The name 'Kiribati' comes from the local pronunciation of 'Gilberts'

A special guest edition of the ones that got away this week, as the doctor (@NoDrNo to you and me) has taken the reigns! (Apologies in advance.)

Your targets this week:

1+ out of 12: Well done, you beat us!
7+ out of 12: 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 has more registered cars than residents?
2) The average American Football game in the NFL is 60 minutes in length and plays out over 185 minutes of real time. For how many minutes in total is the ball in play? You can have 3 minutes either way.
3) A round called "Capital plus letters" in which one had to combine a country's capital, with 2 extra letters (in any positions) to give the answer: e.g. European capital - "to add a number to itself" Answer: Doubling (Dublin) European capital - "What might you call it when one of Santa's reindeer sleeps lightly?"
4) Which comedian was Google's top trend of 2014?
5) 2 point question: Which item appears uniquely on the flags of Guatemala and Mozambique?
6) 2 point question: Which US city was formerly known as Terminus?
7) 2 point question: What percentage of the US congress are millionaires (to within 5%)?
8) 2 point question: Which franchise has made more money, the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit movies (combined) or the James Bond franchise? NOT adjusted for inflation.

The answers

1) San Marino
2) 11 minutes (8 to 14 gets you the point)
3) "Vixen Nap" (Vienna plus "X" and "P")
4) Robin Williams
5) A rifle
6) Atlanta
7) 50.1% (45.1% to 55.1% for the points)
8) Bond, James Bond

Our excuses

1) We went with the Czech Republic, based on a whole lot of no real idea. Our guess was 37th (in vehicles per capita), one spot below Brunei, Czech out the full stats here. We had an idea it might be a micro-state but didn't really pursue that angle. The only things I know about San Marino are the things that I learned from a song they submitted to Eurovision that was... about how great Facebook is? Oh and I think Aryton Senna died there possibly. I'm not going to look it up (it might be Monaco), so you'll have to take my word for it.
2) We've watched a bunch of Canadian football games at the university here, and so have a rough idea of how punishingly slow these sports can be. However even we were not prepared for just how wasteful they are with one's time, and went for 28 minutes. Still I'd rather watch NFL than Cricket (which is why I was forced to leave the UK).
3) Did you know Macklemore is pronounced Mack-luh-more? I only just heard someone say it out loud for the first time on the radio right now. We were peeved to miss this answer, partly because we felt we'd missed a totally gettable answer, and partly because we were sad our answer of "Buck has rest" (Bucharest), was deemed invalid. We'd got away with "Using a spore" (Singapore) as "Something a scientist might do" though, so we were pretty happy with the quiz-clemency we'd already been granted and didn't push our luck.
4) Seems like a super obvious answer in retrospect, especially when you realise that Google's "top trending" metric is for the biggest *increase* in search queries. Presumably Williams had been largely forgotten until his untimely death. I think it also didn't help that I don't really have the same nostalgia for Robin Williams that a lot of my generation seem to have. Jesus and Darth Vader were probably the two most significant fictional characters in my childhood, leaving little room for a, doubtlessly Satanic, genie. I can't remember what we put as our actual answer. We're not really bang up to date with our comedians so we may have gone with something like Louis C.K..
5) We were aware of the existence of flags with guns on them, but decided to go with a bible, instead... which is not something we are aware of being on flags.
6) Our excuse for not getting this is because it's fundamentally tied to the history of trains in North America. I know "there is no knowledge that is not power" but c'mon mang, I've only got so much time to care about stuff, and trains didn't make the list. Oh, and we said San Francisco because I thought I'd seen a Kung-Fu movie set in "old west" california which was about trains.
7) We made the mistake of believing too much in the idea of the "land of opportunity" rather than plutocratic oligarchy. We went with 25%. This is what happens when 90% of what you know about the US comes from the cartoons An American Tail and Fievel Goes West. Although we did go to New York City and the streets were not paved with cheese, so now we don't really know what to believe.
8) Knowing that the question wasn't adjusted for inflation we went with the Tolkien movies, which famously made a fair bit of green on the red carpet. I guess one should not yet doubt the selling power of the last vestige of British Imperial Bastardliness.

How did you do? Would you have beaten us (1 or more points)? Would you have helped us win (7 or more points)? Don't forget the 2 point questions! 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) San Marino claims to be the "oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world", stemming from origins in a Monastic community founded in which century? (You can have a century either way.)
2) What is the name of the trophy awarded for winning the Super Bowl? It's the same as the surname of the Starfox Wingman (pun intended) usually known simply as Falco.
3) Capital plus letters: (South American Capital) "Reasonably reasonable".
4) Which word links the battle cry of the Lost Boys in the Robin Williams movie "Hook" and a track by Skrillex?
5) 2 point question: Which is the only non-quadrilateral national flag? Which is the only square national flag? (And by 'national', we mean pertaining to a country that's a full member of the United Nations blah blah blah.)
6) 2 point question: Which work of post-apocalyptic serial fiction (both a TV series and a comic), set in and around Atlanta, features a journey to a supposed "safe zone" called Terminus? (This is a 2 pointer for being a bit tough.)
7) 2 point question: The longest ever filibuster in the US congress was delivered by Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, as an attempt to block which 1957 Act from being passed? For a second point, which US President signed the Act into law?
8) 2 point question: Which actor has died in both a Lord Of The Rings film and a James Bond Movie? For a second point, name either both characters, or both movies.

The answers

1) 4th Century BCE, 301 BCE to be precise. (points awarded for 3rd, 4th or 5th)
2) The Lombardi trophy
3) Quite Ok (Quito - Ecuador)
4) BANGARANG
5) Nepal and Switzerland (1 point each)
6) The Walking dead (2 points)
7) The 1957 Civil Rights act and Eisenhower (1 point each)
8) Sean Bean (1 point) and Goldeneye/Fellowship of The Ring or Alec Trevelyan(006[Janus{Spoilers!}])/Boromir (1 point for either pair)

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

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