While we’re on the subject of the conversation I had with my quiz friend last night, I think that I might mention an interesting discussion that we had about multiple questions in General knowledge rounds. It was Keith’s turn to set the quiz on Sunday night, and although Keith does a much straighter , less gimmicky quiz than the other setters at the Dyffryn Arms, he does often put multiples into his rounds. Most of the time these will be worth a maximum of five points. However, on Sunday night one of the questions in one of the rounds was worth 10 points.
Now, in the interests of fairness I think I should say that these weren’t all extremely difficult points to get – we managed 8 of them ourselves. Keith quoted 5 lines from different pop songs – all from the 60s unless I’m very much mistaken. All you had to do was name the song for a point, and the singer for another point. I think that the one we missed was a Kinks song.
As I say, I’m not complaining , since we certainly didn’t lose much ground on that question even if we didn’t gain any, but I do know that some people have quite strong opinions about a multiple question being worth more than 4 or 5 points in any one round, and in a way I can see where they are coming from. In a way, with ten points available it’s really a round within a round. There is a body of opinion that says that it’s wrong to have so much riding on just one question. Well, I don’t know about that. However, had the question been on one of those subjects where John and I would only have been able to scrape 2 or 3 points between us, then knowing me I’d be singing to a very different hymn sheet.
I guess that I stand pretty much in the middle of the debate here. Of course you can ask questions worth ten points on a single topic if you want to. But on the other hand I do think that if you’re going to do it, then go the whole hog and make it a separate specialist round. On a purely personal level I think a maximum of five points is best for a single multiple question. That’s just my opinion, and as always, feel free to disagree.
Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Dive-Right-Ins
I was having a conversation yesterday with a quizzing acquaintance, and we covered a lot of quiz related ground, as we often do, on phone cheating, current TV likes and dislikes, displeasure over the cancellation of University Challenge for the duration of the Olympics, I'm sure you know what I mean, all the usual sort of things. Then he told me about a great 'dive-right-in' question he was asked a week or two again.
For the uninitiated, a dive-right-in is the question which seems to have such an obvious answer that you dive right in with the answer without even thinking, and indeed you never give it a second's thought until the answer is given and you realise that you were wrong. It's probably easier to give a practical demonstration rather than keep trying to describe it , so here's the question :-
In the Squeeze song "Up the Junction" at what time does the woman in the song give birth to the baby ?
If you answered, "4:50", I can totally understand why , after all : -
"This morning at 4:50, I took her rather nifty "
- however the lyric goes on -
"down to an incubator, where 30 MINUTES LATER
she gave birth to a daughter. "
So the answer is actually 5:20. Really well thought out question, I thought.
For the uninitiated, a dive-right-in is the question which seems to have such an obvious answer that you dive right in with the answer without even thinking, and indeed you never give it a second's thought until the answer is given and you realise that you were wrong. It's probably easier to give a practical demonstration rather than keep trying to describe it , so here's the question :-
In the Squeeze song "Up the Junction" at what time does the woman in the song give birth to the baby ?
If you answered, "4:50", I can totally understand why , after all : -
"This morning at 4:50, I took her rather nifty "
- however the lyric goes on -
"down to an incubator, where 30 MINUTES LATER
she gave birth to a daughter. "
So the answer is actually 5:20. Really well thought out question, I thought.
Sunday, 29 July 2012
The Game's the thing - ah yes, but . . .
Why do we play in pub quizzes ? Several reasons spring to mind - the excuse it gives us for a couple of hours away from the house - a chance to catch up with friends - an opportunity to pit one's skills and knowledge against others and just as importantly, against onesself - an opportunity to learn something one didn't know before. These are all fine and noble reasons, and certainly they are among the reasons why I for one try to play in at least 2 quizzes a week. However . . .
The thing is, I am honest to admit that my motivation isn't totally corinthian. I am immature enough to admit that I like winning. Oh, yes, I can still enjoy a good quiz even if I don't win , and I certainly wouldn't dream of stopping going if I had no chance of winning, which, come to think of it, is just as well at the moment, since I haven't won down the rugby club on a Thursday night for months.But I won't lie, I like to win, and I do start to get a little anxious if I go for more than a few quizzes without managing to put anything in the W column.
So you'll appreciate that after losing my last 3 or 4 quizzes in a row I was more than usually determined in the Dynevor Arms tonight. If you read my post last week you'll know that I was surprised and impressed by the performance of the team at the bar, who beat us by a point, only losing by one point themselves to Rob and his team. Well, their good form continued tonight, when they trailed us by just the one point at the interval. We knew we couldn't afford to make any mistakes, and for once we didn't, taking a full house on the second half of the quiz, to bring an end to my unwanted losing streak.
There was a lovely question right at the end of the quiz - a juicy little 4 parter. Name the last 4 European Capital cities to host the Summer Olympic Games before London this year. You'll get them, I'm sure, but we had to think for a moment or two. Good question.
The thing is, I am honest to admit that my motivation isn't totally corinthian. I am immature enough to admit that I like winning. Oh, yes, I can still enjoy a good quiz even if I don't win , and I certainly wouldn't dream of stopping going if I had no chance of winning, which, come to think of it, is just as well at the moment, since I haven't won down the rugby club on a Thursday night for months.But I won't lie, I like to win, and I do start to get a little anxious if I go for more than a few quizzes without managing to put anything in the W column.
So you'll appreciate that after losing my last 3 or 4 quizzes in a row I was more than usually determined in the Dynevor Arms tonight. If you read my post last week you'll know that I was surprised and impressed by the performance of the team at the bar, who beat us by a point, only losing by one point themselves to Rob and his team. Well, their good form continued tonight, when they trailed us by just the one point at the interval. We knew we couldn't afford to make any mistakes, and for once we didn't, taking a full house on the second half of the quiz, to bring an end to my unwanted losing streak.
There was a lovely question right at the end of the quiz - a juicy little 4 parter. Name the last 4 European Capital cities to host the Summer Olympic Games before London this year. You'll get them, I'm sure, but we had to think for a moment or two. Good question.
RIP Patricia Owen
Patricia became champion in 1973. Her specialist subject for the first round heat and the final was Grand Opera, and she took Byzantine Art for her semi final subject. Patricia , along with Elizabeth Horrocks, took part in all three tournaments to find an overall champion ; in 1975, where Nancy Wilkinson won a contest between the first 4 champions ; in 1982 where Sir David Hunt won a contest between the first ten champions, and in 2010, where Pat Gibson won a contest between 16 champions from different times during the show's history.
If I may add a personal note here, I had the pleasure of Patricia's company for much of the day of the filming of the heats of the 2010 Champion of Champions series, since we were drawn in the same heat, along with Leslie Grout and Pat, as shown in the photograph alongside. Although it was a great day it was also quite a long one, and I have no doubt that Patricia must have found it tiring. However I found her to be delightful company throughout the day, as sharp as as a tack, with a very engaging sense of humour.
I only met Patricia on that one occasion, and I find myself much saddened by her passing, which I think is a measure of the lady. I extend my deepest sympathy towards her family and friends.
How much is a pub quiz worth ?
Does money ruin everything ? It is a school of thought, certainly, although living without enough of it certainly isn’t much fun. I’ll tell you why I introduce this distasteful issue. It’s been popping in and out of my mind ever since Thursday evening. As you probably know, Thursday evening means the quiz in the rugby club. Now, I am one of the two most regular setters of the quiz, and take my share usually at least once a month, and it’s not unknown for me to make the quiz two weeks in a row. When I started doing this back in 1995, whoever put the quiz together and acted as question master would get three free pint tickets, and whoever acted as scorer would also get three free pint tickets. About ten years ago I introduced the idea that the question master could also act as scorer. This was not, you will appreciate, a desperate attempt to claim an extra three pints for myself – as I’ve said before I’m really not a drinker at all, in fact, I’m virtually teetotal. No, but the fact was that I found that I could get bored quite easily if I wasn’t scoring as well as being question master, and so if I scored as well, then whoever would otherwise have scored could play in the quiz. Everybody wins.
A little over a year ago a new steward took over in the rugby club. Now, I have no axe to grind as such, but she did decide to institute a new system. The tickets were done away with. Instead £12 is now put on a card behind the bar, to be shared between scorer and question master. If any money is left on the card at the end of the evening, well, that’s just hard lines. You can't hang on to it to be used at a later date, as you could do with the tickets. At the end of the day she is the steward, and if that’s the way she has decided to run the quiz, then that’s the way it is. I do have a couple of observations, though. Even at 1995 prices, £12 wouldn’t have bought 6 pints, so it’s a cut in real terms. On a more personal note, I don’t have three drinks in an evening, let alone six. When we had the tickets, this wasn’t a problem, since I could eke them out over the next couple of weeks. Not any more. I did mention that on the evenings I do the quiz, it would be far better for me if they’d just give me a fiver in my hand, which would represent a potential saving to the club of £7. I think that they thought I was joking. I wasn’t.
It was brought home to me on Thursday. Even though I had been question master for the previous two weeks, and even though I only had one drink on both of those evenings, last Thursday I still ended up with the choice of buying my own diet coke or going without. Money, or in this case another kind of remuneration, gets in the way. When I started compiling quizzes for the club I would have done it for nothing. I tell myself that I would still do it for nothing. But this is the thing. If for so long you are given something by way of a thank you for doing something, and then suddenly you are told - well, sorry, but we’re not quite as grateful as we used to be – or – sorry, but we don’t think your quizzes are worth quite as much as they used to be – you can’t help getting a little cheesed off about it. Well I can’t anyway.
I know that this is totally irrational. After all, as I say, I would do the quiz for nothing. The enjoyment I’ve had from the quiz for the last 17 years has paid for the effort I’ve put into making the quizzes many , many times over. But I couldn’t help thinking that the quiz must have made a lot of money for the club over the years. Believe me, I’ve been in there on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings when there’s nothing on, and the place is dead. I don’t know, it just seems silly to me to be creating a bit of bad feeling for the sake of a few pounds, when the quiz must be putting several thousand pounds in the till every year.
Still, if the club hadn’t introduced this new policy I might never have made up my mind to start using the quizzes from the club to make a little pin money from other sources. So every cloud has its silver lining, I suppose.
A little over a year ago a new steward took over in the rugby club. Now, I have no axe to grind as such, but she did decide to institute a new system. The tickets were done away with. Instead £12 is now put on a card behind the bar, to be shared between scorer and question master. If any money is left on the card at the end of the evening, well, that’s just hard lines. You can't hang on to it to be used at a later date, as you could do with the tickets. At the end of the day she is the steward, and if that’s the way she has decided to run the quiz, then that’s the way it is. I do have a couple of observations, though. Even at 1995 prices, £12 wouldn’t have bought 6 pints, so it’s a cut in real terms. On a more personal note, I don’t have three drinks in an evening, let alone six. When we had the tickets, this wasn’t a problem, since I could eke them out over the next couple of weeks. Not any more. I did mention that on the evenings I do the quiz, it would be far better for me if they’d just give me a fiver in my hand, which would represent a potential saving to the club of £7. I think that they thought I was joking. I wasn’t.
It was brought home to me on Thursday. Even though I had been question master for the previous two weeks, and even though I only had one drink on both of those evenings, last Thursday I still ended up with the choice of buying my own diet coke or going without. Money, or in this case another kind of remuneration, gets in the way. When I started compiling quizzes for the club I would have done it for nothing. I tell myself that I would still do it for nothing. But this is the thing. If for so long you are given something by way of a thank you for doing something, and then suddenly you are told - well, sorry, but we’re not quite as grateful as we used to be – or – sorry, but we don’t think your quizzes are worth quite as much as they used to be – you can’t help getting a little cheesed off about it. Well I can’t anyway.
I know that this is totally irrational. After all, as I say, I would do the quiz for nothing. The enjoyment I’ve had from the quiz for the last 17 years has paid for the effort I’ve put into making the quizzes many , many times over. But I couldn’t help thinking that the quiz must have made a lot of money for the club over the years. Believe me, I’ve been in there on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings when there’s nothing on, and the place is dead. I don’t know, it just seems silly to me to be creating a bit of bad feeling for the sake of a few pounds, when the quiz must be putting several thousand pounds in the till every year.
Still, if the club hadn’t introduced this new policy I might never have made up my mind to start using the quizzes from the club to make a little pin money from other sources. So every cloud has its silver lining, I suppose.
Saturday, 28 July 2012
In the News
Who or What are the following, and why have they been in the news ?
1. Happisburgh hand axe
2. John Sullivan
3. Amelia Hempleman - Adams
4. Adam Scott
5. Hashim Amla
6. Steve Lewis
7. Mappleton Beach
8. Perry Fenwick
9. Alison Williamson and Mary King
10. William Balfour
11. Barton Bradstock
12. Edward Putnam
13. Greg Searle
14. Emmanuel Fringpong
15. Baltasar Garzón
16. Jet2.com
17. King Car Taiwan
18. Liam Corcoran
19. John Atta Mills
20. Gu Kailai
21. Alex Thomson
In Other News
1. Which pop group were invited to take over Teignmouth council for a day ?
2. Who won pole for the German Grand Prix ?
3. Which 70 year old British actor passed away last week ?
4. Which telecommunications anniversary passed last week ?
5. Who found himself in trouble for saying that the torch bearer who had the word Olympic’ misspelled as Oylimpic must have been done by an Irish tattooist ?
6. Who won the Open ?
7. Who won the last stage of the Tour De France ?
8. Who carried the GB flag in the Opening ceremony of the Olympics ?
9. Who won the German GP ?
10. Who was working as a golf caddy for Andres Romero ?
11. A set of unknown stories by which writer were discovered last week ?
12. Which two newspapers were accused of paying public officials ?
13. Whose mother reportedly went missing for a few days on Saturday 21st July ?
14. Who apologized for wearing a T Shirt of neo Nazi band Skrewdriver in a photo shoot ?
15. South Africa won the first test by an innings and how many runs ?
16. Who caused concern when he was unable to join the GB Olympic training camp ?
17. Whose son is facing child porn charges ?
18. Who was announced as a new judge for American Idol ?
19. Which UK bird species has declined most ?
20. Which US astronaut passed away age 61 ?
21. Who announced that she would be snubbing the opening ceremony of the Olympics ?
22. What mistake did the Westfield centre make with its Welcome to London signs in Arabic ?
23. Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson were both in the news again – for what reason ?
24. Which 63 year old actress passed away last week ?
25. Who has been banned for life from the Alfred Dunhill Links championship ?
26. What gaffe was made in the Olympic women’s football ?
27. In which airport did the Rome Alone boy board the plane ?
28. Kevin Costner is currently suing for more profits from which of his films ?
29. What was the score in the GB women’s football team’s first match ?
30. Which two GB players were surprised to be drafted into the women’s tennis singles at late notice ?
31. What was the budget for the Olympic Opening ceremony ?
32. Who has been fined in New Orleans for throwing a photographer’s iphone through a window ?
33. Which Dr. Who actress passed away aged 61 ?
34. Who was cleared of expenses abuse by the House of Lords ?
35. What % were the British Gas profits ?
36. Which is the latest bank or building society to suffer from a technical glitch ?
37. What was the score in the GB Men’s football team’s first match ?
38. Who offered talks to the USA ?
39. Who will be portrayed on her country’s currency for the first time ?
40. Who scored team GB’s first Olympic goal ?
1. Happisburgh hand axe
2. John Sullivan
3. Amelia Hempleman - Adams
4. Adam Scott
5. Hashim Amla
6. Steve Lewis
7. Mappleton Beach
8. Perry Fenwick
9. Alison Williamson and Mary King
10. William Balfour
11. Barton Bradstock
12. Edward Putnam
13. Greg Searle
14. Emmanuel Fringpong
15. Baltasar Garzón
16. Jet2.com
17. King Car Taiwan
18. Liam Corcoran
19. John Atta Mills
20. Gu Kailai
21. Alex Thomson
In Other News
1. Which pop group were invited to take over Teignmouth council for a day ?
2. Who won pole for the German Grand Prix ?
3. Which 70 year old British actor passed away last week ?
4. Which telecommunications anniversary passed last week ?
5. Who found himself in trouble for saying that the torch bearer who had the word Olympic’ misspelled as Oylimpic must have been done by an Irish tattooist ?
6. Who won the Open ?
7. Who won the last stage of the Tour De France ?
8. Who carried the GB flag in the Opening ceremony of the Olympics ?
9. Who won the German GP ?
10. Who was working as a golf caddy for Andres Romero ?
11. A set of unknown stories by which writer were discovered last week ?
12. Which two newspapers were accused of paying public officials ?
13. Whose mother reportedly went missing for a few days on Saturday 21st July ?
14. Who apologized for wearing a T Shirt of neo Nazi band Skrewdriver in a photo shoot ?
15. South Africa won the first test by an innings and how many runs ?
16. Who caused concern when he was unable to join the GB Olympic training camp ?
17. Whose son is facing child porn charges ?
18. Who was announced as a new judge for American Idol ?
19. Which UK bird species has declined most ?
20. Which US astronaut passed away age 61 ?
21. Who announced that she would be snubbing the opening ceremony of the Olympics ?
22. What mistake did the Westfield centre make with its Welcome to London signs in Arabic ?
23. Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson were both in the news again – for what reason ?
24. Which 63 year old actress passed away last week ?
25. Who has been banned for life from the Alfred Dunhill Links championship ?
26. What gaffe was made in the Olympic women’s football ?
27. In which airport did the Rome Alone boy board the plane ?
28. Kevin Costner is currently suing for more profits from which of his films ?
29. What was the score in the GB women’s football team’s first match ?
30. Which two GB players were surprised to be drafted into the women’s tennis singles at late notice ?
31. What was the budget for the Olympic Opening ceremony ?
32. Who has been fined in New Orleans for throwing a photographer’s iphone through a window ?
33. Which Dr. Who actress passed away aged 61 ?
34. Who was cleared of expenses abuse by the House of Lords ?
35. What % were the British Gas profits ?
36. Which is the latest bank or building society to suffer from a technical glitch ?
37. What was the score in the GB Men’s football team’s first match ?
38. Who offered talks to the USA ?
39. Who will be portrayed on her country’s currency for the first time ?
40. Who scored team GB’s first Olympic goal ?
Answers to News Questions
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?
1. Dwayne Walker
2. Tremseh
3. G4S
4. P5
5. Howard Riddle
6. But First This
7. Nick Buckles
8. Danny Garcia
9. Choc Ice
10. Lester Slate
11. Les Davies
12. Dan Penteado
13. Frank Schleck
14. Rajesh Khanna
15. Richard Zanuck
16. aQuantative
17. Jason Blue
18. Jason Kenny
19. James Holmes
20. Brandt Snedeker
21. Aurora
In Other News
1. It was announced that which chow will close in the West End after 15 years ?
2. What has been announced as the world’s most endangered family of primates ?
3. Who won the Pin Pinter Literary Prize ?
4. Which band are reuniting once again for a live Radio2 broadcast on July 31st ?
5. Who has been appointed as UN Special Envoy for global education ?
6. Which division of the Scottish League will Newco Rangers play in during the coming season ?
7. Who became the 4th different Brit to win a stage of the 2012 Tour de France last week ?
8. Who were told to stop singing by Hyde Park officials ?
9. Which 95 year old actress passed away ?
10. Who was it announced last week will appear on Desert Island Discs ?
11. What are being used as new galleries for the Tate Modern ?
12. What is the top song which makes people feel proud to be British, according to a recent survey ?
13. What happened to disrupt the Tour de France on stage 14 ?
14. What was the result of the controversial Haye v Chisora fight ?
15. Who gave £6.4 million to GM research ?
16. Which two clubs will meet in the RL Challenge Cup Final ?
17. Which Hollywood star gave birth to a little girl ?
18. Who is making a documentary about taking MDMA – the pure form of Ecstasy ?
19. The population of the UK was announced as what last week ?
20. Which member of Deep Purple passed away last week ?
21. Whose private beach was opened to the public last week ?
22. Who has become a director of Crystal Palace FC ?
23. How long did it take the US Olympic team to get from Heathrow to the Olympic Village in Stratford last week ?
24. Which comedian and actor was cleared of speeding last week ?
25. What was revealed as the most popular form of adult communication ?
26. Who plays Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises
27. Last week the British government admitted torturing whom ?
28. A proposal was made last week to impose a toll on which already existing road ?
29. Who many calories are there in a 380 ml bottle of Lucozade energy ? _ Energy drinks came under fire last week for not being as healthy as people believe they are.
