Quiz Board Games

" I bet nobody ever wants to play you at Trivial Pursuit !"
Be honest, many of you are bound to have been told this before, at one time or another. It's been a few years now, but only last week, at the Ton Pentre quiz this one was unleashed once again. I brought it upon myself by winning the quiz playing as a singleton. Cards on the table, winning as a singleton is not a thing which I would advise anybody to make a habit of doing, but once in a while it can be quite fun. Still, it does draw attention to yourself. If there's two of you, then you can pass all the credit onto your team mate while he's at the bar, or in the gents. On your own, though, you can only pass so much off as being lucky guesses.

Well, as I say, the comment was made , to which the correct reply is , " Ha, ha, well, I'd never thought of that. But you're right, nobody does ever want to play me at Trivial Pursuit. " Which did actually lead to a train of thought, along the lines of, well, nobody I know actually plays Trivial Pursuit anyway, me included. Come to think of it, does anybody still play Trivial Pursuit at all ?

I always had mixed feelings about the game. I loved the fact that actually knowing a lot of quiz stuff gave me a distinct advantage, but I hated the fact that a lot of the questions were boring, unguessable, and in some cases just plain wrong. Yet I was always a lot more interested in the questions than collecting the cakes, or cheeses, or whatever they were.

Once upon a time, though, Trivial Pursuit did give birth to a bewilderingly wide range of board based quiz games, or quiz based board games. Hardly any of which I have ever played. My kids did buy me the University Challenge game from a car boot sale, which doesn't have a board, but does have buzzers, which is a huge plus. Questions are not that difficult, but its quite fun, albeit that the only times I have been allowed to play have been as question master.

Did anyone ever play any of these other games ? I'm thinking specifically of the Trivial Pursuit - inspired quiz based games, many of which were spin offs from TV - A Question of Sport in particular comes to mind. If so, were any of them actually any good ? I have my doubts, but I am very willing to be convinced otherwise.

Answers to news questions

Sorry – been a bit busy – just realized that I hadn’t got round to posting the answers yet. Here they are : -
Broadfield Industrial Estate Boston
There was an explosion in an illegal brewing operation which killed 5 men

Jaycee Dugard
The sex captive whose book topped the Amazon lists before it was published

Philip Pook
Bridgend man in court for using an electric shock collar on his dog

Steve Williams
Tiger Woods’ sacked caddie

Mark Smith
BA Manager who made £250,000 by buying cheap advance tickets, then selling them as last minute tickets at huge mark up.

Lucy Harris
Student jailed for fraud – using credit cards obtained in her mother and grandmother’s names

Hina Rabbani Khar
First female Pakistani Foreign Minister

Sean Hoare
News of the World whistle blower who passed away last week

Colin and Chris Weir
Couple from Largs who scooped the biggest Euromillions jackpot of £161 million

Voyager
RAF’s biggest ever transport plane

Harold Jones of Brecon
Completed his degree which he abandoned during World War II

Tim Godwin
Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police

John Allen
US General taking over the mission in Afghanistan from David Petraeus

Brian Fields of Hessle
Butcher whose wife leaving led to rumours about his sexuality, so he put notices up in shop window saying ‘I’m Not Gay’

Clare Evans
Internet glamour model convicted of benefit fraud

Malcolm Hughes
Man found guilty of driving his landrover straight at a helicopter

John Whittingdale MP
Chairman of Commons Media, Culture and Sport select committee questioning the Murdochs

Tom Pellereau
Winner of the Apprentice

Tom Lewis
Winner of silver medal for best amateur golfer in the Open

Steve Tasker
Barnsley postman convicted of hoarding mail when drunk

Johnnie Marbles
‘Comedian’ who attacked Rupert Murdoch with a foam pie

Richard Parks
Former Wales rugby international who completed his ascent of highest peaks of all continents for charity last week

Anthony Harman
Postman who stole letters, claiming stress caused by homophobic bullying

Freddie Ratliff
6 ft 6 tall 13 year old, youngest person to play basketball for England

Angie Scoular
Former Bond girl, wife of Leslie Phillips – died in April – inquest returned verdict of suicide

Goran Hadzic
Croatian serb leader arrested – the last fugitive sought by the UN War Crimes court

Oscar Pistorius
‘Blade Runner’ – double amputee South African athlete whose personal record set last week has qualified him for the London Olympics, after being cleared to compete by international bodies

Rebecca Leighton
Nurse arrested in connection with Insulin poisoning in Stepping Hill Hospital

Secret of the Unicorn
Steven Spielberg’s forthcoming Tintin film

Glen Mulcaire
Private Investigator whose legal fees were underwritten by News International

What is the top name for both cats and dogs in the UK ?
Poppy

What are being used to bait mosquito traps in Tanzania ?
Smelly Socks

Springbok Captain John Smit has joined which club ?
Saracens

Wales are currently ranked immediately below whom in FIFAs international rankings ?
Faeroe Islands

Which grandson of King George V died last week ?
The Earl of Harewood

Which welsh town has asked for more traffic wardens ?
Aberystwyth

Which is the world’s most expensive city based on the cost of living for ex-pats ?
Luanda

Which premier league footballer was convicted of driving at 107mph, yet not banned ?
Thomas Hitzlsperger

For which club has Jonathan Woodgate signed ?
Stoke City

Which strategically important town has been captured by Libyan rebels ?
Brega

To which team did Bangor City lose in the Champions League ?
HJK Helsinki

Who is the captain of the Indian cricket team ?
M.S.Dhoni

Which country has introduced a controversial carbon tax ?
Australia

In a survey what emerged as Britons’ top holiday hate ?
Not being able to sleep in own bed

What was the nationality of the 5 men killed in the illegal brewing explosion ?
Lithuanian

Shay Given has moved from which team to which other ?
Man City to Aston Villa

Zahi Hawass has been sacked. What was his job ?
Chief of the Antiquities service in Egypt – described himself as the ‘Egyptian Indiana Jones’

With which club has the off again on again off again transfer saga with Man City’s Tevez run ?
Corinthians

Which is the first Afghan province handed over to Afghan security forces by NATO ?
Bamian

Jane Fonda’s appearance on what was cancelled due to their lingering resentment over her political activism over the Vietnam War ?
QVC

China were enraged about who meeting whom ?
Barack Obama meeting the Dalai Lama

Which is the UK’s top college for degree results ?
Trinity , Cambridge

Who beat whom in the women’s football world cup final ?
Japan beat USA on penalties after extra time

What was the name of JK Rowling’s childhood home, put up for sale ?
Church Cottage

Name the Cornish animation company which collaborated on Jungle Junction ?
Spider Eye

Which Olympic athlete was in court last week over driving charges ?
Linford Christie

What is the unusual phobia that Rebecca Adlington confessed to having last week ?
Fear of odd numbers

Which radio 1 DJ angered deaf people with her uncomplimentary tweets about film subtitles ?
Sara Cox

Who said that he feels that he is past his sell by date ?
Prince Charles

What is the name of the News International Lawyers who also represent the Royals in various capacities?
Harbottle and Lewis

Who is the first British competitor to qualify for the London Olympics ?
Keri Ann Payne – the world 10k Open Water Champion

A website has been created asking ordinary Americans to make donations for the building of what ?
A better border fence with Mexico

To whom or what has Darren Clarke donated his Open Winner’s gold medal ?
Royal Portrush Golf Club

Which actor has a suspected case of DVT after filming “The Hobbit” in New Zealand ?
James Nesbitt

Who is leading the High Court challenge to the library closures in the London Borough of Brent ?
Alan Bennett

Thanks, QuizMasterBlaster

I don’t know if you’re reading this, QuizMasterBlaster, but I just wanted to thank you. On my DIY Quiz Trippers post of last Saturday QuizMasterBlaster left a comment , telling me of three quizzes in Ton Pentre. Well, it was enough to whet my interest, and Ton Pentre is certainly within the kind of distance I don’t mind travelling for a quiz when I’m not in work the next day. I thought about giving John a ring and inviting him, but I was a little wary for a couple of reasons. I know that if I asked John would feel obliged to come even if he didn’t really fancy it. Also I had no idea how good or bad the quiz was going to be. Come to that I had no idea what the standard of the other teams was going to be like either. So thinking about it I decided to go by myself, and if it was a bad experience then I could just write it off as one of those things.

I’ll be honest, it was pretty much worth going just for the drive. It was a fine evening in South Wales last night, and to get from Port Talbot to Ton Pentre I drove inland along the Afan Valley, and in to the Rhondda Valley. I thought that some of the scenery and the views were absolutely stunning. I’ve lived here for a quarter of a century, yet I can only ever remember driving over the Bwlch once before, and for someone bought up in the city like me, well, it was all very impressive.

Last night’s quiz was in the New Inn. I was impressed at the wide, slightly raised stage which was given over to the quiz master, although somewhat less impressed with the fact that he wasn’t given a mike to work with. Still, he soldiered on manfully. I did wonder whether QuizMasterBlaster himself/herself would be there, and so I asked Chris the question master if it was him. He just looked completely perplexed. So, QuizMasterBlaster, if you were there, I’m sorry that I didn’t introduce myself – I did try !

The quiz was a good, honest pub quiz. There were two rounds, and the question master marked each of the rounds by himself. The first round was 20 questions, and each one would begin with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. So 1 began with A ( Alabama in this case ) and so on. The one which made me think twice was – what name is given to someone who makes bells ? It began with F , so after mentally weighing up the options I played the percentages with – founder. Thankfully correct. The second round had the final 6 alphabet questions, and then another 4 general ones. Then for the final round we finished off with 10 more general knowledge questions. Here I got one wrong , not knowing what a person in the Middle Ages would do with a rouncy . Well, it was a term for a horse, so the answer wanted was ride it. Live and learn.

Yeah, alright, I did win. One team dropped just two points in the first 30 questions, but fell away a bit in the last, and there was daylight between us in the end. There was a cash prize as well, which is rare enough nowadays, and something I was never going to turn my nose up at. All in all a good fun evening- so once again, thanks QuizMasterBlaster.

