Quiz: The British Royal Family (1980 to Present) & Film: The Vast of Night

Cultureseekers finally announced today's quiz on Thursday - and wow, this is what you might call my specialist subject! The British Royal Family (1980 to Present) was one I might reasonably expect to do well in..

And I did. The first question kind of threw me, though - I knew that Charles and Diana married in 1981, but he wanted the exact date. I'd have been at a loss if it hadn't been multiple choice - but it was, and I had a choice of June, or early or late July. Now, I remember watching this on tv, and that we were on holiday at the time, and I had a feeling that it was late July. Which it was! He asked two more questions about royal marriage dates, also multiple choice, and I was fine because I knew the years, and each choice was for a different year. Similarly, the question about whose marriage lasted longer - theirs or Andrew's and Fergie's - was really easy, given that we'd already established, from multiple choice questions, that Charles and Diana married first. So, all you had to know was that both couples divorced in the same year..

In all 25 questions, I only got four wrong:

1. How long were the Queen and Prince Philip married? I know they were married in 1947, and of course he just died this year, but I didn't know what month they were married in, so I had to guess 74 - it was 73.
2. What restaurant did Andrew say he was eating in, during his disastrous tv interview in 2019? I remembered it was a fast food restaurant, down south somewhere, but not exactly where it was.
3. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the name of the character that the Duchess of Sussex played in Suits, back when she was an actor. I never used to watch it regularly.
4. And no, the closest city to where she and Harry live isn't L.A., it's Santa Barbara!

With double points for knowing their new baby's full name, I came out with 22 - which placed me joint fifth (two tied for the win at 24), out of 42 participants. Eh, not bad.. Oh, and he made one mistake; Peter Phillips is 17th in line to the throne, not 16th!

Almost nothing on tv afterwards, if you're not into sport. Mind you, having exhausted the first list of the best horror films on Amazon Prime, I took the precaution of looking at another last night - and so I had one lined up, and just finished watching The Vast of Night. Set in a small town in New Mexico at the end of the 50s, this tells the story of a young switchboard operator who hears a very weird noise over the line one night, when most of the town are at a basketball game. So she enlists the help of her good friend, who works at the radio station..

Not really a horror, this is like a 50s version of the X-Files. And in New Mexico in the 1950s - you know you're talking about UFOs, even if the radio operator is convinced it's the Soviets! Beautifully shot - the director's debut, and everyone is raving about it - the script is excellent, the pacing is excellent, and it's a real period piece, playing on the paranoia of the 50s, with the start of the Cold War. Why, even the opening shot tells you what you're going to experience - channeling The Twilight Zone, the camera zooms in on a television screen, on which all of the action will ultimately unfold as part of one of those "mystery theater" shows. Lovely piece of work, quite compelling.

If I'm stuck for something to do tomorrow, there's still the St. Patrick's Festival website.. or indeed, Amazon Prime; I'm in my last month of free subscription, so have to make a decision soon about whether to keep it up..