Each week, quiz obsessives and Only Connect champions
Jamie Karran (@NoDrNo) and Michael Wallace (@statacake) take on the pub quizzes of the world.
Find out every Friday if you could have helped with the questions they got wrong.
Thursday 1 October 2015
The US title of Murder on the Orient Express was Murder in the Calais Coach
It's another Ones That Got Away special brought to you by the doctor! I'm currently swamped with work so you're getting the occasional treat of his take on things. Good luck!
Your targets this week:
1+ out of 6: Well done, you beat us! 3+ out of 6: We'd have won with you on our team!
The attendees 1) The statistician 2) The doctor
The ones that got away 1) Which European country drinks more coffee per capita than anywhere else in the world? 2) In what decade was Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express set? 3) Which TV show introduced The Simpsons? 4) What sport was once contested with a spadroon? 5) What is the world's highest capital city? 6) Which South African city is overlooked by Table Mountain?
The answers
1) Finland 2) 1920s 3) The Tracey Ullman Show 4) Fencing 5) La Paz 6) Capetown
Our excuses
1) We put Italy, having never once considered Finland, mainly because of their tradition of "suspended coffee" making them seem like a country who take their roasted bean drinks very seriously. (Although remember, coffee ain't actually a bean, it's a seed... that's one to annoy people with at parties). Seems like one of those trivia you never know until you do, and when you do, you never forget. 2) The lion's share of our deliberation over this question was about "that one Doctor Who episode where Agatha Christie fights a giant wasp". Whilst a deeper Whovian knowledge would have given us 1926 as the date that episode was set, our inability to remember incidental (non-vespiform) details led to us being about 30 years off... which i think is pretty ok really. 3) Classic, if a tad obscure, trivia due to the collossal cultural impact of El Simpsones (Spanish name for the show, probably). We were just like "well we have no idea, so let's put something of the form 'The [person's name] Show' yeah?". Turns out that The Larry Sanders Show is actually a sitcom starring Garry Shandling. So there you go. 4) Spadroon sounded like "ye olde Englishe" to us and the sword in question's wikipedia page is a stub, which doesn't shed much light on the matter. Our guess of football was based on the idea that perhaps "spadroon" sounded an appropriate name for an inflated pig's bladder. It's not, but you've gotta have a go, right? 5) I'm basically pants at geography, having almost wholly outsourced it to my glamorous assistant. Everyone was thinking South/Central America and since Machu Picchu is in Peru and looks quite high up in pictures, we went with Lima. The elevation of Machu Picchu is 2,430m (oh?), Lima is 2672m (looking good!) and La Paz is 3,650 m (nooooooo). 6) We watched SO MUCH of the 2010 World Cup, in South Africa, and apparently have literally nothing to show for it. Sad :(
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 1906, Finland became the second country in the world to practice universal suffrage. Which island nation (coincidentally one of the first to popularise the Flat White coffee) was the first to do so, in 1893? 2) The Agatha Christie novel And Then There Were None, takes its title from the final line of which children's rhyme about the varying fates of a number of small native Americans? 3) Published weekly between 1977-2012, what is the name of Matt Groening's comic strip about the darkly comedic lives of a group of rabbits? 4) With a name literally translated as "sword way" what Japanese martial art, in which practitioners endeavour to strike one another with wooden or bamboo swords, is similar to fencing but way cooler? 5) La Paz's full name is 'Nuestra Señora de La Paz', meaning 'Our Lady of...' what? 6) Which 2004 animated movie contains an extended diatribe by superhero fashion designer Edna Mode, about the significant safety hazards presented by capes?
The answers
1) New Zealand 2) Ten Little Indians 3) Life In Hell 4) Kendo 5) Peace 6) The Incredibles
How did you do on my alternative questions? Have another poll!
Your alternative question 2 is... questionable. Identifying the correct titles of both the original book and the nursery rhyme is considerably more complex than you imply. Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None
I see what you're saying, however I *think* the question is still unambiguous, as the rhyme, referenced by the title of the original book, is ultimately based on the original Ten Little Indians rhyme, and the question mentions Native Americans. Perhaps I shall change some wording.
Dang, where was this one? Not only did I answer 1, 3 and 5 clean & correct, but I successfully stabbed at two and six. I either feel very smart for getting 5/6 on the ones that got away, or very stupid because it is absolutely possible that this is from a quiz I wrote.
Your alternative question 2 is... questionable. Identifying the correct titles of both the original book and the nursery rhyme is considerably more complex than you imply. Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None
ReplyDeleteI see what you're saying, however I *think* the question is still unambiguous, as the rhyme, referenced by the title of the original book, is ultimately based on the original Ten Little Indians rhyme, and the question mentions Native Americans. Perhaps I shall change some wording.
DeleteDang, where was this one? Not only did I answer 1, 3 and 5 clean & correct, but I successfully stabbed at two and six. I either feel very smart for getting 5/6 on the ones that got away, or very stupid because it is absolutely possible that this is from a quiz I wrote.
ReplyDelete