The Quiz Blogger

Half a quiz

2012-01-18T12:52:00.000-08:00

Anonymous commenter asks: "It's been a while ...Can You plz post some questions?"

I have a friendly from October. Well, an almost friendly. Sadly, I lost the rest of it because I wrote the remainder on my Blackberry, which died in an unfortunate Coca-Cola accident. It's lost for ever. Goddamnit!

[Calms down] So here it is:

President's Cup friendly October 9, 2011

Round 1
1 Which American won the Best Actress award at this year's Cannes Film Festival for her role in the Lars von Trier movie Melancholia?
KIRSTEN DUNST
2 Which Star Trek: The Next Generaction actor voices the head of the CIA, Avery Bullock, in the cartoon American Dad?
PATRICK STEWART
3 Jean Cocteau wrote the 1940 play Le Bel Indifferent for which French singer?
EDITH PIAF
4 Eleanor Roosevelt remarked "Poor Niagara" on seeing which waterfalls on the Argentine-Brazil border?
IGUAZU FALLS
5 According to a New York Herald Tribune journalist reporting from the 1904 St Louis World Fair, Fletcher Davis came up with the idea of selling snacks with which name?
HAMBURGER
6 What was the pseudonym of Edward Powys Mathers, who composed 670 crosswords for The Observer between 1926 and his death?
TORQUEMADA
7 Which defunct cable channel featured the TV shows Topless Darts and The Weather in Norwegian - two of many unorthodox ideas from former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie?
L!VE TV
8 Which member of The Mighty Boosh has published the art book The Scribblings of a Madcap Shambleton?
NOEL FIELDING

Round 2
1 Which fur or wool comes from the Karakul lamb of Central Asia? It was so named because it was first brought to Russia by traders from a city on the left bank of the Volga River.
ASTRAKHAN WOOL
2 Which supermarket sells the TU range of clothing?
SAINSBURY'S
3 Anglia Ruskin University has its two main campuses in Chelmsford and which university city?
CAMBRIDGE
4 In which sporting role has Joe LaCava replaced Steve Williams?
TIGER WOODS'S CADDY
5 Tim Walker's Mandrake gossip column features in which daily broadsheet newspaper?
DAILY TELEGRAPH
6 Which Arizona graveyard features the graves of Billy Clanton, Frank McLaury and Tom McLaury, the three men killed during the Gunfight at the OK Corral?
BOOTHILL GRAVEYARD / THE TOMBSTONE CEMETERY
7 Which oblong block of red sandstone is known by the Scottish Gaelic name An Lia Fail?
THE STONE OF SCONE / STONE OF DESTINY / THE CORONATION STONE
8 Passmores Academy in Harlow features in which Channel 4 reality TV show?
EDUCATING ESSEX

Round 3
1 Last month, which English musician began his residency show - The Million Dollar Piano - at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas?
ELTON JOHN
2 Which species of wolf is the largest extant wild member of the Canidae family?
GRAY WOLF / TIMBERWOLF
3 Tantris, Germany's first three-star Michelin restaurant, is in which city?
MUNICH
4 Born in Nuremberg in 1653, which composer is best known for the Canon in D, the only canon he wrote?
JOHANN PACHELBEL
5 Sweden's second largest island, Oland is separated from the mainland by which strait?
KALMAR STRAIT
6 The legendary founder of Mycenae, which Greek hero rescued Andromeda from a sea monster sent by Poseidon?
PERSEUS
7 Wilberforce Claybourne are the first names of which Are Young Being Served? character?
MR HUMPHRIES
8 Due to be next held in August 2012, what is the world's oldest and largest annual sailing regatta?
COWES WEEK

Round 4
1 Which low-mounted plumbing fixture has a name that is the French word for 'pony'?
BIDET
2 Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Richmond and Somerset, was the bastard son of which king?
HENRY VIII
3 The 1972 Battle of Mirbat took place during the Dhofar Rebellion in which modern day Sultanate?
OMAN
4 In Greek mythology, which king of Tiryns imposed the Twelve Labours on Heracles?
EURYSTHEUS
5 Which Hungarian-born British author wrote the 1940 novel Darkness at Noon? He committed suicide with his wife in 1983.
ARTHUR KOESTLER
6 Paul Shaffer is the long-time musical sidekick of which American chat show host?
DAVID LETTERMAN
7 The Nafka is the currency of which country in the Horn of Africa?
ERITREA
8 Sharing its name with an archipelago in south-west Alaska, what is the largest species of brown bear?
KODIAK BEAR / KODIAK BROWN BEAR

Round 5
1 Boudicca's revolt against Romans took place during the reign of which emperor?
NERO
2 Which Synod decided the date of Easter in 664?
SYNOD OF WHITBY
3 The last spacecraft in its program, Mariner 10 was launched in 1973 to flyby which two planets?
MERCURY & VENUS
4 Which song from the album Revolver features absolutely no playing of instruments by The Beatles, though Lennon and Harrison did contribute harmony vocals?
ELEANOR RIGBY
5 Born in 1964, the American basketball player Cheryl Miller was the first ever woman to achieve which scoring feat in regulation play?
DUNK THE BALL / SLAM DUNK

I'm Still Here

2011-11-02T07:56:00.000-07:00

Great Tom Waits song (see The Diving Bell and The Butterfly trailer)

So. Hello. Bruges is almost here. Time to defend. Chelsea-style (possibly).

So little time to do all the work I want to do. I feel mildly helpless. My biggest fear being - as always - that I will get something wrong that I knew and should have got right. Only this fear is magnified to humungous horrifying proportions on the only weekend in the quiz year, when the ultra-obscure know-how is wheeled out. Scary.

I will attempt to do a diary (a la an old BQC, which was crazy in a nice way), so yeah, this blog LIVES!

L.O.F.T.S.

2011-05-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

Last Original Friendly of the Season

So we collected our President's Cup trophy (our third in four years) in surprisingly raucous yet slightly bittersweet fashion, while I made the usual silly elementary errors like confusing Australian lakes and deserts in the Brain of London final and finished third, one point behind Kevin, just like last year.

However, Kevin didn't win and since this was our third final together I think I may act as some kind of mystic jinx on his chances at winning his 11th BoL title. But very well done to Dave, whose dominant debut final performance did everything just right. Unlike me, who was told by Jesse straight afterwards: "You do better at written quizzes". Why, thank you for that piece of knifey knife insight.

WQC preparation madness syndrome has set in like never before, and as for the May 21st Clockwork quiz, it has even compelled me to - once and for all - learn about Francobelgian comics in détails graves (aid comes in the form of such UK publishers as Cinebook and starting buying series like XIII), with tentacles spreading into other area of BD Europe: the Italians! The Swiss! There be so many ... yet no longer will points be thrown away on such things. We Brits can't give up on such subjects because they come up time and time again and all we Anglos do is go 'huh?' because our own island's pop culture is horribly ignorant of its impact on the continent. Well, I won't have a really confident grasp for a few years - the kind of understanding that comes easily with the American graphic novel side of things (it helps if you actually read them rather than read Wikipedia synopses, I find). Let's see how it goes in the mean time - a time in which I feel utterly overwhelmed by the amount of info/sources/old quizzes/new books/old books that I have stacked in my room or stuffed in bags and lug around in a state of derangement. And there's still one month to go (so very little time, when one comes to think of it, considering Seneca now). However, I get a funny feeling in my tummy when I think about the work I'm putting in, meaning that I really do enjoy the prep, the revision, learning the new stuff. I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it.

Anyway, last bit of seasonal business to clean up: my last originally written friendly of the season. Memories are hazy, with regards to who got what right. I mean, I'm not even sure who won. Was it Beds & Herts? Was it Sussex? It's a 50/50. If it was the Brain of London final I would undoubtedly go for the wrong one, such is my QLL life.

Unanswered Qs bolded up yadda yadda ... you know the score ... hundred and five for septic ... and he kills the bad guys ... old Machete trailer quotes creeping in.

Yet I fear the following quiz is riddled with mistakes. Blame the lag time between writing and posting. So be warned and be wary of what purports to be the 'truth'.

President's Cup friendly: February 20

Round 1
1 Published in 1932, which Stella Gibbons debut novel parodied the so-called 'pessimistic ruralism' of Thomas Hardy?
Cold Comfort Farm
2 Which saint gives her name to the chapel that is Edinburgh's oldest building?
St Margaret
3 In Scotland, banknotes are issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Bank of Scotland and which other bank?
Clydesdale Bank
4 Named after the Spanish king who abdicated in 1931, which bridge gives Seville access to the Atlantic?
Alphonse XIII
5 Belgica antarctica, the largest land animal on Antarctica, is a flightless species of which insect?
Midge
6 Known by the code BZV, Maya Maya airport serves which African capital city?
Brazzaville
7 The Kuna is the currency of which former state of Yugoslavia?
Croatia
8 Directed by Casey Affleck, the documentary I’m Still Here turned out to be a hoax. Which starring actor grew a beard, appeared on Letterman and embarked on a fake career in hip-hop?
Joaquin Phoenix

Round 2
1 The birthplace of Jimi Hendrix, which US city is home to the Experience Music Project museum?
Seattle
2 Which ruler of ancient Palestine was responsible for the beheading of John the Baptist?
Herod Antipas
3 The world's largest natural bridge with a span of 86 metres, which rock bridge is located in southern Utah, just north of the border of the border with Arizona? It takes its name from a weather phenomenon.
Rainbow Bridge
4 In 1846, the American inventor Richard Hoe was the first printer to develop a successful type of which press?
Rotary press
5 From 1701 to 1918, the kings of Prussia came from which German dynastic family?
Hohenzollern
6 In 1896, the American engineer Herman Hollerith founded a company that later expanded to become which corporation?
IBM
7 Which Irish dramatist wrote the plays Faith Healer and Dancing at Lughnasa?
Brian Friel
8 Gustav Holst wrote four sets of Choral Hymns from which Hindu sacred text?
Rig Veda

Round 3
1 Which Jewish spring festival commemorates the defeat of Haman's plot to massacre the Jews?
Purim
2 The Pygmalion that fell in love with an ivory statue was a mythical king of which island?
Cyprus
3 The term 'Pyrrhic victory' comes from Pyrrhus, who was the king of which ancient country?
Epirus
4 Which American Nobel Prize-winning physicist coined the term 'quark' from the phrase 'Three quarks for Muster Mark' in James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake?
Murray Gell-Mann
5 Which jockey rode Arkle to victory in Cheltenham Gold Cup three times in the 1960s?
Pat Taaffe
6 Which 1971 film, starring Steve McQueen, is said to capture accurately what it feels like to drive a Gulf Porsche 917 at 200 miles per hour?
Le Mans
7 Aytron Senna made his Grand Prix debut in Brazil in 1984 with which team?
Toleman
8 Who became the first person to sail non-stop and single-handed around the world in his boat Suhaili?
Robin Knox-Johnston

Round 4
1 Which rotund snooker referee from Northern Ireland was immortalised in a 1985 song by Half Man Half Biscuit?
Len Ganley (as in The Len Ganley Stance)
2 In squash, what two-word term describes a super slow ball that is used at championship level?
Double yellow
3 In 1570, the Frenchman Henri Saint-Didier originally coined the names for the various movements used in which Olympic sport?
Fencing
4 Named after an American newspaper tycoon, what is the most celebrated trophy in hot-air ballooning?
Coupe Aeronautique Gordon Bennett
5 Which pseudonym was used by the American writers of detective fiction Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee?
Ellery Queen
6 Meaning 'fast' in Hawaiian, what word generally refers to a website that can be edited by anybody?
Wiki
7 Which IBM computer beat Jeopardy! champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a series of TV shows that was broadcast in the US this week?
Watson - or Evil Watson, as I like to call him/it
8 Corregio decorated the dome of Italian city's cathedral with a highly influential illusionistic fresco?
Parma

Round 5
1 Later known for a brand of eponymous breakfast sausage, which country star had a 1961 US no. 1 with Big Bad John?
Jimmy Dean
2 The 1990 Mazda Cosmo was the first car to be equipped with what type of navigation system?
GPS
3 An invention of Queen Victoria’s lady-in-waiting, the Duchess of Bedford, what was first served at the Langham Hotel in London’s Regent Street in 1865?
Afternoon tea
4 Which King of England married Isabel, Countess of Gloucester and Isabelle of Angouleme?
John
5 Known by the abbreviation RLC, which corps, with over 16,000 soldiers, is the largest in the British Army?
Royal Logistics Corps
6 Used in the tea ceremony, which type of Japanese lead-glazed earthenware has a name that means 'enjoyment'?
Raku
7 What is the surname of Barbie's first boyfriend Ken?
Carson
8 Which film features Laurence Olivier asking Dustin Hoffman the question "Is it safe?" repeatedly?
Marathon Man

Round 6
1 Which movie news and reviews website derived its name from a John Travolta quote in the film Broken Arrow?
Ain't It Cool
2 Which BBC Monday night cookery show is hosted by model-turned-chef Lorraine Pascale?
Baking Made Easy
3 Napoleon Bonaparte is usually and wrongly blamed for destroying the nose of which monument?
Great Sphinx
4 The gardener Paulin Paulet and farm worker le père Alexander posed for which series of paintings done by Paul Cezanne in the 1890s?
The Card Players
5 Baal Shem Tov founded which branch of Orthodox Judaism?
Chasidism / Hasidic
6 A 55-foot high statue of which company mascot is found in Blue Earth, Minnesota?
Jolly Green Giant
7 CENSORED
8 Created in 1864, what is the world's best selling marmalade with over 14 million jars sold worldwide every year?
Robertson's Golden Shred

Round 7
1 In 1768, Bayleys of Bond Street was challenged by Count Orlof to create a perfume that embodied the distinctive aroma of the Russian court. Which fragrance was the result?
Imperial Leather
2 What is the only South American country with coastline on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans?
Colombia
3 Which capital city on the Atlantic coast derives its name from the Arabic for 'fort of victory'?
Rabat
4 Piccadilly Circus gets its name from 'picadiles'. What item of clothing is a 'picadile'?
Stiff collar
5 What word comes after ‘Space’, ‘Splash’ and ‘Big Thunder’ to give the names of Disneyland rides?
Mountain
6 Which 1964 Burt Bacharach and Hal David cover gave Cilla Black her first UK number one single?
Anyone Who Had a Heart
7 Which 'Project' is the name of the government deal on banking reform?
Project Merlin
8 Starring Tura Satana as Varla, the 1965 cult classic Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was directed by which American filmmaker?
Russ Meyer

Round 8
1 What will become the world's newest state on July 9 this year?
South Sudan
2 The world's biggest landfill, Jardim Gramacho, is a 300-acre site located on the edge of which South American city?
Rio de Janeiro
3 Written by James Q. ‘Spider’ Rich, which Benny Hill theme tune was released as a 1963 single by Boots Randolph?
Yakety Sax
4 Which Master of the King's Musick composed the 1922 work A Colour Symphony?
Arthur Bliss
5 The 'instant' form of which drink was invented by the Japanese-American chemist Satori Kato in 1901?
Coffee
6 The TV station Al Jazeera is owned by the Sultan of which country?
Qatar
7 A sabaton is a piece of armour that protects which parts of the body?
Feet
8 Which Vanilla Ice number one sampled the Queen and David Bowie song Under Pressure?
Ice Ice Baby

Spares
Which Asian revolutionary leader worked as a waiter at London's Carlton Hotel?
Ho Chi Minh
Eleanor of Aquitaine's marriage to which French king was annulled in 1152??
Louis VII
What was the four-letter acronym of Chile's notorious secret police?
DINA
Directed by Michael Mann, the film Manhunter was based on which Thomas Harris novel?
Red Dragon
Google Honeycomb is a version of which operating system that is optimized for tablet computers?
Android
The NRA Imperial Meeting is a shooting event that takes place at which Surrey location?
Bisley Camp
Who was the father of King Henry IV?
John of Gaunt
Which US state's flag was designed at the request of King Kamehameha I?
Hawaii
Named from the Aramaic for ‘house of suffering’, which Biblical location is known by the modern name al-Eizariya and is home to the reputed Tomb of Lazarus?
Bethany
Quilling is the art or craft of what?
Paper filigree
Derived from an American Spanish word, what form of betting sees the better select the first two place-winners in a race, not necessarily in the correct order?
Quinella
Which 1st century AD Roman rhetorician is best known for his work Education of an Orator?
Quintilian
Which Polish-born ballet dancer formed the Ballet Club in 1930, a company that bore her name from 1935?
Marie Rambert (originally Cyvia Rambam)
Pope Honorius II granted papal sanction to which military order in 1128?
Knights Templar
The 1689 painting Avenue at Middelharnis is perhaps the best known work by which Dutch landscape painter?
Meindert Hobbema
Which architect designed St Mary's Scottish Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh?
Sir George Gilbert Scott
Which Pope excommunicated Elizabeth I in 1570?
Pius V
The Mara Salvatrucha gang were founded in Los Angeles in the early 1980s by immigrants from which Central American country?
El Salvador
The Royal Albert Memorial Museum is the largest museum in which county town?
Exeter
Princess Diana was a direct descendant of which king?
Charles II
As part of Tory defence cuts, the withdrawal of which patrol vessel is said to have encouraged Argentina to believe that Britain was no longer interested in the Falklands, thus resulting in the 1982 war?
John Biscoe

Looks Like It's The Met For Me

2011-04-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

My 'congratulatory' text to Ian on winning Mastermind:

"Very very well done, ian. I scored 17 on your SS. I didn't get the Piombo apple Q. I did, however, go 'ahem' when you said every important painter is represented. The NG's lack of a Simone Martini, Hugo van der Goes or Georges de la Tour (nevermind lesser lights like Arcimboldo + Bazille) popped into my head immediately. And if the two Giorgiones are Giorgiones then I'm the King of Bhutan. My god. I've turned into such an insane art geek"

So a regulation congrats text that turned into a full blown critique of our nation's paintings collection, which despite my pointing out its relatively minor gaps (I've also read that we're missing a really seminal Gauguin), is probably - in terms of real quality - the most comprehensive/representative collection of 13th-19th century Western European paintings in the world.

The Prado, for instance, hasn't got a single Hals or Vermeer - the NG has eight and two respectively, and a single (admittedly great) Rembrandt against our score of paintings, while the Louvre is missing such key Italian primitives as Masaccio and Duccio. Also I don't believe the Louvre even have any Altdorfers or Elsheimers and its minor pair of Velazquezes are probably 'workshop of' paintings; the NG has a great mixture of nine works, including the Spaniard's only surviving nude (you know which one). I could go on, but I have a train to catch. And like I said ... 'insane art geek' - the kind that managed to visit five art museums in three different cities during my recent Amsterdam stag do weekend (the high culture, as it were, bookended the drinking/visiting the Red Light District bit when everyone had as yet not arrived or departed).

The Quiz Blogger Who Doesn't Blog. That's Me!

2011-04-15T02:02:00.000-07:00

4 post in, erm, 7 months?

[BTW, there's a bunch of quiz questions after the wordage, which you shouldn't take too seriously. I'll look back on this stuff next week and think myself a nutter for writing it. Then I will press Edit and delete half of this cack. But, for now, I'll let it be]

Greetings, whatever is left of my long-suffering readership. The despairing yet hopeful hardcore. I was going to do the apologetic beyond belief thing, which admittedly gets tired and repetitive, but then I remembered this comment from a person with the name "Anonymous" way back...

"2 post [sic] in 5 months..a long time ago, this blog made sense to visit..not anymore".

Quite honestly, the above style of comment is the reason I have practically disappeared from The Facebook, blogging and living life on the internet. I no longer interact with the denizens of The Zuckerberg's digital FiefDom, unless, of course, they contact me (then I'm all peaches and cream and reply like a normal FB addict, replying with speed and agility, replying like a goddamn cheetah).

I was going to launch into a fierce, vengeful diatribe, filled with flesh-tearing and bone-crushing, imagery just like the old days. Now, in my increasingly geriatric state, I really can't be bothered. A kind of dull sensation smothers my brain when I consider it. It means Vienna to me.

Very few blogs matter. The ones that do often bless their writers with book deals or shiney new meeja careers. The millions? of others soldier on, ignored by the human race.

My blog - a learning tool, interspersed with, ahem, imaginative longueurs - never mattered in the way that the best ones do and if I ever thought it did my insane self probably deserved a trip to the loony bin and an old-fashion lobotomy. In fact, it wasn't even a blog - where was the regular diet of links, for instance? It wasn't even an interesting personal journal, so haphazard and sparse in real life were the posts. The lacunae wrecked its blogging raison d'etre.

And that was then. "A long time ago", at the peak of blogpost production, I would have replied with a novella-length screed railing against the deranged, self-righteous internet hordes* who fill comment sections with their ill-thought out opinions that stink out everyone's existence with a whole gamut of negative views that range from expressions of mild dislike to declarations of homicidal intent.

* Methinks the only people worse than the hateful hordes are the ones who leave comments like "I've never heard of this person" and "I've not seen this TV show yet". Okay, that just shows up your ignorance and total lack of self-awareness for commenting on something you know nothing about. You think just because you've never encountered this person before (take jack-of-all-trades master of none James Franco for instance, who had a Guardian interview comment section with exactly that kind of 'opinion' on it), means that they are somehow rubbish or insignificant. No, it means that you are a dumbass and what you thought was some kind of contribution to the debate was an utterly pointless and brain-dead thing to say. Why in God's name did you bother writing that comment? Everyone who reads it will think less of you.

Instead, ignoring the italicised paragraph above (that's me expunging my own interwebbed rage), I will do a more thoughtful analysis and not descend to the Stygian levels of the YouTube "hey you retarded Nazi-douchebag vagina face" commenter.

What makes me laugh is that the commenter, who makes the error of mistaking my blog for one that matters, somehow thinks that my blog was written for the web and users of the web, or more specifically, the commenter, when - and I've said this many a time - it was just me writing thousands of questions for my own study use and jotting some spontaneous opinions down that might one day form bits and pieces of a terrible-selling memoir of the quizzing life.

But since it was a blog, anyone was welcome to drop by and test them on the questions and even copy and paste them into mega-files for EQC/WQC revision (you're all welcome).

Not once did I write my blog as an open letter to the folks out there and make regular requests to my readers for info or opinion, or engage in an exchange of views and general chat (man, that makes me sound like a stone-faced knob).

If you want that kind of optimal blog experience read David Clark's brilliantly comprehensive Life After Mastermind, an all-out quiz blog that buzzes with the kind of supreme trivia-adoration that has long since faded in my mind.

Comparing TQB to LAM, mine comes off as unbelievably solipsistic, poverty-stricken in the volume of words department and ignorant of the 'community' out there, unless you count my constant declarations of sorrow and apology concerning the lack of blog postage. Which are just crap and boring, to be honest.

I've never attached the importance to this blog that is implicit in that 17-word dig. Perhaps meant as a concise knifing in my heart, it feels more like a light yet irritating nudge whilst waiting in a supermarket queue.

The annoyance soon passes.

It seems that this blog isn't worth visiting not because it was badly written or contained questions stolen verbatim from quiz books. It wasn't worth visiting because it wasn't functioning and was practically flatlining.

There was nothing to see for days on end - a real Terrence Malick situation, albeit completely devoid of anticipatory excitement and coos of wonder concerning my next production another President's Cup round-up!Huzzah!). The cumulative frustration of clicking on the link for The Quiz Blogger must have been increasingly disappointing (poor schnookums, I'm all Chaka Khanning for you), and now I've got a tiny inkling of how George R.R. Martin must feel.

My only attempt to treat it as an amateur journalistic enterprise was my Ken Jennings interview and after I did it, I realised, yeah, I could make this into a decent outpost for enlightened musings and interviews that would expose the ol' media stereotypes of the quizzer as hackneyed paradigms of shameful bullroar.

Such an endeavour requires real commitment and diligence and an eye always kept on things quizzical, and I just knew that I didn't have it in me to create that magazine-like package.

Instead, the blog would shoulder on with quiz questions and shoddy tourney reviews. But even that was forever ago. The reality is I don't care for blog hits, the orgasmic drug of many a devoted blogger, so there was no underlying urge to improve the formula and draw more people in. The possibility never moved me in the way it does the true blogmeister.

And, frequency-wise, the crucial thing it truly boiled down to was the real money-earning work that I was doing. Back in 2006, I was posting quiz after quiz, but I was a freelance with a lot, and I mean LOADS of free time on my hands. Days spent in bed watching seasons of the then new Battlestar Galactica in three-day bursts, DVD marathons and so on. Jeez, I could have been a wee bit more constructive there.

However, this blog was always bound to deteriorate rapidly once I changed career path and returned to working in an office, after four years of working from home, sweet relaxed lazy home. The blog is my job sacrifice (I can't believe I just wrote that line, but I'll leave it in. Possibly because I'm meta-man and a fully operational idiot).

Now I am a more-than-full-time question writer, doing what I did before but now getting a living wage for it, the old Dr Johnson quote about only blockheads writing for free comes to mind (he was so right).

Then there's the fact that I can't write about TV quiz shows like I used to for reasons that you can work out for yourself. Burning bridges in the media biz is no way to build a career; a career that has now consumed my old blogging habits.

So let me leave you with an exchange from The Simpsons episode 'The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show' to make my final, slightly shoddy point:

Bart: Hey, I know it wasn't great, but what right do you have to complain?
Comic Book Guy: As a loyal viewer, I feel they owe me.
Bart: What? They're giving you thousands of hours of entertainment for free. What could they possibly owe you? I mean, if anything, you owe them!
Comic Book Guy: Worst episode ever.

(And what if the comment was a joke that I have once again taken far too seriously? Ah well. Can't think of anything to write about that possibility. Or maybe I'm exhausted and/or lazy. What has just dawned on me is the scale of my over-reaction to what was seventeen words. Overblown indeed. And now I have a little giggle. You gotta laugh when you know you're drinking from a glass full of fizzing crazy)

But wait a minute. You want questions? Course you do. Only reason you're here. Bet you skipped the above paragraphs of earnest egocentricity.

Unanswered questions in bold, as per usual.

It was the Masterminders versus Sussex - President's Cup champions yet again! Though we knew nothing of impending glory, naturally.

The score was 42-26 to ... someone. It was such a long time ago. No decisive memory remains.

President's Cup friendly 30/1/2011

Round 1
1. Which Italian city gives its name to the women's world team championship in contract bridge?
VENICE - as in the Venice Cup
2. What is the oldest cricket competition (i.e. not an annual match like Eton versus Harrow) in the world?
COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP
3. Which British sitcom was remade in the US in the 1970s, with comedian Red Foxx and Demond Wilson in the title roles?
STEPTOE AND SON (which became Sanford & Son)
4. The Volkskammer, or 'People's Chamber', was the parliament of which country?
EAST GERMANY / GDR
5. The last opera that Mozart worked on took its story from the life of which Roman emperor?
TITUS - as in La clemenza di Tito
6. Overthrowing King Faisal II, the July 14th Revolution of 1958 took place in which country?
IRAQ
7. What was first defined as the area that could be plowed in a day by a yoke of oxen?
ACRE
8. Inspired by his experiences as an orderly in World War One, which English artist decorated Sandham Memorial Chapel in Hampshire with a series of paintings?
STANLEY SPENCER

Round 2
1. Gruoch was the wife of which 11th century Scottish king?
MACBETH / MAC BETHAD MAC FINDLAICH
2. Which actor married, in chronological order, June Melville, Hattie Jacques and Joan Malin?
JOHN LE MESURIER
3. The Fields Medal is only awarded to mathematicians under which age?
FORTY YEARS OLD
4. Which large American birds belong to the genus Meleagris of the pheasant family?
TURKEY
5. Which system of musical notation and technique for teaching sight-singing was devised by Sarah Glover and popularised by John Curwen?
TONIC SOL-FA
6. Hearing of which president's death led to Dorothy Parker asking: "How could they tell?"?
CALVIN COOLIDGE
7. New York's Empire State Building was constructed on the site of which hotel?
WALDORF ASTORIA
8. What did Winston Churchill call "a philosophy of failure [and] the gospel of envy"?
SOCIALISM

Round 3
1. Krating Daeng was the Thai inspiration for which energy drink?
RED BULL
2. Recently bought in the IPL auction for $2.4 million by the Kolkata Knight Riders from the Delhi Daredevils, which Indian batsman is therefore the world's most expensive cricketer?
GAUTAM GAMBHIR
3. Much seen in Western films, which region of the Colorado Plateau on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona is characterised by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes?
MONUMENT VALLEY
4. At the 2010 General Election, Naomi Long replaced Peter Robinson as MP for Belfast East. She belongs to which political party, whose leader is David Ford?
ALLIANCE PARTY
5. First held in 1925, the MacRobertson Shield is the leading tournament in which sport?
CROQUET
6. Where was the Grand National run between 1916 and 1918?
GATWICK
7. In Greek mythology, which faithful dog quickly recognised Odysseus on his return to Ithaca, despite the king's disguise as an old beggar?
ARGOS
8. Which unincorporated territory of the USA is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands?
GUAM

Round 4
1. Also known as PCP, the drug 'phencyclidine' has what two-word nickname, which is also that of a Faith No More album?
ANGEL DUST
2. How many bones are there in an adult human's skull?
22
3. Known by the Latin name Diomedea exulans, which bird has the longest wingspan at 11.5 feet?
WANDERING ALBATROSS / SNOWY ALBATROSS / WHITE-WINGED ALBATROSS
4. What is the name of the single superocean that was formed 240 million years ago?
PANTHALASSA
5. Which mineral, with the composition SiO2, is at no. 7 on the Mohs scale of hardness?
QUARTZ
6. Launched on January 31st, 1958, which American satellite discovered Earth's radiation belts?
EXPLORER 1
7. Changed into a white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Disney film, Bambi was originally which species in the books by Felix Salten?
ROE DEER
8. Which fruit tree in the rose family is sometimes known as the Japanese medlar?
LOQUAT

Round 5
1. Which DNA base pairs with thymine?
ADENINE
2. The Islamic calendar is calculated from which year - the year that saw Muhammad go from Mecca to Medina?
622 AD
3. Which saint's late 4th century Latin translation of the Bible is known as the Vulgate?
ST JEROME
4. Which King of Wessex was recognised as overlord of England in 828?
EGBERT
5. Giving his name to an alkaloid, which French ambassador in Portugal introduced tobacco into his native country in 1560?
JEAN NICOT
6. Edward the Martyr and Ethelred the Unready were the sons of which King, who was known as 'The Peaceful'?
EDGAR
7. The world's most vertical city, what was once described by Milton Friedman as the world's greatest experiment in laissez-faire capitalism?
HONG KONG
8. The accounting firm Arthur Andersen was effectively destroyed due to its role in which scandal?
ENRON

Round 6
1. Buildings in various parts of China often lack any floor name that has which number in it, due to its similarity to the Cantonese word for 'die'?
FOUR
2. McDonald's biggest local rival and Brazil's first fast food chain, Bob's was founded by and named after which American tennis player who won the Wimbledon singles title in 1948?
BOB FALKENBURG
3. Known by the abbreviation PV, which method of generating electrical power converts solar radiation into direct current electricity using semiconductors that exhibit the namesake effect? PHOTOVOLTAICS
4. Syria and Lebanon use which name for their currency?
POUND
5.The daily French newspaper with the highest circulation is Ouest-France. It is based in which northwestern city?
RENNES
6. Lying at the south of the island in the Malew parish, what is the ancient capital of the Isle of Man? King William's College is located nearby.
CASTLETOWN
7.In an Isaac Hayes song, "Who's the black private dick / That's a sex machine to all the chicks"?
SHAFT
8. Which American law professor's controversial memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, claims that soft western parenting fails, while the Chinese version get hardline results?
AMY CHUA

Round 7
1. Opened in January 2010, which Jamaican airport is the first to have been named after an English-language writer?
IAN FLEMING
2. In 1956, Tunisia gained independence from France with which man as its first Prime Minister and then first President?
HABIB BOURGUIBA
3. Which English singer has released two albums: Alright, Still and It's Not Me, It's You?
LILY ALLEN
4. Which typographic character, as found on a computer keyboard, is known in Czech as a 'rollmop herring', in German as a 'monkey's tail' and in Hebrew as 'strudel'?
@
5. As seen on Yasser Arafat, which traditional headdress, typically worn by Arab and Kurdish men, is fashioned from a square, usually cotton, scarf?
KEFFIYEH / GHUTRAH / HATTAH / MASHADAH / SHEMAGH / PUSI
6. Which three consecutive letters in the alphabet give the name of a 'Royal Aviation Company' that was founded in October 1919?
KLM
7.Fought on October 20th, 1827, which Greek War of Independence battle saw a combined Ottoman and Egyptian armada destroyed by a combined British, French and Russian naval force?
NAVARINO
8. What is the most visited museum in the world?
LOUVRE

Round 8
1. Which Annie Lennox debut solo album features the hit singles Why, Walking on Broken Glass and Little Bird?
DIVA - Gavin was straight in there with the right answer. Twas a pity he was scoring the game
2. The instigator of the Arts and Crafts Movement, which Englishman declared that you should "have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful"?
WILLIAM MORRIS
3. Written by Richard Ingrams and John Wells, the 'Dear Bill' letters in Private Eye purported to be the private correspondence of which man?
DENIS THATCHER
4. On May 3, 1966, which newspaper broke with tradition by putting news on the front page and its columns of classified advertising on the back?
THE TIMES
5.Nicknamed "Hubble Bubble", which Duke, who served as Prime Minister for 7 years and 205 days, is best known for leading Britain into the Seven Years War? His real name was Thomas Pelham-Holles.
DUKE OF NEWCASTLE
6. Director-General of MI5 from 1956 to 1965, which British journalist and secret-service agent was twice investigated on suspicion of being a Soviet spy?
SIR ROGER HOLLIS
7. Derived from the Latin word for 'apple', what name is given to the solid remains, as in in the skins, pulp and seeds, of grapes, olives or other fruit after pressing for juice or oil?
POMACE
8. Which English action film star has played the title role in three Transporter movies, as well as a 2011 remake of The Mechanic - a character previously played by Charles Bronson?
JASON STATHAM

Spares
The Church Commissioners have decided to sell which castle in Cumbria - the home of the Bishop of Carlisle?
ROSE CASTLE
Kumite and Kata are individual competitions at which sport's world championship?
KARATE
What is the more common name for a plantar wart?
VERRUCA
Which song became the breakout hit for The Supremes after The Marvelettes rejected it for being too childish?
WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO

Jesse says

2011-03-11T04:27:00.001-08:00

"Like, OMG! With Peaches Geldof (no, actually, not that). I've only just read your blog post. All I can say is sorry. But as you can see from the photo, I thought you had written RODWIA. So not actually me thinking 'I got it wrong, so Olav has too'- more not reading your writing properly. Can this be added to the blog for clarification?"

A New Decade

2011-02-06T14:57:00.000-08:00

(The time was right for that Verve reference)

And I'm Rusty as Hell (A Blog about Nothing really)

Yesterday saw me do my first GP paper since October (!!LOLOMG!!!). Suffice to say, I'd be driven by arty/entertainment passions during these last few months and these are reflected in the two relevant scores. I mean, wow, buying those 50 art books (no lie) in that period has really helped me with the old paintings and what not.

As for the others (esp. PW and S&L), well, it was all meh to me and was entirely my own fault for not taking proper care of the relevant GK areas during the last few months, in the same way that Dr. Johnson says that friendships should be kept in constant repair.

Funniest thing on the drive back to London was Paul pointing out the above 'answer' (see rare pic). Even I hadn't noticed it until I brandished my scoresheet in his car like a bloody rag of defeat, scorched with red-tipped pen and other OTT descriptions (Paul was driving at about 100 mph at the time and maybe it wasn't a good idea to draw attention to it; what with the waving and gesticulating, and then the onset of light screaming, as I once again glanced at the run of mindless answers (BLOOMBERG/NICKY), spoonerisms (BECKITT RENCKISER) and cross-out swaps (doing a last minute HEBREW for ARAMAIC on the Zohar Q) I'd written on the second page of Lifestyle that cost me a win in the category).

