New to The Ones That Got Away? Find out what it's all about here (or just scroll down if you want some delicious quiz dissection).
The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
The ones that got away
1) How many EU member states were there in 2012?
2) What was the former brand name of car manufacturers Nissan?
3) Static occlusion, dynamic occlusion, and centric occlusion are all caused by a misalignment of what?
4) What traditionally mysterious, but increasingly transparent organization is casually referred to as 'The Craft'?
5) Which US State is known as the Beef State?
6) Rib, stretcher, runner, tube, ferrule and crookhandle are all parts of which commonly encountered protective device?
7) The litas is the currency of which country?
The answers
1) 27 (it's now 28; Croatia joined earlier this year - but don't go looking up a list unless you want to be spoilered for one of the bonus questions!)
2) Datsun
3) Teeth
4) The Freemasons
5) Nebraska
6) Umbrella
7) Lithuania
Poll results: 13 votes with 1 scoring 7/7 (!), 2 scoring 4/7, 1 scoring 3/7, 3 scoring 2/7 and 6 joining us on zero. The average voter scored just under 2/7!
The excuses
1) One I really should have learnt by now. Thanks to a question my team failed to get on University Challenge I knew that - two years ago - if you added the number of EU states to the number of EU languages you got 50, but this led me to 26 rather than the required 27. (By some coincidence a very similar question popped up on last week's episode, which is unfortunately now out of date as, with the addition of Croatia (and Croatian) that total is now 52.)
2) Cars are never our strong point, let alone car history. The origins of the name are quite interesting though, including a trip through 'Datson' which was altered to the current spelling as 'son' means 'loss' in Japanese.
3) Years of medical training paying off in style, we went with eyes (which was at least quite a common mistake in the pub on the night).
4) We got very distracted by the 'increasingly transparent' part of the question, convincing ourselves that it must be espionage (hence spycraft).
5) Here we seriously considered the correct answer for the most implausible of reasons. Having initially ruled out the obvious Texas (since we knew it as the Lone Star State) we remembered Nebraska as the childhood home of Penny from The Big Bang Theory, whose 'country' upbringing is frequently referenced. Unfortunately we ended up playing it 'safe', although given Nebraska's official nickname is the Cornhusker State it still feels like the sensible decision. (If you're interested in learning some state nicknames, then Wikipedia provides this rather excellent map.)
6) Incredibly, I had been reading the Wikipedia page on umbrellas mere days previously, and even linked a few people to this diagram ("who knew umbrellas were so complicated?").
7) Currencies are one of those quizzing staples I have never been bored enough to try and learn (unlike umbrellas which are apparently so exciting I can read about them and forget about them in a matter of days).
The alternative questions
Question 2!
1) Which is the most Westerly European country that is not a member of the European Union?
2) What was the first name of the founder of the Ford Motor Company (pictured)?
3) Occlusion is a common treatment for the eye disorder amblyopia in which one eye's vision is impaired due to poor visual stimulation. What two word name is amblyopia more commonly known by?
4) Another consideration for the 'craft' question above, which secretive organization's motto is indocilis privata loqui, literally translating to "incapable [of] speaking [of] private [things]"?
5) Which state's nickname isn't, but should be, 'the Cornwall of the US', as it only shares a border with one other state?
6) You hopefully know that the song Umbrella was a hit for Barbadian singer Rihanna, but which rap chap does it also feature?
7) While currency questions are boring, it is nevertheless vital to know the ones that sound a tiny bit rude. If you wanted to spend dongs and colons, then, which two countries should you visit? (One point each.)
The answers
1) Iceland
2) Henry
3) Lazy eye
4) The Magic Circle
5) Maine (also the only one syllable state, fact fans)
6) Jay-Z
7) Vietnam (for dongs) and Costa Rica (for colons). (El Salvador's colon is now out of circulation, alas.)
It's been a while (and two of us have successfully fled to Canada in the meantime), but tonight sees the long-anticipated return of myself, Jamie Karran and Hywel Carver to television screens across the country as we embark on our latest quizzing journey: Only Connect!
That's right, none of us has been on the box for over two years now, so what better remedy than trying our hand at, er, "TV's toughest quiz show" [citation needed]?
