Q: Why have we become a nation of quiz fanatics?

Who was the only British prime minister to marry a divorced person? Go on, even if you don't know, you can work it out somehow, especially if there's a Substantial Cash Prize for such knowledge. What was the name of Elizabeth Barrett's dog? It's on the tip of your tongue, isn't it? Need a clue? Virginia Woolf wrote a novella about the brute, with its name as the title... I can see you smiting your brow with frustration. OK then, in which branch of zoology would you encounter an ichthyologist? Birds? You're just guessing now...

Who was the only British prime minister to marry a divorced person? Go on, even if you don't know, you can work it out somehow, especially if there's a Substantial Cash Prize for such knowledge. What was the name of Elizabeth Barrett's dog? It's on the tip of your tongue, isn't it? Need a clue? Virginia Woolf wrote a novella about the brute, with its name as the title... I can see you smiting your brow with frustration. OK then, in which branch of zoology would you encounter an ichthyologist? Birds? You're just guessing now...

We love all this stuff. We have become a nation of quiz fanatics, apparently. According to new research, one in 10 British people describe themselves as "quizaholics" (the figure rises to one in three among the over-60s), four out of five people who watch TV quizzes compete with the contestants, and two in five think they know more than the quaking ignoramus in the hot seat. And the majority of the audience think the questions are too easy. And 14 per cent of people canvassed said they would happily cheat if it gave them a better chance of winning.

Despite the danger of appearing a complete berk in front of your mates, pub quizzes and school evening quizzes have gained in popularity to a frankly crackpot degree. The hottest ticket in London nightclub circles next week is Jeremy Beadle's Atlantic Quiz, in which teams from GQ, Time Out and The Independent will be competing with media brain-boys like David Baddiel and Jonathan Ross to find out who knows the nationality of the boxer Oscar Bonaventura.

When quizzes started appearing on pub machines, and the book of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? became everyone's perfect Christmas stocking-filler, you could tell that something had happened to the national psyche.

Right then: we know that a simple thirst for knowledge isn't what drives people to win. Nor is a huge cash prize, when most pub-quiz fans won't win more than a round of drinks and some barbecue-flavoured crisps. So why are we so keen on the things? The survey people wheeled out a boffin from the Institute of Psychiatry at London University to say that it's all about having rules and formats.

I don't believe it. The lure of quizzes is about more than rules or money. It's about self-esteem. At a time when General Knowledge as a scholarly accomplishment has gone the way of Playing the Virginals, the quiz does something odd to you. It reminds you of how much you didn't realise you knew. It hints at vast continents of unexpected learning inside your head, waiting to be downloaded. It floods you with the pleasure of having so many facts in your possession, like a collection of semi-precious stones.

I have not the faintest idea why I should know that there are 59 vertebrae in a goose's neck, nor that Rameses II invented hieroglyphics, nor that "carthorse" is an anagram of "orchestra". As days follow days, some unknown store-and-retrieve system in your head is selecting things to retain, solely on the grounds that they will be useful in future quizzes.

But the fact that I know these foolish things - and that knowing them suddenly has a value - fills me with surprise as much as elation.

If you know just one single thing more than a contestant on the Millionaire show, you can pour contempt on them, impress your children with your sneery omniscience, and congratulate yourself on being an intellectual.

Quizzes are perfect pleasures - easier than reading, less time-consuming than doing a degree, more fun than conversation. At the start of the 21st century, who would've thought that the most cool and satisfying modern possession might be knowledge?

(Answers: Mrs Thatcher; Flush; fish; Argentine)

j.walsh@independent.co.uk