University Challenge - Round One - Match Four

Queen’s University Belfast v. University of Newcastle

Queen’s, the first university in Northern Ireland, entered this year, so said JP, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of their championship win. The team consisted of Niall McDonald, Joshua Greenwood, Ronan Kernan, and captain Thomas Haverty.
Newcastle were formerly the federal arm of the University of Durham, up until 1963 unless I misheard. They were represented by Ben Dunbar, Ross Dent, Nicholas Pang, and captain Eleanor Turner.

Neither team fancied diving straight in on the first starter, where a list of possible meanings for a word were given, and the one word which fit all of them was asked for. Eventually Ronan Kernan buzzed in with – open, and Queen’s were off and running. Two bonuses followed on alma mater. Ronan Kernan then buzzed in early on the next starter – he knew that the country being referred to was South Korea, but JP had asked for the capital city – a fact which Ben Dunbar gratefully acknowledged when he buzzed in to take the pints for Seoul. 1 bonus on naval bases was taken. A definition of a letter from Johnson’s dictionary followed – Eleanor Turner knew it had to be – h. This was then followed by the first picture starter, a nice idea, which showed a route taken by a famous explorer. Ronan Kernan ventured Cook, but Nicholas Pang knew that it was Magellan. No doubt about it, even at this early stage Newcastle were edging ahead. The team managed two of the bonuses, which were more of the same, only missing out on Batholemew Dias. Neither team fancied notation for algebra, so it was left to skipper Thomas Haverty to take the next starter by knowing that the equation V=H0D refers to Hubble’s Equation. Fair enough. 1 bonus on the art world in 1911 brought the scores at the ten minute mark to 30 for Queen’s as opposed to 50 for Newcastle.

Nicholas Pang took the next starter with a good early buzz. He knew that Salman Rushdie et al were exponents of magic realism. 2 bonuses on astronomy followed. A rare starter mistake from Newcastle followed, as definitions of several words which could end with the same scrabble letter were given. Ross Dent couldn’t quite get it, but Ronan Kernan could see that it was Q. This brought up a great set of bonuses on poetry. For each bonus, a set of words from a particular poem would be given in the order in which they appeared. They all escaped Queen’s, who didn’t escape the wrath of Paxman. More on this later. Nicholas Pang recognized the subtitle of ‘Small is Beautiful’ for the next starter, which brought up a set of bonuses on cheesemaking. Well, blessed are the cheesemakers, after all. Then the music starter – on the Eurovision Song Contest. Can open – worms all over the floor. More about JP’s reaction to that later on as well. Neither team took the starter on offer, but when Nicholas Pang took the next on bier/beer, this brought up the bonuses on the Eurovision. Much to JP’s delight none of these were taken. A great early buzz from skipper Eleanor Turner took the next starter- she knew that the surname linking Tescos and Ben and Jerry’s is Cohen. 2 bonuses followed on Russian writers and duels. Neither team knew Manon Lescaut for the next starter, but Joshua Greenwood of Queen’s knew that the sister who egged on Orestes to avenge their father’s death was Electra. 2 bonuses followed on chemistry. So at the 20 minute mark the score now stood at 60 to Queen’s, and 120 to Newcastle.

A 60 point gap is not all that huge, believe it or not, if a team is on song. However in all honesty it really didn’t look at all likely that Queen’s could pull back. Still, Ronan Kernan gave it a bash by correctly identifying a painting of a scene from “Romeo and Juliet”. They couldn’t take any of the bonuses, though, which were admittedly pretty tough, I thought. Ben Dunbar pulled out the lead again when he correctly identified an eye condition as astigmatism. I got that starter too, but since I have astigmatism myself it’s hardly surprising. A wonderful set of UC specials followed on American states. They worked like this. JP gave 2 cities – example Denver and Chicago. The team had to take the abbreviations for the states where these cities are found – Colorado (CO ) and Illinois (IL ) and combine them to make a word – coil. Got it ? Newcastle did – they got 2 out of the 3, and were very much warmed to their task by this stage of the competition. Eleanor Turner kept up the good work by explaining that Fianchetto in chess involves moving a bishop. A full set of bonuses on origins of sporting organisations was gratefully snapped up by Ben Dunbar. Who then went on to identify the petri dish as the correct answer to the next starter. 2 bonuses were taken where the team had to identify the start of which century saw a set of particular monarchs on the throne of their respective country. Ben Dunbar then made it a double by identifying Venezuela for the next starter. A good set were taken on European languages, with I thought a brilliant shout by Nicholas Pang on the second question which called for him to identify Armenian. No better than Eleanor Turner’s answer for the next starter, where she correctly identified that whatever it was JP was talking about, it would put out 36 amps. A good full set followed on terms which begin with chloro - . Neither Ben Dunbar nor Joshua Greenwood could identify that the only English pope and the Sailor King and Ivan the Terrible both shared the regnal number 4th ( Adrian IV – William IV – Ivan IV). So, to bring the contest to a conclusion Ronan Kernan identified a film with characters called Man and Boy as The Road. Only time enough remained for two bonuses on volcanic islands. At the gong the final score was Newcastle 235 – Queen’s 85.

Hard lines Queen’s. You sensed that they were rather better than the score suggests – certainly based on some of their bonus answers, but their buzzer work was found wanting last night. As for Newcastle, they are a good team, a team which is probably greater than the sum of their parts. Unless I’m mistaken 3 of the 4 team members all managed 4 starters. How far they will go , well, that remains to be seen. But well done !

Jeremy Paxman Watch

Ah, the main man is back on form ! Joshua Greenwood dared to offer a hopeful answer of The Rape of The Lock to one of the poetry bonuses. “How on earth did you get that !?” scoffed JP, the correct answer being Gray’s Elegy in a Country Churchyard. He does so hate it when they get a literature question wrong.

Then we had the Eurovision questions. The producers must have just put these in to get a reaction from him, because he’s been far too nice so far this series. When Newcastle gave an incorrect answer he turned to Queen’s with,
“You can’t want to hear any more. “ as in – I don’t care if you want to , because I’m not going to let you hear any more. Then when Queen’s failed to give a correct answer, he sighed,
“There’s more of this rubbish coming up .” knowing that the set of Eurovision bonuses would carry over. A funny comment when we heard the classic “Take Me To Your Heaven” by the rather lovely Charlotte Nilsson, and Newcastle plumped for Sweden in the 70s, was
“No, it was Sweden in the 90s. Time stood still in Sweden a long time. “
As it was Newcastle failed to get any of them right, a fact which was greatly approved of by JP, who purred “There’s no shame in getting these wrong , by the way. “ I propose that JP should be asked if he’d like to chair a celebrity edition of “A Question of the Eurovision Song Contest” for Children in Need next year, and his reaction to the question should be filmed.
I rather like the Eurovision myself, but I digress.

Interesting Fact Of The Week That I Didn’t Already Know

Big Ben – the bell within the clock tower – was cracked in 1862, and following its repair it doesn’t sound ‘e’ properly.

Kryptonite

I apologise in advance, because I know that this whole post is going to sound arrogant.

It’s probably a very immature thing to admit to, but the fact is that in a number of the social quizzes I go to, I do like the feeling of being the top dog in my own backyard as it were. Not so much the rugby club, perhaps. My team does tend to win more quizzes than any other team, but it’s not a case of domination. If Rob and the Lemurs have a full team, then it’s going to be a competitive match, and they win their fair share. Not so the Monday quiz in the Pill Harriers in Newport, either. There’s some good teams that play there every week, and while we win fairly regularly we certainly don’t win more than anyone else. We wouldn’t win all the time even if there were no handicaps either. It’s a competitive quiz.

However there are some other quizzes I go to fairly regularly which I expect to win in the normal course of events. Many of the Sunday night quizzes that we’ve attended in the past few years fall into this category. Now, and here I am beginning to wend my way round to connecting up with the title of this post, when you expect to win a quiz almost as a matter of course, it’s a very short step to beginning to worry that THIS week is going to be the week when you finally lose. This is the week when they will finally discover what your particular quiz kryptonite is.

You’ll know of course that kryptonite is the substance that the writers of the Superman comic strip created when it was becoming difficult to put him into any situation where he could conceivably be in any danger. Without going into long and boring details about the different properties of the different varieties of kryptonite, basically it robs of him of his powers, weakens him, and long enough exposure to it would kill him.

Most quizzers probably have categories of question which they consider to be weaknesses. I certainly do. It’s these subjects that are your quiz kryptonite. All it would take would be for a high proportion of questions on these categories to be injected into an otherwise harmless quiz, and suddenly everyone else would get to see that you’re human after all, and vulnerable. I’ll give you an example. It’s a shame to admit it, but I find cricket a difficult subject. As I think I may have mentioned before, I have nothing against the sport. For example, both the 1981 and the 2005 Ashes series are in my all-time top 10 most enthralling sporting contests. But the fact is that I think my attention span is just too short to be able to immerse myself in it. Lord knows, I do try, but the fact is that cricket facts, and cricket knowledge just don’t seem to stick with me. So if I’m in a quiz, and you want to shove a couple of banana skins underneath my feet, just make with the cricket questions. Now you know.

There are other areas of kryptonite for both John and me as a team, but you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t share them with you now. You never know which question masters might be reading ( and if you are – Hi ! You’re very welcome. ) .

Before we go any further, I’m happy to report that we won last night’s quiz, despite the fact that Rob, his wife Pam, and two quizzing friends made an unexpected appearance. I blame myself – I’ve been going on to him about how good the Sunday night quiz is. So at least we’re still on the pedestal . . . at least until next Sunday, that is.

Favourite answer for some time : -

SOrry , I forgot about this when I wrote the last post earlier.

It was my quiz at the rugby club on Thursday, and as one of the old chestnuts I asked - which well known australian aboriginal word roughly translates into english as 'I don't know ' ? - the answer being kangaroo.

ON the next round, one of the teams, Vestas - answered the first 9 questions, then put kangaroo for the answer to the tenth. I am ashamed to say that it took me five minutes to twig what they meant.

DIY Quiz Tripping

Well, I’ve been off work for two days, since we broke up for the Summer on Wednesday, and I must admit that after all the excitement of last weekend I’m starting to feel more like myself again. Not sure if that’s necessarily a good thing, but there we are, just stuck with it, I suppose.

