Prez Cup R9: Exclamation Mark Warning
It's Gonna Go Down to The Wire...
... and I don't wanna end up way down in the hole (because I woke up too late to go to Cambridge, because I was doing EQC revision, regrets, I've had at least two)
Beat Piccadilly 54-41, complete with bonus point! Nice. Therefore, Match 10, against Westminster (booo-hisssss) is that unicorn of quiz league play: a league match that really matters; a final in all but name.
We'll be humming Queen/Bowie collaborations and mopping our brows in sweaty anticipation. Unless, bien sur, I've totally banjaxed the permutations and calculations by forgetting that there's this team called Cambridge, right?
In other news: We - the Broken Hearts, aka the Evil Empire of former Real Madrid Yankee 'dominance', if you happen to have overheard what other teams said about us at the last EQC and read the remarks of various gentlemen on the internets - won the Charity Night for the first time ever! BOOM!!!
Awesome exclamations aside, we cried salt tears because we love inspired sports commentary become oft-referenced cliche, and I so very nearly succeeded in avoiding being caught on camera (left early due to tummy trouble/hid behind people) - I don't want the digital demon to catch my soul! But yeah, we were awesome - no time for false modesty - we put the field to the sword. Ha ha! Using, nay wielding, as would The Freakin' Kurgan, a big, seven-pointed sword *diabolical cackling gradually rising in volume*.
Still the two things that stick in my mind; two things being minor errors now insanely amplified in the mind: a) not pushing for Pat Jennings hard enough (I call it one of my 'Albery Coward' moments, because I like inventing lingo that only means something to me and only me, and maybe myself, if myself was a fortunate fellow), and b) putting Chinese GOLDEN Salamander, instead of Chinese GIANT Salamander. If you don't get largest species/amphibians right, then by lord, sir, you have a big fat jiffy bag of baby dookie for grey brainy matter - and that's an example of high standards that is (I'm in an anti-grammar mood).
Back to Today (the Westminster-baiting will appear in another post/s; two words for ya: MIND GAMES. We must crush them. We must retain our P-Cup. It's our P-Cup. We will grind them into particles that be dustier than dust; like the wispiest dust mites farts you can imagine. After we have wrought our fury and, maybe, yielded a dazzling GK display, Westminster will have been so thoroughly West-MINCED-errrrrrd??? that their annihilated remains will barely exist at a subatomic level. Ahem. I see that I've just jumped the gun on the MIND GAMES there. Victory or Deaaaa...second place!).
Dialling down the crazy. Wrote a friendly. It played out 37-35 to Sussex at the time. But. But but but. A Glasgow kiss of a butt to my skillz as a question-creator: I refused 2009-2010 UC alumnus Tom Speller's correct answer of Princess Peach, and now believe that I owe the Piccadilly team a point. Darn differing Japanese/American names. Darn them to heck and back again.
But, looky here, it wouldn't matter so much if the game had not come down to the last question in the pick-a-question-number mode. And lo, the format imparted the justice of randomness and other malarkey that I'm mixing up with Harvey Dent's Two-Face rant-a-thons about the fairness in chaos and chance in The Dark Knight.
So, Random Picking from Question One to Eight = The Balance We Crave in Question Sets. Ergo, Random Question Picking PWNs Question Pairs. It's the future.
Ah, is that an embarrassing comeuppance I see coming at me? As if I were prime, verdant Amazonian rainforest, and Hubris was a mean-looking gang of chainsaw-wielding Brazilian cattle farmers looking to desertify my ass.
Practical note: I'm X-ing unanswered Qs and putting the solutions to those blighters at the bottom, because it seemed to work really well last time.
President's Cup Friendly 10/3/2013
ROUND 1
1 Which actress, born in 1931, is the only Hispanic performer to have achieved the EGOT - i.e. won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award?
RITA MORENO
2 Which series of epic fantasy novels includes the books A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons?
A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE or [accept, yeah, why not?] GAME OF THRONES
3 Nicknamed the 'Hitman', which WWF wrestler was the victim of the 1997 'Montreal Screwjob' when he was beaten by Shawn Michaels in his last match before joining World Championship Wrestling (WCW)?
BRET HART
4 Last year saw the first English-language publication of The Tragedy of Mister Morn, written when its author was aged about 24, and the only play (verse drama) by which Russian novelist?
X
5 Which Earl's wife, Edwina, died in 1960 in North Borneo while on tour as Superintendent-in-Chief of the St John Ambulance Brigade?
LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN
6 Which (former?) trust - founded by Philip and Jeanne Wayre in 1971 - closed its captive breeding centre at Earsham in Suffolk, having realised its aim of repopulating local rivers with its namesake creatures?
THE OTTER TRUST
7 Which occultist wrote detective stories about the mystic crime-solver Simon Iff during a 1916-17 visit to New Orleans mostly because he was nearly bankrupt?
ALEISTER CROWLEY
8 The 1654 Portrait of Jan Six and 1629's Judas Returning the 30 Pieces of Silver, are two of the most important/valuable Old Master paintings still in private hands. Who painted both of them?
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
R2
1 Found on New Zealand's South Island, which bird - Latin name Nestor notabilis - is the world's only alpine parrot?
X
2 In 1953, which US composer drove his car with a tyre (that Robert Rauschenberg had soaked in paint) along 20 joined sheets of paper on a New York street to create Automobile Tire Print?
JOHN CAGE
3 The Alexander Mosaic, aka The Battle of Issus, dates from c.100 BC and is one of the great masterpieces of ancient Greek art. It was discovered in the House of the Faun in which partially buried city?
POMPEII
4 Robert Chote is the chairman of the independent Treasury watchdog, the OBR. What does OBR stand for?
OFFICE FOR BUDGET RESPONSIBILITY
5 Name any of films in which Don Cheadle used an appalling Cockney accent to play the bomb expert Basher Tarr.
OCEAN'S ELEVEN or TWELVE or THIRTEEN
6 Which animated TV series once featured the voice of George Clooney as Sparky the gay dog?
SOUTH PARK
7 The American remake of the TV show Shameless is set in which city - the third most populous in the US?
CHICAGO
8 First opening its doors in 1770, which 'Manufacturers of Toiletry Products' to the Queen have English Lavender as the brand's international signature fragrance?
YARDLEY LONDON
R3
1 The naming of which whisky brand can be traced back to a 15-year-old farm boy taking over a small Kilmarnock grocers in 1820?
X
2 Launched in 1830, which London dry gin is mentioned in the songs Gin and Juice by Snoop Doggy Dogg, You Know I'm No Good by Amy Winehouse and Johnny 99 by Bruce Springsteen?
TANQUERAY
JOHN LE CARRé
2 In storytelling, if 'analepsis' is the technical term for a flashback, what word is used for a flash-forward?
PROLEPSIS
3 Wörishofer is a type of cork-soled orthopaedic ladies' sandal that is named after Bad Wörishofer, a spa town in which country?
GERMANY
4 In 2012, the 27-year-old Ukrainian, Anna Ushenina, beat Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria on a tie-break, to become the 14th women's world champion in which game?
CHESS
5 Both a successor and predecessor of Pitt the Younger, the Prime Minister Henry Addington was known as the 1st Viscount... what?
SIDMOUTH
6 Discovered in February of this year, the smallest exoplanet detected to date - Kepler-37b - is in which constellation, whose name is that of the heroine of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy?
LYRA
7 In 1936, which magazine commissioned what became Walker Evans and James Agee's 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men as a report on Alabama tenant farmers, though it never published their work?
FORTUNE
8 Marni Nixon dubbed which actress's voice in the films The King and I and An Affair to Remember?
DEBORAH KERR
R8
1 Which word completes the signature one-liner from the comedic 'King of One-Liners', Henny Youngman: "Take my wife -…"?
PLEASE
2 Which Polish-born US author wrote the novels The Painted Bird, Blind Date and Being There?
JERZY KOSINSKI
3 What was the name of the Duke of Edinburgh's father, a prince of Greece and Denmark who was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of the Hellenes?
... and I don't wanna end up way down in the hole (because I woke up too late to go to Cambridge, because I was doing EQC revision, regrets, I've had at least two)
Beat Piccadilly 54-41, complete with bonus point! Nice. Therefore, Match 10, against Westminster (booo-hisssss) is that unicorn of quiz league play: a league match that really matters; a final in all but name.
We'll be humming Queen/Bowie collaborations and mopping our brows in sweaty anticipation. Unless, bien sur, I've totally banjaxed the permutations and calculations by forgetting that there's this team called Cambridge, right?
In other news: We - the Broken Hearts, aka the Evil Empire of former Real Madrid Yankee 'dominance', if you happen to have overheard what other teams said about us at the last EQC and read the remarks of various gentlemen on the internets - won the Charity Night for the first time ever! BOOM!!!
