This one tickled me a bit. I was having a chat with an old quiz mate yesterday, and we were talking about our favourite QM cock ups. I trotted out my old favourite about Notting Hill being Europe’s largest carnivore, and then he told me this one, which I hadn’t heard before. The question was : -
Which American singer, who had several UK hits in the mid 60s, was notorious for splitting his trousers on stage?
The answer given was J.B.Priestley!
In case you’re not familiar with either, the singer was actually P.J. Proby. J.B. Priestley was a fine dramatist who wrote, amongst other things, “An Inspector Calls” , and was highly unlikely to have ever split his trousers on stage.
Just in case I’m laying myself open to hypocrisy by writing this, I should note that we are none of us immune to the odd howler on occasion. I had it politely pointed out to me that the answer to the question,
What was the nickname of singer Mel Tormé?
is actually The Velvet FOG, and not, as one of my kindle quiz books would have it, The Velvet FROG.
One careless slip of the finger on the keyboard . . .
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Saturday, 29 June 2013
In The News
In the News
Who Or What Are the Following and why have they been in the news?
1. Trenton Oldfield
2. Walle
3. Andrea Begley
4. Kaesong
5. Jeffrey Osborne
6. Lin Harmer
7. Zaid Al Hilli
8. Nik Wallenda
9. Mickey Arthur
10. Steve Darcis
11. Digby Ioane
12. Mick Aston
13. Wendy Williams
14. Maria Kirilenko
15. Aaron Hernandez
16. Caroline Lucas
17. Lord Drayson
18. Cambodian Tailor Bird
19. Sergiy Stakhovsky
20. Ernest Gulbis
21. Iain Lawrence
22. Adam Brown
23. Dark Seoul
24. Get Lucky
25. Wendy Davis
26. Scott Horwill
27. White Throated Needletail
28. Kimiko Date Krumm
29. George Stark
30. Chip Starnes
In Other News
1. Which team won cricket’s Champions Trophy?
2. Which English city began an experiment with ‘car-free Sundays’?
3. Which US cakes made a comeback last week?
4. Where did the Archbishop of Canterbury visit last week?
5. A homemade explosive device was found in a mosque in which midlands town?
6. How did Gus Poyet find out he’d been sacked by Brighton and Hove Albion last week?
7. What was the score in the Under 20 Rugby Union World Final?
8. In which position did Team GB finish in the European team Athletics championships?
9. Who won the title in the British professional cycle road racing championship?
10. For how many years was Silvio Berlusconi sentenced for underage sex and misusing his position to cover it up?
11. Which batsman was dropped from England’s Ashes squad?
12. Name the Irish lock injured and out of the 2nd and 3rd Lions tests
13. Who is the new coach of the Australian cricket team?
14. Who is the new head coach of European Champions Bayern Munich?
15. Which Middle Eastern ruler abdicated in favour of his son?
16. In which airport was Edward Snowden reported last week?
17. Which part of the UK was visited by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall?
18. Carlo Ancelotti is the new manager of which club?
19. What was the score in the tour match between the Lions and Melbourne Rebels?
20. Which 38 year old admitted he had just read his first book?
21. Which figure will be replacing Charles Darwin on the new £10 note?
22. Julia Gillard was replaced laast week by the man she ousted herself three years ago. Who is he?
23. To what did the Supreme Court of the USA give recognition last week?
24. Which player claimed that he has joined Real Madrid last week?
25. Which MP claimed that she will not claim parliamentary expenses?
26. Who announced his retirement from Formula One from the end of the season?
27. What was the result of Ian Brady’s appeal?
28. Which famous painting was defaced last week, allegedly by a member of Fathers 4 Justice?
29. Which company have been forced to remove the WHO logo from their adverts for baby milk?
30. For which event will it be necessary to obtain a bagpipe permit, in order to play the aforesaid instrument?
31. Which country is beginning negotiations to join the EU?
Who Or What Are the Following and why have they been in the news?
1. Trenton Oldfield
2. Walle
3. Andrea Begley
4. Kaesong
5. Jeffrey Osborne
6. Lin Harmer
7. Zaid Al Hilli
8. Nik Wallenda
9. Mickey Arthur
10. Steve Darcis
11. Digby Ioane
12. Mick Aston
13. Wendy Williams
14. Maria Kirilenko
15. Aaron Hernandez
16. Caroline Lucas
17. Lord Drayson
18. Cambodian Tailor Bird
19. Sergiy Stakhovsky
20. Ernest Gulbis
21. Iain Lawrence
22. Adam Brown
23. Dark Seoul
24. Get Lucky
25. Wendy Davis
26. Scott Horwill
27. White Throated Needletail
28. Kimiko Date Krumm
29. George Stark
30. Chip Starnes
In Other News
1. Which team won cricket’s Champions Trophy?
2. Which English city began an experiment with ‘car-free Sundays’?
3. Which US cakes made a comeback last week?
4. Where did the Archbishop of Canterbury visit last week?
5. A homemade explosive device was found in a mosque in which midlands town?
6. How did Gus Poyet find out he’d been sacked by Brighton and Hove Albion last week?
7. What was the score in the Under 20 Rugby Union World Final?
8. In which position did Team GB finish in the European team Athletics championships?
9. Who won the title in the British professional cycle road racing championship?
10. For how many years was Silvio Berlusconi sentenced for underage sex and misusing his position to cover it up?
11. Which batsman was dropped from England’s Ashes squad?
12. Name the Irish lock injured and out of the 2nd and 3rd Lions tests
13. Who is the new coach of the Australian cricket team?
14. Who is the new head coach of European Champions Bayern Munich?
15. Which Middle Eastern ruler abdicated in favour of his son?
16. In which airport was Edward Snowden reported last week?
17. Which part of the UK was visited by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall?
18. Carlo Ancelotti is the new manager of which club?
19. What was the score in the tour match between the Lions and Melbourne Rebels?
20. Which 38 year old admitted he had just read his first book?
21. Which figure will be replacing Charles Darwin on the new £10 note?
22. Julia Gillard was replaced laast week by the man she ousted herself three years ago. Who is he?
23. To what did the Supreme Court of the USA give recognition last week?
24. Which player claimed that he has joined Real Madrid last week?
25. Which MP claimed that she will not claim parliamentary expenses?
26. Who announced his retirement from Formula One from the end of the season?
27. What was the result of Ian Brady’s appeal?
28. Which famous painting was defaced last week, allegedly by a member of Fathers 4 Justice?
29. Which company have been forced to remove the WHO logo from their adverts for baby milk?
30. For which event will it be necessary to obtain a bagpipe permit, in order to play the aforesaid instrument?
31. Which country is beginning negotiations to join the EU?
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Quiz Double Header
I should probably have told you about last Sunday a little earlier than this. In my own defence it has been another hectic week, what with Year 11’s Prom night on Tuesday. Well, on Sunday I did something which I’m pretty sure I’ve never done before. I attended two completely different quizzes in two different venues on the same day. Of course, if you attend a Grand Prix event you get several different quizzes all on the same day, but then they are all part of the same event and held in the same venue. On Sunday I played in two separate pub quizzes in two separate pubs.
It came about because John happened to find out that a pub in which he and Lynne occasionally go for a meal is starting up a quiz, and had decided to have the first on Sunday. At 6pm. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know the thinking behind the decision to hold it so early on a Sunday evening, but I’ve no doubt that they had their reasons. The great thing about this was that it meant playing in it was a no-loss situation. What I mean by this is that if we were to try a different quiz later in the evening on a Sunday, then we’d have to give up going to the Dyffryn Arms. Now, we know that the quiz in the Dyffryn Arms will always be enjoyable, and many times it will be excellent. Not this coming Sunday, mind, since I’m the question master, but you can’t have everything. So what that means is that you might go to try out another quiz, find it’s not much good, and have a rotten evening when you could have been playing in a good quiz in the Dyffryn. Whereas by playing at 6pm we knew that even if the quiz was rotten, then we’d still have plenty of time to get over to the quiz in the Dyffryn as well.
Well, it certainly wasn’t rotten. I’ll be honest, like a lot of question masters who make their own quizzes, the guy who set the quiz seemed to have a huge bias towards entertainment questions. There were two handouts. The first meant that you had to identify some faces from the world of entertainment, and some films from their posters, where the titles had been blanked out. For the second handout we had cryptic clues to the names of bands – for example – Armada Oak Overcoat = Fleetwood Mac. On top of that we had a round on slogans from TV adverts, a round called Kids Stuff – which was almost entirely on Kid’s TV – and a round on Entertainment and Sport. Which left just Science and Nature and Pot Luck – and even some of the Pot Luck questions were on Entertainment. So put it this way – if you had every question that wasn’t about Entertainment right, but weren’t at least proficient at Entertainment, then you were going to end up right at the bottom of the field.
Well, alright, I can see that I’m in danger of taking off on one of my hobby horses here. I understand that, as with picture rounds, people like entertainment questions. But enough is enough, and in what’s supposed to be a general knowledge quiz, once you get to having half, or more than half of the points being solely for that one category, then you’ve surely crossed over into the realms of the specialist quiz. Still, enough of that. We did have a chat with the QM when he came over to give us the prize at the end and he did say that they were thinking about doing the next one a bit later in the evening. All of which means that this small scale achievement might well remain as a one off. Still, I have to say that I quite enjoyed it. I’d guess that the ultimate would be to play in more than one quiz in more than one country on the same day. Can it be done? Probably. Has it been done? Over to you.
It came about because John happened to find out that a pub in which he and Lynne occasionally go for a meal is starting up a quiz, and had decided to have the first on Sunday. At 6pm. I’ll be honest, I don’t really know the thinking behind the decision to hold it so early on a Sunday evening, but I’ve no doubt that they had their reasons. The great thing about this was that it meant playing in it was a no-loss situation. What I mean by this is that if we were to try a different quiz later in the evening on a Sunday, then we’d have to give up going to the Dyffryn Arms. Now, we know that the quiz in the Dyffryn Arms will always be enjoyable, and many times it will be excellent. Not this coming Sunday, mind, since I’m the question master, but you can’t have everything. So what that means is that you might go to try out another quiz, find it’s not much good, and have a rotten evening when you could have been playing in a good quiz in the Dyffryn. Whereas by playing at 6pm we knew that even if the quiz was rotten, then we’d still have plenty of time to get over to the quiz in the Dyffryn as well.
Well, it certainly wasn’t rotten. I’ll be honest, like a lot of question masters who make their own quizzes, the guy who set the quiz seemed to have a huge bias towards entertainment questions. There were two handouts. The first meant that you had to identify some faces from the world of entertainment, and some films from their posters, where the titles had been blanked out. For the second handout we had cryptic clues to the names of bands – for example – Armada Oak Overcoat = Fleetwood Mac. On top of that we had a round on slogans from TV adverts, a round called Kids Stuff – which was almost entirely on Kid’s TV – and a round on Entertainment and Sport. Which left just Science and Nature and Pot Luck – and even some of the Pot Luck questions were on Entertainment. So put it this way – if you had every question that wasn’t about Entertainment right, but weren’t at least proficient at Entertainment, then you were going to end up right at the bottom of the field.
Well, alright, I can see that I’m in danger of taking off on one of my hobby horses here. I understand that, as with picture rounds, people like entertainment questions. But enough is enough, and in what’s supposed to be a general knowledge quiz, once you get to having half, or more than half of the points being solely for that one category, then you’ve surely crossed over into the realms of the specialist quiz. Still, enough of that. We did have a chat with the QM when he came over to give us the prize at the end and he did say that they were thinking about doing the next one a bit later in the evening. All of which means that this small scale achievement might well remain as a one off. Still, I have to say that I quite enjoyed it. I’d guess that the ultimate would be to play in more than one quiz in more than one country on the same day. Can it be done? Probably. Has it been done? Over to you.
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Only Connect - Round One Qualification Match One
Celts v. Cat Lovers
Both of this week’s teams had already won a show in the first round. The Celts - Beverley Downes, Huw Pritchard and David Pritchard, defeated the Cartophiles fairly comfortably in the first round. Well, the Carts are still in the competition, and one win away from making the semis in their own right. This week’s opponents, the Cat Lovers - Roger Johnson – Jean Upton and Captain Jim Crozier, just squeezed past the Corpuscles in their first match. Well, the Corps have since left the building, as it were, so by that score the Celts looked the better bet to go through in this show.
Round One – What’s the Connection?
The Celts got the ball rolling with Two Reeds. Pictures of a runway and the Las Vegas Strip gave us all Strips. Good start. Twisted Flax gave the Cats General von Cholitz: Paris – Chris Moyles:Radio One – Rin Tin Tin: Warner Bros. At this point something in the back of my mind said that Rin Tin Tin was the dog that saved Warner Bros, so maybe they were all hailed as the savior of the thing after the colon.Roland Rat and TVAM confirmed it, and allowed the Cats in for the correct answer. The Celts were cagey about the music question behind Lion. The Pointer Sisters came third, and that led me to make a desperate guess of dogs, which turned out to be the right answer, which the Celts were also grateful to hear. Water gave the Cats creMate – fEast – Covert. Now this was a brilliant set. Take out the capitalized letter, and you reverse the meaning of the word. Absolutely brilliant. A bonus for the Celts there. Felicity , California – The Forbidden City – Jerusalem on the Mappa Mundi. Well that third clue gave it away, Jerusalem being famously shown as the centre of the world on medieval maps such as the Mappa Mundi. The Celts were right on the money at the same time as well. The Cats were left with Eye of Horus. Fell=hides and skins led me to take a flyer with – mongers. Flesh=meat looked good, and Iron=household goods confirmed it. Yay – five pointer to me. The Cats took it off three clues, and therefore trailed the Celts with 3 to 8.
Round Two – What comes fourth?
The Celts began with Two Reeds. This brought a set of pictures of Blue – a Rose – which suggested Picasso, then a picture of Africa+n. I’ll admit I had the connection – Picasso’s periods, but not what came next – Cubist. The Celts had it though. A good strong team this – well worked out. Lion showed the Cats the phi symbol, then either an X – or chi – then psi, so omega seemed a pretty good bet. Surprisingly neither team had it. Twisted flax showed A division of the spoils – “5 points for Dave – it’s the Jewel in the Crown !” I shouted, recognizing the last of the Raj Quartet. Sorry about that. Mary left the room in disgust at this point. The Celts didn’t know. The Cats did, and had a bonus. An unvoiced viper gave the Cats Diana – Unity – and here Roger knew it was Mitford sisters, but not which one. Jessica was revealed, and so the Cats went for Nancy. Incorrect. It was Deborah, the youngest. The Celts picked water for 4th:Chakotay. Now, here I should admit that my love of Star Trek diminished with each extension to the franchise, so by the time Voyager came along I couldn’t really be bothered. So I wasn’t sure. But 3rd. Kira Neris made it clear that this was a set of first officers, so logically the first officer in the original franchise was Spock. The Celts took their time weighing up, but they had it alright. Eye of Horus brought the Cats 1: Faith – 2: Love – 3: Hope – and the obvious thing to say was Charity. The Cats went for cleanliness. No. It wasn’t charity either. But it was the leaves on a shamrock – so if you find one with a 4th leaf it means luck. Unlucky for the Cats, who had added just the one bonus to take their score to 4, while the Celts led with 12.
Round Three – The Connecting Walls
The Lion wall , chosen by the cats, seemed to have a set of films starring pop groups. The Cats though kicked off with Bluff – Cape – Point and Spit – which were all promontories. Then they took the films – Spice World – Head – Honest and A Hard Day’s Night. I knew all of these apart from Honest. The last two just eluded them, though. When the last two were resolved we saw – Announced – Confirmed – Sure and Frank – which were all things you can say – to be- with. Made – Hazed – Drafted – Signed are all parts of initiation. A total of 5 was nowt to be ashamed of, but it did give the Celts the opportunity to take a virtually unassailable lead into the last round.
Quickly the Celts saw a set of dams, but did not isolate them at once. They switched with almost immediate success to Welsh boys christian names – Aled – Evan – Dylan and Rhys. The dams followed a little later with Aswan – Eder – Kariba and Roosevelt. With a little tinkering the last two sets also fell into place. Adol – Phosphor – Pearl and Pub they didn’t see could all be put in front of escence. Hoover – Louis XIV – Hughes – Abegnale Jr. – have all been played by Leonardo di Caprio.7 points in total meant that they led by 19 to 9. Game virtually over.
Round Four – Missing Vowels
The first set, extinct birds, fell 2 apiece. Bands overlapped with authors – a great set – saw the lead increase to 23 – 12. The Cats took another point before the end, but that was that. And so , this brought us our first set of semi finalists in the shape of the Celts, and you have to say that they looked very good value for it. Hard lines Cats – really and truly second best in this show, but still with another bite of the cherry to go.
Both of this week’s teams had already won a show in the first round. The Celts - Beverley Downes, Huw Pritchard and David Pritchard, defeated the Cartophiles fairly comfortably in the first round. Well, the Carts are still in the competition, and one win away from making the semis in their own right. This week’s opponents, the Cat Lovers - Roger Johnson – Jean Upton and Captain Jim Crozier, just squeezed past the Corpuscles in their first match. Well, the Corps have since left the building, as it were, so by that score the Celts looked the better bet to go through in this show.
Round One – What’s the Connection?
The Celts got the ball rolling with Two Reeds. Pictures of a runway and the Las Vegas Strip gave us all Strips. Good start. Twisted Flax gave the Cats General von Cholitz: Paris – Chris Moyles:Radio One – Rin Tin Tin: Warner Bros. At this point something in the back of my mind said that Rin Tin Tin was the dog that saved Warner Bros, so maybe they were all hailed as the savior of the thing after the colon.Roland Rat and TVAM confirmed it, and allowed the Cats in for the correct answer. The Celts were cagey about the music question behind Lion. The Pointer Sisters came third, and that led me to make a desperate guess of dogs, which turned out to be the right answer, which the Celts were also grateful to hear. Water gave the Cats creMate – fEast – Covert. Now this was a brilliant set. Take out the capitalized letter, and you reverse the meaning of the word. Absolutely brilliant. A bonus for the Celts there. Felicity , California – The Forbidden City – Jerusalem on the Mappa Mundi. Well that third clue gave it away, Jerusalem being famously shown as the centre of the world on medieval maps such as the Mappa Mundi. The Celts were right on the money at the same time as well. The Cats were left with Eye of Horus. Fell=hides and skins led me to take a flyer with – mongers. Flesh=meat looked good, and Iron=household goods confirmed it. Yay – five pointer to me. The Cats took it off three clues, and therefore trailed the Celts with 3 to 8.
Round Two – What comes fourth?