Had an interesting conversation inspired by Quiz Trippers after the rugby club quiz on Thursday night. One of the boys was quite fired up by the idea of trying to do a road trip of a similar sort, landing on different quizzes, and seeing how much he could win by the end of the week/fortnight, whatever. God bless. My advice to him was to pick a nice part of the country, where he wouldn’t mind going on holiday anyway, and then anything he won in quizzes would be a bonus.

I will admit that I don’t know the current state of quizzing in any part of the country other than my own. So it may well be that large cash prizes are in abundance the length and breadth of the land. Yet I doubt it. Certainly in my part of South Wales I think that if the makers of Quiz Trip wanted to do one along the M4 corridor, the only way they could do it would be by putting up special cash prizes themselves. Which, come to think of it, is probably exactly how they did it in Scotland.

Cards on the table, cash prizes do not excite me now in the way that they used to. Case in point – I’ve mentioned before that there is one Monday night quiz in Cardiff – no names , no pack drill – where there is a £100 first prize every week. In 2 years I’ve been 6 or 7 times. Yes, I won all bar the first time, thanks for asking. I don’t like the actual quiz that much, and I hate the cavalier attitude to phone cheating within the quiz. Yet time was that I would have been there at least once a fortnight, and possibly even once a week, until either I killed the quiz by winning it too often, or the cash prize got drastically reduced or abolished altogether, or I got told not to come back . Incidentally all three of those have happened to me at one time or another in the past, however I digress.

As I say, I don’t get too excited by winning cash prizes any more. I’m not entirely sure why. Partly I’d guess its because in the last three or four years lots of these have disappeared locally anyway, as either quizzes have folded, or pubs have switched to bottle of wine/beer tickets type prizes. It may be partly due to the fact that I’m enjoying my quizzes now as much as I ever have, and I don’t want to ruin an evening by going to a bad quiz just to try to win some money. Whatever the case I’ve gone past the stage of my quiz career when I looked on pub quizzing as a small but regular sources of extra unearned income.

However, there was a time when I did look on it this way. Since I started playing in the rugby club on a Thursday night, that quiz has always been sacrosanct, and I never wanted to go anywhere else on a Thursday. Other nights of the week, though, were fair game as far as John and I were concerned. We did go through a stage of trying out any prize quiz we could find out anything about between west Cardiff and Swansea, which admittedly is nothing like the 200 and odd mile radius of Quiz Trippers, but then we didn’t have a camper van, or a film crew behind us either. Now, in the normal run of things John and I expect to win the majority of pub quizzes in which we play. That’s not a boast, and its not that huge an achievement. After all, and I really am not trying to offend or insult anyone here, the quizzing scene for about the last 7 or 8 years really has not been all that competitive in our area. Thank goodness that we have the league in Bridgend ; you know that I rate the league highly from my posts about it during last season. But that’s about it. As far as I know there hasn’t been a Sunday League in Cardiff for a good few years. There hasn’t been a league in Neath for the last 10 years, and there hasn’t been a league in Port Talbot for over 20 years. In my opinion this means that there just isn’t the incentive, or necessarily the opportunity for the potentially good player to develop beyond what is needed to be competitive in their local quiz . However, that is just my opinion, and as always . . .

So , bearing this in mind, you might be interested in how this all worked out over a period of time. Well, you can imagine that we had quite a variety of different experiences.

We probably started with the Welcome Inn in Morriston, near Swansea. That was a themed quiz, with a small cash prize for first place, and nowt for second. We won more than our fair share, which upset the team who used to win every week before we arrived. The cash prize really wasn’t anything to write home about , but it was enough to attract a team I knew from the Swansea League. I saw them entering out of the corner of my eye, and said nothing. They didn’t notice me, and I earwigged as they were at the bar. The skipper was saying that he’d had a look around, and he didn’t recognize any quizzers there, so the money was as good as in the bag. Then I greeted him. To be fair it only took him a minute or two to put his smile back into place. This one changed when the landlord moved on, and to be honest we had itchy feet anyway, and fancied trying something different.

Working from Cardiff towards Swansea we tried a number in and around Cardiff. There was a very strange evening in Moulton at the 3 Horseshoes.

• Rule of Thumb One : - When you ring up pubs to ask if their Sunday night quiz is running, if they say it’s on they invariably tell you to turn up very early, because , and I quote, “Get y’ere early, because its always packed, mun. “ With some places it will be, but many of them it won’t.


So, bearing in mind that the quiz was advertised as starting at 8, we were there at 7:30. The quiz didn’t start until gone 9. It was very easy, and the question master talked too much, all the way through. We won by a street. In the end the question master called us up to collect the first prize, and with the immortal words,
"You think you’re having a cash prize, don’t you ? " he handed us a bottle of Pomagne to share.

So we tried the Pantmawr Inn in Rhiwbina. This was a nice place, with much more of a welcome than some. However there were two huge drawbacks. The first and most serious was that the place were subscribers to Redtooth – oh gawd. As you know, one of Redtooth’s avowed aims is to stop the best and most knowledgeable teams from winning every week. Didn’t work, because we won. The second was that the pub was under threat of closure, and so it was in the middle of a campaign to keep it open. We won the quiz, and first of all the landlord offered the second place team the choice of a bottle of red, or a bottle of white ( no wine, mind, just the bottle – boom boom, I’m here all week . ) Then we were also offered a choice. We could take the £10 prize money, or put it in the fighting fund. All eyes ( and possibly quite a few stomachs ) turned . I wish I could say we took the money anyway and left, but we didn’t. We stuck it in the pot and moved on.

• Rule of Thumb Two – it doesn’t matter how small the prize is, it really doesn’t go down well if you win it all or the vast majority of the time.

The Dynevor Arms in Groesfaen is an absolutely lovely place, and we used to frequent it fairly regularly. The big drawback was that the quiz only ran once a fortnight. Which made it difficult for John and me to do what we liked to do, which was to only go to any quiz once a fortnight so that we couldn’t end up winning it every week. Effectively this meant that we were playing there every week. Not that we would win it every time , since there was another good team, Double Trouble. But between the two teams we won the vast majority of them. Cash prize was probably about a tenner, and there was a rolling jackpot every week as well. In the end teams stopped coming – I remember the question master telling us that one large team had stopped because they usually saved their annual winnings for a meal at Christmas. The 18 months we were there they hadn’t won enough to afford a Happy Meal from McDonalds to share between them. Rather than ask us to stop coming, Ralph the quiz master told us one evening that he was planning on changing the format to a bingo quiz. When we pressed him, he admitted that it was to stop us winning the majority of times, which was so bad for the quiz. We stopped going rather than kill the quiz completely. Shame.

• Rule of Thumb Three – its all in the terminology – I say ‘cheating’ – he says ‘collaborating’ – you say ‘ just being friendly, mun.’

The West House in Bridgend was an interesting one. John and I put this one into our fortnightly rotation a few years back for a while. Not a bad quiz – brought in , but not from Redtooth, I’m glad to say. Themed rounds, but never as gimmicky as a Redtooth. The cash prize wasn’t a bad one either – if memory serves correctly it was somewhere in the region of £25, well worth chancing our collective arm. The first time we played we were approached by several regulars, and told we wouldn’t beat one particular team since they had an individual nicknamed Bamber in their side, who was reputed to be unbeatable. He wasn’t. Mind you, it was a while before we won again. Part of the problem was the amount of horse trading which went on with teams swapping answers . This was something which we refused to be a party to, with the result that we got told off for not entering into the spirit of the quiz. When they changed the first prize from cash to beer tokens, that finished it for me.

The Haywain in Bridgend was, for a couple of years, one half of our regular fortnightly rotation. Prize – a bottle of wine. 2 rounds of 25 or 30 questions, and all straight General Knowledge. Mark, the QM, god bless him, was not the most diligent at checking his answers, but nonetheless it was an enjoyable evening, and that was what really mattered. Actually what happened in the Haywain is a good example of how to kill a popular quiz. Lord alone knows why, but one week the landlord took it into his head to move the start time of the quiz from 9 pm on a Sunday to 7pm. We turned up one week to be told that it had already finished. Charming. 7 is just too early, I’m afraid, and so we moved on to pastures new. About a year and a half later they moved it back, but the damage had been done. Many of the regular teams had found other places to be, and it was never the same.

Two or three times we also played in the Red Dragon in Litchard near Bridgend. This was a decent enough quiz at the time, but its big attraction was a very generous jackpot at the end of the evening. The first time we went John and I shared a very nice £150 with another team for getting the three jackpot questions right. Then the second time we went, only a fortnight later, it was back up to about £100, and we won that outright. John lives in Bridgend, and via the unofficial grapevine we were asked not to come back again. About 18 months after this I did happen to pass by on a Sunday evening, and on a whim I popped in. I found out that things had changed, and they were gearing themselves up for a Redtooth. I didn’t stick around.

Right I'm going to break a rule of mine. When I won Mastermind I wa sinterviewed by the local paper, and during the interview I revealed that I had been banned from a pub quiz for being too good, yet I wouldn't say where because I wasn't going to give them any free publicity. Well, I'll now tell you where it was. It was the Tunnel Tavern in Neath. They used to do a Tuesday Night quiz in which the first prize was a gallon of beer, and if you scored 50 out of 60 or better, then you won £100. Nobody managed it before the first time that john and I did. We won it another 2 or 3 times, before the landlord banned me, blaming pressure from his regulars. Yeah, right.

Currently we play in the Dyffryn Arms in Rhos on a Sunday night. It’s a welcoming place, there’s always a good , and often a great quiz, and people don’t tend to mind too much if we win the majority of them. I guess it probably helps that we never take the prize, which is a bottle of wine that John wouldn’t want and I wouldn’t drink, so its no great loss .

---------------------------------------------------------------

I guess that I’ve got a little away from what I started writing about. But I would imagine that if you were to do your own version of Quiz Trippers it would be a lot harder than you might think. If you were going to an area you weren’t familiar with , firstly you’d have the task of finding quizzes for each evening. This is made harder by the fact that just because a quiz is advertised on the internet or in a local paper, it doesn’t actually mean that its still running at all. Even if it is running, you’ll have no real idea about format, prizes, or strength of opposition. Yet for all the drawbacks, the idea itself is not without its appeal. Hmm.