So I wrote RODINIA (yeah, I know it's blurred, but that's what it says, not anything like RODIWA; damn midget N combined with the red crossing) - the Russian name derived from 'motherland' that was a supercontinent many many many many many moons ago) - and then Jesse crossed it out and wrote ... RODINIA. (So why didn't he cross out ALUMINIUM?)

Because I was in such a frantic rush to get back home I didn't check my answers with due diligence and this is what I got. A 0.2 point penalty, which didn't cost me any places or ranking points (phew); only the miniscule jump from 103.8 to 104.0 (aww, 104.0's still better than 103.8, but then I would say that, it's BIGGER).

So rather than a lurid story of self-flagellating idiocy recounted in even more hysterical style (I mean, it's only 0.2pts), it reminds me more of a cautionary tale I am doomed never to learn as it has happened before, on two far more crucial instances. Once where a right answer was marked wrong at a BQC meaning I lost a place in the top 5 (Ian). Once again last year at the Northampton GP where two correct answers were ignored in the tallying and I was bumped down from second to third (Sean). And now Jesse.

Strangely this has only happened when my close associates (Broken Hearts players) mark my papers (it's an internal conspiracy!). Nobody else - thank you guys, who I never play on quiz teams with, you're frickin' awesome for being so careful! - has done it, like ever.

But I can see exactly why it happens: we often mark our own papers mentally, rather than the one before us. Even I was doing it on Saturday and stopped myself, thinking "No, the answer before me is right; the answer over there is the one that I have foolishly put on paper and now I want to kick myself in the head". Then, after we had swapped our papers back, Jesse pointed out that I had marked something correctly and left my tally the same when going on to the next right answer. Doh. My bad.

So the moral is: always check your answers, no matter how much you want to stick the damn disappointment-riven question-sheets in your bag and just exit the premises.

There was something else I find far more worrying about the scoring. Leniency. Powers of discretion. Yesterday, I put down Tigering as the answer, when Tiger-proofing was what was needed (the capitalisation on the screen pointing out what was required). I could have pressed my marker to allow it, but it missed the 'proofing' part (a pretty vital part of the answer) and so I told Jesse to mark it wrong. But then later you hear of several others (no names of course, you naughty people you), who did accept 'Tigering' and gave the mark. Why does it make it worrisome? Because single-answer margins make a lot of difference in the ranking points game.

In such cases, it shouldn't be up the leniency of your marker; it should be what is capitalised on the screen or negotiated with the person giving out the answers, especially when what we want is a fair result. Everyone has to play by the same rules (says me perched on my bloody hoity toity high horse dishing out the injustice spiel, but you know it makes absolute sense ... think of everyone else).

Oh. HAPPY NEW YEAR! (I know it's now February; time moves too rapidly when you get older. The Grim Reaper comes skipping towards me at an ever increasing gait.)

Just the Friendly What I Wrote

2010-11-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

No commentary on today's action

Because I realised that what I had written might be a bit controversial and ranty, even though I didn't mean it to be (let's just say that today's President's Cup set was HARD, diamond hard, crying and laughing hard). Sussex won 44-27 (v Cambridge). We remain unbeaten.

However, I'm going to miss the next Sunday's match (eeek) - the first time I will miss a President's Cup match in SIX YEARS - because I will be going to Vienna on holiday (the Bruegels are calling).

This is my ten-round random-pick friendly. Sussex won something like 54-43 or 54-45. It's just a friendly, so it doesn't really matter does it?

Unanswered Qs bolded up.

President's Cup Friendly 21/11/10

Round 1
1. A possible victim of aristocratic inbreeding, which French artist said of his being 4 feet and 11 inches tall: "I may only be a small coffee pot, but I have a big spout"?
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
2. The Lesser Sunda Island of Timor is divided between which two countries?
Indonesia & East Timor
3. First appearing in the magazine Judy on August 14, 1867, which Charles H. Ross creation was Britain's first regular comic character? His name came from slang for someone who runs away to avoid the rent collector.
Ally Sloper
4. What was the date of JFK's assassination?
November 22, 1963
5. The England cricketers, Steve Finn and Eoin Morgan, play for which county?
Middlesex
6. Inspiring Eurovision, which song contest has been held on the Italian Riviera every February since 1951?
Sanremo Music Festival / Festival della Canzone Italiana
7. Which new Danny Boyle film is an adaptation of mountain climber Aron Ralston's 2004 book Between a Rock and a Hard Place?
127 Hours
8. Modern Warfare 2 and the recently released Black Ops are video games in which series?
Call of Duty

Round 2
1. In 1906, which legendary tenor became the defendant in the "Monkey House Case" when he was fined $10 for pinching a lady's bottom in New York's Central Park Zoo?
Enrico Caruso (he claimed a monkey did it, as you do)
2. The title of which 1908 EM Forster novel refers to the Pensione Bertolini in Florence?
A Room with a View
3. The largest of the so-called "Loyal Orders" with some 75,000 members, which order was founded in Loughgall, County Armagh, in 1796?
Orange Order / Orange Institution
4. First held in 1826, what is the world's longest-running regatta?
Cowes Week
5. Which water-displacing spray was developed in 1953 by Norm Larsen, founder of the Rocket Chemical Company, San Diego?
WD-40
6. Complete the title of the film: Police Academy 5: Assignment ... where?
Miami Beach
7. The Germans, Felix Loch and Tatjana Hufner, are the respective men's and women's Olympic champions in which winter sport?
Luge
8. The ministers, Ping, Pang and Pong, are characters in which Puccini opera?
Turandot

Round 3
1. Which patron saint of Norway is celebrated in the said country, as well as the Faroe Islands, on July 29 every year?
St. Olav / Olaf II
2. Nicknamed "Perdita", the actress Mrs Mary Robinson is believed to have been the first mistress of which future king?
George IV / Prince Regent George
3. Goya was appointed First Painter to which King of Spain in 1789?
Charles IV / Carlos IV
4. The gardener's son, eight-year-old boy James Phipps, was the guinea pig for which disease's vaccine?
Cowpox then Smallpox
5. Which Chancellor of Austria was killed during a botched coup on July 25, 1934?
Engelbert Dollfuss
6. After Trafalgar, Lord Nelson's body was pickled in 157 bottles of which drink?
Brandy
7. Housed in Oxford University, the Bate Collection is a collection of which items?
Musical instruments
8. Which fellow German composer completes the title of Paul Hindemith's 1943 work Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of ... who?
Carl Maria von Weber

Round 4
1. The shape of which South American lake is said to resemble a puma hunting a rabbit?
Lake Titicaca
2. Which English location was the northernmost city in the Roman Empire?
York
3. What name links a European Cup-winning football manager and a tall, fur head-dress worn by Hungarian Hussars?
Busby
4. Who invented the piano at the Medici court in Florence in around 1700?
Bartolomeo Cristofori
5. Which painter's only true landscape is said to be View of Toledo, from c.1597?
El Greco (though there is another surviving landscape in Toledo)
6. Opened in 1950, the Estadio Jornalista Mario Filho is the official name of which stadium?
Maracana Stadium / Estadio do Maracana
7. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairy Puck turns which weaver's head into that of an ass's?
Nick Bottom
8. Having continued to claim parliamentary expenses for a mortgage that had already been repaid, which Labour MP for Scunthorpe resigned at the 2010 General Election?
Elliot Morley

Round 5
1. Among the world's most endangered mammals, the Attenborough's Long-beaked, Eastern Long-beaked and Western Long-beaked are species of which monotreme?
Echidna
2. Which comic book character links the actors Eric Bana, Ed Norton and now Mark Ruffalo?
Hulk
3. There are more surviving statues of which Egyptian Pharaoh of the Ninteenth dynasty than any other? He is known as Ozymandias in Greek sources.
Ramses II / Ramesses II
4. Pivo is the Russian name for which drink?
Beer
5. Lasting from 1948 to 1955, the Informbiro is the name given to the period of strife between the Soviet Union and which former country?
Yugoslavia
6. Meaning 'father of the raven', what was the former name of Baghdad Central Prison?
Abu Ghraib prison
7. In November 1938, Hitler appeared in an issue of which magazine, as "a true raconteur" showing off the Berghof, his "clear and fresh chalet" with "the most unsullied view in all Europe"? The publication calls itself "The world's most beautiful interiors magazine".
Homes & Gardens
8. Who has become the first boxer in history to win ten world titles in eight different weight divisions?
Manny Pacquaio

Round 6
1. In 1963, Ahmed Ben Bella became the third president of which African country?
Algeria
2. Marseillaise, Garibaldi and Lincoln-Washington were the names of battalions in which military force of anti-fascist volunteers?
International Brigades
3. From a field of 22, the Old Harrovian and Surrey cricketer, Spencer Gore, became the first winner of which championship in 1877?
Wimbledon / Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles Championship
4. A stadium in the upmarket Buenos Aires barrio of Palermo, the Campo Argentino is known as "The Cathedral" of which team sport?
Polo
5. Which "champion of champions" title is the most prestigious to be awarded at Crufts?
Best in Show
6. The last Empress consort of the French, who was the wife of Napoleon III?
Eugenie / Dona Maria Eugenia Ignacia Augustina de Palafox-Portocarrero de Guzman y Kirkpatrick, 16th Countress of Teba and 15th Marquise of Ardales
7. In Greek mythology, Silenus was a companion and tutor to which god, the son of Zeus and Semele?
Dionysus
8. Built between 1609 and 1616, which mosque is located directly opposite the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul?
Blue Mosque / Sultan Ahmed Mosque

Round 7
1. The transuranic element of the actinide series with the atomic number 96, is named after which scientist couple?
The Curies / Marie Sklodowska-Curie & husband Pierre Curie
2. Which frog species is the largest extant anuran on Earth?
Goliath frog / Conraua goliath
3. Philography is the hobby of collecting what?
Autographs
4. Featuring the lyrics "in the city, city of Compton", Ronnie Hudson and the Street People's song West Coast Poplock was heavily sampled in which 1996 top ten hit for 2Pac featuring Dr Dre?
California Love - the tune was taken from Joe Cocker's Woman to Woman
5. Which Indonesian national dish has a name that literally means 'fried rice'?
Nasi goreng
6. The third largest in Spain after Madrid's Barajas Airport and Barcelona Airport, Son Sant Joan Airport serves which island capital?
Palma, Majorca
7. Deriving its name from either the Gaelic for 'vale of tranquility' or 'vale of big meadows', which single malt Scotch whisky distillery is based in Tain, Ross-shire, and boasts the tallest stills in Scotland? Its bottles refer to "The Sixteen Men of Tain".
Glenmorangie
8. Which political term derives from the Latin word for a 'bundle' of rods tied together and attached to an axe head?
Fascist / Fascism

Round 8
1. St Paul brought Christianity to which European country when he was shipwrecked there and then hidden from the Romans in a cave in Rabat?
Malta
2. The Earl of Errol, Scottish Lilt, Flora MacDonald's Fancy, The Village Maid and Blue Bonnets are all forms of what?
[Scottish] Highland dances
3. The Glorious Twelfth of August marks the opening day of which shooting season?
Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus) / accept: Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta)
4. Inaugurated in 1896, which "Veteran Car Run" is held on the first Sunday in November?
London to Brighton Veteran Car Race - it is the longest-running motoring event in the world
5. Which plant features in an eating world championship hosted by The Bottle Inn in the Dorset village of Marshwood every mid-June?
Stinging nettle
6. What is the oldest football competition in the world?
FA Cup
7. Which man's surname links a Shrewsbury shopping centre, a Zimbabwean mountain, a Cambridge University college and an Australian city?
Charles Darwin
8. The Big Nowhere and American Tabloid are novels by which US crime writer?
James Ellroy

Round 9
1. "I sing of arms and the man" is the opening line of which epic poem?
The Aeneid
2. How many US states begin their name with the word "New"?
Four (New Hampshire/Jersey/Mexico/York)
3 Which quiz show host plays the role of DS Ronnie Brooks on the TV show Law & Order: UK?
Bradley Walsh
4 In November 2007, Kate Middleton quit as "accessories buyer" for which women's clothing retailer? The job had been especially created for her by the company's owners, John and Belle Robinson.
Jigsaw
5 Headquartered in Carlstadt, New Jersey, which corporation is best known for its eponymous "Matching System", a proprietary colour space used in such industries as printing?
Pantone
6 In 1986, TIME magazine hailed which Filipina as its "Woman of the Year"?
Corazon Aquino, President of the Philippines
7 Founded by, among others, Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, the Vancouver-based company Ludicorp launched which photo-sharing website in February 2004?
Flickr
8 Broadcast on Living TV, which reality show has three single men and three single women move into a very badly lit house and get to know each other and form bonds in total darkness? The French version is called L'amour est aveugle (Love Is Blind)?
Dating in the Dark

Round 10
1 Germany's second largest museum of natural history, the Naturmuseum Senckenberg is located in which city?
Frankfurt
2 Adapted into a 2010 Channel 4 drama, which William Boyd novel tells the life story of Logan Mountstuart through his "Intimate Journals"?
Any Human Heart
3. Which Archbishop is accorded the title "Primate of All Ireland"?
Archbishop of Armagh
4. What item of furniture is a secretaire?
Writing desk / Enclosed writing desk, usually with an upper cabinet section
5. Acquired by Oracle in January 2010, which computer systems and software company developed the Java platform and the Solaris operating system?
Sun Microsystems
6. Who plays Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the ITV drama Downton Abbey?
Dame Maggie Smith
7. Which horse won both the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National in 1934?
Golden Miller
8. Which operator of all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean has a total of 15 couples-only properties, including eight in Jamaica and three in St Lucia?
Sandals Resorts

Spares
Which American singer topped the album chart in 1980 with Tears and Laughter?
Johnny Mathis
Superbly adapted to life in the harsh Gobi Desert, which camel - a critically endangered species in the wild - is the probable ancestor of all domestic two-humped camels?
Bactrian camel
Founded in 1859, which UK sports governing body uses the motto "Sit Perpetuum" ('May it last forever')?
National Rifle Association of the United Kingdom (our NRA governs full bore rifle and pistol shooting sports)

Important Correction

2010-11-18T03:42:00.001-08:00

If I hadn't changed Shenzhen, I would have got a bronze medal, owing to Pat having a superior qualification score (80 to my 74). Even more bloody gnashing of the fingers would have ensued.

Inspiration

2010-11-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

Want some mildly euphoric rambling?

I was wandering through the Andes Survivors site today and looked at the very earliest Belgian-England match-ups (Bromley & Ghent - neither of which I attended). Call it my lingering and always powerful adherence to Kaizen - the Japanese desire for constant improvement (or something like that; I'm sure Jesse can provide a better definition). And call me crazy for looking up the old stuff and reading avidly through Qs mere days after undergoing the shattering mental assault of a European Quizzing Championship weekend.

I downloaded the questions for the very first Belgium v England game, which resulted in a 138-86 massacre visited upon the latter, as I did for the Cafe Den Hemel club quiz (I would have got Fugazi!) and Ghent individuals because, despite my cutting and pasting and printing out the Qs a couple of times before. They got lost in the masses of questions I have collated and rounded-up and absorbed into The Files. They have become so many: sheets of old question sets sprayed all over my bedroom; once pristine files crushed out of shape by even bigger files of thousands and thousands of trivia one/double liners.

An old sensation returned. I remembered. On first looking at those 2003 & 2004 sets, my instant reaction was: "What quiz planet do our Flemish quiz counterparts live on?"

The funny thing is that what looked so alien and obscure and devilishly hard those years ago, now seems very do-able and accessible (constant mental "I know that" ad nauseam). The years of hard travail that I knew was needed and put in gradually destroyed that disconnect. For this I thank the Belgian quiz nation for opening my eyes and showing me what Quiz could really be: a cosmopolitan and catholic test of all the world's knowledge, shattering my focus on the Albion-centred knowledge sub-set demanded of Brits, whose lowest and highest GK achievements were and are channelled through and bent out of shape by the oppressive, individualistic "entertainment" demands of our television quiz culture (though, of course, it has its many charms and many benefits ... I have to say that what with work and all that).

It was also doubly shocking and nice to know that somewhere on the continent pop culture questions (woah, American indie rock!) were being asked that were actually relevant to someone of my then mostly youthful disposition.

Thanks to all that work, such hard work, reaping Wikipedia amongst other now ingrained habits for hours on end, in order to make up The Gap (and what a bloody big gap it was, a yawning dark chasm I couldn't quite believe) I can now call myself - for about the next c.360 days at least - the European individual champion.

Mucho gratitude is also forthcoming for the truckload of luck I was laden with in the final. For without fortune smiling upon you, even the finest quizzers will find themselves hamstrung and stranded in what might appear to them mid-table or upper-table obscurity. It depends on the insanely high standards we all set for ourselves.

For, without changing Chunking (Chonqing) to Shenzhen in the last 20 seconds of the final, I would now be swinging a silver medal around my living room in a homicidal manner, whilst grumbling and yowling like a pitiful wounded beast, thinking what might have been. (Just to confirm: Gold is great. Feel free to smack me upside the head if my smugness goes overboard. Oh wait: perhaps it already has.)

Still, there are always further challenges. There's an endless sodding parade of them. There's that magic quartet of four golden Euro titles which I missed out in Dordrecht to aim for: something that will get harder and harder every year to achieve (just watch the rest of the field come back with beautiful, determined vengeance ... it's the least I would expect from the wonderfully, awesomely talented likes of Tero, Pat, Kevin, Ronny, Nico, Jesse and so on and so many). Once one quiz ends, the cycle starts again so very soon, giving us yet another chance to put right what went so terribly awry the last 29 times. And to do it against an ever improving field is something that will also undoubtedly raise the game to even more impressive heights.

And so we go on. It's endless and so very enjoyable to burn with a deep competitiveness and lust for autodidactism that few non-quizzers will ever understand. But we understand, don't we?

That and I have a lot of improving to do when it comes to European comic artists, Hispanic writers, European geography, basketball and Nature, red in tooth and claw. Damn those weaver fish parasites and sweet American herbs.

So in conclusion and without meaning to patronise another quiz culture: Thank you, Belgium (even if you woke the sleeping giant of British international quizzing, it's worth it, isn't it? So much more fun and better this way).

(PS: Thanks to Chris, Jane, Steven, Arko, Doc, Paul and all the IQA organisers for another superlative EQC. It remains my favourite quiz thing in all the world. But then I would say that, wouldn't I?)

The Season

2010-10-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Wheel Turns and Here We Are Again

It never seems like the summer break is enough. Sometimes I think I can do with two whole years off and come back to the leagues then. But no. Never gonna happen. I guess you can finagle the instincts that drive me back, or suck me in like a maelstrom of quiz routine.

Yeah, there was Qll; yesterday was very bad Qgp (worst performance since - aaarggh, flesh exploding in shame - the Brits last year); today there was middling to enjoyable performance in the Pc (39-32 against an Oxford duo shorn of Dennis, who is quite possibly still roaming the streets of central London looking for our tucked away venue).

Now here's the friendly yadda yadda. You knows the ones that ain't be answered are emboldened. Score was something like 43-30 to The Sussex. Yadda. On the train home, I read a good Malcolm Gladwell article in the New Yorker which slags off activism as envisioned by the social media elite and compared to the bravery of civil rights movement and organisation of left-wing terror groups. I thought I'd just mention that in a random happenstance manner. I don't even know what 'happenstance' means. But he's right you know.

I thought I'd admit that this is a question dump for Qs that are too long for Mind Games and not quite suitable for other "assignments". They're not a load of crap though. No, sir.

President's Cup friendly October 3, 2010

(Random pick format)

Round 1
1. "The Nellie, a crusing yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest" is the first line of which work by Joseph Conrad?
HEART OF DARKNESS
2. In 2014, the Victoria & Albert Museum will open an outpost where in Scotland?
DUNDEE
3. What was England's only French possession when the Hundred Years' War ended?
CALAIS
4. In March 2008, the British designer Hannah MacGibbon was appointed creative director of which French fashion house?
CHLOE
5. Used in psychosurgery, the Freeman-Watts procedure, or "precision method", is the standard form of which controversial surgical technique?
PREFRONTAL LOBOTOMY
6. The station, RAF Barkston Heath, is located in which county?
Grantham, LINCOLNSHIRE
7. Best known for playing postal carrier Cliff Clavin on Cheers, which actor has been called "Pixar's good luck charm" because he has voiced a character in every feature-length Pixar film?
JOHN RATZENBERGER
8. The Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue helped which king overcome his stammer?
GEORGE VI

Round 2
1. Found south of the Sahara, the klipspringer is a small species of which animal?
ANTELOPE
2. Which halogen, with the atomic number 53, is the heaviest essential element that is utilized biologically?
IODINE
3. Which basketball player claimed that he had bedded 20,000 women in his 1991 memoir A View From Above?
WILT CHAMBERLAIN
4. Deriving its name from a team in an episode of The Simpsons, the Albuquerque Isotopes is a real team that plays which sport?
BASEBALL
5. Due to launch in September 2011, what name has been given to Paris's proposed public rental system for electric cars?
AUTOLIB
6. The Australian continent has how many time zones?
THREE
7. Used in digital watches, the first visible example of which practical electronic component was invented by General Electric Company scientist Nick Holonyak in 1962?
LED / LIGHT-EMITTING DIODE
8. Complete Somerset Maugham's quote: "To eat well in England you should have a..." what?
"... BREAKFAST THREE TIMES A DAY"

Round 3
1. King Edward I's 1285 Statute of Winchester made practice of what activity compulsory for all able-bodied males on Sundays?
ARCHERY
2. Which 18th century writer's works include the biography The Life of Richard Savage, the poem London and the play Irene?
SAMUEL JOHNSON
3. Who choreographed the ballet The Rite of Spring on its Paris premiere in 1913?
VASLAV NIJINSKY
4. Who won the Best Actor Oscar for playing the title role in the 1939 film Goodbye, Mr Chips?
ROBERT DONAT
5. Which egg-shaped fruit, also known the tree tomato, is produced by the plant Solanum betaceum?
TAMARILLO
6. One of three men to have played The Punisher on film, which Swedish action star has a master's degree in chemical engineering, an IQ of 160 and a 3rd dan black belt in karate?
DOLPH LUNDGREN
7. Which Spanish footballer scored the winner in this year's World Cup final?
ANDRES INIESTA
8. Within ten feet or three metres either way, how long is the Bayeux Tapestry?
224.3 FEET (214.3ft - 234.3ft) / 68.38 METRES (65.38m or 71.38m)

Round 4
1. Which musical instrument provides the popular title of Camille Saint-Saens' Symphony no.3?
ORGAN / PIPE ORGAN
2. Stratfield Saye in Hampshire has been the country home of which dukes since 1817?
DUKES OF WELLINGTON
3. Which band has the most UK singles successes of any Welsh group; its 35th chart entry comingcourtesy of its latest single (It's Not War) Just the End of Love?
MANIC STREET PREACHERS
4. Tinia the god of the sky, Uni his wife, Turan, the goddess of love and Laran, the god of war, were major deities in which European civilisation's mythology?
ETRUSCAN
5. Which NASA space shuttle was built to replace Challenger and was delivered in May 1991?
ENDEAVOUR
6. Claude Francois and Jacques Revaux's 1967 song Comme d'habitude was adapted into which song by Paul Anka?
MY WAY
7. What is both the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company?
GAZPROM
8. Ed Miliband is MP for which constituency that was created in 1983 from Don Valley and Goole?
DONCASTER NORTH

Round 5
1. Released in 2006, which Wii video game is the best-selling console game of all time?
WII PLAY
2. Published anonymously in 2000, the romance novel Zabibah and the King is believed to have been written by which unlikely author?
SADDAM HUSSEIN
3. Snakeheads are Chinese gangs mostly involved in what type of trafficking?
MIGRANT LABOUR / PEOPLE SMUGGLING
4. Which Indian city was hit by the "Black Friday" series of bombings in March 1993?
BOMBAY / MUMBAI
5. Which Pakistani umpire clashed with Mike Gatting during the 1987 Faisalabad Test?
SHAKOOR RANA
6. Which Liberal Democrat Lord was the first Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, holding the post between 1999 and 2003?
DAVID STEEL
7. WH Auden's poem Musee des Beaux Arts discusses Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, a work long thought to be by which Netherlandish Renaissance painter?
PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER
8. Traditionally eaten on St. David's day, which leek broth is the Welsh national dish?
CAWL

Round 6
1. Used as a filming location in the Harry Potter movies, which cathedral is home to the canopied shrine of King Edward II?
GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL
2. George Cole played Sir Giles Lynchwood MP and David Suchet the title role in a 1985 BBC2 adaptation of which novel by Tom Sharpe?
BLOTT ON THE LANDSCAPE
3. What is the British term for white sugar with finer grains than those of granulated sugar? Its American equivalent is superfine sugar or Baker's special.
CASTOR SUGAR
4.Who was named the Ugandan light-heavyweight boxing champion from 1951 to 1960?
IDI AMIN
5. This week, some chap called CJ de Mooi described Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's reelection as president of which international governing body as "a farce of a vote"?
FIDE
6. Which artist's largest work on canvas is a 34 feet by 38 feet back cloth that he created for the Ballet Russes' 1924 production of Le Bleu Train?
PABLO PICASSO
7. What term for the relieving of emotional tensions or purging of emotions is derived from the Greek word for 'a cleansing'?
CATHARSIS
8. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police's scarlet tunics are made of which twill-weave woollen fabric?
SERGE - their uniform is "famously" called the Red Serge

Round 7
1. Supported by a strap going diagonally over the right shoulder, what wide belt is named after a British army officer who served with the 2nd Punjab Irregular Cavalry during the Indian Rebellion of 1857?
SAM BROWNE BELT
2. The highest point in the western massif of the Cairngorms, what is the third highest mountain in Great Britain, surpassed only by Ben Nevis and Ben Macdui?
BRAERIACH / Braigh Riabhach (1296m/4252ft)
3. Mount Logan is located in which Canadian territory?
YUKON
4.Released in 1981, The Visitors was the eighth and last studio album by which pop group?
ABBA
5. Treme [pronounced TRE-MAY], the new TV drama from the makers of The Wire, is set in which American city?
NEW ORLEANS
6. Named after a Scottish author, which prize for historical fiction was founded in 2010 and had Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall for its inaugural winner?
WALTER SCOTT PRIZE
7. Which Old Testament prophet was the son of Hannah and Elkanah?
SAMUEL
8. The designer of Dulwich Picture Gallery, which architect's house on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields is now a museum?
SIR JOHN SOANE

Round 8
1. What potential hazards are measured by the Palermo Scale and the similar, but less complex, Torino Scale?
IMPACT OF NEAR EARTH OBJECTS or COMETS or ASTEROIDS
2. Which Lotus sports car can be seen converting into a submarine-type vehicle in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me?
LOTUS ESPRIT
3. Which modified Mercedes Benz M-Class sport utility vehicle has the number plate 'SCV 1'?
POPEMOBILE
4. Which 5ft3in dictator built the Museum of International Understanding just to house the basketball signed by his hero Michael Jordan that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave to him in 2000?
KIM JONG IL
5. Which cocktail was invented in a Hollywood bar in 1941 by John G. Martin and Jack Morgan when they mixed Smirnoff vodka, ginger beer and lime?
MOSCOW MULE
6. What American painting is accidentally destroyed by Mr. Bean in the avant-garde classic film Bean?
WHISTLER'S MOTHER
7. Which international sports team is known as the Black Ferns?
NEW ZEALAND'S WOMAN'S RUGBY UNION SIDE
8. Corsac, Blanford's and Red are species of which carnivorous mammal?
FOX

Spares
Meaning 'having missed', what French word is an adjective for unfulfilled?
Manque
Spain and Portugal controlled all of the New World until England's conquest of which Caribbean island in 1625? N.B. Bermuda was conquered in 1609.
Barbados
Made from the fermented juice of various types of agave, which popular milky alcoholic drink from Mexico is thought to derive its name from the Nahuatl word for 'decomposed'?
Pulque
Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has been suspended from cycling after traces of which decongestant and bronchodilator were found in a urine sample?
Clenbuterol

Last Saturday's Team GP Thingy

2010-08-10T05:13:00.000-07:00

A Taster

As the sterling Rob Hannah wrote much of the rest of the Team Quiz, this was the only round I wrote entirely by myself for Saturday's Molesley GP, so I will be putting this up and this alone, as an indicator of why I've been so bloody busy and stressy at the moment.

In this - the Final Round - the top score was Mark Grant's team with 22, followed by Pat's with 21.

Many thanks to the Clockwork quiz guys for their Super-round inspiration; we ought to do more of them here in Blighty. Writing it was a form of masochism since it is the reason why us Broken Hearts have failed to win the Leuven event two years in a row.

I'll leave a little note below the answers to tell you - of the triple pointers - which ones were team solos and which were not answered by anyone.

FINAL ROUND

Pick one of the three questions – a) b) or c) – to answer. One point for question a), two points for question b) and three for question c) – the increased number of points corresponds to increased difficulty. If you get the question wrong you score ZERO points, so please choose wisely.

1. 1980s American TV shows

a) Running from 1984 through 1987, the titular aircraft was a modified Bell 222 twin-engined light helicopter owned by Jetcopters Inc. Which TV series starred Ernest Borgnine as Dominic Santini and Jan-Michael Vincent as Stringfellow Hawke?

b) Which 1985 ABC TV drama centred on police officer and former amateur dirt-bike racer Jesse Mach (played by Rex Smith), who was secretly chosen to test a top-secret all-terrain attack motorcycle capable of speeds in excess of 300 miles per hour?

c) Which 1983 NBC series centred on “wealthy, young, handsome” Professor Jonathan Chase (played by Simon MacCorkindale) - a shape-shifter who possessed the ability to turn himself into any creature that he chose and used this power to help the police solve crimes?

A B or C?

Answer: ________________________________________________________

2. Late 20th Century Symphonies

a) Composed by the Dutch conductor, trombonist and composer, Johan de Meij, what is the nickname of his Symphony No. 1 (1988)? It consists of five movements, including "I. Gandalf (The Wizard)", "III. Gollum (Sméagol)" and "V. Hobbits"?

b) It is the third symphony by the American classical pianist and composer Richard Kastle, who created the piece on Venice Beach where he lived in the late 1980s. Premiered in 1999, which work is a four movement piece for orchestra that starts out with the eponymous ship leaving the dock on her maiden voyage?

c) Based on the namesake David Bowie albums, Symphony No. 1 “Low” (1992) and Symphony No. 4 “Heroes” (1996) are works by which American composer?

A B or C?

Answer: ________________________________________________________

3. All Black rugby hard men

a) “The granddaddy” of all hard men, one Scotland lock once said that it was important to tell this All Black – who played most frequently in the lock forward position - to bugger off early in a match, as long as you didn’t say it very loudly. Nicknamed “Pinetree”, which New Zealand rugby icon was named the country’s Player of the Century at the NZRFU Awards in 1999?

b) A product of the powerful Auckland provincial side, he made his international debut as one of the “Baby Blacks” in the 1986 Test series in France and was awarded the captaincy of the All Blacks in 1992 – a position he held until his retirement from Test rugby. “Hard nosed as a hooker and a leader”, which “devastating sledger” has since done analyst duties for the BBC and Sky Sports?

c) Credited with the improved performance of the “Ka Mate” haka, this No.8 – nicknamed “Buck” – captained the All Blacks in the late 1980s. Though described as “indestructible and apparently impervious to injury or the opposition”, he suffered mightily in the 1986 “Battle of Nantes” when someone ripped his scrotum and left a testicle hanging free. Which New Zealand player also lost four teeth that day?

A B or C?

Answer: __________________________________________________________

4. Nobel Prize in Physics-winning discoveries

a) Albert Einstein was awarded the 1921 prize “for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of” which phenomenon whereby electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption from electromagnetic radiation of very short wavelength?

b) The American radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson won half of the 1978 prize for which 1964 discovery (Pyotr Kapitsa got the other 50% for his work in low-temperature physics)? Known by the acronym CMBR, it is considered a landmark confirmation of the Big Bang model of the universe.

c) Controversially involved with the Deutsche Physik movement under the Nazi regime, which German physicist had earlier won the 1919 prize for “his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields”? The latter became known as his eponymous “effect”.

A B or C?

Answer: _________________________________________________________

5. Novels with a shared weather theme in their title

a) Adapted into a film starring Julia Ormond in the title role, the story begins in Copenhagen, where a Greenlander child has fallen to his death from an apartment building’s rooftop. Which 1992 novel by Peter Høeg climaxes in a voyage by the investigating half-Dane/half-Inuit title character via an icebreaker to a remote island off the Greenland coast?

b) Published in its full form in 1947, this novel was the first full-length novel by the Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. It tells of the love affair between a Tokyo dilettante and a provincial geisha named Komako and takes place in an unnamed remote hot spring town. Which novel's English name is a literal translation of the Japanese title Yukiguni?

c) Given the English subtitle A Theatrical Novel, its 2005 Vintage edition comes with an introduction by Terry Gilliam. Satirising the author's ten-year relationship with Method-pioneer Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre, which novel by Mikhail Bulgakov is about the character Maxudov, who dramatises his own failed suicide and sees the play accepted by the legendary Independent Theatre?

A B or C?

Answer: _________________________________________________________

6. Festivals

a) This year's edition - held in Blaenau Gwent and the Head of the Valleys - finishes today (August 7). Which travelling festival calls itself "the home of literature, music, dance, recitation, theatre, visual arts, science and technology and all types of culture in Wales"?

b) It is also known as the "Little New Year" since it is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar year in the Chinese calendar - officially ending the Chinese New Year celebrations. Also known as Chap Goh Meh ('the fifteenth day') in Malaysia and Singapore, which Chinese festival takes its English name from the objects children traditionally carry to temples?

c) Lasting for three days, this festival of "manly games" or suur-kharbaan, as it is called in Buryatya, is a festival of the three major traditional sports in Mongolia - wrestling, horse racing and archery. Having its origin in annual sacrificial ritual honouring various mountain gods, which Ulaanbaatar-hosted festival is the biggest event in Mongolia's public life?

A B or C?

Answer: _________________________________________________________

7. Comic book teams

Simply, name the team from their members and the comic book writer/creators.

a) Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby: Mister Fantastic (aka Reed Richards), Invisible Woman (Susan Storm), Human Torch (Johnny Storm), The Thing (Ben Grimm)

b) The original incarnation from Volumes 1 & 2 by Alan Moore: Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, Allan Quatermain, Dr. Jekyll, The Invisible Man

c) From the ongoing series written by Garth Ennis: Billy Butcher, "Wee Hughie" Campbell, Mother's Milk, The Frenchman, The Female

A B or C?

Answer: _________________________________________________________

8. Shoes

a) This British retail chain and shoe manufacturer is known for such brands as Bostonian Shoes, K Shoes, Ravel Shoes and Desert Boots. Which company was begun in the Somerset village of Street in 1825 by its eponymous founder, who - at the time - had been working in his brother's tannery?

b) This shoe brand traces its roots to a German who registered it in 1774 as a "subject and shoemaker" in local church archives. The manufacturer that makes it is based in Vettelschloss and its products are noted for their contoured cork and rubber footbeds. Which brand is known for its two-strap sandal, the Arizona and the Boston Clog?

c) Owned by Wolverine Worldwide, it was founded as a company in Waitsfield, Vermont, in 1981 by Clark Matis, Randy _______, and John Schweitzer. Known for its performance outdoor footwear, it started out by creating hiking boots that fit like cowboy boots with a wide toe box and narrow heel to accommodate the North American foot shape. Almost all of its shoes have Vibram-branded rubber outsoles and an unpoppable air cushion in the heel. Which brand’s best-selling shoes include the Jungle Moc and the Moab Ventilator for men, and the Siren Ventilator and Chameleon Arc Mid Waterproof for women?

