Twelve Questions, One Round in It: The Humphead Americana Pub Quiz

There is a moment, somewhere between the last chorus and the first coat being dragged off the back of a chair, when somebody at the table says: go on then. One more. And that is how every good pub quiz starts — not with a proper quizmaster or a laminated scoresheet, but with one person deciding the evening isn't finished yet.

So here is our contribution: twelve questions about the UK country and Americana world, written to be read out loud in a pub, a kitchen, or the front seat of a car parked outside a village hall. Keep it good-natured. The answers are less important than the digressions.

The Rules, Such As They Are

No phones. Answers accepted in any accent. Half a point for being funny, a full point for being right, and a bonus point for anyone who can name the pub you were in when you first heard a pedal steel live. Teams of more than four are cheating and everyone knows it.

Round One: Big Rooms and Small Stages

1. Which act from these islands gets the credit for being the first British country band signed to a major Nashville label?

Answer: The Shires — Crissie Rhodes and Ben Earle — who signed to Big Machine in 2015 and promptly made everyone's nan cry on BBC Breakfast. The lovely thing about this one is watching a table of people who claim not to know the answer all quietly hum the chorus.

2. Name a British festival where the main stage faces a field, the toilets are a fair walk away, and nobody minds.

Answer: There are two obvious ones. Black Deer in Kent, which feels like a very well-organised family wedding, and The Long Road in Leicestershire, which has the particular magic of a festival small enough to accidentally meet the same six people all weekend. Accept any answer where the word "bakehouse" or "hay bale" appears.

3. What do the letters in C2C stand for, and where would you be standing?

Answer: Country to Country, and you'd be at The O2 in London — with companion shows in Glasgow and Belfast most years since 2013. If anyone at the table says "I preferred it when it was smaller", give them the point. They've earned it.

Round Two: The Drive Home

4. It's eleven at night on a two-lane A-road and the passenger has fallen asleep. Which song goes on, and why is it always the same one?

Answer: No mark scheme. Genuine answers only. The best one heard at a Humphead table so far was "anything with a fiddle, because fiddles keep you awake better than coffee".

5. The motorway services at half ten. What is the correct purchase?

Answer: Officially: whatever the last M&S Simply Food has left. Realistically: a sausage roll eaten standing up beside a bin. The judge's ruling is that anything consumed while leaning on a car counts as a full meal.

6. What is in the flask?

Answer: Tea, and the person who answers "coffee" loses a point but wins the argument for the next four hours. Bonus point for anyone who brings a second flask of something warmer for the car park.

Round Three: Voices and Accents

7. Which album title captured the specific ache of being in Tennessee and missing the drizzle back home?

Answer: The Shires' "Nashville Grey Skies" — a genuinely lovely bit of place-writing from a British band who, instead of faking a porch, chose to be homesick for weather. It's the most British number-one-country-album flex imaginable.

8. Which British artist moved to Nashville on her own terms, took her Cambridge accent with her, and came back with a record that sounds like nobody else?

Answer: Yola. Everyone gets half a point for the name, the other half for not saying "the British Adele" out loud.

9. Whispering Bob is, in most people's living rooms, the reason all of this exists. Who is he and what does he do on a Sunday?

Answer: Bob Harris — broadcaster, lifelong champion of root-filled music, and the point of entry for about three generations of listeners. Sunday evening, radio, good manners, a voice like a jumper. Somebody at the table will tell a story about hearing him announce an unknown band and driving across two counties for the gig. Let them finish.

Round Four: Kit and Protocol

10. What is the single most important piece of equipment in a British country band?

Answer: The van. Not the guitar. Not the amp. The van. Extra points for naming the fault — the one that only happens on a hill.

11. How far apart are the great British landscapes, in real units?

Answer: In service stations. Norwich to Kendal is "about three and a half service stations and one bit where you get lost". Songs written in Britain tend to measure distance in where you stopped, not in miles — which is why they sound like they've actually been travelled.

12. Somebody asks for a song that sounds like a wet Tuesday in a small town. What do you play?

Answer: Free choice, but the table must agree within thirty seconds. This question has never once been settled quickly, and that's the point of it.

The Tie-Breaker: Whose Round Is It?

Here's the only question that matters, and it has one answer.

It is the round of the person who said, with great conviction, "I'll get these ones," and then went to find the toilet and came back having had a lovely chat with a stranger about a pedal steel.

Nobody holds it against them. Round here we're soft about that sort of thing. Besides — it's your turn anyway, and you've been humming something since question four. Go on then. One more.