News Questions

Well, here we are again, and a lot to catch up on due to my absence last weekend. So we’d best get cracking –

Who or what are : -

Broadfield Industrial Estate Boston

Jaycee Dugard

Philip Pook

Steve Williams

Mark Smith

Lucy Harris

Hina Rabbani Khar

Sean Hoare

Colin and Chris Weir

Voyager

Harold Jones of Brecon

Tim Godwin

John Allen

Brian Fields of Hessle

Clare Evans

Malcolm Hughes

John Whittingdale MP

Tom Pellereau

Tom Lewis

Steve Tasker

Johnnie Marbles

Richard Parks

Anthony Harman

Freddie Ratliff

Angie Scoular

Goran Hadzic

Oscar Pistorius

Rebecca Leighton

Secret of the Unicorn

Glen Mulcaire

What is the top name for both cats and dogs in the UK ?

What are being used to bait mosquito traps in Tanzania ?

Springbok Captain John Smit has joined which club ?

Wales are currently ranked immediately below whom in FIFAs international rankings ?

Which grandson of King George V died last week ?

Which welsh town has asked for more traffic wardens ?

Which is the world’s most expensive city based on the cost of living for ex-pats ?

Which premier league footballer was convicted of driving at 107mph, yet not banned ?

For which club has Jonathan Woodgate signed ?

Which strategically important town has been captured by Libyan rebels ?

To which team did Bangor City lose in the Champions League ?

Who is the captain of the Indian cricket team ?

Which country has introduced a controversial carbon tax ?

In a survey what emerged as Britons’ top holiday hate ?

What was the nationality of the 5 men killed in the illegal brewing explosion ?

Shay Given has moved from which team to which other ?

Zahi Hawass has been sacked. What was his job ?

With which club has the off again on again off again transfer saga with Man City’s Tevez run ?

Which is the first Afghan province handed over to Afghan security forces by NATO ?

Jane Fonda’s appearance on what was cancelled due to their lingering resentment over her political activism over the Vietnam War ?

Chine were enraged about who meeting whom ?

Which is the UK’s top college for degree results ?

Who beat whom in the women’s football world cup final ?

What was the name of JK Rowling’s childhood home, put up for sale ?

Name the Cornish animation company which collaborated on Jungle Junction ?

Which Olympic athlete was in court last week over driving charges ?

What is the unusual phobia that Rebecca Adlington confessed to having last week ?

Which radio 1 DJ angered deaf people with her uncomplimentary tweets about film subtitles ?

Who said that he feels that he is past his sell by date ?

What is the name of the News International Lawyers who also represent the Royals in various capacities?

Who is the first British competitor to qualify for the London Olympics ?

A website has been created asking ordinary Americans to make donations for the building of what ?

To whom or what has Darren Clarke donated his Open Winner’s gold medal ?

Which actor has a suspected case of DVT after filming “The Hobbit” in New Zealand ?

Who is leading the High Court challenge to the library closures in the London Borough of Brent ?

University Challenge - Round One - Match Three

Worcester, Oxford v. Clare, Cambridge

Ah, the first Oxbridge head to head of the season. Might this mean a close match ? First to be introduced were the Worcester team of Dave Knapp, Jack Bramhill, Jonathan Metzer, and captain Rebecca Gillie. JP informed us that the skipper had only decided to give UC a go after coming away from a quiz machine and realizing she’d made a profit. Well, that’s no easy thing to do at all. Their opponents Clare were represented by Kris Cao, Daniel Janes, Jonathan Foxwell, and captain Jonathan Burley, and were another very young team, with an average age of 20.

The first sign we had that Worcester meant business was a very good early buzz from Jonathan Metzer, who realized that Pythagoras discovery of his famous theorem, and the murder of Agamemnon amongst other events both happened in a bath – although not the same one, or at the same time. 2 bonuses were taken on oysters in literature. Dave Knapp followed up , knowing that Cotopaxi is in Ecuador. Another couple of geography bonuses followed. A nice starter, the next one asked for the French word meaning – boldness – forever linked to a Turner painting . At the mention of Turner all hands leapt for the buzzer, but Jack Bramhill got there first of all with Temeraire. 2 bonuses were taken with the letter Q. It had been a whirlwind start for Worcester, and it needed Daniel Janes to stop the rot. He knew that a list of titles were all nominees for the lost Booker Prize, which enabled Clare to take a full set of bonuses on Physics. Game on. Neither team fancied the first picture starter, which showed a diagram of the brewing process. So the bonuses went with the next starter, and when the words ‘nickname’ and ‘australopithecus’ had passed JP’s lips, Jonathan Metzer knew full well that the answer had to be Lucy – or Lucy In The Ground With Arthritis as I once heard her unkindly described. Worcester were happy to take all 3 brewing bonuses. Clare quickly hit back with starters from Jonathan Foxwell and Daniel Janes on Physics and Economics, the second of which brought up a lovely set of bonuses on unusual World Championships – more of that later. So after a good fightback by Clare, Worcester’s lead at the 10 minute mark had been narrowed to 80 – 65.

Rebecca Gillie took the next starter on the Pentagon. A bonus followed on questions containing the word self. Kris Cao hit back, knowing that the mystics referred to were Sufis. 2 out of 3 bonuses were taken on the 7 deadly sins and Dante, Kris Cao buzzed early on the music starter. Yes, he knew it was Tchaikovsky, but zigged with Swan Lake. 5 points off. Jonathan Metzer zagged with The Nutcracker, and thus earned a set on music linked to animals via the film Fantasia. Only 1 taken. Undaunted, Kris Cao correctly buzzed on Blackfriars Bridge for the next starter. 2 bonuses followed on Plate tectonics, and we were all square. Then Clare took the lead for the first time in the contest when skipper Jonathan Burley answered the next starter on some Physics chappie. Still, the gap was not widened when they failed to answer any of a set of bonuses on paintings of Madonna. Sorry, that should read paintings of THE Madonna. A classic early buzz starter followed. If its Tenniel then the answer is likely to be either – Bismarck – Punch – or – Alice in Wonderland – or the Captain ( ask your parents ). When the question asked which event, then Daniel Janes won the buzzer race, knowing it was about the cartoon Dropping the Pilot. 2 bonuses followed on Parts of the Body. Jonathan Metzer narrowed the gap by correctly answering that Latin had no word for ‘the’ while German has 6. A great UC set involving doing simple arithmetic with the numbers in famous book titles followed – they did well to get 2. Neither team recognized Marlene Deitrich in the 2nd picture starter, and so the bonuses which accompanied this went to a starter on Astronomy, won by Kris Cao. So going into a tense last period, Clare now led by 150 – 125.

All was set, then , for a grandstand finish, and neither team were to disappoint us. Kris Cao, very influential from the halfway mark onwards, recognized 6 Degrees of Separation, and 2 bonuses were taken on Middlesbrough. Rebecca Gillie hit back with Cordelia, for a bonus on the year 1711. Dave Knapp maintained Worcester’s momentum with the Khaki Election of 1900, and a full set were taken on Geography. Jonathan Metzer knew Penguin Classics for the next starter – blimey, it was close – and this brought up another lovely bonus set, on working out chemical elements from clues to the first few letters of the name – eg – Japanese style animation = MANGAnese. Questions on UC are always good – tonight they were brilliant. Neither team could get a Maths starter. Worcester had a tiny lead, as JP started asking the last starter. It was Daniel Janes of Clare who took it on The Sublime. All Square again. Time remained only for 2 bonuses on Kings of England – but Clare took both of them, to win by a nailbiting 190 to 180.

JP was quite right to offer fulsome congratulations to both teams. This was a great show, and think about this. How well both teams played against good opposition – and how much better the pair of these well matched teams might do against slightly slower, or slightly poorer opposition. Both have good buzzers, and strength throughout the teams. Well played both of you – congratulations Clare, and Worcester, you will surely be back.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

Just a couple of vignettes tonight, but the first was a cracker. When asked for the mountain range which contains Mount Elbrus, captain Rebecca Gillie replied “Causacus ?”
“Its CAU – CAS – US” spelled out a rather narked JP, before realizing that he was talking to a lady, and ameliorating his tone somewhat. To the team who suggested that the photo of the actress was Margot Fonteyn he was rather incredulous. ”Fonteyn was a dancer ! “ he rather snorted. Ah, give the people what they want, JP.

Interesting Fact Of The Week That I Did Not Already Know

The hybrid sport of chess boxing ( yes, you did read that correctly ) does have its own world championships.

Un Petit Cadeau

On the subject of the French trip, I think its important to pay tribute my friend Gaëlle. Gaëlle, a Breton by birth, is the head of the French Department at work, and, I’m very happy to say, has been one of my team of form tutors since she joined us, immediately after successfully completing two terms of teaching practice as a student with us. Twas none other than she who arranged the trip, and invited me to be one of the accompanying teachers, for which many thanks, as always. OK, scene duly set. On Saturday morning we left the Centre in which we were staying, in a charming little seaside town in Normandy called Lion sur Mer ( or Leigh-on- Sure Mayor, as one proud child wrote in her diary that evening) to travel to Paris for a day’s sightseeing. About halfway there we stopped to fill the coach with fuel, and nipped in to the shop. Gaëlle noticed something that I didn’t. When we got back on the bus, she handed me a little paper bag, and inside it was a little pocket French quiz book, which she’d seen and bought for me.