The Celts began with Two Reeds. This brought a set of pictures of Blue – a Rose – which suggested Picasso, then a picture of Africa+n. I’ll admit I had the connection – Picasso’s periods, but not what came next – Cubist. The Celts had it though. A good strong team this – well worked out. Lion showed the Cats the phi symbol, then either an X – or chi – then psi, so omega seemed a pretty good bet. Surprisingly neither team had it. Twisted flax showed A division of the spoils – “5 points for Dave – it’s the Jewel in the Crown !” I shouted, recognizing the last of the Raj Quartet. Sorry about that. Mary left the room in disgust at this point. The Celts didn’t know. The Cats did, and had a bonus. An unvoiced viper gave the Cats Diana – Unity – and here Roger knew it was Mitford sisters, but not which one. Jessica was revealed, and so the Cats went for Nancy. Incorrect. It was Deborah, the youngest. The Celts picked water for 4th:Chakotay. Now, here I should admit that my love of Star Trek diminished with each extension to the franchise, so by the time Voyager came along I couldn’t really be bothered. So I wasn’t sure. But 3rd. Kira Neris made it clear that this was a set of first officers, so logically the first officer in the original franchise was Spock. The Celts took their time weighing up, but they had it alright. Eye of Horus brought the Cats 1: Faith – 2: Love – 3: Hope – and the obvious thing to say was Charity. The Cats went for cleanliness. No. It wasn’t charity either. But it was the leaves on a shamrock – so if you find one with a 4th leaf it means luck. Unlucky for the Cats, who had added just the one bonus to take their score to 4, while the Celts led with 12.
Round Three – The Connecting Walls
The Lion wall , chosen by the cats, seemed to have a set of films starring pop groups. The Cats though kicked off with Bluff – Cape – Point and Spit – which were all promontories. Then they took the films – Spice World – Head – Honest and A Hard Day’s Night. I knew all of these apart from Honest. The last two just eluded them, though. When the last two were resolved we saw – Announced – Confirmed – Sure and Frank – which were all things you can say – to be- with. Made – Hazed – Drafted – Signed are all parts of initiation. A total of 5 was nowt to be ashamed of, but it did give the Celts the opportunity to take a virtually unassailable lead into the last round.
Quickly the Celts saw a set of dams, but did not isolate them at once. They switched with almost immediate success to Welsh boys christian names – Aled – Evan – Dylan and Rhys. The dams followed a little later with Aswan – Eder – Kariba and Roosevelt. With a little tinkering the last two sets also fell into place. Adol – Phosphor – Pearl and Pub they didn’t see could all be put in front of escence. Hoover – Louis XIV – Hughes – Abegnale Jr. – have all been played by Leonardo di Caprio.7 points in total meant that they led by 19 to 9. Game virtually over.
Round Four – Missing Vowels
The first set, extinct birds, fell 2 apiece. Bands overlapped with authors – a great set – saw the lead increase to 23 – 12. The Cats took another point before the end, but that was that. And so , this brought us our first set of semi finalists in the shape of the Celts, and you have to say that they looked very good value for it. Hard lines Cats – really and truly second best in this show, but still with another bite of the cherry to go.
Saturday, 22 June 2013
News Questions
In the News
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. Thirteen
2. Hassan Rohani
3. Lough Erne
4. Lord Rennard
5. Scott’s Seafood Restaurant
6. Oliver Duff
7. Edward Erin
8. Carl Elsener
9. Neville Wilshire
10. Ashworth Maximum Security Hospital
11. Phytophthora austrocedrae 12. Andrea Rubio
13. “Maggot Moon” by Sally Gardner
14. Estimate
15. Arran Fernandez
16. Suzanne Wilkinson
17. Bowe Berghdahl
18. MERS
19. Dilma Rousseff
20. David Dinsmore
21. Matthew Morrison
22. The Divine Comedy
23. Michael Baigent
24. North West
25. Ben Becker
In Other News
1. Which player did Andy Murray defeat in the final of the Aegon (formerly Queens ) Championship?
2. Which tennis player won the Halle Open
3. Who was a surprise midweek call up for the British and Irish Lions?
4. Who won the US Open
5. To which cause did Andy Murray donate his prize money for winning the Aegon Championship?
6. In Greece a court suspended the order to close ERT. What is ERT?
7. Where was the inner of the US Open born?
8. What sentence did Stuart Hall receive, which was criticised for being too lenient?
9. Which three words did Charles Saatchi use to describe his altercation with his wife Nigella Lawson?
10. Which writer and comedian labeled the sitcom “Vicious” as homophobic?
11. Where was the US Open held?
12. Who became temporary coach of Surrey County Cricket Club?
13. Which former commentator was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer last week?
14. Andy Coulson faced which charges in a Scottish court last week?
15. What has been dropped by the Girl Guides?
16. Who is Newcastle United’s new Director of Football?
17. What was the score in the European Under 21 final?
18. What did the FA announce with regards to Stuart Pearce last week?
19. What was the score between the ACT Brumbies and the Lions?
20. Who were the last Provincial side to beat the Lions prior to the Brumbies?
21. Which team did England defeat in the semi final of the Champions Trophy?
22. Which former champion pulled out of the ladies singles in Wimbledon with an injury?
23. It was revealed that Ian Brady believes that he often has conversations with which entertainer and which double act?
24. Which musical is to be revived in the West End after 15 years?
25. Whose world Facebook site was hacked last week?
26. Which two leading names from the world of fashion were sentenced to 20 months in Italy for tax evasion?
27. Who was branded a ‘dishonest idiot’ by a High Court judge over a damages case?
28. Which actor died aged 51?
29. DC Thompson announced that they are moving the printing of their Commando war comic to which country?
30. What happened to the shrine of the Lourdes grotto last week?
31. Which name is to be removed from Newcastle United’s ground?
32. Which footballer is set to be questioned about his tax affairs in a Spanish court?
33. Which Formula 1 team and tyre manufacturer were censured by the FIA last week for alleged illegal testing?
34. Which team did India defeat in their Champions Trophy semi final?
35. What did Ed Milliband announce about his spending plans should Labour win the next General Election?
36. Which became the first British airline to operate a Boeing 787 Dreamliner?
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. Thirteen
2. Hassan Rohani
3. Lough Erne
4. Lord Rennard
5. Scott’s Seafood Restaurant
6. Oliver Duff
7. Edward Erin
8. Carl Elsener
9. Neville Wilshire
10. Ashworth Maximum Security Hospital
11. Phytophthora austrocedrae 12. Andrea Rubio
13. “Maggot Moon” by Sally Gardner
14. Estimate
15. Arran Fernandez
16. Suzanne Wilkinson
17. Bowe Berghdahl
18. MERS
19. Dilma Rousseff
20. David Dinsmore
21. Matthew Morrison
22. The Divine Comedy
23. Michael Baigent
24. North West
25. Ben Becker
In Other News
1. Which player did Andy Murray defeat in the final of the Aegon (formerly Queens ) Championship?
2. Which tennis player won the Halle Open
3. Who was a surprise midweek call up for the British and Irish Lions?
4. Who won the US Open
5. To which cause did Andy Murray donate his prize money for winning the Aegon Championship?
6. In Greece a court suspended the order to close ERT. What is ERT?
7. Where was the inner of the US Open born?
8. What sentence did Stuart Hall receive, which was criticised for being too lenient?
9. Which three words did Charles Saatchi use to describe his altercation with his wife Nigella Lawson?
10. Which writer and comedian labeled the sitcom “Vicious” as homophobic?
11. Where was the US Open held?
12. Who became temporary coach of Surrey County Cricket Club?
13. Which former commentator was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer last week?
14. Andy Coulson faced which charges in a Scottish court last week?
15. What has been dropped by the Girl Guides?
16. Who is Newcastle United’s new Director of Football?
17. What was the score in the European Under 21 final?
18. What did the FA announce with regards to Stuart Pearce last week?
19. What was the score between the ACT Brumbies and the Lions?
20. Who were the last Provincial side to beat the Lions prior to the Brumbies?
21. Which team did England defeat in the semi final of the Champions Trophy?
22. Which former champion pulled out of the ladies singles in Wimbledon with an injury?
23. It was revealed that Ian Brady believes that he often has conversations with which entertainer and which double act?
24. Which musical is to be revived in the West End after 15 years?
25. Whose world Facebook site was hacked last week?
26. Which two leading names from the world of fashion were sentenced to 20 months in Italy for tax evasion?
27. Who was branded a ‘dishonest idiot’ by a High Court judge over a damages case?
28. Which actor died aged 51?
29. DC Thompson announced that they are moving the printing of their Commando war comic to which country?
30. What happened to the shrine of the Lourdes grotto last week?
31. Which name is to be removed from Newcastle United’s ground?
32. Which footballer is set to be questioned about his tax affairs in a Spanish court?
33. Which Formula 1 team and tyre manufacturer were censured by the FIA last week for alleged illegal testing?
34. Which team did India defeat in their Champions Trophy semi final?
35. What did Ed Milliband announce about his spending plans should Labour win the next General Election?
36. Which became the first British airline to operate a Boeing 787 Dreamliner?
Friday, 21 June 2013
Answers to News Questions
In the News
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. Alex Jones
2. Henry Cavill
3. Tim Yeo MP
4. iRadio
5. Emma Hill
6. Quade Cooper
7. The Happy One
8. Ulric
9. Edward Snowden
10. Jeremy Forrest
11. Major Chris Hadfield
12. Shenzou 10
13. James Crosby
14. Jiroemon Kimura
15. Misao Okawa
16. Henry Angest
17. Constance Briscoe
18. Rory Morrison
19. David Warner
20. Kyle Edmund
21. Dale Cregan
22. Tim Haries
23. Howard Slatter
24. Manuel Pellegrini
In Other News
1. How many times has Rafa Nadal won the French Open singles?
2. Which author died of cancer aged 59?
3. Why was Nelson Mandela in hospital?
4. Who won the Dauphiné Liberé?
5. Who won the French Open Ladies’ Singles
6. Who won the Canadian GP
7. What the score between England and Argentina In the RU test match?
8. – and Wales and Japan?
9. – and New Zealand v. France?
10. And Ireland v. USA?
11. Which teams did England’s U21 football team lose to in their second and third group matches in the European U21 Championships?
12. Who admitted she was a spy 50 years after the event?
13. Which actress announced that she has Alzheimers?
14. Which WWII bomber was raised from the English Channel last week?
15. 6 Islamic extremists were jailed for planning an attack on what or whom?
16. How is the new presenter of Blue Peter to be chosen?
17. Who claimed that the world of classical music is sexist?
18. What was unveiled at the E3 Gaming Expo last week?
19. Who made a guest appearance in the Beano last week?
20. Which racing trainer passed away aged 70 last week?
21. Who complained that female opera singers are too thin?
22. What was the score between the Lions and Combined Country?
23. Stephen Hester announced he was quitting what last week?
24. Beyoncé attacked whom for making her picture obscenely thin last week?
25. Last week the Public Accounts Committee made stringent criticisms of which company’s tax affairs?
26. Air traffic controllers in which European country were on strike last week?
27. Which English centre was called up as cover for injuries to the Lions last week?
28. Which media couple announced last week that they are to divorce?
29. Michael Eavis made a plea for Glastonbury festival goers to do what?
30. A two day event saw formula 1 cars driving around which city last week?
31. Who are sponsoring the Queen’s Club tournament?
32. Wales are to retain which qualification being scrapped in England?
33. Who shot an opening round 67 in the US Open?
34. Gareth Henson has signed for which Rugby Union club?
35. Which actor was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list?
36. The Gloriana was damaged when it hit which bridge?
37. Whom did the Pope meet in Rome?
Answers
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. US Shock Jock who ranted at Andrew Neil on “The Sunday Politics”
2. British actor playing Superman in “Man of Steel”
3. Referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Watchdog
4. New Apple music ctreaming service launching this Autumn
5. Creative director of Mulberry handbags – quit last week
6. Australian rugby union star omitted from the Wallabies squad to face the Lions
7. Jose Mourinho’s new name for himself
8. Britain’s fattest cat
9. Whistleblower sought by the CIA
10. Teacher on trial for abducting schoolgirl
11. International Space Station astronaut , famous for singing “Space Oddity” on Youtube announced his retirment from active spaceflight
12. Latest Chinese manned space mission
13. Former HBOS boss – stripped of his knighthood
14. Oldest man in the world died aged 116
15. Now the oldest person in the world at 115
16. Top Tory donor who it has been revealed owns Everyday Loans
17. Part time judge allegedly gave false statements to police over Chris Huhne
18. Radio 4 announcer passed away
19. Australian batsman allegedly thumped Joe Root in a bar- banned form playing . . . until the Ashes
20. British winner of French Open boys doubles – given wild card to Wimbledon
21. Jailed for life for murder of 2 WPCs
22. Allegedly defaced painting of the Queen in Westminster Abbey
23. Radio presenter in Australia repeatedly asked Julia Gillard whether her partner is gay
24. Chilean who is the new manager of Manchester City
In Other News
1. 8
2. Iain Banks
3. Lung Infection
4. Chris Froome
5. Serena Williams
6. Sebastian Vettel
7. 32 - 3
8. 22 - 18
9. 23 - 13
10. 15 - 12
11. Norway and Israel
12. Christine Keeler
13. Jill gascoigne
14. A Dornier Do17 Flying Pencil
15. The english Defence League
16. A reality style TV show
17. Dame Jenni Murray
18. Play Station4
19. Charles and Camilla
20. Sir Henry Cecil
21. Kiri Te Kanawa
22. 64-0
23. Stephen Hester
24. H&M
25. Google
26. France
27. Billy Twelvetrees
28. Rupert Murdock and Wendy Deng
29. Drink much less
30. Jerusalem
31. Aegon
32. AS Levels
33. Phil Mickelson
34. Bath
35. Tony Robinson
36. Kew Bridge
37. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. Alex Jones
2. Henry Cavill
3. Tim Yeo MP
4. iRadio
5. Emma Hill
6. Quade Cooper
7. The Happy One
8. Ulric
9. Edward Snowden
10. Jeremy Forrest
11. Major Chris Hadfield
12. Shenzou 10
13. James Crosby
14. Jiroemon Kimura
15. Misao Okawa
16. Henry Angest
17. Constance Briscoe
18. Rory Morrison
19. David Warner
20. Kyle Edmund
21. Dale Cregan
22. Tim Haries
23. Howard Slatter
24. Manuel Pellegrini
In Other News
1. How many times has Rafa Nadal won the French Open singles?
2. Which author died of cancer aged 59?
3. Why was Nelson Mandela in hospital?
4. Who won the Dauphiné Liberé?
5. Who won the French Open Ladies’ Singles
6. Who won the Canadian GP
7. What the score between England and Argentina In the RU test match?
8. – and Wales and Japan?
9. – and New Zealand v. France?
10. And Ireland v. USA?
11. Which teams did England’s U21 football team lose to in their second and third group matches in the European U21 Championships?
12. Who admitted she was a spy 50 years after the event?
13. Which actress announced that she has Alzheimers?
14. Which WWII bomber was raised from the English Channel last week?
15. 6 Islamic extremists were jailed for planning an attack on what or whom?
16. How is the new presenter of Blue Peter to be chosen?
17. Who claimed that the world of classical music is sexist?
18. What was unveiled at the E3 Gaming Expo last week?
19. Who made a guest appearance in the Beano last week?
20. Which racing trainer passed away aged 70 last week?
21. Who complained that female opera singers are too thin?
22. What was the score between the Lions and Combined Country?
23. Stephen Hester announced he was quitting what last week?
24. Beyoncé attacked whom for making her picture obscenely thin last week?
25. Last week the Public Accounts Committee made stringent criticisms of which company’s tax affairs?
26. Air traffic controllers in which European country were on strike last week?
27. Which English centre was called up as cover for injuries to the Lions last week?
28. Which media couple announced last week that they are to divorce?
29. Michael Eavis made a plea for Glastonbury festival goers to do what?
30. A two day event saw formula 1 cars driving around which city last week?
31. Who are sponsoring the Queen’s Club tournament?
32. Wales are to retain which qualification being scrapped in England?
33. Who shot an opening round 67 in the US Open?
34. Gareth Henson has signed for which Rugby Union club?
35. Which actor was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list?
36. The Gloriana was damaged when it hit which bridge?
37. Whom did the Pope meet in Rome?
Answers
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. US Shock Jock who ranted at Andrew Neil on “The Sunday Politics”
2. British actor playing Superman in “Man of Steel”
3. Referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards Watchdog
4. New Apple music ctreaming service launching this Autumn
5. Creative director of Mulberry handbags – quit last week
6. Australian rugby union star omitted from the Wallabies squad to face the Lions
7. Jose Mourinho’s new name for himself
8. Britain’s fattest cat
9. Whistleblower sought by the CIA
10. Teacher on trial for abducting schoolgirl
11. International Space Station astronaut , famous for singing “Space Oddity” on Youtube announced his retirment from active spaceflight
12. Latest Chinese manned space mission
13. Former HBOS boss – stripped of his knighthood
14. Oldest man in the world died aged 116
15. Now the oldest person in the world at 115
16. Top Tory donor who it has been revealed owns Everyday Loans
17. Part time judge allegedly gave false statements to police over Chris Huhne
18. Radio 4 announcer passed away
19. Australian batsman allegedly thumped Joe Root in a bar- banned form playing . . . until the Ashes
20. British winner of French Open boys doubles – given wild card to Wimbledon
21. Jailed for life for murder of 2 WPCs
22. Allegedly defaced painting of the Queen in Westminster Abbey
23. Radio presenter in Australia repeatedly asked Julia Gillard whether her partner is gay
24. Chilean who is the new manager of Manchester City
In Other News
1. 8
2. Iain Banks
3. Lung Infection
4. Chris Froome
5. Serena Williams
6. Sebastian Vettel
7. 32 - 3
8. 22 - 18
9. 23 - 13
10. 15 - 12
11. Norway and Israel
12. Christine Keeler
13. Jill gascoigne
14. A Dornier Do17 Flying Pencil
15. The english Defence League
16. A reality style TV show
17. Dame Jenni Murray
18. Play Station4
19. Charles and Camilla
20. Sir Henry Cecil
21. Kiri Te Kanawa
22. 64-0
23. Stephen Hester
24. H&M
25. Google
26. France
27. Billy Twelvetrees
28. Rupert Murdock and Wendy Deng
29. Drink much less
30. Jerusalem
31. Aegon
32. AS Levels
33. Phil Mickelson
34. Bath
35. Tony Robinson
36. Kew Bridge
37. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury
Questions v. Pictures
Once again last night at the rugby club I found myself facing the question – would I rather win the questions but lose the overall quiz because of my picture handout score – or would I rather come second in the questions but win the overall quiz because of my picture handout score? Of course, the correct answer is neither of the above. It’s that I’d rather win both so there’s no arguments either way. But I’m afraid that isn’t going to be happening any time soon.
