Celebs take on the pub quiz

Just as everyone in the world is entitled to their brief moment of fame, so every pastime, no matter how homely, is destined to be fleetingly fashionable. Unlikely as it may seem, it now appears that it is the turn of the pub quiz. It can only be a matter of time before pipe smoking, caravan holidays and home brewing are taken up by those in the vanguard.

Of course, pub quizzes are nothing new - they're a time-honoured way to drag in punters on slow nights such as Mondays and Tuesdays. And they've always been popular with the sort of people who are good at them, folks who can name hundreds of obscure characters from books they have never read, and reserve mental space for Belgium's per capita chocolate consumption (to the nearest ounce). But traditionally, the pub-quiz enthusiast and the in-crowd had little interaction, and even less in common.

That's all changing. These days, luminaries such as Harry Enfield, Frank Skinner and Jane and Jonathan Ross take part in regular quizzes run by Oliver Peyton at the Atlantic Bar and Grill in the West End. Louis Theroux, Hugh Grant, Sacha Baron Cohen and Frances Barber are also fans. Alan Davies, Neil Morrissey and James Nesbitt frequent the quiz night at the East Dulwich Tavern, and new West London club Cherry Jam hosts a pop-centric quiz night on select Tuesdays. Jarvis Cocker and Emily Mortimer are regulars.

Of all the pub quizzes in London, the one at the Prince of Wales in Highgate is reckoned to be the most consistently difficult, while the pub quiz held at the Cock and Bottle in Notting Hill is thought to be the most fashionable, regularly attracting local celebrities.

Given the choice between difficult and fashionable, I had little trouble coming to a decision. It took but a few phone calls to assemble a team - people are invariably flattered to be asked - and our scouting party arrived early at the Cock and Bottle to commandeer a good table (a necessity). By 8.45pm, five of the six people I'd called had actually shown up. With eager anticipation, and a wide variety of different- flavoured crisps, we awaited the stroke of nine.

Now, if this particular Tuesday night was representative, claims that the Cock and Bottle pub quiz is the height of fashion may be a mite exaggerated. Madonna did not show. Jude Law and Sadie Frost were conspicuous by their absence. There were a few vaguely fashionable-looking people about, but they were soon chased out by quizzers hunting spare stools. The event had a local, rather than a celebrity, flavour.

Nevertheless, there was palpable excitement in the room just before the quiz began, when every team still stood an equal chance of winning. The pint glass was passed around - £1 a player, winners take all. As the quizmaster announced the start, my team was quietly confident.

Far from being raucous affairs, pub quizzes take place in near silence. Rather than give answers away, competitors communicate by writing on scraps of paper. Although my hastily selected squad had an impressive breadth of knowledge, it soon became obvious that we had one insurmountable weakness - me.

With the opening question: 'How is pi expressed as a vulgar fraction?', I began to suspect that my specialist subject would be moral support. It occurred to me that at some point in my life I would have known the answer. But what a different me that young fellow was. I looked at my friend Pat, who was clearly as taken aback by the opener as I was. I then looked over at my friend Xa, who handed me a piece of paper on which he'd written '22/7'. At least I'd had the intelligence to invite Xa on to the team.

At the end of the first round we scored an impressive 17 out of 20, little thanks to me. Unfortunately, two other teams got 20 out of 20. The second round was half musical clues, half pictures. We fared poorly with the music, snippets of obscure AOR, but we got all the pictures right: Bowie, Teddy Roosevelt, Jocelyn Wildenstein, Hoagy Carmichael - no problem.