British Quiz Championships Part One
BQC 2007: The Singles
Been so long since I've done a proper rumination-ridden report. But I've been busy. No wait, I lie - no boy George Washington am I. I thought I was busy, then I realised I have been spending every waking second either going out for the sake of going out or faffing about on YouTube and watching pirated films that have been recorded inside cinema auditoria (with extra raucous clapping!), whilst ensconced in the comfortable cocoon of my bed. And engaging in quiz-related shenanigans. Natch.
Looking back through the archives, I was slightly perturbed to see that I had totally forgotten to write an account of the 2007 World Quizzing Championships; something that can be fully explained by my preoccupation with that TV quiz the following Wednesday, whose name I cannot mutter without making strange, mournful sounds like a small, wounded woodland creature. The winnowing disappointment inevitably pulverised my will to dwell on all the events in my quiz life (I have to say it wasn't at all crushing or heartbreaking at the time; thought I keenly felt a kind of soft, bittersweet aching). And yet I say that and I know that the absence of a report of the year's blue riband event is truly pathetic and a sure source of regret in years to come, not least because I came 4th IN THE WORLD! Not king of the world, but a senior duke nonetheless. The short term memory has been long emptied of all interesting and quirky incident. All I can remember is Jesse being competitive, some sunshine, sand buckets of ciggy ends, arguing over the acceptance of the name spelling "Asari" and ... maybe, and, er, that's about it.
Therefore I will now proceed to log my reflections on last Saturday's quest to find a new British quiz champion (the holder, Mr Kevin Ashman Esq. was touring New Zealand, possibly hoovering up Antipodean facts and taking in Peter Jackson-selected vistas.) We were going to Derby. Famous for ... Actually, what is Derby famous for? Apart from Brian Clough taking County to hitherto unequalled heights.
First, the trepidation. I have to say that the British bias in questioning at the non-Euro-World-Transatlantic championships instantly reduces the chance of winning in my mind or, more truthfully, going top five. This is because I have consciously neglected this side of my quiz knowledge (bye, bye Bamber's Encyclopaedia of Britain ... you were lovely, but I have to move on to the big, wide world now) due to my increasing distaste of the parochial and mad-crazy love for all the information our planet has to offer. You might make me puke if you mention a viaduct in the north of England or Gresley train engine number. I kid you not. Either that or my brain would explode Scanners-style in protest.
So I wasn't expecting too much when I booked my place, despite the consensus-driven expectation that I would push for a high placing due to the lack of a Kev and a Moby. Their absence meant I was shifted to second or third favourite. This ever swelling expectation was dented further - horribly so - when I tossed and turned and harumphed too much in my mock-slum bed the night before, and surrendering to rubbish insomnia, forwent any sleep. Not a minute of shut-eye was had. Not a good idea. I knew this was an unfortunate error with predictably harsh consequences due to hit him hard later in the day.
This forced me, often as I was hanging in the air and rocking backwards and forwards and suffering the spasmodic jolts and sheer exhaustion that forced Tyler Durden to take up subversive cinema projectionism and personally watering chowder bowls, to engage in a stimulant reinforcement attack on my wavering senses in the small hours: red bull, nicotine, coffee and Coca-Cola. The buzzy quartet: evil, electrifying brown-ish substances liable to rot and stain my teeth if imbibed in heavy quantities (yes, they were).
My senses still wavered violently, self-shredding them the more I stayed up, but became heightened enough in that empty caffeine-assisted way, to keep me awake all the way to Derby on the train and, thank God, the business part of the day. Despite my noticing the hot-cold see-sawing of temperatures and increasing symptoms of delirium set in; one of these being the inability to clearly delineate words and the personal gift of talking at a volume so low people couldn't even hear your polite social greetings and just went on their business, totally oblivious to any of my entreaties to make verging-on-the-amicable conversation.