Now, you know that I like quiz books very much – well, good ones or old ones, anyway – and so to have a genuine French one absolutely made my day. Its called , rather simply ,
“Quiz (240 questions et 10 pages de bonus )”
and has 236 questions in 60 pages. A rather arbitrary number which rather reminds me of my 1951 Top of the Form quiz book. Still, a good thing going in its favour is the fact that although the questions are multiple choice, the answers are quite generous in their explanations. I love the fact that there are quite a lot of pretty common questions in there – for example : -
Où se trouve le Machu Picchu ?
a) En Bolivie
b) Au Brésil
c) Au Pérou
d) Au Mexique
( Where is Machu Picchu ? Bolivia – Brazil – Peru – Mexico )
Yet there’s also some more France specific stuff which you just wouldn’t know in the natural course of things , for example : -
Qui a été la première femme minister en France ?
a) Françoise Giroud
b) Simone Veil
c) Edith Cresson
d) Germaine Poinso-Chapuis
(Who was the first woman minister in France ? )
I’ll admit that Edith Cresson is the only one I knew of, but the answer was this –
D – En 1957 Germaine Poinso-Chapuis entre au ministère de la Santé de la Population et deviant ainsi la première femme minister française.
(D – In 1957 Germaine Poinso-Chapuis joined the Ministry of Public Health, and became at the same time the first woman minister of France )

OK, that wouldn’t be of interest to everyone. But how about this sort of thing as a tie break question –
En quelle année la pilule contraceptive a-t-elle autorisée au Japon ?
(In which year was the contraceptive pill legalized in Japan ? )
There are 4 choices, but in a tie break of course you’d give it to the nearest. The answer is actually 1999 according to the book – I haven’t checked it for accuracy yet.

I’m just so tickled and chuffed, firstly because I love prezzies anyway, but mainly for getting my first quizbook from a non English speaking country . Love it !

Quiz Trippers - Over and Out

Well, thanks for all your good wishes over the French trip. I honestly did have a great time, thanks. OK - a little while ago I caught up with the last episode of Quiz Trippers. The final quiz took place in Moffat, a charming Borders town. This, and again, I remind everyone that we, the audience, like the participants, are very much at the mercy of the editors here, seemed to be a much more straightforward general knowledge quiz, and a much gentler one as well. Once again, the team featured well in the early rounds, although no prizes for missing that the singer whose real first names were Harry Lillis was Bing Crosby. Which reminds me of a joke – what’s the difference between Bing Crosby and Walt Disney , no , never mind.

Well, once again the prospect of a tie break reared its ugly head – but no, wait, it was a tie break for 2nd place. Our girls and boys had done it. Yet never mind that. Who would win the money as the MVQ ? Well, as it happened it was Alan, but being a decent, all-round good chap he shared it equally with the others. Top man.

As for the series – well, I don’t know how Jen, Alan or Lauren felt about things, but I know that both Aud and Kevin have said that they were unhappy with the way that the show was edited. If you go over to Daniel Fullard’s blog The Quiz Addict – link amongst my recommended links – you’ll find, as I did , links to Aud’s blog, and Kevin’s wall on Facebook. I can quite appreciate that they weren’t happy, although that is the thing with television – do think twice before going on it, because you have no control over the editing. As for the rest of us, the viewing public – well. As I always do with a new quiz show, I have canvassed opinion among my non-quizzing friends and colleagues – and none of them have an opinion at all about the show because they haven’t watched it. Amongst quizzers I know, the fact is that people tend to have quite strong feelings about the show, almost all of which are negative. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the end of it. Me ? I stick by what I said before. I took it as a fairly light and inconsequential show, the watching of which was a pleasant enough way to pass half an hour.

Its certainly not perfect, though. The problem I would see with the show is that it falls between two stools - its not really a quiz show , but it doesn't quite give you the full on reality show experience a la The Coach Trip either. That’s it really.

Still, you never know. Just in case the producers are thinking of giving it another series, I have a few free suggestions for you. Few successful – or not very successful – quiz shows nowadays start a second series without having made a few tweaks. Here’s what you could do : -

• You have two teams in two different camper vans, which both play against each other , as well as the local teams each night. Ah , real rivalry, and possibly a little more drama and excitement – you never know.
• Each night, after the quiz, both teams would have to swap a member of their teams. Team A would have to pick a member of team Bs, and team B’s a member of team A’s. That way you have the excitement of a proper nightly vote, not the half hearted nonsense of this show’s.
• For heaven’s sake, show us the questions. There’s no reason why you couldn’t run through them very very quickly at the start of the round so people can play at home, then highlight the way the teams try to answer them. Perhaps you could put the questions up on the website each night too.
* I'd ditch the Biggmeister's v/o as well. It sticks a little in the craw when you hear him pouring scorn over someone answering a question wrongly when you know that the chances are extremely high that Biggins would have got it wrong himself. If you must have a voiceover, then get Dave Lamb, or someone ( anyone ) else. I'll do it for you if the price is right. ( Yes, I would sell my quizzing soul, dear readers, and the price would be a lot less than you'd expect, too. )

I have some other ideas, and you already have my email address from the first series, so guys, if you want to talk to me about it, you know where to find me.

News Quiz Answers

Here’s the answers to the latest set of news questions, then.

Who or what are : -
Carole Annett
Lady Coe , long time partner of Lord Coe, they married last week.

Tristane Banon
French writer who has made accusations in print against Dominique Strauss Khan

Beached
Lee Hall’s opera banned by primary school, then reinstated after bad language toned down

Edna Beck
80 year old given ASBO for racist behavior etc.

Sir Nicholas Bratza
Elected president of European Court of Human Rights

Roland Bunce
He won a Next model competition after a campaign by internet users

Andrew Castle
He attempted to kill his wife with a home made electric chair

Clone Sister
The nickname of Yingluck Shinawatra – sister of Thaksin – newly elected PM of Thailand

Stephen Lee Davies
The ‘sexsomnia’ sufferer cleared of rape charges last week

Chris Ferguson
Commander of the Atlantis on the last ever Space Shuttle Mission

Mark Gawley
Set a new record for visiting all 270 London tube stations – 16 hours, 29 minutes

Mary Anne Goosen
Dutch hiker who was trapped in a ravine in Malaga for 18 days

Anthony Harrison
First man in the UK to be convicted of trafficking females out of the UK

Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge
State run college - 3rd highest proportion of students going on to Oxbridge after Eton and Westminster

Tatsuya Ichihashi
On trial in Japan for murder of Lyndsey Hawker

Juba
Capital city of new country of South Sudan

Christopher Little
Agent of J.K.Rowling whom she has left

Michael Lyons
Royal Navy medical officer court martialled for refusing to undergo rifle training because he did not agree with Afghanistan War

Joel Maunder
Found guilty of drink driving a lawn mower

Emily Morton
Bride making a sit in at All Saints church in Maerdy to prevent its closure

Pyeongchang
City in South Korea chosen to host 2018 Winter Olympics

RWE
Firm selling NPower

Harbhajan Singh
Took his 400th Test wicket for India in a test match v. the West Indies

Katherine Thomas
Teacher from Pontarddulais who admitted using cocaine as a ‘pick me up’

Mark Upton
Civil Servant suspended for criticising Eric Pickles online using pseudonym ‘The Naked Civil Servant’

Justin Wright
17 year old New Zealand swimmer who ‘divorced ‘ his parents

Which athlete broke the british long jump record ?
Chris Tomlinson

Who did GB play in their latest David Cup match ?
Luxembourg

Who was dropped from the England cricket team for the deciding one day international against Sri Lanka ?
Stuart Broad

How old was Betty Ford, who passed away last week ?
93

What did the Austrian town of Brennau finally get around to doing ?
Annulling the honorary citizenship they conferred on Hitler in 1938

Which company recalled a model of fridge freezer, several months after faults leading to fire hazards were originally highlighted ?
Beko

Sony announced that it will cease production of what in September ?
Mini disc walkman

Which injury forced Bradley Wiggins to retire from the tour de France ?
Broken collarbone

Which was the first company to remove all of its advertising from British News International Papers ?
Renault

In the women’s world cup ( football ) which team did England face in the quarter finals ?
France

Pilots from which airline have decide not to strike ?
Virgin Atlantic

Which actress announced that she will be leaving the cast of Eastenders later this year ?
Pam St. Clement

How many independent nations are there now that South Sudan has become independent ? ( according to the Independent )
193

Which area in Canada, devastated by wildfire, was visited by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge ?
Slave Lake

How many years has the News of the World been published ?
168

Which man is the new face of L’Oreal ?
Hugh Laurie

In which country is Dadaab refugee camp ?
Kenya

The world’s first synthetic organ transplant took place. Which organ , and where did it happen ?
Windpipe - Sweden

What is the first single to sell 1 million this decade ?
Someone Like You - Adele

The pre Olympic Three Day Event took place in which London Venue this week ?
Greenwich

Which company spilled 1000 barrels of oil into Yellowstone River, Montana ?
Exxon Mobil

Bryn Teg Comprehensive school in Bridgend made the papers last week when a £100,000 footpath was built between the school and where ?
The local McDonalds

Who was paid by a consultancy firm to enhance Gadaffi’s image ?
David Frost

Which organization launched their own retail brand ?
W.I.

Which actor announced that he has gone teetotal ?
Daniel Radcliffe

In a MORI poll who were voted – a) most capable – b) most likeable – and c) worst recent prime ministers ?
a) Thatcher
b) Blair
c) Major

Which British rider held the tour de France White jersey until Friday 8th July ?
Geraint Thomas

Facebook announced that it now has how many users worldwide ?
750 million

A great white spot caused by a storm has appeared on which planet ?
Saturn

The British Medical Journal has blamed what for infidelity, unsafe sex, and divorce ?
Mills and Boon

What is the codename for the Met Police investigation of the claims that journalists from the News of the World paid police officers for information ?
Operation Elvedon

ON the Forbes list who is the highest paid film actress in the world ?
Angelina Jolie

Which is the first West End/Broadway musical to be translated into chinese, and appear in Shanghai ?
Mamma Mia

Quiz Trippers - take 4

And so to Edinburgh, and the 4th quiz of the week. I kept an eye out for our own Brian Pendreigh, and I wasn’t disappointed. More of that after.

The quiz was presented by Dr. Paul, a self-effacing, shy and retiring sort who, according to Biggins, describes himself as Scotland’s top quiz master. Of his own quiz Dr. Paul said “ I wouldn’t say it’s the best quiz in the world. . . “ You said a mouthful there, Doc. Then he went and spoiled it before saying that some people have described it in this way. Oh well, you pays yer money and you takes yer choc ice. Once again we were in the land of the gimmick. Themed rounds, guessing questions, anagrams, etc. All well and good if you like that sort of thing.

