REPORT
The winning team from Clarkes solicitors
On it like a bonnet
I
‘Ta-da!’ beamed the team’s spokesperson, and pointed to a disposable covid mask, hooked onto her ears but worn fetchingly *on top* of her head.
t was the extras that caused all the trouble. The actual clues were quite straightforward: What prohibition is written on the Welsh Bridge; how much is a dirty boy on the high street; in which pub can you find an honest lawyer? It was an Easter egg hunt after all; it wasn’t supposed to be University Challenge.
Reader, we egg-hunt judges are simple lawyers. We just want a quiet life. We are not equipped, morally or intellectually, for philosophical debates as to the quiddity of bonnets and their relationship to the Platonic Form of ideal bonnethood. So we said, ‘yeah, seems legit’ and awarded the bonus.
But in her infallible wisdom, our President decided that there should be *extras*: each team of four would have the option – entirely up to them – of not only scurrying around Shrewsbury answering cryptic clues, but also collecting a daffodil, a bonnet, something that rhymes with egg, a lawyer’s business card, and a menu. For each item they collected they would get five minutes off their finishing time. Cunningly, the President reasoned, this would give the teams an existential dilemma: do we spend time collecting these dubious trophies, or do we just hare around the circuit in the lowest possible time?
Some fifteen minutes later, the other teams began to trickle in. Each of them thought they’d done pretty darn well, thank you, and none was in any mood to give an inch to their rivals.
We didn’t reckon with the possibility that some twitching caffeinated foursome, high on Red Bull and spite, would do both. Thus it was that the judges, having set the eight teams off at six o’clock and ambled through the crepuscular streets to the Coach and Horses, had barely unpacked our coloured pens and flip chart before the gasping, lathered members of the winning team spilled through the door like four spaniels chasing half a sausage. ‘Are we the first?’ they panted, looking around the empty room. ‘Yes, yes you are, but you need to bear in mind…’ ‘We got all the extras too!’ They proceeded to show the judges their booty: a fluffy sheep mascot each of whose legs indisputably rhymed with egg; a menu; a moribund daffodil stolen from an actual graveyard; one of their own business cards. But where was the bonnet?
10 S H ROP SH IR E L AW YER
Bonnetgate (‘that’s never a bonnet! It’s a paper mask that she’s just put on her head!!’) gave way to Gregggate (‘Gregg’s doesn’t rhyme with egg! *Gregg* would rhyme with egg, but that bag does NOT say Gregg!’). The disputes raged on like an all-day hangover until suddenly the serving hatch rattled open and the chef announced that chilli was served. Immediately, rivalries were cast aside like used face masks and everyone was recruited to Team Spicy Beans and Rice. Which was the winning team? I honestly can’t remember. As we swayed across the market square with our arms round each other’s shoulders, drunk on comradeship and, well, beer, it scarcely seemed to matter.
