We won this week, but could you have done even better?
The attendees 1) The statistician 2) The doctor 3) The programmer 4) The entrepreneur 5) The comet 6) The antipodean
The ones that got away 1) In what year was the first Rush Hour movie released? 2) Who is this a caricature of? 3) On a list of the world's largest islands, where does Britain rank? 4) Which London bridge crosses the Thames between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge? 5) Who was the last member of the Beatles to marry? 6) Which world famous band were originally called Feedback? 7) Which 'Alan' is this? 8) What was the title of Take That's first UK number one single? 9) Which charity uses the slogan "Refusing to ignore people in crisis"?
Questions 2 (left) and 7 (right)
The answers
1) 1998 2) Steve McQueen 3) 9th 4) Waterloo Bridge 5) Paul McCartney 6) U2 7) Alan Dale (apparently most notable for playing Jim Robinson in Neighbours) 8) Pray 9) The (British) Red Cross
Our excuses
1) An old regular feature of the blog makes a reappearance, thanks to us (as seemingly always) going one year out with 1997. 2) We spent a long time debating whether it was Daniel Craig or Frank Sinatra, before going with Jeff Goldblum at the last minute. Obviously. 3) There was some debate about whether we thought the quizmaster would count Australia as an island or not (he didn't), and in the end we were agonizingly close with eighth. 4) This was a London quiz, so should have been gettable, but we went (very) wrong with Tower Bridge. 5) As I'm sure you're desperate to know, the order of (first) marriages goes Lennon (1962), Starr (1965), Harrison (1966) and then McCartney (1969). Mmm, fascinating. 6) Spending our time thinking of bands whose music we thought could be described as "a bit feedbacky" we dabbled with Nirvana before putting down Muse. Reading up on U2, it seems Feedback was their very first name before changing to The Hype, the latter of which at least rang a bell. 7) As the hardest question on a picture sheet full of Alans, it's not too surprising we missed this. My notes tell me we put Alan Jackson, who the Internet suggests is an American singer with a cowboy hat. 8) After a previous quiz asked us for Blondie's first single, it was a similar story here as we tried to pick a random Take That song and hope for the best. Once again this seems a very tough ask, with the band having four top 10 hits before Pray. 9) Influenced, I suspect, by the question putting the charity Crisis in mind, we went with Shelter, another homeless advocacy group.
How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more correct)? 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
Question 2
1) Meaning 'Fragrant Harbour', where was Jackie Chan born? 2) A caricature question gives me an excuse to revisit a past favourite: which world leader currently on the election trail has been painted by George W. Bush here? 3) Of the 10 largest islands in the world, 3 belong exclusively to one country - which country? 4) Situated near Blackfriars Bridge, which tower was built with two circular and one cross-shaped window to (ostensibly) subvert advertising laws? 5) Who is the only one of Henry VIII's wives to not share a Christian name with any other? (Full name, please.) 6) Mostly found in the Mojave Desert, the plant yucca brevifolia was given its more common name of Joshua tree by a group of settlers of what religion? 7) With over 7,000 episodes to date, Neighbours is (unsurprisingly) the Australian TV show with the most episodes. Which is the only episodic UK show to have more? 8) One of those 'tricks' quizmasters occasionally like to throw around is that the Robbie Williams classic Angels never reached the top of the UK singles chart. In fact, it peaked at a meagre number 4 in early 1998. That week coincided with the UK release of what hugely popular Celine Dion track? 9) A quizzing chestnut to finish: the International Committee of the Red Cross is one of only two organizations (along with just four individuals) to win more than one Nobel Prize. The other is the UNHCR, but what does the R in UNHCR stand for?
The answers
1) Hong Kong 2) Stephen Harper (Canada's current Prime Minister) 3) Canada (Indonesia features on three of the 10 largest islands, but shares Borneo with Brunei and Malaysia, and New Guinea with, you guessed it, Papua New Guinea; and never assume a quizmaster won't ask highly related questions!) 4)The Oxo Tower 5) Jane Seymour (I ask this moderately dull question as an excuse to tell you of my 'Henry's Wives Order Mnemonic'. Just remember CAJACC (or 'cadge-ack' out loud) and that each non-unique wife is in alphabetical order: Aragon, Howard, and Parr for the Catherines, Boleyn and Cleves for the Annes. Admittedly you need to know the names in the first place, and it sounds really dumb and complicated, but I've had this do the trick on several horrible "who was his nth wife?" questions.) 6) Mormonism (the tree's shape reminded them of a story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer) 7) Coronation Street (with over 8,000; Emmerdale is only about 200 behind Neighbours, however) 8) My Heart Will Go On (I'm afraid you don't get the point for "oh, that song from Titanic, y'know, near...far...duh-duuh-duuh-duh-duuuuuh") 9) Refugees (it's the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)
How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!