Well, I spoiled the show yesterday for those who hadn’t seen it already, and I warn you again not to read any further if you haven’t seen it yourself. Right, well, having Brian Pendreigh playing against them my hopes were never high for Harvey’s Angels, and they finished well down the table, in 7th place if I’m not much mistaken. Tempers again were a little frayed, but believe me, I’ve seen much worse in the flesh in my time in teams I’ve played for and against. What was a bit naughty was not showing us who actually won. Once we saw other teams jeering at the Angels after they were announced in 7th place we cut away immediately, and that was a bit of a swizz. So Brian , if you’re reading, can you put us all out of your misery ? Did you win ?

BTW - I'm off on a school trip tonight - Normandy - Paris - Parc Asterix . Its a dirty job but someone has to do it , so I'll be neglecting you until Monday , I'm afraid. Work is the curse of the quizzing classes.

Quiz Trippers 3

If you don’t want to know what happened, then look away now. Yes, unlike yesterday’s posting, this one does contain spoilers. After the disappointment of yesterday, our intrepid bunch moved on to the bright lights of the big city, my Clark family ancestral homeland of Dundee, no less. It was nice to see the famous statue of Desperate Dan, the question about which has popped up in more than a few quizzes in its time. Still, on with the show.

Another day, and another challenge. This time it was a quiz which, if Biggins was to be believed, was against what were mostly teams of students from Dundee University. This one was sort of like a halfway house between Monday night’s themed quiz, and last night’s GK free for all. The rounds were themed, but at least the questions were fairly gentle, which certainly seemed to work for Harvey’s Angels, our team of Kevin, Alan, Aud, Lauren and Jen.

Once again Biggins was picking on Jen, mind you, he wasn’t the only one. Jen is a bit of a scattergun type of quizzer, going by the evidence of what we’ve seen. She chucks in answers in the general direction of the questions in the hope that one of them will hit the target sooner or later. It is actually a valid tactic, although it won her no brownie points with Kevin, who lost his rag a bit with her at a couple of points during the quiz. More the Grinch than Santa tonight. Still, at least they showed her getting an answer right tonight, even if it was accompanied by the ironic playing of the Hallelujah Chorus.

A round where the team had to pick which country had the point which was furthest north from three choices did for our guys, who surrendered outright lead, and in the end tied for first place . Last night’s tie break was a straight question. Tonight’s, and I kid you not, was settled by both teams making a paper airplane from one sheet of paper, and seeing who could throw it the furthest. I have never seen a quiz decided this way. It was funny enough while I was watching it, but if it had been me who'd been playing, and found that was the tie break, I'd have been pretty frustrated about it. Nevertheless, this was the challenge. A challenge which, funnily enough, was won by a team of engineering students. Maybe that was just a coincidence, but it did make me wondering whether the production team had any say in thye choice of tie break.

Look, the show is what it is. This is not a serious investigation into the sad lives of a group of obsessional quizzers. It’s a little bit of knockabout fun, and that’s the level on which I have been taking it.Enjoyable on its own merits.

University Challenge - First Round Heat 2

Round One – Heat 2 – Trinity Cambridge v. University of Birmingham

We’re off and running now, ladies and gents. Already we’re into the second heat of the series, this time pitting Trinity , Cambridge against the University of Birmingham. Trinity , who were series champions in both 1974 and 1995, boasted an average age of 20 – well, if you’re good enough, you’re old enough. The team consisted of Max Spencer, Lee Zhao, Joshua Caplan and captain Rosalind Lintott. Their opponents, Birmingham had an average age of 21. The team were made up of Thomas Farrell, Kirk Surgener, Eliott Rhodes, and captain Oliver Jeacock. I was intrigued by JP’s throwaway remark that Birmingham chose their captain via a game of rock, paper scissors. I always wondered whether the programme makers actually decided who would be the captain, so I guess that answers that question. On with the show.

Kirk Surgener leapt in to dispatch a very gentle delivery – which mountain range separates Europe from Asia – to the boundary. This brought up a set of bonuses on high stones. I knew the one they didn’t, that the Preseli Hills were the source of the bluestones of Stonehenge. Still, a starter and 2 bonuses made a good start for Birmingham. Lee Zhao brought Trinity’s first points on Mozart, and this brought up a set on high profile resignations of chairmen and chief executives. One bonus was taken. Thomas Farrell took Birmingham’s next, knowing that graphite was found in the Lake District and subsequently used in pencils. They have a pencil museum up there, you know. I digress. A lovely set of bonuses followed on other writer’s opinions about Shakespeare, of which 1 was taken. A good early buzz from captain Oliver Jeacock, who knew that the great scientist guillotined during the French Revolution was Lavoisier saw Birmingham extend their lead, although a very tricky set of bonuses on spirals eluded them. This then brought up the first picture starter. Shown a picture of part of a map with a river one it, nobody could identify the river correctly. I won’t lie, I didn’t have it. Like one of the teams I thought Canada, but I didn’t have the Mackenzie River, which was the right answer. So another starter was asked which led to Kirk Surgener to buzz early and correctly identify the Peter Principle. The river pictures followed – each river bucking the trend , so to speak, by flowing to the North. 2 were taken. It was becoming one way traffic , and so it fell to captain Rosalind Lintott to pick out the answer to a University Challenge special, requiring three rhyming answers, which I believe were trump – pump – frump. 1 bonus was taken on women from ancient history. Still, notwithstanding this it was clear by the 10 minute mark that Birmingham were having by far the better of the opening skirmishes, and up to this time were winning the battle of the buzzers.

Eliott Rhodes pitched in with his first starter of the night, recognizing that two philosophers being alluded to were Plato and Aristotle. Good shout. 2 bonuses followed on David Hockney. Neither team could manage the next starter, which referred to Muscadet. This then allowed Max Spencer to strike back for Trinity, knowing well that the araucaria tree is more commonly known as the monkey puzzle. Alas, they failed to score on a set of bonuses on popular culture from the noughties, which required them to name the year when a specific set of events happened – a notoriously tricky thing to do. Eliott Rhodes put Birmingham back on the march again, identifying a snatch of Rimsky Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. Three bonuses on other pieces of classical music followed, and just like Birmingham , all that I could manage to identify was a few bars from the opera Madame Butterfly. Lee Zhao buzzed early on the next question, and I don’t blame himat all. If you’re playing catch up you’re better off being hung for a sheep than a lamb, I always think. Still, his answer of New Deal was one he wouldn’t have given if he’d had the whole question. He’d have known, as did Kirk Surgener that we were dealing with the Lindbergh Law. Bonuses on chemistry proved hard to come by, but then when you’re ahead, and you’re hot on the buzzer, then that doesn’t seem to matter so much, somehow. A great early buzz from Kirk Surgener for the next bonus saw him correctly identify a definition of Nitrogen Fixing. 3 bonuses on language in the works of Tolkein followed. They missed them, but a correct answer, Finnish, was mulled over, before being rejected for a wrong one, Hungarian. Ah, that’s the way it goes sometimes. Once again, just as I was about to look at the scores again, Trinity narrowed the gap slightly when Lee Zhao took a starter on Thomas Tallis. A set of University Challenge specials followed on cognate anagrams. These are those anagrams which are also linked in terms of meaning or context – for example moonstarer and astronomer. Trinity did well to get two. So just on the 20 minute mark, they lagged by 65 to Birmingham’s 135.

Was a fightback and a close finish out of the question ? Well, no, it wasn’t. Birmingham were hotter on the buzzer, but they were being fairly profligate with the bonuses, and a burst of three or four converted starters could bring Trinity right back. Well, neither team managed the next starter , on the G20 countries in Latin America. However Joshua Caplan did manage to get the next starter, with the term peristalsis. Alas, once again they had no luck with the bonuses, and a full set on terms from the social services went begging. The second picture starter this time revealed a picture of comedian Russell Kane, and Eliott Rhodes nipped straight in to take the points, thank you very much. The bonuses showed pictures of other winners of what used to be the Perrier award at the Edinburgh festival, and they had to identify the comedian, and the decade in which they won. Two were taken, and that gap was beginning to look ominously like the one crossed by the new sea bridge opened in China recently. Neither team recognized a description of the Old Man of Hoy for the next starter, and so skipper Rosalind Lintott took the next which referred to various definitions of the word hector. 2 more bonuses were taken on the events of 1511. ( and you know, some of us still remember . . . sorry, I was channeling Rowan Atkinson there for a moment. ) As we moved into the last couple of minutes the mightily impressive Kurt Surgener reasserted his own and his team’s superiority by answering that the painter required for the starter was Mark Rothko. To rub it in the team took a full set of bonuses on botany. Finishing with a flourish, Mr. Surgener also identified the country of West Germany, or the Federal Republic thereof, for a set of bonuses on islands. Undaunted , Joshua Caplan fought a valiant rearguard action with a good answer on orthographic precipitation. A bonus was taken on places in Derby. Kurt Surgener – who else – took the next starter with an early buzz to identify Amsterdam. This brought up questions on classical music cataloguers, and I thought they did well to take a couple. Finally, time for one last starter, and almost inevitably it was Kurt Surgener who knew that it referred to Virginia Woolf. That brought up the gong, with the final score at 225 to Birmingham, and 105 to Trinity. I’m glad that Trinity managed triple figures. I think they deserved that. Meanwhile well done to Birmingham, they look a decent team, if a little too profligate with bonuses, and have, in Kurt Surgener, someone who looks to be an impressive player.

Jeremy Paxman Watch

JP in avuncular mood for the second show running. Rather disappointing if truth be told. Still we had just a glimpse of what will hopefully be in store for later in the series when Birmingham offered the Mendips as the source of the Stonehenge bluestones –
“ Mendips ? In Wales ? !” he began, but then he spoiled it by chuckling indulgently. I’m a little worried too by the way that he accepted “A big Splash” for the title of the famous Hockney painting, while gently admonishing them that the correct title is in fact “A Bigger Splash”. Actually, on a more serious note there was a relatively interesting article in last week’s Radio Times , where JP was ‘interviewed’ by Anne Widdecombe. According ot one of his answers, he always wants to err on the side of generosity towards the teams, but it’s the producer who has the final word, and the producer is usually quite mean.