You’ve doubtless gathered that my team, Boycs, had the highest score in the questions last night, winning these by 2 points, but lost to Lemurs by 3 points in the pictures, meaning an overall loss by 1 point. Actually I say my team, but really and truly it was just the two of us, me, and my mate John who has been mentioned more than once in these pages. John used to be a regular in the rugby club quiz – in fact he was a mainstay of our opposition once upon a time. He stopped coming some years back, but in the last 18 months or so I’ve been asking him to come down and bolster up our flagging fortunes, and last night he did just that. We’ve played together on Sunday nights for so many years that we’re a pretty good unit together, and we tend to know when to listen to each other. So it was unusual to say the least for us to perform the feat of both of us talking the other one out of a correct answer. The first was this -
Which country has more World Heritage sites than any other, with 47 in total?
My percentage answer was Italy – after all you have all the ancient stuff, then all the Renaissance stuff (stop me if I’m getting too technical here), but John was sure he had heard or read the same question somewhere else, and so we plumped for something else. Of course it was Italy. Then a little later we were asked : -
In computing, what does BPS stand for?
I didn’t have a Scooby, but John offered bits per second. For some inexplicable reason that I don’t understand even now, I decided to change it to bytes per second. Of course it was bits.
Well, for all that we still managed to get the highest score in the questions, thanks partly, I guess, to some of the news questions. In order to post the news questions on the blog every weekend I tend to spend about 15-20 minutes in a morning combing the papers for potential questions, and as any good old quizzer worth his salt will tell you, doing the papers does pay dividends .
As for the pictures, well I’m afraid that I’m strictly average, and that’s on a good day. Although having said that John and I did have the experience of winning Sunday’s quiz through having a full house on the pictures. They were all comedians of the sort who often appear on TV panel shows, such as Mock the Week and others of that ilk. A little bit of a blue moon experience that one. Now, I’m not saying that even if I could think of a way to do this then I would, because I’m sure I wouldn’t. But in all seriousness, how would you go about improving your own personal performance on picture recognition? I’m not bad on people who are in the news because I do the paper every day. Old writers and historical figures – still pretty good. But bland faced actors and actresses from TV and films, Premier league footballers and the like, no chance.
You’ve probably gathered that I’m not a great lover of picture quiz handouts, and you’re right, I’m not. Me, I’m a straightforward, old fashioned questions and answers man. But I completely accept and understand that lots of people who go to the quizzes I play in like the pictures, and in fact for a significant proportion it’s their favourite part of the quiz. And as any halfway decent question master knows, when you compile a quiz you’re not doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for the punters, and so you should at least try to give them a bit of what they want. There is a tiny part of me that does find putting a picture quiz together for the club a chore, though. I will be QM on Thursday, so I shall have to put one together over the weekend. Yes, I could always opt for something different like dingbats or puzzles, since I’ve used pictures for my last four or five quizzes, but to be honest these never go down as well with the majority as pictures do.
When I compile a picture quiz in order to alleviate the boredom I try to think of making connections, either between every picture on the sheet, or at least between each picture in each row. I haven’t thought of the connection(s) for this week’s yet. My favourite ever was matched pairs which when combined made the names of stations on the London Underground network – for example Billie Jean KING and Ben CROSS, or an even more obscure one - Susan ST. JAMES and Richard PARK. If you tell the teams the way the connection works at the start you can use more obscure ones like that. I think the full list was something like this : -
Billie Jean KING and Ben CROSS
Susan ST. JAMES and Richard PARK
Kenneth BAKER and Adrian STREET( glam wrestler of the 1970s)
Sacha BARON Cohen and Margaret COURT
Nicholas PARSONS and Sarah GREENE
Claire RAYNER and Cleo LAINE
Norman COLLIER and Victoria WOOD
MC HAMMER and Sheridan SMITH
Trevor HORNE and Charlotte CHURCH
George LAYTON and Sharon STONE
MARY Peters and Brian LABONE ( Apologies for that one)
Roy NORTH and Gracie FIELDS
Alan RICKMAN and Harry WORTH
Norman ST.JOHN Stevas and Roy WOOD
Jack SHEPHERD and Kate BUSH
These might not have been the exact pairings I used in the handout, but you can see how it works anyway.
You’ve doubtless gathered that my team, Boycs, had the highest score in the questions last night, winning these by 2 points, but lost to Lemurs by 3 points in the pictures, meaning an overall loss by 1 point. Actually I say my team, but really and truly it was just the two of us, me, and my mate John who has been mentioned more than once in these pages. John used to be a regular in the rugby club quiz – in fact he was a mainstay of our opposition once upon a time. He stopped coming some years back, but in the last 18 months or so I’ve been asking him to come down and bolster up our flagging fortunes, and last night he did just that. We’ve played together on Sunday nights for so many years that we’re a pretty good unit together, and we tend to know when to listen to each other. So it was unusual to say the least for us to perform the feat of both of us talking the other one out of a correct answer. The first was this -
Which country has more World Heritage sites than any other, with 47 in total?
My percentage answer was Italy – after all you have all the ancient stuff, then all the Renaissance stuff (stop me if I’m getting too technical here), but John was sure he had heard or read the same question somewhere else, and so we plumped for something else. Of course it was Italy. Then a little later we were asked : -
In computing, what does BPS stand for?
I didn’t have a Scooby, but John offered bits per second. For some inexplicable reason that I don’t understand even now, I decided to change it to bytes per second. Of course it was bits.
Well, for all that we still managed to get the highest score in the questions, thanks partly, I guess, to some of the news questions. In order to post the news questions on the blog every weekend I tend to spend about 15-20 minutes in a morning combing the papers for potential questions, and as any good old quizzer worth his salt will tell you, doing the papers does pay dividends .
As for the pictures, well I’m afraid that I’m strictly average, and that’s on a good day. Although having said that John and I did have the experience of winning Sunday’s quiz through having a full house on the pictures. They were all comedians of the sort who often appear on TV panel shows, such as Mock the Week and others of that ilk. A little bit of a blue moon experience that one. Now, I’m not saying that even if I could think of a way to do this then I would, because I’m sure I wouldn’t. But in all seriousness, how would you go about improving your own personal performance on picture recognition? I’m not bad on people who are in the news because I do the paper every day. Old writers and historical figures – still pretty good. But bland faced actors and actresses from TV and films, Premier league footballers and the like, no chance.
You’ve probably gathered that I’m not a great lover of picture quiz handouts, and you’re right, I’m not. Me, I’m a straightforward, old fashioned questions and answers man. But I completely accept and understand that lots of people who go to the quizzes I play in like the pictures, and in fact for a significant proportion it’s their favourite part of the quiz. And as any halfway decent question master knows, when you compile a quiz you’re not doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for the punters, and so you should at least try to give them a bit of what they want. There is a tiny part of me that does find putting a picture quiz together for the club a chore, though. I will be QM on Thursday, so I shall have to put one together over the weekend. Yes, I could always opt for something different like dingbats or puzzles, since I’ve used pictures for my last four or five quizzes, but to be honest these never go down as well with the majority as pictures do.
When I compile a picture quiz in order to alleviate the boredom I try to think of making connections, either between every picture on the sheet, or at least between each picture in each row. I haven’t thought of the connection(s) for this week’s yet. My favourite ever was matched pairs which when combined made the names of stations on the London Underground network – for example Billie Jean KING and Ben CROSS, or an even more obscure one - Susan ST. JAMES and Richard PARK. If you tell the teams the way the connection works at the start you can use more obscure ones like that. I think the full list was something like this : -
Billie Jean KING and Ben CROSS
Susan ST. JAMES and Richard PARK
Kenneth BAKER and Adrian STREET( glam wrestler of the 1970s)
Sacha BARON Cohen and Margaret COURT
Nicholas PARSONS and Sarah GREENE
Claire RAYNER and Cleo LAINE
Norman COLLIER and Victoria WOOD
MC HAMMER and Sheridan SMITH
Trevor HORNE and Charlotte CHURCH
George LAYTON and Sharon STONE
MARY Peters and Brian LABONE ( Apologies for that one)
Roy NORTH and Gracie FIELDS
Alan RICKMAN and Harry WORTH
Norman ST.JOHN Stevas and Roy WOOD
Jack SHEPHERD and Kate BUSH
These might not have been the exact pairings I used in the handout, but you can see how it works anyway.
The Card Test
Well, I can’t claim to be a genius, certainly. Still, I did take the challenge of giving myself an hour to learn all the cards in a randomly shuffled pack in a single hour last night. I’m tempted to use the John Thompson Fast Show catchphrase – results were disappointing. Except that they weren’t all that disappointing.
Right – to cut a long story just a little shorter, I spent about 40 minutes trying to memorise the sequence. Time was short last night, it being a Thursday. At the end of the 40 minutes I gave myself a compulsory 10 minute break, and then tested myself on the sequence. I knew that I had only managed to take the sequence I had memorized up to 36 cards. The great thing was that even after the 10 minute enforced break, I could still recite the sequence of 36 correctly. What was even more impressive to me was that I went to the quiz in the club last night, then when I came back I was still able to recite the whole sequence correctly, and this was a good two or three hours later.
What I found most difficult about the whole thing was the different suits. I had the number sequence fairly quickly, but while I was committing the sequence to memory I took a long time getting the suits of the cards in the sequence right. Now, on the Child Genius show earlier in the week, it briefly showed one of the parents helping the child to compile a specific chart, giving each card a completely separate value. Now, for me I think this would work. Let’s say I gave the King of Spades the name Bob. That would mean that instead of having two bits of information to remember when it comes up in a sequence – a) that it’s a king – and b) – that it’s in spades, all I would have to remember was that it was Bob, because I would already know that Bob means the King of Spades. Well, something like that, anyway. I know quite a number of people who use story or journey techniques for remembering long sequences, so this is all old hat to anyone versed in memory techniques. However as a stimulating – if admittedly pointless in itself – mental exercise its worth giving it a try yourself.
Right – to cut a long story just a little shorter, I spent about 40 minutes trying to memorise the sequence. Time was short last night, it being a Thursday. At the end of the 40 minutes I gave myself a compulsory 10 minute break, and then tested myself on the sequence. I knew that I had only managed to take the sequence I had memorized up to 36 cards. The great thing was that even after the 10 minute enforced break, I could still recite the sequence of 36 correctly. What was even more impressive to me was that I went to the quiz in the club last night, then when I came back I was still able to recite the whole sequence correctly, and this was a good two or three hours later.
What I found most difficult about the whole thing was the different suits. I had the number sequence fairly quickly, but while I was committing the sequence to memory I took a long time getting the suits of the cards in the sequence right. Now, on the Child Genius show earlier in the week, it briefly showed one of the parents helping the child to compile a specific chart, giving each card a completely separate value. Now, for me I think this would work. Let’s say I gave the King of Spades the name Bob. That would mean that instead of having two bits of information to remember when it comes up in a sequence – a) that it’s a king – and b) – that it’s in spades, all I would have to remember was that it was Bob, because I would already know that Bob means the King of Spades. Well, something like that, anyway. I know quite a number of people who use story or journey techniques for remembering long sequences, so this is all old hat to anyone versed in memory techniques. However as a stimulating – if admittedly pointless in itself – mental exercise its worth giving it a try yourself.
Thursday, 20 June 2013
Child Genius
Julie, my Head of Department at work, told me earlier this week about Channel Four’s “Child Genius”. I didn’t know anything about this series, but the second episode was shown on Tuesday night, and I watched it on On Demand last night.
Basically this fly on the wall style documentary follows several children who are competing in the Mensa UK Child Genius competition. The episode that I watched last night focused on the second round of the competition, which gave the children two challenges. The first was a Mastermind style spoken general knowledge test against the clock – maximum of 15 questions. The second was a challenge to learn the sequence of every card within a randomly shuffled 52 card pack in one hour.
This really isn’t the place for me to make comments about any of the children involved. For one thing with any TV show you have to remember that the Producer and Director make the decisions as to what you actually get to see, and there are times when that makes the small screen into a very distorting mirror indeed. But as a general knowledge quizzer of long standing, and a teacher of even longer standing I found the show fascinating. I also found it interesting that it involved a General Knowledge round at all, since I’ve heard an argument that mere general knowledge is not necessarily a measure of intelligence at all. The counter argument posed by the show would probably be that children with higher intelligence might be expected to take a greater amount of interest in the world around them, and children with higher intelligence might be expected to learn facts more quickly, and to retain them for longer.
Mind you, I wasn’t exactly clear as to the weighting of the two halves of this part of the competition. The voiceover informed us that there were a maximum of 15 questions. Which suggests a maximum of 15 points available for this part. Yet theoretically there were 52 points available for the playing card recall. The voiceover just didn’t make it clear whether there was a higher tariff for GK questions, or how they arrived at the final scores. Or in fact what the final scores actually were. On the surface it made it look as if the GK was pretty irrelevant, with a full house on the card recall guaranteeing you a place in the next round. In which case you wondered why the GK was included in the first place. Also it would have been nice to have been told whether the children were told beforehand – “In the next round you are going to have a general knowledge test. It could be about anything. So learn everything. Full stop.” – or whether they were told “ In the next round you are going to have a General Knowledge test. The categories will be etc. etc. “ – or even “In the next round you will be given a General Knowledge test – you will need to learn the contents of these books – “ etc. Yes, I know that the show was far more interested in the personalities of the children involved, and also to a large extent their families, but I would really have liked to have known the whole mechanics of the competition.
I did say that I wasn’t going to say anything about the children who were highlighted in the show, and I’m not really. But in a time when we’re often told that kids have no general knowledge, and no interest in the world around them other than the latest bands, films, fashions, phones and TV shows, was I the only person to feel just a little reassured by the sight of many of those kids ripping their GK rounds to shreds?
Oh, and I made a pact with myself to take an hour tonight and have a go at the pack of cards memory test. I’ll let you know how I got on in a future post – providing it’s not too embarrassing.
Basically this fly on the wall style documentary follows several children who are competing in the Mensa UK Child Genius competition. The episode that I watched last night focused on the second round of the competition, which gave the children two challenges. The first was a Mastermind style spoken general knowledge test against the clock – maximum of 15 questions. The second was a challenge to learn the sequence of every card within a randomly shuffled 52 card pack in one hour.
This really isn’t the place for me to make comments about any of the children involved. For one thing with any TV show you have to remember that the Producer and Director make the decisions as to what you actually get to see, and there are times when that makes the small screen into a very distorting mirror indeed. But as a general knowledge quizzer of long standing, and a teacher of even longer standing I found the show fascinating. I also found it interesting that it involved a General Knowledge round at all, since I’ve heard an argument that mere general knowledge is not necessarily a measure of intelligence at all. The counter argument posed by the show would probably be that children with higher intelligence might be expected to take a greater amount of interest in the world around them, and children with higher intelligence might be expected to learn facts more quickly, and to retain them for longer.
Mind you, I wasn’t exactly clear as to the weighting of the two halves of this part of the competition. The voiceover informed us that there were a maximum of 15 questions. Which suggests a maximum of 15 points available for this part. Yet theoretically there were 52 points available for the playing card recall. The voiceover just didn’t make it clear whether there was a higher tariff for GK questions, or how they arrived at the final scores. Or in fact what the final scores actually were. On the surface it made it look as if the GK was pretty irrelevant, with a full house on the card recall guaranteeing you a place in the next round. In which case you wondered why the GK was included in the first place. Also it would have been nice to have been told whether the children were told beforehand – “In the next round you are going to have a general knowledge test. It could be about anything. So learn everything. Full stop.” – or whether they were told “ In the next round you are going to have a General Knowledge test. The categories will be etc. etc. “ – or even “In the next round you will be given a General Knowledge test – you will need to learn the contents of these books – “ etc. Yes, I know that the show was far more interested in the personalities of the children involved, and also to a large extent their families, but I would really have liked to have known the whole mechanics of the competition.
I did say that I wasn’t going to say anything about the children who were highlighted in the show, and I’m not really. But in a time when we’re often told that kids have no general knowledge, and no interest in the world around them other than the latest bands, films, fashions, phones and TV shows, was I the only person to feel just a little reassured by the sight of many of those kids ripping their GK rounds to shreds?
Oh, and I made a pact with myself to take an hour tonight and have a go at the pack of cards memory test. I’ll let you know how I got on in a future post – providing it’s not too embarrassing.
The Fine Art of Saying I Haven't A Clue
Having a look at the blog this morning I noticed a certain dearth of posts about my own quizzing recently. Now, I would hate you to think that my interest has been waning, or that my own quizzing activity has been tailing off. Not so at all. At the moment I play in two every week – the Dyffryn Arms on the Sunday night and the Aberavon Rugby Club on a Thursday night, and another one every other week, being Trevor’s quiz in Pill Harriers in Newport on a Monday night.
This brings me to a conversation I had last week with a teammate on an interesting question. Not a quiz question, I hasten to add, but a question about quizzes. We were discussing what actually is hardest ‘skill’ for want of a better word, to learn when you get to a certain level of ability in quizzing. The only answer we actually agreed on was that one of the last things you tend to learn is the fine art of knowing when to say “I haven’t got the foggiest idea.” Let’s be honest with each other, one of the most frustrating things in a quiz, or one of the things I find most frustrating anyway, is when the right answer to the question is on the table, but is rejected in favour of a speculative punt by someone who didn’t say that it was a punt, but led the team to believe that it was said with a certain degree of certainty. It’s even more frustrating when it was me who led the team up the garden path.
I don’t know if this is something you learn to be more wary of as you get older, but I believe that our CARR (Correct Answer Rejection Rate) has certainly decreased over the last couple of years in the club on a Thursday night. Mind you, it needs to, since the competition, in the shape of the Lemurs, is so stiff now. We were well beaten last week again in the overall standings, but at least we won the questions, which is a crumb of comfort which I’m always happy to pluck from the winners’ table.
Come to think of it, there’s no ‘easy wins’ left in my weekly schedule at the moment. Go back a couple of years, and a defeat in the Dyffryn Arms was a rara avis indeed. Now though a ‘superteam’ for want of a better word has arisen, combining elements of the Lemurs and my team, Boycs, from the Thursday night quiz, and a couple of other quizzers I know. One of the local teams as well, who have been coming for ages, has started winning their fair share as well. They still have nights when they’re well off the pace, but in a fair number of more recent quizzes their victories have been highly impressive. So you can imagine it was nice to win the last two Sundays.