It was as if the once well-lubricated, understanding relationship between my mouth and brain had become completely untenable: heading down the acrimonious Smiths splitting up route. The uncooperative components of my poor head would get by as best they could, conspiring against each other like embittered ex-bf&gf, going all out to sabotage the vocal expression of our sometimes self-censored thoughts, thus resulting in my eventually speaking and realising my once-audible, oh so pleasant and understandable (ok, moderately intelligible) speaking voice had lost maturity and clarity, and most of all, the wit and guile to make coherent comments despairing of this vicious world where everyone except me were sleeping as well as coma victims.
In a rested and refreshed state ready for the countless possibilities of a new day I would at least make myself understood at the second attempt. If I was a Dick Tracy character - I still can't believe Al Pacino played Big Boy Caprice; has he worn grotesque prosthetics in any other film? - I would be Mumbles. In this current state I was a brain-damaged Mumbles possessing only the ability to speak in gargled, muffled syllables, like a retarded toy dog on diazepam. What was the point of talking when my mumbliness had descended into a imperceptible, strained whisper easily smothered by the twittering sound of nature and passing cars?
Yet this did not stop me from wearing a permanent look of disinterest mixed with despair the entire day. Quite a jolly combination, you'll agree. People made comment on my cheery facade. I retaliated by saying sarcastic and depressingly explanatory things ("I'm soooo tired. Pity me. If I do really bad, you can corroborate this excuse")
As ever, the day of a GP or championships always whizzes by with indecent haste. You arrive there at 10.21 am and before you know it you are walking briskly down the London Road eight hours later. Where does the time go? I surmised that it is all to do with thinking and digging out (or failing to dig out) the requisite facts, as the mental effort consumes vast chunks of the hours like a starved tapeworm. Stop, let's rewind ... reflections on the passage of time continued from the Behemoth report can wait. Here comes the colour:
More Pity for Myself
The venue was the Derby Conference Centre: a fine place for scribble quizzing with clean, airy whiteness and smooth neatness being the predominant feature. Were it not for the lunchtime rest when a nearby chimney belched out bitter, burnt smoke that crept in the window slits and up our nostrils and made us all too aware of inefficient conflagration, I would have given it toppermost marks (these being awarded when a quizzing venue has offended me in absolutely no way ... this eventuality not coming to pass yet and never likely to, cos me be picky).
Aside from a little wander and a recon mission for ascertaining exactly where the fag happy could tend to their habit, it was straight in with the first half of the 240-question paper. By this time, I was going nuts inside. Doolally, I tells ya. There's nothing like the type of exhaustion induced by despair. I believe it to be the worse. Especially when you must do something for several hours before you can let consciousness slip away and have your much-missed bed (yes, even my inadequate single in KX) cure your emotional and physical state.
The insomnia was dissolving my ill will further. It was becoming the illest, and not in the cool hip hop way. I got another Red Bull out to whip up my wits into a semblance of quiz aptitude for the next couple of hours at least (Gareth could cover any real bolloxing-up in the Pairs segment of the day, I thought in weaselly fashion). Yeah! I said to myself inside: 'Keep awake, you silly bastard. Why can't you get your circadian rhythms in order and get up at an hour of the day that is regarded as normal by the rest of the human populace? Look at you. Eyes making strange swirling movements. Brain shutting down. And it's all your fault.' My interior monologue went on and on like the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket. Well, at least it kept me awake.
Individual Quiz Starts
The first half papers came. The main question on the ruins of my mind was could I cope with my tired dementia and get most of my known answers out? Only one way to find out. I zipped through the questions as I normally did. The answer to my query was: mostly, but you'll be kicking yourself after one or two. I was gonna do okay. Sigh of relief.
But another threat had risen by the time the first 120 questions had been marked and tallies collated: my erstwhile TV compadre Mark Labbett* was leading with 85 points. He was six ahead of me. How could this unprecedented atrocity have come to pass? It was absolutely, totally, and in all other ways, inconceivable. I was shocked, especially after taking my best two subjects - Art & Culture and Entertainment - in the first half with my worst second half, containing dastardly science and sporty guff, waiting in the shadows: the combined metier the Sumo God was more proficient in than I.