You've all probably forgotten who we are by now, so here's a quick refresher:
Hywel 'housewives' favourite' Carver
Quizzing CV: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (£20,000), University Challenge (semi-finalist).
"And that's a bad miss": Earned nationwide shame (on Millionaire) for not knowing who Emma Bunton's boyfriend was.
What he brings to the team: Unlike his teammates, Hywel is capable of functioning in normal society, an essential part of convincing (read: tricking) TV producers into letting you onto quiz shows. Furthermore, his parents' foresight in giving him a Welsh name helped the team reach Only Connect's Cardiff studios without arousing too much suspicion.
Michael 'Dr 100%' Wallace
Quizzing CV: Countdown (played 1, lost 1), Pointless (played 2, lost 2), University Challenge (played 2, lost 2).
"And that's a bad miss": Suggested (on University Challenge) that legendary batsman Sachin Tendulkar took 10 wickets in a one day international.
What he brings to the team: With a perfect record when it comes to not winning on quiz shows, Michael is quite clearly 'due a win'.
And their captain...
Jamie 'doesn't really look like Brian May' Karran
Quizzing CV: Pointless (scandalized the nation with jizz), The Chase (scandalized 'Frosty Knickers' Anne Hegerty by discussing Japanese tentacle monsters), University Challenge (scandalized Jeremy Paxman by shouting booby and uranus at him).
"And that's a bad miss": Thought (on The Chase) that Paddington Bear came from deepest darkest Africa.
What he brings to the team: With charm, charisma, an inscrutable fashion sense and an Xbox 360 Gamerscore of over 40,000, a better question is what he *doesn't* bring to the team. Oh, apparently he's terrible at lateral thinking. Good hair, though.
Together, we are the Board Gamers, hell bent on rainingdown quizzing destruction upon whoever dares challenge our dice-wielding might (assuming we can make the perception check to find the door to the studio first, of course). At some point I'll dig out the (very) long list of team names that we suggested but were rejected for being neither clever nor funny, despite at least two of them being puns based on the open source software movement!
Tonight we will be squaring off against the mysterious Globetrotters, about whom little is known so far. Could they be a trio of jet-setters ready to destroy us with their worldly wisdom? Perhaps they're very good at playing basketball and eagerly anticipating a new round made up entirely of putting-things-through-hoops based challenges? Or maybe they're a team of people who quiz together and needed to come up with a slightly tenuous connection for the show? (Not that we'd know anything about that last one, of course.)
The good news is that Only Connect's format means, win or lose, we will be gracing your screens at least one more time after tonight (the first round is a double elimination format: you have to lose twice before you're sent home). That doesn't mean losing is acceptable, however, and we'll be depending on full-throated support from all of our devoted fans to push us to victory (in a TV programme we recorded about 8 months ago). Understood? Good.
So, will our return to the telvisual arena see us come a cropper? Or will I break my duck and register a quiz show victory for the first time? Will the Canadians we've explained the show to understand any of it? And will Kaptain Karran say something inappropriate and/or idiotic? Ok, that last one's a given, but the answers to the other questions, along with all the ones on the show itself, will be answered tonight, BBC4, 8.30pm (3.30pm Eastern).
The ones that got away
1) Which Olympic field event was redesigned in 1986 following safety concerns?
2) In early editions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, what colour were the Oompa Loompas?
3) Which of these do not feature in the 1968 film Yellow Submarine? a) Blue Meanies b) Screaming Yellow Zonkers c) Butterly Stompers d) Snapping-Turtle Turks
4) Name any two of the original members of Black Sabbath.
5) The trade route known as the Silk Road ran from China to which European country?
6) Which dinosaur was described by its discoverer in 1903 as "the largest known dinosaur"?
7) What is SoHo short for? (Hint: this question refers to the area of New York, but if you know the origin for the similarly named part of London, you'll still get the point.)
The answers
1) The javelin
2) Black (they were African pygmies)
3) Screaming Yellow Zonkers
4) Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward
5) Italy
6) Brachiosaurus
7) South of Houston (Street) - the London area is thought to be named after a hunting cry
Poll results! A frankly shocking 3 votes with 1 scoring 3/7 and 2 scoring 1/7.