30. Which birthday did Nelson Mandela celebrate last week ?
31. Which company reported their first ever quarterly loss ?
32. A ferry sank with loss of life near which island ?
33. Whose former New York apartment has been put up for rent ?
34. PC Simon Horwood was acquitted of manslaughter at which Crown Court ?
35. Who pulled out of the Olympic Tennis Tournament through injury ?
36. Who starts his 100th grand prix this weekend ?
37. Which former England international footballer retired last week ?
38. Which team Sky rider won stage 18 of the Tour de France ?
39. Which journalist and newsreader passed away aged 84 ?
40. Who axed her first performance in a festival in Pontypridd, causing the 1st of three nights of the festival to be cancelled ?
41. It was announced last week that Nazis attempted to kill Winston Churchill using which unlikely device ?
42. Which former England international resigned from his position in the FA coaching set up ?
Answers
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?
1. Designer suing Jay – Z – says he never paid for a logo he designed for him
2. Syrian village, scene of terrible massacre
3. Security firm unable to provide enough staff for the Olympics
4. New 5th moon of Pluto, yet to be given a name
5. Judge in the John Terry racism case
6. New musical based on Radio 4
7. G4S Chief Executive
8. Defeated Amir Khan in 4th round of world title fight
9. What Ashley Cole was called after testifying for John Terry
10. American man who made his first parachute jump at the age of 90
11. Bangor City footballer who has made the shortlist of 32 for the European Footballer of the Year
12. Rogue Traders TV presenter jailed for benefit fraud
13. Top Tour de France rider taken off the Tour due to a positive drugs test
14. Reckoned to be the first Bollywood superstar, passed away last week
15. Film Producer, passed away
16. Online ad agency bought by Microsoft, blamed for Microsoft first ever reported loss
17. Fan hit by a wayward drive from Rory McIlroy in the Open.
18. Selected for the Olympic Men’s Individual sprint instead of Sir Chris Hoy
19. Suspected for the Colorado cinema shootings
20. Led after first two days of the Open
21. Town where the Colorado cinema shootings occured
In Other News
1. Chicago
2. Lemurs
3. Carol Anne Duffy
4. Blur
5. Gordon Brown
6. 3rd Division
7. David Millar
8. Bruce Springsteen and Sir Paul McCartney
9. Celeste Holm
10. Aung San Suu Kyi
11. Oil Tanks
12. We Are the Champions
13. Sabotage by tacks being thrown onto the road
14. Haye won in round 5
15. Bill Gates
16. Leeds and Warrington
17. Uma Thurman
18. Keith Allen
19. 63.1 million
20. Jon Lord
21. Queen Victoria
22. Eddie Izzard
23. 4 hours
24. Steve Coogan
25. Texting
26. Anne Hathaway
27. The Mau Mau
28. A14
29. 266
30. 95
31. Microsoft
32. Zanzibar
33. Barack Obama
34. Southwark
35. Rafael Nadal
36. Lewis Hamilton
37. Ledley King
38. Mark Cavendish
39. Sir Alastair Burnet
40. Jessie J
41. An exploding chocolate bar
42. Gareth Southgate
1. Dwayne Walker
2. Tremseh
3. G4S
4. P5
5. Howard Riddle
6. But First This
7. Nick Buckles
8. Danny Garcia
9. Choc Ice
10. Lester Slate
11. Les Davies
12. Dan Penteado
13. Frank Schleck
14. Rajesh Khanna
15. Richard Zanuck
16. aQuantative
17. Jason Blue
18. Jason Kenny
19. James Holmes
20. Brandt Snedeker
21. Aurora
In Other News
1. It was announced that which chow will close in the West End after 15 years ?
2. What has been announced as the world’s most endangered family of primates ?
3. Who won the Pin Pinter Literary Prize ?
4. Which band are reuniting once again for a live Radio2 broadcast on July 31st ?
5. Who has been appointed as UN Special Envoy for global education ?
6. Which division of the Scottish League will Newco Rangers play in during the coming season ?
7. Who became the 4th different Brit to win a stage of the 2012 Tour de France last week ?
8. Who were told to stop singing by Hyde Park officials ?
9. Which 95 year old actress passed away ?
10. Who was it announced last week will appear on Desert Island Discs ?
11. What are being used as new galleries for the Tate Modern ?
12. What is the top song which makes people feel proud to be British, according to a recent survey ?
13. What happened to disrupt the Tour de France on stage 14 ?
14. What was the result of the controversial Haye v Chisora fight ?
15. Who gave £6.4 million to GM research ?
16. Which two clubs will meet in the RL Challenge Cup Final ?
17. Which Hollywood star gave birth to a little girl ?
18. Who is making a documentary about taking MDMA – the pure form of Ecstasy ?
19. The population of the UK was announced as what last week ?
20. Which member of Deep Purple passed away last week ?
21. Whose private beach was opened to the public last week ?
22. Who has become a director of Crystal Palace FC ?
23. How long did it take the US Olympic team to get from Heathrow to the Olympic Village in Stratford last week ?
24. Which comedian and actor was cleared of speeding last week ?
25. What was revealed as the most popular form of adult communication ?
26. Who plays Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises
27. Last week the British government admitted torturing whom ?
28. A proposal was made last week to impose a toll on which already existing road ?
29. Who many calories are there in a 380 ml bottle of Lucozade energy ? _ Energy drinks came under fire last week for not being as healthy as people believe they are.
30. Which birthday did Nelson Mandela celebrate last week ?
31. Which company reported their first ever quarterly loss ?
32. A ferry sank with loss of life near which island ?
33. Whose former New York apartment has been put up for rent ?
34. PC Simon Horwood was acquitted of manslaughter at which Crown Court ?
35. Who pulled out of the Olympic Tennis Tournament through injury ?
36. Who starts his 100th grand prix this weekend ?
37. Which former England international footballer retired last week ?
38. Which team Sky rider won stage 18 of the Tour de France ?
39. Which journalist and newsreader passed away aged 84 ?
40. Who axed her first performance in a festival in Pontypridd, causing the 1st of three nights of the festival to be cancelled ?
41. It was announced last week that Nazis attempted to kill Winston Churchill using which unlikely device ?
42. Which former England international resigned from his position in the FA coaching set up ?
Answers
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?
1. Designer suing Jay – Z – says he never paid for a logo he designed for him
2. Syrian village, scene of terrible massacre
3. Security firm unable to provide enough staff for the Olympics
4. New 5th moon of Pluto, yet to be given a name
5. Judge in the John Terry racism case
6. New musical based on Radio 4
7. G4S Chief Executive
8. Defeated Amir Khan in 4th round of world title fight
9. What Ashley Cole was called after testifying for John Terry
10. American man who made his first parachute jump at the age of 90
11. Bangor City footballer who has made the shortlist of 32 for the European Footballer of the Year
12. Rogue Traders TV presenter jailed for benefit fraud
13. Top Tour de France rider taken off the Tour due to a positive drugs test
14. Reckoned to be the first Bollywood superstar, passed away last week
15. Film Producer, passed away
16. Online ad agency bought by Microsoft, blamed for Microsoft first ever reported loss
17. Fan hit by a wayward drive from Rory McIlroy in the Open.
18. Selected for the Olympic Men’s Individual sprint instead of Sir Chris Hoy
19. Suspected for the Colorado cinema shootings
20. Led after first two days of the Open
21. Town where the Colorado cinema shootings occured
In Other News
1. Chicago
2. Lemurs
3. Carol Anne Duffy
4. Blur
5. Gordon Brown
6. 3rd Division
7. David Millar
8. Bruce Springsteen and Sir Paul McCartney
9. Celeste Holm
10. Aung San Suu Kyi
11. Oil Tanks
12. We Are the Champions
13. Sabotage by tacks being thrown onto the road
14. Haye won in round 5
15. Bill Gates
16. Leeds and Warrington
17. Uma Thurman
18. Keith Allen
19. 63.1 million
20. Jon Lord
21. Queen Victoria
22. Eddie Izzard
23. 4 hours
24. Steve Coogan
25. Texting
26. Anne Hathaway
27. The Mau Mau
28. A14
29. 266
30. 95
31. Microsoft
32. Zanzibar
33. Barack Obama
34. Southwark
35. Rafael Nadal
36. Lewis Hamilton
37. Ledley King
38. Mark Cavendish
39. Sir Alastair Burnet
40. Jessie J
41. An exploding chocolate bar
42. Gareth Southgate
Thursday, 26 July 2012
On Late Arrivals
I don’t know if you watched a TV show by the comedian Jon Richardson the other night about OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder). It certainly put into perspective what I’ve stupidly called quiz compulsive disorder before. Wanting to play in a lot of quizzes, and being constantly half on the look out for potential questions, that’s neither compulsive, nor a disorder, irritating though it may be to one’s nearest and dearest.
Therefore I don’t say that what I’m going to describe now is a disorder, or even a compulsion. Still, I thought I’d tell you about it anyway. Mrs. Londinius is currently learning to drive. Her mother sent her a Smart car from Spain as an early birthday present, and so she thought it would probably be a good idea if she learned how to use it. OK, so far so good. On a Wednesday evening she often goes to a sewing class. Rather than driving her there and picking her up myself, she drove in the Smart, with me in the passenger seat. Now, on the way home, it seemed to me that we were going the wrong way. “No, no, “ she replied, “we’re just going to do a little shopping in Tescos . “ ( By the way, Lord Tesco, if you are reading this there’s no charge for the product placement, but if you wanted to send a present, then you can email me for the address to send it to ) – Where’s the problem with that ? – you may ask. There really isn’t a problem, except that it did mean that instead of arriving home by about 10 to 9, we didn’t get back until about quarter past.
I had planned to walk down the road to the Grand Hotel, which has been hosting a quiz since about March of this year, and check it out. It’s advertised as starting at 9. The problem being that I have a real phobia of being late for things. In all honesty I would rather be an hour early for something than 10 minutes late. Now, the rational part of my brain knows that this is rather ridiculous, but this isn’t something that is processed by the rational part of my brain, because it happens at a gut level, a visceral level. The thought of being late just makes me extremely uncomfortable. I absolutely hate it on the odd occasions when events conspire to prevent me from being at the rugby club on a Thursday night by 9, even though it never starts before quarter past. So there’s absolutely no way I was going to walk down to the Grand on the offchance that it was a 9 for 9:30 quiz. Maybe next week.
The really stupid thing is that it doesn’t bother me at all when other people turn up late to one of my quizzes. I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what the etiquette generally is for late arrivals. I mean, I do tend to think that it’s good manners to turn up on time if you are intending to play, but I’d never draw attention to anyone who doesn’t, or treat them any differently from any of the other people taking part. Is this the general thing around the country , I wonder ?
Therefore I don’t say that what I’m going to describe now is a disorder, or even a compulsion. Still, I thought I’d tell you about it anyway. Mrs. Londinius is currently learning to drive. Her mother sent her a Smart car from Spain as an early birthday present, and so she thought it would probably be a good idea if she learned how to use it. OK, so far so good. On a Wednesday evening she often goes to a sewing class. Rather than driving her there and picking her up myself, she drove in the Smart, with me in the passenger seat. Now, on the way home, it seemed to me that we were going the wrong way. “No, no, “ she replied, “we’re just going to do a little shopping in Tescos . “ ( By the way, Lord Tesco, if you are reading this there’s no charge for the product placement, but if you wanted to send a present, then you can email me for the address to send it to ) – Where’s the problem with that ? – you may ask. There really isn’t a problem, except that it did mean that instead of arriving home by about 10 to 9, we didn’t get back until about quarter past.
I had planned to walk down the road to the Grand Hotel, which has been hosting a quiz since about March of this year, and check it out. It’s advertised as starting at 9. The problem being that I have a real phobia of being late for things. In all honesty I would rather be an hour early for something than 10 minutes late. Now, the rational part of my brain knows that this is rather ridiculous, but this isn’t something that is processed by the rational part of my brain, because it happens at a gut level, a visceral level. The thought of being late just makes me extremely uncomfortable. I absolutely hate it on the odd occasions when events conspire to prevent me from being at the rugby club on a Thursday night by 9, even though it never starts before quarter past. So there’s absolutely no way I was going to walk down to the Grand on the offchance that it was a 9 for 9:30 quiz. Maybe next week.
The really stupid thing is that it doesn’t bother me at all when other people turn up late to one of my quizzes. I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what the etiquette generally is for late arrivals. I mean, I do tend to think that it’s good manners to turn up on time if you are intending to play, but I’d never draw attention to anyone who doesn’t, or treat them any differently from any of the other people taking part. Is this the general thing around the country , I wonder ?
Tuesday, 24 July 2012
The Disappearing Local
Here’s a thought, and not a very happy one at that. This is the first week of the school summer holidays – now there IS a happy thought – and every summer I find myself toying with the idea of the week long quiz marathon, trying to play a quiz each night of the week. This would have to be next week , you understand, being as it’s already Tuesday and I didn’t go out last night. Still, albeit that I already have Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday planned, this still left the other three days, and so I found myself googling to see what, if any, quizzes that I don’t know about might be happening within a reasonable distance from home.
To say that there’s not a lot being advertised is a bit of an understatement. We have what I believe is technically called an ongoing Old Mother Hubbard situation. Yet that’s not the saddest thing, sad though it certainly is. No, the worst thing is when I started looking fairly close to home I kept coming across pubs in which I’ve either played social quizzes, or league quizzes at some time in the last twenty years which have closed down, some of which have been converted into flats, and some of which have even been pulled down completely. Maybe it’s a sign of the times, or maybe it’s always been like this – I don’t know. But it is a shame
Now, before you start to draw your own conclusions from the mournful tone of this post, I want to stress now that my sadness for the passing of these pubs has nothing to do with the consumption of alcohol. I’m certainly not a hard drinker ( hard drinker ? No sir, I find it very easy . . . boom boom – Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show c.1976 )In fact virtually teetotal. But it is a shame to see a pub where you played in some good old ding dong league matches, or where they held a fun and well attended social quiz, all shut down , boarded up and forlorn, or heaven forbid, gone completely. When you think about it there aren’t that many essentials for a pub quiz. You need the questions and the answers, people to play and a question master. And you need a pub. Yes, I’m sure that we’ve all played in places like village halls and leisure centres, and these are worthy ventures, capable of hosting a good quiz. But they’re not the same.
Not that I’m suggesting for one minute that the local pub will disappear completely. But it does lead me to worry for the small place that has its own question master who prepares an individual quiz just for that place , and those players every week. In the words of Joni Mitchell, don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone. (Mind you she also wrote that they paved paradise, so how much attention should you pay to her ?)
To say that there’s not a lot being advertised is a bit of an understatement. We have what I believe is technically called an ongoing Old Mother Hubbard situation. Yet that’s not the saddest thing, sad though it certainly is. No, the worst thing is when I started looking fairly close to home I kept coming across pubs in which I’ve either played social quizzes, or league quizzes at some time in the last twenty years which have closed down, some of which have been converted into flats, and some of which have even been pulled down completely. Maybe it’s a sign of the times, or maybe it’s always been like this – I don’t know. But it is a shame
Now, before you start to draw your own conclusions from the mournful tone of this post, I want to stress now that my sadness for the passing of these pubs has nothing to do with the consumption of alcohol. I’m certainly not a hard drinker ( hard drinker ? No sir, I find it very easy . . . boom boom – Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show c.1976 )In fact virtually teetotal. But it is a shame to see a pub where you played in some good old ding dong league matches, or where they held a fun and well attended social quiz, all shut down , boarded up and forlorn, or heaven forbid, gone completely. When you think about it there aren’t that many essentials for a pub quiz. You need the questions and the answers, people to play and a question master. And you need a pub. Yes, I’m sure that we’ve all played in places like village halls and leisure centres, and these are worthy ventures, capable of hosting a good quiz. But they’re not the same.
Not that I’m suggesting for one minute that the local pub will disappear completely. But it does lead me to worry for the small place that has its own question master who prepares an individual quiz just for that place , and those players every week. In the words of Joni Mitchell, don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you got till it's gone. (Mind you she also wrote that they paved paradise, so how much attention should you pay to her ?)
University Challenge - Round 1 - Heat 2
St. George's London v. Kings College Cambridge
Our first London College played this week. St. George’s London is a medical college , which boasted Gray of the Anatomy and Edward Jenner of the smallpox vaccine among its alumni. The team comprised of Shashank Sivaji, Alexander Suebsaeng, Sam Mindel, and captain Rebecca Smoker. Kings College Cambridge , formerly home to such luminaries as Alan Turing and E.M.Forster, fielded the team of Curtis Gallant, Amber Ace, James Gratrex and captain Fran Middleton. So much for the introductions, then, and let’s get on with it.
James Gratrex took an early lead for his team by identifying the Battle of Thermopylae. Of the three bonuses on marmalade they managed two. Alexander Suebsaeng hit straight back knowing that the lingua franca for much of east Africa is Swahili. This brought up a set on French literature. An impressive full house was taken, giving St. George’s the lead for the first time. With the next starter I did exactly what Alexander Suebsaeng did, and leapt in wrongly with Richard Dawkins , for the author of the 2010 book “The Grand Design” , thus losing the five point lead. Given the full question James Gratrex made no mistake. This brought up a set of bonuses on various thins called monarchs. One was taken. A good buzz from Shashank Sivaji identified Potsdam as the capital of Brandneburg. The bonuses that followed were on Physics, and water. St. George’s took two of these. For the picture starter the teams were shown the route of one of the major city marathons. The word Brookline gave it away for me, and maybe it worked for Fran Middleton too as she correctly identified it as Boston. More of the same followed as the bonuses, with the clue that all of these routed were in European cities. I had Rotterdam and Berlin, but unfortunately the team didn’t manage any of them. Amber Ace took her first starter with the word cellulite.The set of bonuses on hereditary offices of state failed them. At about the 11 minute mark, Kings College led by 55 points to 40. However it’s worth noting that they had actually answered 4 starters to St. George’s 2. A lead of only 15 suggested that if St. George’s could find parity with the buzzer, they were capable of beating Kings on bonuses.