Could he make it 24-1 in quiz championships? (Bet you love me writing about you like this, Mark!) At half time, I told him he probably would and, indeed, I had resigned myself to my first ever Labbett loss. The day was poised to become a dark day coloured by the crowing of his victory in my ear. A day that would go down in infamy. Or something similarly hyperbolic. Or hyperbollockical.
Our destinies unfurled. A horrible second set of questions was dropped on the assembled competitors. Nasty ones. Hard ones. Which I found perfectly okay. I scored consistently across the board: 23 x 3. Widening an inner smile, I realised I was actually getting better at the PH and S&L. This pushed me up into second place and two points from the giant, bear-like clutches of Mr Mark. Phew. I was safe from harm, and didn't have to give up the bragging rights to the one guy who would use them to their most insufferable potential. Did I say - "Woowee, I beat Labbett. That's all that matters!"? Perhaps I did. Because he will one day, I'm sure of it. And on more than one occasion.
Afterwards, I compiled my perfect score (adding on the Should Have Knowns). It was 148, which meant my "burn rate" was less than the horrid 15-20 per cent of brazen forgetfulness. Sure there were the kind of bad misses that make me, quite literally, chomp down on my knuckles - the goddess Irene, the Invergordon mutiny decade, Ricard merging with Pernod, the definition of marinade, breast cancer drug Herceptin and so on into drab pointlessness - but I was slightly more than content with the score I got. The score that beat Labbett into third.
Naturally, Pat won by miles. Possibly because he knew far more than anybody else in the room. He exists on a different plain, where tea is usually taken with Kevin and Moby is making increasingly frequent visits for elevenses. But I was second in all of this sceptred isle. Not too bad.
Expected moan moan moan wah wah wah
Now I was certainly served well by the ten-question multiple choice portions. Negative three was my worst score and two incorrect answers was the damage every other time. But still: I bloomin' hate 'em. There is a huge difference between conjuring up answers from the mysterious, uncanny darkness of your mind and having them splayed on the papers before you. It takes a lot of fun out of it, especially when you know you could have produced the solution without them. It does level the field and allows hugely difficult questions in, but is that the most helpful method for finding the best players in the nation? No, it ain't. It validates every moronic TV quiz show that has adopted that format (blame Millionaire! The swine!).
We shouldn't endorse such programmes by adopting their question format. We should do it right and show how it is done properly. Set an example an' all that. Do it without options and the hand holding that the triple selection acts as. So please, can we get rid of them? Pretty please? Further equalising everyone's chances can always be achieved with the introduction of slightly easier questions, as per the old quiz rule: the harder it is, the better the more accomplished quizzers in the room will do.
Part II: The Pairs (with added Sonic Youth!) to come ...
*Comedy Rubik's Cube style
I don't think anyone I know has really seen this, I mean I participated in it and even I haven't scene it on television or on any newfangled TV recording device, but Mark and I did a show with stand-up comedian Adam Bloom in the ITV2 "We're trying to get away from Sarah Lancashire, Joe Pasquale, Robson Green style of mainstrem programming with our edgy" series Comedy Cut (see this clip from Brendon Burns's segment to give you a nasty taster).
On the show's website you will find the show synopsis and such curate's egg descriptions of us as two "of the wisest and most pedantic minds in the UK." Total bollocks, of course, and one that was compounded by my own description as the "2nd youngest winner of 15 to 1". Not that I am always bestowed with factually correct meeja descriptions of my claims to fame (okay, maybe I am in possession of one of the most pedantic minds in the UK). Actually, they seem to get them wrong every single time.
But it was good fun. Until I was informed halfway through filming that my grandmother died. Talk about the tears of a clown's straight man.