A B or C?

Answer: ________________________________________________________

9. Whales

a) The only member of the genus Physeter, this species of toothed whale has the largest brain of any animal and is the largest living toothed animal. Historically, which marine mammal was also known as the common cachalot - derived from an archaic French word for 'tooth'?

b) Living entirely in the fertile Arctic and sub-Arctic waters, this species stays so far north that Orcas cannot reach them; they can therefore live for more than a hundred years. Estimated weight of this thick-bodied species is 136 tonnes, making it second only to the blue whale. Also known as the Greenland right whale and Arctic whale, which baleen species is known by the binomial name Balaena mysticetus?

c) Deriving its name from the Norwegian word for the pollock fish, which baleen whale (Balaenoptera borealis) is the third largest rorqual after the Blue Whale and the Fin Whale? Its other names include the Lesser Fin - due to its resemblance to the Fin Whale, as well as Pollack Whale, Coalfish Whale, Sardine Whale, or Japan Finner.

A B or C?

Answer: ________________________________________________________

10. Lake Battles

a) Formerly in East Prussia, which lakes in modern day Poland gave their name to two World War One battles? Taking place a week after Tannenberg, the first began on September 9, 1914 and ended on the 14th, with Paul von Hindenburg leading German forces to victory over the Russian Empire's First Army.

b) One of the largest and most successful ambushes in military history, which battle of June 24, 217 BC is named after the largest lake on the Italian peninsula south of the Po with a surface area of 128 km2 (slightly less than Lake Como)? Hannibal crushed the 40,000-strong army of the Roman consul Gaius Flaminius, leaving only around 25,000 of his imperial foes alive.

c) In 1363, it was the site of what has been called the largest naval battle in history in terms of personnel, which resulted in a decisive Ming victory over the navy of their fellow rebels, the Han. It has also been called "China's Bermuda" due to the disappearance of many ships sailing in it. Which body of water, with a maximum length of 170km and max. width of 17km, is the largest freshwater lake in China?

A B or C?

Answer: ______________________________________________________

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Answers:
1a) Airwolf b) Street Hawk c) Manimal 2a) "The Lord of the Rings" Symphony b) Titanic Symphony c) Philip Glass 3a) Colin Meads b) Sean Fitzpatrick c) Wayne Shelford 4a) Photoelectric effect b) Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation c) Johannes Stark 5a) Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow b) Snow Country c) Black Snow / Театральный роман / A Dead Man’s Memoir 6a) National Eisteddfod of Wales b) Lantern Festival or Yuan Xiao Festival / Shang Yuan Festival c) Nadaam 7a) Fantastic Four b) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen c) The Boys 8a) Clarks b) Birkenstock c) Merrell 9a) Sperm whale b) Bowhead whale c) Sei whale 10a) Masurian Lakes b) Battle of Lake Trasimene / Lake Trasimeno c) Poyang Lake

Solos: Black Snow (Chris Quinn's team? Not sure), Nadaam (Pat's team), Merrell (Mark G's team)

Unanswered: The Boys, Poyang Lake

The Howling I: The Beginning

2010-06-09T02:50:00.000-07:00

Top Five Ain't So Bad

But I have difficulty putting such things in perspective.

And so it doesn't stop me from picking the scabs of scratchy disappointment.

It is now a hallowed tradition.

Ambition and expectation are dangerous things.

At this very moment, I am taking time out from writing more last minute Only Connect question ideas and notes than I can possibly use; many of which will be rejected anway. Probably (Hi David!). And yet I do it in all quiz-setting arenas. But then I have always chucked a lahar-style mud-flume of overwhelming material and preparation at prospective quiz events and setting jobs ... for the old maxim goes: "When we learn for tourneys, we do not actually absorb stuff for the imminent event; we learn for next month, next November, and the competitions that stretch far into the future and beyond into the greying, fraying years of events to come. Never, truly, for tomorrow."

It is just charmed serendipitous luck that something we were reading the day before the Big Show (Mrs Sakharov!), happened to turn up at the most convenient moment in time so very soon after reading/glancing at the hasty scribbles of a man made desperate for wanton fear of disaster (i.e. failing to make the Top Ten).

My participation in this year's excellent Peterborough-staging of the WQC was somewhat knocked a bit skew-whiff, what with arriving five minutes late in a flustered, sudorific state that prevented myself from getting to the church, I mean, school hall on time. This was on account of my inability to orient myself in the city centre after leaving the Peterborough Central Travelodge at 11am. Having asked a mobile phone-eared cornershop-maitresse in St James' Street (???) and then a bored dead-eyed taxi driver in the city centre for location updates, I eventually huffpuff-stumble-ran* down Park Road, arriving in a sweaty, chesty state that no doubt removed five definite points I would have got (or so I kid myself). Procrastination is the thief of UK/Euro ranking points. *I'm in a hyphen kind of mood

But nah. Truth be told, the mild injection of adrenalin, once it had settled down after the 20 minute mark, probably helped excavate a few answers from a mind that was otherwise dying to defy the "Rauchen kann todlich sein" warnings on my Berliner Marlboros (naughtily, my first tobaccy stick, was smoked inside the schoolgrounds; I fear for the returning students who may sense a faint odour in the air of anti-conformity and transmogrify into Paris '68 barricaders as a result. But maybe that's just me thinking about Eva Green again).

God, I babble, do - the World Cup will soon shut me up thank God.

I was going to write more, in fact, I did, but it turned into a crazed diatribe on what the national press think quizzers to be some weird guild of nerdlingers who do written exams for fun (oooh, I remember what you said, Judith, and yes, it was true, so true, but I like 'em).

So, to be continued...

Coming Soon

Trailer for The Howling II: Rain will Fall
The register of excruciating F*** ME that's some F***** UP mistakage there: Why did I not write Adler? (Because I write far too many questions about Carl Jung). Why did I write Bizet? (Because I wrote a Mind Games Q about Carmen in Seville last week).

Back from Berlin

2010-05-30T20:53:00.001-07:00

I really should write something

I really should

So my knees are buggered from walking for hours and hours around museums, galleries and other places of quizzical interest. Oddly, it turned into a quasi-WQC revision jaunt, spliced with several near fights with my brother caused by nothing more than absolutely diddly squat (on reflection). There were at least four occasions where I stood on the street (mostly on Frankfurter Allee) growling like a rabid, mean dog, ready to let the bony, knuckled and shoed ends of my limbs fly in my bro's mushy face and thoroughly hittable body.

But that's just us. And suddenly I remembered why I gave him a black eye when he was 12 and I was 14 and why he chucked a Henry Hoover at my head in retaliation.

Ah, the sweet, painful joy of fraternal understanding/misunderstanding. As is our custom, in less than a second, we forget all about the aggro because that's just the way it is and always will be. And the funny thing is I have absolutely no bloody idea what propelled me into extreme annoyance. Not an inkling. I never do. It's just us and 29 years, methinks.

So, the German capital was brilliant and fed my unnerving habit of buying 9.95 euro museum guidebooks. I even bought a Nefertiti head bookmark. Oh. Buying. Shoot. I spent way too much money. Before I even got to Berlin, there were the damn "cut price" Oakleys. What compelled me to splurge a sum of money I am too ashamed to type up, I'm not so sure. The basic urge for sunglasses could have been better sated by a visit to Amazon and buying some £15 Vans shades. But noooo... The buying of useless crap and appalling food escalated.

This little holiday was meant to rejuvenate me after the long long haul of work that I have been undertaking all year, and it did the trick ... mental health-wise ... physically, I was a broken wreck, rubbing Voltarol cream into the back of my knees every four hours. My lack of bodily fitness - he says as he chain-smokes the fags he bought back by the tax-paid carton - is a total disgrace. Getting back a few hours ago, I felt like too much of a flimsy, cracked husk to do anything but dribble and gurgle in bed and in front of the computer.

But, incredibly, I didn't write a quiz question for a whole week; thus it truly was a holiday.

Anyway, must look through quiz stuff in these wee early hours. Cos there's that thing coming up very soon, and I have no idea whether I'm match fit. Must look at Olympic champs, must look at foreign hat manufacturers and famous Koreans and Middle Eastern figures. Ciao.

And lo...

2010-03-21T15:25:00.001-07:00

... didst the President's Cup season end on a high

It's one of those phases, you know. I'm just too tired to write like I used to, and even then I can't write about a lot of quizzy stuff anyway. Because. You know.

Spring is icumen in, and so the leagues go pfftttt. The consolation of the old winter routines set aside until ... no, I really am too bloody exhausted to ramble on in shamanistic Beat/Nick Kent-inspired arse-doodles, which hark back to different times. Whenever they were.

So today marked the end of another President's Cup season and Sussex's second title (though that was already in the bag and today was a tres relaxed affair at what Nic called "Castle Johnson". We were repleted with much drink, eats and hospitality from our kind hostess, which makes a change from me being too scared to ask the staff at our usual Castle to please turn off the speakers by the table upstairs, again. Please please please. And don't hate me. I just want us to hear the questions better above the clatter and ring-ring of the kitchen).

Our final match was against last season's champions and, what can I say, the well-balanced (in the view of the winning team) Ormskirk-set set fell nicely in our pop culture strength cubbyholes and we came out 56-28 victors. Though, as Nic said, if he had sat in Robert's* place, he might have scored somewhat less than 15, with five 2-pointers**. Those are the perils of going first when you play away.

But no, I am way to buggerated to explashimtasker ablerd ssmmmeeeee ur. I mean, I want to get myself to bed, before I do a sleeping headbutt on my computer keyboard.

The friendly was 10 rounds - I have a lot of questions to dump, and the friendly was the only place that would take them. Score 53-43 to Sussex, minus me, plus Beth. It was close until the last round when Sussex went 8-1. Ah, the vagaries of the random pick format (see the year's previous post).

However, I have to say that nothing has made me laugh more in the course of a quiz league/cup game that when Brian couldn't quite get Kirst MacColl out, going oww, oooohh, ahh, then punching an inexplicable Kung Fu fist and, in our desperate attempt to cue the memory, he shouted: "SPEEDBOAT!" Oh, how we laughed at what was a very tragic incident and we should all be ashamed of ourselves. And I guess you had to be there. (I almost gave him the points too).

Unanswered Qs bolded up

President's Cup Friendly 21/3/2010

Random Pick format

Round 1
1 A play on the name of a Chinese World Heritage Site, what nickname is given to the security network China's government uses to block internet content?
The Great Firewall of China
2 The daughter of Hyperion and Theia, which Greek goddess drove her chariot across the sky every night, just as her brother Helios did during the day?
Selene
3 The Canadian pianist, Lambert Orkis, is the regular partner of which German violin virtuoso, a former wife of Andre Previn?
Anne-Sophie Mutter
4 Played by Martin Freeman, which painter is the subject of the new Peter Greenaway film Nightwatching?
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
5 Known as the "Pearl of Siberia", what is the oldest lake in the world?
Lake Baikal
6 Born in Côte d'Ivoire, which Toulouse flanker is captain of France's rugby union team?
Thierry Dusautoir
7 On its publication in 1898, which Henry James novella was described by The Times as "the most hopelessly evil story that we have read in any literature, ancient or modern"?
The Turn of the Screw
8 In his 1855 poem 'Andrea del Sarto', who wrote: "Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, / Or what's a heaven for?"?
Robert Browning

Round 2
1 What is the fifth and last book of the Torah?
Deuteronomy
2 A member of the Arpad dynasty, Saint Stephen I became the first king of which country in 1000?
Hungary
3 The cricket bat maker Duncan Fearnley made his first-class debut for which county in 1962?
Worcestershire
4 The two-player game Quadrow is better known by what name - a trademark of the company Milton Bradley?
Connect Four
5 Nicknamed "Flash Harry", who was chief conductor of the Proms from 1948 to 1967?
Sir Malcolm Sargent
6 Derived from the Latin word for ‘learned discussion’, which ultimately comes from the Greek for 'to rub away', what term describes an angry speech or a piece of bitter, abusive denunciation?
Diatribe
7 The capital of a country granted independence in 1981, which port served as the HQ of the Royal Navy's Caribbean fleet during the 18th century?
St John's, Antigua / English Dockyard
8 Basil, sage and rosemary belong to which family of plants?
Mint / Lamiaceae / Labiatae

Round 3
1 Derived from the Sanskrit for 'colour' or 'mood', what term describes a sequence of five to seven notes used as a basis for improvised performances in Indian music?
Raga
2 Used in the US, what criminal offence is represented by the acronym DUI?
Driving Under the Influence
3 Which footballer, who joined Manchester United from Nottingham Forest in 1989, was the 1000th player to win an England cap?
Neil Webb
4 Which Oscar-winning actor played "The Dude" in the Coen brothers' film The Big Lebowski?
Jeff Bridges
5 In which country was the brewing company Tuborg founded by Carl Frederik Tietgen in 1873?
Denmark - since 1970, a part of Carlsberg
6 Birthplace of the cricketers Azhar Mahmood and Shoaib Akhtar, which city in Punjab province was the capital of Pakistan from 1959 to 1969?
Rawalpindi
7 Made from solutions of cellulose, what was the first man-made fibre?
Rayon
8 Contrasting with empiricism, which philosophical theory contends that knowledge about the nature of the world can be obtained soley by reason, without recourse to experience? Exponents included Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz.
Rationalism

Round 4
1 Located at the confluence of the Ille and Vilaine rivers, which French city became the seat of the parliament of Brittany in the 16th century?
Rennes
2 The traditional Cornish pasty is made with skirt or chuck steak, seasoning, raw chopped onions, potatoes and which root vegetable?
Swede / Swedish turnip or "turnip" (as it is called in Cornwall) / Rutabaga / Yellow turnip
3 How many miniature cubelets combine to form a Rubik's Cube?
26
4 Variants of the Runic alphabet are also known by what name, derived from its first six letters?
Futhark - f, u, th, a, r, k
5 Derived from a Portuguese word that ultimately comes from the Latin for 'honey', what thick syrup is the byproduct of the processing of sugar cane into sugar?
Molasses
6 Also known for The Tempest and The Allendale Nativity, which Venetian painter's Sleeping Venus was probably completed by Titian in around 1510?
Giorgione / Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco
7 Which upmarket department store began in 1813 as a linen shop on the corner of Knightsbridge and Sloane Street?
Harvey Nichols
8 Sometimes called the ounce, which endangered species of cat is said to be the rarest of all Himalayan animals?
Snow leopard / Uncia uncia

Round 5
1 Which city is the setting for the TV dramas Skins, Being Human and Shoestring?
Bristol
2 What musical one-word title is common to a play by Jean Giraudoux, a Richard Strauss opera, and a 1939 film starring Leslie Howard as a violinist who falls in love with his accompanist, played by Ingrid Bergman?
Intermezzo
3 Glandular fever, aka Infectious Mononucleosis, is caused by which virus? It is known by the acronym EBV.
Epstein-Barr Virus
4 Which female singer-songwriter's cover of the Billy Bragg song 'A New England' reached number seven in the UK charts in 1985?
Kirsty Anna MacColl
5 In physics, what state, in which an abnormally large vibration is produced in response to an external stimulus, occurs when the frequency of the applied force is equal to the vibrational frequency of the system?
Resonance
6 Based on a namesake 1926 play by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, which musical features the songs 'All That Jazz', 'When You're Good to Mama' and 'Hot Honey Rag'?
Chicago
7 Which member of the Ivy League is the only university that is named after the US state it is located in?
University of Pennsylvania / Penn / UPenn
8 What name links a journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709, and the glossy Conde Nast-published magazine which long-time editor Geordie Greig left last year to take charge at the Evening Standard?
Tatler

Round 6
1 Assisted by his valet Kato, the newspaper publisher Britt Reid is also known by the name of which masked crime-fighter?
The Green Hornet
2 Holme Fen, England's lowest land point at nearly three metres below sea level, is in which county?
Cambridgeshire
3 Starring Richard Bradford as former US intelligence agent McGill, which late 1960s TV show's theme tune was later used as the opening theme for the Channel 4 series TFI Friday?
Man in a Suitcase
4 Nicknamed "The Intimidator", which American driver died in a last-lap crash during the 2001 Daytona 500?
Dale Earnhardt / Ralph Dale Earnhardt Sr
5 The late, great historian, diplomat and British eccentric Alan Davidson, is best known for editing the Oxford Companion to which subject? The first edition was published by OUP in 1999.
Food
6 Hoping to dislodge the Labour MP Margaret Hodge, BNP leader Nick Griffin will contest which seat at this year's election?
Barking
7 Denoting a large-scale abstract sculpture rooted firmly to the ground, what name did Alexander Calder give to such works as Cheval Rouge; Man; and Flamingo?
Stabile - Calder also "invented" mobiles, which are hung from ceilings, allowing them to float freely in space.
8 Established in 1779, which of the English Classic horse races is named after a house in Carlshalton that was leased to the 12th Earl of Derby?
The Oaks Stakes

Round 7
1 Which Lieutenant-General's surrender to the invading Imperial Japanese Army at Singapore in 1942 remains the largest capitulation in British military history?
Arthur Ernest Percival
2 What is the minimum wedding anniversary, or number of years, a couple must celebrate in order to receive a congratulatory message from the Queen?
60th / Diamond - then 65th, 70th, and every year thereafter
3 Recently voted Britain's most picturesque street, The Shambles is in which city?
York
4 In 1994, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty burnt £1 million in cash on the island of Jura. They had earned the money as which chart-topping music duo?
The KLF (Kopyright Liberation Front) / K Foundation / The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu / The Timelords
5 An American comfort food, which deep-fried balls of cornball batter share their name with a US footwear brand known for its brushed-suede shoes and Basset Hound logo?
Hush Puppies / Hushpuppies
6 Premiering in 2007, which BBC One drama is based on a series of novels by Alan Hunter and stars Martin Shaw as the eponymous police inspector?
Inspector George Gently
7 In field hockey's three-tier penalty card system, which colour card represents an official warning, as opposed to the yellow's sin-binning and red's sending off?
Green
8 Which Woking-based vehicle manufacturer will sell its MP4-12C sports car at a price of £150,000 on its release next year?
McLaren Automotive

Round 8
1 Jill and A Girl in Winter are the only two novels to be published by which poet, who declined the post of Poet Laureate after being offered it at John Betjeman's memorial service?
Philip Larkin
2 Who played Detective Sergeant Trotter in the original West End cast of The Mousetrap, opposite his wife Sheila Sim as Mollie Ralston?
Richard Attenborough
3 Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, which company introduced the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar, the Broadcaster, in 1949? It soon became known as the Telecaster.
Fender
4 Working from a small studio at 18 Albion Mews, near Hyde Park, the Viennese-born British potter Lucie Marie Gomperz was better known by what married name?
Lucie Rie
5 Who was the father of King Richard II?
Edward, the Black Prince
6 Which branch of medicine is concerned with the study, diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle and lower leg?
Podiatry / Chiropody
7 In 1967, what did UNESCO define as "anti-social beliefs and acts which are based on a fallacy that discriminating inter-group relations are justifiable on biological grounds"?
Racism
8 The 1973 film Don't Look Now is based on a short story by which female writer, who was an active member of the Cornish political party Mebyon Kernow?
Daphne du Maurier

Round 9
1 Born in Truro in 1971, which Grandmaster is the top-rated British chess player in the world?
Michael Adams
2 Also known as a babushka doll, what other Russian name is given to a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed inside the other?
Matryoshka doll (from Russian female first name Matryona)
3 Which intelligence officer, whose address is 9 Bywater Street, Chelsea, was introduced in the 1961 debut novel Call for the Dead?
George Smiley
4 Reading is located at the confluence of the Thames and which tributary? It shares its name with that of a Swedish striker who scored five goals at the 1994 World Cup.
Kennet
5 Mount Elbert is the highest peak in which North American mountain range?
Rocky Mountains / Rockies
6 In which US city are the following sports stadia: Comerica Park, The Palace of Auburn Hills, Ford Field, and the Joe Louis Arena?
Detroit (Detroit Tigers; Detroit Pistons, Detroit Lions; Detroit Red Wings)
7 Originating in a Barcelona yoghurt factory founded by Isaac Carasso, which French multinational owns the mineral water brands Volvic and Evian, and the food brands Actimel and Activia?
Groupe Danone
8 Which group topped the UK album charts in 1978 with Night Flight To Venus and, in 1979, with Oceans of Fantasy?
Boney M

Round 10
1 The retired rugby league footballer Hazem El Masri is the top scorer in the history of Australia’s NRL. He was born in which country in 1976?
Lebanon
2 According to Suetonius, Julius Caesar said "alea iacta est" when he crossed the Rubicon with his army in 49BC. What does the phrase mean?
"the die is cast" / “the die has been cast”
3 Named for the British scientist who performed it in 1797-98, which experiment was the first to yield accurate values for the gravitational constant and the mass of the Earth?
[Henry] Cavendish experiment
4 In gardening, a dibble or dibber is a wooden stick used for purpose?
Making a hole in the ground for seeds etc
5 Which London railway terminus shares its name with the so-called "mother of all It Bags", launched by the French fashion house Chloe in 2002?
Paddington
6 Which German wine region includes vineyards situated on Saar and Ruwer rivers and is known for the varieties Reisling, Muller-Thurgau and Kerner?
Moselle
7 Based in Augusta, Georgia, the company Club Car manufactures which sporting-related vehicles? Models include the Caroche and the Precedent.
Golf buggy / golf cart / golf car
8 Which TV presenter and newspaper columnist is the son-in-law of the late Major Robert Cain, whose courage at the Battle of Arnhem led to his becoming the first and so far only Manx recipient of a Victoria Cross?
Jeremy Clarkson

Spares that I didn't actually ask afterwards because they're all rejects from the main one and there were already far too many sports questions in it already
Which Midlands university is home to the Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts?
University of Leicester
Which scrum-half formed Australia’s “holy trinity” with David Campese and Michael Lynagh and captained his country to the 1991 Rugby World Cup?
Nick Farr-Jones
Debuting as a utility forward for Eastern Suburbs in 1908, George Green is reputed to have been the first indigenous Australian to play which sport at first-grade level in Australia?
Rugby league
Coached by Neil Back, which rugby union club have been promoted to the Zurich Premiership having won the National Division One title?
Leeds Carnegie - formerly Leeds Tykes
In 2008, Sheffield United chairman Kevin McCabe bought which Budapest football club via Esplanade Real Estate, his firm in Hungary?
Ferencvaros
Codenamed Operation Watchtower, it began on August 7, 1942. The campaign on which of the Solomon Islands was the first major offensive launched by Allied Forces against the Empire of Japan?
Guadalcanal
What word for insincere political talk comes from a county in North Carolina, whose representative, Felix Walker, made a long and pointless speech in Congress in 1820, simply to please his constituents?
Bunkum - from Buncombe County
Thought to come from the East Anglian dialect word for a lump or swelling, what term describes a localised painful swelling at the base of the big toe, with enlargement of the joint?
Bunion - from bunny
Taking place every July, the Deutsches Derby is run at Horner Rennbahn in which German city?
Hamburg
The first million dollar Millennium prize has been awarded to the Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman for his proof of which conjecture about the characterisation of the three-dimensional sphere among three-dimensional manifolds?
Poincaré conjecture
What was the two-letter pen-name of George William Russell, the Irish poet and painter, who published the verse collection Midsummer Eve in 1928?
A.E.
Spoken by at least 22 million people, which Asian language derives its name from the words for 'native of' and 'river', thus, it means 'river dweller'?
Tagalog
Which English writer's plays include A Day in the Death of Joe Egg; Privates on Parade and Poppy?
Peter Nichols
Developed by the US chemist FH Spedding in 1942, the Ames process is used to produce the pure metal form of which silvery-white element in the actinide series?
Uranium
Which 1765 Act introduced the first direct tax to be levied on the American colonies by the British government and required a tax to be paid on the transfer of all legal documents, wills, newspapers, and even playing cards?
Stamp Act
Producing 60% of country’s output, six of the Germany’s 13 quality wine regions are located in which federal state? Its capital is Mainz.
Rhineland-Palatinate
The banking dynasty founder, Meyer Amschel Rothschild, made his fortune during the Napoleonic Wars in which German city?
Frankfurt am Main
What sport is played by "The Machine", "The Bull", "The Rocket", and "Jackpot"?
Darts - nicknames of top ten PDC Order of Merit players: James Wade, Terry Jenkins, Ronnie Baxter, Adrian Lewis

*Who says I assume certain degrees of familiarity with QLL/President's Cup players? Oh, I do.

** Or the rules come to think of it.

New "Hostile" of the Year

2010-02-21T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hello: it's the Not So New Year

Just friendly questions from today's Prez Cup match (we beat the Masterminders 42-37 thanks to a fortuitous last round; thank heavens for the creation of the word "genocide" - er, I guess you had to be there).

Tell Me What to Think
Too tired to write otherwise. Busy and confidential. Watching an incomprehensible Japanese movie. Watching it again immediately afterwards in the vain hope that some tiny semblance of understanding may hove into the view of my mind's eye. Me typing. Eyelids flutter up, flutter down. Inhaling atomised chocolate crumbly oat-biscuits. Then thinking about Stilton/blackcurrant jam-topped digestive biscuits. La la la. Probable QLL decider on Tuesday. Also thinking about the two-point average. Or, maybe, I shouldn't be thinking about my two-point average. And the Kevin Ashman Trophy. I have apparently played enough matches to qualify, which gives me nothing but bad and selfish ideas. Baaad ideas. Monomaniacal notions. If that is the apt adjective.

Fwendlee
I wrote a ten-round, 80-question friendly. I did this because they are basically surplus questions that were either a) too long to go somewhere or b) too hard to go somewhere else (and because c) league friendlies and their pairs can get tiresome and unimaginative when you are compelled to set them time and time again). So they went into a friendly, with the ol' pick a number from 1-8 thingummijig. Thus, the number fours get a veritable Hobson's choice ... which doesn't really matter because the subject-distribution is random anyway. Or is it? Duh-duh-darrrr!

Final score was 56-39 to Sussex (Paul S 13 / Ian O 14 / Kathryn J 15 / Will J 14 - Gavin F 12 / Mark G 12 / Ray W 8 / Ken E 7)

Unanswered Qs in bold

Round 1
1 In terms of area, what is the largest county in [historic province of] Ulster?
County Donegal - bit of a trick question really, what with me not doing the specifying about historical Northern Ireland
2 Which 2010 Massive Attack album is named for a German island and former possession of Britain and Denmark?
Heligoland
3 Which British sculptor, who died in 1975, created the nine-piece bronze group Family of Man?
Barbara Hepworth
4 The Spanish Second Division team Real Sociedad is based in which city?
San Sebastian / Donostia
5 Which crime writer novelist created the investigator Sid Halley, who appeared in such novels as Whip Hand and Under Orders?
Dick Francis
6 Established in 1790, the St James's Street establishment D.R. Harris & Co. is said to be the oldest type of which shop in London?
Pharmacy
7 Max Brito was paralysed at the 1995 Rugby World Cup. He was playing for which country?
Ivory Coast
8 Guerillas and A Bend in the River are novels by which British* Nobel Literature Prize winner?
VS Naipaul - * well, he is really, citizen-wise; if I put Trinidadian-born, well, gimme gimme gimme

Round 2
1 Which Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros with the Allies in October 1918?
Ottoman Empire
2 In a list of the Commonwealth countries, which nation comes last alphabetically?
Zambia
3 Whose alternative titles include Earl of Chester, Baron of Renfrew and High Steward of Scotland?
Prince Charles / Prince of Wales
4 The Swing and The Progress of Love are late 18th century works by which French painter?
Jean-Honore Fragonard
5 The American, Shaun White, has become the first snowboarder to win back-to-back Olympic golds in which event?
Halfpipe
6 Derived from a word meaning 'pure', Katharevousa is the literary form of which modern European language?
Greek
7 John Keble's 1833 sermon on national apostasy is generally held to be the beginning of which movement?
Oxford Movement / Tractarians / Newmanites / Puseyites
8 In the song Waltzing Matilda, what is "Matilda"?
A bushman's bundle of belongings

Round 3
1 Derived from the Greek for 'grave law', taphonomy is the study of which natural process?
Fossilization / decaying organisms over time
2 Which chaplain to Egbert, king of Wessex, became bishop of Winchester in October 852?
St Swithin / Swithun
3 Which New York Yankee baseball player, who retired in April 1939, was known as the "Iron Horse"?
Lou Gehrig
4 What middle name links David Beckham, Alfred Hitchcock and Michael Jackson?
Joseph
5 Which body of water in the Northwest Territories is the deepest lake in North America at 614 metres?
Great Slave Lake
6 On his 2004 Champions' League debut for Manchester United, Wayne Rooney scored a hat-trick against which Istanbul team?
Fenerbahce SK
7 The physical act of micturition is known by what other name?
Urination / peeing / voiding / emiction
8 Raised in Grimsby, which Tory Chancellor was born in Lerwick on Shetland in 1942?
Norman Lamont

Round 4
1 Which form of asbestos derives its name from the Greek for 'gold fibre'?
Chrysotile
2 What is the married surname of JK Rowling?
Murray
3 The entertainer Lionel Blair was born in which Canadian city?
Montreal
4 Beaujolais Nouveau is officially released on the third Thursday of which month?
November
5 Premiered at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme in 1884, Le Villi – as in The Willis or The Fairies, was which composer’s debut opera?
Giacomo Puccini
6 Derived from the Scottish Highlands for 'strait' or ‘channel’, what name may be given to a narrow channel between islands or between an island and the mainland?
Kyle
7 First settled in the mid-19th century, the American city of Laramie is in which state?
Wyoming
8 Which pale, very dry fino sherry has a Spanish name that means 'camomile'?
Manzanilla

Round 5
1 Which American actor played Sonny Corleone in The Godfather and "hobbled" novelist Paul Sheldon in the film Misery?
James Caan
2 According to Irish legend, which two cats fought until only their tails remained?
Kilkenny cats
3 The Danish-born sportsman Morten Andersen is the all-time leading points scorer in the history of which sports league?
NFL
4 Charles Reade's 1861 historical romance The Cloister and the Hearth related the adventures of Gerard Eliassoen, the father of which Dutch Renaissance humanist and theologian?
Erasmus
5 Captain James Cook named which bay on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island in honour of the man who became 1st Lord of the Admiralty in 1766?
Hawke Bay
6 Monoecus, meaning 'the lone dweller', is an alternative Latin name for which hero of classical myth?
Heracles / Hercules
7 Which British astrologer wrote The Real Counties of Britain and The Illustrated Dream Dictionary?
Russell Grant
8 Which American singer had her first UK number one with a cover of Without You in 1994?
Mariah Carey

Round 6
1 In 2009, Boggy Peak, the highest point in Antigua and Barbuda, was renamed in honour of which politician?
Barack Obama
2 Invented by Sir John Ambrose Fleming, the thermionic valve or vacuum tube is known by what other name?
Diode - another early name is the kenotron
3 Which British producer, director and writer founded AP Films with the cinematographer Arthur Provis in 1957?
Gerry Anderson - as in Anderson-Provis Films
4 Don DeLillo’s 1988 novel Libra focuses on the life of which presidential assassin?
Lee Harvey Oswald
5 What term describes a real number that cannot be expressed as a fraction or ratio of integers?
Irrational [number]
6 In February 2009, which jockey won his 3,000th National Hunt race when he rode Restless D'Artaix at Plumpton?
Tony McCoy
7 Discovered by Marguerite Perey in 1939, which radioactive metallic element is the heaviest member of the alkali metal group?
Francium
8 Which capital city is home to the HQ of the African Union?
Addis Ababa

Round 7
1 Who was the second son born to Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg?
Prince Albert
2 2010 is the quincentenary of which Florentine painter, who died on May 17, 1510?
Sandro Botticelli / Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi
3 Vidin, Lom and Ruse are inland ports on the Danube. They are in which country?
Bulgaria
4 Owned by the British transport firm FirstGroup, which bus company was founded by the Swedish-born Carl Wickman in Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1914?
Greyhound Lines
5 What name is given to a female Red or Sika deer?
Hind
6 Which battle site forms the Historic Triangle of Virginia with Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg?
Yorktown
7 Set in the year of George VI's coronation, which 1988 sitcom starred Ronnie Barker as a short-sighted removal man?
Clarence
8 CLR James's 1938 book Black Jacobins is a historical study of which revolution?
Haitian Revolution

Round 8
1 Joan of Arc was inspired by the "voices" of two female saints. Name either one.
St Catherine (of Alexandria) or St Margaret
2 Sharing his surname with a character in the sitcom MASH, which German artist is known for his 1902 statue of Beethoven and ten etchings entitled Paraphrases about the Finding of a Glove?
Max Klinger - the character being Maxwell Klinger
3 What role does the Clerk of the Closet perform for the UK sovereign?
Principal chaplain
4 Jacob's twin Esau is regarded as the ancestor of which Semitic-speaking tribal group?
Edomites
5 What name did the French give to their version of the quiz show Going for Gold?
Questions pour un champion
6 What sport is played by the Buffalo Sabres and the New York Islanders?
Ice hockey / hockey
7 Friggers are objects made outside working hours, or at the end of the day, by what type of craftsmen?
Glass blowers
8 What is the first name of Portnoy in Philip Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint?
Alexander

Round 9
1 Carl Fogarty won all four of his World Superbikes titles riding motorcycles made by which Italian company?
Ducati
2 Made by Martell & Son, which cheese won Britain's first Smelliest Cheese Championship in May 2009 at The Royal Bath & West Show in Somerset?
Stinking Bishop
3 Which 22-year-old Wasps player has just signed for the new Australian Super 15 franchise Melbourne Rebels?
Danny Cipriani
4 Which Irishwoman founded the Vic-Wells ballet company in 1931, as well as the predecessors of today’s Birmingham Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School?
Ninette de Valois / Edris Stannus
5 In 1904, the Royal Horticultural Society founded a garden in which small Surrey village?
Wisley
6 Paris 1919, Music For A New Society and HoboSapiens are solo albums by which former Velvet Underground member?
John Cale
7 On August 14th 1502, Christopher Columbus first set foot on the American mainland at Trujillo in which Central American country?
Honduras
8 Which Zimbabwean golfer won The Open Championship in 1994?
Nick Price

Round 10
1 There are seven cervical vertebrae and five lumbar vertebrae, while there are 12 of which type of vertebra?
Thoracic
2 The American athlete, Randy Barnes, became (and still is) the world record holder in which field event in 1990?
Shot put
3 Succeeding Herbert Asquith, who became leader of the official Opposition in November 1922?
Ramsay McDonald
4 Which SI unit is defined as 9,192,631,770 radiation cycles of the caesium-133 atom?
Second
5 The musical term "au talon" describes the playing of a string instrument with which part of the bow?
Heel / nut / frog
6 Which rock musical features the numbers Light at the End of the Tunnel, Only He (Has The Power to Move Me) and the love duet Only You?
Starlight Express
7 The formula 4πrsquared gives the surface area of what geometrical object?
Sphere
8 Derived from the Sanskrit for ‘to split’, what name is given to a thick, spicy stew, with pulses, that is a mainstay of Indian cuisine?
Dhal / dal - this question might be badly worded or I may have garbled it - "thickshhuptew". Paul said "mulligatawny".

Half-hearted spares
The first British flight using Frank Whittle's jet engine took place in May 1941. Which company made the aircraft?
Gloster
Noel Coward created the Hay Fever character Judith Bliss for which actress - the "queen of her profession" - who was born Mary Susan Etherington in 1864?
Dame Marie Tempest

Last of the "Decade"*

2009-12-31T18:38:00.000-08:00

Thus ends 2009. Thus continues more waffle

Been working on the Quiz Book. In fact, on a paranoid whim, I decided to reverify the 200 pages I wrote almost two years ago. And verify it HARDER than ever before.

