to expect, last night for example was Dusty Springfield with the first question asking if the name Mary O'Brien was Dusty or Barbara Cartland. You knew at that point two themes of his quiz!
Also always in there are 5-6 questions about a TV show including who stars, writers, names of locations etc....last night was Top Cat but it has been Porridge, Captain Pugwash etc in the past. Again its all well if you know it but having so many questions on the same show can get tiring. There will also be a football club and at different points be asked to know the nickname, homeground, chairman, founding year etc.
Couple in the fact that last night we had 5 on Barbara Cartland, he always throws in an African Capital and a question on an American State Capital and State Nicknames and that gives about 20 questions where you know what is coming.
Is this a bad thing or not? I haven't quite decided. Of course I would prefer a more mixed set of questions and I really do not mind all the questions on Capitals etc as it helps me learn them (and exposes gaps in my knowledge....Juba was one I missed last night!). The questions on TV shows and Singers can get annoying as it leaves a lot of room for guesswork but usually most people are in the same boat.
Another thing the quizmaster does is obviously read Wikipedia's On This Day. Which I have now started to do the morning of the quiz to great effect. It feels like cheap points to an extent but I am going to be posting about this later in the week so will go into it then.
Finally, at the half time interval the quizmaster tours the tables giving out answers, something I really do not like. I tend to try and avoid this but especially when there is only two of us, he heads for our table to provide answers or minor corrections. I can see why he does this, the same reason the Sunday Local tends to mark the first round up to make sure everyone is close going into the second half, and he does always say thankyou to us for attending at the end which is a nice touch but I just do not like being given answers and am too polite to say I dont want any!
With just two of us there last night we didn't really have a shout of any prizes as the questions on Top Cat and Dusty, something neither of us were confident with, as well as the 4 pointer on singers who had hits with "I Only Wanna Be With You" dented our score a little. One team who are regulars, and perhaps the only other team I know of who are regulars on various quizzes in this area, and usually win or are there about scored 44 and we scored 36. Most teams were bigger than us so getting 36 between the two youngest players in the quiz was not bad at all! I was happy with it and with the nature of this quiz and the speciality topics he always picks I always think 30 is a good score on this quiz for anyone, it all just depends on if you know the topics he has wikipedia searched that week.
All in all though, the overall feeling of this quiz is enjoyment and that is what counts. I will be attending this quiz several times throughout the years so I am sure it will be mentioned again, plus there is not much option on Tuesdays around my area.
Therefore, the Southside Social Club quiz on a Tuesday night in Easington Village is a good local quiz in a nice friendly pub. Cutting down on the repetitive topics and focusing on the General Knowledge more would make this the best quiz in the area.
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