Been so long since I've done a proper rumination-ridden report. But I've been busy. No wait, I lie - no boy George Washington am I. I thought I was busy, then I realised I have been spending every waking second either going out for the sake of going out or faffing about on YouTube and watching pirated films that have been recorded inside cinema auditoria (with extra raucous clapping!), whilst ensconced in the comfortable cocoon of my bed. And engaging in quiz-related shenanigans. Natch.
Looking back through the archives, I was slightly perturbed to see that I had totally forgotten to write an account of the 2007 World Quizzing Championships; something that can be fully explained by my preoccupation with that TV quiz the following Wednesday, whose name I cannot mutter without making strange, mournful sounds like a small, wounded woodland creature. The winnowing disappointment inevitably pulverised my will to dwell on all the events in my quiz life (I have to say it wasn't at all crushing or heartbreaking at the time; thought I keenly felt a kind of soft, bittersweet aching). And yet I say that and I know that the absence of a report of the year's blue riband event is truly pathetic and a sure source of regret in years to come, not least because I came 4th IN THE WORLD! Not king of the world, but a senior duke nonetheless. The short term memory has been long emptied of all interesting and quirky incident. All I can remember is Jesse being competitive, some sunshine, sand buckets of ciggy ends, arguing over the acceptance of the name spelling "Asari" and ... maybe, and, er, that's about it.
Therefore I will now proceed to log my reflections on last Saturday's quest to find a new British quiz champion (the holder, Mr Kevin Ashman Esq. was touring New Zealand, possibly hoovering up Antipodean facts and taking in Peter Jackson-selected vistas.) We were going to Derby. Famous for ... Actually, what is Derby famous for? Apart from Brian Clough taking County to hitherto unequalled heights.
First, the trepidation. I have to say that the British bias in questioning at the non-Euro-World-Transatlantic championships instantly reduces the chance of winning in my mind or, more truthfully, going top five. This is because I have consciously neglected this side of my quiz knowledge (bye, bye Bamber's Encyclopaedia of Britain ... you were lovely, but I have to move on to the big, wide world now) due to my increasing distaste of the parochial and mad-crazy love for all the information our planet has to offer. You might make me puke if you mention a viaduct in the north of England or Gresley train engine number. I kid you not. Either that or my brain would explode Scanners-style in protest.
So I wasn't expecting too much when I booked my place, despite the consensus-driven expectation that I would push for a high placing due to the lack of a Kev and a Moby. Their absence meant I was shifted to second or third favourite. This ever swelling expectation was dented further - horribly so - when I tossed and turned and harumphed too much in my mock-slum bed the night before, and surrendering to rubbish insomnia, forwent any sleep. Not a minute of shut-eye was had. Not a good idea. I knew this was an unfortunate error with predictably harsh consequences due to hit him hard later in the day.
This forced me, often as I was hanging in the air and rocking backwards and forwards and suffering the spasmodic jolts and sheer exhaustion that forced Tyler Durden to take up subversive cinema projectionism and personally watering chowder bowls, to engage in a stimulant reinforcement attack on my wavering senses in the small hours: red bull, nicotine, coffee and Coca-Cola. The buzzy quartet: evil, electrifying brown-ish substances liable to rot and stain my teeth if imbibed in heavy quantities (yes, they were).
My senses still wavered violently, self-shredding them the more I stayed up, but became heightened enough in that empty caffeine-assisted way, to keep me awake all the way to Derby on the train and, thank God, the business part of the day. Despite my noticing the hot-cold see-sawing of temperatures and increasing symptoms of delirium set in; one of these being the inability to clearly delineate words and the personal gift of talking at a volume so low people couldn't even hear your polite social greetings and just went on their business, totally oblivious to any of my entreaties to make verging-on-the-amicable conversation.