As for Monday night in the Pill Harriers, well, as I think I may have mentioned before the standard of all the teams in this quiz is pretty high. When you add to that the handicaps the fact is that it’s a stiff competition every week – and I’m man enough to admit now that it’s all the better for it. The Monday night quiz is one of those with a rolling jackpot. There are three questions. If one team answers all three correctly, then they win the pot. If more than one team answer all three correctly, then it rolls over. Monday night’s questions were – and please accept that I can’t remember the exact wording on any of these : -
In which film does Jake Gyllenhall play a troubled teen visited by visions of a large, demonic looking rabbit?
In which country would you find the Aberdare Mountains?
David Lloyd George once described the House of Lords as “500 ordinary men chosen randomly from among –“ what?
Now, I think that everybody would have known Donnie Darko, and many would have known that the Aberdare Range is in Kenya. But I’ll be honest , we struggled with the answer to the Lloyd George quote, which is “the Unemployed”. After a couple of minutes I had a lightbulb moment, and wrote it down on my piece of paper, and put it on the table for consideration. But I didn’t trust where the answer had come from, so I didn’t insist, and if anything else plausible had been advocated by anyone else I would probably have conceded. Thankfully nothing else was seriously advocated by anyone else, and the jackpot was duly won.
Actually, that reminds me of another question, which brings to mind another point about dealing with questions you don’t know the answer to. Do you have a set of standard ‘fallback’ answers you trot out whenever you don’t know the answer to something? I bet that many of you do, and I certainly do, ranging from the frankly childish “Fred Gonad and his Whistling Jockstrap” which I always put down whenever we didn’t have the clue who an artist was in the Dynevor Arms music round, to answers which actually earned points on a number of occasions. On Monday night we were asked “Which Midlands city has areas called both California and New Zealand?” Nobody on the team knew a city which had both, but Barry, being himself a Brummie, knew that there is a California in Birmingham. So we went for that. Now as it happens, I did tell the guys – don’t put this down, but whenever I’m asked for a Midlands city and I don’t know the answer – I always put down Derby -. I have no idea why I ever settled on Derby in the first place, but there we are, that’s what I do. Well, as you either already know, or will have guessed, Derby turned out to be right. However I can almost guarantee that next time I trot out Derby in desperation, for a midlands city, it will be wrong. I tend to do the same with Merthyr Tydfil if a question asks for an unspecified Welsh town - or Llandudno if it asks for a town in North Wales. Both of which have proven to be surprisingly fruitful answers in the past.
This brings me to a conversation I had last week with a teammate on an interesting question. Not a quiz question, I hasten to add, but a question about quizzes. We were discussing what actually is hardest ‘skill’ for want of a better word, to learn when you get to a certain level of ability in quizzing. The only answer we actually agreed on was that one of the last things you tend to learn is the fine art of knowing when to say “I haven’t got the foggiest idea.” Let’s be honest with each other, one of the most frustrating things in a quiz, or one of the things I find most frustrating anyway, is when the right answer to the question is on the table, but is rejected in favour of a speculative punt by someone who didn’t say that it was a punt, but led the team to believe that it was said with a certain degree of certainty. It’s even more frustrating when it was me who led the team up the garden path.
I don’t know if this is something you learn to be more wary of as you get older, but I believe that our CARR (Correct Answer Rejection Rate) has certainly decreased over the last couple of years in the club on a Thursday night. Mind you, it needs to, since the competition, in the shape of the Lemurs, is so stiff now. We were well beaten last week again in the overall standings, but at least we won the questions, which is a crumb of comfort which I’m always happy to pluck from the winners’ table.
Come to think of it, there’s no ‘easy wins’ left in my weekly schedule at the moment. Go back a couple of years, and a defeat in the Dyffryn Arms was a rara avis indeed. Now though a ‘superteam’ for want of a better word has arisen, combining elements of the Lemurs and my team, Boycs, from the Thursday night quiz, and a couple of other quizzers I know. One of the local teams as well, who have been coming for ages, has started winning their fair share as well. They still have nights when they’re well off the pace, but in a fair number of more recent quizzes their victories have been highly impressive. So you can imagine it was nice to win the last two Sundays.
As for Monday night in the Pill Harriers, well, as I think I may have mentioned before the standard of all the teams in this quiz is pretty high. When you add to that the handicaps the fact is that it’s a stiff competition every week – and I’m man enough to admit now that it’s all the better for it. The Monday night quiz is one of those with a rolling jackpot. There are three questions. If one team answers all three correctly, then they win the pot. If more than one team answer all three correctly, then it rolls over. Monday night’s questions were – and please accept that I can’t remember the exact wording on any of these : -
In which film does Jake Gyllenhall play a troubled teen visited by visions of a large, demonic looking rabbit?
In which country would you find the Aberdare Mountains?
David Lloyd George once described the House of Lords as “500 ordinary men chosen randomly from among –“ what?
Now, I think that everybody would have known Donnie Darko, and many would have known that the Aberdare Range is in Kenya. But I’ll be honest , we struggled with the answer to the Lloyd George quote, which is “the Unemployed”. After a couple of minutes I had a lightbulb moment, and wrote it down on my piece of paper, and put it on the table for consideration. But I didn’t trust where the answer had come from, so I didn’t insist, and if anything else plausible had been advocated by anyone else I would probably have conceded. Thankfully nothing else was seriously advocated by anyone else, and the jackpot was duly won.
Actually, that reminds me of another question, which brings to mind another point about dealing with questions you don’t know the answer to. Do you have a set of standard ‘fallback’ answers you trot out whenever you don’t know the answer to something? I bet that many of you do, and I certainly do, ranging from the frankly childish “Fred Gonad and his Whistling Jockstrap” which I always put down whenever we didn’t have the clue who an artist was in the Dynevor Arms music round, to answers which actually earned points on a number of occasions. On Monday night we were asked “Which Midlands city has areas called both California and New Zealand?” Nobody on the team knew a city which had both, but Barry, being himself a Brummie, knew that there is a California in Birmingham. So we went for that. Now as it happens, I did tell the guys – don’t put this down, but whenever I’m asked for a Midlands city and I don’t know the answer – I always put down Derby -. I have no idea why I ever settled on Derby in the first place, but there we are, that’s what I do. Well, as you either already know, or will have guessed, Derby turned out to be right. However I can almost guarantee that next time I trot out Derby in desperation, for a midlands city, it will be wrong. I tend to do the same with Merthyr Tydfil if a question asks for an unspecified Welsh town - or Llandudno if it asks for a town in North Wales. Both of which have proven to be surprisingly fruitful answers in the past.
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
Only Connect - Elimination Match 2
Elimination match - Festival Fans v. General Practitioners
Last week we saw the Corpuscles become the first team eliminated from the tournament this year. On Monday we saw another elimination match between the Festival Fans and the General Practitioners. The Fans - Ed Dovey, Stewart McCartney and captain Marianne Fairthorne, lost to the Francophiles in the last round of their first match. Their opposition, the GPs - Jo Durrant, Chris David and the skipper, Mike Crowe, were beaten by the Fell Walkers. They too had been well in contention, but were seen off in the last round. Form guide no help? Well, the Fans had looked better all rounders in their first match, but there’s a limit to how much you can tell just from the one match.
Round One – What’s the Connection?
GPs elected to go first. Two Reeds revealed some pictures – the late Francis Bacon, the artist – a pork pie hat. Obviously pig meat products. If you got Francis Bacon, then you were away, which is exactly what the GPs did. Twisted Flax for the Fans revealed Hank Morgan – Henry De Tamble , who was the Time Traveller’s Wife’s Husband– Gary Sparrow – which was Nicholas Lyndhurt’s character in “Goodnight Sweetheart” and Marty McFly. So all were Time Travellers. Water showed the GPs Freda Fry – “Metropolis” – Gromit – 4’33”. I didn’t get it until the last – which is John Cage’s silent piece of music. The GPs didn’t get it then. The Fans were happy to take the bonus on that one. Lion gave the Fans a go at the music set. They didn’t get it, but the GPs knew that the Partridge Family – Taylor Swift – Counting Crows and The Eagles were all birds. I had it from the first and last, but didn’t know the other two. Good game, with both teams picking up the other’s leftpvers. Eye of Horus showed Birmingham – Paris – Roubaix Cycle Race. Now – that race is famously partly run over murderously cobbled streets. Could it have anything to do with that, I wondered. No, I thought when Glinda in The Wizard of Oz appeared. Then it struck me that I think the race is also nicknamed the Hell of the North. Could Glinda be the good witch of the North? Anthony Gormley’s statue confirmed this. Nice set. The GPs had it at the death. The fans were not, I was sorry to see, given the chance to stress the second syllable of Horned Viper when Victoria said it leaving the syllable unvoiced. Shame. Harrogate=Mercury. kicked off. Marion of the Fans was absolutely brilliant on this. She said , of course, that Hg is the symbol for Mercury and made the intuitive connection that it is also the postcode for Harrogate. Wonderful set, wonderful shout, which brought the Fans a deserved lead of 7 to 5.
Round Two – what Comes Fourth?
GPs kicked off with an unvoiced second syllable of horned viper. We saw 14: Fra Mauro. Well, I think I’ve told you of my great fascination with the Apollo Space Programme before, haven’t I. “11: Sea of tranquility!” I shouted, annoying the hell out of Mary, who was asleep in her chair. 13: Nowhere and 12: Ocean of Storms confirmed it. The GPs didn’t have a Scooby. The Fans knew it. Lion gave the Fans some pictures, filled in different coloured silhouettes of the Angry birds characters. I didn’t get it till the blue, but then neither did the Fans. Didn’t matter to either of us, it was still points in the bank when we both said the red bird. The GPs took on the might of the Twisted Flax and got Quarterly – Biannual – Annual . It seemed fairly obvious to all concerned that this was biennial, and so it was. Two Reeds gave more pictures – a tumbler of an ambler fluid – a cocktail glass with a vodka drink – and here the Fans again had a great shout. He takes a whisky drink – he takes a vodka drink – he takes a lager drink – they worked it out and I was nowhere near it. Cider is next in the song Tubthumping. Brilliant shout. Water showed the GPs Private Secretary – Under Secretary of State – Minister of State – so of course, the next would be Secretary of State. Eye of Horus finished the round. We saw Ease – Eyes – and I had it at the same time as Marion did, suggesting ewes – being phonetic renditions of the vowels. The GPs were playing well, but blimey, the Fans were playing a blinder, leading by 15 – 9.
Round Three – The Connecting Walls
The Fans kicked off with the Lion Wall, A good performance would certainly give them the whip hand going into the missing vowels. They soon sorted Washboard – Airer – Mangle and Dolly Stick – all used in laundry. Then Barnet – Do – Coiffure and Mop are all terms for hair. They knew what the last two sets were, and after a clever process of elimination they separated them on the first attempt. We saw Doubtfire – Malaprop – Robinson and Grundy – all fictional Mrs. Finally Porterhouse – Flat Iron – T-Bone and Strip are cuts of meat often used in steaks. A full house of 10 was very much what the doctor – if not the GPs – ordered.
The Water wall then needed to see the GPs take a full set to have any realistic chance of coming back in the last round. They were certainly quick separating the first two sets. Blade – Hulk – Iron Man and Daredevil were all Marvel superheroes. Jif – Dime – Immac and Oil of Ulay have all switched to their international name. A beautiful set of Decade – Prime Minister – Bo Derek and Fly Half – which are all linked by the Number 10 was unraveled, which also unraveled the last set of Hurdles – Marathon – Sprint and Relay – which are all types of running race. So this kept the gap down to large if manageable proportions.
Round Four – Missing Vowels
The first set, all had UK number 1 hits in the 1950s fell 3 – 0 to the GPs and the Fans lost a point as well. Gap down to 2 and squeaky bum time for the Fans. Triangular things fell 2 – 1 to the GPs. Gap down to 1, and even squeakier bum time. Fictional Johns fell two apiece, and the music still hadn’t started winding up. Quick walls buy a lot of time for the last round, you see. Types of tea, again, 2 apiece. Now one word winners of the Best Picture Oscar. Marion took the first – Unforgiven, and there was no need for forgiveness from her team, since it was enough to provide a two point win. Very bad luck GPs , who lost by 28 to 30, but the Fans, I think, were the better overall team on the night. Well played, and good luck in the semis.
Last week we saw the Corpuscles become the first team eliminated from the tournament this year. On Monday we saw another elimination match between the Festival Fans and the General Practitioners. The Fans - Ed Dovey, Stewart McCartney and captain Marianne Fairthorne, lost to the Francophiles in the last round of their first match. Their opposition, the GPs - Jo Durrant, Chris David and the skipper, Mike Crowe, were beaten by the Fell Walkers. They too had been well in contention, but were seen off in the last round. Form guide no help? Well, the Fans had looked better all rounders in their first match, but there’s a limit to how much you can tell just from the one match.
Round One – What’s the Connection?
GPs elected to go first. Two Reeds revealed some pictures – the late Francis Bacon, the artist – a pork pie hat. Obviously pig meat products. If you got Francis Bacon, then you were away, which is exactly what the GPs did. Twisted Flax for the Fans revealed Hank Morgan – Henry De Tamble , who was the Time Traveller’s Wife’s Husband– Gary Sparrow – which was Nicholas Lyndhurt’s character in “Goodnight Sweetheart” and Marty McFly. So all were Time Travellers. Water showed the GPs Freda Fry – “Metropolis” – Gromit – 4’33”. I didn’t get it until the last – which is John Cage’s silent piece of music. The GPs didn’t get it then. The Fans were happy to take the bonus on that one. Lion gave the Fans a go at the music set. They didn’t get it, but the GPs knew that the Partridge Family – Taylor Swift – Counting Crows and The Eagles were all birds. I had it from the first and last, but didn’t know the other two. Good game, with both teams picking up the other’s leftpvers. Eye of Horus showed Birmingham – Paris – Roubaix Cycle Race. Now – that race is famously partly run over murderously cobbled streets. Could it have anything to do with that, I wondered. No, I thought when Glinda in The Wizard of Oz appeared. Then it struck me that I think the race is also nicknamed the Hell of the North. Could Glinda be the good witch of the North? Anthony Gormley’s statue confirmed this. Nice set. The GPs had it at the death. The fans were not, I was sorry to see, given the chance to stress the second syllable of Horned Viper when Victoria said it leaving the syllable unvoiced. Shame. Harrogate=Mercury. kicked off. Marion of the Fans was absolutely brilliant on this. She said , of course, that Hg is the symbol for Mercury and made the intuitive connection that it is also the postcode for Harrogate. Wonderful set, wonderful shout, which brought the Fans a deserved lead of 7 to 5.
Round Two – what Comes Fourth?
GPs kicked off with an unvoiced second syllable of horned viper. We saw 14: Fra Mauro. Well, I think I’ve told you of my great fascination with the Apollo Space Programme before, haven’t I. “11: Sea of tranquility!” I shouted, annoying the hell out of Mary, who was asleep in her chair. 13: Nowhere and 12: Ocean of Storms confirmed it. The GPs didn’t have a Scooby. The Fans knew it. Lion gave the Fans some pictures, filled in different coloured silhouettes of the Angry birds characters. I didn’t get it till the blue, but then neither did the Fans. Didn’t matter to either of us, it was still points in the bank when we both said the red bird. The GPs took on the might of the Twisted Flax and got Quarterly – Biannual – Annual . It seemed fairly obvious to all concerned that this was biennial, and so it was. Two Reeds gave more pictures – a tumbler of an ambler fluid – a cocktail glass with a vodka drink – and here the Fans again had a great shout. He takes a whisky drink – he takes a vodka drink – he takes a lager drink – they worked it out and I was nowhere near it. Cider is next in the song Tubthumping. Brilliant shout. Water showed the GPs Private Secretary – Under Secretary of State – Minister of State – so of course, the next would be Secretary of State. Eye of Horus finished the round. We saw Ease – Eyes – and I had it at the same time as Marion did, suggesting ewes – being phonetic renditions of the vowels. The GPs were playing well, but blimey, the Fans were playing a blinder, leading by 15 – 9.
Round Three – The Connecting Walls
The Fans kicked off with the Lion Wall, A good performance would certainly give them the whip hand going into the missing vowels. They soon sorted Washboard – Airer – Mangle and Dolly Stick – all used in laundry. Then Barnet – Do – Coiffure and Mop are all terms for hair. They knew what the last two sets were, and after a clever process of elimination they separated them on the first attempt. We saw Doubtfire – Malaprop – Robinson and Grundy – all fictional Mrs. Finally Porterhouse – Flat Iron – T-Bone and Strip are cuts of meat often used in steaks. A full house of 10 was very much what the doctor – if not the GPs – ordered.
The Water wall then needed to see the GPs take a full set to have any realistic chance of coming back in the last round. They were certainly quick separating the first two sets. Blade – Hulk – Iron Man and Daredevil were all Marvel superheroes. Jif – Dime – Immac and Oil of Ulay have all switched to their international name. A beautiful set of Decade – Prime Minister – Bo Derek and Fly Half – which are all linked by the Number 10 was unraveled, which also unraveled the last set of Hurdles – Marathon – Sprint and Relay – which are all types of running race. So this kept the gap down to large if manageable proportions.
Round Four – Missing Vowels
The first set, all had UK number 1 hits in the 1950s fell 3 – 0 to the GPs and the Fans lost a point as well. Gap down to 2 and squeaky bum time for the Fans. Triangular things fell 2 – 1 to the GPs. Gap down to 1, and even squeakier bum time. Fictional Johns fell two apiece, and the music still hadn’t started winding up. Quick walls buy a lot of time for the last round, you see. Types of tea, again, 2 apiece. Now one word winners of the Best Picture Oscar. Marion took the first – Unforgiven, and there was no need for forgiveness from her team, since it was enough to provide a two point win. Very bad luck GPs , who lost by 28 to 30, but the Fans, I think, were the better overall team on the night. Well played, and good luck in the semis.
Saturday, 15 June 2013
News Questions
In the News
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. Alex Jones
2. Henry Cavill
3. Tim Yeo MP
4. iRadio
5. Emma Hill
6. Quade Cooper
7. The Happy One
8. Ulric
9. Edward Snowden
10. Jeremy Forrest
11. Major Chris Hadfield
12. Shenzou 10
13. James Crosby
14. Jiroemon Kimura
15. Misao Okawa
16. Henry Angest
17. Constance Briscoe
18. Rory Morrison
19. David Warner
20. Kyle Edmund
21. Dale Cregan
22. Tim Haries
23. Howard Slatter
24. Manuel Pellegrini
In Other News
1. How many times has Rafa Nadal won the French Open singles?
2. Which author died of cancer aged 59?
3. Why was Nelson Mandela in hospital?
4. Who won the Dauphiné Liberé?
5. Who won the French Open Ladies’ Singles
6. Who won the Canadian GP
7. What the score between England and Argentina In the RU test match?
8. – and Wales and Japan?