However, it appears my past self is slipshoddy with the facts.

Turns out I had dodgy typing fingers or wibbly transcription skills. I have misspelled many a funny foreign/book/binomial name and got various birthdates/publication dates all squiffy. So corrections are the order of the day. Mindnumbing corrections.

So yeah, that was merely boring administation because I am in a very boring place where it takes a hour to do every single page: rechecking, rewriting, even replacing. This is the very meaning of bogged down.

But 'tis better to get it right than to look at the publishing thing and scream my head off for evermore about missing an "i" from the scientific name of the Bluff oyster (phew ... that was close).

Oh God. More Bloody Lists.
I was going to do some lists (fave 2009 movie: Inglourious Basterds; (predictable yawn) fave LP: Merriweather Post Pavilion - Animal Collective, with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix coming very close behind) and all but the decade ones (2000-2009), as in Top 50 Books, Top 100 Films, Top 100 Albums, Top 100 Songs, Top 50/50 Loves/Hates can come in January - you know when the year 2009 is over. Tsk, all these places doing them a month before the year has ended. It's very very naughty. And presumptuous.

So let's have a sufficient 2010 - don't want to hope for too much ... hoping for losts is bad and mildly delusional - try [still just about] this year's New Statesman quiz without making critical comments liable to make me go suffer from a case of temporary batshit insanity.

*Yes, 2010 is the last year of this decade. I guess. That's what people say. Sometimes I don't believe them.

The Full "How To" Article

2009-11-24T15:07:00.000-08:00

Got a nice bottle of Andrew Motion's Oloroso, I 'ave

Of course, there was a lot more I wanted to put in the article (I could have added 2000 words in fact) and much ended up being cut to fit the space (my own fault for overwriting), so this is what I actually filed.

Unedited How to be a whoo-weee at quizzzy stuff

It was a moment I had been dreading. We had been lagging behind, but magnificent 100 per cent scores on the fifth and sixth rounds of this year’s PEN Quiz had propelled The Times’ Thunderers into a tie for first place with HarperCollins and The Guardian.

As the paper's elected representative – the one who happens to set the times2 quiz – the heavy burden of taking to the stage, winning the tie-break and bringing home the trophy for only the second time would, gulp, fall to me.

After the first tie-break question about the origin of the word “bombast” elicited only wrong guesses (I swear I thought Philip Hensher - standing to my right - would have got that), another came and, as the words “Francis II” “bought” and “portrait” came out of host David Mitchell’s mouth, my mental reflexes kicked in and I spat out “Mona Lisa!” Correct. It was something I recalled reading in a book about art that came free with The Observer.

Winning this prestigious quiz for the first time since 2004, a fundraising event attended by many of the biggest brains in the literary and media world, was no easy task and, it must be said, involved a lot of luck. Sheer good luck, as in plumping for the right choice in a 50/50, is often the decisive factor when the score margins are so tight.

But, good fortune aside, how do you win any quiz? The answer is so obvious I feel idiotic saying it: you must know the answers. Actually, let me put it another way. A quiz is essentially a general knowledge lottery. The more tickets you buy, i.e. the more facts you collect and store away, the more likely your numbers will come up. And it is all the better if you have an innate talent for remembering stuff allied with a ravenous hunger for the world and all it contains. This curiosity has, in my case, translated into full-on quiz addiction.

If you want to win a standard, humdrum pub quiz, you can bore yourself senseless by rote-learning trivia books of interminable lists filled with FA Cup winners that do nothing for your soul or mental well-being. But to win the kind of quizzes that invoke descriptions of participants weeping at the sheer difficulty takes a lot more skill than simple “What is the capital of Croatia?” recall.

The best and most interesting kind of questions – the ones often asked at PEN – may appear maddeningly obscure at first glance, but because they have been laden with enough clues (e.g. a year, a certain noun), require deduction and a just a touch of lateral thinking to solve them. It also helps to remember that, presuming they are not sadists, they wouldn’t ask it if the answer was so boring as to be pointless. A question about which Eurovision Song Contest winner appears in the lyrics to John Lennon’s 'Imagine' may appear initially absurd, but once you ponder the song’s utopia-inclined content, there is only one feasible answer – Brotherhood of Man.

It also helps to know the tricks of the quiz-writing trade: the little tics and techniques setters employ when constructing questions. The aforementioned addiction has evolved into a question-writing career. Aside from penning quizzes for The Times, my various TV jobs include being one of the University Challenge setters.

Thus, I spend my days filling dozens of notebooks with potential material for starters and bonus sets, gleaned from every possible medium whenever I can. And after a while you develop an eye for the kind of trivia titbits that jump out of a newspaper article and demand to be made into questions, which helps when you are doing other people’s quizzes and you realise that the setters have had the same “Eureka” moment.

There is, however, no substitute for serious participation, and this is where the thorny accusations of “professionalism” truly come to the fore (as if the question-writing wasn’t enough). I am a long-time regular on the Quizzing circuit, a series of monthly national and international events where competition is fierce and the questions are always taxing. Recent performances have ensured my regular selection for the four-man England team, as well as a ranking of fourth in Europe.

Earlier this month, I took part in the European Quizzing Championships in Holland and very nearly did a “Michael Phelps”. Having won gold medals in the National Team, Club and Pairs events, I fell short in the individual competition where I placed a very respectable second behind Kevin Ashman, the man deemed to be the greatest quizzer in the world.

Playing against the very best on the very hardest questions will prepare you for any quiz, and my own regime for competing in them, and all trivia-related contests, boils down to this simple piece of advice: read as widely as possible and remember as much as you can.

Quick Thought

2009-11-18T01:33:00.000-08:00

Amplifying a theme briefly mentioned below

For all the bloated, fat-head meeja talk about standards slipping on quiz shows, why do the hacks that write articles about them keep on asking people for their "opinion", rather than looking at hours of old programmes from different eras, transcribing the questions asked and then doing a comparative analysis?

It's quite easy, if massively time consuming at first. And it would certainly give you some kind of actual answer that you have arrived at through empirical means.

I mean, for crying out loud, newspapers love doing it with ye olde O-Level papers and brand spanking new GCSEs. That kind of thing I can trust.

Then again, there are things what were published at several intervals through the years: quiz books with questions taken from the shows they were asked on*.

The funny thing is that many of these uber-hacks seem to give the impression they have no idea if they are hard or not, and that they are so dim they have to ask other folk what they think, when in all probability they watch the show in question themselves.

So you're left wondering whether they're too brain-damaged to form their own opinion. Or whether they're cynical beasties looking for a non-story that has all the pizzazz and whizz-bang drama of a story, and will fill the space reserved for them their paper/magazine very nicely indeedy. What you might call a chocolate-coated turd. Ok, I mean, what I might call. Just me.

But jumping on decontextualised quotes - words, I might add, that may well have been spoken tongue-in-cheek - then constructing, house of cards-style, some ill-informed hypothesis that sounds mildly provocative (while forgetting it is just a TV quiz show, yes, remember it's only a TV show, where people get asked questions because for some weird reason they bloody love being asked quiz questions, why get so het up about it when child soldiers are emptying their AK47 clips into pregnant Congolese widows) is so pointless and moronic, I'm just left making this GRRRRRR sound. Honestly, no other option is left to me: GRRRRRGGGGRRRRGGGGR
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

*Even if you might have to resort to stealing your Mastermind omnibus edition QB from an Arundel pub (I could tell it was lonely and gave it a home with many, many like-minded friends)

Unsent Letter (Polite Version)

2009-11-18T00:46:00.000-08:00

(With silly title censoring in the first line)

As a question setter for both "a certain paper" and "a particular quiz show", I have to say I was irritated by the assertion in your Media Correspondent's* article that the questions are easier simply because the executive producer said they contained "more clues".
The piece mentions nothing of the length of today's questions. There are "more clues" because the questions are significantly longer than they used to be. A clued-up modern day starter, conforming to a kind of pyramidal structure, may often end up revealing a very easy answer, but it begins, rather far back, in a very obscure place. Thus, the player who buzzes in early and gets the question right is rewarded for their deeper knowledge, as well as their nerve.
Also, in many cases, the question never gets the chance to become easy precisely because someone interrupts correctly.
In contrast, Bamber Gascoigne's University Challenge reign was replete with far shorter one-line questions that went in the blink of the eye and were, indeed, a matter of you either know it or you don't.
Subject matter also leaned heavily upon on history and literature. Today's show is far more catholic in taste for its potential material and therefore given far wider scope to test every single facet of the contestant's knowledge.
But if you must make comparisons, take a quick tour of the video websites. They will yield you enough clips from Bamber through early Paxo to the now to help you make your own conclusions about how hard the questions are.
There is, however, one immutable law that many setters believe in. Questions on long-running quiz shows have no option other than to become increasingly difficult simply because retreading or repeating the same old chestnuts is bad for the programme's integrity; contestants who haven't heard them but then play against those who have learnt them off by heart; and the viewer, who will be thoroughly bored before long. Therefore, new and invariably trickier stuff must be found.

Prez Cup Doodahs

2009-11-16T03:59:00.000-08:00

On Any Alternate Sunday

There was a time when match reports filled this blog. Looking back on them I wonder if that was a good idea. Sometimes I got the feeling that it was a bit like telling a bunch of strangers what you dreamt last night, meaning it was a bloody waste of writing time ("Write a dream, lose a reader" - Doris Lessing), though, admittedly, rather than the constant, necessary self-laceration, my diatribes about question-setting prejudices might have amused match participants and fellow league quizzers. Or at least, years down the road, everyone has a knowing smirky giggle when the words "BREWERY", "BRITISH BIRDS" and so on pop up in conversation within my earshot.

And they did get formulaic in that I'd go: "Blah blah blah, I can't believe I got that wrong!, I suck at those questions, blah blah, score, oh that was funny, funny peculiar, blah, me being craptastic again, blah blah, random score update, if I hear that question again I will become homicidal, blah blah, what is the setter's major malfunction?, blah-dee-blah-feeling slightly blue-blah, why did we lose? please tell me why. Oh yeah, the final score. Almost forgot."

So. Yesterday saw the fourth President's Cup game of this season. We played against Oxford. Most of the set seemed to have been inspired by current affairs. That lighthouse pair got the tumbleweed wind blowing through. Four detective novelist creator questions - a bit much. Damnit, I should have said the right to bear arms for the US Amendement Q. A bit low scoring this, but it picked up towards the end. Blah blah blah. I kinda miss breweries when they're not there. That may be a demented lie. We won 43-21. I got my lowest score of the PCup season so far -15! - disgraceful.

And that is that. Three wins, one loss. Not doing too badly.

The Friendly
I wrote a quasi-friendly. In that, I imitated Nic and just asked the players to pick a number from 1 to 8 for each of the eight rounds (admittedly, the number fours on each got the Hobson's choice, but that is that and that's just the way it is). This was because the task of picking paired questions (and Jack & Jolenes, rather than dreaded Jack & Jill duos) seemed too onerous to me when I was setting it the day before. In other words, I was lazy and was distracted by silly things.

The final score? 37-37. So you see, the random picking question number format balances everything out. That's the scientific proof right there: Thirty-seven all. You better believe it.

Pointless/unanswered questions are bolded up (just to be different)

Randomised Friendly Action 15/11/09

Round 1
1 Dolly the Sheep was cloned at which animal sciences research institute, near Edinburgh, in 1996?
Roslin Institute
2 Derived from the French for 'pounded' / 'ground gold', what term describes applying finely ground gold in a mercury amalgam to bronze objects?
Ormolu
3 The Bye Plot was a conspiracy to kidnap which king and force him to repeal anti-Catholic legislation?
James I
4 Which 1970 rock musical includes the songs 'Everything's Alright' and 'I Don't Know How to Love Him'?
Jesus Christ Superstar
5 Discovered in 1974, the Caloris Basin is a large impact crater on which plant in our Solar System?
Mercury
6 Who played sex-mad Timothy Lea in the 1970s Confessions films?
Robin Askwith
7 A statue of the Battle of Britain hero, Sir Keith Park, now occupies the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square. Park was born in which country?
New Zealand
8 Which DVD region code is used in every European country except for Russia, Ukraine and Belarus?
Two

Round 2
1 Which French Huguenot ironworker produced the screens and grilles of St. Paul's Cathedral for Sir Christopher Wren?
Jean Tijou
2 Which English cathedral was reputedly the tallest building in the world from 1300 until 1549 when its central spire collapsed?
Lincoln Cathedral
3 Which two-time World Cross Country champion married Mike Pieterse in 1989?
Zola Budd
4 Issued from 1849 to 1967, which British coin was known as a "two bob bit"?
Florin
5 Known by the code CDG, what is the world's second busiest airport in terms of international passenger traffic?
Charles de Gaulle
6 Founded in 1997, the company KooGa specialises in making clothing for which sport?
Rugby
7 Which English rock musician released the 1995 album Stanley Road?
Paul Weller
8 Which Premier League football club have played at the Britannia Stadium since 1997?
Stoke City

Round 3
1 Located on the planet Mars, what is the tallest known volcano and mountain in the Solar System?
Olympus Mons / Mount Olympus
2 What is the smallest German-speaking country in the world?
Liechtenstein
3 Which film director returned to the stage when his play Two Thousand Years opened at the National Theatre in 2005?
Mike Leigh
4 Characterised by dark fabric and contrasting (usually white) collars and cuffs, which 1940s dress style is named after an Oscar-winning role played by Ginger Rogers?
Kitty Foyle
5 What name links a French porcelain manufacture and a 1920 treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Allies?
Sevres
6 What number is signified by the word MIX in Roman numerals?
1009
7 Give one of the forenames, apart from the first, of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.
Antony or Richard or Louis
8 Which European country gave women the vote at a federal level on February 7, 1971?
Switzerland - but they didn't get the vote in cantonal elections until 1990

Round 4
1 After his recent release by Yorkshire, former England fast(-ish) bowler Matthew Hoggard joined which county on a three-year contract?
Leicestershire
2 What fruit gives the liqueur Triple sec its flavour?
Orange
3 The ecclesiastical title of "rector" is derived from a Latin word meaning what?
Ruler (rector can also mean "teacher", I think)
4 Which French composer wrote the music for the Papal Anthem, now the official national anthem of The Vatican, in 1869?
Charles Gounod
5 Opened in 1997 by Sonny and Silvia Priest, what is the northernmost brewery in the British Isles? Its name comes from Norse mythology.
Valhalla Brewery (in Baltasound, Unst, Shetland)
6 In October, Norfolk's Chrissie Wellington won which world triathlon championship for the third time?
Ironman world championships
7 Which annual fair is held in Nottingham during the first week of October?
Goose Fair
8 How many grains are there in a pennyweight?
24

Round 5
1 What name is given to both the currency and an official language of Paraguay?
Guarani
2 Which American poet, who died in Venice in 1972, wrote the epic poem The Cantos?
Ezra Pound
3 Named after an English county, which period of the Palaeozoic era comes between the Carboniferous and the Silurian?
Devonian
4 Arnold Schwarzenegger played Douglas Quaid in which 1990 sci-fi film?
Total Recall
5 First broadcast in 1969, which sitcom centred on the employees of the Luxton & District Traction Company?
On the Buses
6 Founded in Florida by Alisa Ianelli in 1983, which restaurant chain is known for its scantily-clad waitresses and orange-lettered owl logo?
Hooters
7 Sharing its name with a Yorkshire city, what is the largest of the towers in the curtain wall of the Tower of London?
Wakefield Tower
8 Invented in 1919, which weapon had such nicknames as "the Trench Sweeper" and "the Chicago Piano"?
Thompson submachine gun / Tommy Gun

Round 6
1 Thomas the Apostle was also known as "Didymus". What does Didymus mean?
Twin
2 Which Manchester United manager was sacked in 1977 after having an affair with the wife of Laurie Brown, a club physiotherapist?
Tommy Docherty
3 Which cut of beef, taken from the shoulder area of the cow above the brisket and ahead of the rib, is sometimes referred to as "braising steak"?
Chuck steak / 7-bone steak
4 Bay leaves come from a shrub that belongs to which family of plants?
Laurel / Lauraceae
5 In the DC Comics universe and on film, Perry White is the editor of which newspaper?
Daily Planet
6 Which theme park is home to the rollercoasters Nemesis Inferno; Stealth; and SAW: The Ride?
Thorpe Park - yes, SAW: The Ride is the rollercoaster version of the Saw films
7 Who is/was the oldest member of the Monty Python line-up?
John Cleese
8 Michael Schumacher made his Formula One debut with which now defunct team at the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix?
Jordan (or Jordan-Ford)

Round 7
1 Founded in 1981, what type of business is Foxtons?
Estate agents
2 Which English cricketer's Test career spanned a record 31 years and 310 days?
Wilfred Rhodes
3 The initial officer training establishment of the Royal Navy is located on a hill overlooking which Devon town?
Dartmouth
4 Which Whig politician became the first US President never to have held any previous elected office when he won the 1848 presidential election?
Zachary Taylor
5 The "Singapore Declaration of ______ Principles" was issued in 1971 at the conclusion of the first meeting of the heads of government in which organisation?
Commonwealth of Nations (old name: British Commonwealth)
6 The American ventriloquist Shari Lewis is best known as the creator of which sock puppet sheep?
Lamb Chop
7 Which painting was originally exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1821 under the title Landscape: Noon?
The Hay Wain
8 In a 1707 comedy play by George Farquhar, what eponymous plan is hatched by the gentlemen Archer and Aimwell?
The Beaux' Stratagem

Round 8
1 What name links a metallic element with the atomic number 46, a wooden statue of Athena that protected Troy, and a West End theatre owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber?
Palladium
2 Arline, daughter of Count Arnheim, is the title character of which 1844 opera by the Irish composer Michael William Balfe?
The Bohemian Girl
3 The Frenchman David Douillet is a two-time Olympic champion in which sport?
Judo
4 Charles Bronson's character in the spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West was named after which musical instrument?
Harmonica
5 Characterised by its black fur, which animal became the world's largest carnivorous marsupial after the extinction of the Thylacine in 1936?
Tasmanian Devil / Sarcophilus harrisii
6 Which passenger died on September 16, 1977 when Gloria Jones drove their purple Mini into a sycamore tree in Barnes, south-west London?
Marc Bolan (born Mark Feld)
7 The home of the Lytton family, which country house in Hertfordshire has hosted several major open air rock concerts since 1974?
Knebworth House
8 Which rugby team won its ever first match when it played against Hartlepool Rovers on December 27, 1890?
Barbarians (or Barbarian F.C.)

Spares
The poem On Monsieur's Departure is commonly attributed to which English monarch?
Elizabeth I
Lasting no more than eight weeks, what was the second Parliament of King James I's reign and was named for its ineffectiveness?
Addled Parliament
The coffee drink Mocha takes its name from a Red Sea coastal town in which country?
Yemen

It's Not a Question...

2009-11-16T01:47:00.000-08:00

... it was Seven Questions Away

(I know: the above song reference doesn't really make enough sense)

Oh the burden of question-writing. 'Tis weighing heavy this week, last week. Poor me. Poor me dripping with sarcasm (which is better than dripping with a lot of other stuff). Tempus fugit and it's already been a week since I trekked across the old German sea to participate in the European Quizzing Championships. And only afterwards, in the exhausted afterglow, did I realise how the preparation had trussed me up good and proper with nervousness and jittery agitation brought on by last year's four medal haul. The nagging fear that I wouldn't do as well lurked in the back of my mind, which was incredibly silly since merely winning a single Eurobauble of any metallic hue is a fine achievement. Bloody rubbish expectations created in my mind. All they do is kick you in the goolies when the reckoning rears its ugly, apocalyptic head. A bit of a metaphor cocktail for you there.

But not to worry - hurrah! - I came away with another quartet of trophies ... twas 200% more golden in colour, and there's no way I can write that sentence without feeling like a smug tossbucket and thinking you think exactly the same thing, only more so and with a sneer curling up your nonplussed face. All that brain-busting, insane prep I did; all those questions I reread until my mind felt like popping and I was on the verge of weeping like Gazza in a crisp advert. It all helped, um, marginally and I probably would have done just as well had I just sat back and relaxed, and maybe watched more Isabelle Adjani films (I'm having an accidental season of the said actress).

Anyway, it's a relief I feel, a big exhaling wooohhh of a "Thank god, that's done with for another year; I can stop with the silent screaming fits" feeling. Then I think back to all my proper, hardcore prep plans and wonder why I never - sorry - "actioned" them. Because, come to think of it, the last paragraph was pitted with lies. In reality, my prep was scatty and rubbish and vulnerable to distraction by film and TV DVDs. Rather than getting down to it with nary a fuss, eyes fixed resolutely on the prizes, I buggered about and just stressed, as inconsequentially as you can, about finding all the time I wanted for it, which was more hours than each day actually contains.

So I spent most of the time panicking about the fact that time was running out because time always runs out. It's a damn Usain Bolt of a sometimes bafflingly abstract concept.

Because if I had done all those things; things that made my fellow Broken Hearts recoil in a kind of awe-filled horror, could I have made up the deficit in the individuals and done the Golden Clean Sweep?

Then I look at the final 20 questions; realise that I would have only got four more correct on a day when everything was going right, then come to the conclusion: "Nah".

There was nothing I could do to stop Kevin taking the title again (he's that awesome), unless I had constructed a quiz-bound cocoon of EQC training insanity some 364 days before I took the trip to the Netherlands. And even when I was leading, the sensation was disturbing, chest-constricting even, while the head felt lighter, more woozy. I'm not kidding either.

As Randy Newman didn't quite sing - it's lonely at the top and makes you hyperventilate for the first time in your life, while making you paranoid that every silly question you bugger up kickstarts a mildy mental monologue in your mind, which goes along the lines: "No, Kevin has got that. He's definitely got that. He's breathing down my neck. He's Reinhold Messner and he's using me as a hilariously easy training rock climb. His boots are treading on my face (but he's still ever so polite). Now he's over and away! And I've got another one wrong that he will have got. Slag-gnash-it!"

But no. Forgo the thought and implementation of the year of training insanely. Must have a normal life. Or at least one that bears believable similarities to a quotidian human existence. Must not let quiz consume absolutely everything in a Borg-like fashion, as it has already taken over my work, space reserved for old hobbies and large proportions of other life sectors. I believe that there's still a pure air-bubble left uncontaminated by trivia (says the deluded quiz slave).

Right. Was going to pen more shambolic EQC musings, but realise today's too short and that you can have a word or four hundred on non-Euro matters like:

Quiz League of London: Top of the table clash with the Pericardiums tomorrow night. Insert insipid Premier League football analogy here. What else to say? Apart from: Hi, Pericardigans! Er, rubbish weather, isn't it? I hope you like Domino's margheritas. Feel free to call us things like "Broken Hats" or "Bum Tickers" or "Congenital Heart Defect Sufferers" (I know those crap name suggestions are too stupid to live).

To be honest, I think - and this is pathetic - I'm more concerned with keeping my 2-point average at 6.50. It's insane that I now think about the individual scoring tables when choosing to pass or answer a slightly tricky question, if only for a 0.2 of a second. In the past, it was safety first. Now it's: "I wonder how many two-pointers he's/she's/they are getting right at this very moment, somewhere across town. I bet they're getting more than me". Damn statistics making me reckless and selfish.

Radio Times interview: I might be appearing in the said publication this week, spouting rubbish and rhubarb crumble about setting questions for a certain quiz show. I remember saying that sending questions in was like "chucking them into a well". I'm not at all sure that sounds good. Gulp. I'd like to clarify that there was nothing critical about the comment, though "chucking" (being careless, as well as bowling illegally) and "well" (the Stygian, bottomless one from 300 comes to mind and that was a place ... OF DEATH) have, I admit, pretty bad connotations.

Are You an Egghead? Apparently not. Ho hum. I haven't even watched a full episode of the series yet, but like the Murphy's (whatever that is/was), I'm not bitter, twisted to feck and poised to launch a vengeful arson attack on the 12 Yard offices, while spouting bon mots from Ezekiel - the show's just a shade on the slow side and is broadcast at a very internet-intensive time of the afternoon.

Some say my Final Five* questions sucked spherical objects, while others point out that I should have known my UK town planning codes and Scots slang for cottages. Ach, so what if they were and shut your cakehole! Far more crucially, methinks the way AYAE? is formatted, it's designed to more-or-less even-up the chances of the contestants. Therefore, it is liable to scupper your best laid plans or, come to think of it, plans laid in every which way. As in poker, getting a bad beat on the show is more than likely; it's inevitable; the chances of which are amplified by the three-answer multiple choice jiminy.

Lest we forget, it is an entertainment show designed to amuse and enthral the viewer. The contestants are really only amusing, sometimes sentient set decoration. Or puppets, if you don't like to be compared to non-humanoid forms, like light fittings. For what's the point of having gruesome one-sided contests that resemble bloodsports more than an actual quiz? So it leans heavily on the luck factor and, let's be honest, is better for it - in terms of a TV spectacle.

Thus, the spectacle rounded on me and I fell foul of fortune, but them's the breaks. 12 Yard's much beloved penalty shootout format leitmotif - look, it's in their name - ensures an exciting, surprising finale, as in football, and therefore, one just as likely to be riven with injustice. But, since you can see it coming a mile off, when it crashes into you the only option left - the one which will give you some peace of mind - is to be stoical about it.

I was more suspicious of the realisation that the two subjects I highlighted as my weak areas - Sports & Sciences - in Big Capital Letters on my contestant application form were frontloaded in both of my Series 2 shows.

That's right: stuck up front. One in the driver's seat and the other riding shotgun. Now why was that? But as it was in the relatively unimportant bit of the show, the "pick me an Eggy" part, the one that takes up 30-35 minutes of the running time, there is no need to be too suspicious and start delineating intricate, spidery conspiracy matrices.

And, in hindsight, it was unbelievably foolish to moan about sports and the sciences being my Achilles heels - in writing! and in my interview! Like I did last year! - and therefore give me and them a long enough rope to string myself up. Even if sport isn't actually one of my weakest subjects anymore. Though when they ask me sodding horse racing betting questions, then yeah, I'm stitched up like a helpless, naive kipper.

As for "A1" and "but-and-ben". Well. Well. Well. well well well. If that kind of Brit-centric factage is the stuff that Eggheads are made of, then I am an absolutely F... [JUMP CUT] But such arcane gubbins was to be expected. It's (a kind of) Eggheads, remember.

Anyway, I'd just like to say that my opponents Gill Woon and Dave Clark were lovely people, as well as highly skilled quiz players (they have done far, far better on Mastermind than my sorry Caribbean-leaning self), and that we were more united in terror of the show, the lights, the etc (not the Eggheads though), than enmity with each other. Or so I thought - DUM-DUM-DAHHHH!

Masoquizm III this Saturday: As man-lady cool-assed-gun-cannon-toting Vasquez said in Aliens: "Let's ROCK!!!" (oh, I will fall, and the landing will hurt, unless ... unless I start rabidly reading thousands of my NAQT/ACF questions right now. Insanity rising; taking me over)

*Talking of which, the "new" Battlestar Galactica TV movie - The Plan - does chow down on big steroid-boosted bull balls. So very disappointing. I can only imagine the extent of my disappointment had I paid to viddy it, rather than utilise the piratical side of the interwebway.

The October Post

2009-10-31T17:39:00.000-07:00

Oh My Gosh

It has been a mighty long time since I last posted. So how could I leave an entire month in the archives empty?

No, that won't do. Ergo, here's the crappy sop to my blogging conscience.

Obviously, I haven't had time to finish my Quiz Book in time for the Euros. I realised I needed a little more time, so I could lavish it with the care and attention, as befitting a 40-month project that is getting bigger and bigger by the day (as a result), rather than rush the big bugger into publication and end up screaming in horror as I spot 20 typos in the first 20 pages (this could/can happen). Then watch the errors mount in up all their awful, many-digited numbers.

Otherwise, I have been watching Being Human for the first time (sokay, ah so'pose). There are many more worthwhile things I could be doing instead, like work, goddamn sodding work pinching and burdening my back, like a giant mutant spider-thing, but NO. I choose to watch stuff on the internet and bemoan the encroaching winter darkness. Bemoan I say!

BH161: 79 Swap-Outs

2009-09-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

Boring to Me

This is Part 2 of all the questions I have swapped for ones I thought were, like, way better man, in the QB. Some are new; others are embellished versions of Qs I have already put on this blog many years ago (about three actually); a whole load of others clashed mildly with other questions, so instead I put in something completely different.

Here you go...

BH161: They Didn't Quite Make It
1. Which company manufactures the i-MiEv electric car (pronounced “eye-meev”), a saloon capable of carrying four adults and reaching a top speed of 87mph, making it the first automobile of its type capable of breaking the UK speed limit?
2. A member of the Bamana ethnic group, which high-born Malian singer released her debut album Mouneïssa (on Label Bleu) in 1997, and her second, Wanita, in 2000?
3. Which company makes the luxury "man bag" known as the Nomade Keepall?
4. The music scholar William Waterhouse (1931-2007) was a renowned player of which instrument?
5. What common name is given to the Symphysodon genus of three species of freshwater cichlid fishes (the common, the Heckel & Symphysodon tarzoo), which are native to the Amazon River basin and are noted for their laterally compressed and markedly rounded body shape?
6. A German-speaking Mennonite community in Filadelfia, originally founded by Russian Mennonites who had fled from the USSR in 1930, is found in which country?
7. The Georgian director Géla Babluani is due to remake his French-language 2005 debut film, - regarded as one of the most original European thrillers in recent years - in New York City. What is its title?
8. Made from chopped tomato, onion and chilli peppers, which fresh condiment in Mexican cuisine has a name meaning ‘rooster's beak’?
9. Sonny the Cuckoo Bird is the mascot of which breakfast cereal in the US?
10. Tom Singh, elder brother of science writer Simon, founded which clothing chain in Taunton in 1969?
11. Members of which genus of Spiny-tailed lizards is eaten in North Africa where it is called dhaab or ‘fish of the desert’ and India, one writer saying “the meat is said to be excellent and white like chicken ... the tail is considered a great delicacy”?
12. Which French Resistance fighter is perhaps the least remembered member of “Les Six” and wrote his only opera L'Occasion while working at his home in St. Tropez?
13. What two-word term was coined by social psychology founder George Herbert Mead in an eponymous 1969 book to describe a major sociological perspective, which he summarised as people act toward things based on the meaning those things have for them? These meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation.
14. The British artist Emma Woffenden (b.1962) principally works with what material?
15. Sachin Tendulkar plays for which team in India's domestic first-class championship?
16. Rodgers & Hart are said to have pioneered the realistic musical, complete with squalid titular hero, in which work of 1940 that was based on a 1939 epistolary novel by John O’Hara?
17. Which well-known coin was first minted in 1140 by Roger II of Sicily?
18. The man who gave his name to a 565m-tall mountain in the Marseille-Cassis calanques, which French artist and architect executed his caryatids for the balcony of the Hotel de Ville of Toulon (1655-57)? His last work, an unfinished bas-relief of the Plague of Milan, was placed in the council chamber of the town hall of Marseille, his birthplace.
19. First broadcast on TF1 in 1996, what is the title of French soap opera that centres on the Saint-Tropez-based lives of Laure (sensitive doctor), Caroline (wilful singer-lawyer) and Jessica (beautiful American blonde bartender-model-dancer) in its native land?
20. Acquired by Elisabeth Murdoch's production company Shine Limited in early 2007, what is the television company behind such hit series as Life on Mars, Spooks, and Hustle?
21. The last ruler of a united Roman Empire, which Spaniard became sole emperor on defeating Eugenius and was succeeded by his sons Arcadius (East) and Honorius (West)?
22. Now available in a new digital version, which letter denoted the legendary Leica camera series favoured by Henri Cartier-Bresson?
23. As seen in Catalonia, what type of festival is denoted by the word Correfoc?
24. One of the oldest in the world, what is the national airline of Columbia?
25. Premiered in St Petersburg in 1913 at the Lunar Park and written in the language Zaum, Victory over the Sun was the first ever opera in which genre?
26. The 3rd Earl of Burlington built which London street in 1735, naming it for his wife Dorothy?
27. Which US state shares its name with the river on which Philadelphia stands?
28. The London station Radio ORLA broadcasts in which language?
29. In the world of finance, what is an I.P.O.?
30. The Inka Terra Association (ITA) is a conservation NGO based in which country?
31. The Bang Bang Club, near the Mitte district's Hackescher Markt station, is one of which city's top venues for indie music?
32. King Juan Carlos inaugurated which building on October 17, 1997?
33. What does the Chinese-language Hong Kong newspaper name Kung Kao Po mean?
34. The subject of several Goya portraits (e.g. The White Duchess), which Duchess and grandee (1762-1802) is believed to have modelled for his twin naked and clothed "Majas"?
35. Who composed an opera on the traditional Helen of Troy, Paride ed Elena, in 1770?
36. Distinguished from other creatures of the same name by their small size; round, rather than vertical eye pupils; and each digit terminating in a single, round adhesive pad or scale; Sphaerodactylus (‘round-finger’) is a genus of which lizard?
37. Born Jessé Gomes da Silva Filho, which Brazilian samba and pagode musician has made 15 albums, including Patota de Cosme (1987), Pixote (1991), and Uma prova de amor (2008)?
38. Known for her extensive use of a JamMan pedal, which French singer, born in Grenoble in 1976, recorded her first album The Cheap Show (a pun on “peep show”) live in January 2004?
39. Named after a people of Finnish origin who were conquered by Ivan the Terrible and annexed to Russia in 1552, which Republic or federal subject is situated between Nizhny Novogorod and Kazan on the left bank of the Volga? Its capital is Yoshkar-Ola.
40. What is the maximum numbers of characters allowed in a Twitter message?
41. In drag and modified car racing, what term is used to describe the extremely dangerous practice in which drivers deliberately spin out and skid sideways at high speeds?
42. Who painted the c.1514-15 portrait of Baldassare Castiglione in the Louvre?
43. The successor to the Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, which music awards are doled out every year by the Deutsche Phono-Akademie and are determined by the previous year’s sales (which makes them very boring)?
44. King George V gave the first broadcast to the Empire by any monarch on Christmas Day 1932. Which famous author scripted it?
45. Dobdrovody is a 4th millennium BC site of the Trypillian culture that is believed to have been the home of up to 10,000 citizens. It is in which modern day country?
46. Sometimes called Cerro Chaltén, after the Tehuelche (Aonikenk) word for ‘smoking mountain’, it is situated near the village of El Chaltén in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, on the Argentine-Chilean border. First climbed in 1952 by French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, it has the reputation of being “ultimate” not due to its elevation (3,375m/11,073ft), but because of its sheer granite sides. Which mountain?
47. How did African-American Gertrude Baines succeed Portugal’s Maria de Jesus in January 2009?
48. The first production vehicle to feature the Integrated Motor Assist system, the Insight was based on the J-VX concept car and is a hybrid electric car manufactured by which company?
49. Which concept of an impersonal force that resides in people, animals and inanimate objects is common to many Oceanic languages, including Melanesian, Polynesian and Micronesian?
50. While on the Third Crusade, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I drowned in which Turkish river in 1190?
51. First published in The Guardian as a weekly comic strip, Posy Simmonds’ 2007 graphic novel Tamara Drewe is a modern reworking of which 19th century novel?
52. Italy invaded Ethiopia following Menelik II’s repudiation of which treaty, signed by the said emperor and Count Pietro Antonelli on May 2, 1889, in an eponymous town?
53. With a Superheavyweight gold at Atlanta and a then 59-0 record, which Russian Greco-Roman wrestler became the first man to win the same division three times in a row?
54. The newspaper, La Capital, was founded in 1867 by Ovidio Lagos. It is Argentina's oldest newspaper and is based in which city in the province of Santa Fe?
55. The first Chinese inductee into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame (in 2000), which gymnast won six medals at the 1984 Olympics, including three golds (floor exercise, pommel horse, rings), and ignited the cauldron at opening ceremony of the Beijing Games?
56. Which American expat (1887-1962) opened the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company at 12 rue de l'Odéon in 1919, and was the first person to publish Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922?
57. Named for the woman who formed the Berkshire String Quartet in 1916, which prize was established for “eminent services to chamber music” in 1932?
58. Susi Susanti, Mia Audina and Maria Kristin Yulianti were/are noted players in which sport?
59. Which US Vogue magazine editor-at-large wrote the autobiography A.L.T: A Memoir (2003)?
60. Created by “gastronaut” Rud Christiansen of Copenhagen’s Royal Cafe, which new culinary phenomenon is a fusion of Japanese and Danish food?
61. Which muckraking journalist wrote History of the Standard Oil Company (1904)?
62. Khon is the most stylised form of which country’s classical dance drama? It is performed by non-speaking dancers as the story is told by a chorus at the side of the stage.
63. On which date did Napoleon return to France and overthrow the Directory in 1799?
64. What does the EU agreement known as the “The Dublin Regulation” ensure?
65. Luah, Bodger and Tao make which eponymous trip in a 1961 children’s book?
66. Which linguistic-related organisation of 37 member countries was established in Madrid in 1954?
67. Set in the Alps, which downbeat Swiss feminist road movie of 1979 – described in some quarters as "the original Thelma and Louise" - from director Alain Tanner shares its title with a month of the French Revolutionary calendar?
68. Traditionally said to have been inspired by watching a glass of beer (though he has refuted this story and said he used beer in experiments on prototypes), what device won the American scientist Donald A. Glaser the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics?
69. Author of "The Banana Trilogy" (1950-60), which 1967 Nobel Laureate and Guatemalan writer, diplomat and exile wrote Hombres De Maiz / Men of Maize (1949), in which he combined Mayan mysticism and social awareness in order to indict dictatorial rule?
70. Similar looking to the far larger Komondor, which ancient Hungarian dreadlocked sheepdog is believed to ultimately derive its name from the German word for a poodle?
71. Derived from the Greek for ‘near the Earth’, what word describes the position of the Moon in its orbit when it is closest to the Earth?
72. In American football, what was approved following a campaign by college coach John Heisman began in around 1906?
73. Apart from his gold medal in the division, the Ukrainian featherweight Vasyl Lomachenko won which award at the 2008 Olympic Games?
74. Where will you find the Rettifilo Tribune, Curva Grande and Curva di Lesmo?
75. Allah delivered which holy text to Moses, although this was superseded by the Qu’ran, while most modern Muslims believe it to be corrupted by Jews?
76. Which bird undergoes the longest regular migration by any known animal (c.25,000mi every year)?
77. What is the only South American country to have coastline on both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea?
78. Liverpool FC and NASCAR’s Richard Petty Motorsports co-owner George N. Gillett Jr used to own which NHL team? And which MLB and NHL teams are owned by Tom Hicks?
79. The 27th edition of the Fadjr international festival took place in Tehran in 2009. What is its artistic theme?

