Monday, December 10, 2007

A very simple BH143

The BH quiz takes a more traditional change of direction
This particular BH quiz has divested itself of my usual reliance on the awesome information near-omniscient nexus that be Wikipedia (what would I do if it disappeared from my life? Weep rivers of tears and bewail the end of access to the most glorious and accessible source of deep information until my life as a quizzer reached its ultimate conclusion no doubt). And I am adamant, this is all part of a fuzzy master plan with defined goals.

Perched on my beloved double bed and chain-smoking maniacally this evening, I decided to rip the following questions from one particularly thick and fact-packed orange folder and use them verbatim for this BH edition. I don't usually do this. Possibly because I now think the majority of them suck spherical objects.

And you know what? It has been enjoyable browsing the questions that have since become immovable fixtures in my mind and noting down the ones that I have sod all recollection of writing and cannot for the life of me remember where I sourced them from (as you can see you slightly modified questions could well have been culled from the Magnus Magnusson quiz books and other well-known quiz-related publications, albeit subconsciously. For that I apologise in advance, but that it is how I used to roll in the "olden" times).

Old Methods Superceded
Such an exercise has propelled the thought into my mind of how drastically my revision and research methods have changed since days long gone. The reference and quiz books used back then seem almost unforgivably limited compared to my current mostly internet-reliant resources (writing the questions on this blog for instance has cemented vital bits of info that would have previously been lost in the thousands of questions I wrote and then consigned to the abyss of my sometimes illegible files and so forgotten about more or less).

Practically all of the file questions were written what seems like an age ago (some pages I have used being dated 2002 for instance - eek). My subject matter focus has changed almost beyond all recognition, something hastened by my increasing dependence on the many fact vaults on the web that provide far more satisfying research material and the kind that has undoubtedly increased my quiz prowess many-fold.

I realised a couple of years ago that I learnt far more efficiently ripping information from new GK web-motherlodes because typing them up and proofing them for a public forum, rather than writing tens of thousands of questions by hand in a quasi-unconscious state, made me learn far more efficiently.

Having said that, my reference book library remains a sterling source of stuff that I had once rapidly noted down and weaponised into questions for my file library. But I recognised that increasing the scope of your reliable fact mines made me a far better quiz player. The pads I once filled mindlessly with question after question after question have fallen into a dormant state. No longer do I rip ink-engorged sheets from their pads and place them in files at tri-monthly intervals, resulting in a weirdly addictive feeling of achievement and the beginning of carpal tunnel syndrome. That feeling has become a faint, ghostly one, especially when I realised I hardly ever returned to consolidate them in my mind. Such questions remain mostly forgotten.

Now it is all about tapping out my carefully selected finds and storing them on my laptop for future blog publication. Placing them in a BH numbered context and providing a far better way of remembering by association with the dates and times they were written and number-assigned question sets, thus imposing a kind of chronological aide-memoire order, has usurped the bygone haphazard chucking countless clumps of trivial mud at the wall and hoping something sticks modus operandi of old.

However this time, just for once, I flicked through these increasingly obsolete and crap-jammed files and picked out the ones that could prove especially useful in league and President's Cup competition, so applying the BH remembrance method. I must admit there are countless goodies still contained therein. Some, in fact, I really should have absorbed before some key championships.

As you can see, the questions are shockingly short compared to the interminable monsters I have sometimes laid down on this blog for all time. This also makes for a refreshing detour, and one I feel will do me much good if I continue to go back to them once in a while. Varying the methods certainly helps my memory recall. Looking through the files reveal questions I have written multiple times, entirely due to the inefficient process of writing more than I can ever remember. Since I started the BH series such repeats have been rare despite the gob-smacking volume of questions I have published on this blog since its birth in February last year (the search facility on Blogger is a hugely useful tool in preventing repetition).