Alexander Suebsaeng found more than parity when he nipped in with an early buzz on the Cathars to take the next starter. A set on 2oth century semi autobiographical novels followed, 2 of which were correctly answered.Sam Mindel buzzed early as he weighed in with his first starter of the day with the term fidelity , in acoustics and telecommunication. Religious relics led St. George’s to draw their first bonus duck . The music starter followed, and Sam Mindel missed out with Dvorak. James Gratrex correctly identified Saint Saens. The bonuses began with a pupil of Saint Saens, then a pupil of his , and so on. Kings managed two bonuses, which put them back in the lead with 75. Skipper Fran Middleton buzzed early with San Marino as the answer to the city state ruled by the Sforza family. That wiped out their lead. Alexander Suebsaeng took the points with Milan, to bring up a set on Anglo Saxon literature. I am ashamed that I missed out on Exeter myself, having studied anglo saxon literature as part of my degree. Getting old, memory’s going, I suppose. St. George’s managed the same two bonuses that I did. Shashank Sivaji knew all about the app Foursquare and that gave St. George’s another starter. A full set of bonuses on Geometry followed, and St. George’s now had a lead of 45, the healthiest lead of the whole match so far. A measure of the quality of this match was shown by the fact that we hadn’t had one starter which neither team could manage until the next, on the term Balance of Payments. Sam Mindel was a little too quick in and lost five. Neither team knew the Bevetron either. Wasn’t he the leader of the Decepticons in Transformers ? Curtis Gallant knew that after 541 days a new government was finally sworn in in Belgium, taking his first starter, and narrowing the gap a little. A good UC set on decades when things happened followed, and the team managed 1 of them. Amber Ace knew two definitions given both referred to the word rut, and this brought up a set on astronomy. One bonus meant that St. George’s led at the 20 minute mark, with 110 to 95. Interestingly Kings were still ahead on starters, with 7 to 6, but their profligacy with bonuses was costing them dear.
For the second picture starter Sam Mindel identified the bark of a birch. More of the same proved beyond them. Not surprised. I wouldn’t have even known they were trees if we hadn’t been told. Neither team could spell ESCHERICHIA for the next , and so it was left to the impressive James Gratrex to try to haul his team back into contention by identifying the 8th prime number as 19. I enjoyed the next set on place names in French – eg. Pas de Calais – Iles Normands etc. 1 bonus was taken, and at this stage you have the feeling that single bonuses just wouldn’t do. I identified Schott’s Almanac from the description for the next starter, but neither team could do that. James Gratrex took his fifth starter with some Physics thing to which the answer was Hamiltonian. Bonuses on Missouri yielded 2, which was enough to give Kings the lead. Neither team knew that Chaucer was born in the reign of Edward III. Amber Ace knew that Verdi wrote the opera “Macbeth”. Medical bonuses brought another 5 points. A late burst was needed from St. George’s , and Sam Mindel provided the initial impetus with the term sublimation, a full 1 second after I had shouted it, delighted that for once I knew a Science starter. I knew two of the Trade Union acronyms, and they knew one. It was a close game, and it was Alexander Suebsaeng who took the next starter on Rice to give his team the lead. A full set on Geography gave St. George’s the whip hand, and Sam Mindel pushed them further into the lead on Creationism. Bonuses on the French Revolution proved tricky, but the one they answered was enough to give them a 30 point lead. Roger Tilling had almost exploded on the previous starter, and so we knew that there was next to no time left, and so it proved, as neither team had time to answer that it was Hilary Mantel who both won the Booker Prize AND had a surname that means overcoat in German. A win for St. George’s by 175 to 145, and you have to say that they were probably just about the better team overall, even though it was a tight and exciting contest. In the end what killed Kings was their inability to make their bonuses really count. At the end, JP said that they may well come back in the repechage round. I’d say that their score makes this possible, but ideally they wanted another 15 or 20 to give themselves a really good chance of returning. Well done to both teams anyway, a very enjoyable contest.
Jeremy Paxman Watch
A very early one in the show this week. When James Gratrex correctly answered that the quote from Herodotus referred to the Battle of Thermopylae, JP seemed hugely amused by the fact that he had answered, being as he was the only member of the team not reading Classics. Actually this brings up the question whether Kings were overloading their team , leaving them dangerously deficient in other areas. That’s an argument made redundant, though, by the fact that St. George's team consisted enitrely of medical students, naturally enough.
. On the Physics question about water and pressure, JP allowed 2000 either way, and seemed hugely impressed when captain Rebecca Smoker gave the correct answer 101,000. “Indeed , very well answered . “ JP purred, impressed. Then not to be outdone, he couldn’t resist adding , “ 101,500 to be precise.”
Warming up nicely, when the Kings team identified the Berlin Marathon route as Dublin there was definitely an edge to his voice when he replied “It’s CERTAINLY not Dublin , it’s Berlin. “
Amber Ace came in for one of his best exasperated schoolmaster expressions, when in response to her offer of “Gross domestic product” he explained “ No no. That is the WEALTH of the country !”
Our hero did at least seem to mellow a little as the contest continued. He grudgingly admitted after St. George’s failure to identify any of the bonus tree barks “They were difficult though. “
Interesting fact of the week that I didn’t already know
The term cellulite, as well as being credited to French doctors in the 1920s, it has also been credited to a New York Beauty salon owner, Nicole Ronsart.
Our first London College played this week. St. George’s London is a medical college , which boasted Gray of the Anatomy and Edward Jenner of the smallpox vaccine among its alumni. The team comprised of Shashank Sivaji, Alexander Suebsaeng, Sam Mindel, and captain Rebecca Smoker. Kings College Cambridge , formerly home to such luminaries as Alan Turing and E.M.Forster, fielded the team of Curtis Gallant, Amber Ace, James Gratrex and captain Fran Middleton. So much for the introductions, then, and let’s get on with it.
James Gratrex took an early lead for his team by identifying the Battle of Thermopylae. Of the three bonuses on marmalade they managed two. Alexander Suebsaeng hit straight back knowing that the lingua franca for much of east Africa is Swahili. This brought up a set on French literature. An impressive full house was taken, giving St. George’s the lead for the first time. With the next starter I did exactly what Alexander Suebsaeng did, and leapt in wrongly with Richard Dawkins , for the author of the 2010 book “The Grand Design” , thus losing the five point lead. Given the full question James Gratrex made no mistake. This brought up a set of bonuses on various thins called monarchs. One was taken. A good buzz from Shashank Sivaji identified Potsdam as the capital of Brandneburg. The bonuses that followed were on Physics, and water. St. George’s took two of these. For the picture starter the teams were shown the route of one of the major city marathons. The word Brookline gave it away for me, and maybe it worked for Fran Middleton too as she correctly identified it as Boston. More of the same followed as the bonuses, with the clue that all of these routed were in European cities. I had Rotterdam and Berlin, but unfortunately the team didn’t manage any of them. Amber Ace took her first starter with the word cellulite.The set of bonuses on hereditary offices of state failed them. At about the 11 minute mark, Kings College led by 55 points to 40. However it’s worth noting that they had actually answered 4 starters to St. George’s 2. A lead of only 15 suggested that if St. George’s could find parity with the buzzer, they were capable of beating Kings on bonuses.
Alexander Suebsaeng found more than parity when he nipped in with an early buzz on the Cathars to take the next starter. A set on 2oth century semi autobiographical novels followed, 2 of which were correctly answered.Sam Mindel buzzed early as he weighed in with his first starter of the day with the term fidelity , in acoustics and telecommunication. Religious relics led St. George’s to draw their first bonus duck . The music starter followed, and Sam Mindel missed out with Dvorak. James Gratrex correctly identified Saint Saens. The bonuses began with a pupil of Saint Saens, then a pupil of his , and so on. Kings managed two bonuses, which put them back in the lead with 75. Skipper Fran Middleton buzzed early with San Marino as the answer to the city state ruled by the Sforza family. That wiped out their lead. Alexander Suebsaeng took the points with Milan, to bring up a set on Anglo Saxon literature. I am ashamed that I missed out on Exeter myself, having studied anglo saxon literature as part of my degree. Getting old, memory’s going, I suppose. St. George’s managed the same two bonuses that I did. Shashank Sivaji knew all about the app Foursquare and that gave St. George’s another starter. A full set of bonuses on Geometry followed, and St. George’s now had a lead of 45, the healthiest lead of the whole match so far. A measure of the quality of this match was shown by the fact that we hadn’t had one starter which neither team could manage until the next, on the term Balance of Payments. Sam Mindel was a little too quick in and lost five. Neither team knew the Bevetron either. Wasn’t he the leader of the Decepticons in Transformers ? Curtis Gallant knew that after 541 days a new government was finally sworn in in Belgium, taking his first starter, and narrowing the gap a little. A good UC set on decades when things happened followed, and the team managed 1 of them. Amber Ace knew two definitions given both referred to the word rut, and this brought up a set on astronomy. One bonus meant that St. George’s led at the 20 minute mark, with 110 to 95. Interestingly Kings were still ahead on starters, with 7 to 6, but their profligacy with bonuses was costing them dear.
For the second picture starter Sam Mindel identified the bark of a birch. More of the same proved beyond them. Not surprised. I wouldn’t have even known they were trees if we hadn’t been told. Neither team could spell ESCHERICHIA for the next , and so it was left to the impressive James Gratrex to try to haul his team back into contention by identifying the 8th prime number as 19. I enjoyed the next set on place names in French – eg. Pas de Calais – Iles Normands etc. 1 bonus was taken, and at this stage you have the feeling that single bonuses just wouldn’t do. I identified Schott’s Almanac from the description for the next starter, but neither team could do that. James Gratrex took his fifth starter with some Physics thing to which the answer was Hamiltonian. Bonuses on Missouri yielded 2, which was enough to give Kings the lead. Neither team knew that Chaucer was born in the reign of Edward III. Amber Ace knew that Verdi wrote the opera “Macbeth”. Medical bonuses brought another 5 points. A late burst was needed from St. George’s , and Sam Mindel provided the initial impetus with the term sublimation, a full 1 second after I had shouted it, delighted that for once I knew a Science starter. I knew two of the Trade Union acronyms, and they knew one. It was a close game, and it was Alexander Suebsaeng who took the next starter on Rice to give his team the lead. A full set on Geography gave St. George’s the whip hand, and Sam Mindel pushed them further into the lead on Creationism. Bonuses on the French Revolution proved tricky, but the one they answered was enough to give them a 30 point lead. Roger Tilling had almost exploded on the previous starter, and so we knew that there was next to no time left, and so it proved, as neither team had time to answer that it was Hilary Mantel who both won the Booker Prize AND had a surname that means overcoat in German. A win for St. George’s by 175 to 145, and you have to say that they were probably just about the better team overall, even though it was a tight and exciting contest. In the end what killed Kings was their inability to make their bonuses really count. At the end, JP said that they may well come back in the repechage round. I’d say that their score makes this possible, but ideally they wanted another 15 or 20 to give themselves a really good chance of returning. Well done to both teams anyway, a very enjoyable contest.
Jeremy Paxman Watch
A very early one in the show this week. When James Gratrex correctly answered that the quote from Herodotus referred to the Battle of Thermopylae, JP seemed hugely amused by the fact that he had answered, being as he was the only member of the team not reading Classics. Actually this brings up the question whether Kings were overloading their team , leaving them dangerously deficient in other areas. That’s an argument made redundant, though, by the fact that St. George's team consisted enitrely of medical students, naturally enough.
. On the Physics question about water and pressure, JP allowed 2000 either way, and seemed hugely impressed when captain Rebecca Smoker gave the correct answer 101,000. “Indeed , very well answered . “ JP purred, impressed. Then not to be outdone, he couldn’t resist adding , “ 101,500 to be precise.”
Warming up nicely, when the Kings team identified the Berlin Marathon route as Dublin there was definitely an edge to his voice when he replied “It’s CERTAINLY not Dublin , it’s Berlin. “
Amber Ace came in for one of his best exasperated schoolmaster expressions, when in response to her offer of “Gross domestic product” he explained “ No no. That is the WEALTH of the country !”
Our hero did at least seem to mellow a little as the contest continued. He grudgingly admitted after St. George’s failure to identify any of the bonus tree barks “They were difficult though. “
Interesting fact of the week that I didn’t already know
The term cellulite, as well as being credited to French doctors in the 1920s, it has also been credited to a New York Beauty salon owner, Nicole Ronsart.
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Re: Perfection
Further to my post about the contestant call for Perfection - see Wednesday 18th July - I should tell you that I have had an email back from that nice Jane Sharp of 12 Yard. In response to my email Jane has categorically stated that if an applicant has appeared before on television a significant number of times, and/or done particularly well in these shows, this will in no way be prejudicial to the application.
Well, that's nice to know. The irony is that after asking all that, and receiving that reassurance, I noticed that the filming dates given in the application form fall when I am making the annual migration to Alicante. So I couldn't do it anyway even if I did pass through the audition process. Still, if you fancy having a go, there really is nothing stopping anyone at least putting in an application.
Well, that's nice to know. The irony is that after asking all that, and receiving that reassurance, I noticed that the filming dates given in the application form fall when I am making the annual migration to Alicante. So I couldn't do it anyway even if I did pass through the audition process. Still, if you fancy having a go, there really is nothing stopping anyone at least putting in an application.
Best Sunday of the Year
You know I'd like to say that I've really been taking advantage of the suddenly seasonal weather today, but other than a visit to a couple of car boot sales this morning I really haven't. Still, that was pleasant enough, even if it yielded little - well , not for me anyway. Mrs. Londinius has a very good eye, and she often sees stuff to resell on eBay, so I've no doubt that she'll at least make back the cost of the petrol we used.
Maybe you're asking yourself what exactly it is that makes this at least one of the best Sundays of the year, if not the very best. It's simply because it's the first weekend of the summer holidays from school, and so the first of several successvie Sundays where I can go to the quiz with a clear conscience, and not have to worry about coming down, and calming down when I get back so as to be able to get my head down by about 11:30 and have a decent chance of getting to sleep fairly quickly.
Talking about the Sunday quiz in the Dyffryn Arms there was a bit of a turn up there this week. We don't always win there, John and I, but it's fair to say we have won the majority of quizzes we've played in. Rob was there, though, with a full team, and that to my mind did make us underdogs. So it proved, and they beat us by 2 points in the end. I dropped a couple of points I should have had, but then they are in the position to say exactly the same thing. The surprise , though, was that we were also beaten by a point by Keith and the guys who play up at the bar. I have to say that this was by far the best performance I can remember seeing them put in since I've been going - very well played for that guys - well done ! Not that I like coming in third , you understand, but you have to take your hat off to a good performance - or two good performances in this case.
If you're wondering what I've been doing for the rest of the day, well quite a lot of it was spent stockpiling quiz questions for the lean winter months ahead. I've done 3 of the last 5 or so quizzes at the club, and so my unused question stock has been dwindling recently. Therefore it kind of makes sense to make hay while the sun shines, or , to put it another way, to make hay while at least it's not peeing down .
I'm thinking about having a look at another midweek quiz again this week, and I'll let you know how it goes if I do indulge.
Maybe you're asking yourself what exactly it is that makes this at least one of the best Sundays of the year, if not the very best. It's simply because it's the first weekend of the summer holidays from school, and so the first of several successvie Sundays where I can go to the quiz with a clear conscience, and not have to worry about coming down, and calming down when I get back so as to be able to get my head down by about 11:30 and have a decent chance of getting to sleep fairly quickly.
Talking about the Sunday quiz in the Dyffryn Arms there was a bit of a turn up there this week. We don't always win there, John and I, but it's fair to say we have won the majority of quizzes we've played in. Rob was there, though, with a full team, and that to my mind did make us underdogs. So it proved, and they beat us by 2 points in the end. I dropped a couple of points I should have had, but then they are in the position to say exactly the same thing. The surprise , though, was that we were also beaten by a point by Keith and the guys who play up at the bar. I have to say that this was by far the best performance I can remember seeing them put in since I've been going - very well played for that guys - well done ! Not that I like coming in third , you understand, but you have to take your hat off to a good performance - or two good performances in this case.
If you're wondering what I've been doing for the rest of the day, well quite a lot of it was spent stockpiling quiz questions for the lean winter months ahead. I've done 3 of the last 5 or so quizzes at the club, and so my unused question stock has been dwindling recently. Therefore it kind of makes sense to make hay while the sun shines, or , to put it another way, to make hay while at least it's not peeing down .
I'm thinking about having a look at another midweek quiz again this week, and I'll let you know how it goes if I do indulge.
Saturday, 21 July 2012
In the News
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?
1. Dwayne Walker
2. Tremseh
3. G4S
4. P5
5. Howard Riddle
6. But First This
7. Nick Buckles
8. Danny Garcia
9. Choc Ice
10. Lester Slate
11. Les Davies
12. Dan Penteado
13. Frank Schleck
14. Rajesh Khanna
15. Richard Zanuck
16. aQuantative
17. Jason Blue
18. Jason Kenny
19. James Holmes
20. Brandt Snedeker
21. Aurora
In Other News
1. It was announced that which chow will close in the West End after 15 years ?
2. What has been announced as the world’s most endangered family of primates ?
3. Who won the Pin Pinter Literary Prize ?
4. Which band are reuniting once again for a live Radio2 broadcast on July 31st ?
5. Who has been appointed as UN Special Envoy for global education ?
6. Which division of the Scottish League will Newco Rangers play in during the coming season ?
7. Who became the 4th different Brit to win a stage of the 2012 Tour de France last week ?
8. Who were told to stop singing by Hyde Park officials ?
9. Which 95 year old actress passed away ?
10. Who was it announced last week will appear on Desert Island Discs ?
11. What are being used as new galleries for the Tate Modern ?
12. What is the top song which makes people feel proud to be British, according to a recent survey ?
13. What happened to disrupt the Tour de France on stage 14 ?
14. What was the result of the controversial Haye v Chisora fight ?
15. Who gave £6.4 million to GM research ?
16. Which two clubs will meet in the RL Challenge Cup Final ?
17. Which Hollywood star gave birth to a little girl ?
18. Who is making a documentary about taking MDMA – the pure form of Ecstasy ?
19. The population of the UK was announced as what last week ?
20. Which member of Deep Purple passed away last week ?
21. Whose private beach was opened to the public last week ?
22. Who has become a director of Crystal Palace FC ?
23. How long did it take the US Olympic team to get from Heathrow to the Olympic Village in Stratford last week ?
24. Which comedian and actor was cleared of speeding last week ?
25. What was revealed as the most popular form of adult communication ?
26. Who plays Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises
27. Last week the British government admitted torturing whom ?
28. A proposal was made last week to impose a toll on which already existing road ?
29. Who many calories are there in a 380 ml bottle of Lucozade energy ? _ Energy drinks came under fire last week for not being as healthy as people believe they are.
30. Which birthday did Nelson Mandela celebrate last week ?
31. Which company reported their first ever quarterly loss ?
32. A ferry sank with loss of life near which island ?
33. Whose former New York apartment has been put up for rent ?
34. PC Simon Horwood was acquitted of manslaughter at which Crown Court ?
35. Who pulled out of the Olympic Tennis Tournament through injury ?
36. Who starts his 100th grand prix this weekend ?
37. Which former England international footballer retired last week ?
38. Which team Sky rider won stage 18 of the Tour de France ?
39. Which journalist and newsreader passed away aged 84 ?
40. Who axed her first performance in a festival in Pontypridd, causing the 1st of three nights of the festival to be cancelled ?