Awesome exclamations aside, we cried salt tears because we love inspired sports commentary become oft-referenced cliche, and I so very nearly succeeded in avoiding being caught on camera (left early due to tummy trouble/hid behind people) - I don't want the digital demon to catch my soul! But yeah, we were awesome - no time for false modesty - we put the field to the sword. Ha ha! Using, nay wielding, as would The Freakin' Kurgan, a big, seven-pointed sword *diabolical cackling gradually rising in volume*.
Still the two things that stick in my mind; two things being minor errors now insanely amplified in the mind: a) not pushing for Pat Jennings hard enough (I call it one of my 'Albery Coward' moments, because I like inventing lingo that only means something to me and only me, and maybe myself, if myself was a fortunate fellow), and b) putting Chinese GOLDEN Salamander, instead of Chinese GIANT Salamander. If you don't get largest species/amphibians right, then by lord, sir, you have a big fat jiffy bag of baby dookie for grey brainy matter - and that's an example of high standards that is (I'm in an anti-grammar mood).
Back to Today (the Westminster-baiting will appear in another post/s; two words for ya: MIND GAMES. We must crush them. We must retain our P-Cup. It's our P-Cup. We will grind them into particles that be dustier than dust; like the wispiest dust mites farts you can imagine. After we have wrought our fury and, maybe, yielded a dazzling GK display, Westminster will have been so thoroughly West-MINCED-errrrrrd??? that their annihilated remains will barely exist at a subatomic level. Ahem. I see that I've just jumped the gun on the MIND GAMES there. Victory or Deaaaa...second place!).
Dialling down the crazy. Wrote a friendly. It played out 37-35 to Sussex at the time. But. But but but. A Glasgow kiss of a butt to my skillz as a question-creator: I refused 2009-2010 UC alumnus Tom Speller's correct answer of Princess Peach, and now believe that I owe the Piccadilly team a point. Darn differing Japanese/American names. Darn them to heck and back again.
But, looky here, it wouldn't matter so much if the game had not come down to the last question in the pick-a-question-number mode. And lo, the format imparted the justice of randomness and other malarkey that I'm mixing up with Harvey Dent's Two-Face rant-a-thons about the fairness in chaos and chance in The Dark Knight.
So, Random Picking from Question One to Eight = The Balance We Crave in Question Sets. Ergo, Random Question Picking PWNs Question Pairs. It's the future.
Ah, is that an embarrassing comeuppance I see coming at me? As if I were prime, verdant Amazonian rainforest, and Hubris was a mean-looking gang of chainsaw-wielding Brazilian cattle farmers looking to desertify my ass.
Practical note: I'm X-ing unanswered Qs and putting the solutions to those blighters at the bottom, because it seemed to work really well last time.
President's Cup Friendly 10/3/2013
1 Which actress, born in 1931, is the only Hispanic performer to have achieved the EGOT - i.e. won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award?
RITA MORENO
2 Which series of epic fantasy novels includes the books A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons?
A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE or [accept, yeah, why not?] GAME OF THRONES
3 Nicknamed the 'Hitman', which WWF wrestler was the victim of the 1997 'Montreal Screwjob' when he was beaten by Shawn Michaels in his last match before joining World Championship Wrestling (WCW)?
BRET HART
4 Last year saw the first English-language publication of The Tragedy of Mister Morn, written when its author was aged about 24, and the only play (verse drama) by which Russian novelist?
X
5 Which Earl's wife, Edwina, died in 1960 in North Borneo while on tour as Superintendent-in-Chief of the St John Ambulance Brigade?
LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN
6 Which (former?) trust - founded by Philip and Jeanne Wayre in 1971 - closed its captive breeding centre at Earsham in Suffolk, having realised its aim of repopulating local rivers with its namesake creatures?
THE OTTER TRUST
7 Which occultist wrote detective stories about the mystic crime-solver Simon Iff during a 1916-17 visit to New Orleans mostly because he was nearly bankrupt?
ALEISTER CROWLEY
8 The 1654 Portrait of Jan Six and 1629's Judas Returning the 30 Pieces of Silver, are two of the most important/valuable Old Master paintings still in private hands. Who painted both of them?
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
1 Found on New Zealand's South Island, which bird - Latin name Nestor notabilis - is the world's only alpine parrot?
X
2 In 1953, which US composer drove his car with a tyre (that Robert Rauschenberg had soaked in paint) along 20 joined sheets of paper on a New York street to create Automobile Tire Print?