It was as if the once well-lubricated, understanding relationship between my mouth and brain had become completely untenable: heading down the acrimonious Smiths splitting up route. The uncooperative components of my poor head would get by as best they could, conspiring against each other like embittered ex-bf&gf, going all out to sabotage the vocal expression of our sometimes self-censored thoughts, thus resulting in my eventually speaking and realising my once-audible, oh so pleasant and understandable (ok, moderately intelligible) speaking voice had lost maturity and clarity, and most of all, the wit and guile to make coherent comments despairing of this vicious world where everyone except me were sleeping as well as coma victims.
In a rested and refreshed state ready for the countless possibilities of a new day I would at least make myself understood at the second attempt. If I was a Dick Tracy character - I still can't believe Al Pacino played Big Boy Caprice; has he worn grotesque prosthetics in any other film? - I would be Mumbles. In this current state I was a brain-damaged Mumbles possessing only the ability to speak in gargled, muffled syllables, like a retarded toy dog on diazepam. What was the point of talking when my mumbliness had descended into a imperceptible, strained whisper easily smothered by the twittering sound of nature and passing cars?
Yet this did not stop me from wearing a permanent look of disinterest mixed with despair the entire day. Quite a jolly combination, you'll agree. People made comment on my cheery facade. I retaliated by saying sarcastic and depressingly explanatory things ("I'm soooo tired. Pity me. If I do really bad, you can corroborate this excuse")
As ever, the day of a GP or championships always whizzes by with indecent haste. You arrive there at 10.21 am and before you know it you are walking briskly down the London Road eight hours later. Where does the time go? I surmised that it is all to do with thinking and digging out (or failing to dig out) the requisite facts, as the mental effort consumes vast chunks of the hours like a starved tapeworm. Stop, let's rewind ... reflections on the passage of time continued from the Behemoth report can wait. Here comes the colour:
More Pity for Myself
The venue was the Derby Conference Centre: a fine place for scribble quizzing with clean, airy whiteness and smooth neatness being the predominant feature. Were it not for the lunchtime rest when a nearby chimney belched out bitter, burnt smoke that crept in the window slits and up our nostrils and made us all too aware of inefficient conflagration, I would have given it toppermost marks (these being awarded when a quizzing venue has offended me in absolutely no way ... this eventuality not coming to pass yet and never likely to, cos me be picky).
Aside from a little wander and a recon mission for ascertaining exactly where the fag happy could tend to their habit, it was straight in with the first half of the 240-question paper. By this time, I was going nuts inside. Doolally, I tells ya. There's nothing like the type of exhaustion induced by despair. I believe it to be the worse. Especially when you must do something for several hours before you can let consciousness slip away and have your much-missed bed (yes, even my inadequate single in KX) cure your emotional and physical state.
The insomnia was dissolving my ill will further. It was becoming the illest, and not in the cool hip hop way. I got another Red Bull out to whip up my wits into a semblance of quiz aptitude for the next couple of hours at least (Gareth could cover any real bolloxing-up in the Pairs segment of the day, I thought in weaselly fashion). Yeah! I said to myself inside: 'Keep awake, you silly bastard. Why can't you get your circadian rhythms in order and get up at an hour of the day that is regarded as normal by the rest of the human populace? Look at you. Eyes making strange swirling movements. Brain shutting down. And it's all your fault.' My interior monologue went on and on like the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket. Well, at least it kept me awake.
Individual Quiz Starts
The first half papers came. The main question on the ruins of my mind was could I cope with my tired dementia and get most of my known answers out? Only one way to find out. I zipped through the questions as I normally did. The answer to my query was: mostly, but you'll be kicking yourself after one or two. I was gonna do okay. Sigh of relief.
But another threat had risen by the time the first 120 questions had been marked and tallies collated: my erstwhile TV compadre Mark Labbett* was leading with 85 points. He was six ahead of me. How could this unprecedented atrocity have come to pass? It was absolutely, totally, and in all other ways, inconceivable. I was shocked, especially after taking my best two subjects - Art & Culture and Entertainment - in the first half with my worst second half, containing dastardly science and sporty guff, waiting in the shadows: the combined metier the Sumo God was more proficient in than I.
