BH quiz #24
It's gone to a title play-off decider. Next week at the Priory Arms in Stockwell, we see us face-off against Allsorts for the Division I title. And no, we do not have a open-top double decker ready to conduct us through the cheer-filled streets of Farringdon. We might just have a quiet celebratory pint.
We won 51-40, which is a bit surprising truth be told. You don't normally beat Allsorts so comfortably, but when we totted up the 2-point count - 20 to their 9 - then it's quite easy to see why. Getting our own questions made the difference. The only shakey period was at half-time which saw them draw level after our bad fourth round. However, composure was restored. I was quite worried about my own contribution, just two points in the first half, but then scored enough to make it into double figures. Yet again my policy of remaining completely stoical about it all paid off. Nervousness was not triggered by Mark Bytheway shaking me like I was a delirious disaster survivor, and only me, by the shoulders and highlighting the presence of Kevin directly opposite me, just before the first question was asked.
Yet again all four players scored over ten which someone remarked might be something of a record. Taking my compulsion of highlighting whatever tiny error we have succumbed to, Sean said Kim and Jackie, when the How Clean is Your House? presenters are Kim and Aggie (apart from that he was top-like), and my passing the signature of the Bishop of Durham because I thought Dunelm (the actual answer) sounded and read a bit silly. So you see, we have begun to split the already split parts of hairs.
Stainer even took to criticising the whole team for not immediately getting Warren Buffet as the second richest man in the world. This is because he is the only member of the squad who pays attention to business pages. The rest of us read 3am and Richard Littlejohn, obviously. I came up with it probably because he was the only person I could think of who dealt in hedge funds, that was a relief. Yet I pronounced it as you would the food selection or Phoebe from Friends's surname. No hard 't'. I've never heard it said before, m'kay? Even Jesse erred on both geography-related questions on golf courses and shipping forecast areas (naughty Jesse!) , but he is always forgiven. Still, we did score over 50. And didn't give too much away.
Here's where the paranoia comes in: Yet our memories are long. We shall not be complacent. Yadda yadda yadda. But the thing is can we keep this up? Dunno really. Some days the questions don't fall for you. Hopefully, such a day will not coincide with next Tuesday. Fingers crossed.
BoLoQaly
As for Brain of London qualifying, once I settled down to the paper I did feel as if crucial parts of my brain were missing and that I was in no fit state to do a written quiz (they should be done in the morning; it should be the law, I tells ya). That taught me for being so lackadaisical, and ill-prepared, at last year's BoL. I scored 31 out of 50 in the end which was okay, but still galling due to the matter of six dropped points or SHKs (Should Have Knowns). I couldn't remember AS Byatt being the Booker Prize winning sister of Margaret Drabble (Jesse quoted back to me: "You know nothing about literature" - touche, sir), neither that Margaret Lake is better known by the name Mytsic Meg, nor that Julian the Apostate was the last pagan Roman emperor (I settled for Diocletian far too early). And I crossed out Inverness and put Hull for the A9 road that bears south from Kessock into which city, probably because an idiot lives in me that thrives on making me shoot myself in the foot. Bayley, who marked my paper, goes "ooh yes, bad luck!", and it doesn't make me feel any better. BH's scored from 30 through to 34, with Kathryn, who wasn't even playing during the evening scoring 34. Six of us should go through to the final 32 on March 28. Moby got 33 and has another chance to tell the denizens of Swindon just how murderously competitive Brain of London is. He had a nasty first round draw last year. Much like Mark Labbett, who got me, Bayley and John Grant. And let the record state that Kevin got about 39, despite being unable to answer pen about the pasta question on quill-like shapes when he has eaten it hundreds of times.
But let's get back to me, moi and myself.
Cue the overblown cries of despair, dropping six points, makes me feel like I'm losing sight of the wood for the trees. I am having Stainer-like paroxysms of doubt. My all-round game needs improving. If I can actually pinpoint what it is. I think all I have to do is keep remembering what I've learnt. A simple and slightly silly axiom yes, but If I do that, it should be plain sailing.
This lot is from my scant London notepads since the vast majority of questions are back home, so expect them to be slightly mundane.
1. Established by the owner of a coach-building firm, what was Britain's best-known circus until its final season in the winter of 1966?
2. WH Auden's libretto for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress was written in collaboration with which US poet, who happened to be his companion for the last 30 years of his life?
