TWO GENTLEMEN AND VERONA

"Ah, the splendid canals
and bridges of...  Verona..."

"Ferdinand, I'm going to have to overrule you," I said, scratching out the word Verona on the answer sheet. Ferdinand was adamant that Vivaldi was born in Verona. He protested that he, a well-travelled German and connoisseur of European culture, had lived in Italy for eleven years and that Verona was well known as a hotspot for classical music.

This is the kind of thing I dislike about quizzes. Oh, I love a quiz, don't misunderstand! There are just some aspects of it which really wind me up. Top of the list is this all-too common collision between people (Ferdinands) and stuff (correct answers to a quiz)...

I've long been an adherent to the idea that People Are More Important Than Stuff. I've seen parents treat shiny objects as more important to them than their own children; I've seen rogues with effortless  smooth-talk stealing from the vulnerable and the frail, and I've seen the wreckage left when fathers put work in front of their families. It's a little simplistic I know, but in general, I needed no persuading that People are much more important than Stuff.

That's why this tiny collision of ideas with Ferdinand bothered me. He's a person, with pride and passion in his knowledge, with an outspoken culture and a gentle heart. As I pressed the pen firmly against the paper and struck through Verona I felt as though I were eroding Ferdinand, redacting him from the quiz and scrubbing him out with two clean strokes of a biro.

The trouble was, he was wrong. Vivaldi was born in Venice and I couldn't let it go. I said I would buy the whole team a pint if I was wrong and that seemed to break the ice a little bit - but was I guilty of putting stuff before people? Should I have deliberately let the wrong answer stand?

-

Well, no, actually. I don't think so. This is the same scenario as letting my nephew win at draughts isn't it? It's dishonest not to go with what you know is right, unless it's a team decision. How would Ferdinand have felt knowing that I let him give the wrong answer, deliberately costing the team a point? This is where figuring out the boundary between people and stuff becomes the hardest part of the puzzle - the fuzzy line between the two is tricky to find.

Maybe simplest is best. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Everyone can quote it, but it takes real courage to make it fly. It trumps P.A.M.I.T.S because you are a person and you do have stuff. In the shimmering light of great reflection, in the illumination this golden commandment is asking you to observe, you quickly realise that we're all in the same boat: each of us deserves the same respect, honour and dignity, and that in itself trumps all stuff, even our own - especially our own.

How would I have felt at the end of the quiz if my German friend had scrubbed out my answer in favour of his own, and he turned out to be right?

Good old Ferdinand. When the answer was read out, he gave me a high-five and grinned. A little later when the quizmaster went through the "match-up-these-rivers-with-countries" round, I was immediately grateful that Ferdinand had somehow been to Namibia. I high-fived him back.