The average voter scored 1.5 out of 7.
The excuses
1) Javelin seemed too obvious, so we went with hammer (which has always struck me as a spectacularly dangerous bit of kit to be hurling around). Interestingly it seems the javelin redesign wasn't just down to safety concerns: a high frequency of 'flat landings' had also led to disquiet thanks to seemingly inconsistent measurement/disqualification criteria.
2) We both knew they were orange in the 1971 film, whereas in the 2005 version they were all played by Deep Roy (a Kenyan-born actor of Indian descent). A debate on whether a quizmaster would ask a question that required us to specify a 'colour' for a race of people followed, and so we eventually settled on orange, hoping that the emphasis on the word 'novel' in the question was to distinguish it from the more recent movie adaptation. Well at least we weren't accidentally racist.
3) We all know about Blue Meanies, of course, and we thought Snapping-Turtle Turks and Screaming Yellow Zonkers were a bit to weird to be made up. It turns out that the latter, while not being in Yellow Submarine, were not made up either: it's a brand of popcorn in the United States. Obviously.
4) Confession time: this isn't quite what was asked. The quizmaster actually wanted us to name the entire original lineup, but given that this seems about as hard as "name anyone in Black Sabbath who isn't Ozzy Osbourne" I thought this alternative phrasing was moderately more fair.
5) A touch embarrassing, we went with Turkey (which at least seems to be where the road part of the route just about ends up).
6) I've had to tweak the wording again to hopefully ease some frustration; this was asked as "what is the world's largest dinosaur?" which, as any moderate dinosaur-enthusiast will know, is not particularly well-defined. It's not even clear whether this means heaviest, tallest, or even longest, but the Internet reckons the Argentinousaurus is probably a pretty good bet.
7) Naively, we assumed the question was about London, and went with South Holburn, which I was pretty sure was wrong but was nevertheless quite pleased with. Turns out that it's more west than south (but wrong in any case), but at least our answer was technically consistent, which is almost as good as being correct. Maybe.
The alternative questions
1) Which is the only Olympic sport in which the women's world record is 'better' (faster, further, etc.) than the men's?
2) Which 1972 novel was Dahl's sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
3) Which 1970 Beatles documentary (sharing its name with one of their songs as well as a jukebox musical currently running in London) features their rooftop concert, their last public performance?
4) Ozzy Osbourne had three children with second wife Sharon. They are Kelly, Jack, and who?
5) Colloquially, a silk is concerned with which profession?
6) What does the word 'dinosaur' mean?
7) Which singer, who died in 2000 aged 41, has a memorial bench in Soho Square, London, inscribed with lyrics from her song about the park?
The ones that got away
1) In August 2013 which country passed a bill to legalize and regulate the production and sale of marijuana?
2) What gambling game derives its name from the French for toad, thanks to the hunched position of its players?
3) What alcoholic drink is strongly associated with the Kentucky Derby?
4) Spell the vegetable pictured, it (sort of) rhymes with sock-brolly. [In case you're wondering, in the quiz itself the QM just said the word, but that doesn't translate too well to a blog.]
5) Reflected by its logo, what does the company name Mitsubishi translate to?
6) Ciabatta bread is named after which type of footwear?
7) In the Vietnam War's Tet Offensive, what does the word Tet refer to?
8) Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises popularized which annual festive event?
9) The four most profitable banks in 2012 were from which country?
The answers
1) Uruguay
2) Craps
3) Mint julep
4) Broccoli
5) Three diamonds (from mitsu for three and hishi meaning water caltrop and hence(!) rhobmus)
6) Slippers
7) The (Vietnamese) New Year
8) The running of the bulls (in Pamplona)
9) China
Poll results! 10 votes with 1 scoring 6/9 and 5/9, 2 scoring 4/9 and 3/9, 1 scoring 2/9 and 1/9 and 2 joining us on zero.
The average voter scored 3 out of 9.
The excuses
1) First a bit of fact-checking. This (still) hasn't actually come into law, it just passed the House of Representatives (and still needs to be passed by the Senate), whereas at the quiz it was presented as already being in place. Not that would have helped much. We stuck by our usual rule of "if a country is being super-progressive, it's probably Scandinavia" and put Sweden.
