The term 'bobby dazzler' dates back to the mid-19th Century

What a pointless picture!!!!

Special announcement! Jamie Karran (the doctor) and I are selling our spare Pointless trophy. You can check out the auction here!

Specialer announcement! Also, don't forget to catch the Board Gamers in their Only Connect semi-final showdown against Quizzing Grand Masters (and Master) the Oenophiles on BBC 4 at 8.30pm tonight!

The team name: Warum heisst Kanada, 'Kanada'? Weil es gibt keine da. [The quizmaster was German, obviously.]

The attendees
1) The statistician
2) The doctor

The ones that got away

Question 3                                           Question 5               

1) The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement currently recognizes three symbols. Two of them are (predictably) the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. What's the other?
2) The earthquake of greatest magnitude on record occurred in which country?
3) Name the dog breed pictured.
4) Familiar to any bookworm, since 2007 how many digits are there in an ISBN (that is, an International Standard Book Number)?
5) What is this object pictured?
6) A group of which animal is referred to as a 'dazzle'?
7) Which novel opens with the sentence "You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings."?
8) How many essential amino acids are there?
9) Name the fictional character based on these clues:
    a) They take the prescription medicine clozapine
    b) They were an Arabic language student at Princeton
    c) They have trouble keeping their work and private life separate
10) Name the fictional character based on these clues:
    a) They were originally a carpenter but are now more associated with a different profession
    b) They are sometimes accompanied by a dinosaur
    c) Their brother is their sidekick.

The answers

1) Red Crystal
2) Chile (Valdivia, 1960)
3) Labrador Retriever
4) 13 (although before 1 January 2007 they contained ten digits)
5) Pascal's calculator (although if you said something along the lines of calculator or mechanical calculator you get the point)
6) Zebra
7) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
8) 9 (Histidine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan and Valine, as I'm sure you were wondering)
9) Carrie Mathison from Homeland
10) Mario (of Super Mario fame)

Poll results: 16 votes with the average voter scoring 2.6/10!

The excuses

1) A fun question, we toyed with various religious symbols and eventually plumped for wheel. The slightly silly looking Red Lion with Sun symbol is still recognized, but no longer in use.
2) Despite having read the relevant Wikipedia page, my memory jumped to the deadliest, rather than the heaviest, earthquakes, a list where China holds the top three spots.
3) I've never been able to decide whether I approve of 'name the breed' questions. We considered Labrador, and Retriever, before ultimately plumping for bloodhound.
4) Not the most interesting of questions, but in that class of "things you've seen lots of times" that makes it moderately enjoyable.
5) Frustratingly, both the doctor and I proposed the correct answer independently of one another but couldn't convince ourselves.
6) Ah, the inescapable collective noun question. I suggested unicorns (which, as the doctor pointed out, would be a 'blessing') before we decided 'a dazzle of fireflies' sounded quite nice.
7) A hugely frustrating question where, after considerable debate, we put down the correct answer. At the last moment, however, the doctor got a flash of 'inspiration' and we changed it to the Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
8) Not the doctor's greatest moment, this. Apparently you only need to know about it for the first two years of medical school. Or at least that's what he tells me.
9) While we're aware it's supposed to be jolly good, our combined knowledge of Homeland is summarized by the doctor as "there's a guy in it who's ginger, and I think the plot is about how could a ginger be a terrorist?".
10) A brilliant question. So good, in fact, that we didn't even feel too bad about missing something so ludicrously in our wheelhouse. Our last second answer of Jesus (to avoid the sin of not even guessing) may have focused a bit too much on the carpenter clue.

The alternative questions

Question 6

1) The International Committee of the Red Cross is the only organization to have won three Nobel Prizes. Four people and a United Nations agency have won two Nobel Prizes. Name either the specific organization, or one of the individuals.
2) The moment magnitude scale has largely succeeded which former scale used to quantify the magnitude of an earthquake? Media reports still often erroneously refer to the old scale.
3) Which fictional Labrador Retriever ostensibly died on an episode of a popular American TV show on November 24th this year (2013)?
4) ISBN codes are based on the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering code created for booksellers and stationers WH Smith. What do the initials WH stand for?
5) Which mathematician and mechanical engineer is considered a father of the computer? The London Science Museum boasts a difference engine built from one of his designs.
6) We are all familiar with zebra crossings, but which mythical animal lends its name to a pedestrian crossing designed with special consideration for horse riders (pictured)?
7) Though often dropped in modern editions, what is the subtitle of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?
8) The amino acid cysteine is a key component of keratin, important in forming skin and which two non-living materials of the human body?
9) The Great Seal of the United States features an eagle holding an olive branch in its right talon, and 13 of what in its left?
10) Nintendo has never revealed Mario's full name, but have confirmed that it is not which name, used in the 1993 live action Super Mario Bros. film?

The answers

1) Marie Curie (Physics and Chemistry), Linus Pauling (Chemistry and Peace), John Bardeen (Physics twice), Frederick Sanger (Chemistry twice), and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Peace twice).
2) Richter scale
3) Brian Griffin
4) William Henry
5) Charles Babbage
6) Pegasus
7) The Modern Prometheus
8) Hair and nails
9) Arrows (the number 13 referring, as with the 13 stripes in the United States flag, to the 13 original states)
10) Mario Mario