Welcome to Reprieve's House of Trivia

Let’s make one thing clear: Reprieve’s House of Trivia quiz was not for fun; it was for winning.  

The taunting began on twitter hours before the event.  Glamour(ous) Editor Jo Elvin was swatting up on Wikipedia, while author Nick Harkaway was proclaiming his prowess.  

As the sun set over Broadgate Tower last Thursday night twenty one quiz teams streamed into Reed Smith’s stunning offices on the 32^nd floor.  The great, the good and the very, very glamorous turned out: from fashionistas like Vogue and Christian Dior, to lawyers such as Landmark Chambers and Freshfields; from bankers such as WHEB group and Insparo Asset Management, to those of a more literary persuasion such as The Folio Society and some of investigative journalism’s finest.  All had their thinking caps firmly on, and their competitive hackles raised, for one very good reason: to win a week at the stunning Dar Sinclair in Morocco.  Oh, and of course to support the vital work of Reprieve.

Our host was the tireless stalwart Jon Snow who, as he does every year, pedalled down straight after reading the news and donned his Reprieve-orange tie (which he later, very generously, auctioned off). Reprieve’s model-turned-charity-fundraiser-extraordinnaire Jacquetta Wheeler kicked off the proceedings by talking about her love for Reprieve and her belief in what we do.   

Every office on the 32nd floor had a theme, and when inside each room every quiz team had to answer eight questions provided by celebrity’s expert in that field: Stephen Fry had written literature, Imran Khan sport and Colin Firth film.  The teams were chaperoned – herded, really – around the rooms by their very own Reprieve staff member.  Despite strict instructions not to provide assistance the staff were clearly far more corruptible than had been hoped, offering nods and winks and help with questions throughout.  

Perhaps the rivalry would dissipate over the course of the evening?  No.  The Folio Society, who came fourth, lived up to expectations by pointing out a slight inaccuracy in one of the literature questions. And if Ben Goldsmith wasn’t competing with men from the Freshfields team about his ‘Movember’ moustache, he was colluding with his sister Jemima Khan – who was on a different team - for answers. All to no avail, though, as Bianca Jagger handed the first prize to David Ross’ formidable group of brains, who beat the Conde Nast team into a painfully close – one point! – second place.  

The fun was plentiful but it was, of course, all to support Reprieve’s work and everyone fell silent as founder Clive Stafford Smith spoke about Tariq Aziz - a young Pakistani boy he met at a Reprieve-hosted drones conference recently.  Tariq was killed by an unmanned drone just a few hours after attending the conference.  Obviously moved by the story everyone fell silent; it was a fittingly sombre moment among a otherwise raucous affair.

The night ended with Clive, Jacquetta and Vivienne Westwood all donning the chaperone’s hats and posing for photographs in the corridor while journalist Ray Bonner gave his chaperone, Reprieve investigator Chris Chang, his thoughts on the Bush v. Gore election - “It’s a fix, there were hanging chads I tell you.”  And as the guests tripped out into the night all were heard declaring the event a wicked success.  Some had won raffle prizes, some had won quiz prizes, but all had generously supported and contributed to Reprieve’s work.  And that, I think you’ll agree, is a job well done.