Interesting Fact Of The Week That I Didn’t Already Know

Both Mexico and Argentina are in the G20

Quiz Trippers 2

Well, it seems like my wish has been granted. In my post about yesterday’s first episode of “Quiz Trippers” I did express a hope that we’d get to see them play in what I would class as a bog standard ordinary pub quiz. Now, granted that we don’t get to see all of the questions being asked, the quiz we saw tonight certainly was a lot better than bog standard, but it was more of what I tend to think of as a general quiz – several rounds of general knowledge, a few tricky bouncers, but enough old stagers to keep you going.

Tonight’s quiz was in Aviemore, Scotland’s mecca for skiers, I believe. It looked as if it was wily old fox Kevin who spotted that the question
“How many hands in total does Big Ben have ? “ was a trick, since Big Ben is the name of the bell, and not actually the name of the clock. As the quiz went on it was obvious that our team were doing a lot better tonight than in last night’s , and hardly surprising. Alan came a lot more to the fore, although I noticed that bully boy Biggins, who I always thought was so nice before, was still picking on Jen when she came up with a wrong answer for the name of the part of a sundial that casts the shadow.

The brewing row between Aud and Lauren came more to the fore by the end of the show. Again, we’re at the mercy of the editors and the producers of the show as to what we actually see, and what we don’t, but it certainly looked as if for part of the quiz Lauren was at the bar – possibly chatting up/being chatted up by the barman while some of the questions were being asked. This raises an interesting question of etiquette – namely, how do you react if teammates are giving their attention elsewhere than on the questions in hand ? I am sorry to admit that in my case the answer would be – as long as I know the answer I don’t care, but if I don’t know the answer, then where the hell were you ? - .

If you haven’t seen the show, then I won’t spoil the outcome of the quiz. However it did involve a tie break. That was an interesting one as well, for the question master forsook the usual – the answer is a number, and if neither of you get it spot on, then the closest one wins – format, for a straight question. Presumably they would have gone on and one until one or other got one wrong, however many questions it took.

You had my first impressions last night. Second impressions are that the team aren’t dreadful by any means – decent without being world beaters. There certainly seems to be quite a gap in terms of ability and dare I say it , experience between some of the team members, but then that was always going to be the case in a show where personalities – especially personalities likely to provoke a reaction in the viewer – are probably more important than other considerations. Also, as my friend Brian Pendreigh pointed out in response to yesterday's review, even for really good teams, as opposed to decent teams, it really isn’t as easy as you might think going to a place you’ve never been before, and taking on the local champs on their own turf. Witness Trevor Montague’s Dream Team – allegedly one of the inspirations behind the series Eggheads. If you’re not aware of this, then you can check out an amusing article from 2002 in the Guardian all about it if you click on this link : -
Dream Team

Well, I’m enjoying the series anyway, and will continue to watch tomorrow.

News Questions

The latest set of news questions, then.

Who or what are : -
Carole Annett

Tristane Banon

Beached

Edna Beck

Sir Nicholas Bratza

Roland Bunce

Andrew Castle

Clone Sister

Stephen Lee Davies

Chris Ferguson

Mark Gawley

Mary Anne Goosen

Anthony Harrison

Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge

Tatsuya Ichihashi

Juba

Christopher Little

Michael Lyons

Joel Maunder

Emily Morton

Pyeongchang

RWE

Harbhajan Singh

Katherine Thomas

Mark Upton

Justin Wright

Which athlete broke the british long jump record ?

Who did GB play in their latest David Cup match ?

Who was dropped from the England cricket team for the deciding one day international against Sri Lanka ?

How old was Betty Ford, who passed away last week ?

What did the Austrian town of Brennau finally get around to doing ?

Which company recalled a model of fridge freezer, several months after faults leading to fire hazards were originally highlighted ?

Sony announced that it will cease production of what in September ?

Which injury forced Bradley Wiggins to retire from the tour de France ?

Which was the first company to remove all of its advertising from British News International Papers ?

In the women’s world cup ( football ) which team did England face in the quarter finals ?

Pilots from which airline have decide not to strike ?

Which actress announced that she will be leaving the cast of Eastenders later this year ?

How many independent nations are there now that South Sudan has become independent ? ( according to the Independent )

Which area in Canada, devastated by wildfire, was visited by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge ?

How many years has the News of the World been published ?

Which man is the new face of L’Oreal ?

In which country is Dadaab refugee camp ?

The world’s first synthetic organ transplant took place. Which organ , and where did it happen ?

What is the first single to sell 1 million this decade ?

The pre Olympic Three Day Event took place in which London Venue this week ?

Which company spilled 1000 barrels of oil into Yellowstone River, Montana ?

Bryn Teg Comprehensive school in Bridgend made the papers last week when a £100,000 footpath was built between the school and where ?

Who was paid by a consultancy firm to enhance Gadaffi’s image ?

Which organization launched their own retail brand ?

Which actor announced that he has gone teetotal ?

In a MORI poll who were voted – a) most capable – b) most likeable – and c) worst recent prime ministers ?

Which British rider held the tour de France White jersey until Friday 8th July ?

Facebook announced that it now has how many users worldwide ?

A great white spot caused by a storm has appeared on which planet ?

The British Medical Journal has blamed what for infidelity, unsafe sex, and divorce ?

What is the codename for the Met Police investigation of the claims that journalists from the News of the World paid police officers for information ?

ON the Forbes list who is the highest paid film actress in the world ?

Which is the first West End/Broadway musical to be translated into chinese, and appear in Shanghai ?

Quiz Trippers

Well, the long awaited “Quiz Trippers” has made its debut on Channel 4. To quote Biggins’ introduction – “Take 5 competitive strangers – give them a camper van – and . . . “ and so on. To be honest, the imprecation to “Get ready for the ultimate test of general knowledge ” was met with derision from the Clark sofa – why do new shows always insist on making this spurious claim ? Oh well, on with the show.

Our intrepid bunch then were introduced as Alan, a self employed quiz host from Glasgow – nice work if you can get it – Lauren, an improvisational performer, originally from the United States – Jen, an IT consultant, Aud, a holistic therapist, and Kevin, a retired teacher. I couldn’t help warming to Kevin, as he smilingly chatted to the camera about the shows he’s been on, and how he's never done extremely well on any of them.

Basically it worked like this. The team were taken on a 200 mile round trip around Scotland in a camper van, playing in a different pub quiz each night for a week. The van had basic rations, but money for anything else had to be won in the quizzes. So with commendable celerity the show moved into the first quiz. This took place in Fortrose. Our host for the quiz, Jim , poured quite a bit of scorn on the team’s chances. “I don’t think your team has a chance. “ he announced, in tones which suggested that he may have originated somewhere in North America himself. He obviously knew what was coming. The quiz seemed to consist of 5 rounds, and each one was themed. Oh dear. At the start of the round he would ask his wife to spin a wheel, to decide which question in the round would be worth double points. Now, you possibly know my feeling about themed rounds, as in , a little goes a very long way. As far as I could see, the rounds were : -
Round 1 – Letter codes for international airports
Round 2 – Cars in Songs
Round 3 – The Human head
Round 4 – Official Residences
Round 5 – Cryptic clues for types of bread.
OK, now any judgements I make about the quiz have to be viewed in the light of the fact that we didn’t get to see all of the questions being asked. I really wouldn’t have minded hearing the whole of the round on cars in songs. But based solely on the evidence of what I saw, I don’t think that this was the kind of quiz that would have suited me at all, and I don’t think that it was the kind of quiz that I would have done very well in. These questions were most definitely not gimmes at all. Kevin chuckled after the show that this was the hardest quiz he had ever played in, and while I’m not sure that I would agree, I would certainly say this was many degrees tougher than a typical pub quiz. The kind of quiz, in fact, where it would certainly pay you to be a regular, and get a feeling for the sort of thing likely to be asked by playing over a reasonable period of time.

So with that in mind, I really don’t think its fair to make any observation about the level of ability shown by any of the quizzers in the team. Not that this bothered the show that much. Alright, as a fairly seasoned TV campaigner myself I know that nobody forces you to go on these shows, and if you make the decision to do so, then you should accept any praise or ridicule or whatever that comes your way. As it is I think we can already see how the different personalities are being presented for us . Kevin, avuncular, always smiling, was certainly today made out to be the best quizzer of the bunch. Not for nothing did they make a point of stressing his resemblance to Santa Claus at the start. Alan, whose job is as a quiz host, may have answered questions during the evening, but certainly didn't seem to be shown doing so, and I have no doubt that’s something we were meant to notice. As for the other three, I think you can clearly see who the fall guys being lined up here are. Jen and Aud, for example. Biggins’ voiceover ridiculed one of Jen’s answers for the airports – and to be fair she was at least offering an answer, which nobody else was – and then he made a point of saying that Aud hadn’t got one question right before she correctly answered that the second smallest bone of the body is the anvil. As for Lauren, well, they are obviously softening us up for a blow up between her and Aud – I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t start next in tomorrow’s show, but I’ll be flabbergasted if it hasn’t happened by Friday.

For the record, Kevin gained votes from the other 4 players as the one who had contributed most, and this was certainly true of what we saw, with Lauren getting his vote. As for my vote on the show, well its early days yet, and I’m going to reserve judgement. I enjoyed the first episode certainly, but I hope that they actually show us a little more of the questions in the next show, in a very different kind of pub quiz – after all, variety is the spice of life. I’d like to see how they get on in a straight, no gimmicks, bog standard pub quiz. Hopefully tomorrow . . .

The Oldest of Old Chestnuts ?

