Clean sweep at the Empress rock quiz

While a handful of colonials battled it out in stadia across Melbourne for cheaply-hewn pieces of metal, a band of five were putting their music trivia reputations on the line for a far more precious and coveted prize - a slab of Mountain Goat, the finest organic ale in the southern hemisphere.

Like Uma's Fox Force Five in Pulp Fiction, our gang (three girls, two boys) had the perfect mix of expertise and balls. We had the old fart questions covered by Robin ('the Baron'), who pulled out those pesky 'history of rock' answers (usually featuring Carl Perkins, Hank Williams, Scott Walker and the like - yawn), leaving the glam and the 80's pop to Caro, Ro and I. We also had a mean by-line in bogan Oz rock, but I wasn't so well versed in American geography, sadly, answering 'Miami' to a question about which state Sonny Bono governed. Rounding out this near-invincible gang was the very handy (and for more than his music knowledge alone, as we shall see) Chrissy, with his schooling in more recent, heavier alternative music (I am no Rage Against the Machine expert, after all).

Our gang blitzed most questions, and ended with a staggering 12 point lead over our nearest rivals - a big gang of dyed-black-haired pretenders who recognised a Killers song but failed to spot Geno by Dexy's Midnight Runners or Jilted John by Jilted John - need I say any more about those mobile-wielding loser-cheats!? There were bruised egos on our part too though - we almost killed ourselves over who wrote the theme to 'St Elmo's Fire', for even with that bombastic tune pulsing through everyone's veins, we were at a loss to place its big-haired author. This was a matter of honour, and even with the combined muscle of three certified 80's cheeseballs on the team we didn't get the answer (in frustration, Baron scrawled 'Michael Fuck' on our ballot), making our team's massive victory, and the taste of that Mountain Goat a little -only a little mind! - less sweet.

We were pretty bad winners, and we would have made horrendous losers. Baron commented that, this being our local watering hole, I might care to tone down my whooping and mugging at the opposition. After all, a crate of beer is finite and I might wish to venture back to the Empress one day soon without being bashed for being 'the lairy bitch at the pop quiz'.

Make that 'the lairy bitch at the pop quiz with the insane boyfriend'....

...for in the end, it was the novelty segment that provided the greatest moment of triumph, and this was where my darling Christopher came into his own, with his willingness to out-loon a cowboy-suited madman with beads in his beard. The hosts of the evening asked that a representative of each team take to the stage and bust some James Brown moves. Of course, each team pushed its own slavering-lunatic-most-likely to the fore, and in our case who could go past the one and only, the shameless 'mad dog Muir'. Looking disarmingly and deceptively wallflowerish as other part-time Godfathers spun hackneyed standards like 'the dying fly' and a rather anaemic attempt at the pizzle on a string routine (pretenders!!!), when our Chrissy took to the mic (to shouts of 'YOU ARE A WARRIOR!! from the team) he let forth with a blood curdling scream, prompting Baron to comment - 'I thought James Brown had entered the room for a moment'. There he was, resolutely puny and white, jogging on the spot, starjumping, bugging his eyes and generally wigging out. If Napoleon Dynamite had had a set piece even half as funny as my twitching, breakdancing friend, it might have been a half decent movie. He spat out a few random lines from the Brown back catalogue, out of sync with whatever Brown classic they were playing to accompany him, and by the time he hit the floor for some neck spinning and caterpillarin', the house was crumbling down around his thonged feet - even our black-clad, po-faced rivals were gasping for breath between shrieks of laughter. As for our table - the normally reserved Baron declared 'I thought I was going to vomit, I laughed so hard'. And we, like the fat Santa man who was to follow that unfollowable act, knew that the west had been won.

What a night!

I love my dad

There are days when all I want to do is flee this den of mediocrity in which I work, catch the train way out to the 'burbs and sit with my darling dad and watch fusty war documentaries, listen to the BBC World Service and Phillip Adams on Radio National and talk and talk about the world - where it's going, what it means - 'wot's it all abahht, guv'nor?'. I want to extract and capture the contents of his long memory - to absorb all those witty stories, smoothed like pebbles caressed in a sea of many years of repetition, refinement and perhaps a fair bit of embellishment. He has seen so much more of life than anyone else I know, and I'm proud as punch of him. He'll be 80 next month. I haven't known many 80 year olds, and I doubt I'll see that age myself. What on earth can I do to mark an occasion like this?

Was Tom Ryan watching the same film as me?

Matchpoint review