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1. Mitsubishi. The first Mitsubishi company was a shipping firm established by Yataro Iwasaki in 1870. The name has two parts: mitsu means ‘three’ and hishi means ‘water caltrop/chestnut’, and hence ‘rhombus’, which is reflected in the company’s logo.
2. Rokia Traoré (b.1974). From Kolokani in Koulikoro, she plays (unusually for a female African musician) acoustic guitar, ngoni (lute) and balafon (wooden-keyed percussion idiophone).
3. Louis Vuitton (founded in 1854). People who have exclusively ordered LV baggage include 4 Congo explorer Savorgnan de Brazza, who ordered a combined trunk and bed.
4. Bassoon. Music historians generally consider the dulcian to be its forerunner.
5. Discus. It is a popular aquarium fish, in contrast to similar cichlids from the genus Pterophyllum. Extended finnage is absent, thus giving them a more rounded shape.
6. Paraguay. Filadelfia is the capital of Boquerón Department in the western area of Gran Chaco and is the centre of the Fernheim Colony.
7. 13 Tzameti. Tzameti is the Georgian word for ‘thirteen’. The film also marked the acting debut of Babluani’s brother Georges, who played the immigrant protagonist Sébastien.
8. Pico de gallo. In Mexico, the tomato-based condiment is better known as salsa picada (‘minced/chopped sauce’) or salsa mexicana because the colours red (tomato), white (onion) and green (chilli) correspond to the Mexican flag.
9. Cocoa Puffs (manufactured by General Mills, who make Kix cereal (Rice Krispies in the UK))
10. New Look. Boasting 600+ locations, it is now headquartered in Weymouth
11. Uromastyx. Better known members include Mastigures or Dabb Lizards.
12. Louis Durey (1888-1979). He was the oldest member and his decision not to take part in the group’s 1921 collaborative work Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel greatly irritated Jean Cocteau.
13. "Symbolic interactionism"
14. Glass. She is known for her ambiguous, androgynous forms and themes of origin.
15. Mumbai (home ground: Wankhede Stadium, near Churchgate railway station)
16. Pal Joey. The title character is Joey Evans – played by Frank Sinatra in the 1957 film - the small-time womanising MC and dancer-singer who dreams of owning a nightclub. Songs include ‘I Could Write a Book’; ‘The Terrific Rainbow’; ‘Happy Hunting Horn’; ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’(as sung by Posner in The History Boys); and ‘I Still Believe in You’.
17. Ducat
18. Pierre Paul Puget (1622-94)
19. Sous le soleil. Created by Olivier Brémond and Pascal Breton, it features Bénédicte Delmas, Adeline Blondieau and Tonya Kinzinger in the said roles.
20. Kudos
21. Theodosius I the Great (aka Flavius Theodosius; r: 379-395). He succeeded Valens in the East and Valentinian II in the West, and made Nicene Christianity the official state religion.
22. M, as in the M-Series Rangefinder
23. Fire-running. They are celebrations where "devils" play with fire and the people.
24. Avianca. Founded in Barranquilla in 1940, its name is an Spanish acronym for Aerovías del Continente Americano, formerly Aerovías Nacionales de Colombia.
25. Futurist. Aleksei Kruchonykh wrote the libretto, the music was written by Mikhail Matyushin, the prologue added by Velimir Khlebnikov, and the stage designed by Kasimir Malevich.
26. Savile Row. Located in Mayfair, it runs parallel to Regent Street between Conduit Street at the northern end and Vigo Street at the southern. The Matthew Brown Gallery and Laurent Delaye Gallery are both at no.11.
27. Delaware. It constitutes the entire boundary between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Named, like the state, after Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (1577-1618), the Native American tribe of the Lenape is also known as the Delaware.
28. Polish
29. Initial Public Offering. It is also referred to as a "flotation".
30. Peru
31. Berlin
32. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
33. ‘Catholic newspaper’. Launched on August 1, 1928, it is a weekly paper owned and published by the Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong.
34. Cayetana de Silva (aka Maria del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva Alvarez de Toledo y Silva Bazán, 13th Duchess of Alba). Goya executed most of his portraits of the Duchess at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, which is one of the Andalusian country seats of the House of Medina-Sidonia.
35. Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-87)
36. Gecko. The 16mm-long dwarf gecko Jaragua Sphaero (S. ariasae) is one of the world’s smallest known reptiles. The other is S. parthenopion, and is native to the British Virgin Islands.
37. Zeca Pagodinho (b.1959). He had a hit with ‘SPC’. Its title refers to a blacklist of bad debtors from which it is hard to get one’s name removed - SPC stands for ‘Credit Protection Service’.
38. Anaïs (surname Croze)
39. Mari El Republic
40. 140. Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams in 2006.
41. Drifting (as in the film title, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift)
42. Raphael. Castiglione has been called "the epitome of the Renaissance humanist and gentleman"; and as well as writing Il cortegiano (1528), served as a renowned ambassador.
43. ECHO awards. 2009 pop winners - announced in March - included Udo Lindenberg (National Male Artist), Stefanie Heinzmann (National Female), Paul Potts (International Male), Amy Winehouse (International Female), Ich + Ich (National Group), Coldplay (International Group).
44. Rudyard Kipling
45. Ukraine. The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished c.5500BC-2750BC in the Dniester-Dnieper region. Archaeologist Vicenty Khvoika uncovered almost 100 of their settlements in 1884.
46. Cerro Fitz Roy / Monte Fitz Roy (named in honour of Robert, the Beagle captain, who journeyed up the Santa Cruz River in 1834 and charted large parts of the Patagonian coast)
47. As the world’s oldest living person. A Los Angeleno, Baines was born on April 6, 1894.
48. Honda. It introduced the second-generation Insight in Japan in February 2009.
49. Mana. In Hawaiian, mana loa means ‘great power’ and can be obtained through birth or warfare. People or objects that possess it are accorded respect. In Maori, a tribe that has mana whenua is considered to have demonstrated their authority over a given piece of land.
50. The Saleph. Both its sources arise in the Taurus Mountains and it is now called the Göksu.
51. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (anyone who did the Brits Highbrow Quiz can see why this question went on the scrapheap). It's a good read. Far better than I had expected it to be, and thus a very good Xmas present from Chris. Cheers, matey.
52. Treaty of Wuchale / Treaty of Ucciale. The First Italo-Ethiopian War climaxed at the Battle of Adwa on March 1, 1896, where Ethiopia defeated Oreste Baratieri’s forces.
53. Aleksandr Karelin (b.1967). He took silver in Sydney, with American Rulon Gardner winning. Nic answering this correctly in the pub ensured its excision from the QB. Mwa-ha-hee-tee-hee. Should really stop with the textual laughter. I'm doing far too much of it at the moment. I've realised, it just ain't funny.
54. Rosario. It is known as "Decano de la Prensa Argentina" - ‘Dean of the Argentine Press’.
55. Li Ning (b.1943). Resident in Hong Kong under the "Quality Migrant Admission Scheme", he founded an eponymous footwear and sports apparel company (Li-Ning Company Ltd) in 1990.
56. Sylvia Beach. The shop was ordered shut in 1941 after she denied a German officer the last copy of Finnegans Wake. It never reopened, though George Whitman opened an S&C in 1951.
57. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Medal (after the US pianist (1864-1953)). Britten was a recipient.
58. Badminton. They are all Indonesian. Susanti won the Olympic singles in 1992.
59. André Leon Talley (b.1949). He is the gay African American right-hand man of Anna Wintour (if she could be considered to have a "right-hand man"), who introduced Michelle Obama to Jason Wu, from whom she bought her inauguration evening gown.
60. Smushi. It combines traditional Danish smørrebrød with a contemporary sushi twist.
61. Ida M. Tarbell (1857-1944)
62. Thailand. Tradition dictates the costumes, while "demons" wear coloured masks.
63. 18 Brumaire / November 9-10. Boney boy established his own Consulate and restored Catholicism.
64. An asylum application submitted in an EU nation is handled by one, and only one, country (got this one from the Nobel Peace Centre. Then I realised it bored me a bit, then a bit more, until I was utterly senseless from the boredom of it all. I mean, EU regulation questions. PAH!)
65. The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. Luath is a Labrador, Bodger is an English Bull Terrier, and Tao is a Siamese cat. They are owned by the Hunter family.
66. Latin Union (its member nations all use a Romance language). Argentina, the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta are "permanent observers". Site: http://www.unilat.org/
67. Messidor. The original name comes from the Latin messis, meaning ‘harvest’.
68. Bubble chamber. It is a vessel filled with a superheated transparent liquid (most often liquid hydrogen) used to detect electrically charged particles moving through it.
69. Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales (1899-1974). Asturias’s other notable novels include El Señor Presidente (1946), which explored the nature of political dictatorship.
70. Puli (from Pudelhund; pl. Pulik). Introduced to Hungary about 1,000 years ago by the Magyars, its most characteristic colour is a unique dull black.
71. Perigee. In celestial mechanics, "perigee" and "apogee" refer to orbits around the Earth, while "perihelion" and "aphelion" both refer to orbits around the Sun. During the Apollo program, the terms "pericynthion" and "apocynthion" were used when referring to the Moon.
72. Forward pass
73. Val Barker Trophy (awarded to the outstanding and most stylistic boxer of each Olympic Games since 1936 and established in honour of the first Honorary Secretary of the Federation Internationale de Boxe Amateur in 1920)
74. Monza Grand Prix motor racing circuit. Officially named the Autodromo Nazionale Monza and located in the namesake city on the river Lambro in Lombardy, 15km north-east of Milan.
75. Tawrat (the Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew word Torah, aka the the Pentateuch)
76. Arctic Tern (Sterna paradisaea)
77. Colombia. It is the second largest country in South America, after Brazil, and has the third largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico and Spain.
78. Montreal Canadiens; Texas Rangers & Dallas Stars
79. Theatre

A Note on The Giant

2009-09-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

That quiz I set a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

It's been over a year now since The Giant was released and paid for by at least 60 (by now very long-suffering) participants.

Apologies once again for those who have waited and waited and waited and probably forgot it ever even happened.

Thus, I have come up with a little compensation package for everyone who ponied up the £15/£7.50 fee and not seen hide or hair of even a suggestion of things like, you know, top ten table and stuff like that.

Therefore, everyone who paid the full £15 for the 1002 Giant questions will get a £4 discount - on a "more than £12/certainly less than £19.99" price yet to be decided - off my Quiz Book. Everyone who paid £7.50 will get a £2 discount.

What's more, EVERYONE who paid to do one or both parts of the quiz will - in the next couple of weeks - be emailed a free 40-page representative sample of The Quiz Book (with question blocs cut from across the entire book) that will equate to 400 quiz questions, amounting to 28,000 relatively fact-packed words (I think).

With regards to the results and the other Giant stuff, I will get on to compiling the final placings, even - eek - marking the remainder, and emailing out the bonus quizzes, once I get the first box of books back from the printers - it's gonna be like the endscene of Back to the Future, without the "oh man, that's sooooo lame" cover illustration; I'm going black&white minimalist and will certainly not spray it with obese question marks and an offensively icky array of primary colours - hopefully, very hopefully, by the end of next month and before the EQC in Dordrecht.

And then - finally! - it will be done, finito, etc, and my increasingly gnawing sense of guilt will recede into oblivion and I will stop apologising at tri-monthly intervals for doing things I should have done about 10 months ago.

Refuse

2009-09-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

If these have finally bored me senseless, I will pray for you

I am painstakingly - emphasis on the pain - making my way through my final final draft. And I'm getting there. Soon the final notes will be done and the closing ceremony of me sitting in front of the computer for four days straight putting in my corrections and rephrasing and double-verifying will soon commence.

The hearts skips a beat at the mere thought of the delicious ordeal to come.

The ordeal would probably envelope me sooner, if I hadn't decided to do things like add another two pages and another 1200 words this morning because I felt the world would be a better place if there were more questions about German luxury "steam irons" and designer ironing board cover specialists (you think I'm joking? I am not - look up "Rowenta". They're like irons ... from the future! They also look kinda stabby).

But also, to stop myself from drifting into a terminal boredom coma, induced by looking at the same Qs again and again, I have been writing dozens of other sparkling, exciting newies during the drafting in order to swap them out with toddler-age oldies that I couldn't hack looking at any longer together with embellished, spruced-up old blog questions from long ago, whose pointlessness (to me) has now become all too apparent. Most, however, just could not take a 67th reading without a rash of annoyance breaking out all over my face.

So forgive me for this relative detritus. This is Part 1 of the swap outs (you'll notice there are a lot of recent-ish and new automobile questions; I think I realised something: THEY GLAZE MY BRAIN WITH A KIND OF DULLING MENTAL POTTERY SLIP and, more crucially, tend to be a bit too time-sensitive). But they and all the others have to go somewhere, you know. Somewhere down below.

Boring BH160: Apologies for your imminent boredom
1 Which Nikon camera model series was launched in 1959 and has since undergone only six revisions? It now utilises a high precision shutter unit created from DuPont Kevlar and a body made of aluminium and magnesium.
2 Founded in 1979 and named after a type of wild sheep who live in their native mountains, I Muvrini is a folk music group from which island?
3 Also called Mikeyir, which endangered language is spoken by about 600 hunter-gatherers in south-west Ethiopia? They live in the westernmost part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region in three Keficho Shekicho Zone areas: Anderaccha, Gecch'a and Kaabo.
4 What shrub or tree of the tropical American genus Plumeria takes its name from the Italian nobleman, who had the first name Mazio, who invented a perfume made from the plant for scenting gloves?
5 Effectively dividing the south of the country from the north, which Uruguayan river flows south to the west to meet the River Uruguay on the Argentine frontier?
6 Occurring on March 25, 1911, in the Asch building, the "Triangle Shirtwaist" fire was the most serious factory fire in the history of which city?
7 What South African term described the removal of urban Black Africans to rural areas as part of the official policy of apartheid?
8 Sharing its name with the 13-domed oaken church in Novgorod that may have inspired its construction, which 11th century Kiev cathedral is famed for its sparkling domes and was the first Ukrainian patrimony to be inscribed on the World Heritage List?
9 Established in 1850 by the Robert Morris, a lawyer and educator from Boston, Massachusetts, what is the largest fraternal organisation in the world that both men and women can join as long as they are aged 18 and older?
10 Which British engineer, the technical mastermind behind Michael Schumacher's Formula One world titles, left Ferrari after 10 years as technical director of the team shortly after the German driver retired? He returned to F1 as Team Principal of Honda for the 2008 season.
11 Used by Le Corbusier to describe his choice of material, the name of which architectural style comes from the French word for ‘raw concrete’?
12 Delivered on January 25, 2006, what was Deus Caritas Est / God is Love?
13 The American Glen Tetley, who was 80-years-old when he died in January 2007, was an innovator in which field of the arts?
14 The Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum is the permanent home of which artist's key work, The Dinner Party (1974-79)?
15 The London alderman, Richard Martin, because the first person to offer what arrangement to willing buyers in 1583?
16 Felicitas Wolf won a Best Sitcom Performance Rose d’Or in 2004 for playing Lolle, a girl who moves to the city with her boyfriend Tom after leaving school, in which German TV show?
17 A dual nationality holder (French & Moroccan), which single mother was appointed France's Minister of Justice on May 18, 2007, becoming the first woman with a non-European immigrant background and the first Arab to hold a key ministerial position in the French cabinet?
18 Dating back to 1847 when Queen Isabella II agreed to a cattle market proposed by councillors Jose Maria Ybarra and Narciso Bonaplata, which fair officially begins at midnight on the Tuesday two weeks after Easter Holy Week and goes on for six days, thus ending on the following Sunday?
19 A fatwa led to two Islamic fundamentalists from the Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya group shooting dead which 56-year-old Egyptian writer and intellectual in his office on June 8, 1992?
20 The 1999 film Forever in Our Memory deals with the starvation of up to three million people during the 1990s in which country?
21 Established on June 22, 1792, by King Stanislaw August Poniatowski, what is Poland's highest military decoration for valour in the face of the enemy?
22 Founded in St. Petersburg in 1725 by Catherine the Great, which civil, self-governed, non-commercial organisation has been responsible for such achievements as Sputnik?
23 A proxy mechanism that allows client PCs to gain access to hosts outside their local network while providing a high degree of security for the local network, SOCKS is an abbreviation for what word?
24 Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MIT) is the government intelligence agency of which country?
25 Featuring such characters as Jupiter and Juno, which 1950 Cole Porter musical comedy is based on Plautus’s comedy Amphitryon?
26 Which emirate unveiled plans in February 2007 for a $13 billion arts hub, including a Frank Gehry-designed art museum and Zahia Hadid-conceived performing arts centre? It is being built on Saadiyat, an uninhabited island of 10 sq mi.
27 Sharing his name with an English comedian, which US athlete (b.1947) set the world record for the men's 400m at the 1968 Olympics?
28 Which Formula One world title winner, who began racing in his "home-made" Mini, became a champion breeder of budgerigars?
29 What is the commonly known acronym of the "General Electricity Company", a producer of electronics and electrical equipment that was founded by Emil Rathenau in 1883 after he bought some patents from Thomas Edison?
30 Named from the Latin for ‘corn’, what French dish consists of wheat boiled in milk and flavoured with spices and was traditionally served with venison or porpoise as a pottage?
31 What nickname did Billie Holliday give the tenor sax player Lester Young (1909-59)?
32 Which luxury automobile brand, known for its slogan "The pursuit of perfection", has produced what it calls the world's first high performance hybrid SUV, the RX 400h?
33 What name do the Turks use for their side of Cyprus's divided capital Nicosia?
34 Developed at the Advanced Design Studio in Coventry, the XKR is which car manufacturer's latest luxury model?
35 First published on November 7, 1914, which US opinion magazine was founded by Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann through the financial backing of heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney and her husband Willard Straight?

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Answers to BH160
1. F series. The Nikon F introduced the concept of the 35mm single-lens reflex camera system. 2. Corsica. The group was formed by the brothers Jean-François Bernardini and Alain Bernardini, who were born in the village of Tagliu-Isulacciu in the north of the island. Their first studio album was Ti Ringrazianu (1979).
3. Shabo
4. Frangipani. Related to the Oleander (Nerium oleander), both possess poisonous milky sap, similar to that of the Euphorbia genus (aka Spurges).
5. Rio Negro. The headwater is near Bagé, Brazil.
6. New York City
7. Endorse
8. Saint Sophia Cathedral (Ukrainian: Sobor Sviatoyi Sofiyi). The name may come from the 6th century Hagia Sophia (‘Holy Wisdom’) in Constantinople.
9. Order of the Eastern Star
10. Ross Brawn (b.1954). He owns the coincidentally named Brawn GP team, which he acquired from Honda in 2009.
11. Brutalism. The term gained currency when British architectural critic Reyner Banham used it in the title of his 1966 book The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic? to identify the emerging style. Example buildings include the Leeds International Pool (1967), which was designed by disgraced architect John Poulson; and the Barbican Centre, the work of Chamberlain, Powell & Bon.
12. Pope Benedict’s first encyclical
13. Ballet/modern dance choreography. He made his choreographic debut in 1962 with his work Pierrot Lunaire, which he based on music of the same title by Schoenberg.
14. Judy Chicago. Born Judy Gerowitz in 1939, her written works include Through the Flower: My Struggle as a Woman Artist (1975) and Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light (1993).
15. Life insurance policy
16. Berlin, Berlin
17. Rachida Dati (b.1965). Demoted from her ministerial post, she was elected an MEP in 2009.
18. Seville Spring Fair / La Feria de abril de Sevilla. First held at Prado de San Sebastian, it is known for its parades, trajes de flamenco dress, men’s cordobés hats and numerous casetas (tents).
19. Farag Foda (author of Before the Fall, The Played With, and We Be or Not to Be)
20. North Korea
21. The Order Virtuti Militari (Latin: ‘To Military Valour’). The Order of the White Eagle / Order Orla Bialego is the highest decoration awarded to both civilians and the military for their merits and was instituted on November 1, 1705, by Augustus II the Strong.
22. The Russian Academy of Sciences / Rossi’skaya Akade’miya Nau’k (or the PAH/RAN)
23. SOCKetS
24. Turkey. Formed in 1965, the name means ‘National Intelligence Organisation’.
25. Out of This World (featuring the tunes ‘I Got Beauty’, ‘I Sleep Easier Now’ & ‘Nobody’s Chasing Me’)
26. Abu Dhabi (transliteration: Abū zabī, meaning ‘Father of gazelle’)
27. Lee Evans. He added a 4x400m relay gold at the same Olympics.
28. James Hunt (1947-93; champion with McLaren in 1976 in his first year with the team)
29. AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft). Having been wholly integrated into DaimlerChrysler and then split up, its brand name was bought by Electrolux in 2005.
30. Frumenty. In England it was often eaten on Mothering Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Lent, when servants were allowed to visit their mothers and were often served the dish to celebrate.
31. "President" (which became "Prez"). He came to prominence in Count Basie’s band.
32. Lexus (a division of Toyota Motor Corporation first introduced in 1989 in the US)
33. Lefkoşa (or Lefkosia)
34. Jaguar Cars. Founded as the Swallow Sidecar Company in 1922 by Sir William Lyons and William Walmsley, the SS was dropped from the name in 1945 due to WW2.
35. The New Republic. TNR: the magazine where Stephen Glass of Shattered Glass film fame caused a massive 1998 scandal with his made-up stories, which were aided by the publication's no-photograph policy.

So Foolish It Would Be Silly Not to Laugh

2009-09-18T17:46:00.000-07:00

To Spend All That Time...

As anyone who might have taken a peep in the comments for my previous post will have realised, the mysterious "radinden" was actually someone I know very well quiz-wise. He was just having a bit of a festive larf with mean, bad words about how hard my quizzes were. And my word, Mr Linham found and hit the right buttons; picking out a couple of my ripe insecurities then punching them with just the right choice of vocabulary - "petty obscurities". Why I oughta!!!

Not knowing his nom d'internet and therefore assuming he was an anonymous mischief-making git who deserved a verbose takedown, I launched my somewhat "disproportionate" response, thinking this'll show the populist bugger! I have THE TRUTH. He wants to know The Truth? He couldn't handle The Truth!!! Or a number of TRUTHS, all so very devastating in their truthocity that I would be setting these truths upon the self-righteous tittering truth-ignorant troll like a pack of ravenous hounds. Who each happen to be named Trude, T. Ruth, Verity, and have other Truth-related monikers. Because they are called THE DOGS OF TRUTH.

And then I got THE REVEAL. "Oh it's you!"

Suffice to say, I did not hesitate in bloody well laughing my big stupid head off.

The following things hit me: the rancid stench of my supreme self-righteousness, a general "I am such a massive tosspot" feeling and the surreal realisation that I was aiming my attack at an invented foe constructed of my own deeply held quiz-related prejudices.

And there was no other choice than to giggle at my own silliness.

Anyhoo, let us never speak, quote, think or remind me of this ever again (c'mon, I'm asking for it ain't I? Hit me with your random quiz question criticisms written under names that make no real sense, at least to me, then sit back and watch the pride try to reassert itself in a torrent of astounding bollocks spittering-spluttering from my enraged self).

MASOQUIZM III

Buzzer quizzes, eh? Remember the pure form that lasted all day and invariably ended in victory for the team containing Bayley. Ah, wonderful days (apart from the typical losing to Bayley's team in the semis bit).

So lo and behold ... Rob has revealed in the comments that there will be a another Masoquizm - Masoquizm The Third if you will - on Saturday November 21. This year.

Unless, of course, Rob is lying and he is having another laugh! Oooh, he is such a card!

But let's assume not and praise be hallelujah. I miss you buzzer quiz (especially now I'd be a lot better at it ... mwah-hahahehe). I know a lot of you guys out there feel the same way too. Pining for the buzzer quiz like a lost, imperfect love.

Yet, of course, MQ's a different kind of buzzer quiz (the "bad love" kind) and if anything is the most marathon-like death - oh wait, the mots justes have just entered my mind EXTREME TO THE MAX X-PERIENCE- you are likely to encounter in British quiz competition. (Well, across the Atlantic it's par for the course really. They do this kind of thing all the time. We're just mighty grateful if the odd day-long buzzer quiz tournament happens every three or four years).

In its previous two guises MQ took medium-level (I think, but it wasn't uppermost A division standard) toss-ups and boni from the American NAQT ICT championship and then dumped them on us Brits in all their lonnnnnggggggggg-question form glory packed into match-after-match-after-match of occasionally, insanely unrestrained Americanness. You won't quite believe it until you've played it and are on the receiving end of a giant fist-like clump of tangentially trivia-related madness you could never hope to understand. Never ever. Ever.

I did the first one and by the end - when I watched my previously unbeaten in 14 matches team capitulate in the semis in a kind of weird silence induced by sheer exhaustion; well, I think they lost; my vision was all fuzzy, me mind fogged up and I had to run to get my train; run actually being more like "make racing tracks like a snail and try not bumping into lampposts ... and other pedestrians" - I felt like I wanted to die, but in a good way. I mean, not good, but maybe the kind of feeling that people sinking relievedly into hypothermic death feel ('I'm dying, but I can't feel a thing. Lost all sensation in my head. Yes. It's ok to sleep forever. Sink into the black') Know what I mean? Nah, me neither.

So I am blissfully happy knowing that I will be back for more - along with the Broken Hearts - to give the old brain a good battering. With heard words. Not baseball bats with nails driven into the business end.

And all the more so because Bayley has already confirmed that he's up for it. Along with Mark. We're waiting on Jesse and Sean and maybe a few others we might have to ask.

We could do alright, I suppose.

Going Way Back. Back to radinden

2009-09-18T05:50:00.000-07:00

About my Quizzes

I was meant to reply to the following comment "radinden" (found on this post) made about my Times 2008 Arts quiz for The Knowledge supplement back in December, but I thought it needed a bump, so to speak, and that such "question difficulty/audience" issues and dirty battles will always remain pertinent:

Went through the Times one, with frequent cries of "bloody typical" and "oh god, another of his pet obscurities". You know, it would be interesting to see if you could actually set a good quiz for ordinary folk (you know, people who haven't spent ten years writing questions, or who don't revise GK every day) - I think it might kill you.

Oh it could kill me. I can't bear to think of the devastating consequences if I did write "good" pub quiz questions that have been written a thousand times before, rather than try and create new quiz Qs from ORIGINAL material that hasn't been pilfered word-for-word from another quiz book owned by hundreds of people you know.

But seriously. My belated reply, because you deserve an explanation of my modus operandi:

radinden, I forgot to say: I actually love your critique-quote in my own silly way. In fact, I love it so much (seriously!) that I'm going to put it on the back of my Quiz Book. You are quite right in some respects; there were a few "pet obscurities" and I like me challenging questions. As for the ordinary folk thing (do they live in Ambridge?), hmmmm ... here we go (as Aidan Moffat once said):

With regards to the set you went through and aggrieved you so mightily, the Times end-of-year Arts quiz - incidentally, comprised entirely of material taken directly from the newspaper that published it, i.e. Knowledge cover stars (you know the Saturday supplement the quiz was in), interviews, featured overnight reviews, critics' top recommendations and other Times articles of the said year - was designed to encompass all of the arts (performing or otherwise) and everything the supplement covered, and was therefore aimed at eclectic music fans, film buffs, theatregoers, expo/museum visitors etc who read the magazine on a regular basis - I'm wondering, did you read what was then The Knowledge every week? Or did you just look at the internet link, read the Linear B-like wording and though BAH! HE'S DONE IT AGAIN! THE OBSCURIST SWINE!? Do you actually take "The Thunderer" as part of your daily paper-reading routine? Or even just the Saturday edition?

Once again I must reiterate, it wasn't aimed at the general quizzer, pub or otherwise, but at readers who knew their 2008 Times-approved arts stuff (I certainly didn't get any complaints from my editors, who published it practically verbatim). Also, modern thingy questions - the kind of stuff that has just happened - can be hard on the not-so-up-to-date quiz fan. If it's not in a trivia companion reference book, how obscure! Etc. No, it's just "recent". Brand shining new.

So keep up at the back and learn summat current by reading a paper and magazine or two. Or three or seven.

More generally, specialist end of year quizzes - especially those found in the broadsheets - are near impenetrable to the casual reader who has no long-standing interest in the subject they concentrate on. Go look up some "Books" quizzes. How do you like them apples? And my word, some of the business ones at the end of last year! They did my head in because they were completely devoid of any questions I could cope with. I thought, how could "ordinary folk" cope with such a calamity, if I was coming up with nada answers!

Moreover, and pre-emptive sincere apologies for sounding like an ego-bloated boastful prig, you'd actually be surprised at the thousands (yes, 1000s) of gettable questions I've written that regular quiz fans, such as yourself, would be very happy to answer and think to be perfectly reasonable that have been used on about at least half-a-dozen TV quiz shows during the last 18 months (though admittedly, and apologies once more, a couple of hundred were terribly hard and impossible and liable to verily frustrate your good self).

Without knowing it, if you happen to be a regular quiz show fan, you will have seen and heard them and not instantly thought ("Good god that is such a TQG question. So many petty obscurities, and in just one question! How could such a thing be possible? What an elitist, uncomprehending rotter!"). Oh, you should have seen some of the 250 or so I wrote last week. Soooo easy. Well in my biased view (as you know).

Course you wouldn't know which ones, due to things like the show host not remarking "This question was written by TQG. Be prepared" and the small matter of confidentiality contracts. But this particular point is concerned with the fact that different audiences get tailored quizzes. I always write more or less according to the brief I have been given; and none of these briefs at the moment include the writing of a regular pub quiz or weekly quiz league set for normal folk who like a bit of manageable quiz. Neither have I ever done these particular kinds of jobs, except for the rare one-offs. Therefore, who exactly am I wronging so?

PS. Don't make false assumptions about how I prep, matey, or for that matter, about quizzers who you think have got to the top/top-ish of their field by being a uniform mass of unimaginative fact-learning drones with bad fashion/hygiene issues - all of us are different. You'd be surprised at the ways of the exemplar quiz autodidact.

Personally speaking, I've only been writing questions for six years and don't revise GK every day. I don't even do the kind of revision I assume you have in mind, a la looking at mindnumbing lists or reading encyclopedias for the sheer bloody fun of it (not since, say 2006); that's just way too boring. Brain-death would set in after 10 minutes and those types of trivia-bore books can only take you so far. The fact-absorption I indulge in has become a neat byproduct of the question-writing jobs: killing two birds with one stone, as it were. So there.

I do like reading novels and non-fiction books every day, however. Currently (as of September 18, 2009): Mao II by Don DeLillo and Headlong by Michael Frayn. Both brilliant works, as far as I can tell after about 100 pages of each. How you do feel about the "future belonging to crowds", the explosion of Middle East terrorism, reclusive authors and Brueghel's lost works, as well as provenance and attribution issues in the world of art?

But anyways, I'm serious about the quote, radinden. Love love love it! It's going on the blurb! (Penny) royalties will be in whichever PO BOX number you choose.

Qualification
What I've said may be perceived as downright pissy mockery; its facetiousness overwhelming what I hope are worthwhile points, but it is a like-for-like reciprocation of your comment. Sorry, if you think I've overstepped the mark ... by a few kiloparsecs. These things can get very heated. But this is my right of (very long delayed) reply.

It Must Be Said

2009-09-15T17:42:00.000-07:00

When the Brain&Mouth Alliance Disintegrates

This week poor little indie boy - well, he does kinda look like one - James Link of Durham University became the most terrified University Challenge contestant I have ever seen on the show.

Surges of sympathy duelled with near hilarity as his stream of incorrect starter buzzes descended into a pit of head-in-hands despair.

There's an unwritten rule I've just devised a few moments ago: you should never ever put your head in your hands on UC. Then repeat the "what have I done?" gesture on at least two more occasions. Or at least you shouldn't do it while the camera is still firmly aimed at your swiftly bowing head.

Ducking under the desk, as if dodging an incoming Spartan spear or Iraqi brogue, is a safer option.

But, having said that, he perservered, his confidence untattered itself ever so slightly and he got a couple right (resulting my saying "Go on, James!"), and for that he must be both congratulated and saluted (and at least he didn't make an oh-dear boo-boo on the scale of the Virginia Woolf/Middlemarch???!!! answer the otherwise impressive Chen of St. John's blurted out).

However, the heads down/hands up image - reminiscent of a frightened little rabbit shying away from an hunter's giant shotgun - will live forever in my memory.

Henceforth, visibly terror-stricken UC contestants will be known as "James Links", as in "The James Linked demeanour of the opposition suggested they were doomed from the outset". (Sorry James, it was obvious you tried your best. TV recordings can make fools of the finest minds. Just look at me. On about, er, 13 deeply regretful occasions. Oh the pain of a bad incorrect answer - for there is a scale spanning good ones and bloody awful seriously WTF? ones - will always linger. That dull eternal pain eating away at me from the inside and, trying to kill the resurgent memories: la-la-la-la-la ... rigged Spanish Eurovision Song Contest winner ... la-la-la-la).

