As I start writing questions for a forthcoming trivia night I remember the heyday of the pub quiz. A popular event that drew extra customers into the local pub on a Sunday evening or other quiet time. You came away, perhaps a little inebriated but with enhanced general knowledge and sometimes prize money. I enjoyed participating in many, at different levels, until the occasions were ruined by smart phones whose users were anything but smart.

People unwilling to admit they didn’t know the answer began texting under the table. Next, they made phone calls, discretely in the toilet or smoking area. Today they type the question into a search engine. This is impossible for quizmasters to police, especially in a crowded venue where everyone plays on their phone instead of talking. Pub quizzes stopped being fun when prizes went to ignorant people skilled only in browsing the internet.

This will probably be the last quiz that I write because it is becoming more and more difficult to create questions that some humans can answer but Google cannot. Soon the pub quiz will be lost to history, like many of the establishments that hosted it so successfully.