41. It was announced last week that Nazis attempted to kill Winston Churchill using which unlikely device ?
42. Which former England international resigned from his position in the FA coaching set up ?
1. Dwayne Walker
2. Tremseh
3. G4S
4. P5
5. Howard Riddle
6. But First This
7. Nick Buckles
8. Danny Garcia
9. Choc Ice
10. Lester Slate
11. Les Davies
12. Dan Penteado
13. Frank Schleck
14. Rajesh Khanna
15. Richard Zanuck
16. aQuantative
17. Jason Blue
18. Jason Kenny
19. James Holmes
20. Brandt Snedeker
21. Aurora
In Other News
1. It was announced that which chow will close in the West End after 15 years ?
2. What has been announced as the world’s most endangered family of primates ?
3. Who won the Pin Pinter Literary Prize ?
4. Which band are reuniting once again for a live Radio2 broadcast on July 31st ?
5. Who has been appointed as UN Special Envoy for global education ?
6. Which division of the Scottish League will Newco Rangers play in during the coming season ?
7. Who became the 4th different Brit to win a stage of the 2012 Tour de France last week ?
8. Who were told to stop singing by Hyde Park officials ?
9. Which 95 year old actress passed away ?
10. Who was it announced last week will appear on Desert Island Discs ?
11. What are being used as new galleries for the Tate Modern ?
12. What is the top song which makes people feel proud to be British, according to a recent survey ?
13. What happened to disrupt the Tour de France on stage 14 ?
14. What was the result of the controversial Haye v Chisora fight ?
15. Who gave £6.4 million to GM research ?
16. Which two clubs will meet in the RL Challenge Cup Final ?
17. Which Hollywood star gave birth to a little girl ?
18. Who is making a documentary about taking MDMA – the pure form of Ecstasy ?
19. The population of the UK was announced as what last week ?
20. Which member of Deep Purple passed away last week ?
21. Whose private beach was opened to the public last week ?
22. Who has become a director of Crystal Palace FC ?
23. How long did it take the US Olympic team to get from Heathrow to the Olympic Village in Stratford last week ?
24. Which comedian and actor was cleared of speeding last week ?
25. What was revealed as the most popular form of adult communication ?
26. Who plays Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises
27. Last week the British government admitted torturing whom ?
28. A proposal was made last week to impose a toll on which already existing road ?
29. Who many calories are there in a 380 ml bottle of Lucozade energy ? _ Energy drinks came under fire last week for not being as healthy as people believe they are.
30. Which birthday did Nelson Mandela celebrate last week ?
31. Which company reported their first ever quarterly loss ?
32. A ferry sank with loss of life near which island ?
33. Whose former New York apartment has been put up for rent ?
34. PC Simon Horwood was acquitted of manslaughter at which Crown Court ?
35. Who pulled out of the Olympic Tennis Tournament through injury ?
36. Who starts his 100th grand prix this weekend ?
37. Which former England international footballer retired last week ?
38. Which team Sky rider won stage 18 of the Tour de France ?
39. Which journalist and newsreader passed away aged 84 ?
40. Who axed her first performance in a festival in Pontypridd, causing the 1st of three nights of the festival to be cancelled ?
41. It was announced last week that Nazis attempted to kill Winston Churchill using which unlikely device ?
42. Which former England international resigned from his position in the FA coaching set up ?
Friday, 20 July 2012
Going For Gold
Yes, it’s been the first day of the holidays ( not a day too soon either, thanks for asking ) and so I began as I mean to go on, checking out whether Challenge had anything decent on during the day. Not entirely sure whether this show quite fits within that category or not, but it wasn’t without a certain fascination.
The show gained a certain reputation during its original incarnation, which lasted for about 9 years, I believe, but in case you never caught it, or don’t remember it, basically it was a pan – European ( well, Western European – the Cold War was still on when it started )show, with contestants from different countries. I remember that the 4 home countries were all counted as separate countries. Basically it involved numbers of contestants answering questions to progress through to the next round, with one dropping out each time. IN the last round of the show, and this really was its trademark, a set of clues were given to the identity of a famous person. Contestants would take it in turns to guess. The first contestant could answer in the zone for 4 points, but if the answer was wrong, then it went across, and the opponent had what was left of the 4 point zone, and all of the three point zone. If that sounds familiar, well it should. Very similar games have been used since on other shows – I think of Battle of the Brains to name but one.
Why I watched it today was that a couple of days ago I was talking to Gail, who is Brian’s wife - that’s Brian from the rugby club quiz, you understand. She mentioned that it was on, and said that it was the first series they were showing, because the prize was an expenses paid trip to see the Seoul Olympics. She also mentioned that she’d seen Daphne Fowler ( then called Daphne Hudson ) on one of the shows she’d watched. I’m afraid that I rather blotted my copybook by telling her that indeed Daphne did go on to win that series. Not that I saw any of it myself, being as it was daytime, and I was in my first year of full time teaching. However I distinctly remember that I read an interview with Daphne somewhere, where she mentioned that she’d learned from playing against Australian contestants in another quiz that if you want the prize badly enough then you’ve got to be prepared to work for it. An admirable attitude which I can recommend to anyone embarking on their first TV quiz appearance. Putting in the time and effort won’t guarantee success, but if nothing else it will make you feel more confident, and on TV that can be more important than you might think. Daphne knew that you have to win that Who Am I round to win the show, and she learned details of a good couple of thousand famous people.
The show received its fair share of criticism in its time.Henry Kelly was renowned for his overpronunciation of the most innocent words, and his dedicated use of 10 words where none would have sufficed. Also it never seemed quite fair that everything was in English, even though this was not the first language of many contestants. More power to them, then , that several of the series champions were actually from continental Europe. I’ll be honest, like a lot of daytime quiz shows it didn’t really deliver quite enough questions for my liking, but then I’m hard to please. Whatever I think doesn’t matter, since it was popular enough to last for almost a decade anyway. I don’t think that the revival a couple of years ago ever really caught on. However, out of interest , when I was in France a couple of years back I did catch a couple of editions of a show called “Questions pour un Champion “ _ which even my poor French knows means Questions for a Champion. Now, I can’t swear that it was a version of Going for Gold, but I have to say that it bore a remarkable resemblance, down to the Who Am I round.
The show gained a certain reputation during its original incarnation, which lasted for about 9 years, I believe, but in case you never caught it, or don’t remember it, basically it was a pan – European ( well, Western European – the Cold War was still on when it started )show, with contestants from different countries. I remember that the 4 home countries were all counted as separate countries. Basically it involved numbers of contestants answering questions to progress through to the next round, with one dropping out each time. IN the last round of the show, and this really was its trademark, a set of clues were given to the identity of a famous person. Contestants would take it in turns to guess. The first contestant could answer in the zone for 4 points, but if the answer was wrong, then it went across, and the opponent had what was left of the 4 point zone, and all of the three point zone. If that sounds familiar, well it should. Very similar games have been used since on other shows – I think of Battle of the Brains to name but one.
Why I watched it today was that a couple of days ago I was talking to Gail, who is Brian’s wife - that’s Brian from the rugby club quiz, you understand. She mentioned that it was on, and said that it was the first series they were showing, because the prize was an expenses paid trip to see the Seoul Olympics. She also mentioned that she’d seen Daphne Fowler ( then called Daphne Hudson ) on one of the shows she’d watched. I’m afraid that I rather blotted my copybook by telling her that indeed Daphne did go on to win that series. Not that I saw any of it myself, being as it was daytime, and I was in my first year of full time teaching. However I distinctly remember that I read an interview with Daphne somewhere, where she mentioned that she’d learned from playing against Australian contestants in another quiz that if you want the prize badly enough then you’ve got to be prepared to work for it. An admirable attitude which I can recommend to anyone embarking on their first TV quiz appearance. Putting in the time and effort won’t guarantee success, but if nothing else it will make you feel more confident, and on TV that can be more important than you might think. Daphne knew that you have to win that Who Am I round to win the show, and she learned details of a good couple of thousand famous people.
The show received its fair share of criticism in its time.Henry Kelly was renowned for his overpronunciation of the most innocent words, and his dedicated use of 10 words where none would have sufficed. Also it never seemed quite fair that everything was in English, even though this was not the first language of many contestants. More power to them, then , that several of the series champions were actually from continental Europe. I’ll be honest, like a lot of daytime quiz shows it didn’t really deliver quite enough questions for my liking, but then I’m hard to please. Whatever I think doesn’t matter, since it was popular enough to last for almost a decade anyway. I don’t think that the revival a couple of years ago ever really caught on. However, out of interest , when I was in France a couple of years back I did catch a couple of editions of a show called “Questions pour un Champion “ _ which even my poor French knows means Questions for a Champion. Now, I can’t swear that it was a version of Going for Gold, but I have to say that it bore a remarkable resemblance, down to the Who Am I round.
Answers to News Questions
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news ?
1. Mike Bryan and Lisa Raymond
2. Kamui Kobayashi
3. James Grout
4. Peter Reeve
5. Dai Greene
6. Mark Boucher
7. Brian Thomas
8. Minnehoma
9. Kristian Rausing
10. Freyja
11. Marie Lennon
12. Brian Moore
13. Ehud Olmert
14. Remy di Gregorio
15. Tommy Connors
16. Adam Gemilli
17. Sundial
18. Chris Froome
Other News
1. Who said that she checks her husband’s phone, even though she trusts him ?
2. Whose death certificate was changed last week from ‘accidental’ to ‘uncertain’ ?
3. What does LIBOR stand for ?
4. Who won the British Grand Prix ?
5. Who won the Wimbledon Ladies doubles ?
6. Who is the captain of the GB Olympic Football squad ?
7. Which Oscar winning actor passed away aged 95 ?
8. Who is the new chairman of the RFU ?
9. How many people watched the Andy Murray final live ?
10. Who won his first ever stage of the Tour de France in stage 9 ?
11. Which famous rugby player signed for London Welsh last week ?
12. Who launched a last minute appeal against his extradition to the USA ?
13. How many swans have died of a mystery illness in a Cardiff park ?
14. Where did the new Trump International Golf Course open ?
15. What happened to the controversial new book about Caravaggio with an alleged 100 newly discovered works ?
16. Who gave up his multi million pound bonus last week ?
17. Who announced that he is giving up appearing in films now ?
18. Who became the first runner to complete his leg of the 2012 torch relay wearing a suit rather than the regulation track suit ?
19. Which college is top of the Cambridge University League tables for results ?
20. What was the final overall result in the England v. Australia one day series ?
21. Driver Mark Webber extended his contract with which F1 team ?
22. Who was sacked from his job as the manager of Kuwaiti football team Al Wasl ?
23. Which phone network caused inconvenience to huge numbers of people when it went down last week ?
24. Which European will be standing as PM for his country again ?
25. Which team have offered £40 million for Luka Modric ?
26. Who said the John Terry case should never have come to court ?
27. Which president has cancelled his planned visit to the 2012 Olympics ?
28. 3 Brits were tragically killed in an accident on which mountain ?
29. Which word has been blocked on China’s most popular social media website ?
30. Which league team will start the football season with a 10 point deduction ?
31. Ben Wishaw will play which character in the new James Bond film “Skyfall” ?
32. The BBC made its final broadcast from where this week ?
Answers
Who or what are the following ?
1. Winners of Wimbledon mixed doubles
2. Driver knocked down three of his own pit crew in the British Grand Prix
3. Actor passed away – played boss of Inspector Morse
4. Suspected of shooting off duty police officer Ian Dibell – found dead a couple of days later
5. Chosen as captain of the GB Track and Field Olympic team
6. South African wicketkeeper forced to retire after freak eye injury
7. Former Wales and Neath rugby player, passed away
8. Former Grand National winner, died aged 29
9. Heir to the Tetrapak fortune, arrested in connection with wife’s death
10. Lost cat returned to number 11 Downing St. after 3 years
11. BBC Witlshire reporter forced to apologise to Keith Chegwin after saying that his voice made her feel sick
12. Head of much criticized UK Border Force, stepping down in September
13. Former Israeli PM cleared of corruption charges
14. Cofidis Tour de France rider arrested
15. Traveller jailed for using ‘slave labour’
16. New world junior 100m champion
17. Sculpture stolen from home of Henry Moore
18. British rider riding second in Tour de France to Bradley Wiggins
Other News
1. Jools Oliver
2. Natalie Wood
3. London Inter Bank Offered Rate
4. Webber
5. Williams sisters
6. Ryan Giggs
7. Ernest Borgnine
8. Bill Beaumont
9. 17 million
10. Bradley Wiggins
11. Gavin Henson
12. Abu Hamza
13. 30
14. Balmedie, Aberdeenshire
15. It has been dropped by Amazon
16. Bob Diamond
17. Peter O’Toole
18. Roger Bannister
19. Trinity
20. 4 – 0 – 1 match rained off
21. Mark Webber
22. Maradona
23. 02 24. Sylvio Berlusconi
25. Real Madrid
26. Ashley COle
27. Shimon Peres ( Israel)
28. Mont Maudit
29. Truth
30. Portsmouth
31. Q
32. Bush House
1. Mike Bryan and Lisa Raymond
2. Kamui Kobayashi
3. James Grout
4. Peter Reeve
5. Dai Greene
6. Mark Boucher
7. Brian Thomas
8. Minnehoma
9. Kristian Rausing
10. Freyja
11. Marie Lennon
12. Brian Moore
13. Ehud Olmert
14. Remy di Gregorio
15. Tommy Connors
16. Adam Gemilli
17. Sundial
18. Chris Froome
Other News
1. Who said that she checks her husband’s phone, even though she trusts him ?
2. Whose death certificate was changed last week from ‘accidental’ to ‘uncertain’ ?
3. What does LIBOR stand for ?
4. Who won the British Grand Prix ?
5. Who won the Wimbledon Ladies doubles ?
6. Who is the captain of the GB Olympic Football squad ?
7. Which Oscar winning actor passed away aged 95 ?
8. Who is the new chairman of the RFU ?
9. How many people watched the Andy Murray final live ?
10. Who won his first ever stage of the Tour de France in stage 9 ?
11. Which famous rugby player signed for London Welsh last week ?
12. Who launched a last minute appeal against his extradition to the USA ?
13. How many swans have died of a mystery illness in a Cardiff park ?
14. Where did the new Trump International Golf Course open ?
15. What happened to the controversial new book about Caravaggio with an alleged 100 newly discovered works ?
16. Who gave up his multi million pound bonus last week ?
17. Who announced that he is giving up appearing in films now ?
18. Who became the first runner to complete his leg of the 2012 torch relay wearing a suit rather than the regulation track suit ?
19. Which college is top of the Cambridge University League tables for results ?
20. What was the final overall result in the England v. Australia one day series ?
21. Driver Mark Webber extended his contract with which F1 team ?
22. Who was sacked from his job as the manager of Kuwaiti football team Al Wasl ?
23. Which phone network caused inconvenience to huge numbers of people when it went down last week ?
24. Which European will be standing as PM for his country again ?
25. Which team have offered £40 million for Luka Modric ?
26. Who said the John Terry case should never have come to court ?
27. Which president has cancelled his planned visit to the 2012 Olympics ?
28. 3 Brits were tragically killed in an accident on which mountain ?
29. Which word has been blocked on China’s most popular social media website ?
30. Which league team will start the football season with a 10 point deduction ?
31. Ben Wishaw will play which character in the new James Bond film “Skyfall” ?
32. The BBC made its final broadcast from where this week ?
Answers
Who or what are the following ?
1. Winners of Wimbledon mixed doubles
2. Driver knocked down three of his own pit crew in the British Grand Prix
3. Actor passed away – played boss of Inspector Morse
4. Suspected of shooting off duty police officer Ian Dibell – found dead a couple of days later
5. Chosen as captain of the GB Track and Field Olympic team
6. South African wicketkeeper forced to retire after freak eye injury
7. Former Wales and Neath rugby player, passed away
8. Former Grand National winner, died aged 29
9. Heir to the Tetrapak fortune, arrested in connection with wife’s death
10. Lost cat returned to number 11 Downing St. after 3 years
11. BBC Witlshire reporter forced to apologise to Keith Chegwin after saying that his voice made her feel sick
12. Head of much criticized UK Border Force, stepping down in September
13. Former Israeli PM cleared of corruption charges
14. Cofidis Tour de France rider arrested
15. Traveller jailed for using ‘slave labour’
16. New world junior 100m champion
17. Sculpture stolen from home of Henry Moore
18. British rider riding second in Tour de France to Bradley Wiggins
Other News
1. Jools Oliver
2. Natalie Wood
3. London Inter Bank Offered Rate
4. Webber
5. Williams sisters
6. Ryan Giggs
7. Ernest Borgnine
8. Bill Beaumont
9. 17 million
10. Bradley Wiggins
11. Gavin Henson
12. Abu Hamza
13. 30
14. Balmedie, Aberdeenshire
15. It has been dropped by Amazon
16. Bob Diamond
17. Peter O’Toole
18. Roger Bannister
19. Trinity
20. 4 – 0 – 1 match rained off
21. Mark Webber
22. Maradona
23. 02 24. Sylvio Berlusconi
25. Real Madrid
26. Ashley COle
27. Shimon Peres ( Israel)
28. Mont Maudit
29. Truth
30. Portsmouth
31. Q
32. Bush House
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
Japanese University Quiz - Brain World Cup
Another email received today, this from Luke Kelly, of reigning UC champs Manchester University.
Dear Dave,
I thought you might be interested in this unusual Japanese quiz that me and the manchester team were invited onto after winning uni challenge. It's a more varied, hectic version of uni challenge, with arithmetic, geometry and logic as well as general knowledge questions, and 16 teams all competing at the same time. There's a video of last year's one here: Japanese Brain World Cup (NB - the password: bwc). The contestants have live translation, but the show is in Japanese so it might be a bit hard to follow. They are trying to sell it to foreign tv stations, but as it is it's just on Japanese tv. This year's one had our team, Magdalen Oxford, as well as American, French, German, Swiss, South Africa, Korean, Australian and Japanese teams.
Best wishes,
Luke
I haven't checked it out yet, and will do so later tonight, but it sounds interesting.
Dear Dave,
I thought you might be interested in this unusual Japanese quiz that me and the manchester team were invited onto after winning uni challenge. It's a more varied, hectic version of uni challenge, with arithmetic, geometry and logic as well as general knowledge questions, and 16 teams all competing at the same time. There's a video of last year's one here: Japanese Brain World Cup (NB - the password: bwc). The contestants have live translation, but the show is in Japanese so it might be a bit hard to follow. They are trying to sell it to foreign tv stations, but as it is it's just on Japanese tv. This year's one had our team, Magdalen Oxford, as well as American, French, German, Swiss, South Africa, Korean, Australian and Japanese teams.
Best wishes,
Luke
I haven't checked it out yet, and will do so later tonight, but it sounds interesting.
Perfection - Contestant Call
I received a very nice email from Jane Sharp, of the Production team of 12 Yard's "Perfection " with Nick Knowles. Basically, they are inviting applications from good quizzers, according to the email. This is what the accompanying flyer said : -
BBC’s exciting true or false quiz show PERFECTION hosted by Nick Knowles is returning and YOU could be a contestant!
Have you always fancied the chance to win cash on a quiz show?
Can you manipulate the game to your advantage?
Are you perfect?
We are holding auditions during JULY and AUGUST 2012
Contact us TODAY for an application form:
Email: perfection@12yard.com
or write to Perfection Applications, 12 Yard Productions, G7, The Hub, Pacific Quay, Glasgow, G51 1EA
All applicants must be aged 18 years or over and be legally resident and currently living in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. The closing date for returning application forms is Saturday 4th August 2012 Applications received after this date may not be considered. Applications are subject to the terms and conditions in the application form."
Jane included me within the invitation to apply, which surprised me a little, because my attempts to apply for this level of show over the last few years have been singularly unsuccessful. That's why I did email Jane back, and asked her categorically whether my TV track record will count against me, to save me the effort of making an application if I've got no chance. Well, you never know - she might tell me. I'll let you know what happens.
BBC’s exciting true or false quiz show PERFECTION hosted by Nick Knowles is returning and YOU could be a contestant!
Have you always fancied the chance to win cash on a quiz show?
Can you manipulate the game to your advantage?
Are you perfect?
We are holding auditions during JULY and AUGUST 2012
Contact us TODAY for an application form:
Email: perfection@12yard.com
or write to Perfection Applications, 12 Yard Productions, G7, The Hub, Pacific Quay, Glasgow, G51 1EA
All applicants must be aged 18 years or over and be legally resident and currently living in the UK, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. The closing date for returning application forms is Saturday 4th August 2012 Applications received after this date may not be considered. Applications are subject to the terms and conditions in the application form."
