How'd the i>New York Post Hear About Tuesday Night Trivia? Certainly not from me—honest! I truly don't know what inspired a Post writer to plug Tuesday Night Trivia—mentioning me and Caren by name—in the midst of an article on game nights that appeared in Thursday's edition. We must be popular or something.

The first I heard of Tuesday Night Trivia's Post recognition was yesterday, when Baggot Inn owner Tom O'Byrne wrote to me on Friday to tell me of the story. I still haven't seen a copy of the article (though the link above will take you to the online version). The writer probably has no idea that I work one day a week for that esteemed paper.

Speaking of Tuesday Night Trivia, if you're planning to attend this Tuesday, I recommend that you arrive about a half-hour early to get a good table, meaning at 7 p.m. or so. (Feel free to bring in food if you desire.) Richard Ryan is making it the October home of his monthly Cocktail Caravan (he'll also be a guest quizmaster for one round of the game), so we'll have a lot of new players.

Happy to Be Obeying GAG Orders... which is why The Dawn Patrol's been incommunicado this week. The silence breaks within 24 hours as I share my good news with you, probably under this very headline. Promise.

Did You Hear the One About the 288 Eggs?

[Wait for it ...]

It's two gross.

[Rimshot]

The above joke was told to me by my old friend Derek Tague after his phone call woke me up at two minutes to eight o'clock this morning. He also told me that he learned yesterday that he is going to be a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Actually, that was the reason for his call, but he couldn't resist telling me the joke as well.

Derek's taping is Tuesday. It won't surprise me in the least if he actually wins the million. He's very, very good at trivia. He's also a naturally funny guy, with a nerdy coolness that is both self-aware and genuinely unaffected. If you were looking for a modern-day Herb Stempel, you really couldn't come closer than this man.

In case you're wondering, I did offer to be a Lifeline. Derek replied that he didn't need one; he already had the maximum of five. Well, if he misses the question about what year did Gene Clark leave the Byrds, he can't blame me. Humph! (It was 1966.)

Derek is such a modest guy that he didn't even tell me that the joke he told me is his "Joke of the Week" on the aforementioned John Schnall's Web site, nor that Schnall devotes a whole set of Web pages to Derek's humor. I had to discover it in a Web search.

The Groovy Bit Always Faces Up ... and Other Oxford Wisdom:
Fabiani Society attendee Jeremy Hildreth, an economist and political journalist who has written for The Wall Street Journal and others, won't be seen at the Princeton Club for a while. He's taken up residence in the hallowed halls of Oxford University, where he's studying for a master's degree in economics.

Jeremy has always impressed me in that he seems far too modest to be as talented a writer as he is. While he's certainly warm and witty, it's not in his nature to be a self-promoter. (At least, not in a group setting; with individual editors, his promotional talents are legend. He's the only non-rock-critic I've known who's managed to get some of his articles not just doubled [that is, reprinted once], but tripled or even quadrupled.) He's a natural observer, able to analyze his surroundings without feeling the need to assert his presence in them. So it wasn't too surprising that the first e-missive from his new home was brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that I requested and received permission from him to reprint it on The Dawn Patrol.

As Jeremy's report, The Groovy Bit Always Faces Up, is too long to print in this space, I've given it its own page. But, if you need a tease, here it is:

"About two musket shots further up the road," was the bizarre answer I got (from a semi-retired professor, I was about to learn) to the question, "Excuse me, where's South Parade Street?" This was puzzling, as I was heading north on the Banbury Road at the time, and had just crossed North Parade Street. I knew that historically England has thought of itself as the center of the world—and not without cause, I hasten to add—but I didn't know they'd gone so far as to reverse the globe's polarity. The professor gave me a plausible explanation, however, involving the king's troops or some such, but I promptly forgot it. Things that don't make sense are hard to remember. But he did give me a ride north to South Parade. En route, he said he considers America to be one of Britain's most successful colonies. Golly gee thanks.