2) Quite a good question, until you remember that we live in (French) Canada where almost everyone is bilingual, and if you know the French for Toad (crapaud) the question becomes "what gambling game sounds a bit like crapaud?". Also the 'hunched' clue was a bit of a false friend, as it refers to the hunched position of street craps players, rather than in the more familiar casino environment.
3) The only drink we could associate with Kentucky was bourbon (which is at least a constituent of a julep). On the plus side we have already profited from our new mint julep knowledge in a subsequent quiz.
4) These questions are great for making you unsure of anything. The only way to approach them is to get everyone to write down their instinct without thinking about it, and hope enough people agree. We didn't. Instead, we scribbled down the four 'options' of broccoli, brocolli, brocoli, and broccolli, with each one seeming definitely wrong at one point or another during the quiz. We tried to thrash it out based on our knowledge of Italian pronunciation, but it turns out we don't really know anything about Italian pronunciation either.
5) The doctor's love of all things Japanese meant we knew that bishounen means 'beautiful boy', and so bishi might conceivably mean beautiful. We also knew what the Mitsbuishi logo looked like, so hypothesized that 'mitsu' might mean 'rock', and so Mitsubishi could translate to 'beautiful rock', i.e. a diamond. Unfortunately, like many languages (but Japanese especially so) words can have multiple meanings (for example, we knew very well that 'san' means 'three', so were never going to get the three part of it). Alas, it thus seems any attempt to derive it from our knowledge of the language was doomed to failure from the start; we should have just focused on the logo.
6) "What types of footwear could arguably look like ciabatta?" "Hrm, slippers?" "Why would they wear slippers in Italy? It's really hot there" "Do they wear clogs?" "That's the dutch" "Yeah, but what about that guy in Pinocchio?" "What, Geppetto?" "Yeah, he was Italian and didn't he make clogs?" "He made puppets" "Yeah, but didn't he make clogs as well" "..." "..." "Ok fine, clogs"
7) A nice "you've heard of this thing but you don't know what it means" question. We went with the thoroughly uninspired (but handy catch-all) 'flower'
8) I think we were put off by the use of the word 'festive', although I don't think the omission of that word would have helped. I knew Hemingway spent a lot of time in Cuba, and because that's closer to Brazil than some other countries, suggested Mardi Gras.
9) We thought there were there possibilities: China (the 'obvious' answer), Switzerland (the other 'obvious' answer) and Canada (because we're in Canada, and they've famously ridden the recession quite well). The actual answer has proven quite hard to verify, though, with a source saying China is home to the top three being the closest I've found.
The alternative questions
1) What date has become an unofficial holiday in North America among cannabis enthusiasts, where people gather to celebrate and consume the drug?
2) In craps, what is the difference between rolling an 'easy' four, and a 'hard' four?
3) The Kentucky Derby forms one third of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. Name one of the other two.
4) To which family of plants does broccoli belong?
5) What number is diamond on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness?
6) What is the name of a toasted sandwich made from small loaves of ciabatta?
7) The Vietnam War is also known as the second what war?
8) What does Mardi Gras mean in English?
9) What is the largest city (by population) in China?
The answers
1) April 20th (or 4/20 in American form)
2) An easy four refers to one die rolling 3 and the other 1, a hard four refers to both dice rolling 2 (and so you're twice as likely to roll an easy four as a hard four)
3) Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes [I appreciate this seems ludicrously hard (and isn't very interesting); I only included it as it formed the basis of Egghead Pat Gibson's million-pound winning question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, so it has quizzing importance]
4) Brassicaceae/crucifers/cabbage
5) 10
6) Panino/panini
7) Indochina
8) Fat Tuesday
9) Shanghai
A curious property of TV quizzes is that there is often little correlation between effort and reward. Some shows offer huge prizes in return for particularly exceptional quizzing, while others reward only mild skill (or even plain old luck) with similarly enormous paychecks. The most peculiar extreme, however, features those shows that are the hardest by far to win, but offer virtually no prize whatsoever. Compare Mastermind, one of the toughest gigs in town, with Deal or No Deal, where contestants are asked (the same) yes or no question a few times. On the latter, and on a daily basis, players could win up to £250,000, on the former one contestant a year gets a fruit bowl.