Jane included me within the invitation to apply, which surprised me a little, because my attempts to apply for this level of show over the last few years have been singularly unsuccessful. That's why I did email Jane back, and asked her categorically whether my TV track record will count against me, to save me the effort of making an application if I've got no chance. Well, you never know - she might tell me. I'll let you know what happens.
Tuesday, 17 July 2012
Defence against the Dark Arts
Stay with me with this one. Brian from the rugby club isn’t very well at the moment, and I wish him a speedy recovery. As it is Brian wasn’t planning to be in the quiz on Thursday night anyway, so it’s my turn for the second week running. Now if you’re a regular you know that when I compile a quiz for the club during term time I roadtest it in the staff room at lunchtime. Such a thing I was doing today. It happened that a couple of members of my department asked me to tell them the answers beforehand so that they could amaze the rest of the staffroom with the accuracy of their answers. Well, I was shocked. My flabber had never been so gasted. I told them that I would not be party to any such brazen chicanery. But, I am afraid to say, they wore me down, and so it was that I compromised and gave them the answer to the first round only.
Now, surprised by the strength of my vehemence against such sharp practice, and my regular rants against phone cheating, they did ask whether I had actually ever resorted to any trickery in a quiz. As regards cheating, well that was an easy answer. No. But as regards some of the other dark arts of quizzing, well, I did confess this one incident. It would have been back in about 1998 or 1999. Allan, John, Rob, Barry and I were using the Aberavon Quins Rugby Club as our flag of convenience in the South Wales Echo Sunday League, and we were playing at home against one of the other strongest teams in the whole league, which comprised some of the very best teams in the whole Cardiff – Bridgend area. The quiz was all written, and consisted of two halves, after both of which you’d swap over and mark each other’s papers. Now, the thing about the quiz in the Quins was that the two teams were sat relatively close together. When we took in their paper to mark, we found out that they had exactly the same amount of points as we had. They had got exactly the same answers wrong that we had. They had written exactly the same wrong answers that we had. Well, I think you know where I’m going with this one. If it looks like a fish, moves like a fish and it lives in the water . . . as you might say.
Rob was our scribe for the evening. He and I were both in the gents for a quick comfort break, and nobody else was there, so thinking quickly I said “Don’t write down the answers I say – write down the ones I write on a piece of scrap paper. I think they’re earwigging, and I’m going to put a spanner in the works if they are. “ Yes, a campaign of disinformation, gentle reader. Mind you, it’s not an easy thing to do. There’s no point in trying to lay a smoke screen on a question where they’re going to know the answer anyway. In the end I think I did it with three questions, two of which I can remember. The first was “Who sang , “I did it My Way “ “ in his press conference after winning the Open golf championship. I said , just quiet enough so they could hear it without me making it obvious that this was a deliberate giveaway I said “Well, he must have sung it in Spanish then .” while writing down Nick Faldo on my piece of paper. Then when we were asked “Where in Europe would you find Thunder Mountain ?” I hissed “Poland !” while writing down EuroDisney. When we took in their answers all of them were the same as ours – with the exception of the three answers I ‘fed’ them. For the golfer they wrote down Seve Ballesteros, and for Thunder Mountain – Poland. As Holly the computer once said in Red Dwarf – hook, line, sinker AND copy of The Angling Times. They knew they’d been had, and they knew that we knew that they knew that they’d been had. Yet nothing was said – well, how could it be without admitting they were earwigging ?
I told the guys at work that I’m not proud at resorting to such questionable methods, but who am I kidding ? After all, why would I still remember the incident after all these years if I wasn’t. Of course, the other team were a very good team anyway, and it all may have been perfectly innocent. But you have to say to pluck Poland from nowhere, especially when it was the precise answer I was ‘feeding’ them. Does that make my deployment of such tactics any more forgiveable ? Didn’t think so.
Now, surprised by the strength of my vehemence against such sharp practice, and my regular rants against phone cheating, they did ask whether I had actually ever resorted to any trickery in a quiz. As regards cheating, well that was an easy answer. No. But as regards some of the other dark arts of quizzing, well, I did confess this one incident. It would have been back in about 1998 or 1999. Allan, John, Rob, Barry and I were using the Aberavon Quins Rugby Club as our flag of convenience in the South Wales Echo Sunday League, and we were playing at home against one of the other strongest teams in the whole league, which comprised some of the very best teams in the whole Cardiff – Bridgend area. The quiz was all written, and consisted of two halves, after both of which you’d swap over and mark each other’s papers. Now, the thing about the quiz in the Quins was that the two teams were sat relatively close together. When we took in their paper to mark, we found out that they had exactly the same amount of points as we had. They had got exactly the same answers wrong that we had. They had written exactly the same wrong answers that we had. Well, I think you know where I’m going with this one. If it looks like a fish, moves like a fish and it lives in the water . . . as you might say.
Rob was our scribe for the evening. He and I were both in the gents for a quick comfort break, and nobody else was there, so thinking quickly I said “Don’t write down the answers I say – write down the ones I write on a piece of scrap paper. I think they’re earwigging, and I’m going to put a spanner in the works if they are. “ Yes, a campaign of disinformation, gentle reader. Mind you, it’s not an easy thing to do. There’s no point in trying to lay a smoke screen on a question where they’re going to know the answer anyway. In the end I think I did it with three questions, two of which I can remember. The first was “Who sang , “I did it My Way “ “ in his press conference after winning the Open golf championship. I said , just quiet enough so they could hear it without me making it obvious that this was a deliberate giveaway I said “Well, he must have sung it in Spanish then .” while writing down Nick Faldo on my piece of paper. Then when we were asked “Where in Europe would you find Thunder Mountain ?” I hissed “Poland !” while writing down EuroDisney. When we took in their answers all of them were the same as ours – with the exception of the three answers I ‘fed’ them. For the golfer they wrote down Seve Ballesteros, and for Thunder Mountain – Poland. As Holly the computer once said in Red Dwarf – hook, line, sinker AND copy of The Angling Times. They knew they’d been had, and they knew that we knew that they knew that they’d been had. Yet nothing was said – well, how could it be without admitting they were earwigging ?
I told the guys at work that I’m not proud at resorting to such questionable methods, but who am I kidding ? After all, why would I still remember the incident after all these years if I wasn’t. Of course, the other team were a very good team anyway, and it all may have been perfectly innocent. But you have to say to pluck Poland from nowhere, especially when it was the precise answer I was ‘feeding’ them. Does that make my deployment of such tactics any more forgiveable ? Didn’t think so.
Monday, 16 July 2012
The Return of University Challenge
Trinity Laban v. York
Ah, the world never seems quite so daunting when there’s University Challenge to look forward to on the box. The honour of being the first team to be introduced by JP in this series fell to newcomers Trinity Laban. I was interested to hear JP talk about one of their London venues, the Laban Building in Deptford. When I was a student at Goldsmith’s College the Laban Centre shared the site, so I guess that there is a connection there. Trinity Laban were represented by Claire Barton , Diccon Cooper ( sorry if that’s spelt wrongly, but it is how they spelt it on the BBC subtitles ) , Amber Jackson – Bond, and captain Sam Draper. Their opponents were the University of York, finalists in 2011, so they had a lot to live up to. The York team consisted of Alex Leonhardt, Robin Virgo, Edward Haynes, and skipper Rebecca Woods.
First blood fell to York, when Alex Leonhardt was first to recognize a series of clues all pointing towards the word butter. York’s first bonuses were on Oxford – as in the Oxford Movement, the Provisions of Oxford etc. They took just the one. Robin Virgo maintained his side’s momentum with his first correct starter, knowing that the term in parliamentary debate taken from the French Revolution was the guillotine. Again, the team managed one bonus from a set on economics. Clearly emboldened by his early success Robin Virgo buzzed in too early on the next starter, and lost his team 5 , but Trinity Laban couldn’t capitalize on the term meridian. Neither team managed the next starter either, on the actor Sam Riley, known here at LAM Towers as Sam who ? Again, a rush of blood to the head saw Robin Virgo swoop in too early on the next starter, allowing Claire Barton to put her team on the metaphorical map with Zadok the priest. One point on bone morphology bonuses was taken. TL skipper Sam Draper took the picture starter which followed, recognizing a picture of JP on 35 millimetre film – ah, remember the old days before digital cameras ? One bonue on more of the same followed. Which proved the last points that anyone in either team was going to score before the 10 minute mark, as three successive bonuses, on the Baedecker Raids, the superior vena cava, and the term identity crisis went begging. At the 10 minute mark, then , TL had edged into a narrow lead with 30 to 25.
Rebecca Woods identified a reference to Julius Caesar, and once again the team earned a single bonus, on murders in fiction. Neither team could take a mathematics bonus which I couldn’t even write down, let alone understand. Alex Leonhardt realized that the creature referenced in an unflattering name for an old cinema would be a flea . This brought up a set of bonuses on shipwrecks. No points for York, but a full set for Mr. Smug here. Not that I had a great night myself, answer wise, but I was pleased with that set. For the music starter we listened to two bands, and were asked to identify the one member linking both. Crosby Stills and Nash and The Byrds gave me and I suspect many of the other old codgers watching a correct answer. Both teams were codger-less, and so we moved to the next starter. Mr. Cooper knew that Martin Chuzzlewit is partly set in the USA, and this earned the music bonuses. I guessed Alex James for Blur and Fat Les, and I guessed Johnny Marr for the Smiths and another group. Not easy though, and the points went begging for TL. Amber Jackson-Bond took the next starter, correctly offering anode for the electrode being described. One bonus followed on quite a difficult set on Francophone West African countries. After seeing York pull out a lead , TL were making a good fist of reeling it in now, and skipper Sam Draper correctly identified the Arnolfini Gallery as being named after a painting by Van Eyck. This earned the first full set of bonuses of the night, with a full three points on the Pantheon in Rome. Edward Haynes immediately struck back for York, knowing that chimps and bonobos are two of the missing species of hominidae from JP’s list. Two bonuses on insect products just edged York ahead at the 20 minute mark, with 85 to TL’s 80.
These scores weren’t, to be honest, the highest 20 minute scores that I expect we’ll see all series, but let’s be fair, to this point it had been an absorbing contest. However at this point of the contest York began to pull away as Robin Virgo and Rebecca Woods began to find their range. Skipper Woods took the second picture starter, identifying a photo of Dubai from the top of the Burj Khalifa. However the team couldn’t identify any of the bonuses taken from some of the world’ other highest buildings. Diccon Cooper knew that in French, if you reverse the initials of Georges Remy you get Hergé. No bonuses could be taken on political families, though. Robin Virgo knew a description of the Chimera when he heard it, and this brought up tonight’s UC special set on word pairs, where the second word has just one letter added to the first – for example concert and concerto. 2 were taken, and York were pulling away. Robin Virgo took the next, some mathematical thing, and the team took a bonus on barium. Then York snapped the ever stretching elastic binding them to TL by knowing the term Pica – to do with an abnormal craving during pregnancy. No, me neither. A full set of gentle bonuses on geometric angles followed. To make sure Rebecca Woods took the next starter on the colour green in national flags, and York added 2 more bonuses on Spain just to be on the safe side. The contest was all over bar the shouting, albeit that Diccon Cooper took a fine starter on Wellbeck/Houellbeck – more on that later. They didn’t take any of the bonuses on French painters, but the starter itself was enough to push TL through the 100 point barrier. They deserved that. Edward Haynes knew that entemopholous plants are propagated by insects, and that as they say, was that.
In the end a comfortable victory for York – hard lines Trinity Laban. Well done York , good luck in the second round.
Jeremy Paxman Watch
Only one comment worthy of note during the contest itself. When Diccon Cooper offered the name Houellbeck , JP started to get on a bit of a high horse , “It’s usually pronounced Wellbeck – “ and then seemed to think better of it – “ – but, Houellbeck, . . . yep, good. “
I think he’s maybe mellowing a bit too far, though. Nobody respects every single contestant who has the guts to put themselves up for a contest like UC more than I do, but to say , “Anything over 100 is a very good score” is rather overegging the pudding, JP. Anything over 100 is certainly respectable, yes. But I’ve seen times in the past when teams have scored 80 odd points – less than one full set of starter and bonuses away from 100 – only to be told by the great man that they didn’t do very well ! Someone needs to start feeding the man some red meat, I think.
Interesting fact of the Week That I Didn’t Already Know
Prior to Queen Elizabeth II ( God Bless ‘ Er ) the longest lived British head of state was Richard Cromwell. Alright, he wasn’t head of state for very long, but he was still head of state. Good ( and guessable from the way that JP said it ) question.
Ah, the world never seems quite so daunting when there’s University Challenge to look forward to on the box. The honour of being the first team to be introduced by JP in this series fell to newcomers Trinity Laban. I was interested to hear JP talk about one of their London venues, the Laban Building in Deptford. When I was a student at Goldsmith’s College the Laban Centre shared the site, so I guess that there is a connection there. Trinity Laban were represented by Claire Barton , Diccon Cooper ( sorry if that’s spelt wrongly, but it is how they spelt it on the BBC subtitles ) , Amber Jackson – Bond, and captain Sam Draper. Their opponents were the University of York, finalists in 2011, so they had a lot to live up to. The York team consisted of Alex Leonhardt, Robin Virgo, Edward Haynes, and skipper Rebecca Woods.
First blood fell to York, when Alex Leonhardt was first to recognize a series of clues all pointing towards the word butter. York’s first bonuses were on Oxford – as in the Oxford Movement, the Provisions of Oxford etc. They took just the one. Robin Virgo maintained his side’s momentum with his first correct starter, knowing that the term in parliamentary debate taken from the French Revolution was the guillotine. Again, the team managed one bonus from a set on economics. Clearly emboldened by his early success Robin Virgo buzzed in too early on the next starter, and lost his team 5 , but Trinity Laban couldn’t capitalize on the term meridian. Neither team managed the next starter either, on the actor Sam Riley, known here at LAM Towers as Sam who ? Again, a rush of blood to the head saw Robin Virgo swoop in too early on the next starter, allowing Claire Barton to put her team on the metaphorical map with Zadok the priest. One point on bone morphology bonuses was taken. TL skipper Sam Draper took the picture starter which followed, recognizing a picture of JP on 35 millimetre film – ah, remember the old days before digital cameras ? One bonue on more of the same followed. Which proved the last points that anyone in either team was going to score before the 10 minute mark, as three successive bonuses, on the Baedecker Raids, the superior vena cava, and the term identity crisis went begging. At the 10 minute mark, then , TL had edged into a narrow lead with 30 to 25.
Rebecca Woods identified a reference to Julius Caesar, and once again the team earned a single bonus, on murders in fiction. Neither team could take a mathematics bonus which I couldn’t even write down, let alone understand. Alex Leonhardt realized that the creature referenced in an unflattering name for an old cinema would be a flea . This brought up a set of bonuses on shipwrecks. No points for York, but a full set for Mr. Smug here. Not that I had a great night myself, answer wise, but I was pleased with that set. For the music starter we listened to two bands, and were asked to identify the one member linking both. Crosby Stills and Nash and The Byrds gave me and I suspect many of the other old codgers watching a correct answer. Both teams were codger-less, and so we moved to the next starter. Mr. Cooper knew that Martin Chuzzlewit is partly set in the USA, and this earned the music bonuses. I guessed Alex James for Blur and Fat Les, and I guessed Johnny Marr for the Smiths and another group. Not easy though, and the points went begging for TL. Amber Jackson-Bond took the next starter, correctly offering anode for the electrode being described. One bonus followed on quite a difficult set on Francophone West African countries. After seeing York pull out a lead , TL were making a good fist of reeling it in now, and skipper Sam Draper correctly identified the Arnolfini Gallery as being named after a painting by Van Eyck. This earned the first full set of bonuses of the night, with a full three points on the Pantheon in Rome. Edward Haynes immediately struck back for York, knowing that chimps and bonobos are two of the missing species of hominidae from JP’s list. Two bonuses on insect products just edged York ahead at the 20 minute mark, with 85 to TL’s 80.
These scores weren’t, to be honest, the highest 20 minute scores that I expect we’ll see all series, but let’s be fair, to this point it had been an absorbing contest. However at this point of the contest York began to pull away as Robin Virgo and Rebecca Woods began to find their range. Skipper Woods took the second picture starter, identifying a photo of Dubai from the top of the Burj Khalifa. However the team couldn’t identify any of the bonuses taken from some of the world’ other highest buildings. Diccon Cooper knew that in French, if you reverse the initials of Georges Remy you get Hergé. No bonuses could be taken on political families, though. Robin Virgo knew a description of the Chimera when he heard it, and this brought up tonight’s UC special set on word pairs, where the second word has just one letter added to the first – for example concert and concerto. 2 were taken, and York were pulling away. Robin Virgo took the next, some mathematical thing, and the team took a bonus on barium. Then York snapped the ever stretching elastic binding them to TL by knowing the term Pica – to do with an abnormal craving during pregnancy. No, me neither. A full set of gentle bonuses on geometric angles followed. To make sure Rebecca Woods took the next starter on the colour green in national flags, and York added 2 more bonuses on Spain just to be on the safe side. The contest was all over bar the shouting, albeit that Diccon Cooper took a fine starter on Wellbeck/Houellbeck – more on that later. They didn’t take any of the bonuses on French painters, but the starter itself was enough to push TL through the 100 point barrier. They deserved that. Edward Haynes knew that entemopholous plants are propagated by insects, and that as they say, was that.
In the end a comfortable victory for York – hard lines Trinity Laban. Well done York , good luck in the second round.
Jeremy Paxman Watch
Only one comment worthy of note during the contest itself. When Diccon Cooper offered the name Houellbeck , JP started to get on a bit of a high horse , “It’s usually pronounced Wellbeck – “ and then seemed to think better of it – “ – but, Houellbeck, . . . yep, good. “
I think he’s maybe mellowing a bit too far, though. Nobody respects every single contestant who has the guts to put themselves up for a contest like UC more than I do, but to say , “Anything over 100 is a very good score” is rather overegging the pudding, JP. Anything over 100 is certainly respectable, yes. But I’ve seen times in the past when teams have scored 80 odd points – less than one full set of starter and bonuses away from 100 – only to be told by the great man that they didn’t do very well ! Someone needs to start feeding the man some red meat, I think.
Interesting fact of the Week That I Didn’t Already Know
Prior to Queen Elizabeth II ( God Bless ‘ Er ) the longest lived British head of state was Richard Cromwell. Alright, he wasn’t head of state for very long, but he was still head of state. Good ( and guessable from the way that JP said it ) question.
Saturday, 14 July 2012
How many strings does a six string guitar have ?
Just a few days ago in a quiz I was faced with a dilemma which I’m sure is all too familiar to the regular quizzers among us. I was asked a question – alright, nothing unusual there – but it was a question which had been phrased in such a way as to make it clear that there could only be one answer. The problem was that there are two possible answers. The question was “How many toes does a sloth have on each of its feet ? “ Now, I’m sure you know what I’m getting at with this one. For there are actually two families of sloths – the three toed sloths, and the two toed sloths. But it’s even more complicated than that. For the two toed sloths only have two toes on their front feet, but on their back ones they have three, just like the three toed sloths.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s obvious that either the questionmaster meant on their back feet, or he just meant the three toed variety, and so a safe percentage answer would be three. And you would be right to think so, and indeed we shoved down three , and earned the point. And maybe that is the point – knowing enough to ensure that we earned the point even when the question wasn’t that well thought out. But maybe it isn’t. For, strictly speaking, as the question was asked it was defective, since not each sloth does have the same number of toes on each foot. As Alexander Pope once said – a little learning is a dangerous thing ( although dangerous for whom I can’t be sure ).
