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 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
1) Sex on the beach
2) Vivian Ward
3) Mount Gay
4) Bhutan
5) Grenada
6) Montesquieu
7) 16
8) The Philippines
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
1) Yes, I know cocktails are important trivia, no, I still can't be bothered to learn them. Although really I shouldn't have to when the doctor has read a lot of a manga about bartending. It turns out our semi-educated guess of Woo Woo was surprisingly close to the mark: that's got an extra two parts cranberry juice instead of the orange.
2) Like most incredibly famous films I should have seen, I haven't seen Pretty Woman. The doctor has though, but still couldn't remember. We spent a while debating that it was an 'old woman name' before unenthusiastically putting 'Elizabeth'.
3) Snigger. Apparently the doctor thought of the correct answer but didn't say it in case he couldn't help laughing like a ten year-old. An eventual toss-up between Bacardi (1862) and Havana Club (1878) were well off Mount Gay's 1703 record.
4) One of those where I felt like I knew the answer, but when it was revealed realized I didn't. Apparently the mock election featured parties called Druk followed by a colour, with Druk meaning 'thunder dragon' (as depicted on Bhutan's truly bodacious flag). I'm not ashamed to admit that if I had the option to put an X next to 'Liberal Thunder Dragon Democrats' I might be more likely to sort out my postal vote.
5) I'd never heard of this, which means I'm going to comfort myself with the idea that it's a bit of North American geographical bias.
6) A question as hard as the answer is to spell, or at least certainly one that wouldn't be out of place on University Challenge. I'm not at all qualified to comment on political philosophy, but the Wikipedia page on separation of powers is worth a read.
7) A bit of overthink here. 16 seemed too obvious (so we figured somewhere would have it lower) but in fact has only been adopted by a relatively small number of countries.
8) One of those questions where you strongly suspect the answer isn't as simple as the quizmaster would have you believe. I am precisely as qualified to comment on democracy in the Philippines as I am political philosophy, but the map of 'electoral democracies' here is pretty eye-opening.
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
1) Bleeding Gums Murphy
2) Adrian Edmondson
3) Electric Six
4) Honah Lee (feel free to be generous with your spelling, Google certainly is)
5) Pomegranate
6) From left to right: the President, the Supreme Court, Congress
7) 65.1% (so anywhere from 60.1% to 70.1% suffices)
8) USA (3rd), Brazil (5th), Nigeria (7th), and Mexico (11th)
"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?
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!
Would I have got the Julia Roberts point for just 'Vivian' or did I need to know her surname as well?
ReplyDeleteSurname as well :( Although I should probably clarify that for future reference.
Delete"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?
ReplyDeleteI'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!
Delete