I had something of a thought provoking discussion with a colleague at work yesterday. The topic of discussion amongst a few of us was the demise of the News of The World. By way of a digression, my favourite headline about this story was the Telegraph’s “Goodbye Cruel World”. However, as I say , we were discussing the story, and the question came up,
“How long has it been published ? “ or words to that effect. Without passing through my conscious mind on the way the answer leapt from my memory to my lips –
“168 years.”
Alright, the regulars in the staffroom are used to my quiz eccentricities now, but a colleague asked whether I had stuck that particular tidbit of knowledge into my brain for quizzes. To which I replied, of course, bearing in mind that its bound to be asked somewhere in the next few days. We talked a little more about ‘doing the papers’ and other things you can learn for a quiz. Then she asked that thought provoking question –
“Well, which question would you say comes up most often in quizzes ? “

That stopped me in my tracks. After all, we could all name a list of topics that recur often in quizzes. We could even probably name some of the questions that recur most often within those topics. But the single question most often asked in quizzes ? I suspect that its not a question which can ever have a definitive answer. All we can do is suggest some of those questions which recur regularly in quizzes. I don’t say for one minute that its asked more often than any other question, but one which has been doing the rounds since I started quizzing, and would make me significantly richer than I am now – not difficult – if I was paid a fiver for every time I’ve ever been asked it would be : -
What is the nickname of the Gravelly Hill Interchange ?
Yet there are doubtless tons of others – many of which probably come up a lot more often. So I’m throwing this question out to everyone – in your opinion, which are the oldest chestnuts, the quiz questions which seem to get asked ad nauseam ? The ones which you are just thoroughly sick of, and wouldn't mind if you were never asked them again ? Over to you.

Answers to News Questions

Answers, then, to the latest set : -

Who or what are : -
Christine Lagarde
French finance minister appointed as head of IMF

Brown Panther
Horse owned by Michael Owen

Kelsey Donkin
Forced to apologise in court for shouting ‘bang bang’ at police officer David Rathband

Heidi Withers and Carolyn Bourne
Carolyn Bourne is the so called ‘mother in law from hell’. She sent a letter to her stepson’s fiancée, Heidi Winter, who published the letter on the internet. The letter berated her for lack of manners !

Luke Yeomans
Sadly killed by one of the king cobras he kept in a snake farm.

Carson Yeung
Birmingham City FC chairman in court in Hong Kong on money laundering charges.

Craig Thomson
Hearts FC footballer on sex register, suspended following public pressure.

Ugo Monye
England Rugby Union Player to whom police apologized for presuming that he had stolen his own car.

Jeffrey Warren
Man who used a mini digger to destroy his neighbour’s hedge

Daniel Tredinick
Man who stole and wore a police woman’s uniform to get into Glastonbury festival

Charlene Wittstock
Married Prince Albert of Monaco

Treasure Beach
Horse that won the Irish Derby

David Lewis
Diabetic who was refused a bottle of Lucozade by staff of Superdrug , Bangor , although they did call him an ambulance

Sergeant Ian Craven
Dog handler officer accused of letting two dogs bake to death in a car

Johann Hari
Award winning left wing political journalist accused of plagiarism

Reem Haddad
Syrian spokeswoman nicknamed ‘comical Sally’

Declan Spencer
Passenger turned away by EasyJet because his motorized wheelchair was too heavy

Ladislav Stojka
Elected King of the Roma community in the UK

Jasmine Orieta
New baby daughter of Julian Lloyd Webber

Danilo Restivo
The ‘hair fetish’ killer

Liam Broady
Reached boys singles final at Wimbledon

Isabelle Campbell
Her job title was given as Hitler on the Highland Council website

Hermann Fuster
Accosted Nicholas Sarkozy on a walkabout

Abby Clancy
Married Peter Crouch

Kia Abdullah
Guardian Writer who made an offensive tweet about the gap year students murdered while backpacking


Tobias Baker
Caught driving at 160mph – spared a jail sentence to care for his sick wife

Jamie Hince
Married Kate Moss

Lord Hanningfield
Tory Peer jailed and called a benefit cheat by trial judge

Robin Ticciati
Next Music director at Glyndebourne


Plans for a new Monty Python film were announced last week. What will it be called ?
A Liar’s Autobiography ( based on Graham Chapman’s book of the same name )

Britain’s newest motorway opened last week. Where and what is it ?
M74 Extension , Glasgow

Which became the 6th US state to legalise same sex marriage last week ?
New York

A statue of whom is due to be unveiled in Grosvenor Square ?
Ronald Reagan

Which cathedral has plans to be the first English cathedral to use solar panels ?
Coventry Cathedral

Petitions have been raised for a new road sign to warn of what ?
Pot Holes

Which I,Claudius actress passed away last week ?
Margaret Tyzack

Which European country has banned kosher and halal slaughter ?
Netherlands

The last Blue Peter from London has been broadcast. From where will it be broadcast in future ?
Salford

Which Cornish estuary was struck by tidal waves ?
Yealm Estuary

Which pop performer has been participated in the acquisition of MySpace ?
Justin Timberlake

Which company acquired all the assets of Jane Norman ?
Edinburgh Woollen Mills

Now that Greece has voted through a range of spending cuts, how much aid will they receive ?
110 billion Euros – 98 billion pounds

Plans were announced to ask voters to give what detail before they will be allowed to vote ?
National Insurance Number

Which famous Italian beach is due to be opened to the general public ?
The Lido in Venice

Speaker’s wife Sally Bercow was rapped after tweeting that which retailer were ‘going under’
Carpetright

In a poll by QVC – who was voted the most beautiful British woman of all time ?
Audrey Hepburn ( British ? )

What can you buy in a new vending machine in the Westfield Centre in Shepherd’s Bush ?
Gold

Why were the nuclear reactors shut down in the power station in Torness, East Lothian ?
Huge number of jellyfish in the waters which they use for cooling the reactors

The world’s longest sea bridge opened where ? How long is it ?
Jiaozhou Bay, China – 26 miles

Which country announced that all of its nuclear power stations will be shut down by 2022 ?
Germany

What has been announced to be the current population of the UK ?
62.3 million

Last week flights in JFK airport were disrupted because of what on the runway ?
Diamond back Terrapins

Which online gambling site was suspended in the Channel Islands, where it is registered ?
Full Tilt Poker

Health officials in India are offering cars and motorcycles as incentives for men to volunteer for what ?
Sterilisation

A survey has found that women with which size feet are the most attractive to men ?
Five

Princess Beatrice received a 2:1 degree last week. From where , and in what ?
From Goldsmith’s College ( yeah ! ) in History and History of Ideas

Who wrote the folk opera “Dr. Dee” about Elizabethan Dr. John Dee, which was premiered last week ?
Damon Albarn

Fact v. Opinion

Perhaps its just me. Sorry, I ought to explain myself. Last night in the quiz at the rugby club, Mike and Jan were the question masters. Jan read them out, and I think Mike compiled them, though if that’s not quite the arrangement I apologise now. Mike is one of our semi regulars. He doesn’t compile them that often, but every year he does two or three, and that’s a welcome thing, especially if he can do it in the middle of a period when Brian and I have been taking turns for a couple of months without anyone else coming in.

So the quiz began, and Jan announced the first round. All the questions were on the 1960s. I am ashamed to admit that the groan which welled up from inside me did actually escape my lips. Now, please, don’t think that I have anything against the 60s. Many excellent things began in the 60s, me included. But, I don’t know, I just don’t really like themed rounds. You have to be a gifted, or at the very least well experienced question master to get it right, and make it a)fair , and b) interesting, in my opinion. The second round was a proper general knowledge round, then the third was full of questions about the 70s, the fourth another general knowledge, the fifth about the 80s – well, I’m sure you see how it worked.

It was these themed rounds which raised an issue for me. Now, some of the questions were perfectly fine and fair : - for example – What was the name of the Saudi Arabian Sheikh who was his country’s high profile oil minister in the 1970s ? This was the cue for half a dozen of us scattered around the room started to mime the answer by standing up and jangling our loose change, but I digress. However on the other hand there were questions such as -
in the 1980s what was the item without which no living room would have been complete ? -
Now – hang on a minute. We guessed that this most likely referred to a video recorder. However the fact is that this question really called for opinion, rather than fact. There were even more glaring examples of questions which were based on opinion rather than a concrete fact. Things like –
what did most well-heeled people want in their bedrooms in the 1970s ?
Well, I can think of several answers, hardly any of which I would write in this blog. In the end we plumped for water bed – correct as it happened. So its not that we were getting the majority of these questions wrong that upset me, it was the, for want of a better phrase, the whole guessing gameyness of it. I can’t help it. I have a Gradgrindesque liking for facts, and for questions that require facts as an answer. Is that so wrong ?

BBC2 - Antiques Master

Yes, I’ve finally managed to find half an hour to catch up with the first heat of the new series of “Antiques Master”, the ‘difficult second series’ so to speak. As is often the way with new quizzes that manage to survive to earn a second series , there have been a couple of tweaks. For one thing, when I reviewed the first show of the first series, I made this comment : -

“I have to say that I really didn’t need Disembodied Voice Woman to keep telling me
“Deidre has scored 10 points. That means she has 20 points. That is ten more than she had before she scored them. If she scores another ten points then she will have 30 points “ I half expected her to say "If Deidre can score 50 points in 20 minutes, how many points could 3 Deidres score in 10 minutes ? ". The arithmetic For Beginners aspect of the show I could well do without.” “

Well, Voiceover woman is still there, but only seems to make brief interjections, and the constant harping on about the various possible score permutations are a thing of a past so it seems. Lets be thankful for small mercies. Other changes ? Well, for one thing we start now with three rather than four contestants. They play two rounds, the first being the round where they were given several objects from their own field of choice, and had to identify the oldest, the most valuable, and the odd one out. The second round was also a return for an old favourite from last year, the one where they were given 5 different objects, and asked to place them in order of age. These two rounds were all that served to whittle down three players into the two who would contest the final. So we’ve lost the ‘what is it – mystery object round –‘ frankly no great sadness here to see that’s gone. For all that we’ve lost a round, the show didn’t feel unnecessarily padded out. Then in the final round there was another tweak. Here, instead of a straight buzzer quiz shootout, a correct answer to a general question entitled the contestant to nominate a question from one of five categories – Steiff, for example being one of them on Monday. Once the question was asked, then that category was eliminated. I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t have minded this section being a little longer, but there we are.

Monday’s show was won by Stella, who said she felt ‘shattered’ and to be honest looked gobsmacked – having lost the first game quite heavily. Well done there !

As for the show itself, I don’t think that the tweaks have done any harm at all, and when all’s said and done its an amiable little snifter of a half hour with which to wash down the banquet that is University Challenge.