Thursday 20 March 2014

Pretty Woman saw the highest number of ticket sales ever in the US for a romantic comedy

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 8: Well done, you beat us!
2+ out of 8: We'd have won with you on our team!

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The oceanographer
4) The chemical engineer

The ones that got away
1) What cocktail contains 2 parts vodka, 1 part peach schnapps, 2 parts orange juice and 2 parts cranberry juice?
2) What is the (full) name of Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman?
3) What is the oldest existing brand of rum in the world?
4) Which country held mock elections in 2007 to prepare its citizens for democracy?
5) Which island nation's government was overthrown in a 1979 revolution?
6) Which political philosopher is associated with the division of government into three branches?
7) What is the youngest legal voting age in the world?
8) Which country was Asia's first democracy?

The answers


Poll results: 22 votes. 14 of you did better than us of which 4 would have helped us win! A tough set this week: the average voter scored 1/8.

The excuses


The alternative questions
1) Which The Simpsons character's first (and only) album was titled Sax on the Beach?
2) Who played Vyvyan Basterd in the BBC's cult classic The Young Ones?
3) Which band, who to my surprise are apparently still together, reached number 5 in the UK Singles Chart in 2003 with the song Gay Bar?
4) According to the song by Peter, Paul and Mary, in what land did Puff the Magic Dragon live?
5) Although now often flavoured with blackcurrant, grenadine was originally made using the juice of which fruit?
6) Pictured below are three seals representing one individual, or group, from each of the executive, judicial and legislative branches of the United States government (but, in true University Challenge style helpful wording has been removed). You don't need to identify which is which, but can you name all three?
Question 6
7) To within 5% (above or below), what was the turnout at the 2010 UK General Election? As a clue, the Conservative Party received votes from a little over 23% of those eligible to do so.
8) The Philippines is the seventh most populated country in Asia, and the 12th most populated country in the world. Russia (most of whose population lives West of the Urals) is one of the five non-Asian countries that beat it; name three of the other four.

The answers

4 comments:

  1. Would I have got the Julia Roberts point for just 'Vivian' or did I need to know her surname as well?

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    Replies
    1. Surname as well :( Although I should probably clarify that for future reference.

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  2. "Russia (most of whose population lives West of the Urals) is one of the five non-Asian countries that beat it" - does Russia west-of-Urals count as Europe then?

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    Replies
    1. I'm not much of a geographer, but my understanding is that 'Europe' is not spectacularly well-defined, but a fairly common definition considers the Urals forming its Easternmost border. However, I think this is demonstrating a good lesson for setting a question: if you have to start getting into technicalities you should either rephrase or scrap it, as I should've done here!

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