9. – and New Zealand v. France?
10. And Ireland v. USA?
11. Which teams did England’s U21 football team lose to in their second and third group matches in the European U21 Championships?
12. Who admitted she was a spy 50 years after the event?
13. Which actress announced that she has Alzheimers?
14. Which WWII bomber was raised from the English Channel last week?
15. 6 Islamic extremists were jailed for planning an attack on what or whom?
16. How is the new presenter of Blue Peter to be chosen?
17. Who claimed that the world of classical music is sexist?
18. What was unveiled at the E3 Gaming Expo last week?
19. Who made a guest appearance in the Beano last week?
20. Which racing trainer passed away aged 70 last week?
21. Who complained that female opera singers are too thin?
22. What was the score between the Lions and Combined Country?
23. Stephen Hester announced he was quitting what last week?
24. Beyoncé attacked whom for making her picture obscenely thin last week?
25. Last week the Public Accounts Committee made stringent criticisms of which company’s tax affairs?
26. Air traffic controllers in which European country were on strike last week?
27. Which English centre was called up as cover for injuries to the Lions last week?
28. Which media couple announced last week that they are to divorce?
29. Michael Eavis made a plea for Glastonbury festival goers to do what?
30. A two day event saw formula 1 cars driving around which city last week?
31. Who are sponsoring the Queen’s Club tournament?
32. Wales are to retain which qualification being scrapped in England?
33. Who shot an opening round 67 in the US Open?
34. Gareth Henson has signed for which Rugby Union club?
35. Which actor was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list?
36. The Gloriana was damaged when it hit which bridge?
37. Whom did the Pope meet in Rome?
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. Alex Jones
2. Henry Cavill
3. Tim Yeo MP
4. iRadio
5. Emma Hill
6. Quade Cooper
7. The Happy One
8. Ulric
9. Edward Snowden
10. Jeremy Forrest
11. Major Chris Hadfield
12. Shenzou 10
13. James Crosby
14. Jiroemon Kimura
15. Misao Okawa
16. Henry Angest
17. Constance Briscoe
18. Rory Morrison
19. David Warner
20. Kyle Edmund
21. Dale Cregan
22. Tim Haries
23. Howard Slatter
24. Manuel Pellegrini
In Other News
1. How many times has Rafa Nadal won the French Open singles?
2. Which author died of cancer aged 59?
3. Why was Nelson Mandela in hospital?
4. Who won the Dauphiné Liberé?
5. Who won the French Open Ladies’ Singles
6. Who won the Canadian GP
7. What the score between England and Argentina In the RU test match?
8. – and Wales and Japan?
9. – and New Zealand v. France?
10. And Ireland v. USA?
11. Which teams did England’s U21 football team lose to in their second and third group matches in the European U21 Championships?
12. Who admitted she was a spy 50 years after the event?
13. Which actress announced that she has Alzheimers?
14. Which WWII bomber was raised from the English Channel last week?
15. 6 Islamic extremists were jailed for planning an attack on what or whom?
16. How is the new presenter of Blue Peter to be chosen?
17. Who claimed that the world of classical music is sexist?
18. What was unveiled at the E3 Gaming Expo last week?
19. Who made a guest appearance in the Beano last week?
20. Which racing trainer passed away aged 70 last week?
21. Who complained that female opera singers are too thin?
22. What was the score between the Lions and Combined Country?
23. Stephen Hester announced he was quitting what last week?
24. Beyoncé attacked whom for making her picture obscenely thin last week?
25. Last week the Public Accounts Committee made stringent criticisms of which company’s tax affairs?
26. Air traffic controllers in which European country were on strike last week?
27. Which English centre was called up as cover for injuries to the Lions last week?
28. Which media couple announced last week that they are to divorce?
29. Michael Eavis made a plea for Glastonbury festival goers to do what?
30. A two day event saw formula 1 cars driving around which city last week?
31. Who are sponsoring the Queen’s Club tournament?
32. Wales are to retain which qualification being scrapped in England?
33. Who shot an opening round 67 in the US Open?
34. Gareth Henson has signed for which Rugby Union club?
35. Which actor was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list?
36. The Gloriana was damaged when it hit which bridge?
37. Whom did the Pope meet in Rome?
Thursday, 13 June 2013
Answers to News Questions
In the News
Who or What are the following, and Why have they been in the news?
1. Lord Laird – Lord Mackenzie – Lord Cunningham
2. Bradley Manning
3. Alexandra Kinova
4. Rami Hamdullah
5. Ruler of the World
6. Intello
7. Charles Ferndale
8. Graham Walker
9. James ‘Whitey’ Bulger
10. Mujahid Abu Hamza
11. Malorie Blackman
12. Theresa Villiers
13. Passau
14. Saeed Ibn Suroor
15. Susan Rice
16. Rt. Rev David Walker
17. Ingvar Kamprad
18. A.M.Homes
19. Paris Jackson
20. Leslie Van Houten
21. John Mills
22. Tom Sharpe
23. Richard Drax MP
24. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales
25. Chris Denning
26. Nesha Ramu
27. Prism
28. Opempipo Jaji
29. Art Everywhere
30. Esther Williams
31. George Bailey
In Other News
1. Who forgot his passport for his flight to Ibiza?
2. 1300 cyclists took part in a London event in aid of which cause?
3. Which supermarket announced they will be giving surplus food to the poor
4. What was the score between England and Brazil
5. Who were the scorers of England’s goals?
6. What was the score between the Republic of Ireland and Georgia?
7. What announcement did Matt Smith make last week?
8. What was the score in the Lions match against the Barbarians?
9. What was the score in the match between England and a South African XV?
10. Where was Mo Farah beaten in a 5000m race last week?
11. Who rode the winning horse in the 2013 Derby?
12. Who rejoined a Premier League football club last week?
13. Who criticized the Charity Commission, for what reason last week?
14. Who will be the next Bond girl, incidentally becoming the oldest one into the process?
15. Who spoke out on TV about her hair loss last week?
16. Who are the new sponsors of the former Orange Prize?
17. Who led the Lions against Western Force?
18. Who is the Government’s new social mobility Tsar?
19. Ofcom ruled that which word was still swearing?
20. Who spoke out publicly against the Same Sex Couple Marriage Act?
21. Leanne Mitchell, winner of The Voice 2012 released her album – how many copies did it sell in the first week?
22. By Which majority was a wrecking amendment to the Same Sex Couples Marriage Bill defeated in the House of Lords last week?
23. It was announced that 600 Afghan interpreters will be given what?
24. Which BBC programme was attacked by the Government of Fiji?
25. The Deputy PM of which country apologized for the excessive violence used to quell riots?
26. Which judge is returned to the X factor auditions last week?
27. Which 87 year old underwent heart surgery?
28. Coca Cola opened their first bottling plant in which country?
29. Who knocked Federer out of the French Open?
30. Who revealed that he had attempted suicide?
31. Which country won approval to become the 18th member of the Eurozone last week?
32. England lost their opening match of the European U21 football championships to which country?
33. Which Lions player was cited for biting during the match against Western Force?
34. Which player has flown out to join the tour in his place?
35. Which veterans won compensation from the UK last week?
36. Who will be opening their first new store for 300 years?
37. How many kicks did Lions fullback Leigh Halfpenny land successfully last week?
38. Who faced 5 counts of indecent assault?
39. Which two chocolate companies were charged with price fixing in Canada?
40. Which world leader and his wife announced that their marriage is over on TV?
41. Who defeated Usain Bolt in the 100m race in Rome?
42. Which England cricketer is facing a dissent charge?
43. Whom did Maria Sharapova defeat in her French Open semi final?
44. Whom did Serena Williams defeat in her French Open semi final?
45. Where was the Duke of Edinburgh admitted for abdominal surgery?
46. Who played whom in the men’s semi finals of the French Open?
47. Who paid a visit to the BBC newsroom
48. Who became the latest celebrity to sign up for a Richard Branson Virgin space flight when they start next year?
Answers
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. Three lords in alleged breach of lobbying rules
2. US Army analyst whose trial for passing secrets to Wikileaks began
3. She gave birth to quins in the Czech Republic
4. New PM of Pakistan
5. Horse that won the Derby
6. Horse that won the Prix du Jockey Club
7. Sentenced to death in Egypt for drug smuggling
8. Actor and member of the Grumbleweeds who passed away last week
9. US Gangster, 83, on trial
10. The name Michael Adebolajo insisted on using in court
11. New Children’s Laureate
12. Northern Ireland Secretary who warned that dissident republicans still pose a threat
13. German city – 1st to be hit by heavy floods
14. New trainer at Godolphin
15. New US National Security Advisor
16. New Bishop of Manchester
17. Creator of IKEA who finally stepped down from the board last week
18. Won the Women’s Prize for Fiction ( formerly the Orange Prize) for May We Be Forgiven – beating Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bodies
19. Daughter of the late Michael Jackson who allegedly attempted suicide
20. Charles Manson gang member who was refused parole last week for the 20th time
21. Made a massive donation to the Labour Party in the shape of shares in JML
22. Author of “Blott on the Landscape” and other comic novels, passed away 85.
23. Falsely accused of inviting housekeeper into a threesome
24. US Army NCO imprisoned for life for massacring 16 Afghan civilians
25. Original Radio 1 DJ arrested by police over alleged sexual offences
26. 13 year old who has a maximum 162 IQ
27. Secret US operation collecting information from largest internet companies, in which GCHQ has been implicated
28. Jailed for 8 years for raping an 11 year old girl
29. Project to put large reproductions of artworks on display in public places throughout the country
30. Hollywood actress passed away - 92
31. Captaining Australian cricket team while Michael Clarke is injured
In Other News
1. David Cameron
2. Help for Heroes
3. Asda
4. 2 - 2
5. Wayne Rooney and Alex Oxlade -Chamberlain
6. 4 - 0
7. He’s leaving Dr. Who
8. 59 - 8
9. 41 - 21
10. Eugene, Oregon
11. Ryan Moore
12. Jose Mourinho
13. A group of MPs published a report criticizing it for its handling of the Fund for Children and Young Adults in the British Virgin islands
14. Penelope Cruz
15. Nadine Dorries MP
16. Baileys
17. Brian O’Driscoll
18. James Caan
19. Effing
20. Justin Welby – the Archbishop of Canterbury
21. 895
22. 390 -148
23. UK Citizenship
24. Panorama
25. Turkey
26. Sharon Osborne
27. David Attenborough
28. Burma
29. Jo-Wilfred Tsonga
30. Stephen Fry
31. Latvia
32. Italy
33. Cian Healey
34. Alex Corbisiero
35. Mau Mau
36. Fortnum and Mason – in St. Pancras Ticket Hall 37. 11 from 11
38. William Roache
39. Nestlé and Mars
40. Vladimir Putin
41. Justin Gatlin
42. Matt Prior
43. Victoria Azarenka
44. Sara Errani
45. The London Clinic
46. The Queen
47. Djokovic v. Nadal – Tsonga v. Ferrer
48. Justin Beiber
Who or What are the following, and Why have they been in the news?
1. Lord Laird – Lord Mackenzie – Lord Cunningham
2. Bradley Manning
3. Alexandra Kinova
4. Rami Hamdullah
5. Ruler of the World
6. Intello
7. Charles Ferndale
8. Graham Walker
9. James ‘Whitey’ Bulger
10. Mujahid Abu Hamza
11. Malorie Blackman
12. Theresa Villiers
13. Passau
14. Saeed Ibn Suroor
15. Susan Rice
16. Rt. Rev David Walker
17. Ingvar Kamprad
18. A.M.Homes
19. Paris Jackson
20. Leslie Van Houten
21. John Mills
22. Tom Sharpe
23. Richard Drax MP
24. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales
25. Chris Denning
26. Nesha Ramu
27. Prism
28. Opempipo Jaji
29. Art Everywhere
30. Esther Williams
31. George Bailey
In Other News
1. Who forgot his passport for his flight to Ibiza?
2. 1300 cyclists took part in a London event in aid of which cause?
3. Which supermarket announced they will be giving surplus food to the poor
4. What was the score between England and Brazil
5. Who were the scorers of England’s goals?
6. What was the score between the Republic of Ireland and Georgia?
7. What announcement did Matt Smith make last week?
8. What was the score in the Lions match against the Barbarians?
9. What was the score in the match between England and a South African XV?
10. Where was Mo Farah beaten in a 5000m race last week?
11. Who rode the winning horse in the 2013 Derby?
12. Who rejoined a Premier League football club last week?
13. Who criticized the Charity Commission, for what reason last week?
14. Who will be the next Bond girl, incidentally becoming the oldest one into the process?
15. Who spoke out on TV about her hair loss last week?
16. Who are the new sponsors of the former Orange Prize?
17. Who led the Lions against Western Force?
18. Who is the Government’s new social mobility Tsar?
19. Ofcom ruled that which word was still swearing?
20. Who spoke out publicly against the Same Sex Couple Marriage Act?
21. Leanne Mitchell, winner of The Voice 2012 released her album – how many copies did it sell in the first week?
22. By Which majority was a wrecking amendment to the Same Sex Couples Marriage Bill defeated in the House of Lords last week?
23. It was announced that 600 Afghan interpreters will be given what?
24. Which BBC programme was attacked by the Government of Fiji?
25. The Deputy PM of which country apologized for the excessive violence used to quell riots?
26. Which judge is returned to the X factor auditions last week?
27. Which 87 year old underwent heart surgery?
28. Coca Cola opened their first bottling plant in which country?
29. Who knocked Federer out of the French Open?
30. Who revealed that he had attempted suicide?
31. Which country won approval to become the 18th member of the Eurozone last week?
32. England lost their opening match of the European U21 football championships to which country?
33. Which Lions player was cited for biting during the match against Western Force?
34. Which player has flown out to join the tour in his place?
35. Which veterans won compensation from the UK last week?
36. Who will be opening their first new store for 300 years?
37. How many kicks did Lions fullback Leigh Halfpenny land successfully last week?
38. Who faced 5 counts of indecent assault?
39. Which two chocolate companies were charged with price fixing in Canada?
40. Which world leader and his wife announced that their marriage is over on TV?
41. Who defeated Usain Bolt in the 100m race in Rome?
42. Which England cricketer is facing a dissent charge?
43. Whom did Maria Sharapova defeat in her French Open semi final?
44. Whom did Serena Williams defeat in her French Open semi final?
45. Where was the Duke of Edinburgh admitted for abdominal surgery?
46. Who played whom in the men’s semi finals of the French Open?
47. Who paid a visit to the BBC newsroom
48. Who became the latest celebrity to sign up for a Richard Branson Virgin space flight when they start next year?
Answers
Who or what are the following and why have they been in the news?
1. Three lords in alleged breach of lobbying rules
2. US Army analyst whose trial for passing secrets to Wikileaks began
3. She gave birth to quins in the Czech Republic
4. New PM of Pakistan
5. Horse that won the Derby
6. Horse that won the Prix du Jockey Club
7. Sentenced to death in Egypt for drug smuggling
8. Actor and member of the Grumbleweeds who passed away last week
9. US Gangster, 83, on trial
10. The name Michael Adebolajo insisted on using in court
11. New Children’s Laureate
12. Northern Ireland Secretary who warned that dissident republicans still pose a threat
13. German city – 1st to be hit by heavy floods
14. New trainer at Godolphin
15. New US National Security Advisor
16. New Bishop of Manchester
17. Creator of IKEA who finally stepped down from the board last week
18. Won the Women’s Prize for Fiction ( formerly the Orange Prize) for May We Be Forgiven – beating Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bodies
19. Daughter of the late Michael Jackson who allegedly attempted suicide
20. Charles Manson gang member who was refused parole last week for the 20th time
21. Made a massive donation to the Labour Party in the shape of shares in JML
22. Author of “Blott on the Landscape” and other comic novels, passed away 85.
23. Falsely accused of inviting housekeeper into a threesome
24. US Army NCO imprisoned for life for massacring 16 Afghan civilians
25. Original Radio 1 DJ arrested by police over alleged sexual offences
26. 13 year old who has a maximum 162 IQ
27. Secret US operation collecting information from largest internet companies, in which GCHQ has been implicated
28. Jailed for 8 years for raping an 11 year old girl
29. Project to put large reproductions of artworks on display in public places throughout the country
30. Hollywood actress passed away - 92
31. Captaining Australian cricket team while Michael Clarke is injured
In Other News
1. David Cameron
2. Help for Heroes
3. Asda
4. 2 - 2
5. Wayne Rooney and Alex Oxlade -Chamberlain
6. 4 - 0
7. He’s leaving Dr. Who
8. 59 - 8
9. 41 - 21
10. Eugene, Oregon
11. Ryan Moore
12. Jose Mourinho
13. A group of MPs published a report criticizing it for its handling of the Fund for Children and Young Adults in the British Virgin islands
14. Penelope Cruz
15. Nadine Dorries MP
16. Baileys
17. Brian O’Driscoll
18. James Caan
19. Effing
20. Justin Welby – the Archbishop of Canterbury
21. 895
22. 390 -148
23. UK Citizenship
24. Panorama
25. Turkey
26. Sharon Osborne
27. David Attenborough
28. Burma
29. Jo-Wilfred Tsonga
30. Stephen Fry
31. Latvia
32. Italy
33. Cian Healey
34. Alex Corbisiero
35. Mau Mau
36. Fortnum and Mason – in St. Pancras Ticket Hall 37. 11 from 11
38. William Roache
39. Nestlé and Mars
40. Vladimir Putin
41. Justin Gatlin
42. Matt Prior
43. Victoria Azarenka
44. Sara Errani
45. The London Clinic
46. The Queen
47. Djokovic v. Nadal – Tsonga v. Ferrer
48. Justin Beiber
Monday, 10 June 2013
Only Connect Round One - Elimination Match
Corpuscles v. Cartophiles
Right, we’ve seen the 8 teams contesting this series. Now we start to get down to the nitty gritty of sorting out who’s going on, and who’s going home. Both of tonight’s teams narrowly lost their first round shows. which meant that whichever team won would live to fight another day, and whichever didn’t would go home. The Corpuscles – Paul Taylor – Seb Page and captain Sam Kay lost by a single point to the Cat Lovers in the first show of the series. The Cartophiles - Colin Kidd, Mark Cooper and Josh Mandel, were a little further behind the Celts. But both sides had shown that they were not to be easily dismissed.
Round One – What’s the Connection?
