Tuesday 28 June 2011

Shock News - Some People Cheat in Quizzes !

I try to do the papers every morning, and at the same time keep one eye on the BBC Breakfast News - ah , Susanna Reid - and this morning I was surprised by a couple of things. Firstly, that they mentioned pub quizzing at all, and secondly, that they seem to think the idea that people cheat in pub quizzing using their phones is in any way 'news'.

I don't know if you happened to catch the item at all or not. If not, you can find it here : -
BBC News - Time Called On Pub Quiz Cheats

I don't know, see what you think, but as well as being a non story, the report also seemed to me to be a nice little plug for Redtooth Quizzes. ( "We would probably never do the question - what's the capital of somewhere - unless it was something like what's the capital of Trumpton ? " I can well believe that.) You might recall that Martin Green of Redtooth wrote to me some time ago when he found a comment that I made a couple of years ago saying that I didn't like Redtooth quizzes. I don't like Redtooth Quizzes. That's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. If you play in them and enjoy them, then good luck to you. In it he said,

"Hi David

My name is Martin Green and I write pop culture and trivia questions for the 4,000 pubs and clubs that play one of 23 different quizzes produced each week by Redtooth.

Our main objective is to stop the smartest quiz teams from winning and killing the quiz nights.

You are living proof that this is working."


Bloody cheek !

So you can appreciate that it makes one just a little irritated to see them being held up as some kind of saviours of pub quizdom.

5 comments:

Will Jones said...

That connection question with Google is IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Londinius said...

Hi Will

Would that be just a touch of sarcasm I detect there, Mr. Jones ?

Dave

Ben Dutton said...

I play in a Redtooth quiz at the moment, once a week, and the pub is full of people using their mobiles. Two weeks ago, out of a total of 60 (always the top mark in a Redtooth quiz), the winners scored 58. The two questions they got wrong were both in the picture round - and obscured photograph that google googles couldn't identify and a close-up that failed for the same reason.

The following week a different quiz master hosted and said anybody caught cheating would have 15 points deducted. That team who scored 58 scored 23 out of 60. We won, with 46 and no phone use and were ten points ahead of the rest.

So yeah, Mr Redtooth Man, you can cheat on your quizzes, even on those connections rounds (which is only 1 point anyway, and rarely makes a difference). About ten teams in one pub alone do every week.

Still, nice to see the BBC again putting another good non-story on the news. It's almost like they don't want to report the news.

Gruff said...

"You've got the same question but written in a clever way"
Sorry are there two Redtooth companies out there?

And Trumpton is the county town of Trumptonshire, it has no capital itself. grrrr

But then Redtooth quizzes are often riddled with errors so why would I be surprised?

Darcy said...

whats with all the hate on redtooth? it is a brilliant company and has been ever since it was founded, martin green is an amazing man, hes extremely intelligent and very wise, there is no point in being mean when you know for a fact that he is much better than all of you.