BBC quiz night. A game of two halves…

Great fun last night recording two episodes of The Write Stuff for BBC Radio 4. It’s a literary quiz with two team captains – John Walsh and Sebastian Faulks – who are perfectly matched in their astonishing, twitching competitiveness and comprehensive knowledge of English literature. The frustration with quiz games is that even when you know the answers, it’s almost impossible to be first to press the buzzer. John and Sebastian have evolved a technique of buzzing well before the question is finished. Mark Billingham, who was another contestant, had a theory that if you buzz with your left hand, you can respond quicker. Something to do with synapses. Anyway. I do love quizzes, and Sebastian and I managed to win one round and lose another. But you go home cursing yourself for all those questions you managed to get wrong…Ruth Rendell’s first book, Jackie Collins’s first school, anyone?