Twisted Flax brought the Carts the picture set. We saw a series of Rays –Man Ray - A Devil Ray - Ray Davies. Nicely done. Two Reeds brought the Corps Prom Video – Holiday Armadillo – and since I’m a Friends fan from way back I got it at the same time as they did after too. Nice set. Lion was the choice of the Carts, which revealed France : Spatio – China : Taiko – and here I thought if the next one is Russia : Cosmo, then these are the different words for what in English would be astro – naut. Well, the next was Russia: Cosmo, so that was just what it was. Pleased with meself for that one. Eye of Horus gave us A – Bomb dropped over Nagasaki – Fat Man – and – He Says Hey Hey Hey – Fat Albert. The Corps, on fire at this stage of the game, also got it after two. Water for the Carts gave us Gnocchi the Squirrel – Larry the Donkey – Paul the Octopus – and here I was thinking ‘psychic’ animals. The Carts went for predicting sports results, which was too specific. It was actually was just animals that made/make predictions – Punxsatawney Phil the Groundhog being the last. Bonus to the Corps. Music set for the Corps gave them problems, and they couldn’t see the connection. Metal was the connection , and it was enough to give the Carts a bonus, who started with Gold, bartered it down to precious metals, which was enough for Victoria to err on the side of leniency. Only fair after them coming so close with the previous.. After a quality round the Corps led by 5 – 7.
Round Two – What Comes Fourth?
Two reeds gave the Carts Tiger Bay – Mandalay – and I have actually used this as a connection in a quiz in the rugby club. I shouted – Bombay – Santa Fe! I love that song – well, Ian Dury and the Blockheads generally. A few series ago they did something similar with the wonderful Reasons To Be Cheerful Part Three. The Carts and the Corps just didn’t get it. Sob. The Corps opted for Twisted Flax. We saw the word one in white on a red background, two in white on a light blue/turquoise background, and three in pink on a burgundy background. Almost immediately they said four in white on a black background, knowing that these were the colours of the BBC Channel logos. Good shout that. The Carts opened the eye of Horus, and we saw American Football =60. They and I guessed playing times, which would mean that we need a game which lasts for 90 minutes. Obviously football fits the bill, and didn’t the Carts know it. A full five points for that one. Easy? Only a) if you know that American Football has just 60 minutes of playing time in a game that actually lasts a lot longer from start to finish, and b) if you have the guts to go for it. The Carts did, and reaped the spoils. The Corps chose Lion, to get The Saturdays – Brahma – Cerberus and so I opted for Janus – working on decreasing number of heads. Zaphod Beeblebrox was the example given, and the Corps said Simon and Garfunkel. Same diff. The Carts risked losing all their momentum with an unvoiced second syllable for Horned Viper. We saw a spring – a rugby football diagram and they worked out we would get something meaning back, for Spring Forward, Fall back. Nowhere near it, myself. The Corps left with water got Baidu – Bing – (Bada Bing?) and they predicted Google would be number 1. Quite right.Still, a good round for both teams, and the Carts had pulled back to one point behind, at 13 to the Corps’ 14.
Round Three – The Connecting Walls
The Water wall was chosen by the Corps. I could see some Jilly Cooper Penny Dreadfuls in there. The Corps could also see a set of mints, but left that go for a while after one fruitless attempt. They were concentrating on sports played on horseback, I think. Finally they unraveled Jousting – Charreada – Point to Point and Tent Pegging. They cottoned on to some old DJs as well, but not quickly enough to unravel them, and when the time was up just the one line had been resolved. When the whole wall was resolved they could see the original radio 1 DJs were Young– Peel – Blackburn and Dee. Murray – Everton – Glacier and Scotch were the mints, and Pandora – Polo – Rivals – Riders were the bonkbusters. 5 points all told.
The Lion Wall offered a chance for the Carts to take the lead. After a bit of thought they found Millionaire – TW3 – Buzzcocks - Strictly – all popular shortened names of TV shows . Then they found Striations – Corrie – Drumlin and Moraine – all features of glaciation. Fat Cat – Mogul – Magnate and Tycoon – rich business men, and N-11 – BRIC – E7 - G20 – all economic groups were resolved fairly quickly. Which meant that they scored a well worked full house of 10, to give them a lead of 23 to 19.
Round Four – The Missing Vowels
The first group of resins fell 3 – 0 to the Corps, but – disaster! – the Carts also lost two. French actresses saw the Carts make up some lost ground, by winning them 3 – 1 to re-establish a slight lead. George Gershwin compositions fell one apiece. Methods of random selection was the last set. It looked to me like 2 – 1 to the Corps, which unless I was very much mistaken meant a tie – 26 apiece. So the tie break came into operation. Captains only could answer 1 clue for missing vowels, without knowing the category. Any wrong answer gave it to the other team by default. It was So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. Captain Josh of the Carts had it, thus sending the Corps home after a great contest. Hard lines, but well played.
Right, we’ve seen the 8 teams contesting this series. Now we start to get down to the nitty gritty of sorting out who’s going on, and who’s going home. Both of tonight’s teams narrowly lost their first round shows. which meant that whichever team won would live to fight another day, and whichever didn’t would go home. The Corpuscles – Paul Taylor – Seb Page and captain Sam Kay lost by a single point to the Cat Lovers in the first show of the series. The Cartophiles - Colin Kidd, Mark Cooper and Josh Mandel, were a little further behind the Celts. But both sides had shown that they were not to be easily dismissed.
Round One – What’s the Connection?
Twisted Flax brought the Carts the picture set. We saw a series of Rays –Man Ray - A Devil Ray - Ray Davies. Nicely done. Two Reeds brought the Corps Prom Video – Holiday Armadillo – and since I’m a Friends fan from way back I got it at the same time as they did after too. Nice set. Lion was the choice of the Carts, which revealed France : Spatio – China : Taiko – and here I thought if the next one is Russia : Cosmo, then these are the different words for what in English would be astro – naut. Well, the next was Russia: Cosmo, so that was just what it was. Pleased with meself for that one. Eye of Horus gave us A – Bomb dropped over Nagasaki – Fat Man – and – He Says Hey Hey Hey – Fat Albert. The Corps, on fire at this stage of the game, also got it after two. Water for the Carts gave us Gnocchi the Squirrel – Larry the Donkey – Paul the Octopus – and here I was thinking ‘psychic’ animals. The Carts went for predicting sports results, which was too specific. It was actually was just animals that made/make predictions – Punxsatawney Phil the Groundhog being the last. Bonus to the Corps. Music set for the Corps gave them problems, and they couldn’t see the connection. Metal was the connection , and it was enough to give the Carts a bonus, who started with Gold, bartered it down to precious metals, which was enough for Victoria to err on the side of leniency. Only fair after them coming so close with the previous.. After a quality round the Corps led by 5 – 7.
Round Two – What Comes Fourth?
Two reeds gave the Carts Tiger Bay – Mandalay – and I have actually used this as a connection in a quiz in the rugby club. I shouted – Bombay – Santa Fe! I love that song – well, Ian Dury and the Blockheads generally. A few series ago they did something similar with the wonderful Reasons To Be Cheerful Part Three. The Carts and the Corps just didn’t get it. Sob. The Corps opted for Twisted Flax. We saw the word one in white on a red background, two in white on a light blue/turquoise background, and three in pink on a burgundy background. Almost immediately they said four in white on a black background, knowing that these were the colours of the BBC Channel logos. Good shout that. The Carts opened the eye of Horus, and we saw American Football =60. They and I guessed playing times, which would mean that we need a game which lasts for 90 minutes. Obviously football fits the bill, and didn’t the Carts know it. A full five points for that one. Easy? Only a) if you know that American Football has just 60 minutes of playing time in a game that actually lasts a lot longer from start to finish, and b) if you have the guts to go for it. The Carts did, and reaped the spoils. The Corps chose Lion, to get The Saturdays – Brahma – Cerberus and so I opted for Janus – working on decreasing number of heads. Zaphod Beeblebrox was the example given, and the Corps said Simon and Garfunkel. Same diff. The Carts risked losing all their momentum with an unvoiced second syllable for Horned Viper. We saw a spring – a rugby football diagram and they worked out we would get something meaning back, for Spring Forward, Fall back. Nowhere near it, myself. The Corps left with water got Baidu – Bing – (Bada Bing?) and they predicted Google would be number 1. Quite right.Still, a good round for both teams, and the Carts had pulled back to one point behind, at 13 to the Corps’ 14.
Round Three – The Connecting Walls
The Water wall was chosen by the Corps. I could see some Jilly Cooper Penny Dreadfuls in there. The Corps could also see a set of mints, but left that go for a while after one fruitless attempt. They were concentrating on sports played on horseback, I think. Finally they unraveled Jousting – Charreada – Point to Point and Tent Pegging. They cottoned on to some old DJs as well, but not quickly enough to unravel them, and when the time was up just the one line had been resolved. When the whole wall was resolved they could see the original radio 1 DJs were Young– Peel – Blackburn and Dee. Murray – Everton – Glacier and Scotch were the mints, and Pandora – Polo – Rivals – Riders were the bonkbusters. 5 points all told.
The Lion Wall offered a chance for the Carts to take the lead. After a bit of thought they found Millionaire – TW3 – Buzzcocks - Strictly – all popular shortened names of TV shows . Then they found Striations – Corrie – Drumlin and Moraine – all features of glaciation. Fat Cat – Mogul – Magnate and Tycoon – rich business men, and N-11 – BRIC – E7 - G20 – all economic groups were resolved fairly quickly. Which meant that they scored a well worked full house of 10, to give them a lead of 23 to 19.
Round Four – The Missing Vowels
The first group of resins fell 3 – 0 to the Corps, but – disaster! – the Carts also lost two. French actresses saw the Carts make up some lost ground, by winning them 3 – 1 to re-establish a slight lead. George Gershwin compositions fell one apiece. Methods of random selection was the last set. It looked to me like 2 – 1 to the Corps, which unless I was very much mistaken meant a tie – 26 apiece. So the tie break came into operation. Captains only could answer 1 clue for missing vowels, without knowing the category. Any wrong answer gave it to the other team by default. It was So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. Captain Josh of the Carts had it, thus sending the Corps home after a great contest. Hard lines, but well played.
Saturday, 8 June 2013
In The News
In the News
Who or What are the following, and Why have they been in the news?
1. Lord Laird – Lord Mackenzie – Lord Cunningham
2. Bradley Manning
3. Alexandra Kinova
4. Rami Hamdullah
5. Ruler of the World
6. Intello
7. Charles Ferndale
8. Graham Walker
9. James ‘Whitey’ Bulger
10. Mujahid Abu Hamza
11. Malorie Blackman
12. Theresa Villiers
13. Passau
14. Saeed Ibn Suroor
15. Susan Rice
16. Rt. Rev David Walker
17. Ingvar Kamprad
18. A.M.Homes
19. Paris Jackson
20. Leslie Van Houten
21. John Mills
22. Tom Sharpe
23. Richard Drax MP
24. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales
25. Chris Denning
26. Nesha Ramu
27. Prism
28. Opempipo Jaji
29. Art Everywhere
30. Esther Williams
31. George Bailey
In Other News
1. Who forgot his passport for his flight to Ibiza?
2. 1300 cyclists took part in a London event in aid of which cause?
3. Which supermarket announced they will be giving surplus food to the poor
4. What was the score between England and Brazil
5. Who were the scorers of England’s goals?
6. What was the score between the Republic of Ireland and Georgia?
7. What announcement did Matt Smith make last week?
8. What was the score in the Lions match against the Barbarians?
9. What was the score in the match between England and a South African XV?
10. Where was Mo Farah beaten in a 5000m race last week?
11. Who rode the winning horse in the 2013 Derby?
12. Who rejoined a Premier League football club last week?
13. Who criticized the Charity Commission, for what reason last week?
14. Who will be the next Bond girl, incidentally becoming the oldest one into the process?
15. Who spoke out on TV about her hair loss last week?
16. Who are the new sponsors of the former Orange Prize?
17. Who led the Lions against Western Force?
18. Who is the Government’s new social mobility Tsar?
19. Ofcom ruled that which word was still swearing?
20. Who spoke out publicly against the Same Sex Couple Marriage Act?
21. Leanne Mitchell, winner of The Voice 2012 released her album – how many copies did it sell in the first week?
22. By Which majority was a wrecking amendment to the Same Sex Couples Marriage Bill defeated in the House of Lords last week?
23. It was announced that 600 Afghan interpreters will be given what?
24. Which BBC programme was attacked by the Government of Fiji?
25. The Deputy PM of which country apologized for the excessive violence used to quell riots?
26. Which judge is returned to the X factor auditions last week?
27. Which 87 year old underwent heart surgery?
28. Coca Cola opened their first bottling plant in which country?
29. Who knocked Federer out of the French Open?
30. Who revealed that he had attempted suicide?
31. Which country won approval to become the 18th member of the Eurozone last week?
32. England lost their opening match of the European U21 football championships to which country?
33. Which Lions player was cited for biting during the match against Western Force?
34. Which player has flown out to join the tour in his place?
35. Which veterans won compensation from the UK last week?
36. Who will be opening their first new store for 300 years?
37. How many kicks did Lions fullback Leigh Halfpenny land successfully last week?
38. Who faced 5 counts of indecent assault?
39. Which two chocolate companies were charged with price fixing in Canada?
40. Which world leader and his wife announced that their marriage is over on TV?
41. Who defeated Usain Bolt in the 100m race in Rome?
42. Which England cricketer is facing a dissent charge?
43. Whom did Maria Sharapova defeat in her French Open semi final?
44. Whom did Serena Williams defeat in her French Open semi final?
45. Where was the Duke of Edinburgh admitted for abdominal surgery?
46. Who played whom in the men’s semi finals of the French Open?
47. Who paid a visit to the BBC newsroom
48. Who became the latest celebrity to sign up for a Richard Branson Virgin space flight when they start next year?
Who or What are the following, and Why have they been in the news?
1. Lord Laird – Lord Mackenzie – Lord Cunningham
2. Bradley Manning
3. Alexandra Kinova
4. Rami Hamdullah
5. Ruler of the World
6. Intello
7. Charles Ferndale
8. Graham Walker
9. James ‘Whitey’ Bulger
10. Mujahid Abu Hamza
11. Malorie Blackman
12. Theresa Villiers
13. Passau
14. Saeed Ibn Suroor
15. Susan Rice
16. Rt. Rev David Walker
17. Ingvar Kamprad
18. A.M.Homes
19. Paris Jackson
20. Leslie Van Houten
21. John Mills
22. Tom Sharpe
23. Richard Drax MP
24. Staff Sgt. Robert Bales
25. Chris Denning
26. Nesha Ramu
27. Prism
28. Opempipo Jaji
29. Art Everywhere
30. Esther Williams
31. George Bailey
In Other News
1. Who forgot his passport for his flight to Ibiza?
2. 1300 cyclists took part in a London event in aid of which cause?
3. Which supermarket announced they will be giving surplus food to the poor
4. What was the score between England and Brazil
5. Who were the scorers of England’s goals?
6. What was the score between the Republic of Ireland and Georgia?
7. What announcement did Matt Smith make last week?
8. What was the score in the Lions match against the Barbarians?
9. What was the score in the match between England and a South African XV?
10. Where was Mo Farah beaten in a 5000m race last week?
11. Who rode the winning horse in the 2013 Derby?
12. Who rejoined a Premier League football club last week?
13. Who criticized the Charity Commission, for what reason last week?
14. Who will be the next Bond girl, incidentally becoming the oldest one into the process?
15. Who spoke out on TV about her hair loss last week?
16. Who are the new sponsors of the former Orange Prize?
17. Who led the Lions against Western Force?
18. Who is the Government’s new social mobility Tsar?
19. Ofcom ruled that which word was still swearing?
20. Who spoke out publicly against the Same Sex Couple Marriage Act?
21. Leanne Mitchell, winner of The Voice 2012 released her album – how many copies did it sell in the first week?
22. By Which majority was a wrecking amendment to the Same Sex Couples Marriage Bill defeated in the House of Lords last week?
23. It was announced that 600 Afghan interpreters will be given what?
24. Which BBC programme was attacked by the Government of Fiji?
25. The Deputy PM of which country apologized for the excessive violence used to quell riots?
26. Which judge is returned to the X factor auditions last week?
27. Which 87 year old underwent heart surgery?
28. Coca Cola opened their first bottling plant in which country?
29. Who knocked Federer out of the French Open?
30. Who revealed that he had attempted suicide?
31. Which country won approval to become the 18th member of the Eurozone last week?
32. England lost their opening match of the European U21 football championships to which country?
33. Which Lions player was cited for biting during the match against Western Force?
34. Which player has flown out to join the tour in his place?
35. Which veterans won compensation from the UK last week?
36. Who will be opening their first new store for 300 years?
37. How many kicks did Lions fullback Leigh Halfpenny land successfully last week?
38. Who faced 5 counts of indecent assault?
39. Which two chocolate companies were charged with price fixing in Canada?
40. Which world leader and his wife announced that their marriage is over on TV?
41. Who defeated Usain Bolt in the 100m race in Rome?
42. Which England cricketer is facing a dissent charge?
43. Whom did Maria Sharapova defeat in her French Open semi final?
44. Whom did Serena Williams defeat in her French Open semi final?
45. Where was the Duke of Edinburgh admitted for abdominal surgery?
46. Who played whom in the men’s semi finals of the French Open?
47. Who paid a visit to the BBC newsroom
48. Who became the latest celebrity to sign up for a Richard Branson Virgin space flight when they start next year?
Friday, 7 June 2013
How Many Legs Does a Monkey Walk On?
You must have had this experience yourself, I’m sure. You get asked a question, and you work through the answer, double check it, are perfectly satisfied that you’ve got it right. Then the answer comes and it’s not the same as the one you wrote down. You think that you’re right and the QM is wrong . . . but . . . you start to doubt yourself. You don’t say anything because a) he’s put doubt in your mind, and b) there’s no point arguing with the QM anyway (not that that would always stop me). But whereas you were convinced when you wrote the answer down, now you’re not sure, and when you get home you just know there’s no point going to bed until you’ve checked it out.
I went to the quiz in the rugby club last night – well, it was Thursday after all. The QM was one of our semi regulars, and I’d describe him as a good, safe pair of hands. Maybe not the finest quiz you’ll ever go to in the club, but certainly enjoyable, and never that many wrong ‘uns to get angry about, or what the ‘ells to complain about. We were well beaten by the end, and the question in question wouldn’t have made a huge amount of difference had our answer been given a point. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lemurs who won put down exactly the same that we did. This was the question : -
How many creatures in the Chinese Zodiac walk on two legs?
