QuizList

Next update on or before Saturday 18 September – I’m going away.

Is QuizList on Facebook or Twitter?  No, because neither am I.   Carl, who knows more about computers, technology and the like than I do, confirms that the disadvatages can outweigh the advantages.   There are other ways of showing people your holiday photos.  In the era when photos were printed, I seem to remember Carl coining the onomatopoeic ‘thrup’ to describe the speed at which he leafed through a particularly boring set of holiday snaps, featuring, as I recall, tropical fish.

As regards the site,  I do update things once a week (except when I’m away, as this week), sometimes more often if there’s something urgent like if I find out a quiz has stopped or changed night of the week (and thanks a lot for recent updates I’ve been sent).  However, at some stage there will be a forum…

… and my dread is that it will be full of statements which may be true but difficult to prove.  Like about cheating at quizzes.  This last week was fairly disastrous and featured a quiz where the winning team were on i-Phones the whole time.  Or in relays – one girl first of all did the business and when she was spotted passed the baton (literal or metaphorical) to a guy who performed the needful under the table.  What a load of twits (replace vowel as required).

Now, if you say anything you are told ‘it’s only a bit of fun’.  Well, if it’s only a bit of fun why not share your prize money around or donate it to charity, cheats?  The sublime irony was perhaps being told by the QM that they were a good team and would probably have won anyway.  Great.

To happier things:

1.  I’m off on holiday.

2. Three charity quizzes in aid of St Luke’s Hospice are listed under ‘one-off quizzes’.

3. Collectors’ items:  the QuizList pen.  There is one of these left.  Mail me if you think you should have it and the best reason wins.

Byeeee!

The King’s Head Theatre at 115 Upper Street, Islington, N1 1QN, 020 7226 4443 , has started a new Monday night quiz..  It gets going at 8.00pm and it costs £2 per person. The prize is a £50 bar tab.  Maximum six per team.

And as regards the few I listed last week, the one I actually got to try was BRB at the Gate.  This turned out to be a Redtooth ‘Wipeout’ format quiz, which we won.  That despite my clothes having ripped on the way there and my walking around very carefully with my jacket tied around my waist. It was all done in the best possible taste, and hence our team name which appears in the title of this post.  Could do with a few more punters, so well worth a try if you’re around on a Sunday.

Tuesday I revisited the Princess of Wales in Primrose Hill, and we won that also. This isn’t a bad quiz but takes place in the basement of the bar where one’s eyes are inexorably drawn towards a steady stream of persons creaking loudly down the stairs.  We didn’t manage to win the beer round, which is an extra hand-around not counting towards the quiz total, despite almost miraculously working out that ?????? ?? ?????????? stood for ‘Apollo 13 Splashdown’.  Long story.

Now beer rounds are a good idea and are included in a few quizzes.  This is where you are given an extra round which doesn’t usually count towards the overall quiz total but which carries a drink prize.  When it’s done properly it’s a way of ensuring that the hosting pub contributes something towards the quiz and spreads the prizes around;  when it’s not done properly it’s an extra perk for the QM’s mates.  As my second-favourite band of all time say in the last words of their best album, ‘It’s your decision now…’ as to which applies at any given moment…

Enjoy the Bank Holiday, think I’ll give the carnival a miss.  Two good-sounding one-off quizzes are listed:  one on Thursday September 2nd in the Elgin, Maida Vale, in aid of the RSPCA, and a books quiz in N22 on Wednesday 1st.  Go to ‘One-off quizzes’ for details.

A lot of quizzes that are new to the site this time round, and thanks to those who have sent them in.

Sundays:

The Rocket, 120 Euston Road, NW1 2AL,020 7388 0021.  A couple of months ago this was advertising a large (£150) cash prize, then it wasn’t on because of football so I haven’t actually got there myself.  Worth checking out.

BRB at the Gate, Station Rd, London, N22 7SS, 020 8889 9436.  Now, there is even less information about this one (the pub used to hold a Wednesday quiz) as it was just a chalkboard glimpsed in passing which appeared to advertise a Sunday quiz.

Mondays:

The Bald Faced Stag, 69 High Road, N2 8AB, 020 8442 1201, which hosts film quizzes in collaboration with the Phoenix cinema, is starting a new Monday quiz on 23rd August.

The Woodman, 414 Archway Road, N6 5UA, 020 8340 3016, has just started a new Monday quiz.  It’s advertising an early start – 7.30 – but seems to get going around 8.00 and is offering a £60 first prize.

