No matter whether you’re any good or not, everyone loves a pub quiz and News Shopper is no different. We’ve taken it upon ourselves to get on the road and sample some of our area’s pub quizzes and let you know the score.

This week it’s The Sylvan Post in Forest Hill

When: 8pm, Tuesdays, (We did it on January 6)

Cost: £2 per person

Prize: £50 bar tab and a temporary trophy for the winning team, £170 cash prize for the raffle winner who can successfully guess higher or lower on six cards.

Number of questions: 40

Best team name: Started at the bottom, still here

Number of teams when we visited: 15

How Team News Shopper got on: 1st!

Sample questions (answers at the bottom):

1) What is Indiana Jones' real name?

2) Which is the biggest hospital in London?

3) Which South American country produces the most wine?

News Shopper:

Never in our wildest dreams did the fledgling Shopper squad anticipate victory on our first run out, but we clearly had a good portion of beginner’s luck.

Being a friendly and comfortable Antic pub, it was no surprise that a decent, happy crowd gathered for the Post’s first quiz of the year.

A very healthy roster of fifteen teams – featuring a larger than average proportion of hipsters - competed for the glory of £50 bar tab and the coveted Sylvan Postbox (which you have to give back).

It must be said, the questions lent themselves to Shopper’s expertise – 25 of the 40 questions were either music or film-related, while one round (five questions) was about 2014, one about ‘doctors’ and another about wine.

Not an anagram or dingbat to be found on our visit, though we're told it varies every week with anagrams, cryptic and creative rounds making appearances.

The friendly, highly-recommended quizmaster kept matters zipping along with minimal fluff between questions and, while we initially would have enjoyed the customary swapping of papers to mark, by doing it all himself he kept the pace quick.

Having started at just after 8pm, the questions were all out of the way by 9pm.

The Sylvan Post’s a fun place to spend an evening and at the end, Shopper was astounded to finish joint first. 

News Shopper:

Shopper's Jim Palmer being awarded the coveted Sylvan Postbox trophy

We subsequently defeated the other winners 2-0 in a best-of-three game of rock-paper-scissors to claim glory and the tab, though we were perhaps understandably booed when we subsequently won the raffle. The £170 cash pot eluded us as we tried to guess higher or lower on a deck of cards and we’re told is rolled over to next week.

Go to Sylvanpost.com to reserve a table for next week.

ANSWERS: 1) Henry Jones Jnr 2) The Royal London 3) Argentina

  • Where should our team of quiz testers head to next? Tweet @JimNewsShopper with your recommendations.