Nice Starter

2009-09-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

Early early morning silliness

A nod to the ever excellent Weaver's Week and its particularly excellent analysis of what made this the "Good [but really Excellent] Question of the Week":

Q: The French army captain Charles Barbier invented "night writing", a 12-dot code designed for sending messages during battle in the 1820s. It was modified by an eponymous schoolboy into what form of communication for the blind?
Imperial, Gilad Amit: Braille

Mr Iain Weaver, ace chronicler of UK quiz lore, continues: Why is this a good question? If someone knows the answer, they can get it half-way through, the answer is obvious by the end, and there isn't the terrible swerve that so dogged the quiz earlier in the decade.

Yeah, damn right. Whoever wrote it is a certified bloody starter-writing marvel who deserves all the glorious garlands in the land going for such a magnificent, skillful question construction, if such honours actually existed.

I'll congratulate him (or her, who knows? Could even be an intersex hermaphroditic blokette. Who can be sure these days?) when I see him/her next and give him/her a citizen's knighthood. Whoever they may be.

(Feel free to smack me lightly in the chops for writing the preceding auto-encomium when you next see me. I probably deserve it. Though I really do mean everything I say about the predictable brilliance and expertise-packed content of Iain's columns. Plus, he praised The Chase. Which I believe to be the mark of a highly evolved and discerning human being)

Yikes

2009-09-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

A Brief [sic]Word on the Brits

Hurrah! I came 21st= in the British Quizzing Championships. 'Twas a blood-red letter day. And to think I came 8th in my very first one. TEN YEARS AGO.

(you know whenever I write "Hurrah" I almost always write "die Butter ist alle!". Thank you John Heartfield. And I really do mean that with all the sincerity I can muster)

But seriously, I don't mind so much. Because I have a veritable legion of excuses/mitigating factors crowding out all disappointment.

Number 1: A concerted focus on the World Knowledge side of things has obviously had a detrimental effect on my ability to get a decent hold on the British Bulldog domestica.

Then, ah yes, the exhaustive book drafting process.

A design whim took hold of me last week and it took me four and a half hours just to bold up half the question numbers. Do you know what it's like to spend 270 minutes highlighting and clicking the little b icon?

This weird creepy crawly kind of madness starts to spread and ... well, it's over now. Not a word more about bolding up stuff.

Another thing that is driving me nuts is the poor sentence-structuring of questions written two or three years ago. How could I be so grammatically incompetent? Ach and grrr. (Yes, these are the kind of thoughts that strike me during the proofing process on a regular basis. Thoughts that disturb me with their ferocity. Thoughts that then become bloody hilarious when remembered in tranquility)

Wait up. There's more of the post-mortem to come...

Oh, and missing about 23 kinda 50/50s (e.g. pineal or pituitary/pistil or stamen) due to my impressionistic - as opposed to stringent and serious - attitude to tackling the paper.

And not reading recent UK news stories in a sure enough way to remember the names that matter. For quiz purposes. If only more of these one-off wackos/criminals/record-breakers/local heroes/entrepreneurs were called Smith or Jones (I always go for Smith. And I know this is bad, but whenever an Irish national is required and I haven't even got a stinkin' miniscule clue to go on, I put "O'Reilly").

And reading proper novels in the run-up to and during the championships (but it was worth it in the case of Replay by Ken Grimwood - the fastest, most compelling read I can remember in a long time).

And getting caught in a weird time window where work is drowning me in a flash-flood fashion; meaning I have concentration issues and am indulging in sleep patterns that feel as if they are wrecking the very core of my soul. Well, the "very core" bit may be overdoing it a touch. But you know, sometimes it feels that way.

It galls me all the more when I remember that I missed Rob Hannah's brilliant August GP paper (let's just say I would have finished somewhere in the top two and averaged 7 tiebreakers per genre). That's my kind of set. Boohoohooo...

Hilariously, Jesse marked both my papers and found that I was getting everything he was getting wrong and vice versa. Only the proportions of wrong/right fell heavily in his favour. Obviously.

However, in terms of the Broken Hearts team dynamic this is a brilliant thing and all the more so because he will be coming to the Euros in Dordrecht. 'Tis painful to part with David on team terms, but he's a pericardigan now. Though he and I have agreed - or shouted slightly beerily across a Flitwick pub table as the Capital Connect trains rumble-zipped past the garden - that our amusingly effective, but ultimately self-destructive Pairs tournament campaigns will continue. (You know, how always we hover around the summit then drop precipitously at the last. This tumble was minimised in Oslo, but still. We didn't get things like Furtwangler - things that would have taken us to the very top - simply because I wasn't paying attention to all the words my partner was saying.)

I think I've reached this weird juncture where I score about the same on every paper, no matter the difficulty. Same thing happens with the President's Cup where my 2-point average is almost identical to my QLL one. Me and my mercurial mind, eh?

I really should sweat the easy stuff, because I have found it can be very damaging to my competition placings. Even though - and this is a truth so divine - I really do find Iranian cinema 500% more interesting than British reality TV.

On the bright side
At least I came 5th=equal in sport. Despite the fact that I made five idiot mistakes on that category too. Sport comes pretty easily now; helped by the fact that I find it extremely interesting and, as a result, this makes things like Chinese diving legends a lot easier to remember. Also, newspapers are very helpful with their wanton and wild allocation of infinite daily column inches to sport (well in relation to say, something like, books. Jus tink 'bout it).

Because let's face it, sport is only a lovely pointless distraction in which the extreme dexterity of one or two physical traits, allied with optimum mental acuity, has brought its finest exponents fame and fortune beyond all reason; the fame/fortune being abetted by our fellow man's weakness for gawping in awe at the things they can't do themselves - like chucking darts in precise tiny areas, or lobbing pickled onions into distantly placed thimbles - and the urge to pay money in order to watch it. It is all very silly when I think about it.

One or two sports remain kind of blecchy; kinda double-meh; mentally insoluble. British ones that is (not Dwile Flonking though; I love that sozzled Suffolk madness). And if I name the ones that induce a glassy bored fog in my brain, people will surely come after me. Me? Paranoid? Nah...

Sheeeeedddd, work to be done. It really was meant to be a brief word, like "Ko". Didn't notice the day was almost finished. Which reminds me...

Commenting on the commenters
There are time management issues too. I must stop leaving vituperative defences of things that need defending in website comment sections. This often happens in the wee small hours of the morn.

Funny thing is that I never ever leave an original comment; it is always an enraged vocab-bloated reaction to some thick twazmuppet who has made the kind of outrageously ignorant outburst super-facilitated by the beautiful concealing cloak of Web anonymity. And there are so many of them out there. Twazmuppeting in the cybervoid.

My goodness. I even used my maximum word allowance on Have Your Say to tell people in the Evans4Wogan to basically stop being such goddarned judgemental internet-crazed frugbluckers; the insinuation being that the BBC were smothering Terry in his bed in a Ginger Whinger-instigated coup as Step 1 in the Beeb's all-out bid to destroy the Radio 2 breakfast audience.

Reading the views of those angry enough to leave comments on a website also made me ponder whether there is a literary term for a part-eulogy/part-Philippic. A "eulippic" perhaps?

So I commented on the comments again in the name of fairness! reality! compulsion!

And you know what? I haven't even listened to the radio for 9 years.

Makes me think that I might be turning into one of those other internet nutters - not the angry web crazies I described above - who leave utterly pointless and uninformed wibbles on heartfelt blog tributes to, say, a recently deceased author: "I haven't even heard of the guy, or his really really famous novel. I have no personal connection to him; whether gleaned from his work or a solitary encounter in the street. But he sounds like a bit of a dick and you make his books sound wayyy boring. I thought I should just write something - anything to join in the busy looking "dialogue" - that makes me feel about a 1/200th more important than before I left the faecal trail of my facile flaccid words on this patch of interweb (IT'S MY PATCH NOW). It makes me look like an idiot; an idiocy of which I will remain blissfully ignorant. This enclosed state of mind means that I will continue polluting the eyes of strangers with my supreme powers of banality. If there's one thing that the internet is good for it is munificent freedom of expression. Even if that expression comes in the form of the most god-awful, stupid, angrifying vehicles for idiocy you could NOT possibly imagine. Because there are far too many of them. As Einstein asked himself, what's the difference between stupidity and genius? Genius has its limits."

It Would've Happened Anyway

2009-08-31T14:12:00.000-07:00

One-Liners

These Qs were going to go in the QB in an orgy of single-line questions at the heartstopping climax. However, they didn't. Instead I opted to keep the same format throughout the book (whose content/pages I have now capped - once and for all! - and will be doing the final final draft this week).

Final QB penultimate draft word count is 238, 813 words. No wonder it's taking me so long to finish the thing off, while working so hard at it since I can came back from Norway that yesterday I swear I was entering a mild state of psychosis and writing rough drafts for blog posts, which I am quite glad I did not unveil to the world. You'd give me funny looks.

So. You know. Here they are...

BH159: More with Less
1. Which 1990 novel is subtitled The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch?
2. Which German playwright wrote Frühlings Erwachen / Spring Awakening (1906)?
3. Jenny Bunn is the title character of which 1960 novel by Kingsley Amis?
4. Buchanan Dying (1974) was the only play written by which late US novelist?
5. A 1919 novella, The Curse of Capistrano was the first work to feature which hero?
6. Which Peruvian (b.1928) wrote A Theory of Liberation: History, Politics, Salvation (1971)?
7. “Tascabile” is the Italian name for what common object?
8. Born Robert Lee Maupin, which street criminal wrote Pimp: The Story of My Life (1967)?
9. Who began her “Commissario Guido Brunetti” series with Death at La Fenice (1992)
10. Asterix’s home village is in the northwest of which region of ancient Gaul?
11. Which 1981 Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel tells the story of Santiago Nasar’s murder?
12. The title of which 1934 Evelyn Waugh novel alludes to The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot?
13. Which Nevada festival houses revellers in Black Rock City?
14. Which traditional English folk round has the second line "Lhude sing cuccu!"?
15. Which musical has Christopher Lee, playing villain Mr. Midnight, sing ‘Name Your Poison’?
16. The Turbo-folk singer Ceca is the widow of which Serb warlord, who died in 2000?
17. Which 1816 opera is subtitled ossia L’inutile precauzione / or The Useless Precaution?
18. ‘The Great Charlemagne’ is the national anthem of which country?
19. Which group reached no.2 in the US and UK with its cover of ‘A Groovy Kind of Love’?
20. Which rap mogul, born Percy Miller, founded the talent agency No Limit Sports?
21. Which cricketer recorded the no.2 Indian hit ‘You’re the One for Me’ with Asha Bhosle?
22. The Joropo song ‘Alma Llanera’ is considered which country’s unofficial national anthem?
23. Which Douai-born sculptor produced Samson Slaying a Philistine (1562)?
24. Located off the coast of Tasmania, what is the largest of the Furneaux Islands?
25. Which Icelandic fishing town has The Blue Lagoon for its premiere attraction?
26. The 1912 eruption of which Alaskan volcano was the 2nd largest of the 20th century?
27. With its capital at Potenza, which region is the “instep” of Italy?
28. Which liberal arts college was established in 1780 in Lexington, Kentucky?
29. Which three-letter word means ‘prefecture’ in Japanese?
30. What is the second biggest ethnic group in Afghanistan after the Pashtun (c.42%)?
31. The Mekong River runs through which six countries?
32. The endometrium is the inner membrane of which mammalian organ?
33. Kintaro Hattori founded which watch company in 1881?
34. Which interspecific cultivar of rice is known by the acronym NERICA?
35. Salvadori’s monitor is the largest species of monitor lizard found on which island?
36. Which bird is the only extant member of the genus Dromaius?
37. Which terrier derives its name from the Welsh estate of Captain John Edwardes?
38. What became the last US state to secede from the Union in 1861?
39. Which national leader died when his C-130 Hercules crashed on August 17, 1988?
40. In March 1901, who became the first ex-US president to die in the 20th century?
41. Lanzoni is the surname of which Italian male model (b.1959)?
42. Asda House, headquarters of the supermarket chain, is in which city?
43. Prince William and Prince Harry both belonged to which house at Eton?
44. Held on March 28, 2009, which $5 million horse race is run at Nal al Sheba?
45. Portugal coach Phil Scolari punched which Serb player during the Euro 2008 qualifiers?
46. The siblings Dan, Gee and Rachel Atherton are rising stars in which sport?
47. What is the nickname of South Africa’s female national football team?
48. Which American is the only athlete to have won Olympic gold in sprints and hurdles?
49. Who became the first person to win £1 million on British TV in December 1999?
50. Which rapper plays Odafin “Fin” Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit?

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Answers to BH159
1. Good Omens (by Terry Pratchett, who “wrote a bit over two thirds”, and Neil Gaiman)
2. Frank Wedekind (1864-1918). He wrote the “Lulu” plays Erdgeist and Pandora’s Box.
3. Take a Girl Like You. She was played by Sienna Guillory in the 2000 BBC adaptation.
4. John Updike
5. Zorro. Don Diego Vega was the creation of Johnston McCulley.
6. Gustavo Gutiérrez. The Liberation Theology founder is a Dominican priest.
7. A paperback. It means ‘pocket book’.
8. Iceberg Slim (1918-92). Aka Robert Beck, he also wrote Trick Baby and Long White Con.
9. Donna Leon (b.1942). The US crime novelist’s series is set in Venice.
10. Armorica (mostly identical to modern Brittany)
11. Chronicle of a Death Foretold / Crónica de una muerte anu
12. A Handful of Dust (“I will show you fear in a handful of dust”)
13. Burning Man. Held in the Black Rock desert, it starts on the last Monday of August.
14. ‘Sumer is icumen in’. Translated from Middle English it means ‘Loud sings cuckoo!’
15. The Return of Captain Invincible. Alan Arkin plays the titular alcoholic superhero.
16. Arkan (aka Željko Ražnatović). Her birth name is Svetlana Veličković (b.1973).
17. The Barber of Seville (by Rossini, natch)
18. Andorra. It was composed by Juan Benlloch y Vivó, Archbishop of Burgos.
19. The Mindbenders. Diane & Annita first released the Toni Wine-Carole Bayer Sager song.
20. Master P. (b.1969). He is CEO and founder of No Limit Entertainment.
21. Brett Lee. Bhosle is the subject of the Cornershop no.1 ‘Brimful of Asha’.
22. Venezuela
23. Giambologna (born Jean Boulogne; 1529-1608). The piece was for Francesco de’ Medici.
24. Flinders Island
25. Grindavik. It is 3mi/4.8km from the town centre.
26. Novarupta (in Katmai National Park and Preserve)
27. Basilicata
28. Transylvania University. There is a namesake Romanian university in Braşov.
29. Ken (or –ken). The suffix –fu is added to the governing units of Osaka and Kyoto.
30. Tajik (with about 27% of the population)
31. China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam
32. Uterus. Its Latin name is tunica mucosa uteri.
33. Seiko. Its name is a Japanese word for ‘exquisite’, ‘minute’ or ‘success’.
34. New Rice for Africa (developed by the West Africa Development Association)
35. New Guinea. Up to 244cm/8ft, Varanus salvadorii is also called the crocodile monitor.
36. Emu. Dromaius novaehollandiae is the largest bird native to Australia.
37. Sealyham (in Haverfordwest, the county town of Pembrokeshire)
38. Tennessee
39. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. The Pakistani President was succeeded by Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
40. Benjamin Harrison. The 23rd president, he succeeded and preceded Grover Cleveland.
41. Fabio. He appeared on the cover of 100s of romantic novels during the 80s and 90s.
42. Leeds (founded as Association Dairies & Farm Stores Ltd in 1949)
43. Manor House
44. Dubai Sheema Classic
45. Ivica Dragutinović. He joined Sevilla from Standard Liège in the summer of 2005.
46. Mountain biking. Dan and Rachel became world downhill champions in 2008.
47. “Banyana, Banyana” (‘The Girls, the Girls’)
48. Harrison Dillard (100m in 1948 and 110m hurdles in 1952)
49. Ian Woodley (b.1960). A professional poker player, he won it on TFI Friday.
50. Ice-T. Born Tracy Marrow in 1958, his best album - which means it is the only one of his I've ever liked - is O.G. Original Gangster (1991).

Fourth

2009-08-26T07:02:00.000-07:00

Can't Believe It's Wed; Where's Tue?

The holiday was great.

Norway is always good.

Yah, I did the Nobels, the Ships, the Munchs, the Glass Cathedral, which is weird because whenever I say/write down/type up the worthwhile, nourishing things I will do in the near future I do something else instead, like watch Shipwrecked again or engage in some other neuron-razing/rotting activity.

So. Report soon. On cultural things. I did.

If, that is, I get over the weird, aching tight-as-a-drumhead pain that comes like harsh sharp dull waves to grip my right leg and right arm at short intervals. It dominates me. And the fact that certain areas have attained the colouration of some rather livid beetroot. Or at least the said areas also feel so taut that they're as good as bulletproof. That's right. Shoot teflon-tipped steel rounds at my red right limbs. They can take it, I swear. My petrified epidermis is the new Kevlar.

You see The Norwegian Mosquitoes Drank My Blood. They DRANK IT UP! Hhsssrruth-hgggrrrhh-ggggahga-hhlueeeee-uhhhh. Mmmm, a tasty me beverage. Haemoglobin delicious! Platelet-tastic!

Damn Those Norwegian Mosquitoes. Damn them and their vampiric ways.

Under cover of darkness, they came in their legions. Leaving their stagnant fetid lairs in the pine forests, the sable invaders slipped like a ghost of the wind through an opportune fissure in the bedroom windowsill; proboscises poised to pierce; ready for the feast of blood. While I was sleeping. Unconsciouszzzz. Defenceless.

So basically, the f****** bit me all the way to f****** hell and back, and then came the f*** back and f****** bit me a bit f****** more. The f******* f*****! I f****** hate those m************!

Now? Off to bed to nurse my sores and hopefully not scratch the living bejesus out of the suppurating bite* on my right calf muscle, which basically feels like a stegosaurus plate, so hard and bronzed it is with infection. I'm thinking I really should see my doctor tomorrow rather than constantly anoint myself with a dodgy pearl cocktail of Voltarol, Sudocream and Afterbite.

*Mmmm mmmm. Isn't the phraseology just the yummiest?

Weg!*

2009-08-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

Holiday, hopefully, it will be alright

I'm in Norway for the next week for my first family holiday in, I think, 20 years (well, it's the first one I've ever had with all my siblings since one of them didn't exist at the time).

Therefore, it will be as quiet around here as, um, the last fortnight.

One more thought: what kind of point have you reached in your life when you see a 2009 Whitaker's Almanac in The Works for £9,99, down from £45, and sing songs of hallelujah?

I will leave you with that brain murmur as I contemplate visiting the Nobel Peace Center and seeing one of the versions of The Scream.

Ta ta

* An oblique reference to the fact that I've been reading A Time of Gifts and Between the Wood and the Waters by Patrick Leigh Fermor, two of the greatest travel books ever, and ones which I highly recommend for quiz reading. Brilliantly, beautiful written, they are chronicles of vanished cultures and places that are filled with so much info about Central Europe that I've been not just marking the passages/facts I should look up for later reference, but practically massacring the pages with stars, lines and constant page corner-folding.

Dang

2009-08-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

Missed a day

Have a GK on me. I'll extend the preview period a little longer to make it up. If I can remember. TTFN...

General Knowledge
1. Which 1983 single was Rod Stewart’s last UK number one?
2. Derived from an Old French word meaning ‘a small boat’, what name is given to a cover housing - separate from the fuselage - that holds engines, fuel or equipment?
3. Which English businessman was born Robert John Hurst in Stoke-on-Trent in 1941?
4. Adam Kok III (1811-75) led which people of South Africa, who settled in 1861 and gave their name to an eponymous territory that is now part of KwaZulu-Natal province?
5. Which Leningrad-born Polish sprinter, who dominated women’s athletics for nearly 20 years, competed in five Olympic Games (1964-80) and won seven medals, three of them gold?
6. One of the first products to exploit the potential of injection moulding, the Polyprop (as in polypropylene) stacking chair was the work of which British furniture designer (b.1915)?
7. Who set fire to the Temple of Ephesus of Diana in 356BC and proudly claimed credit in order to immortalise his name in history, thus giving his name to a type of notorious “Fame”?
8. The creation of Émile Gaboriau, which detective in service of the French Sûreté appeared in five Gaboriau novels and one short story, including L’Affaire Lerouge (1866) and Le Crime Orcival (1867), and was mentored by the physically inactive, but always helpful, Tabaret?
9. Also called Tipton’s Weed and Klamath weed, the yellow-flowering perennial plant Hypericum perforatum is most widely known as an herbal treatment for major depression and is also a noxious weed poisonous to grazing livestock in large doses. Which herb’s common name comes from its traditional flowering and harvesting on June 24?
10. Stephen and Timothy are the first names of which American-born, London-based identical twins (b. 1947) and stop-motion animators? Their best known work, the 21-minute short Street of Crocodiles (1986), was based on a short story by the Polish author-artist Bruno Schulz and was selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the 10 best animated films of all time.

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A-to-the-GK
1. ‘Baby Jane’ (his others: ‘Maggie May’ (’71), ‘You Wear It Well’ (’72), ‘Sailing’ (75), I Don’t Want to Talk About It’/ ‘First Cut is the Deepest’ (’77), and ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? (’78))
2. Nacelle. In the case of the WW2 P-38 lightning airplane, it housed the cockpit.
3. John Madejski. The Auto Trader founder and Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire changed his name when his stepfather, a WW2 Polish airman, returned to Britain to marry his mother.
4. Griqua people (as in Griqualand East, which was annexed by the Cape Colony in 1874)
5. Irena Szewińska or Kirszenstein (b.1946). She won the 4x100m (’64), 200m (’68) & 400m (’76) and was the first woman to hold world records at 100m, 200m and 400m at the same time.
6. Robin Day. Husband of textile designer Lucienne Day, he also designed the Forum II Chair.
7. Herostratus (as in “Herostratic fame”). The Ephesean authorities not only executed him, but also forbade mention of his name under penalty of death. However, the late 4th/early 3rd century BC historian Theopompus still recorded the event and its perpetrator in his history.
8. Monsieur Lecoq. A pioneering character of the crime genre, he was a major influence on Sherlock Holmes, who calls him “a miserable bungler” in A Study in Scarlet.
9. St. John’s Wort (St. John’s day being June 24). Hypericum (Greek ‘above-picture’) has been used by Native Americans internally as an abortifacient and externally as an anti-inflammatory and antiseptic. ‘Wort’ is derived from the Old English wyrt, meaning ‘root’ or ‘plant’.
10. The Quay Brothers. Their work is characterised by a lack of meaningful spoken dialogue and dolls, often partially disassembled, in a dark, moody atmosphere. They have made two feature-length live action films: Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995) and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2006).

Notional Facebook Status

2009-08-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

If I still could be bothered to do them

TQG is DISGUSTED that neither Girton College nor (his alma mater ROFLLOLLOL!!!) Nottingham have ever heard of the Peter Cook book he got for Xmas a few years ago and that they couldn't even muster a member of Beyond the Fringe from their young pathetic minds. ABSOLUTELY BLOODY DISGUSTED. Today's youth, eh? Tsk. LOL.

Aujourd'hui L'histoire. Bonny appetites and all that...

History
1. China’s first treaty with a foreign power, which was regarded as an independent state rather than a vassal, was signed in 1689. It settled border disputes and checked Russia’s eastward expansion by removing outposts from the Amur River basin. It was named for which town?
2. In 385, which Bishop of Ávila became the first person in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy, after founding an ascetic group that eschewed marriage and animal food?
3. Located in the Mekong delta, which state was founded, according to Chinese sources, in the 1st century AD and is therefore the earliest known state in south-east Asia?
4. Which niece of the Byzantine Emperor (c.955-91) married the Holy Roman Emperor Otto II in Rome as a symbol of the Eastern and Western Empire unity and, with mother-in-law Adelaide, secured the throne for Otto III on his father’s death and ruled Italy as her son’s regent?
5. What three-word French phrase described the French-Canadian fur traders who “went Indian”? Their work often meant they made annual trips into the pays d’en haut to deal directly with the natives, which frequently resulted in their deciding not to return to the settlements.
6. What nom de guerre was used by the Russian revolutionary Sergius Mikhailovich (1852-95)?
7. In which country was the nationalist and anti-communist movement, Balli Kombëtar (‘National Front’), established in October 1942 (or 1939, according to other sources)?
8. The most brilliant strategist on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War, which soldier (1894-1966) organised the defence of Madrid in November 1936, as well as the Jarama and Guadalajara campaigns of 1937? He was made Chief of General Staff in May 1937.
9. Which great 13th century Sienese family of ambassadors and jurists later upped sticks and moved to Rome where they produced Pope Paul V (r:1601-21), and Prince Camillo, who married Napoleon’s sister, Marie Pauline, in 1803?
10. They were musketeers, who were recruited by Ivan the Terrible and disbanded for plotting against Peter the Great. What was Russia’s first regular regiment of soldiers (1550-1698)?

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1. Nerchinsk. A town in Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, it is situated 644km/400mi east of Lake Baikal.
2. Priscillian. He came from Roman Gallaecia and based his doctrine on dualism.
3. Funan. It became a major international trading centre, but went into decline in the 6th century. Funan evolved a pattern of statecraft from the Indian model.
4. Theophano (or Theophanu). Her other achievements include securing Lotharingia for the empire.
5. Coureur des bois (‘runner of the woods’). It was also the name given to fur traders who worked without permission from the French authorities and operated during the late 17th/early 18th century in eastern North America. Those issued with (rare) permits became voyageurs.
6. Stepnyak (‘Son of the Steppe’). An artillery officer turned apostle of freedom, he left Russia and settled in Geneva in 1876, before ending up in London where he was unfortunately run over by a train. Author of La Russia Sotternea / Underground Russia (1881) and The Career of a Nihilist (1889), he was believed to be the assassin of St. Petersburg police head, General Mesentzieff.
7. Albania (formed by Ali Klissura and Midhat Frasheri). By the end of the war, Enver Hoxha and the Albanian Communist Party had wiped out many of its pro-republican members.
8. Vicente Rojo. He reorganised the Popular Army and planned the offensives of Brunete, Teruel, and the Ebro. Rojo returned from exile in 1957 and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
9. Borghese. Paul V was born Camillo Borghese in 1552. Prince Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese (1775-1832) became Governor-General of Piedmont.
10. Streltsy. Increasingly influential in politics, they became involved in an attempt to keep Peter’s half-sister, Sophia, on the throne. Their fate was sealed when they tried to prevent him from returning from abroad.

Tonight's Installment

2009-08-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

Hmm, what to write?

Ah yes, something utterly banal and blog-like! As well as the general sense of unwellness permeating me, my broken filling is making the right side of my mouth gently throb with a pain which is not agonising, but is sure telling me "Hey! I'm here! Pay me some attention, idiot-boy!"

The moral? Never eat Quality Street hard toffees in industrial amounts at Xmas time and post-Xmas time, and a few months after that, just because a colossal box of chocolatey-sugared QS evil happens to be sitting on the hallway cabinet like a multitude of candy sirens calling me on to the rocks of dental hell. Then don't continue consuming them when you notice they are taking out chunks of filling that have resided in your mouth since the late 1980s.

Thus, it is food and drink -yowsers, it aches. Nice segue...

Food & Drink
1. Combining white rice (chalow), meat and stock and topped with fried raisins, slivered carrots and pistachios, Qaboli Palao or Qabili Pilau is the national dish of which country?
2. What company, which is based in an eponymous mansion in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, introduced white chocolate to America in 1955?
3. Buko pie, which is made with young coconuts, is a popular dish in which country?
4. The West Indian variety produces a namesake edible starch used for thickening stews. What is the common name of Maranta arundinacea, aka the obedience plant?
5. Regarded as a Javanese invention and a local adaptation of soy-based food fermentation and production, it is a staple source of protein on the said island. It is like tofu (which is said to be more versatile), but is a whole soybean product with different nutritional and textural qualities and comes in cake form. Which “Javanese meat” comes in such types as bongkrèk (made with a coconut press cake), gódhóng (made in banana leaves) and bosok (rotten)?
6. What is the Arabic name for Mallow-leaves from the plant Corchorus and is the main ingredient of a popular, namesake Egyptian dish?
7. Joseph F. Steinwand developed which cheese near an eponymous Wisconsin village in 1874?
8. Which Russian cold soup, whose name originates from a word meaning ‘to chop’ or ‘to break into small pieces’, combines raw vegetables, boiled potatoes, eggs and ham with kvass?
9. Which 17th century chef from Modena, who moved to England due to his being a Protestant, wrote Brieve Racconto di Tutte le Radici di Tutte l’Herbe et di Tutti i Frutti?
10. Which 30% by volume Israeli liqueur was developed in 1963 by Edgar S. Bronfman and has a rich chocolate flavour cut with the sweet and sour taste of Jaffa oranges?

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F&DAns
1. Afghanistan. Variations include Yakhni Palao, which adds meat and stock and creates a brown rice, Zamarod Palao, which has Spinach qorma mixed in before the baking process (hence zamarod or emerald), and Shebet Palao, which has fresh dill and raisins added during baking.
2. Hebert Candies (founded in 1917)
3. Philippines. It is made with with young coconuts (buko in Tagalog) and sweetened condensed milk. Macapuno pie uses a special type of thick and sticky coconut.
4. Arrowroot. Napoleon supposedly said the true reason for the British love of arrowroot was to support their colonies.
5. Tempe (or tempeh)
6. Mulukhiyah. Many Egyptians consider it to be the national dish along with Ful medames (mashed brown fava beans) and kushari (rice, lentils, chickpeas, macaroni, tomato sauce).
7. Colby. It is similar to cheddar, but does not undergo the cheddaring process.
8. Okroshka. Most people top if off with a spoonful of sour cream and bittermustard. An alternate version uses light or diluted kefir (fermented milk drink) instead of kvass.
9. Giangiacomo Castelvetro (the book's title means ‘A Brief Account of all Vegetables, Herbs and Fruit’)
10. Sabra liqueur. Sabra is an affectionate term for a native-born Israeli Jew, which is derived from the Hebrew name of a prickly pear cactus that grows in Israel.

Saturday Urghhhh

2009-08-01T23:23:00.001-07:00

Just questions. Not in the mood. For. Werds. Wurds. Woooo...

Sport & Games
1. A Super-G silver medallist at the Nagano Olympics , which Swiss skier became the oldest ever alpine skiing world champion at the age of 34 after winning at Val d’Isere in February 2009?
2. Winner of the 2005 Spiel des Jahres, which German-style board game was designed by Thomas Liesching and is played on a hinged board designed to sit atop the game box and represent an eponymous geographical feature as a flap hanging over the box edge?
3. Held annually since 1949, the Jukola Relay is a race in which sport?
4. Which golfer (b.1934) is best known for becoming the first African-American to play in the Masters in 1975 and the first to qualify to play in the Ryder Cup four years later?
5. Which USSR speed skater won all four women’s events at the 1964 Winter Olympics?
6. The American athlete “Mac” Wilkins won gold in which field event at the 1976 Olympics?
7. Famously performed by two schools known as the Ogasawara and the Takeda, what type of Japanese archery is performed while riding a horse?
8. Which Cochabamba-based Bolivian football team and 2008 First Division champions clashed with riot police during a November 2008 game with local rivals Wilstermann that saw their goalkeeper Silvio Dulcich use a corner flag as a weapon?
9. Which 6ft-tall Denver Nuggets guard (b.1975) was traded to the Detroit Pistons for Chauncey Billups, Antonio McDyess and Cheikh Samb in November 2008; and has a (at the time of writing) career game scoring average of 27.7 points, making him third all-time behind Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain?
10. Invented during the 1960s at Texas Southmost College by Werner Steinbach, which sport is very similar to badminton, but uses wooden paddles instead of cord rackets to hit the birdie?

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Sport & Games Answers
1. Didier Cuche. He mastered a treacherous course on the Bellevarde mountain and surpassed Austria’s Stephen Eberharter who was 33 when he won the same event at St. Moritz in 2003.
2. Niagara. Published by Zoch zum Spielen and Rio Grande Games, the river is represented using clear plastic discs in a grooved surface, while players collect gems along it.
3. Orienteering. Taking place on the 3rd Saturday of June in different sites around Finland, it gets its name from the first important novel written in Finnish, Seven Brothers / Seitsemän veljestä (1870), the first and only novel by Aleksis Kivi. The women’s race is called the Venla Relay.
4. Lee Elder. At the 1968 Monsanto Open in Pensacola, the same tournament he claimed the first of four PGA Tour wins, he and other black players were forced to change in the car park.
5. Lidiya Skoblikova (b.1939). She is the most successful Olympic speed skater of all time in terms of gold medals (6), having won the 1500m and 3000m at Squaw Valley four years before.
6. Discus. He also won silver at Los Angeles after missing out in 1980 due to the US boycott.
7. Yabusame. The mounted archer shoots a special “turnip-headed” arrow at a wooden target. Nowadays, it is peformed at Kamakura’s most important shrine, the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū.
8. Club Aurora
9. Allen Ezail Iverson. The first pick in the 1996 NBA Draft for the Philadelphia 76ers, he was the 2000-01 NBA MVP.
10. Pington. The sport lacked a textbook until Kinesiology Department faculty members Jim Lemons and Judy Walton sat down and formalised the rules of the game in print.

Feeling Nasty. London Infected Me...

2009-07-31T16:47:00.000-07:00

... So Regretfully

I will have to pass on the Burton-upon-Trent Quizzing GP. And I really wanted to go to it. Bah. Annoyed.

You know it's funny. When I choose these it goes like a one-armed bandit. Dunno if that made sense.

Science & Technology
1. In physics, current theory suggests that 1 of these units is the smallest distance or size about which anything can be known. Named for a scientist, which unit of length is equal to about 1.616252 x 10-35 metres?
2. Derived from the work of a British mathematician and Presbyterian minister (c.1702-61), evidence or observations are used to update or to newly infer probability that a hypothesis may be true in which statistical inference?
3. Funded by Prince Leopoldo and Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici, which early scientific study organisation was founded in Florence in 1657 by students of Galileo, Torricelli and Vincenzo Viviani?
4. He developed the idea that organic compounds could be derived from inorganic ones, directly or indirectly, by substitution processes. In the 1840s, which German chemist (1818-84) converted carbon disulphide into acetic acid, thus further disproving the doctrine of vitalism?
5. Coined by the US physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon, what term is typically used to refer to a living organism and describes the property of a system, either open or closed, that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition?
6. Now a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen, its HQ is in Martorell. Which carmaker was founded by the Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI) in 1950, with initial Fiat assistance?
7. What term for the study of ants was coined by William Morton Wheeler (1865-1937)?
8. This French naturalist and zoologist was instrumental in establishing the fields of anatomy and palaeontology by comparing living animals with fossils, as well as establishing that extinction was a fact. Who wrote Règne animal distribué d'après son organisation (1817)?
9. Astrophysicists studying the universe confirmed it to be what age in 2008?
10. Manufactured by iRobot, which robotic disc-shaped vacuum cleaner has sold more than 2.5 million units since its introduction in 2002 and is the most successful domestic robot in North America?

