Zoom

Until COVID 19 seeped into our lives, I had not heard of "Zoom". In the past, I had occasionally used "Skype" and I was aware of "Facetime" but "Zoom" was new to me.

My relationship with "Zoom" has been quite fractious over the last three months. To begin with it was very hard to access - partly because Lady Pudding had made an abortive attempt to sign up to it and had forgotten the password she used. 

We had agreed to join three weekly quizzes that brought a few households together locally or from across the country. Once or twice we couldn't participate as the links we were sent didn't appear to work. But gradually we got the hang of things and the link problems dissipated.

I have been participating in pub quizzes for years and possess an enormous amount of general knowledge. I am naturally inquisitive and want to know things whereas many of my fellow human beings don't seem to value general knowledge very much at all.  In all that multitude of pub quizzes, I never once had to look at myself on a screen while quizzing and in "Zoom" I have found this to be quite off-putting. Incidentally, Lady Pudding will sometimes apply lipstick and a little eye makeup before we enter a "Zoom" quiz. No comment.

Within "Zoom" there is a mute facility and sometimes people have the mike on when they shouldn't or off when they should have it on. This has caused no end of problems or accidentally you hear participants blurting out answers. Sometimes you miss the actual questions because of other people's remarks or laughter and often you can't tell who is talking.

Lady Pudding does not share my hunger for general knowledge. Let's suppose a question has been posed, such as "What is the capital of Portugal?" Immediately I write down Lisbon and Lady Pudding might say "Are you sure it's Lisbon? Isn't it Madrid?" and as she's saying that the quizmaster or quizmistress is reading out the next question so I miss it as well as having to explain to my dear spouse that Madrid is in fact the capital of Spain.

Then a health question might crop up such as "How long does it take for the average human body to expel one unit of alcohol?" and I will turn to her and she'll say "How should I know?" and I'll say, "But you're a nurse, can't you have a guess at least?" But she won't so I have to guess instead

And you get other participants making philistinic remarks after an Art question - "Art's not my thing!" or after a simple question about the world's oceans - "How are we supposed to know that?" And you get situations where the quiz leader hasn't thought through the allocation of marks - deciding on the hoof how points will be awarded.

Yes. I have found "Zoom" stressful. We have won several of the quizzes. The dubious reward has often been to prepare the next quiz. I try to strike a nice balance. You don't want the quiz to be too hard or too easy and you need to remember that it is all meant to be fun.

With "Zoom" it is nice when you can show on-screen images during the quiz though this requires the "host" to allow screen sharing which has again been problematic on occasions. In one quiz I presented several flags which typically invited another load of unmuted grumblings - "I don't like flags...", "I have never really looked at flags" etc.. Jesus God!

Here's three of them... Please test yourself before searching Google Images:-

  

If I never have to join a "Zoom" quiz again I will not be complaining. In fact,  it's one reason I want this bloody virus gone sooner rather than later. Let it zoom off into the distance and never be seen again.