Clearly then, people aren't applying for Mastermind for the money. Instead there's some intangible prestige associated with claiming this particular televisual title that keeps the contestants rolling up. Tell some hardcore quizzers you won a few quid off the Banker and they might feign mild interest, tell them you've won Mastermind and, well, you won't need to tell them because they'll have already tried to recruit you to their quiz league.
During a recent pub quiz someone suggested that Mastermind could be regarded as a 'quizzing Grand Slam'; one of those few tournaments where the title means more than any prize money that might come with it. (And while I'm well aware of how this sounds just a little bit silly in the cold light of day, it honestly made perfect sense after a few pints.) What followed was an inevitable debate over which other quiz shows could be considered Grand Slams, and whether we could pair them up with their real-life equivalents in tennis (other sports are available, but it was Wimbledon season). We decided that to qualify a show had to have no prize money, be currently televised (thus ruling out Fifteen to One, an otherwise obvious contender), and be 'bloody hard'. Your mileage may vary, but what follows is thus the entirely subjective view of a group of moderately squiffy quiz nerds.
"You should've chosen 'being a crybaby'
as your specialist subject!!!"
Wimbledon
The British classic can only be matched by one show: Mastermind. While not the oldest on the list, it is arguably the 'daddy' of TV quizzes with the greatest recognition even among those strange members of society who don't obsess over trivia. Sure, Andy Murray won the US Open last year, but it was his subsequent victory at Wimbledon that got the most attention. Win Mastermind and chances are even your hairdresser will be impressed.
The Australian Open
The youngest of the tennis grand slams, we thought University Challenge, with its inherently youthful flavour, was the best match. Another unashamedly tough quiz, it's possibly the hardest to win given the relatively strict eligibility requirement of being a student. While the Open University has seen some 'back door' routes into this title in the past, their lack of presence in the competition in recent years suggests that even that path may be closed for the time being.
The US Open
While the oldest of the lot, the radio-only presence of Brain of Britain
means it doesn't quite have the Wimbledon-esque significance of
Mastermind in the public consciousness. Nevertheless, there's no denying
the difficulty and importance of claiming this particular accolade in
the quizzing world. I'll admit the US Open analogy is more process of elimination than perfect match, but if you really want a tenuous link then let's say Brain of Britain's somewhat idiosyncratic question structure reflects the US Open's position as the only grand slam with final set tiebreaks. Uncanny.
The French Open
Rafael Nadal's skills at missing vowels
are a closely-guarded secret
With the French Open's clay courts setting it apart from the other three tennis Grand Slams, we felt the lateral thinking element of Only Connect made it a fitting final entry to the list. While perhaps too young to be a cast-iron consideration just yet, there is sadly little competition for this fourth and final spot. Whether it can stand up to the test of time remains to be seen.
Final thoughts
I don't doubt that many would argue with the above but I can at least claim not to be the only person to consider these shows as a quizzing 'big four'. Former Mastermind champion (not to mention Brain of Britain and Only Connect runner up) Dave Clark identified appearing on these four shows as one of '30 quiz experiences to try before you die' (which is a good read if you haven't already seen it), and various googling can throw up other similarly 'qualified' individuals espousing the virtues of every member of the list.
In any case they all certainly tick the boxes of having no prize money and being bloody hard. Indeed, with regards to the latter no-one has managed to win all four. To date Ian Bayley has come the closest, winning Brain of Britain in 2010, Mastermind in 2011, and is one third of Only Connect's all-conquering Crossworders. He also carries the rare distinction of having appeared on University Challenge twice, for two different institutions, but despite this is unable to complete the set. Clearly, if you want to achieve this holy quaternity of quiz shows, you need to start young.
The ones that got away
1) Which Beatles song features in the lyrics to Don McLean's American Pie?
2) Who was the first Hollywood actress to feature on a United States postage stamp?
3) Whose unmanned submarine-like vehicle Argo discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985?
4) True or false: the Indian elephant is endangered.
5) Which land animal has the longest tail?
6) Which country produces 'blue mountain' coffee, one of the most expensive coffees in the world?