So for the next two BH quizzes I have compiled questions in unedited sic form from those mad writing days. Soon, of course, I will return to the new ways of typing up beefed-up questions taken from my new best friend resources I have found essential to my real advancement as an ultra-snobby and elitist quizzer. However, this two-part BH series reminds me that I am ignoring the little fact tidbits that will always prove useful on UK quiz shows and could also hold me in good stead if I decided to embark on my Mastermind mission for the next series.

Contestant Intimidation Starts Here
There are far more British league-style questions in the following sets and this can only help me cope with the onslaught of parochial questions destined to hit me during the MM General Knowledge round (the one that really matters for the likes of me since it is the round I will have a marked advantage due to the formidable and growing backlog of facty crap that has been swilling around my brain since the age of 16; a history of fine-tuned quizzing few potential adversaries/contestants could match).

If I do decide to embark on my Manchester tour of MM duty I will certainly go back to the files for GK preparation (as well as the Southport and Formby questions I have reaped since the turn of the century); the aim being to eliminate all those niggly British questions that may induce hesitation in the vital round if I encounter ones that fall into the grey zone of my knowledge. These must be tackled with academic and methodical ferocity in order to destroy potential doubt and therefore fatal hesitation.

It goes without saying that such questions - hardly what you would ever designate WQC and EQC standard - can never induce the same zealous curiosity I find gripping me when I delve for hours on end into Jimmy Wales's greatest and ultra-useful encyclopaedic creation, but they are vital sources of knowledge power if I am to get near, let alone take the MM title. Therefore the regular setting of these straightforward, brevity-characterised quizzes act as the preliminary recon-mission for such a quest and mucho apologies if regular BH fans feel they pale in insignificance to the five-to-ten line questions that have provided the overwhelming content of my regular series. But such work must be done. This is also the putative start in my campaign to rinse the kind of FTO and BoB questions I spent ploughing through maniacally for those shows. This is indeed a revisionary throwback to my formative years as a nascent quizzer.

And anyway, some conventional quiz fans might actually like this change of focus back to the league staples (Look! A question on those blasted motorways!). As you will see - back when my quiz priorities were almost unrecognisable compared to the ambitions and targeted learning I subscribe to today; my dusty file questions tended towards the direct approach with super-efficient info delivery - instant fact absorption being the key aim for the purpose of tackling Brain of Britain especially - in order to clean up the areas I found slightly uninteresting but which are indispensable if I truly seek to mend and or, at least, weaken mild deficiencies on various vapid subjects, as well as fulfil some of my embryonic MM planning. To win in impressive fashion, you must cover all bases. The comprehensive approach has to be adopted to eliminate any possibility of excruciating pauses, passes and the inevitable follow-on bouts of regretful recriminations that tend to endure a lifetime. These are the lessons I have learnt. The precision planning now comes into play (and to think, I thought I had begun writing the following quiz and BH144 simply to write some questions. My mind obviously wandered on to my serious ground before too long. It always happens.)