3. The Belfort Gap is situated between which two European mountain ranges?
4. Known for such other hits as Pretty Blue Eyes, A Hundred Pounds of Clay and Oh Lonesome Me, which man topped the UK charts for four weeks in 1959 with Only Sixteen?
5. Which artist live at Les Collettes at Cagnes, near Nice, from 1907 until his death in 1919?
6. Oliver Sven-Buder has been the 'perennial brides-man' in which field event?
7. Which Dukes live at Floors Castle?
8. Which worker at the Brown-Firth research laboratory in Sheffield is most commonly credited with inventing stainless steel in 1913?
9. Which Chinese athlete equalled Colin Jackson's 110m hurdles record at the 2004 Olympics?
10. Which team won the first ever professional game of American football on August 31, 1895, beating Jeannette Athletic Club?
11. Which British-Ottoman-Turkish-Armenian man (1869-1955) entered his father's oil business in Baku in 1888 and later organised international oil company mergers and negotiated oil concessions between the US and Saudi Arabia?
12. What technical term, from the Greek for 'stretching or increasing in intensity' is applied by grammarians of late antiquity to that part of the drama in which the plot action begins to rise to the climax?
13. Heimaey, one of Iceland's chief fishing ports, is the largest of which islands?
14. Who played Higgins on TV show Magnum PI?
15. Where is the French Derby or Prix du Jockey Club run?
16. Who became the first King of France in 751?
17. MADMS, is a Czech political party and movement for the autonomous democracy of which two regions?
18. Held at Ribadesella in northern Spain each year, the Sella Descent is an international long-distance event in which sport?
19. Also called French green lentils, which lentils are grown in the volcanic soils of the region of France that give them their name?
20. Which saint, who died of a tumour on her neck, is said to have founded Ely Cathedral?
Answers to BH #23
1. Silla 2. Sir Edward Coke 3. 13 4. Allia 5. Kinsale 6. Winterlude 7. Fort McHenry 8. Charleston 9. Joyous Gard 10. Gerhart Hauptmann 11. George Crabbe 12. Louis Armstrong 13. Djibouti 14. Rahman Mujibur 15. Etruscans 16. Alexander Scriabin 17. Eileen Collins 18. Mitral valve 19. Thallium 20. Herring gull
We won 51-40, which is a bit surprising truth be told. You don't normally beat Allsorts so comfortably, but when we totted up the 2-point count - 20 to their 9 - then it's quite easy to see why. Getting our own questions made the difference. The only shakey period was at half-time which saw them draw level after our bad fourth round. However, composure was restored. I was quite worried about my own contribution, just two points in the first half, but then scored enough to make it into double figures. Yet again my policy of remaining completely stoical about it all paid off. Nervousness was not triggered by Mark Bytheway shaking me like I was a delirious disaster survivor, and only me, by the shoulders and highlighting the presence of Kevin directly opposite me, just before the first question was asked.
Yet again all four players scored over ten which someone remarked might be something of a record. Taking my compulsion of highlighting whatever tiny error we have succumbed to, Sean said Kim and Jackie, when the How Clean is Your House? presenters are Kim and Aggie (apart from that he was top-like), and my passing the signature of the Bishop of Durham because I thought Dunelm (the actual answer) sounded and read a bit silly. So you see, we have begun to split the already split parts of hairs.
Stainer even took to criticising the whole team for not immediately getting Warren Buffet as the second richest man in the world. This is because he is the only member of the squad who pays attention to business pages. The rest of us read 3am and Richard Littlejohn, obviously. I came up with it probably because he was the only person I could think of who dealt in hedge funds, that was a relief. Yet I pronounced it as you would the food selection or Phoebe from Friends's surname. No hard 't'. I've never heard it said before, m'kay? Even Jesse erred on both geography-related questions on golf courses and shipping forecast areas (naughty Jesse!) , but he is always forgiven. Still, we did score over 50. And didn't give too much away.
Here's where the paranoia comes in: Yet our memories are long. We shall not be complacent. Yadda yadda yadda. But the thing is can we keep this up? Dunno really. Some days the questions don't fall for you. Hopefully, such a day will not coincide with next Tuesday. Fingers crossed.