7) In which decade was the first Indy 500 race?
8) Which film is based on the non-fiction book Wiseguy, chronicling the story of an individual named Henry Hill?
The answers
1) Helter Skelter
2) Grace Kelly
3) Robert Ballard
4) True
5) Giraffe
6) Jamaica
7) 1910s (1911)
8) Goodfellas
Poll results! 7 votes with 1 scoring 6/8, 2 scoring 3/8, 1 scoring 2/8, 2 scoring 1/8 and 1 joining us on zero.
The average voter scored 2-and-a-bit out of 8.
The excuses
1) This question taught me that I know far more of the lyrics to American Pie than I realized. Unfortunately it also taught me that there are some Beatles songs I've never even heard of.
2) Something of a crapshoot for us, although there was an exhibition at a local museum about Grace Kelly at the time, so a fair question.
3) Bit of a weird question, I thought, and we had no idea. The background to the discovery is quite a fun read though, as Ballard was on a semi-secret mission to look for two sunken nuclear submarines.
4) The flawless logic of "it's obviously true, so you wouldn't ask the question unless the real answer was false" scuppered us once again. (Although I stand by my rule that 'true or false' is guaranteed to be a Bad Question.)
5) Strangely I suggested the correct answer as a joke during our discussion (we both thought giraffes had particularly short tails for their size).
6) The only thing I know to put down when I hear 'most expensive coffee' is kopi luwak (AKA 'civet coffee'), so we took a punt on Indonesia.
7) Quite often going for the roaring 20s will stand you in good stead for this sort of question, but not this time alas.
8) I'm not entirely sure I've given this question a fair retelling, but in any case neither of us has seen Goodfellas (somehow), so not particularly frustrating.
The alternative questions
1) How many films are there in the American Pie franchise? (For a bonus point, name all of them.)
2) Which country was Grace Kelly the princess consort of from 1956 until her death in 1982?
3) Ballard also discovered which German battleship, sank by the British in 1941? Its sinking was the subject of a 1960 British film.
4) What is the name of the elephant character who first appeared in a 1931 children's book by Jean de Brunhoff? He would later feature in an English-language version of the same book by A A Milne and, perhaps most famously, a late 80s/early 90s cartoon series.
5) What is the closest extant relative of the giraffe?
6) The exceedingly rare 'blue bear' originates in which mountain range? It is thought to be one possible explanation for yeti 'sightings' in the area.
7) To what does the 500 in Indy 500 refer?
8) Goodfellas comes in at number 12 on Wikipedia's list of films that most frequently use the word `fuck'. Which other De Niro/Scorsese collaboration features at number five?
The answers
1) Four: American Pie, American Pie 2, American Wedding and American Reunion
2) Monaco
3) Bismarck
4) Babar
5) Okapi
6) The Himalayas
7) The length of the race: 500 miles
8) Casino
As most of you are probably aware, my partner and I recently moved to the surprisingly sunny shores of Canada. A considerable concern was of course how this would affect our pub quizzing which, given our average of about 2.5 a week for the last year in the UK, was set to take a bit of a nosedive. Fortunately we didn't make the decision to move country without serious preparation, so during a visit to Montreal last September we gave a Canadian quiz a test run. We scored 38/40 and won a $50 bar tab, so figured it was probably safe to cross the pond.
We've now been here a month and played rather more quizzes than I'd care to admit, so I thought I'd put (electronic) pen to paper to record my thoughts on what small part of the Canadian (and specifically Montreal) quiz scene I've been exposed to. Suffice to say this isn't the largest sample so I make no claims of it being particularly representative of the country at large, but there are hopefully some insights here which may be of interest.
The expectations
When it comes to expectations of 'the scene' abroad the first thing to acknowledge is that the UK is a bit weird about quizzes. As a nation we're responsible for some huge quiz show franchises (Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Weakest Link are the world's two largest) and even when we're not we have a tendency for putting our own rather unique spin on things (anyone who has seen the US version of Deal or No Deal and compared it to ours will know what I'm talking about). Off-screen, meanwhile, British quizzers dominate the World Quiz Rankings and since its inception in 2003 an Englishman (usually Kevin Ashman or Pat Gibson) has won every single World Quiz Championship title. Then, of course, there's the humble pub quiz. I don't think I know anyone who has never been to at least one, and a 2009 survey estimated there were 22,445 quizzes a week in the UK to choose from. That's a lot of Quiz Team Aguileras.