Actually, if I’m honest, the experience brought a little warm glow of nostalgia to me. I’ve mentioned before that I had a year or two off in 1992 and 3 when my first team broke up, and I wasn’t going out a great deal, and then our then Head asked if I’d take a team of Year 11 kids to play in the Mayday in Melin quiz. We won, and when the second place team were satisfied that even though the team was just me and the kids it was all kosher and above board they invited me to join their League team, and I’ve been playing in quizzes at least once a week for most of the years since. Why I mention it is that I remember one of these duff questions being asked on the night. The question master, the late Viv O’Shea, had been a key member of the Neath Quiz League, and a good quizzer in his time. Viv asked the question , “How many strings does a guitar have ? “ Quick as a flash Andrew – with whom I would later play when I transferred my allegiance to the Royal Exchange after the team from Neath Workingmen’s folded – shouted , “Is that an 8 string guitar or a six string guitar ? “ to general laughter. To which Viv, without batting an eye, calmly replied , “Six string - next question . . . “ I admired that.
I know what you’re thinking. It’s obvious that either the questionmaster meant on their back feet, or he just meant the three toed variety, and so a safe percentage answer would be three. And you would be right to think so, and indeed we shoved down three , and earned the point. And maybe that is the point – knowing enough to ensure that we earned the point even when the question wasn’t that well thought out. But maybe it isn’t. For, strictly speaking, as the question was asked it was defective, since not each sloth does have the same number of toes on each foot. As Alexander Pope once said – a little learning is a dangerous thing ( although dangerous for whom I can’t be sure ).
Actually, if I’m honest, the experience brought a little warm glow of nostalgia to me. I’ve mentioned before that I had a year or two off in 1992 and 3 when my first team broke up, and I wasn’t going out a great deal, and then our then Head asked if I’d take a team of Year 11 kids to play in the Mayday in Melin quiz. We won, and when the second place team were satisfied that even though the team was just me and the kids it was all kosher and above board they invited me to join their League team, and I’ve been playing in quizzes at least once a week for most of the years since. Why I mention it is that I remember one of these duff questions being asked on the night. The question master, the late Viv O’Shea, had been a key member of the Neath Quiz League, and a good quizzer in his time. Viv asked the question , “How many strings does a guitar have ? “ Quick as a flash Andrew – with whom I would later play when I transferred my allegiance to the Royal Exchange after the team from Neath Workingmen’s folded – shouted , “Is that an 8 string guitar or a six string guitar ? “ to general laughter. To which Viv, without batting an eye, calmly replied , “Six string - next question . . . “ I admired that.
In the News
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news ?
1. Mike Bryan and Lisa Raymond
2. Kamui Kobayashi
3. James Grout
4. Peter Reeve
5. Dai Greene
6. Mark Boucher
7. Brian Thomas
8. Minnehoma
9. Kristian Rausing
10. Freyja
11. Marie Lennon
12. Brian Moore
13. Ehud Olmert
14. Remy di Gregorio
15. Tommy Connors
16. Adam Gemilli
17. Sundial
18. Chris Froome
Other News
1. Who said that she checks her husband’s phone, even though she trusts him ?
2. Whose death certificate was changed last week from ‘accidental’ to ‘uncertain’ ?
3. What does LIBOR stand for ?
4. Who won the British Grand Prix ?
5. Who won the Wimbledon Ladies doubles ?
6. Who is the captain of the GB Olympic Football squad ?
7. Which Oscar winning actor passed away aged 95 ?
8. Who is the new chairman of the RFU ?
9. How many people watched the Andy Murray final live ?
10. Who won his first ever stage of the Tour de France in stage 9 ?
11. Which famous rugby player signed for London Welsh last week ?
12. Who launched a last minute appeal against his extradition to the USA ?
13. How many swans have died of a mystery illness in a Cardiff park ?
14. Where did the new Trump International Golf Course open ?
15. What happened to the controversial new book about Caravaggio with an alleged 100 newly discovered works ?
16. Who gave up his multi million pound bonus last week ?
17. Who announced that he is giving up appearing in films now ?
18. Who became the first runner to complete his leg of the 2012 torch relay wearing a suit rather than the regulation track suit ?
19. Which college is top of the Cambridge University League tables for results ?
20. What was the final overall result in the England v. Australia one day series ?
21. Driver Mark Webber extended his contract with which F1 team ?
22. Who was sacked from his job as the manager of Kuwaiti football team Al Wasl ?
23. Which phone network caused inconvenience to huge numbers of people when it went down last week ?
24. Which European will be standing as PM for his country again ?
25. Which team have offered £40 million for Luka Modric ?
26. Who said the John Terry case should never have come to court ?
27. Which president has cancelled his planned visit to the 2012 Olympics ?
28. 3 Brits were tragically killed in an accident on which mountain ?
29. Which word has been blocked on China’s most popular social media website ?
30. Which league team will start the football season with a 10 point deduction ?
31. Ben Wishaw will play which character in the new James Bond film “Skyfall” ?
32. The BBC made its final broadcast from where this week ?
1. Mike Bryan and Lisa Raymond
2. Kamui Kobayashi
3. James Grout
4. Peter Reeve
5. Dai Greene
6. Mark Boucher
7. Brian Thomas
8. Minnehoma
9. Kristian Rausing
10. Freyja
11. Marie Lennon
12. Brian Moore
13. Ehud Olmert
14. Remy di Gregorio
15. Tommy Connors
16. Adam Gemilli
17. Sundial
18. Chris Froome
Other News
1. Who said that she checks her husband’s phone, even though she trusts him ?
2. Whose death certificate was changed last week from ‘accidental’ to ‘uncertain’ ?
3. What does LIBOR stand for ?
4. Who won the British Grand Prix ?
5. Who won the Wimbledon Ladies doubles ?
6. Who is the captain of the GB Olympic Football squad ?
7. Which Oscar winning actor passed away aged 95 ?
8. Who is the new chairman of the RFU ?
9. How many people watched the Andy Murray final live ?
10. Who won his first ever stage of the Tour de France in stage 9 ?
11. Which famous rugby player signed for London Welsh last week ?
12. Who launched a last minute appeal against his extradition to the USA ?
13. How many swans have died of a mystery illness in a Cardiff park ?
14. Where did the new Trump International Golf Course open ?
15. What happened to the controversial new book about Caravaggio with an alleged 100 newly discovered works ?
16. Who gave up his multi million pound bonus last week ?
17. Who announced that he is giving up appearing in films now ?
18. Who became the first runner to complete his leg of the 2012 torch relay wearing a suit rather than the regulation track suit ?
19. Which college is top of the Cambridge University League tables for results ?
20. What was the final overall result in the England v. Australia one day series ?
21. Driver Mark Webber extended his contract with which F1 team ?
22. Who was sacked from his job as the manager of Kuwaiti football team Al Wasl ?
23. Which phone network caused inconvenience to huge numbers of people when it went down last week ?
24. Which European will be standing as PM for his country again ?
25. Which team have offered £40 million for Luka Modric ?
26. Who said the John Terry case should never have come to court ?
27. Which president has cancelled his planned visit to the 2012 Olympics ?
28. 3 Brits were tragically killed in an accident on which mountain ?
29. Which word has been blocked on China’s most popular social media website ?
30. Which league team will start the football season with a 10 point deduction ?
31. Ben Wishaw will play which character in the new James Bond film “Skyfall” ?
32. The BBC made its final broadcast from where this week ?
Friday, 13 July 2012
Answers to News Questions
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news ?
1. Adrian Fillary
2. Rufus
3. Fabien Cancellara
4. Jo Pavey
5. Rhys Williams
6. Chuka Umunna
7. Nick Skelton
8. Yohan Blake
9. Marcus Agius
10. Libor
11. Sabine Lisicki
12. Islesborough House, Lerwick
13. Enrique Pena Nieto
14. Bob Diamond
15. Maria de Villota
16. The Lock
17. George Entwhistle
18. YouView
19. Eat, Pray, Laugh
20. Manaf Tlass
21. Carol Hawkins
22. Wren Boswell
23. Sam Warburton
24. Jonathan Marray
25. Leanne Zaloumis
In Other News
1. Where does Damien Hirst plan to build a sculpture nicknamed “The Angel of the West “ ?
2. LA Galaxy, employers of David Beckham, have made a bid for which other English player ?
3. Which member of the Royal Family said that his dad was so helpless with kids that he wouldn’t leave his own children with him on his own ?
4. What was the reason for the protest march in Hong Kong ?
5. Who scored Spain’s goals in the Euro final v. Italy ?
6. Which stage of the Tour de France was won by Mark Cavendish this week ?
7. Which acting Dame will be appearing as a guest star in the next series of Dr. Who ?
8. Who received a 2:1 degree in English Literature and the History of Art from the University of Newcastle ?
9. Last week a claim was made that which world figure died through polonium poisoning ?
10. Who is the new boss at Tottenham Hotspur
11. Which former England cricketer announced his retirement last week ?
12. Which member of the GB Olympic Football squad was taken ill with suspected meningitis ?
13. Who knocked Kvitova, the defending champion, out of the ladies singles at Wimbledon ?
14. Which british racing driver has split with his manager, Anthony Hamilton ?
15. Which notorious criminal suffered a seizure in prison ?
16. Who said that the UK is losing the war on drugs ?
17. Who said that his own kids would fail the Norman Tebbit cricket test ?
18. Comedian Eric Sykes passed away aged 89 . Where was he born ? 19. Last week the core of which sculpture was melted down for scrap ?
20. What is the GB’s target for medals in the London Olympics ?
21. Who has become the first athlete to be selected for both the Paralympics and the Olympics ?
22. Which controversial figure appeared on BBC’s Question Time ?
23. Which was the last bank still to be suffering from online glitches last week ?
24. Who are the world’s 5 highest paid actors ?
25. Claims were made last week that a hundred new paintings by which artist had been discovered ?
26. What caused the terrorist alert on the M6 toll road in Staffordshire ?
27. Where was a copy of Tower Bridge opened last week ?
28. Who will contest the Ladies singles final at Wimbledon ?
29. 40 years after it happened, an inquiry will be launched into what ?
30. Andy Murray is the first british men’s Wimbledon finalist for how many years ?
Answers
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?
1. He married Jade Jagger
2. Wimbledon’s chief pigeon scarer, a hawk stolen then returned
3. Rider who won the Prologue of the Tour de France
4. Runner who won a European silver medal in the women’s 10,000m
5. New European 400m hurdles men’s champion
6. Labour MP who admitted using cannabis when younger
7. 54 year old rider selected for GB Olympic show jumping team
8. Jamaican athlete who beat Usain Bolt in both 100 and 200m in the Jamaican Olympic trials
9. Barclays Chairman who resigned last week
10. Bank lending rate at the heart of the Barclays scandal
11. Player who knocked Maria Sharapova out of Wimbledon singles
12. Named the world’s best youth hostel
13. Newly elected president of Mexico, although the result is disputed
14. Barclay’s chief exec who resigned
15. Marussia Formula One test driver badly injured in crash
16. Constable painting that sold for over £22 million
17. New Director General of the BBC
18. New BBCTV set top box
19. Farewell tour of Dame Edna Everage
20. Former Syrian Defence Minister who has defected
21. Former PA jailed for swindling her employer, U2’s Adam Clayton
22. Little girl who survived having a pencil removed from her skull
23. 800m runner, only person to successfully appeal against non inclusion in GB Olympic Athletics track and field team.
24. British tennis player in Men’s Doubles final at Wimbledon
25. Admitted smashing the windows in one of Simon Cowell’s homes.
In Other News
1. Ilfracombe
2. Frank Lampard
3. Peter Phillips
4. 15th anniversary of the handover to China
5. Silva – Alba – Torres - Mata
6. 2nd stage
7. Diana Rigg
8. Princess Eugenie
9. Yasser Arafat
10. Andre Villas Boas
11. Mark Ramprakash
12. Daniel Sturridge
13. Serena Williams
14. Paul di Resta
15. Ian Brady
16. Kenneth Clarke
17. Nick Clegg
18. Oldham
19. B of the Bang
20. 48
21. Oscar Pistorius
22. John Lydon
23. Ulster Bank
24. Tom Cruise – Leonardo di Caprio – Adam Sandler – Dwayne Johnson ( The Rock) – Ben Stiller
25. Caravaggio
26. An electronic cigarette on a coach
27. Suzhou, China
28. Serena Willaims v. Agnisezka Radwanska
29. Bloody Sunday
30. 74 years – the last being Bunny Austin in 1938, who lost to Donald Budge
1. Adrian Fillary
2. Rufus
3. Fabien Cancellara
4. Jo Pavey
5. Rhys Williams
6. Chuka Umunna
7. Nick Skelton
8. Yohan Blake
9. Marcus Agius
10. Libor
11. Sabine Lisicki
12. Islesborough House, Lerwick
13. Enrique Pena Nieto
14. Bob Diamond
15. Maria de Villota
16. The Lock
17. George Entwhistle
18. YouView
19. Eat, Pray, Laugh
20. Manaf Tlass
21. Carol Hawkins
22. Wren Boswell
23. Sam Warburton
24. Jonathan Marray
25. Leanne Zaloumis
In Other News
1. Where does Damien Hirst plan to build a sculpture nicknamed “The Angel of the West “ ?
2. LA Galaxy, employers of David Beckham, have made a bid for which other English player ?
3. Which member of the Royal Family said that his dad was so helpless with kids that he wouldn’t leave his own children with him on his own ?
4. What was the reason for the protest march in Hong Kong ?
5. Who scored Spain’s goals in the Euro final v. Italy ?
6. Which stage of the Tour de France was won by Mark Cavendish this week ?
7. Which acting Dame will be appearing as a guest star in the next series of Dr. Who ?
8. Who received a 2:1 degree in English Literature and the History of Art from the University of Newcastle ?
9. Last week a claim was made that which world figure died through polonium poisoning ?
10. Who is the new boss at Tottenham Hotspur
11. Which former England cricketer announced his retirement last week ?
12. Which member of the GB Olympic Football squad was taken ill with suspected meningitis ?
13. Who knocked Kvitova, the defending champion, out of the ladies singles at Wimbledon ?
14. Which british racing driver has split with his manager, Anthony Hamilton ?
15. Which notorious criminal suffered a seizure in prison ?
16. Who said that the UK is losing the war on drugs ?
17. Who said that his own kids would fail the Norman Tebbit cricket test ?
18. Comedian Eric Sykes passed away aged 89 . Where was he born ? 19. Last week the core of which sculpture was melted down for scrap ?
20. What is the GB’s target for medals in the London Olympics ?
21. Who has become the first athlete to be selected for both the Paralympics and the Olympics ?
22. Which controversial figure appeared on BBC’s Question Time ?
23. Which was the last bank still to be suffering from online glitches last week ?
24. Who are the world’s 5 highest paid actors ?
25. Claims were made last week that a hundred new paintings by which artist had been discovered ?
26. What caused the terrorist alert on the M6 toll road in Staffordshire ?
27. Where was a copy of Tower Bridge opened last week ?
28. Who will contest the Ladies singles final at Wimbledon ?
29. 40 years after it happened, an inquiry will be launched into what ?
30. Andy Murray is the first british men’s Wimbledon finalist for how many years ?
Answers
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?
1. He married Jade Jagger
2. Wimbledon’s chief pigeon scarer, a hawk stolen then returned
3. Rider who won the Prologue of the Tour de France
4. Runner who won a European silver medal in the women’s 10,000m
5. New European 400m hurdles men’s champion
6. Labour MP who admitted using cannabis when younger
7. 54 year old rider selected for GB Olympic show jumping team
8. Jamaican athlete who beat Usain Bolt in both 100 and 200m in the Jamaican Olympic trials
9. Barclays Chairman who resigned last week
10. Bank lending rate at the heart of the Barclays scandal
11. Player who knocked Maria Sharapova out of Wimbledon singles
12. Named the world’s best youth hostel
13. Newly elected president of Mexico, although the result is disputed
14. Barclay’s chief exec who resigned
15. Marussia Formula One test driver badly injured in crash
16. Constable painting that sold for over £22 million
17. New Director General of the BBC
18. New BBCTV set top box
19. Farewell tour of Dame Edna Everage
20. Former Syrian Defence Minister who has defected
21. Former PA jailed for swindling her employer, U2’s Adam Clayton
22. Little girl who survived having a pencil removed from her skull
23. 800m runner, only person to successfully appeal against non inclusion in GB Olympic Athletics track and field team.
24. British tennis player in Men’s Doubles final at Wimbledon
25. Admitted smashing the windows in one of Simon Cowell’s homes.
In Other News
1. Ilfracombe
2. Frank Lampard
3. Peter Phillips
4. 15th anniversary of the handover to China
5. Silva – Alba – Torres - Mata
6. 2nd stage
7. Diana Rigg
8. Princess Eugenie
9. Yasser Arafat
10. Andre Villas Boas
11. Mark Ramprakash
12. Daniel Sturridge
13. Serena Williams
14. Paul di Resta
15. Ian Brady
16. Kenneth Clarke
17. Nick Clegg
18. Oldham
19. B of the Bang
20. 48
21. Oscar Pistorius
22. John Lydon
23. Ulster Bank
24. Tom Cruise – Leonardo di Caprio – Adam Sandler – Dwayne Johnson ( The Rock) – Ben Stiller
25. Caravaggio
26. An electronic cigarette on a coach
27. Suzhou, China
28. Serena Willaims v. Agnisezka Radwanska
29. Bloody Sunday
30. 74 years – the last being Bunny Austin in 1938, who lost to Donald Budge
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Obsessive ? Moi ? Well, now that you mention it . . .
Answers on a postcard for this one. Is it desirable to have an obsessive personality if you want to get to a certain level in quizzing ? I’ll tell you why I ask the question. I was on Facebook earlier, playing Triviador, and was messaged by Daniel ( proprietor of the TQA blog ). I don’t know if you’ve ever played Triviador, but it’s difficult to hold a typed conversation as you’re playing the game, because you risk your answers coming out in the conversation, rather than where they belong in Triviador. So I told Daniel that I was on the game, thus preparing him for any meaningless numbers that suddenly appeared in our conversation, to which he replied jokingly that I am a Triviador addict. Addict is a bit strong, but I have to admit that at the moment it is the latest of the obsessive phases that I go through from time to time.
At the moment I find that I’m making sure that I play at least 5 games a day, and Heaven help me, but I’m impossible to live with if I find that I’ve dropped out of the top 1% of players. That can’t be healthy. It’s not as if Triviador is the finest quiz game ever created either. It’s fun, but it certainly has its flaws. It’s not as if this is the first game this has happened with either. There was Sporcle – which is still a hell of a lot of fun. Then there was the quiz race game on the BQA site, until that went down. I didn’t even mind paying for that one. Then there was The Bank Job online game. Then the City Challenge on Facebook.
I seem to have been in confessional mode a lot recently. Well, so be it. Alea jacta est and all that. The fact is that it’s not even really about maybe learning new things, in fact, it’s not even really about beating innocent strangers, although I’m honest enough to admit that I don’t mind doing this at all. However, often it’s more about beating myself than anything else. Case in point. Last year during the summer break I went through a phase of trying to beat my time on sporcle naming all of the elements in the periodic table, or identifying the flags of all nations, or naming the world’s capital cities in order of northernmost to southernmost. What’s more, at the time spending a couple of hours doing this seemed like perfectly normal behaviour to me. As Edmund Blackadder once said “Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man’s a mushroom etc. “ If any of you happen to be in the Dyffryn Arms this evening, I’ll be the one in the corner with the potty on the head, and the pencils up the nose.
Saturday, 7 July 2012
In the interests of fairness -
- I should probably tell you about this.
