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Yesterday started with a nice lunch in York with people spent juggling lots of dogs and babies, and was lovely to see RJ and Lindy again, along with Rook (whom I secretly suspect RJ is training to grow up to be a Batman villain...)
(To be entirely honest, yesterday started with me getting lost in York while making the two minute journey from the train station to the pub, but as most of my stories start that way it didn't seem worth mentioning. This is also why I shouldn't be allowed to wander round places on my own. Leeds included.)
Then on to the treasure hunt, which was quite a cool mixture of pub crawl, general knowledge questions, and questions based on things (plaques, roadsigns etc) in various locations around York. We were worried the pub bits might be problematic as one of our team was canine, and several members of the other team were underage, but the pubs in York turned out to be very dog and child friendly. Also, the barstaff were very helpful and completely unphasesd when we came in asking strange questions. (One girl saw us walk in clutching our handful of quiz papers, and before we could say a word said 'The skeleton room is over there, and the answer is "cats"!')
Overall our team won a moral victory by being far less blatant in our cheating. (Googling an answer is cheating. However walking up to a total stranger and asking them 'Say, have you ever wondered which was invented first, the light bulb or the telephone?' and therefore inspiring them to google the answer is NOT cheating, merely spreading an interest in knowledge and enlightenment for it's own sake. The fact that they may chose to share this new knowledge with you is a coincidental benefit of a purely altruistic action...)
We also managed to get the fastest time, due to getting nearly all the time bonus scavenger hunt items. Did you know it's nearly impossible to find a red wine cork in a pub these days, as almost everywhere uses screw top bottles? (Finally managed to get one by nipping into the Evil Eye - one of my favourite places in York but unfortunately not part of the treasure hunt trail - and smiling very sweetly at the barman until he went and searched out and opened a brand new bottle of rioja just so I could have the cork.)
This mini-victory did require some creative interpretation of the rules: for example we couldn't find any bars that would admit to serving drinks with cocktail umbrellas in them, so I found a pack of them in a random cake decorating shop and convinced another nice barman to serve them in our drinks so that they'd count. And when it said you needed a Newcastle Brown Ale bottle cap, it didn't say anywhere that it couldn't come with the bottle attached! (We were racing so didn't have time to drink big drinks... plus it means that once again I managed to finish a day with more alcohol than I started with. This is fast becoming a theme.)
However our relative lack of cheating meant that we were denied an actual victory thanks to getting two of the questions wrong. Still, moral victories are the only sort that count. (Unless I win some other way. Then that counts instead.) Plus of course, it was our plan all along to let Vix win because it was her birthday. (Honest.)
Got back too late for Black Veil... Kris and I did try popping into the new non-Friday Flock, but the room was much too warm so we loitered outside for a while then escaped back home.
Now to Hull for more birthdayings and barbecues and monsters of the Deep!
(To be entirely honest, yesterday started with me getting lost in York while making the two minute journey from the train station to the pub, but as most of my stories start that way it didn't seem worth mentioning. This is also why I shouldn't be allowed to wander round places on my own. Leeds included.)
Then on to the treasure hunt, which was quite a cool mixture of pub crawl, general knowledge questions, and questions based on things (plaques, roadsigns etc) in various locations around York. We were worried the pub bits might be problematic as one of our team was canine, and several members of the other team were underage, but the pubs in York turned out to be very dog and child friendly. Also, the barstaff were very helpful and completely unphasesd when we came in asking strange questions. (One girl saw us walk in clutching our handful of quiz papers, and before we could say a word said 'The skeleton room is over there, and the answer is "cats"!')
Overall our team won a moral victory by being far less blatant in our cheating. (Googling an answer is cheating. However walking up to a total stranger and asking them 'Say, have you ever wondered which was invented first, the light bulb or the telephone?' and therefore inspiring them to google the answer is NOT cheating, merely spreading an interest in knowledge and enlightenment for it's own sake. The fact that they may chose to share this new knowledge with you is a coincidental benefit of a purely altruistic action...)
We also managed to get the fastest time, due to getting nearly all the time bonus scavenger hunt items. Did you know it's nearly impossible to find a red wine cork in a pub these days, as almost everywhere uses screw top bottles? (Finally managed to get one by nipping into the Evil Eye - one of my favourite places in York but unfortunately not part of the treasure hunt trail - and smiling very sweetly at the barman until he went and searched out and opened a brand new bottle of rioja just so I could have the cork.)
This mini-victory did require some creative interpretation of the rules: for example we couldn't find any bars that would admit to serving drinks with cocktail umbrellas in them, so I found a pack of them in a random cake decorating shop and convinced another nice barman to serve them in our drinks so that they'd count. And when it said you needed a Newcastle Brown Ale bottle cap, it didn't say anywhere that it couldn't come with the bottle attached! (We were racing so didn't have time to drink big drinks... plus it means that once again I managed to finish a day with more alcohol than I started with. This is fast becoming a theme.)
However our relative lack of cheating meant that we were denied an actual victory thanks to getting two of the questions wrong. Still, moral victories are the only sort that count. (Unless I win some other way. Then that counts instead.) Plus of course, it was our plan all along to let Vix win because it was her birthday. (Honest.)
Got back too late for Black Veil... Kris and I did try popping into the new non-Friday Flock, but the room was much too warm so we loitered outside for a while then escaped back home.
Now to Hull for more birthdayings and barbecues and monsters of the Deep!
no subject
xxx
no subject
Um...
I think that one got slightly confused.
(Elephant!)