So I wrote down the list of creatures : -
dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, rat, ox, tiger, and rabbit.
Right , I thought, that means the rooster and the monkey – so the answer is two. I wrote down 2, and for good measure put Rooster and monkey in brackets. The answer given was 1: Rooster.
Well, as I said I wasn’t convinced that my answer was 100% right, so I said nothing. But when I got home and googled it I found out that the list I had written down was right. All of which begged the question – on what grounds was it rejected as an answer? I’m guessing that either the QM had forgotten monkey, or by mistake had not included it in the list. Or failing that, maybe a monkey really is classed as walking on 4 legs rather than 2 legs. However my problem with that is that surely monkeys only have two legs – and they have two arms as well? In which case . . . well, I’m sure you catch my train of thought here. I’m still not 100% convinced I’m right, but on the other hand I don’t know for certain why monkey didn’t count yesterday evening. Unless, as I say, it was a wrong’un. Over to you . . .
I went to the quiz in the rugby club last night – well, it was Thursday after all. The QM was one of our semi regulars, and I’d describe him as a good, safe pair of hands. Maybe not the finest quiz you’ll ever go to in the club, but certainly enjoyable, and never that many wrong ‘uns to get angry about, or what the ‘ells to complain about. We were well beaten by the end, and the question in question wouldn’t have made a huge amount of difference had our answer been given a point. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lemurs who won put down exactly the same that we did. This was the question : -
How many creatures in the Chinese Zodiac walk on two legs?
So I wrote down the list of creatures : -
dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, rat, ox, tiger, and rabbit.
Right , I thought, that means the rooster and the monkey – so the answer is two. I wrote down 2, and for good measure put Rooster and monkey in brackets. The answer given was 1: Rooster.
Well, as I said I wasn’t convinced that my answer was 100% right, so I said nothing. But when I got home and googled it I found out that the list I had written down was right. All of which begged the question – on what grounds was it rejected as an answer? I’m guessing that either the QM had forgotten monkey, or by mistake had not included it in the list. Or failing that, maybe a monkey really is classed as walking on 4 legs rather than 2 legs. However my problem with that is that surely monkeys only have two legs – and they have two arms as well? In which case . . . well, I’m sure you catch my train of thought here. I’m still not 100% convinced I’m right, but on the other hand I don’t know for certain why monkey didn’t count yesterday evening. Unless, as I say, it was a wrong’un. Over to you . . .
Answers to News Questions
In the News
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news?
1. Blue is the Warmest Colour
2. Random Access memories
3. Mikkel Kessler
4. Sarah McClay
5. Tayyab Subhani, Mohammed Safdar
6. Bandenburg – Willy Brandt
7. Ding Jinhao
8. Vern Cotter
9. Vincent Autin – Bruno Boileau
10. Mad About the Boy
11. Marshall Lyttle
12. Georgia Williams
13. Adam Goodes
14. Stefanie Vogele
15. Holbeck WMC
16. Patrick Mercer
17. Sean Parker
18. Jamie Reynolds
19. JC Penney Kettle
20. Talent
In Other News
1. Name the former Crimewatch presenter criticized for his comments about rape? 2. Who became the first winner of the Monaco Grand Prix whose father had previously won the same race?
3. What happened in the Southwold Pier charity swim?
4. Who is off the British and Irish Lions tour following an incident in the English Premiership final?
5. What was the score in the final of the Champion’s League?
6. – and the Scottish Cup Final?
7. – and the women’s FA Cup Final?
8. – and the English Rugby Premiership final?
9. What did Mark Cavendish receive for winning the points competition in the Giro D’Italia?
10. Which Dad’s Army regular passed away aged 86?
11. Police in which country seized 4 million fake British stamps?
12. The largest flag ever made was unfurled where?
13. Laura Robson was knocked out of the French Open by whom?
14. Who has ended his role as Paul Nicholl’s stable jockey?
15. Who was called up to the British and Irish Lions in place of the banned English player?
16. What was Alastair Cook’s score in the second innings of the second test?
17. Which 39 year old scored the goal which put Crystal Palace into the Premier League next season?
18. Which countries will host the 2019 cricket world cup?
19. Which Premier League club has angered fans with the changes made to the club’s crest for next season?
20. Which day of the week was named as the most dangerous day to undergo an operation?
21. According to the OECD which is the best country to live in?
22. Which media figure denied sexual assault charges in Westminster Magistrate’s Court?
23. Which London War Memorial was defaced last week?
24. Which manufacturer withdrew a line of belts last week when it was discovered that the buckles were radioactive?
25. Which US TV and Film actor passed away aged 88?
26. What was the result of the 2nd Test v. New Zealand?
27. Who scored his first England test century in the 2nd test?
28. Who has joined Russian TV station Russia Today?
29. How many Brits rely on food banks?
30. Staff in which institutions staged a strike last week?
31. Last week was the 150th anniversary of which publication?
32. Last week was the 60th anniversary of what?
33. What was the score in the friendly football international between the Republic of Ireland and England?
34. Who ruled himself out of returning for the Ashes?
35. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, revealed he has been treated for what?
36. Which fish, illegal to catch off the coast of Britain,was seized after being caught off the coast of Devon?
37. Who announced that she is returning to Coronation Street?
38. Which Southampton and Wales striker passed away last week?
39. Who is the new manager of Stoke City?
40. Williams F1 team are switching from Renault to which other engine supplier from 2014?
41. Last week saw an ongoing row about plans to televise whose appearance at the Glastonbury Festival?
Answers
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news?
1. Film the won the Palme d’Or at Cannes
2. Daft Punk Albunm – fastest selling album of the year
3. Defeated in world super middleweight title fight unification bout with Karl Froch
4. Named as keeper killed by Tiger in Cumbria wildlife park
5. Charged with endangering a PIA plane in Stansted airport
6. New Berlin airport
7. Chinese boy caught by internet campaign for defacing ancient Egyptian temple
8. South African – new coach of Scotland RFU
9. First gay couple to marry in France
10. Title of New Bridget Jones novel
11. Bass player with Bill Haley’s Comets, passed away
12. 17 year old who disappeared from Wellington
13. Aboriginal Australian Rules footballer called an ‘ape’ by a 13 year old female supporter, sparked a heated debate in Australia over racism.
14. Beat Heather Watson in the French Open
15. World’s oldest Working Men’s Club, in Leeds, forced to close
16. MP resigned conservative whip after allegedly being paid to lobby for Fiji
17. Co-founder of Napster – marrying Alexandra Lenas
18. Charged with the murder of Georgia Williams
19. It has caused a sensation because it allegedly looks like Hitler
20. Horse the won the Oaks – winning jockey Richard Hughes – trainer Ralph Beckett
In Other News
1. Nick Ross
2. Nico Rosberg
3. More than 50 swimmers were in difficulty and needed to be rescued
4. Dylan Hartley
5. Bayern Munich 2 – Borussia Dortmund 1
6. Celtic 3 – Hibernian 0
7. Arsenal Ladies 3 – Bristol Academy 0
8. Leicester 37 – Northampton 17
9. Red Jersey
10. Bill Pertwee
11. Turkey
12. Romania
13. Caroline Wozniacki
14. Ruby Walsh
15. Rory Best
16. 130
17. Kevin Phillips
18. England and Wales
19. Everton
20. Friday
21. Australia
22. Max Clifford
23. Bomber Command
24. Asos
25. Steve Forrest
26. England won by 247 runs
27. Joe Root
28. Larry King
29. half a million
30. Museums and galleries
31. Wisden Cricketers Almanac
32. Hilary and Tensing’s scaling of Everest
33. 1 - 1
34. Ricky Ponting
35. Prostate Cancer
36. Bluefin tuna
37. Beverley Callard / Liz Macdonald
38. Ron Davies
39. Mark Hughes
40. Mercedes
41. Rolling Stones
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news?
1. Blue is the Warmest Colour
2. Random Access memories
3. Mikkel Kessler
4. Sarah McClay
5. Tayyab Subhani, Mohammed Safdar
6. Bandenburg – Willy Brandt
7. Ding Jinhao
8. Vern Cotter
9. Vincent Autin – Bruno Boileau
10. Mad About the Boy
11. Marshall Lyttle
12. Georgia Williams
13. Adam Goodes
14. Stefanie Vogele
15. Holbeck WMC
16. Patrick Mercer
17. Sean Parker
18. Jamie Reynolds
19. JC Penney Kettle
20. Talent
In Other News
1. Name the former Crimewatch presenter criticized for his comments about rape? 2. Who became the first winner of the Monaco Grand Prix whose father had previously won the same race?
3. What happened in the Southwold Pier charity swim?
4. Who is off the British and Irish Lions tour following an incident in the English Premiership final?
5. What was the score in the final of the Champion’s League?
6. – and the Scottish Cup Final?
7. – and the women’s FA Cup Final?
8. – and the English Rugby Premiership final?
9. What did Mark Cavendish receive for winning the points competition in the Giro D’Italia?
10. Which Dad’s Army regular passed away aged 86?
11. Police in which country seized 4 million fake British stamps?
12. The largest flag ever made was unfurled where?
13. Laura Robson was knocked out of the French Open by whom?
14. Who has ended his role as Paul Nicholl’s stable jockey?
15. Who was called up to the British and Irish Lions in place of the banned English player?
16. What was Alastair Cook’s score in the second innings of the second test?
17. Which 39 year old scored the goal which put Crystal Palace into the Premier League next season?
18. Which countries will host the 2019 cricket world cup?
19. Which Premier League club has angered fans with the changes made to the club’s crest for next season?
20. Which day of the week was named as the most dangerous day to undergo an operation?
21. According to the OECD which is the best country to live in?
22. Which media figure denied sexual assault charges in Westminster Magistrate’s Court?
23. Which London War Memorial was defaced last week?
24. Which manufacturer withdrew a line of belts last week when it was discovered that the buckles were radioactive?
25. Which US TV and Film actor passed away aged 88?
26. What was the result of the 2nd Test v. New Zealand?
27. Who scored his first England test century in the 2nd test?
28. Who has joined Russian TV station Russia Today?
29. How many Brits rely on food banks?
30. Staff in which institutions staged a strike last week?
31. Last week was the 150th anniversary of which publication?
32. Last week was the 60th anniversary of what?
33. What was the score in the friendly football international between the Republic of Ireland and England?
34. Who ruled himself out of returning for the Ashes?
35. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, revealed he has been treated for what?
36. Which fish, illegal to catch off the coast of Britain,was seized after being caught off the coast of Devon?
37. Who announced that she is returning to Coronation Street?
38. Which Southampton and Wales striker passed away last week?
39. Who is the new manager of Stoke City?
40. Williams F1 team are switching from Renault to which other engine supplier from 2014?
41. Last week saw an ongoing row about plans to televise whose appearance at the Glastonbury Festival?
Answers
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news?
1. Film the won the Palme d’Or at Cannes
2. Daft Punk Albunm – fastest selling album of the year
3. Defeated in world super middleweight title fight unification bout with Karl Froch
4. Named as keeper killed by Tiger in Cumbria wildlife park
5. Charged with endangering a PIA plane in Stansted airport
6. New Berlin airport
7. Chinese boy caught by internet campaign for defacing ancient Egyptian temple
8. South African – new coach of Scotland RFU
9. First gay couple to marry in France
10. Title of New Bridget Jones novel
11. Bass player with Bill Haley’s Comets, passed away
12. 17 year old who disappeared from Wellington
13. Aboriginal Australian Rules footballer called an ‘ape’ by a 13 year old female supporter, sparked a heated debate in Australia over racism.
14. Beat Heather Watson in the French Open
15. World’s oldest Working Men’s Club, in Leeds, forced to close
16. MP resigned conservative whip after allegedly being paid to lobby for Fiji
17. Co-founder of Napster – marrying Alexandra Lenas
18. Charged with the murder of Georgia Williams
19. It has caused a sensation because it allegedly looks like Hitler
20. Horse the won the Oaks – winning jockey Richard Hughes – trainer Ralph Beckett
In Other News
1. Nick Ross
2. Nico Rosberg
3. More than 50 swimmers were in difficulty and needed to be rescued
4. Dylan Hartley
5. Bayern Munich 2 – Borussia Dortmund 1
6. Celtic 3 – Hibernian 0
7. Arsenal Ladies 3 – Bristol Academy 0
8. Leicester 37 – Northampton 17
9. Red Jersey
10. Bill Pertwee
11. Turkey
12. Romania
13. Caroline Wozniacki
14. Ruby Walsh
15. Rory Best
16. 130
17. Kevin Phillips
18. England and Wales
19. Everton
20. Friday
21. Australia
22. Max Clifford
23. Bomber Command
24. Asos
25. Steve Forrest
26. England won by 247 runs
27. Joe Root
28. Larry King
29. half a million
30. Museums and galleries
31. Wisden Cricketers Almanac
32. Hilary and Tensing’s scaling of Everest
33. 1 - 1
34. Ricky Ponting
35. Prostate Cancer
36. Bluefin tuna
37. Beverley Callard / Liz Macdonald
38. Ron Davies
39. Mark Hughes
40. Mercedes
41. Rolling Stones
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
Quiz Doodling
My middle daughter Zara has just finished her degree in ceramics, and is now awaiting her results. She wasn’t working this weekend either, so she came home on Saturday. This meant that she was able to accompany us on our Sunday morning car booting ritual. Mary and I, and whichever of the girls a) are around - b) are up early enough and - c) want to usually go to at least one car boot sale, and more often than not more than one on a Sunday Morning. Off and on we’ve been doing it since I passed my driving test in 1991. Of course, back then we only had the two kids, and they, poor dabs, didn’t have any choice in those days. Still, now that they have the choice it’s nice that they often choose to come anyway. This Sunday we had Phillippa (along with incipient first grandchild – 8 weeks to go), Zara and Jess with us.
I am getting towards the point. We usually split up when we get into the sale, and I’m invariably back to the car before anyone else. Valuable reading time, I call it. Don’t know why, but I find sitting in the front seat of my stationary car in a car park to be a perfect place for reading. Zara was next back, and she was holding a box. It was a 1986 Brit Quiz game. She thought that it was the kind of thing I’d like, and I have to say that she wasn’t far wrong. So that makes the fairly tenuous quiz link with this post.
I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game, but it’s a decent enough quiz card game, with a board which is only slightly smaller than the playing surface for Ubi, which is the biggest that I know. Both the box and the board strike me as looking awfully like the work of the late great Welsh cartoonist Grenfell Jones – or Gren to his many fans. If you don’t know his work, well don’t feel too bad, since Gren was probably best known within his beloved Wales, where his weekly “Ponty an’ Pop” strip in the South Wales Echo had a large and very devoted following. As I say, I’m sure that the artwork and design are Gren’s, but I couldn’t find a signature, and I haven’t been able to confirm this on the net either.
Gren also produced a daily topical cartoon for the Western Mail, and I must admit that I’ve become quite interested in political cartoons and cartoonists, since in the course of researching my family history I found that I have a great great great great great ( that’s 5 times ) grandfather who was one.
Philip Dawe is not a name that is well known today, but he worked under the great William Hogarth for some time, and produced some cartoons that were well known in his day, in particular one called “The Bostonians in Distress”, much liked in the USA for its seeming support of the colonials’ grievances during the build up to the American Revolution.
The Bostonians In Distress - by Philip Dawe
Philip’s son George Dawe was probably the best known artist of the family. He was a hugely successful portrait painter whose portraits of Princess Charlotte, daughter of King George IV, and Duke Ernest Augustus, later King of Hanover, are on display in the National Portrait Gallery. George’s work so impressed Tsar Alexander Ist that he was invited to go Russia to paint portraits of the victorious Russian Generals from the Napoleonic Wars. Hundreds of them. There is a wing in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg that has over 300 of these portraits on display. George’s younger brother Henry Edward Dawe was my great great great great grandfather. he was an engraver, and an artist in his own right, although never as successful as George, and at one time he went out to Russia to assist George, who had been appointed Official Court Portrait Painter. So if any of my team mates past or present happen to be reading this, and you’ve ever wondered why I like to doodle while I’m playing, well, now you know the reason. It’s in the genes.
Another one of Philip's - this is called "The Macaroni"
I am getting towards the point. We usually split up when we get into the sale, and I’m invariably back to the car before anyone else. Valuable reading time, I call it. Don’t know why, but I find sitting in the front seat of my stationary car in a car park to be a perfect place for reading. Zara was next back, and she was holding a box. It was a 1986 Brit Quiz game. She thought that it was the kind of thing I’d like, and I have to say that she wasn’t far wrong. So that makes the fairly tenuous quiz link with this post.
I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game, but it’s a decent enough quiz card game, with a board which is only slightly smaller than the playing surface for Ubi, which is the biggest that I know. Both the box and the board strike me as looking awfully like the work of the late great Welsh cartoonist Grenfell Jones – or Gren to his many fans. If you don’t know his work, well don’t feel too bad, since Gren was probably best known within his beloved Wales, where his weekly “Ponty an’ Pop” strip in the South Wales Echo had a large and very devoted following. As I say, I’m sure that the artwork and design are Gren’s, but I couldn’t find a signature, and I haven’t been able to confirm this on the net either.
Gren also produced a daily topical cartoon for the Western Mail, and I must admit that I’ve become quite interested in political cartoons and cartoonists, since in the course of researching my family history I found that I have a great great great great great ( that’s 5 times ) grandfather who was one.
Philip Dawe is not a name that is well known today, but he worked under the great William Hogarth for some time, and produced some cartoons that were well known in his day, in particular one called “The Bostonians in Distress”, much liked in the USA for its seeming support of the colonials’ grievances during the build up to the American Revolution.
The Bostonians In Distress - by Philip Dawe
Philip’s son George Dawe was probably the best known artist of the family. He was a hugely successful portrait painter whose portraits of Princess Charlotte, daughter of King George IV, and Duke Ernest Augustus, later King of Hanover, are on display in the National Portrait Gallery. George’s work so impressed Tsar Alexander Ist that he was invited to go Russia to paint portraits of the victorious Russian Generals from the Napoleonic Wars. Hundreds of them. There is a wing in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg that has over 300 of these portraits on display. George’s younger brother Henry Edward Dawe was my great great great great grandfather. he was an engraver, and an artist in his own right, although never as successful as George, and at one time he went out to Russia to assist George, who had been appointed Official Court Portrait Painter. So if any of my team mates past or present happen to be reading this, and you’ve ever wondered why I like to doodle while I’m playing, well, now you know the reason. It’s in the genes.
