Last week at The Newsroom we had a pair of Swedes in at the quiz and the week before that we had a pair of Finns.

For the record, the Finns were hilarious, friendly, useless at the quiz (although not that useless) and delighted to take part. The Swedes were friendly enough but became ashamed at not being very good and, with genuinely-red faces, told me they were leaving after three rounds cos they couldn’t handle the shame.

Edinburgh is the kind of city where people of all nationalities turn up and over the last few years, I’ve seen ’em all.

Based on that experience, here’s a quick and easy, casually-racist and wholly un-scientific guide to what different nationalites are like at the pub quiz:

French: Rude as hell. Will have absolutely nothing to do with the quiz and will be VERY offended that you even asked them to take part. Bof!

Italian: Amiable and eager to take part but hopeless at answering quiz questions. Very well dressed.

Swedish: Usually very good at the actual quiz. But the streak of shame, as mentioned above, runs through everything.

Japanese: Absolutely no idea what’s going on. Delighted to be there.

Chinese: Absolutely no idea what’s going on. Not so pleased to be there.

Polish: Glad to give it a go. Too drunk to continue by round three.

Russian: Glad to give it a go. To drunk to continue by round two.

Irish: Too drunk to start the quiz before round one.

Norwegian: Speak better English than all the Brits at the quiz but their knowledge too esoteric to win the quiz. They know every detail about science and high art but nothing about pop music or films.

German: Possibly the strongest non-English speaking quizzers. Calm, ruthless, focussed. Also surprisingly brilliant at the jokes round.

American: Confused by culture-clash and flummoxed my really rather obvious accent that everyone else in the fucking world seems to be able to comprehend. However, usually extremely polite and a pleasure to have around.

Canadian: Absolutely comfortable with my accent, slightly more chippy than the yanks.

Australian: Nearly as drunk as the Irish. Often as bad at the quiz as the Italians. Always at the bar though, so very welcome.

New Zealanders: No idea really as I just tend to lump them in with the Australians as if they were some kind of suburb of Melbourne or minor county of New South Wales.

Greek: Tremendously well-educated, just not in the vital stuff like daytime television, celebrity cock-size and Scottish second-division football. Tragically overawed by cash jackpots. Usually ends in tears.

Albanians: I only ever had one Albanian team at the quiz and they were a hoot. I’d like to visit there one day, it must be amazing 🙂

So thanks for coming to the pub quiz, foreigners. Everyone loves you being at the quiz because you have almost no chance of winning. But also, we genuinely love to hear your funny jokes and wild accents, so don’t be a stranger. Edinburgh is open to the world!