JOHN CAGE
3 The Alexander Mosaic, aka The Battle of Issus, dates from c.100 BC and is one of the great masterpieces of ancient Greek art. It was discovered in the House of the Faun in which partially buried city?
POMPEII
4 Robert Chote is the chairman of the independent Treasury watchdog, the OBR. What does OBR stand for?
OFFICE FOR BUDGET RESPONSIBILITY
5 Name any of films in which Don Cheadle used an appalling Cockney accent to play the bomb expert Basher Tarr.
OCEAN'S ELEVEN or TWELVE or THIRTEEN
6 Which animated TV series once featured the voice of George Clooney as Sparky the gay dog?
SOUTH PARK
7 The American remake of the TV show Shameless is set in which city - the third most populous in the US?
CHICAGO
8 First opening its doors in 1770, which 'Manufacturers of Toiletry Products' to the Queen have English Lavender as the brand's international signature fragrance?
YARDLEY LONDON
1 The naming of which whisky brand can be traced back to a 15-year-old farm boy taking over a small Kilmarnock grocers in 1820?
X
2 Launched in 1830, which London dry gin is mentioned in the songs Gin and Juice by Snoop Doggy Dogg, You Know I'm No Good by Amy Winehouse and Johnny 99 by Bruce Springsteen?
TANQUERAY
3 Which motorcycle company was formed as a bicycle manufacturer by Siegfried Bettmann in Coventry in 1887?
TRIUMPH
4 Winston Churchill, David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown are characters in which new play by Peter Morgan?
THE AUDIENCE
5 Starring alongside Roger Allam and Anthony Head, who plays MJN Air's only Captain, Martin Crieff, in the Radio 4 aeroplane-based sitcom Cabin Pressure?
BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
6 Funded by the company Las Vegas Sands, the Cotai Strip is a land reclamation project in which gambling resort?
X
7 Which song was performed by Barbra Streisand at the 2013 Oscars in memory of its composer Marvin Hamlisch?
THE WAY WE WERE
8 In 1897, which West African country transferred its capital from Aného to Lomé?
TOGO
R4
1 In a famous TV snog of 1994, who did Margaret Clemence kiss?
BETH JORDACHE (Anna Friel locked pre-watershed Brookside lips with Nicola Stephenson)
2 With four Steinfeld Cups and four Division Championship titles, the Chesapeake Bayhawks are the most successful team in Major League… what?
LACROSSE - what? You've never heard of the MLL? For shame...
3 The rugby union club London Welsh is based in which city?
OXFORD
4 Barry Shitpeas and Philomena Cunk are 'talking head' characters in TV review shows presented by which Guardian columnist?
CHARLIE BROOKER
5 The formula of the Harlem Shake online video dance meme was established by five teenagers - known collectively as The Sunny Coast Skate - from which country?
AUSTRALIA
6 In 2011, Clare Waight Keller replaced Hannah MacGibbon as artistic director of which French fashion house? It made her the fourth British woman to do the job in the space of a decade; Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo being the other two.
CHLOé
7 Caral, thought to be the oldest or most ancient city in the Americas, is a Norte Chico civilisation site in which country?
PERU
8 Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, held which earldom when he lost his right leg at the Battle of Waterloo?
UXBRIDGE
R5
1 On August 4th, 1958, whose song Poor Little Fool became the first ever no.1 on the Billboard Hot 100? In the following year, he starred with Dean Martin and John Wayne in Rio Bravo.
RICKY NELSON
2 In which year did the victorious captain Daniel Passarella lift the FIFA World Cup trophy?
1978
3 Which movie starring Al Pacino and John Cazale was inspired by the 1972 Life magazine story The Boys in the Bank by P.F. Kluge?
DOG DAY AFTERNOON
4 Founded by Nicolas Ruinart, Ruinart has been exclusively producing which drink since 1729, making it the oldest established house of its type?
X
5 Carbolic acid is also known by which six-letter name?
PHENOL - formula C6 H5OH
6 In 1771, Benjamin West made a nearly identical copy of his own painting of which general's death for George III?
7 2013 is the centenary of the birth of which Polish composer, who dedicated the three-movement Concerto for Orchestra he completed in 1954 to the Warsaw Philharmonic artistic director Witold Rowicki?
WITOLD LUTOSLAWSKI
8 Which two-word title links the painting regarded as the Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam's 1943 masterpiece; a 1906 novel by Upton Sinclair; and a stadium in Castleford now known as Wheldon Road?