Another one of Philip's - this is called "The Macaroni"
Only Connect Round 1 - Match 4 - General Practitioners v. Fell Walkers
General Practitioners v. Fell Walkers
The General Practitioners were Jo Durrant, Chris David and the skipper, Mike Crowe.In my final in the 4th series both our captain, Gary Grant, and the victorious Epicureans’, Katie Bramall-Stainer were doctors, so these GPs are in good company. Their opposition was provided by the Fell Walkers, Jim Taylor, Craig Almond and captain Mike Amberry. So no continuation of the alliterative match ups we’ve seen so far this season. Let’s get cracking.
Round One – What’s The Connection?
The GPs kicked off with the TF – or Twisted Flax, as I should say. This revealed Injun Joe’s Body – an allusion to Tom Sawyer, there – Roquefort Cheese – and here I was thinking caves, and so, it turned out were the GPs. The Dead Sea Scrolls seemed to confirm the hypothesis and the GPs were convinced enough to go for it. Correctly. The last clue would have been troglodytes. The Fells took two reeds, and the bong informed us that this would be the music set. I didn’t know the first one, but I knew Ultravox’s Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procul Harum –Hmm – band names derived from latin, perhaps? – Status Quo completed the set as confirmation. The first group were Placebo, apparently. The GPs were the first to select horned viper in this show, and courted disaster by leaving the second vowel unvoiced. Heroes and Villains – King of the Kippax were the first two. Now, I know that the Kippax stand was a stand at the old Maine Road football ground, which suggested football fanzines to me. There’s only One F in Fulham and United We Stand seemed to agree. The GPs were on the right lines, but zigged with songs sung by football fans, while the Fells zagged with fanzines. I was rather hoping that Brian Moore’s Head Looks Uncannily Like London Planetarium would complete the set, but it was not to be, alas. Water revealed for the Fells Surfeited: 4 – 8 – 9, Encourage: 5 – 6 – 8 – 9, Strives: 2 – 3 – 4 – 6 – 7,and this so perplexed the Fells that they didn’t even get to reveal the 4th clue. When given Myself: 1 – 4 it was enough for Jo of the GPs to get a great bonus, by working out that it you took the letters indicated by the numbers, you ended up with a shorter word which means the same as the longer one. Fiendishly good clue. Lion gave the GPs James Tiptree Jr., then Isak Dinesen. Now, I knew that Isak Dinesen was the pseudonym of Karen ‘Out of Africa’ Blixen, so I wondered if we had male pseudonyms of female writers. Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter seemed to confirm it, and George Eliot made it cast iron. That was certainly enough for the GPs – again proving it is sometimes worthwhile waiting and seeing the whole set. The Eye of Horus fell to the Fells, and it was the picture set. The second showed Jonathan Creek, and the third a little mouse with clogs on – well I declare! All lived in windmills of course. Would the last show dear old Windy Miller from Camberwick Green of blessed memory, I wondered. Yes, it would! The first, which I didn’t recognize was Baby Jake. So that timely answer meant that both teams had scored 4 by the end of the round. Good game.
Round Two – what Comes Fourth?
The GPs began with Water. We saw Puppet – then pauper, and then captain Mike made a mistake which I don’t know if we’ve ever seen before. He buzzed to give an answer, when he meant to ask for the next clue. Inevitably he was wrong, although his answer – pirate, was actually the third in the sequence. The Fells couldn’t take it either. The answer was Poet, from the song That’s Life – which Mike knew. Hard lines. The Fells opted for the Twisted Flax, finding Green: no severe conditions – Yellow: be aware – and the Fells went close enough to be given another go by Victoria. They didn’t quite get it. The GPs were given Amber: Be prepared for the third clue but they couldn’t get it. They were both right that it was to do with weather, but what was wanted was Red: take action. Two reeds brought the GPs Red and Green Ring – Black and White Sectors – Green Ring – and like the GPs, I didn’t have a Scooby. Mike’s stab in the dark with red ring brought him another go, but no cigar, and although the Fells had the connection figured – areas of a dartboard working in wards, they didn’t get red circle, the bullseye. Lion brought pictures to the Fells, and they saw a book, a pod of peas, and an old telephone. The Fells didn’t have it. The GPs though did, and when you could see it this was another egg on the face moment. Put the letter I before each of them. D’Oh! So the next would be pad. Great answer – I wish I’d seen it myself. Eye of Horus gave us 4th: Addis Ababa – 3rd:Bogota – 2nd:Quito. Now, obviously capitals, but what exactly? My guess was increasing height above sea level, and so if I was right, then we were looking for 1st: La Paz. The GPs didn’t have it, but the Fells certainly did. Their own last set was Horned Viper , and – disaster! – Victoria herself left the second vowel unvoiced. She’s a brave lady. Right then, we had homo – hominidae – primates – and so my guess was mammalia – since each group was the larger group encompassing the previous one. Correct! Which late flurry was enough to ensure that the Fells now led with 7 to 5.
Round Three – The Connecting Walls
The Fells took the Lion wall first, and fairly quickly isolated Holt – Drey – Form – Den which are animal homes, and a little later military bugle calls – Last Post – Taps – Boots and Saddles and Reveille. I could see that they had a set of things you can beat, but they took the other way, seeing a set of characters from the cult drama This Life. Miles – Warren - Egg and Ferdy did the trick for them, leaving Clock – Retreat – System and traffic as things you can beat. They’d spotted that one as well, and took a well earned full house of 10. Good work.
Left with Water the GPs unscrambled a set of old video arcade game swith almost indecent haste – Asteroids – Centipede – Frogger and Scramble. Movements in Scuttle – Flit – Bustle and Dash followed. They could also see a set of baskets, but were struggling to untangle them. eventually they settled on trug – creel – bassinet and pannier, which left farthingale – basque – chemise and pannier, which were all historic female undergarments. So again, a full house of 10 – well played. this left the Fells in the lead by 17 to 15.All to play for.
Round Four – Missing Vowels
The first category was all ways of saying life’s work. This set fell to the Fells by 2 – 1, with neither team getting cannon. Water sports fell 3 – 1 to the GPs – which meant that the gap was down to 1. I loved the set of villains in animation, and these went to the Fells 3 – 1. Their lead of 3 looked good as we moved into weather phenomena, especially when they took the first, tornado. They took another two to the GPs 1, and the game looked pretty much done as we moved into prepositions. The Fells took these 2-1, and in the end they won by a relatively convincing 28 -22. Well played. But don’t be despondent GPs, since it was only the vowels that separated you much in the end. Good luck to both teams in the next match.
The General Practitioners were Jo Durrant, Chris David and the skipper, Mike Crowe.In my final in the 4th series both our captain, Gary Grant, and the victorious Epicureans’, Katie Bramall-Stainer were doctors, so these GPs are in good company. Their opposition was provided by the Fell Walkers, Jim Taylor, Craig Almond and captain Mike Amberry. So no continuation of the alliterative match ups we’ve seen so far this season. Let’s get cracking.
Round One – What’s The Connection?
The GPs kicked off with the TF – or Twisted Flax, as I should say. This revealed Injun Joe’s Body – an allusion to Tom Sawyer, there – Roquefort Cheese – and here I was thinking caves, and so, it turned out were the GPs. The Dead Sea Scrolls seemed to confirm the hypothesis and the GPs were convinced enough to go for it. Correctly. The last clue would have been troglodytes. The Fells took two reeds, and the bong informed us that this would be the music set. I didn’t know the first one, but I knew Ultravox’s Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procul Harum –Hmm – band names derived from latin, perhaps? – Status Quo completed the set as confirmation. The first group were Placebo, apparently. The GPs were the first to select horned viper in this show, and courted disaster by leaving the second vowel unvoiced. Heroes and Villains – King of the Kippax were the first two. Now, I know that the Kippax stand was a stand at the old Maine Road football ground, which suggested football fanzines to me. There’s only One F in Fulham and United We Stand seemed to agree. The GPs were on the right lines, but zigged with songs sung by football fans, while the Fells zagged with fanzines. I was rather hoping that Brian Moore’s Head Looks Uncannily Like London Planetarium would complete the set, but it was not to be, alas. Water revealed for the Fells Surfeited: 4 – 8 – 9, Encourage: 5 – 6 – 8 – 9, Strives: 2 – 3 – 4 – 6 – 7,and this so perplexed the Fells that they didn’t even get to reveal the 4th clue. When given Myself: 1 – 4 it was enough for Jo of the GPs to get a great bonus, by working out that it you took the letters indicated by the numbers, you ended up with a shorter word which means the same as the longer one. Fiendishly good clue. Lion gave the GPs James Tiptree Jr., then Isak Dinesen. Now, I knew that Isak Dinesen was the pseudonym of Karen ‘Out of Africa’ Blixen, so I wondered if we had male pseudonyms of female writers. Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter seemed to confirm it, and George Eliot made it cast iron. That was certainly enough for the GPs – again proving it is sometimes worthwhile waiting and seeing the whole set. The Eye of Horus fell to the Fells, and it was the picture set. The second showed Jonathan Creek, and the third a little mouse with clogs on – well I declare! All lived in windmills of course. Would the last show dear old Windy Miller from Camberwick Green of blessed memory, I wondered. Yes, it would! The first, which I didn’t recognize was Baby Jake. So that timely answer meant that both teams had scored 4 by the end of the round. Good game.
Round Two – what Comes Fourth?
The GPs began with Water. We saw Puppet – then pauper, and then captain Mike made a mistake which I don’t know if we’ve ever seen before. He buzzed to give an answer, when he meant to ask for the next clue. Inevitably he was wrong, although his answer – pirate, was actually the third in the sequence. The Fells couldn’t take it either. The answer was Poet, from the song That’s Life – which Mike knew. Hard lines. The Fells opted for the Twisted Flax, finding Green: no severe conditions – Yellow: be aware – and the Fells went close enough to be given another go by Victoria. They didn’t quite get it. The GPs were given Amber: Be prepared for the third clue but they couldn’t get it. They were both right that it was to do with weather, but what was wanted was Red: take action. Two reeds brought the GPs Red and Green Ring – Black and White Sectors – Green Ring – and like the GPs, I didn’t have a Scooby. Mike’s stab in the dark with red ring brought him another go, but no cigar, and although the Fells had the connection figured – areas of a dartboard working in wards, they didn’t get red circle, the bullseye. Lion brought pictures to the Fells, and they saw a book, a pod of peas, and an old telephone. The Fells didn’t have it. The GPs though did, and when you could see it this was another egg on the face moment. Put the letter I before each of them. D’Oh! So the next would be pad. Great answer – I wish I’d seen it myself. Eye of Horus gave us 4th: Addis Ababa – 3rd:Bogota – 2nd:Quito. Now, obviously capitals, but what exactly? My guess was increasing height above sea level, and so if I was right, then we were looking for 1st: La Paz. The GPs didn’t have it, but the Fells certainly did. Their own last set was Horned Viper , and – disaster! – Victoria herself left the second vowel unvoiced. She’s a brave lady. Right then, we had homo – hominidae – primates – and so my guess was mammalia – since each group was the larger group encompassing the previous one. Correct! Which late flurry was enough to ensure that the Fells now led with 7 to 5.
Round Three – The Connecting Walls
The Fells took the Lion wall first, and fairly quickly isolated Holt – Drey – Form – Den which are animal homes, and a little later military bugle calls – Last Post – Taps – Boots and Saddles and Reveille. I could see that they had a set of things you can beat, but they took the other way, seeing a set of characters from the cult drama This Life. Miles – Warren - Egg and Ferdy did the trick for them, leaving Clock – Retreat – System and traffic as things you can beat. They’d spotted that one as well, and took a well earned full house of 10. Good work.
Left with Water the GPs unscrambled a set of old video arcade game swith almost indecent haste – Asteroids – Centipede – Frogger and Scramble. Movements in Scuttle – Flit – Bustle and Dash followed. They could also see a set of baskets, but were struggling to untangle them. eventually they settled on trug – creel – bassinet and pannier, which left farthingale – basque – chemise and pannier, which were all historic female undergarments. So again, a full house of 10 – well played. this left the Fells in the lead by 17 to 15.All to play for.
Round Four – Missing Vowels
The first category was all ways of saying life’s work. This set fell to the Fells by 2 – 1, with neither team getting cannon. Water sports fell 3 – 1 to the GPs – which meant that the gap was down to 1. I loved the set of villains in animation, and these went to the Fells 3 – 1. Their lead of 3 looked good as we moved into weather phenomena, especially when they took the first, tornado. They took another two to the GPs 1, and the game looked pretty much done as we moved into prepositions. The Fells took these 2-1, and in the end they won by a relatively convincing 28 -22. Well played. But don’t be despondent GPs, since it was only the vowels that separated you much in the end. Good luck to both teams in the next match.
Saturday, 1 June 2013
News Questions
In the News
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news?
1. Blue is the Warmest Colour
2. Random Access memories
3. Mikkel Kessler
4. Sarah McClay
5. Tayyab Subhani, Mohammed Safdar
6. Bandenburg – Willy Brandt
7. Ding Jinhao
8. Vern Cotter
9. Vincent Autin – Bruno Boileau
10. Mad About the Boy
11. Marshall Lyttle
12. Georgia Williams
13. Adam Goodes
14. Stefanie Vogele
15. Holbeck WMC
16. Patrick Mercer
17. Sean Parker
18. Jamie Reynolds
19. JC Penney Kettle
20. Talent
In Other News
1. Name the former Crimewatch presenter criticized for his comments about rape?
2. Who became the first winner of the Monaco Grand Prix whose father had previously won the same race?
3. What happened in the Southwold Pier charity swim?
4. Who is off the British and Irish Lions tour following an incident in the English Premiership final?
5. What was the score in the final of the Champion’s League?
6. – and the Scottish Cup Final?
7. – and the women’s FA Cup Final?
8. – and the English Rugby Premiership final?
9. What did Mark Cavendish receive for winning the points competition in the Giro D’Italia?
10. Which Dad’s Army regular passed away aged 86?
11. Police in which country seized 4 million fake British stamps?
12. The largest flag ever made was unfurled where?
13. Laura Robson was knocked out of the French Open by whom?
14. Who has ended his role as Paul Nicholl’s stable jockey?
15. Who was called up to the British and Irish Lions in place of the banned English player?
16. What was Alastair Cook’s score in the second innings of the second test?
17. Which 39 year old scored the goal which put Crystal Palace into the Premier League next season?
18. Which countries will host the 2019 cricket world cup?
19. Which Premier League club has angered fans with the changes made to the club’s crest for next season?
20. Which day of the week was named as the most dangerous day to undergo an operation?
21. According to the OECD which is the best country to live in?
22. Which media figure denied sexual assault charges in Westminster Magistrate’s Court?
23. Which London War Memorial was defaced last week?
24. Which manufacturer withdrew a line of belts last week when it was discovered that the buckles were radioactive?
25. Which US TV and Film actor passed away aged 88?
26. What was the result of the 2nd Test v. New Zealand?
27. Who scored his first England test century in the 2nd test?
28. Who has joined Russian TV station Russia Today?
29. How many Brits rely on food banks?
30. Staff in which institutions staged a strike last week?
31. Last week was the 150th anniversary of which publication?
32. Last week was the 60th anniversary of what?
33. What was the score in the friendly football international between the Republic of Ireland and England?
34. Who ruled himself out of returning for the Ashes?
35. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, revealed he has been treated for what?
36. Which fish, illegal to catch off the coast of Britain,was seized after being caught off the coast of Devon?
37. Who announced that she is returning to Coronation Street?
38. Which Southampton and Wales striker passed away last week?
39. Who is the new manager of Stoke City?
40. Williams F1 team are switching from Renault to which other engine supplier from 2014?
41. Last week saw an ongoing row about plans to televise whose appearance at the Glastonbury Festival?
Who or what are the following, and why have they been in the news?
1. Blue is the Warmest Colour
2. Random Access memories
3. Mikkel Kessler
4. Sarah McClay
5. Tayyab Subhani, Mohammed Safdar
6. Bandenburg – Willy Brandt
7. Ding Jinhao
8. Vern Cotter
9. Vincent Autin – Bruno Boileau
10. Mad About the Boy
11. Marshall Lyttle
12. Georgia Williams
13. Adam Goodes
14. Stefanie Vogele
15. Holbeck WMC
16. Patrick Mercer
17. Sean Parker
18. Jamie Reynolds
19. JC Penney Kettle
20. Talent
In Other News
1. Name the former Crimewatch presenter criticized for his comments about rape?
2. Who became the first winner of the Monaco Grand Prix whose father had previously won the same race?
3. What happened in the Southwold Pier charity swim?
4. Who is off the British and Irish Lions tour following an incident in the English Premiership final?
5. What was the score in the final of the Champion’s League?
6. – and the Scottish Cup Final?
7. – and the women’s FA Cup Final?
8. – and the English Rugby Premiership final?
9. What did Mark Cavendish receive for winning the points competition in the Giro D’Italia?
10. Which Dad’s Army regular passed away aged 86?
11. Police in which country seized 4 million fake British stamps?
12. The largest flag ever made was unfurled where?
13. Laura Robson was knocked out of the French Open by whom?
14. Who has ended his role as Paul Nicholl’s stable jockey?
15. Who was called up to the British and Irish Lions in place of the banned English player?
16. What was Alastair Cook’s score in the second innings of the second test?
17. Which 39 year old scored the goal which put Crystal Palace into the Premier League next season?
18. Which countries will host the 2019 cricket world cup?
19. Which Premier League club has angered fans with the changes made to the club’s crest for next season?
20. Which day of the week was named as the most dangerous day to undergo an operation?
21. According to the OECD which is the best country to live in?
22. Which media figure denied sexual assault charges in Westminster Magistrate’s Court?
23. Which London War Memorial was defaced last week?
24. Which manufacturer withdrew a line of belts last week when it was discovered that the buckles were radioactive?
25. Which US TV and Film actor passed away aged 88?
26. What was the result of the 2nd Test v. New Zealand?
27. Who scored his first England test century in the 2nd test?
28. Who has joined Russian TV station Russia Today?
29. How many Brits rely on food banks?
30. Staff in which institutions staged a strike last week?
31. Last week was the 150th anniversary of which publication?
32. Last week was the 60th anniversary of what?
33. What was the score in the friendly football international between the Republic of Ireland and England?
34. Who ruled himself out of returning for the Ashes?
35. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, revealed he has been treated for what?
36. Which fish, illegal to catch off the coast of Britain,was seized after being caught off the coast of Devon?
37. Who announced that she is returning to Coronation Street?
38. Which Southampton and Wales striker passed away last week?
39. Who is the new manager of Stoke City?
40. Williams F1 team are switching from Renault to which other engine supplier from 2014?
41. Last week saw an ongoing row about plans to televise whose appearance at the Glastonbury Festival?
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