British Summer Time was first established by the Summer Time Act

Your targets this week:

We won this week, but could you have done even better?

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor
3) The DJ-woman
4) The DJ-man
5) The mystery woman
6) The mystery man

The ones that got away
1) In the 'board game' Guess Who? are there more characters with white hair or red hair?
2) How many slots are there in a standard Connect Four set? (By 'slots' we mean the number of possible positions for a piece to end up; i.e. how many circular holes are there?)
3) The clocks recently went forward in Canada, but what does DST stand for in this context? Be careful - one letter wrong and you'll not get the point.
4) How many cards is each player dealt in a game of Omaha poker?
5) 3 point question: The largest Mediterranean island is Sicily. What are the second- and third-largest Mediterranean islands? You need both for 3 points (you get nothing if you only get one).
6) 3 point question: Of what is ombrology the study?

The answers

1) Red (5 have red hair, 4 have white hair)
2) 42 (it's 7 wide and 6 tall)
3) Daylight Saving Time (not 'Savings')
4) 4
5) Sardinia and Cyprus
6) Rain

Our excuses

1) An obvious toss-up (especially given how close the options were). We figured white seemed more likely as it would include more senior characters (plus red hair is kinda rare to begin with). This was one of a multi-part question on Guess Who? characters, beginning with whether there were more women or men (a rather easier question given a previous furore).
2) I was pretty certain there were seven rows (remembering that four in a row from either corner would meet in the middle), so the only question was how many columns. My instinct was a 7x6 grid, and some sketching in my notebook looked reasonable, but then doubt crept in as other team members favoured a 7x5 approach. Ultimately I decided I'd be more annoyed if the answer was 35 and I'd insisted on 42, than vice-versa, and we went with the former.
3) The warning about 'one letter wrong' made the doctor and I assume that the answer was 'Daylight Savings Time', because we both thought it was 'Daylight Saving Time' and so it seemed a weird clarification otherwise. Good meta-ing from us.
4) The DJ-man reckoned the answer was seven, and for some reason this really rang a bell with me so I was quite happy with it. (I've tried some google-fu to see if there's another form of poker where each player gets seven cards which I might have been exposed to, but I can't seem to find any.)
5) We got Sardinia, but followed it up with Corsica to cost us a big three points. While Cyprus, somewhat embarrassingly, didn't even cross our minds, it's a moderately close-run thing between it and Napoleon's birthplace.
6) The similarity to 'umbra' had us thinking shady thoughts, but we never really came close, eventually going with 'colour theory' as a potentially topical subject.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more points)? Let the world know with the poll below, then read on for my alternative questions (loosely) inspired by this week's Ones That Got Away!


My alternative questions
1) Which is the largest country (by area) whose flag comprises only white and red?
2) Assuming red plays first, how many possible positions are there in a game of Connect Four after each player has placed one of their discs? (Note: you don't have to simply work out every possibility by hand!)
3) A successor to Greenwich Mean Time, the primary standard by which the world regulates time is known as UTC. For what words do the letters UTC stand? You can answer in French or English, although amusingly the words do not follow the order UTC in either language.
4) In poker, what is the more common name of an ace-high straight flush?
5) Each of the following authors wrote a book (or books) with the word 'island' in the title. For one point each, name the book:
a) Robert Louis Stevenson
b) H. G. Wells
c) Bill Bryson
6) The answers to the following questions all begin with U, M and B. For one point each, what is:
a) An Italian region whose capital is Perugia?
b) A British sportswear brand, founded in 1942?
c) A brand of juice drink produced by Sumol + Compal, purportedly consumed in sub-Saharan Africa?

The answers

1) Canada
2) 49 (both players have 7 slots to choose from, so after one move each the total number of possibilities is 7x7 = 49)
3) Coordinated Universal Time (or Temps Universel Coordonné)
4) A royal flush
5) Treasure Island, The Island of Doctor Moreau (or Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island, or Æpyornis Island if you're feeling fancy), and Notes from a Small Island
6) Umbria, Umbro and Um Bongo

How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!

Tweet