BH143
1 What is notobiology?
2 Who was the last US president to be born in the 19th century?
3 The M5, M6 and M42 circle which city?
4 What was John Braine's 1962 sequel to his novel Room at the Top?
5 EL Doctorow's 1971 novel The Book of Daniel used which real life incident as its subject matter?
6 Which fashion company, famed for its high quality and luxurious intimate apparel, was founded by Ada Masotti in Bologna in 1954?
7 From which Delibes opera does the "Flower Duet" come?
8 Fan Si Pan or Fansipan is the highest peak in which country?
9 Coined by critic and poet Ricciotto Canudo, the term "Seventh Art" is used to describe what?
10 Represented as a bull, what was the Egyptian god of strength?
11 Which Dickens novel begins: "London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall"?
12 What was the first name of William Shakespeare's father?
13 Born in 1936, which playwright wrote Breaking the Code, It's Ralph and Stevie?
14 In 1936, who became the first English actor to appear at the Comedie Francaise?
15 Emlyn Williams' 1980 novel Headlong was loosely adapted into which John Goodman film?
16 Which men's name means "one who takes by the heel"?
17 What name is given to a young salmon which has been to the sea only once?
18 Dating from the 1970s, what two-word American colloquialism is used for a female fan or follower of racing drivers?
19 Literally meaning "cultured painting", the name of which Italian art movement dating from the 1980s and including Carlo Maria Mariani, Alberto Abate and Antonella Cappuccio among its main practitioners was coined by a native critic as the title of a 1983 book?
20 Used to good effect in The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1993), what film-making technique involves taking the shots one frame at a time with the person moving slightly between each take making real people look like animated figures?
21 Diocletian replaced which assassinated Roman emperor in 284?
22 Seeing the defeat and taking prisoner of Cetewayo, what was the final battle of the Anglo-Zulu War on July 4, 1879?
23 In which sport is the Britannia Shield, an inter-club challenge competition, a trophy?
24 What two-word term describes an individual or company making an unwelcome takeover bid for another company?
25 What system of special effects was developed by Universal in 1974 to magnify the tremor scenes in the film Earthquake?
26 Published from 1893 to 1922, which adventure paper for boys featured the adventures of Hal Meredeth's fictional detective Sexton Blake?
27 What number designation was given to the mobile hospital featured in MASH?
28 What term describes the dressage movement in which the horse balances on its hind legs?
29 Also the name of a star, what word describes a bandage tied in a figure of eight pattern to immobilise a limb?
30 What word describes a papal decree deciding a point of canon law?
31 Relating the story of the Exodus, what book is traditionally read at the Passover feast?
32 What does the word "blair" mean in a British place name?
33 Introduced by the ANC, what is the proposed African name of South Africa?
34 Invented in 1988 by Michel Lalet and Laurent Levy, which popular French board game features a hexagonal board with 15 black marbles and 15 white, the aim being for each player to position his marbles in such a way that the other's are pushed off the side?
35 To which fellow athlete was Ann Packer married?
36 What is the maximum number of cars allowed to compete in a Formula One motor race?
37 Lake Guatavita, the source of the legend of El Dorado, is in which South American country?
38 What is the smallest group of languages in Africa?
39 Hilaire-Germain was the first name of which French painter?
40 Yuri Bashmet, Paul Doktor, Frederick Riddle, Bernard Shore and Walter Trampler were all renowned players of which musical instrument?
41 What is the more popular name of the gillyflower?
42 Which English painter, whose works include Endymion Porter, succeeded Van Dyck as painter to the exiled Charles I in 1641?
43 The caraway-flavoured cheese Quargel comes from which country?
44 What is okra or lady's fingers called in Indian supermarkets?
45 What can be a small biscuit or type of macaroon, as well as a liquor made from fruit juice and brandy or essence of bitter almond?
46 "The ever open door" was a slogan used to describe what organisation during the 1950s?
47 In Judaism, what is the Feast of Dedication?
48 The Saeima is the parliament of which European country?
49 Paper-shell, Spanish ruby and Wonderful are varieties of which fruit?
50 What was the first diesel-powered ship?

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Answers to BH143
1 Study under germ-free conditions 2 Eisenhower 3 Birmingham 4 Life at the Top 5 The Rosenberg case 6 La Perla 7 Lakme 8 Vietnam 9 Cinema 10 Apis 11 Bleak House 12 John 13 Hugh Whitemore 14 Charles Laughton 15 King Ralph 16 James 17 Grilse 18 Pit lizard 19 Pittura Colta 20 Pixilation 21 Numerianus 22 Ulundi 23 Speedway 24 Black knight 25 Sensurround 26 Marvel 27 4077th 28 Levade 29 Spica 30 Decretal 31 Haggadah 32 Plain 33 Azania 34 Abalone 35 Robbie Brightwell 36 Twenty six 37 Colombia 38 Khoisan 39 Edgar Degas 40 Viola 41 Carnation 42 William Dobson 43 Austria 44 Bhindi 45 Ratafia 46 Dr Barnardo's homes 47 Hanukkah 48 Latvia 49 Pomegranate 50 Petit-Pierre

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