My Head of Department, splendid chap that he is, is taking early retirement at the end of this school year, in just 12 days time, no less. So on Thursday 5th he invited all the members of the department, and the form tutors within his year group out to a special meal. Which I was pleased and proud to attend – albeit that it did mean that I would miss the quiz in the rugby club. If you’ve been with LAM for any length of time you’ll know that this quiz is really important to me. It’s not a quiz which I miss if I can possibly avoid it, but this was an exceptionally special occasion.
On Wednesday night, then , I gave my middle daughter Zara a lift back to Cardiff, and knowing that I was going to be in the area I rang my son up and asked if he fancied meeting up , bearing in mind that he only lives a few minutes away from Zara. My son knows me very well, and he asked if I fancied going to a quiz . Silly question - I was already one quiz down on my normal week's quota, so this would hit the spot perfectly. I picked up Mike and his partner Ceri as soon as I dropped off Zara, and we went straight round to the pub. It’s a Toby Carvery – I didn’t actually notice the name of the place, and it had a reasonably well attended, if rather early quiz on a Wednesday night. There was a nice spread of ages amongst the teams, I’m delighted to say that there was no evidence of phone cheating, and the question master made up for what she lacked in terms of polish with a lot of enthusiasm, and a lot of good humour. The only thing was . . . it was a Redtooth quiz.
I say it like this because I have made some comments about Redtooth Quizzes in the past, which seem to have upset the good people at Redtooth a little, going by what one of their question setters once posted on this very blog, and by what I’ve been told by other sources as well. If I recall correctly all I ever said was that in my opinion they are too gimmicky, and I don’t enjoy them very much, but if other people do, then that’s fine and good luck to them. Well, whatever the case, I still pretty much stick by this, but I don’t know, maybe I’m going soft in my old age, but I didn’t mind the quiz too much on Wednesday night. The first round was a set of pictures – thankfully Mike and Ceri took care of most of those, with me supplying Thomas Edison. Then 10 in the news questions. That’s a little much in my opinion, but there we are. Thankfully there was no god-awful Family Fortunes round, and instead we were asked to name the first five presenters of Antiques Roadshow, and the top 5 highest paid sportsmen in the world. We had all the Roadshow presenters, but I couldn’t remember Lebron James, the basketball player for the sportsmen.
After the break there was the Trivia train – which is basically a last letter / first letter round – then the 4 part connection. 4 questions, and identify the connection between part of the answers – you know how it works, I’m sure. Then the last round. The questions were all General Knowledge, but the twist was that you weren’t allowed to get any wrong. You don’t have to answer any of the questions, but if you give any wrong answers, then you get no points for the whole round however many you have answered correctly. We answered 6 correctly – we could have gone safely for 7, but as it was we won by 10 points anyway.
That probably explains why I quite enjoyed the evening. I still think that the quiz was too gimmicky, but at least there was more actual quiz content and it was less of a guessing game than I found in other of their quizzes I played in back in the day. Of course, it helped tremendously that none of the teams resorted to googling the answers. As in any other quiz I reckon that you could have answered the vast majority of the questions correctly if you did. But credit where it’s due, it wasn’t a bad quiz. So does this mean that Faustus is ready to cut a deal with Mephistopheles ? Probably not. It was a good evening, but that had as much to do with getting to spend an evening with Mike and Ceri as it did with the quiz, and it’s unlikely that I’ll become a regular, as much due to the amount of travel involved as anything else.Mind you, we rather blotted our copy book at the end by not wanting to stay for the Play Your Cards Right Game which followed, and asking for the prize money immediately after the quiz so we could go, rather than sticking around until last orders. Not good form at all, I know.
My Head of Department, splendid chap that he is, is taking early retirement at the end of this school year, in just 12 days time, no less. So on Thursday 5th he invited all the members of the department, and the form tutors within his year group out to a special meal. Which I was pleased and proud to attend – albeit that it did mean that I would miss the quiz in the rugby club. If you’ve been with LAM for any length of time you’ll know that this quiz is really important to me. It’s not a quiz which I miss if I can possibly avoid it, but this was an exceptionally special occasion.
On Wednesday night, then , I gave my middle daughter Zara a lift back to Cardiff, and knowing that I was going to be in the area I rang my son up and asked if he fancied meeting up , bearing in mind that he only lives a few minutes away from Zara. My son knows me very well, and he asked if I fancied going to a quiz . Silly question - I was already one quiz down on my normal week's quota, so this would hit the spot perfectly. I picked up Mike and his partner Ceri as soon as I dropped off Zara, and we went straight round to the pub. It’s a Toby Carvery – I didn’t actually notice the name of the place, and it had a reasonably well attended, if rather early quiz on a Wednesday night. There was a nice spread of ages amongst the teams, I’m delighted to say that there was no evidence of phone cheating, and the question master made up for what she lacked in terms of polish with a lot of enthusiasm, and a lot of good humour. The only thing was . . . it was a Redtooth quiz.
I say it like this because I have made some comments about Redtooth Quizzes in the past, which seem to have upset the good people at Redtooth a little, going by what one of their question setters once posted on this very blog, and by what I’ve been told by other sources as well. If I recall correctly all I ever said was that in my opinion they are too gimmicky, and I don’t enjoy them very much, but if other people do, then that’s fine and good luck to them. Well, whatever the case, I still pretty much stick by this, but I don’t know, maybe I’m going soft in my old age, but I didn’t mind the quiz too much on Wednesday night. The first round was a set of pictures – thankfully Mike and Ceri took care of most of those, with me supplying Thomas Edison. Then 10 in the news questions. That’s a little much in my opinion, but there we are. Thankfully there was no god-awful Family Fortunes round, and instead we were asked to name the first five presenters of Antiques Roadshow, and the top 5 highest paid sportsmen in the world. We had all the Roadshow presenters, but I couldn’t remember Lebron James, the basketball player for the sportsmen.
After the break there was the Trivia train – which is basically a last letter / first letter round – then the 4 part connection. 4 questions, and identify the connection between part of the answers – you know how it works, I’m sure. Then the last round. The questions were all General Knowledge, but the twist was that you weren’t allowed to get any wrong. You don’t have to answer any of the questions, but if you give any wrong answers, then you get no points for the whole round however many you have answered correctly. We answered 6 correctly – we could have gone safely for 7, but as it was we won by 10 points anyway.
That probably explains why I quite enjoyed the evening. I still think that the quiz was too gimmicky, but at least there was more actual quiz content and it was less of a guessing game than I found in other of their quizzes I played in back in the day. Of course, it helped tremendously that none of the teams resorted to googling the answers. As in any other quiz I reckon that you could have answered the vast majority of the questions correctly if you did. But credit where it’s due, it wasn’t a bad quiz. So does this mean that Faustus is ready to cut a deal with Mephistopheles ? Probably not. It was a good evening, but that had as much to do with getting to spend an evening with Mike and Ceri as it did with the quiz, and it’s unlikely that I’ll become a regular, as much due to the amount of travel involved as anything else.Mind you, we rather blotted our copy book at the end by not wanting to stay for the Play Your Cards Right Game which followed, and asking for the prize money immediately after the quiz so we could go, rather than sticking around until last orders. Not good form at all, I know.
News Questions
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news ?
1. Adrian Fillary
2. Rufus
3. Fabien Cancellara
4. Jo Pavey
5. Rhys Williams
6. Chuka Umunna
7. Nick Skelton
8. Yohan Blake
9. Marcus Agius
10. Libor
11. Sabine Lisicki
12. Islesborough House, Lerwick
13. Enrique Pena Nieto
14. Bob Diamond
15. Maria de Villota
16. The Lock
17. George Entwhistle
18. YouView
19. Eat, Pray, Laugh
20. Manaf Tlass
21. Carol Hawkins
22. Wren Boswell
23. Sam Warburton
24. Jonathan Marray
25. Leanne Zaloumis
In Other News
1. Where does Damien Hirst plan to build a sculpture nicknamed “The Angel of the West “ ?
2. LA Galaxy, employers of David Beckham, have made a bid for which other English player ?
3. Which member of the Royal Family said that his dad was so helpless with kids that he wouldn’t leave his own children with him on his own ?
4. What was the reason for the protest march in Hong Kong ?
5. Who scored Spain’s goals in the Euro final v. Italy ?
6. Which stage of the Tour de France was won by Mark Cavendish this week ?
7. Which acting Dame will be appearing as a guest star in the next series of Dr. Who ?
8. Who received a 2:1 degree in English Literature and the History of Art from the University of Newcastle ?
9. Last week a claim was made that which world figure died through polonium poisoning ?
10. Who is the new boss at Tottenham Hotspur
11. Which former England cricketer announced his retirement last week ?
12. Which member of the GB Olympic Football squad was taken ill with suspected meningitis ?
13. Who knocked Kvitova, the defending champion, out of the ladies singles at Wimbledon ?
14. Which british racing driver has split with his manager, Anthony Hamilton ?
15. Which notorious criminal suffered a seizure in prison ?
16. Who said that the UK is losing the war on drugs ?
17. Who said that his own kids would fail the Norman Tebbit cricket test ?
18. Comedian Eric Sykes passed away aged 89 . Where was he born ? 19. Last week the core of which sculpture was melted down for scrap ?
20. What is the GB’s target for medals in the London Olympics ?
21. Who has become the first athlete to be selected for both the Paralympics and the Olympics ?
22. Which controversial figure appeared on BBC’s Question Time ?
23. Which was the last bank still to be suffering from online glitches last week ?
24. Who are the world’s 5 highest paid actors ?
25. Claims were made last week that a hundred new paintings by which artist had been discovered ?
26. What caused the terrorist alert on the M6 toll road in Staffordshire ?
27. Where was a copy of Tower Bridge opened last week ?
28. Who will contest the Ladies singles final at Wimbledon ?
29. 40 years after it happened, an inquiry will be launched into what ?
30. Andy Murray is the first british men’s Wimbledon finalist for how many years ?
1. Adrian Fillary
2. Rufus
3. Fabien Cancellara
4. Jo Pavey
5. Rhys Williams
6. Chuka Umunna
7. Nick Skelton
8. Yohan Blake
9. Marcus Agius
10. Libor
11. Sabine Lisicki
12. Islesborough House, Lerwick
13. Enrique Pena Nieto
14. Bob Diamond
15. Maria de Villota
16. The Lock
17. George Entwhistle
18. YouView
19. Eat, Pray, Laugh
20. Manaf Tlass
21. Carol Hawkins
22. Wren Boswell
23. Sam Warburton
24. Jonathan Marray
25. Leanne Zaloumis
In Other News
1. Where does Damien Hirst plan to build a sculpture nicknamed “The Angel of the West “ ?
2. LA Galaxy, employers of David Beckham, have made a bid for which other English player ?
3. Which member of the Royal Family said that his dad was so helpless with kids that he wouldn’t leave his own children with him on his own ?
4. What was the reason for the protest march in Hong Kong ?
5. Who scored Spain’s goals in the Euro final v. Italy ?
6. Which stage of the Tour de France was won by Mark Cavendish this week ?
7. Which acting Dame will be appearing as a guest star in the next series of Dr. Who ?
8. Who received a 2:1 degree in English Literature and the History of Art from the University of Newcastle ?
9. Last week a claim was made that which world figure died through polonium poisoning ?
10. Who is the new boss at Tottenham Hotspur
11. Which former England cricketer announced his retirement last week ?
12. Which member of the GB Olympic Football squad was taken ill with suspected meningitis ?
13. Who knocked Kvitova, the defending champion, out of the ladies singles at Wimbledon ?
14. Which british racing driver has split with his manager, Anthony Hamilton ?
15. Which notorious criminal suffered a seizure in prison ?
16. Who said that the UK is losing the war on drugs ?
17. Who said that his own kids would fail the Norman Tebbit cricket test ?
18. Comedian Eric Sykes passed away aged 89 . Where was he born ? 19. Last week the core of which sculpture was melted down for scrap ?
20. What is the GB’s target for medals in the London Olympics ?
21. Who has become the first athlete to be selected for both the Paralympics and the Olympics ?
22. Which controversial figure appeared on BBC’s Question Time ?
23. Which was the last bank still to be suffering from online glitches last week ?
24. Who are the world’s 5 highest paid actors ?
25. Claims were made last week that a hundred new paintings by which artist had been discovered ?
26. What caused the terrorist alert on the M6 toll road in Staffordshire ?
27. Where was a copy of Tower Bridge opened last week ?
28. Who will contest the Ladies singles final at Wimbledon ?
29. 40 years after it happened, an inquiry will be launched into what ?
30. Andy Murray is the first british men’s Wimbledon finalist for how many years ?
The Chase - Gossip
I mentioned “The Chase” in my last post, which reminds me of an interesting tidbit of gossip I picked up from Mark ‘The Beast’ a couple of weeks ago. Mark has been working very hard on his American GK , because he has recently filmed a pilot for an American version of the series. So there’s every chance that The Chase will be expanding across the Atlantic. I mentioned that Mark had told me he’d filmed an American pilot to another quizzer, who shall be nameless , who replied that if Mark appears on television in the USA then at least it will show Americans that Bigfoot is alive and well and working in British television. Knowing Mark he’d probably be the first to laugh at that.
New Show - Tipping Point
It’s easy to be so put off by the basic idea of a new show sometimes that you’re already mentally writing the stinging review before the first five minutes are over. Knowing the concept of “Tipping Point”, the latest ITV entry to the teatime quiz stakes I made a conscious decision to give it a fair chance, despite the fact that the concept, as I understood it, held out every possibility of delivering a 24 carat stinker.
The concept of the show, then , is this. In each slightly different round of the show players answer questions to earn plastic tokens. These they get to feed in to a large version of a Compton’s Penny Falls amusement machine. If that name doesn’t mean anything to you, well, just think about the last time that you paid a visit to an amusement arcade. You’re bound to have seen one of these machines – which have two shelves going back and fore, sweeping either 2p pieces, or 10p pieces in some cases. You drop a coin in, and hope that it will help sweep some coins over the edge, into your grateful grasp. You remember now. Well, that’s basically it. If you win tokens, then you choose where and when they are released in the machine. If any of the tokens in the machine end up swept into the collection area, then you get £50 for each one.
The mechanics of the show are extremely simple. The first round starts with 4 players, buzzing in to answer questions. The contestant in each round with the lowest total in his or her bank is out. Each of the other rounds varies slightly, but the principle of lowest total holder leaves remains the same.
In the final round, the last contestant standing drops a ‘star ‘ token into the machine. He then is given 6 categories. He can answer an easy question for 1 token, a medium for 2, or a hard for 3 in each. So the contestant has a maximum of 18 tokens to knock the star token back out of the machine. Any other tokens he sweeps out are added to the total. If he should manage to knock out the star, then he wins £10000. If not, then he still picks up the running total, which could easily be a couple of thousand pounds. However, he will also get offered a gamble. A further three tokens to knock out the star for the jackpot. However, if the contestant gambles and fails, then he leaves with nothing.
You probably know what I’m going to say about this show. But I do want to be fair. This show isn’t aimed at me. In fact I’d go so far as to say that it isn’t really aimed at people who have much of an interest in quizzes in general. The questions seem very simple. That’s not necessarily a handicap to making a popular teatime quiz show – it never seemed to do The Weakest Link any harm, to name but one. But I make the comparison deliberately. If the questions or the quiz elements of the show are not enough to hold an audience’s interest by themselves, then you have to offer something else as well. In the case of WL, there was Anne Robinson’s bitchiness, and the voting off of contestants. Alright, I was never a great fan of these myself, but enough people were to keep the show going for over a decade. At least you got a decent amount of questions in the show as well.
What does “Tipping Point” offer other than quizzing elements, then ? The slot machine. Therein lies the problem. Whatever presenter Ben Shepherd might say, this is a game of luck, in which skill and strategy plays only a small part. Just because you answer more questions correctly than any of the other contestants, it doesn’t mean for one minute that you will earn more money than they do. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that this essential part of the show’s mechanics will put people off. With regards to the slot machine aspect of the show, there is no escaping the fact that it is, to be honest, a bit of a bore.
ITV viewers aren’t stupid. Two or three years ago ITV launched three quiz shows in what had previously been the Golden Balls slot. Of the three of them, Divided, The Chase and The Fuse, ITV themselves were said to be most fond of Divided. The Chase was kept as well, due to good viewing figures, and the Fuse, which was actually a show with potential, was made to walk the plank. Despite ITV’s hopes for Divided, they couldn’t force viewers to watch a show which , frankly, wasn’t much cop. Why is The Chase still going ? Because it was by far the best show out of the lot of them. People aren’t stupid, and the majority know when they are being sold something which doesn’t work.
I’m afraid that, in my opinion, “Tipping Point” doesn’t work. Ben Shepherd is so inoffensive you hardly even know he’s there, but he is very bland. It doesn’t work as a quiz show because the questions are too simple, and there aren’t enough of them. It doesn’t work as a game show because the game itself is, well, a bit of a bore, and there’s no variety in it either. Drop – sweep – oh tough luck. As in the original amusement arcade game, I should imagine that this show is a lot more fun to play, than to watch someone else playing. Now, I wouldn’t want to give you the idea that this is awful. Awful is an adjective which should only ever be applied to shows like Ted Rodger’s 3 – 2 – 1. But even awfulness has a certain fascination to it. There’s nothing fascinating, or even interesting about “Tipping Point”. I have a mental image of a production company exec looking across a sea of bewildered faces, and saying, in a hopeful voice , “Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but it just might work. “ Trust me. It doesn’t.
The concept of the show, then , is this. In each slightly different round of the show players answer questions to earn plastic tokens. These they get to feed in to a large version of a Compton’s Penny Falls amusement machine. If that name doesn’t mean anything to you, well, just think about the last time that you paid a visit to an amusement arcade. You’re bound to have seen one of these machines – which have two shelves going back and fore, sweeping either 2p pieces, or 10p pieces in some cases. You drop a coin in, and hope that it will help sweep some coins over the edge, into your grateful grasp. You remember now. Well, that’s basically it. If you win tokens, then you choose where and when they are released in the machine. If any of the tokens in the machine end up swept into the collection area, then you get £50 for each one.
The mechanics of the show are extremely simple. The first round starts with 4 players, buzzing in to answer questions. The contestant in each round with the lowest total in his or her bank is out. Each of the other rounds varies slightly, but the principle of lowest total holder leaves remains the same.
In the final round, the last contestant standing drops a ‘star ‘ token into the machine. He then is given 6 categories. He can answer an easy question for 1 token, a medium for 2, or a hard for 3 in each. So the contestant has a maximum of 18 tokens to knock the star token back out of the machine. Any other tokens he sweeps out are added to the total. If he should manage to knock out the star, then he wins £10000. If not, then he still picks up the running total, which could easily be a couple of thousand pounds. However, he will also get offered a gamble. A further three tokens to knock out the star for the jackpot. However, if the contestant gambles and fails, then he leaves with nothing.
You probably know what I’m going to say about this show. But I do want to be fair. This show isn’t aimed at me. In fact I’d go so far as to say that it isn’t really aimed at people who have much of an interest in quizzes in general. The questions seem very simple. That’s not necessarily a handicap to making a popular teatime quiz show – it never seemed to do The Weakest Link any harm, to name but one. But I make the comparison deliberately. If the questions or the quiz elements of the show are not enough to hold an audience’s interest by themselves, then you have to offer something else as well. In the case of WL, there was Anne Robinson’s bitchiness, and the voting off of contestants. Alright, I was never a great fan of these myself, but enough people were to keep the show going for over a decade. At least you got a decent amount of questions in the show as well.
What does “Tipping Point” offer other than quizzing elements, then ? The slot machine. Therein lies the problem. Whatever presenter Ben Shepherd might say, this is a game of luck, in which skill and strategy plays only a small part. Just because you answer more questions correctly than any of the other contestants, it doesn’t mean for one minute that you will earn more money than they do. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that this essential part of the show’s mechanics will put people off. With regards to the slot machine aspect of the show, there is no escaping the fact that it is, to be honest, a bit of a bore.
