7:15 of a Thursday morning and still no Fr Megson at the breakfast trough.  Gretchen, his recently de-nazified housekeeper, felt her pert yet ample bosom heave with relief and anxiety in equal measure.  She could live with the thought that the miserable old bugger had popped his clogs in the middle of the night.  But for him to do so with her weekly pay cheque lying as yet unsigned on the kitchen table was cruel beyond belief.

Lighting her pipe and slipping on her best deerstalker she surveyed the house for clues.  The  trail of discarded underwear and beer-sodden clerical garb from the front door to his bedroom told her that he had indeed made it home from the quiz in Ladybarn.  Why though was the kitchen in such a state of disarray?  Why should anyone ransack her condiments cupboard and spill jars of her famed homemade tahini paste over such a wide area?  Why should any sane person feel compelled to use the ensuing goo to smear across the walls the single word FECK in crude disjointed lettering?  Gretchen shuddered.  She had been in the presence of a psychopath overnight and he had not even bothered to visit her room!

By now in urgent need of some sustenance Gretchen raced to the laundry basket and groped.  Deeper and deeper she groped.  Her heart sank further as it became apparent that she groped in vain.  Her two bottles marked HOLY WATER - NON POTABLE had disappeared.  These bottles had been more dear to her than life.  They had been given to her by a wise blind farmer on Carrauntoohil shortly after she had parachuted into Ireland from Duisburg.  He had said that they contained a magic elixir called poitin which his family had been distilling since before the coming of the Sassenach.  It was sacred to the Irish and was traditionally drunk before funerals.  It varied from drinker to drinker but, generally speaking, the funeral would be required about three days after drinking it.

Gretchen was overcome by grief.  The woman who had single-handedly fought her way out of Stalingrad now found that she could not live without her poitin.  She swooned to the floor and wallowed  miserably in self-pity and tahini paste......

As indeed did the author when he blew last night's quiz on the final question.  An excellent quiz against excellent opposition.  Both sides contested every point with a ferocious dalliance that increasingly tested our QM's endurance until he was reduced to a Basil Fawltyesque moment at about 11 pm when he politely beseeched each team to "Just answer the bloody question!!!!"

........and then it was just me and the QM, eyeball to eyeball on the final question.  The bar about to close.  One point needed for a very honourable draw.  Two points and I would be more famous than Jonny Wilkinson was in 2003.  All my team looking smug and signalling with at least 30 fingers in the air.  Mark and his Parkers looking resigned to a very unjust defeat.......                       

If ever there was a moment not to say CHICK PEAS, that was it........................Who says it's only a bloody game?