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Answerstotheabove
1. Planck length. It is the base unit in the system of Planck units. It can be defined from three fundamental physical constants: the speed of light in a vacuum, Planck’s constant and the gravitational constant.
2. Bayesian inference (so-called due to the the frequent use of Bayes’ theorem – a law relating the conditional and marginal probabilities of two random events – in the inference process)
3. Accademia del Cimento (‘Academy of Experiment’) Giovanni Borelli and Nicolaus Steno were members. Tenets of the society included “Experimentation” and “Avoidance of speculation”.
4. Hermann Kolbe. He was the first person to use the word synthesis in its present meaning.
5. Homeostasis (Greek: ‘similar-standing still’) The concept came from that of milieu interieur that was created by Claude Bernard and published in 1865.
6. SEAT (Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo). Many SEAT cars were based on FIAT models. The SEAT Panda (later Marbella) was based on the Fiat Panda. Likewise, the Fiat 600 and the SEAT 600, the latter being the first car of many Spanish families.
7. Myrmecology. The Swiss psychologist Auguste Forel (1848-1931) was an early pioneer in the field.
8. Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Brother of zoologist Frederic and opponent of early evolutionary theories, his book was translated into English under the title The Animal Kingdom.
9. 13.7 billion years. They also concluded that only 4% of the contents are ordinary matter and discovered that it will most likely expand forever without limit)
10. The Roomba. It is 13.4in/34cm in diameter and less than 3.5in/9cm high. A large contact-sensing bumper is mounted on the front, with an infrared sensor at its top front centre.

So Long Borders Oxford Street

2009-07-30T14:24:00.000-07:00

Hello Lots of Books I Probably Won't Read

(Don't worry, there's a QB preview quiz down below. Just scroll down past the free-wheeling tat. It's Kerouac's Big Sur all over again)

Not being a London denizen at this moment in time, I was completely unaware that that Big Book Shop in the middle of filthy touristy makey me really angry Oxford Street was shutting shop ('tis the rent/recession/downsizing/Amazon - blame them all). So when I was chaperoning someone to the capital today I popped in and found MASSIVE discounts.

Pity it was the equivalent of literary vapours lurking round the store, as it had been going on for near on two weeks and I had missed the real scrummaging for the most tasty stuff.

Which is lucky, cos you know me. I can find really good wispy vapours. And loads of them, if I look hard enough.

I just buy buy buy books, because I want to build a suffocating fort of literature inside my bedroom (it's coming on really well, though I think I need more hardbacks) and we need good fire-fodder for the coming Mayan Apocalypse. Remember I am the kind of guy who has 389 books in his Amazon "Save for Later" Shopping Basket section.

Therefore my final tally was 21 books for £32. I mean, that's crazy, as in crazily good value. It made me think of hyenas stripping an elephant carcass, or that scene in Lord of War with the cargo plane.

In my case, I managed to find just a few books I might have bought had I already bought a load of books I wanted to buy first. Like the Schott's Almanac 2007, 2008 and 2009: £1 each (I knew they would go rock bottom cheap one day, and I was so right). Or the slightly disappointing despite the mucho media attention 2009 novels from (twatty young art scamp) Richard Milward and (I'm Not Just Mr. Zadie Smith) Nick Laird. Disappointing not in terms of my critical verdict (I mean, I just bought them today), but disappointing in that they turned out to be too insular to translate into really good sales. The numerous interviews went out and within a matter of months I find their £14.99 books being flogged for a quid. You could feel slightly sorry for them. Though, inevitably, I don't.

I read the Laird's plot off the hardback just to remind me what his new book was about, despite the fact I had read it in at least three reviews, and my eyes suddenly slid down like rusty shutters as my brain went into a kind of stultified trance. Apparently posh English people in London, a bit of sex, art, something really quite unexciting when you think about it, etc. I certainly wouldn't buy it were it not offered for 100 cupro-nickel pennies.

It's the London literary circle jerk innit? In the old days, writers could get away with a lack of ambition or real adventure and earn a decent living. Nowadays, don't we want something more from our novelists, though I shy away from using the dread word "concept"? Even if that's indicative of how jaded and pathetic we are; exhausted by multimedia bombardment; turned into freaks with the constant need to be judgemental and justify ourselves at the cost of any sense of true perspective.

And look, let's remind myself that I haven't actually read a single bloody word of Crispin's Glover?? (honestly, if I look up the title of Laird's novel it would really kill this buzz man), so I'll like, um, read it.

Then there was Mordecai Richler on Snooker, a Patricia Highsmith biog, an encyclopedia of "Focal Photography" (far better than the "Focal" makes it sound), another John Berger book I will never read (I own four, and only managed to get through 30 pages of Ways of Seeing, before it disappeared into the ether; the ether being the goddamned hellish mess in my room that's even irritating me to high heaven) .... and this could take all night, so I'll just say that when I paid 1/2 price for the only non-£1 books I bought - The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing and Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that Elizabeth Taylor, this Elizabeth Taylor) - I felt somehow conned. But that's the nature of goal adjustment, or whatever it's called, something to do with Amazon and Wired editor Chris Anderson's new sodding zeitgusty book, and free stuff and why we're just not appreciative enough of increased customer convenience. We merely think that we deserved the shopping breaks all along (because we bloody do).

Still, I was very annoyed they didn't have a copy of Wolf Hall left. I like Hilary Mantel's novels (Beyond Black was superb and I've always had a soft spot for the Tudors, no, not Those Tudors, even though James Frain's decent portrayal of TC may have helped me in my enthusiasm) and I am not ready to be violated with the £10.25 Amazon hardback price just yet. Of course, there was no chance there would be any left, but still a little harumph goes through me when I think about. I was also pissed off by tweenagers and their lack of book flicking etiquette. I mean, that was MY row. You don't go messing with MY row while I'm still going it with the fingers back and forth you know. Ooh it gets me all riled up, it does.

But come to think of it; it's not like I bought many books from that particular branch. I was far more likely to go in there when I wanted to save money on magazines and take a bunch (Blender, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Sight & Sound, even FHM, anything in fact I didn't feel like paying for) then go to a secluded corner of the shop (there were so many) and just read read away, with a nice neat psycho-pile.

Then, of course, a few times I actually did read entire graphic novels (300 can be done in about 20 minutes) and various non-fiction works, like whichever memoir Stuart Maconie brought out that week (surprisingly easy and quick to read when the afternoon stretches into a seeming infinity).

I know, I am a parasite riven with corruption. However, those magazines asked too much of my income, so I did the sensible thing. Anyway, that sensibility is now driving me on to the Charing Cross branch magazine rock with my bad, but entirely reasonable in this economic climate and the cutting in pagination and the general decline in quality magazine journalism, habit. When I get the chance.

So some books questions. It appears an appropriate time to conjure them up.

Literature
1. Which Bangladeshi writer was the Best First Book winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for her debut novel A Golden Age?
2. Which “newspaper” was “First published in September 1843 to take part” in “a serene contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress”?
3. Created by Dale Messick, which glamorous, intrepid reporter debuted in a June 30, 1940 comic strip?
4. Which Italian poet, philosopher and philologist wrote the anti-Caesarean manifesto Pompeo in Egitto (‘Pompey in Egypt’; 1812) at the age of 14? His collection of notes, observations and aphorisms, the Zibaldone di pensieri, was published posthumously in seven volumes in 1898.
5. Who wrote the first published Australian Aboriginal novel, Wild Cat Feeling (1965), and its sequel, Wild Cat Screaming (1992), which chart the misfortunes of a part-Aborigine at the hands of the racist white establishment?
6. Controlled by Fininvest, Silvio Berlusconi’s family holding company, it was founded by an 18-year-old in 1907 in order to publish a magazine called Luce!. What is Italy’s biggest publishing company?
7. Who is said to have found his true vocation when he wrote the world’s first kiss-and-tell memoir, the 12-volume Histoire de ma vie, which he began in earnest by 1789?
8. The author Chyngyz Aitmatov died aged 79 on June 10, 2008, in Nuremberg, Germany. He is the best known figure in the literature of which country?
9. Sid James made an early appearance as a barman in the 1949 British gangster film No Orchids for Miss Blandish. It was based on whose 1939 debut novel of the same title?
10. Which 1797 poem ends: “He went like one that hath been stunned / And is of sense forlorn / A sadder and a wiser man, / He rose the morrow morn.”?

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Answers to the Above
1. Tahmima Anam (b.1975). Her father, Mahfuz, is the editor of The Daily Star, Bangladesh’s most prominent English-language newspaper. Both her parents, who were freedom fighters, inspired the novel.
2. The Economist. Founded by James Wilson, it calls itself (and is registered in the UK as) a newspaper. Even though everyone can see it is a magazine.
3. Brenda Starr. Created for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, she married the mysterious, eye patch-wearing Basil St. John and was played in a truly terrible 1989 film by Brooke Shields.
4. Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837). Afflicted by deformity and spinal disease, the self-taught prodigy and self-described patriot commonly known as just "Leopardi" became infused with pessimism. In 1824, the confirmed classicist wrote the brief dialogue essays Le operette morali, and Canzoni and Versi collections.
5. Mudrooroo (aka Colin Johnson and Mudrooroo Narogin Nyoongah; b.1938)
6. Mondadori (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A). Marina Berlusconi, Silvio’s first daughter, is its chairman. Founded in Ostiglia, Mantua, it is headquartered is in Segrate, Milan. Magazines in its portfolio include Grazia, Chi and Jack.
7. Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-98). He did it as “the only remedy to keep from going mad or dying of grief”. Casanova died a librarian – writing the story of his life also relieved the high boredom of the job - in Duchcov, while working for Count Waldstein of Bohemia.
8. Kyrgyzstan. The name Chingiz has the same meaning as Genghis. His debut work published in Kyrgyz was White Rain (1954). His novel, Jamilya, appeared in 1958, while The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years was originally published in Russian in the literary magazine Novy Mir in 1980.
9. James Hadley Chase (1906-85). Chase was the pen-name of Rene Brabazon Raymond, who also used James L. Docherty, Ambrose Grant and Raymond Marshall. No Orchids was written in just six weeks after he was inspired by reading James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice.
10. ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Here 'Ave Some Art...

2009-07-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

... It's Good for Ya!!!

My, I almost forgot. Already. (I must admit it is rather heavy on the Renaissance stuff and even does a bit of recycling (as it comes very early in the QB), unlike many of its other A&C brethren)

Art & Crafts
1. Which 1455-60 panel by Piero della Francesca, depicting Jesus Christ during a part of his Passion and on display at Urbino’s Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, is much admired for its use of linear perspective and air of stillness, which earned it the epithet "the Greatest Small Painting in the World" from Kenneth Clark (dad of diarist MP Alan)?
2. Sinclair Lewis applauded which 1942 painting as "dullness made God"?
3. Which London gallery was opened in 1856 and moved to its current location in 1896, where further two extensions were built in 1933 and 2000 that were funded by Lord Duveen and Dr Christopher Ondaatje respectively?
4. An assistant to Perugino, Bernardino di Betto (c.1454-1513) painted the frescoes in the Borgia Apartments in The Vatican and Siena Cathedral’s Piccolomini Library illustrating the history of Pope Pius II, as well as The Return of Odysseus. He used which pseudonym?
5. Co-founder of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement, which German-born Expressionist and Dadaist was labelled "Cultural Bolshevist Number One" for his graphic depictions of the depravity of war and was also known for such paintings as Kristallnacht and To Oskar Panizza?
6. Which American took the award-winning photograph of a policeman covering a hairy streaker's private parts at Twickenham in 1974 (the offender is alleged to have said: "Give us a kiss")?
7. Which Dutch painter’s large group portrait of 1648, Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster, was said by Joshua Reynolds to be "perhaps, the first picture of portraits in the world, comprehending more of those qualities which make a perfect portrait than any other I have ever seen"?
8. In July 2009, Mesh II was raked into a California beach. Designed to be glimpsed and lost to the next tide, it is one of more than ephemeral 100 sand works by which San Franciscan?
9. In Japanese art, what are Shunga?
10. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666), whose painting Et in Arcadia ego is in Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, was nicknamed “Il Guercino”. What did it mean?

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The Answers to the Above
1. Flagellation of Christ
2. Nighthawks (by Edward Hopper). The scene was inspired by since demolished diner in Greenwich Village. The now vacant lot is known as Mulry Square.
3. National Portrait Gallery. The 5th Earl of Stanhope, Thomas Babington Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle are mainly credited with its founding, with Stanhope first proposing it as an MP in 1846. They are each commemorated with busts over the main entrance.
4. Pinturicchio (meaning ‘little painter’). It is also a nickname given to Juventus footballer Alessandro Del Piero by Gianni Agnelli.
5. George Grosz. Born Georg Ehrenfried Groß, he changed his name in 1916 out a romantic enthusiasm for America, which he gained from reading James Fenimore Cooper and Karl May.
6. Ian Bradshaw. The streaker was Michael O’Brien and England and France were playing that day. War photographer Don McCullin said it was the one image he wished he’d taken in 2006.
7. Bartholomeus van der Helst (the Peace of Münster was also called the Treaty of Westphalia)
8. Andres Amador. His work comes under the banner “Earthscape Art” and “Light Sculpture”. 9. Erotic pictures (it means ‘picture of spring’, spring being a common euphemism for sex). It might also be termed "old Japanese porn".
10. ‘The squinty-eyed one’ (his other works include Susanna and the Elders (1617), Aurora (1621) and Semiramis Receives the News of Insurrection at Babylon (1645)

Back to Blog (Kinda)

2009-07-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's true...

... it appears I am writing the Ulysses of quiz books (that's not the title by the way). I've already zoomed so far past the 200,000 word-mark, it looks like an Omar Sharif-y dot on the sun-emblazoned scrotumtightening horizon. Obviously I'll save the Finnegans Wake of quiz books for the next one, which I will be writing while long-haired, wild-eyed and living in a twig-thatched shack on an obscure Scottish island. Obviously.

(Cor, I don't half fancy some fried kidneys for some mysterious reason)

Anyway, I thought I'd preview it by posting sample questions (I can spare them, since they are so profuse). It's 2 x 10 questions per page, each in a different category like Science & Technology, Art & Crafts, Sport etc, so I thought I'd do a ten-question-per-day, ten-day countdown each with a different subject. First, one of the 113 GK tenners...

General Knowledge
1. The Englishman Thomas Parr, or “Old Parr”, supposedly lived for 152 years. He died during which king’s reign, the ruler in question arranging to have him buried in Westminster Abbey?
2. Which inmate has or had the prison number: a) 46664 b) FF 8282 c) 18330-424 d) 6660 e) 24601 f) 37927 g) 61727-054 h) C.3.3 (for Building C, floor 3, cell 3)?
3. Published by Transparency International, the annual Corruption Perceptions Index analyses corruption in each nation’s public officials and politicians. Which country came last in 2008?
4. Which substitute ran out Ricky Ponting, much to the Australian's obvious chagrin, in the fourth Ashes Test at Trent Bridge in 2005?
5. The Canadian electro/progressive house producer Joel Zimmerman (b.1981) is renowned for performing sets while wearing a giant animal mask. What is his stage name?
6. Declared world champion in 1933, which Canadian badminton player designed a canvas and rubber sneaker for the B.F. Goodrich Company in 1935 that provided more protection and support on badminton courts? Converse bought trademark rights to them in the ‘70s.
7. Which 1569-1795 union was known as the Rzeczpospolita?
8. William Faulkner’s famous line “The past is never dead. It’s not even past” featured in which 1951 novel that has Temple Drake for its protagonist?
9. The most commonly prescribed psychostimulant, it was patented by CIBA in 1954 as a potential cure for Mohr’s disease. Methylphenidate is better known by what brand name?
10. In which island group are about 950 Long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melaena) slaughtered in an annual hunting ceremony known as the Grindadráp?

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General Knowledge Answers
1. King Charles II. “Old Tom Parr”, as he was also known, lived from c.1483 to November 1635.
2. a) Nelson Mandela b) Jeffrey Archer c) Conrad Black d) Charles Ponzi e) Jean Valjean (in Les Miserables) f) Andy Dufresne (in The Shawshank Redemption) g) Bernie Madoff h) Oscar Wilde
3. Somalia. It was placed 180/180 with a 1.0 rating. Myanmar and Iraq came 178= with 1.3, while Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden came top with 9.3 each. The UK was 16th with 7.7.
4. Gary Pratt (b.1981). He was released by Durham in 2006 and later joined Cumberland.
5. Deadmau5 (pronounced ‘dead mouse’). His albums include Random Album Title (2008).
6. Jack Purcell (1903-91). Converse still make and sell his eponymous trainers today, though they have proved popular due to their vintage fashion appeal rather than athletic use.
7. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Latin name: Res Publica Serenissima). Its unique political system, known as "Noble’s democracy" or "Golden Freedom", was characterised by the sovereign’s power being reduced by laws and the legislature (Sejm) controlled by the nobility (szlachta). Though the two states were formally equal, Poland was the dominant partner of the two.
8. Requiem for a Nun. It was adapted for the stage in 1956 by Albert Camus, as Requiem pour une nonne, and was Italy’s most popular theatre production of 1959, with 58,898 seats sold.
9. Ritalin. MPH has the chemical formula C14H19NO2 and is also sold under such lesser known brand names as Daytrana (patches), Attenta, Concerta, Equasym, Biphentin and Rubifen)
10. Faroe Islands. It is a community tradition dating back at least 1000 years that sees boats surround the whales and drive them slowly into a bay. In late 2008, the Faroese chief medical officers declared the whales unfit for human consumption due to the level of toxins in them.

Finally

2009-06-26T05:27:00.000-07:00

I Watched the Darned Thing

Many congrats to Nancy, it was a brilliant performance. I was mightily impressed by her ultra-cool head and swift recall.

Nancy's achievement cannot be understated. In becoming the first woman in the Humphrys era and (thinking off the top of my head) the third youngest in history to win the Mastermind title, while having a baby (like, wow), it is quite possibly the finest achievement on the show since Kevin got his never-to-be bettered 41 (his MM record being the quiz show equivalent of Jim Laker's 19 for 90). It's the kind of triumph that is utterly refreshing because you only see it once in a blue moon, if barely that.

What elevates this feat even higher above the fold is the fact that she's American born and bred and been around these parts for only six years. As many others have commented, the likes of any of us Brits going over there and doing the same kind of thing, i.e. beat the best quiz brains in the entire country or, more realistically, have a champion-run on Jeopardy, is practically unthinkable.

Even if we gave ourselves six years to acclimatise to the trivia climate, our cultural blind spots - which can be exposed easily if you mosey on over to the J-archive and go through a few shows - would need serious work if they need to be fixed, with the sports, food (candy bars, cereals), TV, brand names and other American culture you soak up just growing up in the States being the typical kind of things that puzzle us alien Brits.

This point is illustrated perfectly (to myself) whenever I watch a syndicated episode of WWTBAM. I actually find answering the big money questions easier, than a lot of the lower-middle section ones which US citizens would slap themselves upside the head with a big "DUH!" sound if they didn't get them right. I mean, what in flipping crikey are Gangbusters and H&R Block and Urkel and Junior Mints???

Commiserations to Ian on another runner's up spot in a nationally broadcast quiz final. He was as clinical and impressive as I expected him to be, though on a luckier day there I have no doubt he would have got "Coe" and "Wrist". They're just the kind of 50/50 questions that anyone can get wrong and anyone can get right depending on how Fortune favours you. As with all of us, there will always be another quiz, another series, another tournament to set out sights on.

Self-Centred Analysis
As for the questions, here are the ones I got wrong in the GK rounds (from my armchair and minus the studio pressure):

Richard H: "coral", "buccaneer"
Roger: "Llandudno"
Richard S: "pundit"
Stuart: "nasturtium", "angling", "Mull"
Ian: "fluorine" "knot"
Nancy: "Meeting House", "jacaranda", "corn"

Personally, I found myself going "ooh! That's a bit hard" more often during Stuart, Ian and Nancy's sets. Stuart got the very nasty (if you're not much of a WW2 buff) Pegasus Bridge only the second Q up and got torpedoed with several others (e.g. Chorleywood process) I'd be left feeling mugged by if I was comparing my questions to everyone else's. I also thought Nancy did well to cope with an onslaught of stuff that made me wonder: "Are they actually asking that question, and not something slightly more gettable?"

I thought Richard S's set, as perhaps evidenced by his getting the same GK score (13) as Ian and Nancy, was the least perilous of the lot, and even then I should have got pundit (my instant-answer was "guru", which is just plain stupid).

But, as we all know, and which I repeat enough to sound like someone with anterograde amnesia: question-writing and subject distribution is an incredibly difficult thing to get right. One man's bread-and-butter is another woman's rat poison. And what do I know? I terrify people with my quizzes. I have no idea about the pain I conflict without knowing it. And, certainly, there is no real injustice to scream about with regards to the Grand Final's question difficulty; all that's needed, as ever, is a bit more finessing and care and everything will be la-dee-dah lovely.

Finally, cultural bias. Seeing as one of our top contenders was American would there be any anomalies in the geographical specificity of the questions Nancy and say, the contestant who preceded her (Mr. Ian Bayley) received?

(Bear in mind, I counted up while slightly brain-tired and sleepersome at 2.45am, so these "stats" may well be faulty)

Well, Ian got eight heavily* or noticeably** Britishised questions and, I thought this was weird, not a single American (or North American) question. Nancy got seven heavily or noticeably Americanized questions (including Gila Monster, because Gila is a pretty famous American lizard and is named after an Arizona river) and one Shakespeare question (Falstaff) and one that was almost British (the River Boyne in Ireland). So she basically got a WQC-knowledge set and Ian got the QLL ones.

Anyway, none of that bias really matters. As I've said, her GK questions were just as hard as Ian's. Plus, Nancy had already fought through two rounds (and therefore two Britannicised-up GK sets) of the competition, putting away a trio of impeccable specialised subjects, and done all that I had outlined in the first three paragraphs of this post (and much kudos on the Fritz Lang selection).

When people look at the record books, all they will see is that Nancy Dickmann was the 2009 Mastermind champion (2008 if you want to be confused by the actual recording dates), while everyone who watched the thing will know that she fully deserved it.

** mentions a UK (or US) person, place etc in the question
* is about something/someone from or in the US/UK

Oooh look we have a new Speaker

2009-06-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

Ooh how very unexciting

So why mention it? Well, in another life, I did a bit of "political" journalism (even I think my doing such a thing to be incredibly unbelievable and but then again, I have done a lot of different stuff, if sporadically and in small portions) and interviewed John Bercow, just about at the time he was turning into some sort of weird left-wing Conservative, with icky compassion and contrition just oozing out of him.

Course I did know he used to be a Monday Club sort, who liked the sound of slogans like "Hang Mandela!", but I found his Damascene-gotten beliefs quite refreshing and Bercow himself quite likeable, especially because back then you were hearing so much about the liberals who taken the reverse and had turned into neo-con, who were just gagging to blow the crap out of Iraq.

Though, I still felt a mite suspicious (he is, after all, a politician). I think what made this mysterious suspicion even more mysteriously suspicious was that I was reading The Big Sleep at the time, and this description of the ill-fated Harry Jones kept popping up in my head:

"He was a very small man, not more than five feet three and would hardly weigh as much as a butcher's thumb"

(That and this cruel line from a 2001 Guardian profile I'd researched: "A pint-sized chap with short arms and endless ambitions". You'd be suspicious too, eh?)

Because he was. Shorter than Sarkozy, if I mis-remember correctly. My being no Yao Ming made it worse. And even at the time I was thinking this may be why a lot of the Conservative Party are ignoring him because they can't take a Tory, who's both recanted his right-wing views AND resembles a laugh-free Dudley Moore, at all seriously.

Now I'm thinking that the vast majority of Tories, who conspicuously didn't vote him because they thought he was a (literally) Labour-loving pinko communist shortarse, now believe him to be a Labour-loving pink communist shortarse with a Napoleon complex.

Anyway, good luck to him, I hope he survives any Conservative-engineered plot to unseat him after the next election, even if he is a "flipper" with a mannered, slightly grating speaking voice (blimey, he can't even say "responsibility").

He's obviously a portent of things to come: Labour politicians usurped from their pretty offices of power by Tories (David* for Gordon), who aren't really any better in substance terms, but actually are by dint of their not being in a Labour government and everyone supposing it's time for a change. After Bercow, the blue deluge.**

FE: XXXXV
1. What term was coined in 1975 by Ted Nelson in his book Computer Lib/Dream Machines to describe electronic sex toys that can be controlled by a computer?
2. The Drei Zinnen ('Three Peaks') or Tre Cime di Lavaredo are three distinctive battlement-like peaks in which range of the Alps?
3. Which Iron Cross winner, German amateur tennis champion (1909-76) and two-time French Open champion (1934 & '36) won his country's inaugural "Sportspersonality of the Year" award in 1947 and retained it the next year?
4. Adapted into a 2003 film, which Javier Cercas novel tells the real-life story of how Rafael Sanchez Mazas, writer and idealist of the Falange Espanola and close-collaborator of Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, escaped from execution after a Republican soldier decided to spare his life, and Cercas's obsessive search for that soldier?
5. Originally, it was a communication device used for funeral (hileta), celebration (jai), or the making of slaked lime (kare) or cider (sagardo). After the cider was made the same board that pressed the apples was beaten to summon neighbours and celebrate. Similar to the Romanian toacă, which Basque music device, made of wood (sometimes ikoro) or stone, is played by one or more performers producing differing rhythms, playing with wood knots and spots of the board for different tones?

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Answers to FE:XXXXV
1. Teledildonics (aka "cyberdildonics")
2. Sexten Dolomites (from east to west, known as Kleine Zinne/Cima Piccola (Little Peak), Große Zinne/Cima Grande (Big Peak) and Westliche Zinne/Cima Ovest (Western Peak)
3. Gottfried von Cramm (full name: Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm)
4. Soldados de Salamina / Soldiers of Salamis (2001)
5. The txalaparta (in Basque, zalaparta (with /s/) means 'racket')

*Excuse my language, but I think that David Cameron is a massive dickhead. He just reeks of the snake-oil salesman, who parps whatever disenchanted people want to hear. Perfect for the office of Prime Minister (he says, thinking of previous office-holders), but I want a dickhead I can be proud of, at least sometimes. I don't think he's the dickhead the country needs as PM.

** But I don't really mind. It doesn't matter too much which party is in power nowadays: they're all (depressingly) fighting for the centre ground, with no decent wedge issues to wage political war with. All governments end in failure. It's in their nature. I just wonder whether the rate of entropy that sets into the impending Conservative government is already being accelerated by the expenses scandal and the economy. Then again, they can always blame the other guys (they did it! it was broken when we got here!) *big sigh*.

Mastermind Verdict?

2009-06-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Not yet

I would love to comment on what transpired on Friday night, after all a fellow quiz team-mate was vying for the title and - believe it or not! Sometimes even I am a tad unsure - I did compete in the series, but iPlayer was being distinctly sluggish and slow due to my temperamental dongle and I have not been able to watch it beyond Nancy's SS round and her St. Louis zoomaround. I bet the directors really love spreading their wings a little. It's a pity quiz show viewers don't actually care and just want to see a quiz; not fancy, circling camera movements and eyesight-scarring fade-outs and ambient mood music more suited to a bad Ibiza chill-out bar, which ultimately adds up to a okay-ish corporate video.

But sometimes I think my participating on MM seems more like a hallucinatory fever dream in the memory. This is because of the time-lag between the series concluding and my recording my round one ambition crash 16 months ago. Yes, that right SIXTEEN months gone. A lot of life has happened since then, and in my own case, at least three different hairstyles.

Reading Nancy's Sunday Express interview, I snorted in pathetic amusement on seeing the incidental detail - "She was already seven months pregnant when she auditioned" "Her daughter, Imogen, is now nearly 14 months old - and adding it up to that magic 16 number (Yeah, even if I did know the long, long gap already. I was empathising with the not so quizzed-up regular Sexpress reader joining the dots. Obviously). That's nearly half the queen-ship of Anne Boleyn. It's a long time. Ok, I've beaten that particular ex-horse. Cease.

You have to wonder if BBC2 are showing the right kind of love for a programme, which was so much of a big deal in the Magnus Magnusson days. The perfect solution would be to return it to its quiz hour with UC, because ratings would undoubtedly be boosted by its clasping the beefy paws of its quiz-for-prestige cousin.

Only at the moment, MM seems fated to be wander around the evening schedules aimlessly, looking a bit lost and bumping into the furniture, while being subject to the whim of the station controllers, who think it can always make temporary way, like an affable old chap pushover - ("Go on take a fortnight off. Put your creaky knees. We going to put a cooking thing with that bloke with the nice hair on instead") - for something a bit more zippy, lifestyle-y, you know something that's got a bit more pep and isn't in its thirties.

I heard from a current series contestant that they were planning to change the the chatty bit and do the contestant interaction up front "like an iPod advert". Yes, that's right. iPod ad. It sounds so insane and so hilarious precisely because I have no idea what that actually means.

Surely, they won't be donning all over black body suits and dancing against primary colour backgrounds to whichever new single a rather dull yet popular band want to whore off to the world? What a time to be alive.

Of course. the said contestant may have fed me a complete lie and I must congratulate him/her by creating a vessel of deceit believable enough to make me write some blog rubbish about it. But even if it is a fabrication, it was fun pondering such brazen madness for a couple of minutes.

Sometimes, I just think the makers and schedulers should just trust it on the original basic merits that propelled it into the national consciousness. I trust that I don't have to spell them out, but you know old-fashioned has never ever been the fashion on TV. A show must always evolve, forward not backwards, higher not lower, louder not quieter, shinier not duller, spunkier not chunkier, funkier not ... oh why oh why oh why.

FE:XXXXIV
1.The root of the word means 'to permit', though another derivative means 'ear'. Recited by the muezzin, what is the Islamic call to prayer?
2. Which Aldershot-born South African romance writer (1903-73) is said to be the second most profilic author ever? Her 904 books - written under 11 pseudonyms - include such titles as There is No Yesterday and Wind of Desire.
3. The brainchild of the late Saudi prince Faisal ibn Fahd, which tournament started in 1992 as the King Fahd Cup?
4. A 15-mile stretch of which road between junction 13 of the M65 and Long Preston is said to be the most dangerous road in the UK, with over 100 deaths in the last decade? It is a favourite with motorcycle enthusiasts, especially early on Sunday mornings.
5. Its trade name came into use in 1912 and is thought to be derived from an Aboriginal word for 'head covering'. The original factory that made them was founded in the early 1870s by Benjamin Dunkerley, the inventor of a machine that removed the hair tip from rabbit hair for use in the making of felt hats. Which Australian brand of hat's wide-brimmed styles have become a part of the country's culture and are especially popular in rural areas?

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Answers to FE:XXXXIV
1. Adhan or Azan
2. Kathleen Lindsay (the 1986 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records refers to her "Mary Faulkner" pen name)
3. Confederations Cup
4. A682
5. Akubra

Them Questions: Part I

2009-06-20T23:24:00.001-07:00

Those Little Things

Of course, one of the natural reactions after any important quiz competition, quiz show, trivia-based life-or-death struggle etc, is to have an fairly polite "Airing of Grievances" (without the fun Festivus bits) about things like possible question/subject bias.

I've often railed against these sometimes imaginary, sometimes accidental prejudicial slights on the concept of fair play in the past, perhaps because I just thought it was so much goddamn carthartic fun, going years back to the ancient times when I moaned about the lack of movies in academic buzzer quizzes (I realised later that's just the way the question distribution is, and that it's an academic quiz, not a trashy one). I think I've learnt not to care too much, because there will always be another quiz coming along to take your mind off the one that came before.

This WQC gone, I thought the balance was great, except for one or two too many American-centric questions, when it came to media and history. Even though I got it right, I don't really think, for instance, that the f-bomb bomber ex-Illinois governor Rod Blagoje ... uh ... (you know, the greedy goon who proudly wears a shield of black hair, as black as his heart, covering his entire forehead) is a WQC-suitable question because it is internal American politics (he's an ex-governor, not a Secretary of Something, or even a Senator, or a Congressman caught up in sex or murder scandal or, sexy murder scandal, if you like) and, come to think about it, there are a lot of Americans doing the quiz. And asking them who he is would be almost like asking Londoners who happened to be their mayor before Boris came along.

I didn't read about him in a British newspaper at all, but that may have been because I was so overloaded from seeing and reading about his antics and pathetic chatshow tour on the US news sites, blogs, like bloody everywhere, that my mind blanked out him out from the foreign news pages I was reading in my reality/wood pulp-based paper because I was so used to seeing his very punchable head appear on my computer screen and context is all.

I don't think it's a fair enough topic on the rest of the non-English-speaking world because it was way too much of a backyard question, especially when it came after the very WQC-suitable question on the Bradley Effect* which is itself tangentially related to Blago. You know coming straight of the months-old news babble in my head: Illinois-Obama-Blago-Burris-black men-elections-racism-corruption-Ayers etc. 'Tis a tangled web, but the link is there. Somewhere.

*(it is a great kind of universal teaser; its current affairs visibility/topicality and broader sociological, historical and political implications override its major Amercanicity)

But I am being very literate when I say one or two, because I really do mean only a couple. Just two whole US questions each in two categories too much. Therefore, it doesn't matter too much at all. And neither do these other minor things: there should be at least one truly, excruciatingly hard question on classical music and another on art and a few other bits and bobs here and there. Just one mind. I am in no way advocating a refit of any noticeable magnitude, just a little tweaking here and there. That is all.

As for overall feel, there is also slightly too much (but not overdoing it too much) Anglo-Americancentricity in the question subjects' geographical spread. There should be a few more questions on South America and the Middle East across all the sections, for instance, because they are big places which provide decent subject matter and, looking at the increasingly cosmopolitan yet relatively lacking in Latin American and Arabic representation of countries, they are also regions that offer better-than-the-rest contestant neutrality and more of an equal footing for, say, someone from Malaysia and someone from Hungary.

Plus, I have still labour under precept that every area is interesting to learn about once you realise the vast variety of culture that lies therein. Or maybe that precept actually means once I find out there's loads of stuff I don't know about a subject that someone else, a deadly rival has got wrapped around their finger perhaps, then it's really quite depressing and I must make up the ground with indecent haste and outlandish effort, after I'm done with the sobbing fit. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.

I'll go over the Film Qs next, some time soon. The post will be called "Why the WQC Film Questions are Just Right". I rejected "Lay Off Movies, You Bastards!", "Get a DVD Collection, You Slaaaags!!!!" and "Anyone Who Says There Are Too Many Questions on the Motion Pictures Will Be Beaten To Death With Their Own Two Arms After I've Sawed Them Off With A Rusty Saw I Found In A Tepid Puddle Full Of Swine Flu".

The last one may have been overdoing it somewhat. I probably had a momentary attack of rabies.

FE:XXXXIII
1. Designed by Leandro V. Locsin, the National Artist of the Philippines for Architecture, the official residence of the Sultan of Brunei is the world's largest residence of any type. Derived from the Arabic 'Palace of the Light of Faith', it has what name?
2. Which 1971-1982 TV drama was based on the novel Spencer's Mountain by the show's creator Earl Hamner Jr., the book having already been adapted into a 1963 film with a namesake title and starring Henry Fonda as Clay Spencer.
3. Synonymous with the very finest shotguns and rifles, which gunmaker of London was established in Princes Street in 1814 by its eponymous founder and former head stocker for Joseph Manton, the foremost gunmaker of his time, whose former premises the business moved to in Oxford Street in 1826?
4. What does the fictional character Lula Mae Barnes change her name to in a 1958 book?
5. To celebrate UEFA's 50th anniversary awards in 2004, each member organisation was asked to choose one of its own players as the single most outstanding player of the past half century (1954-2003). Name the country which chose:

a. Sergei Aleinikov
b. Branko Oblak
c. Rainer Hasler
d. Carmel Busuttil
e. Massimo Bonini
f. Alfredo di Stefano
g. Herbert Prohaska
h. Koldo
i. Sergey Kvochkin
j. Panajot Pano

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Answers to FE:XXXXIII
1. Istana Nurul Iman Palace
2. The Waltons
3. James Purdey & Sons or just "Purdey"
4. Holly Golightly (in Breakfast at Tiffany's)
5. a. Belarus b. Slovakia c. Liechtenstein d. Malta e. San Marino f. Spain g. Austria h. Andorra i.Kazakhstan j. Albania

What's the Quiz Version of "L'esprit d'escalier"?