All this feeds into the expectation that the British are good at quizzing and, by extension, everyone else should be bad at it. Similarly, I didn't expect to find many pub quizzes here, let alone good ones, but was quietly hopeful that any I might find may prove a tad easier to win than those back home. The former proved to be a reasonable concern; there are certainly fewer options to scratch your quizular itch, but we have found a few, and I'll start with what the mood is like.
The atmosphere
One of the biggest differences I've noticed between quizzes here and in England is the noise. The British are, by our very nature, more than a little reserved. We don't care much for making a fuss, or shouting, or cheering (years of supporting our various sporting endeavours has presumably trained us out of this last one). You can forget about that here. Audience participation, be it applauding other teams, beating 'drum rolls' on the table, and even (to my horror) celebrating victory are both encouraged and expected. At our first quiz since moving here we were caught by surprise when it was revealed we'd won, and were subsequently admonished by the quizmaster for not celebrating properly. We have now taken to engaging in utterly hopeless high fives and suchlike despite it seeming terribly poor form.
A more minor observation, but interesting nonetheless, is that I've yet to encounter a quiz which expects you to cough up an entry fee. The prize is a modest bar tab ($50 or thereabouts) rather than a chunk of cash which, when compared with UK quizzes where prizes in the region of £100 are commonplace, could well discourage anyone from taking things too seriously (let alone cheating).
The questions
The style and subject of questions have, for the most part, been quite similar to what you'd expect in a UK quiz. It may be the types of venues we've been frequenting, but I can recall only one question about (ice) hockey and no more than half a dozen about North American politics or current affairs (where the British media's obsession with all things transatlantic has stood us in fairly good stead). The UK quiz obsession with US states, meanwhile, has prepared us reasonably well for some geography questions, although we're relatively weak in what I'd call 'peri-American geography' (Caribbean islands and the like) which carries an understandably higher trivia profile here. There are similar North American slants on history and culture, while music and film seem relatively similar to what we're used to.
The difficulty
Overall I'd have to say that Canadian quizzes (so far, at least) seem a touch easier than the UK. However, a significant part of this is, inevitably, down to the quality of the opposition. At time of writing the only quizzes we've lost were conducted in French, and while we weren't suicidal enough to go into them without a translator, there were some very French-centric questions that make them slightly anomalous from an anglophone's quizzing perspective. This isn't to say that we've been particularly spectacular though, as a look at our first Canadian ones that got away testifies. It seems that what constitutes 'standard' trivia to a regular UK quizzer is considered a bit more esoteric over here.
Regardless, I think it's fair to say that questions themselves are often fairly easy, even on areas we might not be expected to know. Dealing with the North American bias has proven fairly straightforward thanks to a passing familiarity with the most notable of famous literary and historical contributions of the continent, while we've been able to gain big advantages on any questions that stray into European or even UK-centric territory. (One quiz, to my continued disbelief, expected a pubful of Canadians to know which county Leeds Castle is in.)
The conclusion
So that's my (all of one month's) experience of quizzing abroad. Overall, a quiz is a quiz, and Canadians seem just as capable at putting them together as we are back home. They may be a bit noisier, but I'll put that down to British sensitivity over North American brashness, and to make up for it teams seem much quicker (and much more genuine) to offer congratulations to the winners. A less serious atmosphere, though not to everyone's liking, makes for a nice change, while the difficulty has seen us pick up enough winnings to make the moderately extortionate beer prices easier to swallow.
We have now successfully moved to Canda, home of maple syrup, moose and (eventually, I'm told) snow. They also have quizzes, although not as many as old blighty. There will be a Bonus Question about what Canadian quizzing is like in due course but for now I thought it was time to get back in the saddle of missed questions. Here, then, are the ones that got away from our first Canadian quiz.
The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The (retired) doctor
The ones that got away
1) What does UNESCO stand for?
2) Who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates?
3) In which year was the first Godfather movie released?
4) To which order did Mother Teresa belong?