Tuesdays:

The Pilot Inn, 68 River Way, SE10 0BE, 020 8858 5910: £1 per player, winner takes the pot with free drinks for second place.

And for a Bank Holiday weekend one-off, try The Three Compasses in Hornsey for a charity music quiz in aid of the DEC Pakistan Floods appeal.  More details in ‘One-off quizzes’.

One nomination in for ‘worst quiz question ever’:  ‘How many seconds are there in a year?’  Some people were busily working it out and may even have reached the right answer, but the ‘correct’ reply and the only one accepted for any points was apparently ‘Twelve – the second of January, the second of February, etc’.  That is genuinely terrible.  In contrast to the post title, which at present is a genuine question from me.  I suppose I might have to go and investigate when I am finished…

Answers below to the Elephant round quoted last week, and you will now get the significance of the round title:  ‘An Item’ -

1 FRED COUPLES

2 LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

3 WOMAN

4 THE GIRL GUIDES

5 LITTLE BOY/ FAT MAN

6 GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

7 WHITE LADY

8 BATMAN

9 THE INVISIBLE GIRL/WOMAN

10 BOYZ II MEN

Well, NC says it is and what’s more he wants me to add ‘Knocks the P***** of W**** into a cocked hat’.  The quiz in question is the Elephant, which takes place on Monday nights in North Finchley.  Quizmaster is the redoubtable John Henderson, aka ‘Enigmatist’.  It’s a few mixed rounds, some of which are themed and you work hard to get the connection, plus a picture round.  It’s fast-moving and you’ve got to like anagrams too.  The added bonus for me is a beer I can drink, which is rare outside my county of origin – it’s bottled ‘Discovery’.

Is the picture entirely rosy?  No, it’s one of the dearest quizzes around – £2.50 per head to enter – and there’s no jackpot.  I’m also told that on the nights we’re not there (tee hee) the same team wins a lot of the time.

A sample round below, from last Monday, answers next week.

And follow this link for ‘proof’ that pub quiz customers spend more on alcohol than football fans:  http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=14&storycode=67682&c=1

“AN ITEM?”

1 SECURED FLOP is which golfer in anagrammatical disguise?

2 Released in 1998, what was the title of the Best of George Michael album?

3 Which single by John Lennon knocked his own “Imagine” off the top of the 1980 UK charts?

4 Which youth organisation was formed by Robert Baden-Powell in 1910?

5 What were the codenames for the atomic bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

6 In which film does Marilyn Monroe perform the song Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend?

7 A cocktail of gin, cointreau and lime juice, what was British spy Fred Leiser’s favourite tipple in John leCarre’s 1965 novel “The Looking Glass War”?

8 Alfred Thaddeus Crane Pennyworth was which superhero’s butler?…

9…and Sue Storm Richards is also known as which superheroine?

10 “End of the Road”, “I’ll make love to you”, and (with Mariah Carey) “One Sweet Day” were 1990s hits for which Grammy-Award-winning band?

A film quiz in Crouch End on 17 August  is in the ‘one-off quizzes’ section.  I might be there, you never know.  I have however said that I think film quizzes seem to be ‘afficionados only’ and while I probably know as much or as little about music as I do about films, I’ve won quizzes on the former but never on the latter.

Continuing our theme of resources for quiz players, we have a new site to consult.  This one hails from the Republic of Ireland (I surmise)  and aims to be  ‘a website for people to share pub quiz questions and to rate and discuss which ones are best or worst.’  There’s a prize of an Apple i-pod for the person  who writes the pub quiz question that receives the most votes from other people on the site by September.  Go to: http://www.quizbag.com/questions

Moving swiftly from questions we like to questions we hate, during the week NC gave me his nomination for ‘worst quiz question of the year’.  It was something like ‘Barry Simmonds joined a squad of five in 2008 to make them a squad of six.  Later they became a squad of seven. Who are they?’  Apparently a pointless question, especially given the context in which it was asked.  I’m not sure it equals ‘What river does Dublin stand on?’ in a quiz not far from the banks of the Liffey;  the uncritical QM having got all her questions from some book.  Or what about ‘What is Tarzan’s favourite carol?’  (answer:  ‘Jungle Bells’) and ‘What kind of lights did Noah use in the ark?’ (answer: ‘ Floodlights’), both emanating from the same quiz in supposedly intellectual N6.  Send me your worst examples…