BoLoQaly
As for Brain of London qualifying, once I settled down to the paper I did feel as if crucial parts of my brain were missing and that I was in no fit state to do a written quiz (they should be done in the morning; it should be the law, I tells ya). That taught me for being so lackadaisical, and ill-prepared, at last year's BoL. I scored 31 out of 50 in the end which was okay, but still galling due to the matter of six dropped points or SHKs (Should Have Knowns). I couldn't remember AS Byatt being the Booker Prize winning sister of Margaret Drabble (Jesse quoted back to me: "You know nothing about literature" - touche, sir), neither that Margaret Lake is better known by the name Mytsic Meg, nor that Julian the Apostate was the last pagan Roman emperor (I settled for Diocletian far too early). And I crossed out Inverness and put Hull for the A9 road that bears south from Kessock into which city, probably because an idiot lives in me that thrives on making me shoot myself in the foot. Bayley, who marked my paper, goes "ooh yes, bad luck!", and it doesn't make me feel any better. BH's scored from 30 through to 34, with Kathryn, who wasn't even playing during the evening scoring 34. Six of us should go through to the final 32 on March 28. Moby got 33 and has another chance to tell the denizens of Swindon just how murderously competitive Brain of London is. He had a nasty first round draw last year. Much like Mark Labbett, who got me, Bayley and John Grant. And let the record state that Kevin got about 39, despite being unable to answer pen about the pasta question on quill-like shapes when he has eaten it hundreds of times.
But let's get back to me, moi and myself.
Cue the overblown cries of despair, dropping six points, makes me feel like I'm losing sight of the wood for the trees. I am having Stainer-like paroxysms of doubt. My all-round game needs improving. If I can actually pinpoint what it is. I think all I have to do is keep remembering what I've learnt. A simple and slightly silly axiom yes, but If I do that, it should be plain sailing.
This lot is from my scant London notepads since the vast majority of questions are back home, so expect them to be slightly mundane.
1. Established by the owner of a coach-building firm, what was Britain's best-known circus until its final season in the winter of 1966?
2. WH Auden's libretto for Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress was written in collaboration with which US poet, who happened to be his companion for the last 30 years of his life?
3. The Belfort Gap is situated between which two European mountain ranges?
4. Known for such other hits as Pretty Blue Eyes, A Hundred Pounds of Clay and Oh Lonesome Me, which man topped the UK charts for four weeks in 1959 with Only Sixteen?
5. Which artist live at Les Collettes at Cagnes, near Nice, from 1907 until his death in 1919?
6. Oliver Sven-Buder has been the 'perennial brides-man' in which field event?
7. Which Dukes live at Floors Castle?
8. Which worker at the Brown-Firth research laboratory in Sheffield is most commonly credited with inventing stainless steel in 1913?
9. Which Chinese athlete equalled Colin Jackson's 110m hurdles record at the 2004 Olympics?
10. Which team won the first ever professional game of American football on August 31, 1895, beating Jeannette Athletic Club?
11. Which British-Ottoman-Turkish-Armenian man (1869-1955) entered his father's oil business in Baku in 1888 and later organised international oil company mergers and negotiated oil concessions between the US and Saudi Arabia?
12. What technical term, from the Greek for 'stretching or increasing in intensity' is applied by grammarians of late antiquity to that part of the drama in which the plot action begins to rise to the climax?
13. Heimaey, one of Iceland's chief fishing ports, is the largest of which islands?
14. Who played Higgins on TV show Magnum PI?
15. Where is the French Derby or Prix du Jockey Club run?
16. Who became the first King of France in 751?
17. MADMS, is a Czech political party and movement for the autonomous democracy of which two regions?
18. Held at Ribadesella in northern Spain each year, the Sella Descent is an international long-distance event in which sport?
19. Also called French green lentils, which lentils are grown in the volcanic soils of the region of France that give them their name?
20. Which saint, who died of a tumour on her neck, is said to have founded Ely Cathedral?
Answers to BH #23
1. Silla 2. Sir Edward Coke 3. 13 4. Allia 5. Kinsale 6. Winterlude 7. Fort McHenry 8. Charleston 9. Joyous Gard 10. Gerhart Hauptmann 11. George Crabbe 12. Louis Armstrong 13. Djibouti 14. Rahman Mujibur 15. Etruscans 16. Alexander Scriabin 17. Eileen Collins 18. Mitral valve 19. Thallium 20. Herring gull
posted by That Quiz Guy at 5:28 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home