5) How many US States begin with the same letter as their capital?
6) In which year did Elvis Presley die?
7) Which is the largest desert in the world?
8) Which country established the first permanent 'dark-sky preserve' - an area kept free of artificial light to promote astronomy?
9) In the TV series Dallas, who shot JR?
The answers
1) The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
2) Paul Allen
3) 1972
4) Sisters of Loreto
5) Four (Dover, Delaware; Honolulu, Hawaii; Indianapolis, Indiana; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
6) 1977
7) The Antarctic Desert
8) Canada
9) Kristin Shepherd
Poll results! 7 votes with 1 scoring 6/9, 1 scoring 4/9, 2 scoring 3/9, 2 scoring 1/9 and 1 scoring 0/9. The average voter scored 2.5 out of 9!
The excuses
1) The first of many trivia chestnuts that you will see from our Canadian quizzing caper. A question I'm pretty sure we've missed before (but can't seem to find it in this blog's archives) and certainly an inauspicious start. We made the same mistake I think we've made more than once before of thinking the E stood for 'environmental'.
2) Another one we really should have known (but equally would never have got with a week to think about it). We went straight for CEO Steve Ballmer, largely (in)famous for this particularly amusing video.
3) Another classic bit of trivia (although I've never understood the expectation that quizzers would know, let alone care, what year movies came out). I think we were asked something relating to this twice in one week vaguely recently in the UK, so another frustrating miss. Especially as we were one year out with 1973.
4) This one seemed bizarrely hard compared to the other questions we were getting wrong, but still perfectly fair game from a trivia perspective, I think.
5) The standard list question 'strategy' of "work out as many as you can and then add one for the one you've probably missed" cost us here; we identified the four and assumed we'd missed one. Fun question, though.
6) Yet another chestnut. I'm pretty sure we've been asked this on a UK quiz before but many, many years ago.
7) Oops. Worst miss of the night. It has been a long time since a QM has asked a question about deserts without prefacing it with "excluding the Antarctic/Arctic" so I really should have noticed the lack of this qualifier here. We of course went for the Sahara, the largest (non-ice) desert.
8) A first example of how quizzing abroad affects one's judgment. Had we been playing in any other country I would have guessed Canada, but assumed that were that correct it would seem a pretty strange/easy question to ask so went for somewhere in Scandinavia.
9) The fifth (and mercifully final) question of the night where we got it wrong despite having been asked it at previous quizzes. For some reason I'd got it into my head that no-one shot JR and it was all a dream, but it seems that was an entirely different Dallas storyline (see the 'live-action TV' section here).
The alternative questions
1) Which country has the most UNESCO World Heritage sites, with 49?
2) Which two words are abbreviated to form the name Microsoft?
3) Marlon Brando (awarded the Best Actor Oscar) and Al Pacino (nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscar) both refused to attend that year's Academy Awards ceremony. One point for each actor's reason for not attending.
4) In what modern day country was Mother Teresa born?
5) How many US State capitals have hosted the Olympics (summer or winter)?
6) Who achieved a UK number one single with a remix of Presley's 1968 A Little Less Conversation in 2002?
7) What name was given to a 169,000 square mile section of Antarctica by the British government in December 2012?
8) According to a 2013 study, which city had the worst light pollution in the world?
9) Which UK soap opera's 2001-2003 revival ended with the revelation that the entire series had been the dream of a supermarket worker?
The answers
1) Italy (China is second with 45, Spain third with 44)
2) Microcomputer and software
3) Brando turned down the Oscar in protest at the depiction of native Americans in Hollywood and television. Pacino claimed he had more screen time than Brando and so should have received a Best Actor nomination.
4) Republic of Macedeonia. She is usually described as Albanian, but was born in Skopje when it was part of the Ottoman Empire, but which is now the Macedonian capital. Some cursory Wikipediaing suggests that 'Albanian' can refer both to the country as well as an ethnic group, a fact to which I was previously ignorant.
5) Two: Atlanta (Georgia, summer 1996) and Salt Lake City (Utah, winter 2002).
6) JXL
7) Queen Elizabeth Land (and I'd be pretty strict on the answer here)
8) Hong Kong
9) Crossroads