THE JUNGLE
R6
1 Which Manchester train station has the three-letter code MCO?
MANCHESTER OXFORD ROAD
2 Linklaters, Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance are three of the five leading firms that form the so-called 'Magic Circle' in which line of work?
LAW
3 Known for their 2011 hit Sexy and I Know It, Redfoo & Sky Blu form which US dance music duo, whose name is formed by the five initials of a vulgar internet slang abbreviation?
LMFAO - Redfoo real name: Stefan Kendal Gordy; his nephew Sky Blu: Skyler Austen Gordy (RedFoo's father is Berry Gordy Jr, THE founder of the Motown record label)
4 For the second year running, who has Forbes magazine named the world's most powerful person?
X
5 Born Anthony Terrell Smith, which rapper had his two biggest hits - Wild Thing and Funky Cold Medina - in 1989?
TONE-LOC
6 First published in Russian (por Rusoj) in 1887, the Unua Libro was the first publication to describe which language?
ESPERANTO - its author being Ludwig Youknowwho
7 Once the official seat of the knights of the Langue of Castille, León and Portugal, the Auberge de Castille now houses the office of which Mediterranean island-nation's Prime Minister?
MALTA
8 Made by Electrolux, the model V, Luxomatic Z90, Trilobite and the Rapido are/were types of which device?
VACUUM CLEANER
R7
1 Which British author published his fourth novel, The Looking Glass War, in 1965?JOHN LE CARRé
2 In storytelling, if 'analepsis' is the technical term for a flashback, what word is used for a flash-forward?
PROLEPSIS
3 Wörishofer is a type of cork-soled orthopaedic ladies' sandal that is named after Bad Wörishofer, a spa town in which country?
GERMANY
4 In 2012, the 27-year-old Ukrainian, Anna Ushenina, beat Antoaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria on a tie-break, to become the 14th women's world champion in which game?
CHESS
5 Both a successor and predecessor of Pitt the Younger, the Prime Minister Henry Addington was known as the 1st Viscount... what?
SIDMOUTH
6 Discovered in February of this year, the smallest exoplanet detected to date - Kepler-37b - is in which constellation, whose name is that of the heroine of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy?
LYRA
7 In 1936, which magazine commissioned what became Walker Evans and James Agee's 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men as a report on Alabama tenant farmers, though it never published their work?
FORTUNE
8 Marni Nixon dubbed which actress's voice in the films The King and I and An Affair to Remember?
DEBORAH KERR
1 Which word completes the signature one-liner from the comedic 'King of One-Liners', Henny Youngman: "Take my wife -…"?
PLEASE
2 Which Polish-born US author wrote the novels The Painted Bird, Blind Date and Being There?
JERZY KOSINSKI
3 What was the name of the Duke of Edinburgh's father, a prince of Greece and Denmark who was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of the Hellenes?
ANDREW
4 The American general Douglas MacArthur was often seen smoking what type of distinctive pipe? Its 'Authentic & Original' design was created by the Missouri Meerschaum Company (I think).
X
5 In 1966, the Cohiba cigar brand was created for which man?
FIDEL CASTRO
6 In a Jacques-Louis David painting owned by The Met, NYC, the seated figure of Crito reaches out to grasp the thigh of which philosopher as he sits upright in bed and reaches for a cup?
SOCRATES - as in The Death of Socrates
7 Named after the only scientist who studied it before its extinction, which sea cow was the largest species of sirenian to ever have existed? It was wiped out within 27 years of its discovery.
STELLER'S SEA COW - as in Georg Wilhelm Steller
8 Which princess has to be rescued by the titular duo from the villain Bowser (or King Koopa) in the 1985 Nintendo game Super Mario Bros.?
X but not really...
la
la
la
la
ANSWERS TO THE Xs
R1 4. VLADIMIR NABOKOV
R2 1. KEA
R3 1. JOHN WALKER & SONS or JOHNNIE WALKER
R3 6. MACAU
R5 4. CHAMPAGNE - in case, my wording was idiotically confusing, from the Champagne Ruinart website: "Ruinart is the oldest champagne House, founded in 1729."
R6 4. BARACK OBAMA
R8 4. CORN COB PIPE
R8 8. PRINCESS TOADSTOOL later renamed PRINCESS PEACH, so - reiterating my regret at laying big fat error egg in a mere friendly - I should have allowed Piccadilly the one point, giving Sussex a single point win with 37-36 … phew. Make that a provisional phew, because I'm not sure that they should have had two points. And ... oh, who cares?
posted by That Quiz Guy at 4:19 PM
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