‘Elgar’s Cello concerto’ my finger was on the buzzer in seconds.
‘Correct and two more questions on British composers in which you will hear only the opening chord, name the piece.’
‘A Hard Day’s Night’ I beat the other team by a split second.
‘Correct.’
Whew, how lucky was I in the music round; ten minutes into the first round of University Challenge and my team was doing well. Saint Timothy’s College, University of the World Wide Web, average age fifty five.
Neither team guessed the third piece of music with its opening dischord and a composer none of us had heard of.
Our team ranged from twenty to, well I’d rather not say. Suffice to say I was allowed to go with my friend and her big sisters to see ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ at ‘The Rex’ when the film first came out. I was in love with Paul. With no parental supervision we saw the film twice; those were the days of continual showing so we sat and watched it again and I was in heaven, an afternoon that could never be surpassed.
Perhaps if I had not gone down memory lane I would have concentrated and answered some more questions. My finger never hit the button again. Cliff pressed the button four times, but got every answer wrong. Our youngest member answered his every try correctly, while I would have claimed the points the other team stole if only the answers had not remained on the tip of my tongue.
I knew that author, he was on that chat show the other night, we read his novel at book club, but my brain just would not retrieve his name or the title of the novel… Picture round, I don’t think obscure maps count as pictures… If the question hadn’t been so obtuse and I had remembered the table of elements I would have got that…
The claxon, not over already surely…
‘And it’s goodnight to Saint Timothy’s, better luck next year and well done Saint Elon’s, you go onto the next round.’
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 