We're back from our UK travels, so this week (and possibly a few more) will feature questions from the British side of pub quizzes. Sorry the blog has been a bit erratic while we've been away - there likely won't be an update next week but after that things should be back to normal!
Your targets this week:
1+ out of 8: Well done, you beat us and we'd have won with you on our team!
The attendees 1) The statistician 2) The doctor 3) The historian 4) The gardener 5) The astronomer
The ones that got away 1) Who sings the opening line of the original (1984) Band Aid single Do They Know It's Christmas? 2) How is the musician Graham McPherson better known? 3) What was Blondie's first UK number one single? 4) Which comedy duo performed the 1991 Comic Relief single The Stonk? 5) Taking place at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, in what year was the Beatles' final live concert? 6) Which 1980 comedy film features the character Ted Striker? 7) Which product used the slogan 'Splash It All Over'? 8) Give the first names of the four main characters from The Young Ones. You need all four for the point.
The answers
1) Paul Young 2) Suggs 3) Heart of Glass 4) Hale and Pace 5) 1966 6) Airplane! 7) Brut 8) Mike, Neil, Rick, Vyvyan
Our excuses
1) Ah, barely back in the country five minutes and we were getting questions wrong about Band Aid. The only line 'famously' sung that we could think of was Bono's "thank God it's them instead of you", and while it seemed unlikely he'd do that and the opening, it seemed a better guess than a blind pick of another name on the single. 2) One of the pleasures of living abroad is not having to remember every British celebrity's stage name (admittedly, there are North American equivalents, but they seem somewhat rarer). Bono (real name Paul Hewson, obviously) was once again our go-to guess. 3) This seems a case of "pick a famous Blondie song and hope for the best", especially when Hanging on the Telephone was an earlier single but 'only' got to number 5. Our guess of One Way or Another both came out after Heart of Glass and wasn't even released as a single (although it did reach the giddy heights of 98 via downloads of a 2013 cover/mash-up of the song by One Direction). 4) Possibly my favourite question to ask our regular teammates here in Canada. French and Saunders seemed a reasonable stab for a question I'm unashamedly playing the 'before our time' card on. 5) Using the age-old tactic of averaging the guesses of each team member, we landed on 1969, so not particularly close. (Although we can claim a moral victory as that happens to be the year they made their unannounced rooftop appearance, which was their final public performance, if not a 'concert' in the eyes of the quizmaster.) 6) Not recognizing the name, we picked The Naked Gun as the only 80s comedy film we could think of (as it turns out, we were off by some way, with the first of the series released in 1988). At least Airplane also featured Leslie Nielsen. 7) A tossup, with Old Spice or Brut the obvious(ish) options. Curses. 8) I think this question really amounts to "do you remember Mike?". As someone who is firmly a Michael, and not a Mike, I naturally didn't.
How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more correct)? Would you have helped us win (3 or more correct)? 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) In November 2014 Do They Know It's Christmas was re-recorded (again), but with a number of changes to the lyrics. The line "thank God it's them instead of you" seemed particularly inappropriate, as the single was in aid of which crisis? 2) After years spent searching for information about his estranged father, Suggs claims he only learned of his 1975 death after reading what online? 3) What word links a 1980 number one single for Blondie and the girl group who took a cover of The Tide Is High to number one themselves in 2002? 4) Bringing things moderately more up to date, which author wrote two books - one about fictional creatures, the other about a fictional sport - to help support Comic Relief in 2001? 5) At the time of their last performance, Candlestick Park was home to which Major League Baseball team? The team would subsequently move to what is now known as AT&T Park, and have won (as of August 2015) three of the last five World Series. 6) Which 2001 Baz Luhrman musical film, like Airplane!, contains an exclamation mark in its title? 7) What is the German spelling of the city of Cologne? 8) When The Young Ones featured Scumbag College taking on Footlights College in an episode of University Challenge, one question asked "Who said 'Lawks-a-lordy, my bottom's on fire'?". While Kendal Mintcake (Ben Elton) was given the points for 'Lenin', which 15th Century martyr was the answer on the card?
The answers
1) The Ebola crisis 2)His own Wikipedia page ('Wikipedia' is good enough for the point) 3) Atomic (the band being Atomic Kitten) 4) J. K. Rowling 5) The San Francisco Giants 6) Moulin Rouge! 7) Köln (and because I'm feeling nice, I'll accept Koln) 8) Joan of Arc
How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!
