Can The Web Kill The Pub Quiz?

It's a familiar sight up and down the country - people huddled round tables with scraps of paper, desperately fumbling around for a pen or pencil as bit of feedback crackles over the sound system. Whispers of "Shut up!" echo around as the first conundrum is burbled through what sounds like a microphone covered in cotton wool. The pub quiz. Teams gather in hope of having a good spread of knowledge - sports guy, film guy, history guy, geography guy, general brain-box guy. A sure fire winner of the cash/sweeties/free drinks, no?

Not any longer as I put it to you they can be beaten by one single person - mobile internet guy. This is something that occurred to be a while back whilst doing a pub quiz I attended semi-regularly at The Pear Tree in Edinburgh (anyone in Edinburgh should go along, good quiz). When I briefly formed a team consisting of friends and flatmates, we had 3 smartphones amongst our number and agreed not to use them as that would be cheating. More and more people though are getting smartphones. Of my rough age group, about half the people I know own, or are considering, an iPhone; another quarter own, or are considering, a Blackberry. The number of people owning such devices is only set to increase. Even my old Sony Ericsson could access Wikipedia and Google, albeit quite slowly. Text services such as AQA, text a question to 63336 in the UK, offer answers to your questions at a price.

All of this is simply an evolution of that moment when you realise your absent friend would definitely know the answer to that question. One cheeky text message later and you have your answer. A host of information is right at your fingertips now, not just the knowledge of those in your phonebook. Short of getting everyone to forcibly turn off their phones, the answer to any question is a few fingerswipes away. Not even the music round is safe from the all-knowing power of the internet, you could even stream the song to check the answer given. I've used my phone to settle various non-quiz pub disputes over the time since I got it. What colour is a polar bear's skin? What the hell is a kelpie? How tall is Nicolas Sarkozy? Can dogs look up? How long is a piece of string? No question is safe.

My role tended to be 'film guy' or 'sports guy'. Name all the films Tim Burton directed beginning with 'B'? Batman, Batman Begins Batman Returns (Edit: Cheers, Jay. Stupid error - d'oh!), Beetlejuice, Big Bish. Bam! Four points please. But knowing you could achieve the same thing, possibly quicker, by Googling Tim Burton's filmography lessens the satisfaction somewhat. There's plenty of incentive for some folk to do this too, there are often some valuable prizes on offer at a pub quiz. With the ubiquity of such devices it will become harder to police (short of building a pub in a Faraday cage).

Obviously the pub quiz is not going anywhere soon but with more and more people having access to on-the-go internet I can't help but think the questions are soon going to have be wonderfully creative if it's not to become an endangered species.