ITV viewers aren’t stupid. Two or three years ago ITV launched three quiz shows in what had previously been the Golden Balls slot. Of the three of them, Divided, The Chase and The Fuse, ITV themselves were said to be most fond of Divided. The Chase was kept as well, due to good viewing figures, and the Fuse, which was actually a show with potential, was made to walk the plank. Despite ITV’s hopes for Divided, they couldn’t force viewers to watch a show which , frankly, wasn’t much cop. Why is The Chase still going ? Because it was by far the best show out of the lot of them. People aren’t stupid, and the majority know when they are being sold something which doesn’t work.
I’m afraid that, in my opinion, “Tipping Point” doesn’t work. Ben Shepherd is so inoffensive you hardly even know he’s there, but he is very bland. It doesn’t work as a quiz show because the questions are too simple, and there aren’t enough of them. It doesn’t work as a game show because the game itself is, well, a bit of a bore, and there’s no variety in it either. Drop – sweep – oh tough luck. As in the original amusement arcade game, I should imagine that this show is a lot more fun to play, than to watch someone else playing. Now, I wouldn’t want to give you the idea that this is awful. Awful is an adjective which should only ever be applied to shows like Ted Rodger’s 3 – 2 – 1. But even awfulness has a certain fascination to it. There’s nothing fascinating, or even interesting about “Tipping Point”. I have a mental image of a production company exec looking across a sea of bewildered faces, and saying, in a hopeful voice , “Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but it just might work. “ Trust me. It doesn’t.
Friday, 6 July 2012
Answers to News Questions
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news ?
1. Adam Gemilli
2. Alex Hales
3. Fernando Lugo
4. Shara Proctor
5. Count Robin Mirlees
6. Troy Deeney
7. Andrew Garfield
8. Elena Vesnina
9. The Elizabeth Tower
10. Viva Forever
11. Cait Reilly
12. Jamie Hampton
13. Pamira Paszek
14. Kathleen Simpson
15. Eric Holder
16. Lukas Rosol
17. Micah Richards
18. Raymond Mawby
19. Thriller
20. Simon Konecki
21. Penny Palfrey
22. Agnieshka Radwanska
23. Robbie Grabbarz
In Other News
1. Which two players missed penalties for England in the match v. Italy in the quarter final of the Euro ?
2. What was the score in the Spain v. France quarter final ?
3. Who won the European GP ?
4. Who ran Lewis Hamilton off the road during the European GP ?
5. What was the score in these third test rugby matches – Wales v. Australia ? – England v. South Africa – Ireland v. New Zealand
6. Rowan Williams particularly criticized David Cameron over his use of which phrase ?
7. Syrian forces shot down a fighter jet belonging to which country ?
8. Which British star was awarded her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week ?
9. Which country carried out their first ever docking in space last week ?
10. A stolen bust of whom was recovered last week ?
11. Which country announced that it would allow its women to compete in the Olympics ? In the event, none actually qualified .
12. Who signed a one year deal as player coach with Gloucester ?
13. In which city did Seb Coe carry the Olympic torch in the relay ?
14. Which is the latest EU country to ask for a bail out ?
15. In which English town was there violence reported after the England Italy penalty shootout ?
16. Which 3 teams announced their opposition to the reformed Glasgow Rangers starting in the Scottish Premier League ?
17. Which player did Andy Murray beat, who then complained about being given 11 foot faults ?
18. The 3p increase in fuel duty has been delayed until when ?
19. Who claims he’d rather kill himself if he was found to be suffering from dementia ?
20. In which London store have cleaners been protesting about low rates of pay ?
21. Which bank were the first to be discredited for rigging interest rates ?
22. Wild fires raged in which US state last week ?
23. Which writer and director died last week ?
24. Who signed a 4 year deal with his club, just days before being ruled out from the GB Olympic football squad through injury ?
25. Who retained his European 5000m title ?
26. Which city is hosting the European Athletics Championships ?
27. Where were huge Olympic rings unveiled last week ?
28. Which charges were dropped against Silvio Berlusconi last week ?
29. Which rare occurrence happened at the end of June ?
30. Where was the Memorial to Bomber Command opened ?
31. Who was acquitted of one charge of genocide last week ?
32. How long did it take Fifty Shades of Grey to sell 1 million paperbacks in the UK – it has broken the record set by the Da Vinci Code
33. Which Hollywood couple announced they are to divorce due to their irreconcilable differences ?
34. What British institution celebrated its 75th birthday this weekend ?
Answers
1. 18 year old, second in British Olympic trials and selected to run 100m for GB in Olympics
2. Scored 99 for England in the 20/20 match v. the West Indies
3. President of Paraguay who was impeached
4. Athlete who beat Bev Kinch’s 29 year old British Long Jump record.
5. Passed away last week – allegedly the inspiration for James Bond
6. Watford FC footballer jailed for a nightclub fight
7. British actor playing lead in The Amazing Spiderman
8. Beat Venus Williams in first round match in Wimbledon
9. New name for the St. Stephen’s Tower, housing Big Ben
10. New musical, written by Jennifer Saunders, using the music of the Spice Girls
11. She is currently asking the High Court to rule that being forced to work in Poundland while unemployed means a breach of her human rights
12. Tennis player beaten in 2nd round of Wimbledon by Heather Watson
13. Player who beat Wozniacki, thus continuing her grand slam woes
14. She cornered David Cameron when he was in Todmorden
15. US Attorney general who may face contempt of court charges
16. Player who knocked Rafa Nadal out of Wimbledon
17. Overage player selected for GB Olympic football squad, for whom David Beckham was left out of squad.
18. Former Tory MP who spied for the Czech secret services
19. Michael Jackson’s tiger, which passed away last week
20. Boyfriend of Adele – the singer announced her pregnancy on her blog
21. Grandmother attempting to swim 103 miles from Cuba to Florida
22. Player who knocked Heather Watson out of Wimbledon in 3rd round
23. New British European High Jump champion
In Other News
1. Ashley Young and Ashley Cole
2. 2 – 0 to Spain
3. Sebastian Vettel
4. Pastor Maldonado
5. Wales – 19 – Australia 20 : England 14 – South Africa 14 : Ireland 0 – New Zealand 60
6. Big Society
7. Turkey
8. Helen Mirren
9. China
10. Rodin
11. Saudi Arabia
12. Mike Tindall
13. Sheffield
14. Cyprus
15. Bedford
16. St. Johnstone, Aberdeen and Inverness Caledonian Thistle
17. Ivo Karlovic
18. January 2013
19. John Simpson
20. John Lewis
21. Barclays
22. Colorado
23. Nora Ephron
24. Gareth Bale
25. Mo Farah
26. Helsinki
27. Tower Bridge
28. Tax avoidance
29. A Leap second
30. Green Park
31. Radovan Karadzic
32. 11 weeks
33. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes
34. The 999 call
1. Adam Gemilli
2. Alex Hales
3. Fernando Lugo
4. Shara Proctor
5. Count Robin Mirlees
6. Troy Deeney
7. Andrew Garfield
8. Elena Vesnina
9. The Elizabeth Tower
10. Viva Forever
11. Cait Reilly
12. Jamie Hampton
13. Pamira Paszek
14. Kathleen Simpson
15. Eric Holder
16. Lukas Rosol
17. Micah Richards
18. Raymond Mawby
19. Thriller
20. Simon Konecki
21. Penny Palfrey
22. Agnieshka Radwanska
23. Robbie Grabbarz
In Other News
1. Which two players missed penalties for England in the match v. Italy in the quarter final of the Euro ?
2. What was the score in the Spain v. France quarter final ?
3. Who won the European GP ?
4. Who ran Lewis Hamilton off the road during the European GP ?
5. What was the score in these third test rugby matches – Wales v. Australia ? – England v. South Africa – Ireland v. New Zealand
6. Rowan Williams particularly criticized David Cameron over his use of which phrase ?
7. Syrian forces shot down a fighter jet belonging to which country ?
8. Which British star was awarded her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week ?
9. Which country carried out their first ever docking in space last week ?
10. A stolen bust of whom was recovered last week ?
11. Which country announced that it would allow its women to compete in the Olympics ? In the event, none actually qualified .
12. Who signed a one year deal as player coach with Gloucester ?
13. In which city did Seb Coe carry the Olympic torch in the relay ?
14. Which is the latest EU country to ask for a bail out ?
15. In which English town was there violence reported after the England Italy penalty shootout ?
16. Which 3 teams announced their opposition to the reformed Glasgow Rangers starting in the Scottish Premier League ?
17. Which player did Andy Murray beat, who then complained about being given 11 foot faults ?
18. The 3p increase in fuel duty has been delayed until when ?
19. Who claims he’d rather kill himself if he was found to be suffering from dementia ?
20. In which London store have cleaners been protesting about low rates of pay ?
21. Which bank were the first to be discredited for rigging interest rates ?
22. Wild fires raged in which US state last week ?
23. Which writer and director died last week ?
24. Who signed a 4 year deal with his club, just days before being ruled out from the GB Olympic football squad through injury ?
25. Who retained his European 5000m title ?
26. Which city is hosting the European Athletics Championships ?
27. Where were huge Olympic rings unveiled last week ?
28. Which charges were dropped against Silvio Berlusconi last week ?
29. Which rare occurrence happened at the end of June ?
30. Where was the Memorial to Bomber Command opened ?
31. Who was acquitted of one charge of genocide last week ?
32. How long did it take Fifty Shades of Grey to sell 1 million paperbacks in the UK – it has broken the record set by the Da Vinci Code
33. Which Hollywood couple announced they are to divorce due to their irreconcilable differences ?
34. What British institution celebrated its 75th birthday this weekend ?
Answers
1. 18 year old, second in British Olympic trials and selected to run 100m for GB in Olympics
2. Scored 99 for England in the 20/20 match v. the West Indies
3. President of Paraguay who was impeached
4. Athlete who beat Bev Kinch’s 29 year old British Long Jump record.
5. Passed away last week – allegedly the inspiration for James Bond
6. Watford FC footballer jailed for a nightclub fight
7. British actor playing lead in The Amazing Spiderman
8. Beat Venus Williams in first round match in Wimbledon
9. New name for the St. Stephen’s Tower, housing Big Ben
10. New musical, written by Jennifer Saunders, using the music of the Spice Girls
11. She is currently asking the High Court to rule that being forced to work in Poundland while unemployed means a breach of her human rights
12. Tennis player beaten in 2nd round of Wimbledon by Heather Watson
13. Player who beat Wozniacki, thus continuing her grand slam woes
14. She cornered David Cameron when he was in Todmorden
15. US Attorney general who may face contempt of court charges
16. Player who knocked Rafa Nadal out of Wimbledon
17. Overage player selected for GB Olympic football squad, for whom David Beckham was left out of squad.
18. Former Tory MP who spied for the Czech secret services
19. Michael Jackson’s tiger, which passed away last week
20. Boyfriend of Adele – the singer announced her pregnancy on her blog
21. Grandmother attempting to swim 103 miles from Cuba to Florida
22. Player who knocked Heather Watson out of Wimbledon in 3rd round
23. New British European High Jump champion
In Other News
1. Ashley Young and Ashley Cole
2. 2 – 0 to Spain
3. Sebastian Vettel
4. Pastor Maldonado
5. Wales – 19 – Australia 20 : England 14 – South Africa 14 : Ireland 0 – New Zealand 60
6. Big Society
7. Turkey
8. Helen Mirren
9. China
10. Rodin
11. Saudi Arabia
12. Mike Tindall
13. Sheffield
14. Cyprus
15. Bedford
16. St. Johnstone, Aberdeen and Inverness Caledonian Thistle
17. Ivo Karlovic
18. January 2013
19. John Simpson
20. John Lewis
21. Barclays
22. Colorado
23. Nora Ephron
24. Gareth Bale
25. Mo Farah
26. Helsinki
27. Tower Bridge
28. Tax avoidance
29. A Leap second
30. Green Park
31. Radovan Karadzic
32. 11 weeks
33. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes
34. The 999 call
Monday, 2 July 2012
We didn't really lose -
- You just scored more points than we did.
This is something I like very much at a quiz, even though I’m quite sure it doesn’t reflect on me very well. But since we’re in full confessional mode here I’ll tell you the full story. Basically, I like it when I turn up to one of my regular quizzes, and see that there’s a new team making their first appearance, who seem to have been round the block a few times, have some quiz experience, and expect a win. Last night at the Dyffryn Arms it was once again very well attended, and so John and I found that the only easily available table was right next to a large team of possibly 7 or 8 older players whom we’d never seen before.
It’s difficult to explain if you’re not that experienced in the arcane world of the pub quiz, but you can often tell at a glance whether a team are simply playing for pure fun, or whether they’re taking it a little more seriously. This team were taking it seriously. They’d all sat round in their places, all with pens and scrap paper ready, and I got the impression that they meant business. An impression which was reinforced when the second question was asked : - Name the person who discovered the Polio vaccine -. “Salk !” exclaimed the chap sitting next to me. To be immediately told to shush by his team captain. Not that this put him off, as he couldn’t help leaping in with another couple of answers. I can’t say too much about that as I’m very prone to that myself.
They were exuding an air of confidence when they handed over their sheet for marking at half time. I freely admit that whenever I mark another team’s sheet I immediately glance over the answers and try to work out how well I think they’ve done – and in most cases, how many points behind us I think that they’ll be. In this case they hadn’t done badly at all. We top scored with 30, but they’d scored a highly respectable 26. However they seemed visibly crestfallen to realize that they were only in 3rd – 4 points behind John and me, and 3 points behind the second placed team.
They were a tiny bit more respectful of us during the second half of the quiz. To be fair, we played a bit of a blinder , getting all the questions right in this section, and only missing one of the pictures on the handout. Which meant that we couldn’t lose, and in fact our lead over second place was 8 points at the end of the quiz. Our neighbours, the new team stayed in 3rd, but they were a full 20 points behind us at the end.
I did get into a conversation with one of the blokes in the other team. Apparently they are holidaying in the area. He said that their performance was marred by their lack of knowledge of rugby. I bit my tongue and refrained from pointing out that their performance on the pictures, and on quite a few of the other questions certainly hadn’t helped either, merely commiserating with him. Mistake. This encouraged him to regale me with tales of the miraculous former deeds of his team. Had I ever heard of a team being banned from a pub quiz before , he asked. Oblivious to the fact that I had replied in the affirmative he went on to tell me about the many quizzes which have banned them for being too good. Once again, I refrained from suggesting that he and his team were in no danger of being banned from the Dyffryn Arms on their current form. Then he went on to ask me to guess how many degrees his team possessed between themselves. It was actually 12, which is certainly impressive, but hardly relevant to winning quizzes. Honestly, from the way he was talking you’d have thought he’d won, rather than been beaten by 20 points. I admit that I found the whole thing amusing at first, but this quickly wore off. Nothing seemed to make an impression, or served to stem the flow, and so I went to Defcon 4. I asked him – Do you ever watch Mastermind ? – to which he replied – yes, occasionally - . So then I opened the bomb bay doors and let the big one go. – Well, I won the series in 2008.- In normal circumstances I wouldn’t dream of ramming this down anyone’s throat, but being force fed the litany of the achievements of a team who were, frankly, little better than ordinary robbed me of my usual common sense.
The only thing about unleashing your heavy artillery is that if it doesn’t stop the opposition in their tracks, you really don’t have any options left. And it didn’t. Underwhelmed is not an adequate description of his reaction. In fact it provoked the same reaction that telling him we won the quiz the previous week as well would have done, that is, none at all. Which is a salutary lesson that I’m sure will do me some good in the long run. Thinking about it now, though, 24 hours later, I kind of have a sneaking admiration for this bravura display of the ‘ we didn’t lose – you just happened to score more points than we did ‘ attitude. Which, come to think of it, marks them out as a proper quiz team far more than anything else they managed last night.
This is something I like very much at a quiz, even though I’m quite sure it doesn’t reflect on me very well. But since we’re in full confessional mode here I’ll tell you the full story. Basically, I like it when I turn up to one of my regular quizzes, and see that there’s a new team making their first appearance, who seem to have been round the block a few times, have some quiz experience, and expect a win. Last night at the Dyffryn Arms it was once again very well attended, and so John and I found that the only easily available table was right next to a large team of possibly 7 or 8 older players whom we’d never seen before.
It’s difficult to explain if you’re not that experienced in the arcane world of the pub quiz, but you can often tell at a glance whether a team are simply playing for pure fun, or whether they’re taking it a little more seriously. This team were taking it seriously. They’d all sat round in their places, all with pens and scrap paper ready, and I got the impression that they meant business. An impression which was reinforced when the second question was asked : - Name the person who discovered the Polio vaccine -. “Salk !” exclaimed the chap sitting next to me. To be immediately told to shush by his team captain. Not that this put him off, as he couldn’t help leaping in with another couple of answers. I can’t say too much about that as I’m very prone to that myself.
They were exuding an air of confidence when they handed over their sheet for marking at half time. I freely admit that whenever I mark another team’s sheet I immediately glance over the answers and try to work out how well I think they’ve done – and in most cases, how many points behind us I think that they’ll be. In this case they hadn’t done badly at all. We top scored with 30, but they’d scored a highly respectable 26. However they seemed visibly crestfallen to realize that they were only in 3rd – 4 points behind John and me, and 3 points behind the second placed team.
They were a tiny bit more respectful of us during the second half of the quiz. To be fair, we played a bit of a blinder , getting all the questions right in this section, and only missing one of the pictures on the handout. Which meant that we couldn’t lose, and in fact our lead over second place was 8 points at the end of the quiz. Our neighbours, the new team stayed in 3rd, but they were a full 20 points behind us at the end.
I did get into a conversation with one of the blokes in the other team. Apparently they are holidaying in the area. He said that their performance was marred by their lack of knowledge of rugby. I bit my tongue and refrained from pointing out that their performance on the pictures, and on quite a few of the other questions certainly hadn’t helped either, merely commiserating with him. Mistake. This encouraged him to regale me with tales of the miraculous former deeds of his team. Had I ever heard of a team being banned from a pub quiz before , he asked. Oblivious to the fact that I had replied in the affirmative he went on to tell me about the many quizzes which have banned them for being too good. Once again, I refrained from suggesting that he and his team were in no danger of being banned from the Dyffryn Arms on their current form. Then he went on to ask me to guess how many degrees his team possessed between themselves. It was actually 12, which is certainly impressive, but hardly relevant to winning quizzes. Honestly, from the way he was talking you’d have thought he’d won, rather than been beaten by 20 points. I admit that I found the whole thing amusing at first, but this quickly wore off. Nothing seemed to make an impression, or served to stem the flow, and so I went to Defcon 4. I asked him – Do you ever watch Mastermind ? – to which he replied – yes, occasionally - . So then I opened the bomb bay doors and let the big one go. – Well, I won the series in 2008.- In normal circumstances I wouldn’t dream of ramming this down anyone’s throat, but being force fed the litany of the achievements of a team who were, frankly, little better than ordinary robbed me of my usual common sense.
The only thing about unleashing your heavy artillery is that if it doesn’t stop the opposition in their tracks, you really don’t have any options left. And it didn’t. Underwhelmed is not an adequate description of his reaction. In fact it provoked the same reaction that telling him we won the quiz the previous week as well would have done, that is, none at all. Which is a salutary lesson that I’m sure will do me some good in the long run. Thinking about it now, though, 24 hours later, I kind of have a sneaking admiration for this bravura display of the ‘ we didn’t lose – you just happened to score more points than we did ‘ attitude. Which, come to think of it, marks them out as a proper quiz team far more than anything else they managed last night.
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