The evening was consumed by non-PPLP stuff, too. We had all committed to going to the school of a friend's daughter to participate in a Quiz Night. Susan stayed home to comfort Cam, but Matt and I went to answer trivia questions and cheat like hell on Weight Watchers. Quiz Night included dinner. Actually, Matt had had a busy, awful day and, due to lack of time to eat, had 22 points going into Quiz Night. He couldn't really cheat even if he tried. But I only had seven.

It turned out that the school, Riddlesworth, was the school Princess Diana had attended as a young girl. There, proudly displayed in the main hall, was a letter, signed by Diana herself, saying she was not going to attend 50th Anniversary celebrations. Pretty cool. Right next to it was another letter, signed by Diana's personal assistant herself, also saying that Diana was not going to attend 50th Anniversary celebrations. Somewhat less cool, but still deemed worthy by someone to be on display. I wondered if there were a third and fourth letter, somewhere in the school's archives, signed by people more and more removed from The People's Princess, saying "Really, she must decline. Please stop asking."

There were peanuts, pretzels, and "crisps" (i.e. Pringles) on the table when Quiz Night got underway. I had a few peanuts, one crisp, and three or four pretzels. I nibbled very modestly. After all, I was on Weight Watchers, and seven points was certainly fewer points than an honest accounting of dinner would consume.

The first half of the competition was heated. Despite some thoroughly British trivia ("What was the answer? The Tolpuddle Martyrs? Who the hell are they?!"), Matt and I were able to contribute. Somehow, Matt knew that a "Latin American cult centered around a bull like image of masculinity" was Machismo. (Machismo is a cult?) And I knew what Episcopalians were. By the third round, our team had pulled into the lead, a lead which we held through the sixth round into dinner/halftime.

Here my Weight Watchers discipline began to erode. First, I had a small spring roll. The entrees wouldn't have been too bad, eaten in moderation, but I probably had a little more than I should have. Then I had a second spring roll. (They were still sitting there! Halfway through the meal!) After I had some seconds of the entrees, they began clearing plates in preparation for dessert. I ate a third spring roll. (They were going to take them away!)

Dessert was a chocolate roulade thing filled with raspberries and a creamy substance. There was another creamy substance placed on the table in a gravy boat. People poured some on their roulade. What was I going to do, be another Ugly American, refusing cream sauce on his roulade like a complete Philistine? So, I poured some sauce on my roulade, too. Well, it seemed the thing to do.

After dinner, we started answering questions again. The team was allowed to choose one round in which to double our score, and the team wanted to double Science and Technology. I started to feel a bit of pressure when, in a bit of PPLP backlash, I was presented as "a computer guy." Luckily, each team was given a plate of cheese and a basket of crackers and rolls, so I was able to eat away some of my stress. In a convulsion of Weight Watchers rebellion, I "spread" a whole pat of butter on a single cracker in preparation for some Stilton that I spread on it next.

As I was licking my fingers in the afterglow of my Super Cracker, the answer sheet was pushed my way. A teammate told me that I was supposed to write down what the acronym BIOS stands for. Didn't she realize she was interrupting my butter rapture? Let's see, there wasn't an 'E', so I was pretty sure that I couldn't go back to the Episcopalians well again...

I do know what BIOS stands for, and we ended up doubling our score of nine out of twelve in the Science and Technology round, which was quite good, because some other teams had totally bungled, doubling scores as low as five. I was responsible for one of the three we missed in this round. When asked what American Joseph Glidden had invented in 1873, I suggested latex paint. I thought it was a reasonable guess, but the answer was barbed wire. Oops. Nevertheless, we did well and kept doing well. The thirteen year old on our team knew that John Walker had invented the match (apparently before joining the Taliban). Another teammate astounded me by knowing that the only person to win a world championship on a motorcycle as well as in a car was some guy named Surtees.

So, our team destroyed. The last two rounds were almost anticlimactic, because, after doubling our "BIOS" round, it would have been tough for teams to catch us even if we stopped playing and simply ate cheese (something I was willing to do). At the end of the night, we had 104 points. Second and third had 89 and 88, respectively. And there were prizes for the first place team!

To quote Dave Barry, "I swear I am not making this up." We won: a guinea fowl per team member. Wow. As the guy who knew Surtees put it, "Second place is three guinea fowl per person."

I've eaten chicken, turkey, duck, goose, that mini chicken invented by the Tyson family in 1965 and marketed as Cornish Game Hen, quail, squab, and pheasant. I've even eaten a gutted sparrow at a yakitori in Japan. (The skull, as one might expect, was VERY crunchy.) I'm not certain, but I think I've eaten Ostrich and partridge, too. All of these birds have at least some vague sense of familiarity to them. You could show me a picture, and I'd probably recognize them. ("Yes, I'm certain that's an ostrich. That or a quail.") But I had no idea what a guinea fowl was. But my Dad was arriving on Tuesday, and I was determined to know by the end of that night what guinea fowl tasted like.

Oh, and guess what the guy who organized trivia night does for a living? He breeds guinea fowl.