Could he make it 24-1 in quiz championships? (Bet you love me writing about you like this, Mark!) At half time, I told him he probably would and, indeed, I had resigned myself to my first ever Labbett loss. The day was poised to become a dark day coloured by the crowing of his victory in my ear. A day that would go down in infamy. Or something similarly hyperbolic. Or hyperbollockical.
Our destinies unfurled. A horrible second set of questions was dropped on the assembled competitors. Nasty ones. Hard ones. Which I found perfectly okay. I scored consistently across the board: 23 x 3. Widening an inner smile, I realised I was actually getting better at the PH and S&L. This pushed me up into second place and two points from the giant, bear-like clutches of Mr Mark. Phew. I was safe from harm, and didn't have to give up the bragging rights to the one guy who would use them to their most insufferable potential. Did I say - "Woowee, I beat Labbett. That's all that matters!"? Perhaps I did. Because he will one day, I'm sure of it. And on more than one occasion.
Afterwards, I compiled my perfect score (adding on the Should Have Knowns). It was 148, which meant my "burn rate" was less than the horrid 15-20 per cent of brazen forgetfulness. Sure there were the kind of bad misses that make me, quite literally, chomp down on my knuckles - the goddess Irene, the Invergordon mutiny decade, Ricard merging with Pernod, the definition of marinade, breast cancer drug Herceptin and so on into drab pointlessness - but I was slightly more than content with the score I got. The score that beat Labbett into third.
Naturally, Pat won by miles. Possibly because he knew far more than anybody else in the room. He exists on a different plain, where tea is usually taken with Kevin and Moby is making increasingly frequent visits for elevenses. But I was second in all of this sceptred isle. Not too bad.
Expected moan moan moan wah wah wah
Now I was certainly served well by the ten-question multiple choice portions. Negative three was my worst score and two incorrect answers was the damage every other time. But still: I bloomin' hate 'em. There is a huge difference between conjuring up answers from the mysterious, uncanny darkness of your mind and having them splayed on the papers before you. It takes a lot of fun out of it, especially when you know you could have produced the solution without them. It does level the field and allows hugely difficult questions in, but is that the most helpful method for finding the best players in the nation? No, it ain't. It validates every moronic TV quiz show that has adopted that format (blame Millionaire! The swine!).
We shouldn't endorse such programmes by adopting their question format. We should do it right and show how it is done properly. Set an example an' all that. Do it without options and the hand holding that the triple selection acts as. So please, can we get rid of them? Pretty please? Further equalising everyone's chances can always be achieved with the introduction of slightly easier questions, as per the old quiz rule: the harder it is, the better the more accomplished quizzers in the room will do.
Part II: The Pairs (with added Sonic Youth!) to come ...
*Comedy Rubik's Cube style
I don't think anyone I know has really seen this, I mean I participated in it and even I haven't scene it on television or on any newfangled TV recording device, but Mark and I did a show with stand-up comedian Adam Bloom in the ITV2 "We're trying to get away from Sarah Lancashire, Joe Pasquale, Robson Green style of mainstrem programming with our edgy" series Comedy Cut (see this clip from Brendon Burns's segment to give you a nasty taster).
On the show's website you will find the show synopsis and such curate's egg descriptions of us as two "of the wisest and most pedantic minds in the UK." Total bollocks, of course, and one that was compounded by my own description as the "2nd youngest winner of 15 to 1". Not that I am always bestowed with factually correct meeja descriptions of my claims to fame (okay, maybe I am in possession of one of the most pedantic minds in the UK). Actually, they seem to get them wrong every single time.
But it was good fun. Until I was informed halfway through filming that my grandmother died. Talk about the tears of a clown's straight man.
posted by That Quiz Guy at 7:40 AM
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