Quizteama Aguilera

We're called The Usual Suspects, which I'll admit is not a good name. We chose it in 2023 in about four seconds because the quizmaster, Dermot, was standing over us with the sheet. We've regretted it every week since, not least because the team that beats us every single week is called Quizteama Aguilera, and they've got the name and the trophy and, honestly, the glow. There are four of them. Two lads who look like they row, a woman who I'm fairly sure is a barrister, and an older fella called Noel who knows every capital city on earth, including the ones that have changed. They sit in the corner by the fire. They don't gloat. That's the worst part. They win by two or three points every week and they nod at us on the way past like it's a shame, really. We're a mixed bunch. Me, my brother Fergal, his wife Dee, who is the actual brains, and a lad from my work called Priyesh who joined for the crack and is now the most invested of any of us. Priyesh has flashcards. Priyesh has a spreadsheet of Dermot's question categories going back eighteen months. Priyesh has identified that Dermot does a "famous bridges" round roughly every seven weeks and we're overdue. Last Thursday was the seventh week. Round one, general knowledge, we were level. Round two, music, we were one behind, because Noel knew the B-side of something from 1971. Round three, picture round, we got the full ten, they got the full ten. Then Dermot cleared his throat and said, "Round four. Famous bridges," and Priyesh made a noise like a kettle. We got nine out of ten. They got eight. We were level going into the last round with five minutes to go and the whole pub, which knows this rivalry the way villages know feuds, had gone quiet. The last round was "Dermot's Choice," which means whatever he's been watching on telly. He'd been watching a documentary about volcanoes. Question ten. "Which Icelandic volcano, erupting in 2010, grounded flights across Europe for six days?"

Now. We all knew it. Every one of us. We'd been stuck in Málaga because of it, me and Fergal, on a lads' holiday that had turned into an eleven-day hostage situation. We knew that volcano. We'd cursed that volcano. We could not spell it. Dee had a go. Fergal had a go. Priyesh, God love him, had a phonetic attempt that ran to fourteen letters and included a Q. We looked at each other. We looked at the corner, where Noel was writing calmly, and I swear to you he was smiling. "Just write 'the one in Iceland,'" Fergal said. "He won't take that." "He might." He didn't. He read out the answer, "Eyjafjallajökull," with a flourish, and gave them the point, and looked at our sheet and said, "Nice try, lads, that's a lovely drawing of a volcano though," because Priyesh had, in desperation, drawn one. Second. By one. Again. Noel came past on the way out. He stopped. He put his hand on the back of my chair. "You had it," he said. "Bridges. That was good work." "How did you spell the volcano?" He looked at me for a second and then leaned in and said, very quietly, "I didn't. I wrote 'Eyjafjalla' and a squiggle. Dermot can't spell it either." Then he went off to the corner and lifted the trophy, and I sat there, and I thought about the squiggle, and I thought about the eighteen months of spreadsheets, and I thought, right. This week I've bought a pen with a thicker nib. It does a lovely squiggle. Priyesh says that's cheating. Dee says it's tactics. Fergal says he's just glad we've got a strategy that doesn't involve drawing.