2009-06-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

Always Read On

I absolutely LOVE it when I go through old notes two or three weeks after the WQC and see (now) glaring notes like "Borsalino - Milan-based hat brand, its handmade Panama Montecristi Semicalado, f.1834 by Giuseppe" and "Parisian-b. Israeli YAE NAIM 'New Soul', Apple Macbook Air ad".

This has happened to me on at least two other infuriating occasions since the Worlds. It's funny how not reading one or two pages further into a notebook has cost me points. And it's bloody hilarious when I realise I've read c.90% of the said note-store (of stuff I haven't got round to adapting into questions) in the days before the championship. It's just that tiny slither in the middle that I haven't cast my eyes over.

Consequently, they have now been annotated with "FOR F**** SAKE" and "f***ing b****cks".

Of course, they should read "FOR FLIP'S SAKE" and "flowing buttocks"

FE:XXXXII
1. It can mean 'exile', 'outlaws' or 'emigre'. What term was applied to political opponents of the Mussolini's fascist regime who fled or were forced to leave Italy during the 1920s and '30s? During the Spanish Civil War, they took part in a famous victory over the Italian fascist "volunteers" at the Battle of Guadalajara in March 1937.
2. What is Japan's largest selling English-language newspaper? And which newspaper has the largest circulation in the world?
3. Twenty-two federal employees died when three floors of which government building collapsed on June 9, 1893, the day of the funeral of the great Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth?
4. Which silly Spanish motorcycle racer celebrated "winning" the recent 125cc Catalunya MotoGP a lap early, meaning he ended up finishing 4th?
5. Described as an "absolute animal" by Jeremy Clarkson, which Dodge sports car, known as the Viper elsewhere because the name is a registered trademark in the UK, has been dubbed Britain's least green car?

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Answers to FE:XXXXII
1. Fuorusciti 2. The Daily Yomiuri; Yomiuri Shimbun (both published by the Yomiuri Group. The latter was founded in 1874 and has a combined morning and evening circulation of over 14 million) 3. The former Ford's Theater (it had been turned into a government building after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth - feeling slightly silly writing such an obvious fact - who was the brother of Edwin, both members of the Booth acting clan and son of the English-born actor Junius Brutus Booth. It could be compared to Stephen Baldwin shooting Barack Obama. I suppose) 4. Julián Simón (born in 1987, he is a member of the Mapfre Aspar team) 5. Dodge SRT-10 (it topped the ETA survey with 488g/km, followed by the Bentley Brooklands coupe (465g/km) and the MPV Mercedes R-Class R63 AMG (387g/km))

My word, I cannot actually stop myself from writing back-up notes now. They're quite addictive. The urge for completeness is unbelievable. Because if I don't elaborate, then surely the world will explode.

Casualties of the QB

2009-06-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

A quiz, for a change.

(2nd post of the day? I can't believe it either)

These are simply questions I wrote randomly and in a separate file from the QB, thus making the endeavour doubly-foolish. This meant that it was a real bugger to fit some of them on the pages, owing to their hilariously excessive size.

Thus, I cast them to the river because I have far too many other ones queuing up for the "Big (old book-based) Show" and filling, well, my life basically (brain heavy and sore with factage). Off with you, I say, to the river, another metaphor, this blog, the sea of memory...

BH158: QB Clearout
1. Most commonly seen in insects, what term describes a physiological state of dormancy with very specific triggering and releasing conditions and is distinguished from other forms of dormancy such as hibernation in that once it is initiated, only certain other stimuli are capable of releasing the organism from this state? A dynamic process it consists of several distinct phases starting with “Induction” and continuing with “Preparation”, “Initiation”, “Maintenance” and then “Termination”.
2. Located in a namesake 1,800,000 acre Biosphere Reserve in the Mexican state of Campeche, which ancient Maya city and former fierce rival to Tikal, lying deep in the jungles of the greater Petén Basin region was discovered from the air by biologist Cyrus L. Lundell of the Mexican Exploitation Chicle Company in December 1931?
3. Dating back to the Qin Dynasty (c.250BC), it was called the “Immortal Health Elixir” by the Chinese because they believed it balanced the Middle Qi (spleen & stomach) and aided digestion, thus allowing the body to heal. Known as kocha kinoko (‘mushroom tea’) in Japan, what is the Western name for a sweetened tea or tisane which has been fermented using a macroscopic solid mass of microorganisms called a “________ colony”, the culture containing a symbiosis of Acetobacter (acetic acid bacteria) and yeast?
4. Most remembered as the leader of East Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall, who succeeded Erich Honecker on October 18, 1989, only to serve as Communist Party General Secretary until December 3 and was subsequently sentenced to six-and-a-half years imprisonment for Cold War crimes (specifically the manslaughter of those Germans killed attempting to jump over the wall)?
5. Founded in 1908, which British company currently published eleven novel series that are all identifiable by series title as well as a colour border, including Modern, Blaze, By Request, Medical, Historical and Intrigue?
6. Which TV show is known as Bailando por un sueño in Argentina, El Baile en TVN in Chile, Ples sa zvijezdama in Croatia, Tanssii tähtien kanssa in Finland, Rokdim Im Kokhavim in Israel, Dejo ar zvaigzni in Latvia, Taniec z Gwiazdami in Poland, Bak Kim Dans Ediyor in Turkey, Sehati Berdansa in Malaysia and Szombat esti láz in Hungary?
7. Discovered by Masayasu Kojima and colleagues in 1999, which hormone, produced mainly by P/D1 cells lining the fundus of the human stomach and epsilon cells of the pancreas, stimulates appetite and has emerged as the first circulating hunger hormone?
8. Opened as a speakeasy at 154 East 54th Street in the middle of the block between Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue by the Italian immigrant John Perona and Martin de Alzaga in 1931, which New York nightclub – popular with the rich and famous in the 30s and 50s – was famous for its Vernon MacFarlane-designed blue zebra stripe motif and its official photographer Jerome Zerbe, and also was the first club to use a velvet rope?
9. Which Newcastle upon Tyne retailer claims to be the “World’s first department store”, having been founded as a drapers and fashion shop in 1838? However, the John Lewis Partnership bought it in 1952 and retained the original name until it rebranded the store as John Lewis Newcastle in 2002.
10. Closely related to lizards and snakes, which suborder of usually legless squamates is divided into four families, including Bipedidae (e.g. Ajolotes), Rhineuridae (North American worm lizards) and Trogonophidae (Palearctic worm lizards), with many possessing pink body colouration and scales arranged in rings, thus giving them a superficial resemblance to earthworms?
11. The red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans), a member of the family Emydidae, is what sort of reptile, which lives in fresh or brackish water and is the mascot of the University of Maryland?
12. What alternative name is given to Megalania (‘great roamer’), an extinct monitor lizard which was one of the megafauna that roamed southern Australia until it disappeared around 40,000 years ago and is the largest terrestrial lizard known to have existed at an estimated average length of 4.5m/15ft?
13. What is the common name of Drosera, one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants with over 170 species, which lure, capture and digest insects using mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surface?
14. Headquartered in Romanel-sur-Morges, Switzerland, which peripherals company was founded in 1981 by Stanford alumni Daniel Borel and Marini Zappacosta, and former Olivetti manager Pierluigi, and are the biggest manufacturers of computer mice in the world, having announced production of its billionth mouse in December 2008?
15. Which dukedom was created in the Peerage of Scotland on April 20, 1663 for the Duke of Monmouth and passed on to his descendants, who have successively borne the surnames Scott, Montagu-Scott, Montagu-Douglas-Scott and Scott again, with the family seats being Bowhill House (three miles outside Selkirk) representing the Scott line, Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries and Galloway, the Douglas line and Boughton House, Northants, representing Montagu?
16. Which people, who originate from a province of Pakistan and number around 70 million, claim to be one of the oldest civilisations in human history and rank the birthday of their patron saint and water god Lord Jhule Ial, Cheti Chand, as their most important festival, celebrating it as New Year’s Day?
17. Created by Skopian-Vardarskan immigrant Jimmy Stefanovic, which sandwich of fried spicy beef-and-pork sausage that is a cross between a kielbasa and hot dog topped with grilled onions and yellow mustard on a bun is partly named after the Chicago street marketplace where it was first sold in 1939?
18. Looper, Counter Driver and Pimpled Hitter are styles of which grip in table tennis?
19. Which enclosed, cable-like bundles of peripheral axons are categorised into three groups based on the direction that signals are conducted, these being ‘afferent’, ‘efferent’ and ‘mixed’?
20. Nerves are found only in the peripheral nervous system. What name is given to the analgous structures in the central nervous system?
21. Most commonly known for their antioxidant activity, which class of plant secondary metabolites include quercetin (which may prevent some type of cancers), epicatechin (which improves blood flow and seems good for cardiac flow and occurs in relatively high amounts in cocoa) and proanthocyanidins (which decreases capillary permeability and fragility, scavenges free radicals and oxidants and inhibits destruction of collagen (the most abundant protein in the body)?
22. Rutin, also called sophorin, is a citrus flavonoid glycoside found in which crop plant, whose scientific name is Fagopyrum esculentum?
23. Playing a role in both Noh and Kabuki theatre music and the native folk music min’yo, what type of Japanese musical instrument is the tsuzumi?
24. After a string of Roman defeats, the 102BC Battle of Aquae Sextiae (Aix en Provence) saw an army of 40,000 led by Gaius Marius finally defeat which two tribes?
25. Which East Germanic tribe, whose name is derived from the Norwegian county their ultimate origins have been traced back to, lived in Pomerania for a while before they moved south at the start of the 4th century and settled at the upper Tsiza (modern Hungary) and, after taking part in Attila the Hun’s campaigns in 451, created their own kingdom in Austria before they were defeated by Odoacer in 487 and joined the Heruls?
26. Named after a former FA secretary and FIFA president, which short-lived football competition of the late 1980s was contested between England and Scotland, and in later years, a guest team from South America?
27. The Tandy Corporation, which purchased (and gave its name to) the Fort Worth-based RadioShack Corporation in 1963, was originally founded as what sort of supply store?
28. Which Japanese game company released the cartridge-based arcade and home video game system, the Neo Geo in 1990; the home console being called the AES (Advanced Entertainment System) and the arcade version, the MVS (Multi Video System)?
29. Which multinational communications corporation failed to win a significant following in the handheld gaming market with the release of the N-Gage in October 2003?
30. Voted the 4th greatest of all time in the 2006 IGN Readers’ Choice poll, which 1994 2-D platform adventure game for the Super NES takes place mainly on Planet Zebes, with the player controlling bounty hunter Samus Aran, who must search the open-ended world a stolen larva, hunting Space Pirates as she goes?
31. Known in Mapuche Native American as Lahuan, what is the Spanish name for the evergreen Patagonian Cypress, which belongs to the Fitzroya genus? It is the largest species in South America (up to 40-60m tall, with a 5m trunk diameter) and has a specimen from Chile that was dated as 3622-years-old in 1993, making it the third-greatest fully verified age recorded for any living tree.
32. In 12th century Russia, the eastern Slaves worshipped which winter mother goddess, offering bloodless sacrifices like honey and bread and making brightly coloured embroideries depicting the antlered deity in honour of her eponymous “Feast” in late December?
33. On the winter solstice, the Saami people of Fennoscandia celebrate which spring and sun goddess of fertility and sanity, who travels with her daughter through the sky in a vessel made of reindeer bones to herald back the greenery on which the reindeer feed and restore the mental health of those driven mad by the endless darkness of the season?
34. A member race of the Worldloppet Ski Federation, which 51km race from Cable to Hayward, Wisconsin was started in 1973 by promoter Tony Wise and, with 9,000 participants each year, is the largest, and one of the longest cross country ski races in North America?
35. Named one of the best inventions of 2002 by Time magazine, which human-powered, three-wheeled carving vehicle utilises conservation of angular momentum to allow a rider to propel forward and was created by the Brazilians Gildo Beleski and Osorio Trentini in 1988 after they were inspired to create a vehicle for riding downhill?
36. The modern form of what reggae-influenced Jamaican music style, which developed in the late 1970s and owes its name to the spaces in which popular local and bajan records were aired by local sound systems and readily consumed by its “set-to-party” patronage, is also known as bashment?
37. ‘Come to Me’ by Marv Johnson became the first record to ever come from which label when it was released in May 1959 and reached no.30 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart?
38. Like the UEFA Champions’ League, FIFA has had an official “Anthem” or “Hymn” since the 1994 World Cup, which is played at the start of FIFA-organised matches and tournaments. Which German composer (b.1948) and Hammond organ player wrote it?

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Answers to BH158
1. Diapause (the final phase is “Post-diapause quiescence”)
2. Calakmul (the name means ‘City of the Two Adjacent Pyramids’ in Maya and the site contains 117 stelae, the largest total in the Maya region)
3. Kombucha tea (the yeast is mostly Brettanomyces bruxellensis, Candida stellata, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Torulaspora delbrueckii and Zygosaccharomyces bailii and the culture resembles a large pancake, though it is often called a mushroom or SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast), the clinical name being zoogleat mat. Health claims for kombucha focus on the chemical glucuronic acid, a compound used by the liver for detoxification)
4. Egon Krenz (b.1937)
5. Mills and Boon (Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon were the name of the founders. It remained independent until it was purchased by the Canadian company Harlequin Enterprises in 1971. The other series are Romance, Desire, Superromance and Spotlight)
6. Dancing with the Stars / Strictly Come Dancing
7. Ghrelin (its name is based on its role as a “growth hormone-releasing peptide”, with reference to the Proto-Indo-European root ghre, meaning ‘to grow’. It is regarded as the counterpart of the hormone leptin, produced by adipose tissue, which induces satiation when present at higher levels)
8. El Morocco (the setting for a scene in The Way We Were, it has been mentioned in such films as Sabrina (1954 version), Butterfield 8 and Valley of the Dolls. It also banned Humphrey Bogart for life in 1950)
9. Bainbridges (other “first” claimants include Austin’s in Northern Ireland, which has maintained its original site on “The Diamond” in Derry’s city centre since 1830; Le Bon Marché (founded by Aristide Boucicaut in Paris in 1838); and Delany’s New Mart in Dublin (opened in 1853 on Sackville Street, now O’Connell Street))
10. Amphisbaenia (the name of these “worm-lizards” is derived from Amphisbaena ('both ways to go'), a serpent with a head at each end which, according to Greek myth, was spawned from the blood that dripped from Medusa’s head as Perseus flew over the Libyan Desert with it in his hand. Pliny the Elder claimed in his Naturalis Historia (c.77AD) that it “has a twin head, that is one at the tail end as well, as though it were not enough for poison to be poured out of one mouth”)
11. Terrapin (named from an alteration of torope, from Virginia Algonquin)
12. Giant goanna (Varanus priscus; it may have been encountered by the first aboriginal settlers)
13. Sundews (species include the oblong-leaved or spoonleaf (D. intermedia), Alice (D. aliciae), cape (D. capensis), Fork-leafed (D. binata) and shield (D. peltata))
14. Logitech International (The mass-marketed computer mouse made it well-known. The range of products offered improvements over the one originally developed at LAMI (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne) by Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and engineer André Guignard, who was involved in the design changes of the device invented by Douglas Engelbart)
15. Duke of Buccleuch (Richard John Walter Scott, the 10th Duke of Buccleuch and 12th Duke of Queensberry (b.1954), is currently the largest private landowner in the UK and chairman of a namesake holding company. The Heir Apparent is Walter John Francis Scott (b.1984), the Earl of Dalkeith)
16. Sindhis (they also celebrate Akhandi (Baisakhi) and Teejari (Teej). Cheti Chand, held on the first day of Chaitra known as Chet in Sindhi, falls on the same day as Ugadi, the New Year in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, and Gudi Padwa, New Year in Maharashtra)
17. Maxwell Street Polish Sausage (other popular local sandwiches include the Chicago hot-dog (a steamed all-beef wiener on a poppy seed bun “dragged through the garden” and served with “Nuclear Relish” that under any circumstances cannot be slathered with ketchup) and the Italian beef (seasoned roast beef on a long, dense Italian-style roll dipped in gravy and topped off with Chicago-style giardiniera (pickled vegetables in vinegar) or green Italian sweet peppers)
18. Penhold (Pimpled Hitter is the traditional penhold style)
19. Nerves (afferent nerves conduct signals from sensory neurons to the CNS, e.g. the mechanoreceptors in skin; efferent conduct signals from the CNS along motor neurons to their target muscles and glands; mixed nerves contain both of the previous two types and thus conduct both incoming sensory information and outgoing muscle commands in the same bundle)
20. Tracts
21. Flavonoid
22. Common buckwheat (Tatary buckwheat (F. tataricum Gaertn.) or “bitter buckwheat” is also used as a crop, but is much less common)
23. Drum (consisting of an hourglass-shaped body, it is taut with two drum heads with cords that can be squeezed or released to increase or decrease pressure. It is the only Japanese drum that is struck with the hands; all others are played with sticks called bachi. Since it is often played with its bigger counterpart, the otsuzumi, it is also referred to as the kotsuzumi (‘small tsuzumi’))
24. Teutones & Ambrones
25. Rugians (from Rogaland; later they joined the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great when he invaded Italy in 489, where they formed their own division and disappeared with the Ostrogoths)
26. Rous Cup (named after Sir Stanley Rous, 1985-89)
27. Leather goods (along with Commodore and Apple, Tandy became one of the companies that started the PC revolution, with their TRS-80 (1977) and TR-80 Color Computer (“CoCo”) (1980) line of home computers)
28. SNK (aka SNK Playmore, the company was founded in 1978 by Eikichi Kawasaki and existed until October 22, 2001. SNK is an acronym of Shin Nihon Kikau (‘New Japan Project’))
29. Nokia (it unsuccessfully tried to lure gamers away from the Game Boy Advance by including mobile phone functionality, one of the reasons being the badly designed buttons and the fact that it looked like it was a taco)
30. Super Metroid (aka Metroid 3)
31. Alerce (only an African Baobab (6,000 years) and Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) named Methusaleh are older)
32. Rozhanitsa (white, deer-shaped cookies were given as lucky gifts)
33. Beiwe (whose daughter is named Beiwe-Neia; worshippers sacrificed white female animals, and with the meat, thread and sticks, bed into rings with ribbons, and also cover their doorposts with butter so Beiwe can eat it and start her journey once again)
34. The American Birkebeiner or Birkie (its name commemorates a historical event from 1206 when a group of Birkebeiners – soldiers who fought for Sverre Sigurdsson and his descendants in the Norwegian civil war and were so-named because they were so poor their shoes were made of birch bark – smuggled the bastard son of King Håkon Sverresson from Lillehammer to safety in Trondheim. At Norway’s Birkebeinerrennet, skiers still carry packs symbolising the weight of an 18-month-old kid)
35. Trikke (pronounced “trike”, the first ever Trikke/3CV race was held in Munich in 2004)
36. Dancehall
37. Tamla Records, later Motown Records (founded by Berry Gordy as Tamla on January 12, 1959, the company was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation in 1960. Gordy’s first signed act was The Matadors, who later changed their name to The Miracles. The first hit was Barrett Strong’s ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’ (no.2 Billboard R&B charts), its first R&B no. 1 and million-selling record was ‘Shop Around’ by The Miracles, while The Marvelette scored Tamla’s first US no. 1 with ‘Please Mr. Postman’ in 1961)
38. Franz Lambert (he is also noted for playing Wersi electric organs and has released over 100 albums)

The Terror of Doing

2009-06-18T05:29:00.000-07:00

All I want to do is plan around, sonny

So the wire-balls of tumbleweed roll on in their legions and a chilly wind plays its silent tune around these here stultified and barren environs. You can laugh, if you want.

I know that I should have written about the WQC (4th ain't so bad) in far, far more excruciating depth than I did in my two long essays on the Quizzing site. I'm sure you've read them and been frightened to your very core, but I assure you I am a very fast typer and when the random thoughts keep coming, no matter whether they are actually quiz-related or not, I have no way of stopping them connecting with my fingertips and letting them do their merry, rapid dance across the keyboard. But even then I had to hold back my in-depth analysis. How doth that go, if it had the chance to shimmy?

Well, I immediately totted up 20 SHKs at the train station (I am a sad, sad basta..), including at least five - struck, as if in stone -upon the face of the project I will write about in the next few hundred words. Answers like DRAGON'S LAIR (I put Dragonquest ... must have confused it with EverQuest at a critical writing moment, even though I had practically written the same question word for word a few weeks before... grrr goes the angry motorbike of hindsight-powered frustration). And KAZANKINA ... grrrokillstop).

But then again I caught a bit of the old serendipity. About two days before Ludlow I was watching the excellent Claire Denis's "Billy Budd goes French Foreign Legion and a sight more gay" film Beau Travail (one of the few French films to keep its original title in the States, where they often suck a little bit of the magic out of Franco-flicks by slapping them with the translated name: e.g. The Children of the Gods and Zero for Conduct, because distributors must think their audience are slightly thick and easily confused by Yerpean words like "de" and "les") and it started with a familiar sounding Holly Valance song in a Djibouti disco. Only it was in Turkish. Weird, I thought, so I immediately hunted its true origin and found Tarkan. Which, thank Dieu, I remembered. And yes, isn't such a hunt most glorious and exciting, non?

Just one more instance, otherwise this navel-gazing will turn into a small intestine exam, I decided - on a whim - to fill in all the blanks from my Lesigny EQC 2006 paper on the morning I left for rain-drowned Shropshire and tried to find a Czech city with a chess tourney, a steeplechase and a birthing place for goaltender Dominik Hasek (it's Pardubice; never even bloody heard of it ... all those damn anonymous Eastern European cities, which aren't capitals, damn them). I hadn't seen Hasek's name since I did 500 ice hockey questions last year for a job when it merged into a kind of Brodeuroyasek confection. Luckily, Pardubice got it all crystallised and, um, stuff.

Thus, it all balances out. Although if I had looked at the 2004 WQC paper in the last week, and because it would have been just enough, I wouldn't have beat my head (in a metaphorical fashion against a wall made of pure metaphor) for at least 10 minutes about the Kuril Islands. The other 35 or so head-beating minutes were taken up by Jelinek and that other easy thing I cannot recall even now. Blast it to hell.

Fourth was good, fourth is contentment, only ... I could have gone one better (which is what everybody else in the entire room could say, with the brilliant exception of Kevin). But there's always next year ... and the rest of our lives! (And suddenly, a note of reality-suffused depression brings us mighty low)(more brackets)

QLL Quiz Rally Note
Seven days later ... I usually come ninth and I came *drum roll* ninth, which had been 11th until I dared to do a query and gave a viable alternative name for the Portland Vase (the nice Italian name I can remember thanks to its foreignness and more numerous syllables). So how could I be disappointed? I mean, I actually got questions about The Goon Show, Bassenthwaite Lake, Alfred Wainwright, Rock of Ages, and the Gavotte right. There was a time when such questions would have made me all weep in my juvenile impotence, but the years, which roll towards me like relentless Indiana Jones boulders in my private world of rocky and hard metaphors, are gradually accommodating me with the answers I need to finish ... NINTH ... again. Let's say I will be in true toppermost contention in about 25 years time. That's a decent time-scale.

But, seriously, I am beginning to apprectiate Donald's questions more and more (especially, the ones on science, which I really liked for a nebulous reason or two), as well as find them increasingly interesting.

They are well-crafted and shine a light on subjects, e.g. the finer points of English poetry, rugby football rules, engineering, plumbing (I think) and train engines, that I never think to give a single glance in all the 364 days before the quiz. And because of the huge volume of quizzes I do every year, the ones which are shaded differently tend to stand out more. The Clockwork Quiz is a great example, the Quiz Rally equally so because - and for radically different reasons to Leuven, as you might guess - it makes for a great alternative challenge, what with the time limits and bonus-penalties thingameejigs.

If all quizzes were the same with the same predictable topics and focus, we'd just be bored to death. Change is good. Qualification: In certain proportions. I think the three preceding sentences may well be packed with platitudinous garbage, but still, do ya get me?

Plus, it was nice to see Pat - the Victor Ludorum of the day - and Barry add their names to an already scarily good field this year. Even if they gave me a right old slapping (must be the sense of rebound vengeance propelling them from the WQC a week before; we're all fighting long, attritional conflicts against each other, if you think about it).

Wait, I was meant to write about the Big Thing. Just a few moments...

Bah

2009-05-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

So busy. So tired

I went and got my annual job - my neat inversion of the holiday thing everyone else has - and it has resulted in everything else coming to a grinding standstill. All my footlooses and fancies free momentarily stopped while I commute the hell out of myself (though at least I have got back into the obsessive novel consumption habit that grips me whenever I find myself spending four hours on the train every day).

Thus, I have resigned myself to only doing one Shadow Paper. Work has swallowed up the brainspace I allowed for the other. God, I'm even too tired to type ... st ... uff . Eyes closeeeng.

More to czzzzzzzzzzzzz

Confession

2009-04-15T10:24:00.000-07:00

Almost forgot to reveal my shame to a wider public

Guess what I got a question wrong on last night? Think Mastermind specialist subjects. Think the Caribbean.

And it wasn't how many wickets did Vanburn Holder get in the 1976 series. It was ... struggling to get this out ... ugh ... urrghhh ... (these are not pervy sex grunts by the way, more pained groaning caused by a lingering and genuine psychological wound) just one more ... yeoowaarrgh ... it was ... in which Caribbean capital is the Queen's Park cricket ground? ... and I said ... BRIDGETOWN! ... ye gods ... BRIDGETOWN ... bridgetown ...

Of course, it was Port of Spain. Of course, of course. The nanosecond after the craptastic answer was expelled from my mouth, I said: "That's the Kensington Oval!" Like an absolute muffing slop-tongued tosshead.

I have to face up to the stark truth. I have been rendered incapable of answering questions on cricket of any standard in a competitive quiz environment. Mastermind has killed something deep inside, something cricket-related. The chair does things to you.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

(If you would like OTT melodrama in future posts please signal your approval by some means. I don't know. A red rescue flare?* Thank you for reading this gunk)

*If I'd known The Inbetweeners was being filmed 400 metres from MY HOUSE, I would have gone down to the river and done some serious rubbernecking. Rubbernecking, like you've never seen. You better believe it.

Nice

2009-04-15T07:49:00.000-07:00

FA Cup Analogy Headline Failure

So we have made it to only our second ever All London Cup. For that we can partly thank other teams who overcame the sides with humungous handicap start scores in earlier rounds (and, er, us not winning the league and having that important two-point advantage. Slim mercies indeed). We have managed to play teams who have been within a manageable reach of 10-14 points or thereabouts.

Still, the handicap ensured that it got rather hairy at the end last night, what with it being 51-51 and my having to answer the last, crucial question on Annie Get Your Gun. Now, given that the song titles were the most obvious ('Anything You Can Do' etc), this was straightforward enough, no, really shockingly straightforward, and if I got it wrong, oh lordy, would I give myself a right old face-punching.

But having just finished a second season marathon of Deadwood only hours before and seen Robin Weigert do her stuff as the ultra-profane, dipsomaniac filthmonger Calamity Jane in such a brilliant fashion that the performance and colourful expletives had been embedded in my mind and was doing a highlight reel at regular intervals -"that burnt ma snatch!" the sewer-mouthed scuzzbucket says jumping out of the first bath she's probably had in 20 years - so it got me a bit confused. Because I could have sworn before this very moment (checking on IMDB) that Doris Day was in Annie Get Your Gun, twirling her Colts while flashing her candyfloss smile, when in fact that was Betty Hutton and Miss Kappelhoff played Martha Jane Cannary-Burke.

Thankfully, the Calamity Jane fusillade of f-bombs only lasted for about 1.23 seconds and I went with Annie, thus ensuring our defeat of Barb 54-51. There, I got there. Finally.

But let us take a minute and reminisce about the first ever cup final we got to and say the words of pain: "hansom cab". Hansom. Cab. As ye who are not aware of what transpired that night, just look at the honour roll and see that we lost. All those years ago (sweet Jesus! 2003-2004!! Has it been that long? And if it has been why can't I get league staples like wedding anniversaries right? Oh I know why. Because they're so boring I would rather try and shovel a Chupa Chup up both nostrils with outstanding violence than diligently sit down and learn them and yield to the listology). What it didn't say was that we lost in the most agonising way possible, with the three-point turnaround on the very last question (what is it with me and "last questions"? They flock to me and torture me so).

Jesse was saying that he was in the BHs at the time, which was weird because he wasn't. I am sure Stainer found him (or maybe, hunted him down, like a sort of trivia-driven bloodhound, as is his recruiting M.O.) in a pub AFTER our sickening disaster in that cup final (oh why oh why did I pass? Was it safe? No. Gutless). It's been five years, though. We should do slightly better. Maybe.

Mildly Insane Quiz Work
For some reason, like a fire in my gut that must be quenched with 100,000 word text files, I have been lifting questions off the Belgian quiz archives and have used Google Translate and my burgeoning Christopher Hampton skillz to knock them into readable shape. And I have to say, there is no end of brilliant, relevant stuff that can be weaponised for future battle. Also, I swear if you did it for 12 hours too, you'd think you picked up a rudimentary knowledge of Dutch vocabulary. Which is a bit worrying because surely the sponging up of words like 'naam' and 'hoofstad' results in less room for the precious GK.

I've also been cutting down the ACF Nationals 2008 questions into useful bitesize bits of quiz, rather than keep the mountain of crushing detail that has been sunk into every toss-up and bonus (except when it's a question on say, Armenia or Angola, and they've thrown a lot of interesting random stuff in there willy nilly). I have to say, yes, the academic focus is far narrower than what is required for the sort of international all-round quizzing that I engage in, but the questions are absolutely, positively, the hardest in the world.

They could make you weep like Niagara if you were of a fair and brittle disposition. I hadn't seriously read them for about 2 and a half years, and I naively thought that my deeper GK had been built up to make me at least feel substantially more at ease with, say, the literature and history. I was wrong. Even going over toss-ups on novels I've read, and the exultant electic pop that an answer makes in your head when you just know you know didn't come until I'd got to the last line but three with Ragtime and and the final line(!!) of Humphrey Clinker. Or maybe I wasn't paying much attention with the Smollett. I have to say there were some great jokes in there. Pity I could remember sod all about the plot, which is what matters quiz-wise.

Only thing is standards and question content always evolve. Which means that everything gets harder, 'tis inevitable (just compare UC to yesteryear and see) and the ACF stuff has still stayed well ahead of the superficial likes of me. Mind you, listening to podcasts of actual matches from ACF Nationals (BTW, the appalling sound quality may drive you a little nuts) has assured me that there are very few of our American cousins who are superhuman UC-format masters on the ACF material. Many questions are missed and many get to the FTP line before the buzzers go off. Thus, we can all wallow in our shared feelings of slight mediocrity and smile wistfully.

Apologies for the gratuitous use of exclamation marks. It's a disease of inexpressiveness. Wait, is inexpressiveness even a word? *resists urge to go question/exclamation mark crazy*

FE:XXXXI
1. Having originated in Kongo and Angola, the dance known as bomba was brought to the place it is most associated with during the colonial slave trade. A maraca accompanies low-pitched hand drums, which create a base rhythm, while a higher pitch drum accentuates the beat with improvised patterns and sticks known as palitos and cuas that are struck against any wooden surface. Rafael Cortijo is regarded as its most famous exponent, having had mainstream success in the 50s and 60s with his “Combo”. He came from which self-governing unincorporated territory, the home of the said musical style?
2. Inspired to take up his calling after seeing Robert Motherwell's painting Elegy to the Spanish Republic, he specialised in found art collages and gave his works such generic titles as Still Life #20. Which Cincinnati pop artist’s series Great American Nude (begun 1961) first brought him to the attention of the art world?
3. It came first out of 79 breeds in Canadian psychologist Stanley Coren's 1994 book The Intelligence of Dogs, just about beating the poodle to be deemed top of the very brightest dogs. Which highly energetic British dog is also often considered the world's best sheep herding dog?
4. Its initial development was motivated by problems of statistical physics. A central aspect of the theory is the behaviour of a dynamical system when it is allowed to run long, which is expressed through theorem such as those of Birkhoff and von Neumann. Which branch of mathematics studies dynamical systems with an invariant measure and related problems?
5. Now under Turkish control, it was established in 1945 in Nuremberg by its eponymous founder. After WW2, he recognised the need in Germany for radios and in 1947 produced a kit. In 1951, the first televisions were manufactured at the new facility at Fürth and by this time it had become the largest radio manufacturer in Europe. Later it produced the Satellit 2100 radio receiver. Name this German manufacturer of consumer electronics for home entertainment.
6. The Garma Festival of Traditional Culture is an annual celebration of the 40,000-year-old cultural inheritance of the Yolngu people. In which country is it held?
7. Named for its engineer-polymath designer (1853-1939), which broadcasting tower in Moscow is a 160m-high free-standing hyperboloid structure that was built in 1919-1922 during the Russian Civil War? Its street address “Shabolovka Street, 37” gives it its informal name, the Shabolovka tower.
8. According to Egyptian mythology, this ancient city of Upper Egypt was the holy city of Osiris, who was buried there himself, as were many pharaohs. Standing 11km/6mi west of the Nile, the Greeks named it after their city on the Hellespont, while the modern Arabic name is el-‘Araba el Madfuna. Which sacred city was the site of many temples, including a Umm el-Qa’ab (‘Mother of Pots’) a necropolis of the Early Dynastic kings and the memorial temple of Seti I, which contains an inscription from the 19th dynasty known to the modern world as the “_______ King List”?
9. Though Valletta is the capital, what is the largest and most populous town on Malta and consists of four autonomous parishes: St. Helen, St. Joseph, Our Lady of the Carmel and St. Mary?
10. It is a fusion of Semba (samba’s predecessor) with the Zouk music styles from the French Caribbean styles with influences from other Lusophone countries. Famous Angolan exponents include Neide Van-Dúnem, Don Kikas, Calo Pascoal and Irmãos Verdades, and Bonga. Which dance and music style was created in late 1989 and the early 90s in Angola, but is now often regarded as Portuguese due to it being sung in Portuguese and its popularity throughout Portugal?
11. The German Prussian educator and nationalist Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852) is commonly known as Turnvater Jahn, roughly meaning the “father” of which sport?
12. Invented by the French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1796, what addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement counters the effects of gravity by escaping the escapement and balance wheel in a rotating cage in order to negate the effect of gravity when the timepiece is rotated?
13. Located in the Indonesian province of Papua, it is home to Puncak Jaya (formerly Carstensz Pyramid), the tallest mountain between the Himalayas and the Andes at 4,884m. Named for the Dutch explorer Hendrikus Albertus, who passed through the area on his 1909-10 expedition, what is the largest national park in South-East Asia?
14. Which lager brand was a soft drink manufacturer when it was incorporated on July 31, 1918 by Eugene Peter Desnoes and Thomas Hargreaves Geddes, with the first eponymous drink being brewed in the Surrey Brewery in 1928? An ale-style beverage too heavy for local tastes, the current formulation was first produced from a recipe developed by Paul H. Geddes (son of the founder) and Bill Martindale in 1938 and the modern brewery was opened at Hunt’s Bay in 1958.
15. Olympic champion in the individual sabre event at the 1968 Mexico City Games, which Polish fencer and double agent was declared the best fencer of all time by the IFF in 1967 and was arrested in 1975 and sentenced by a military court in Warsaw to 25 years’ imprisonment for committing espionage on behalf of an unnamed NATO country? It was later revealed that he had been a double agent for the CIA from 1964 and for Polish intelligence from 1950.

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Answers to FE:XXXXI
1. Puerto Rico 2. Tom Wesselmann 3. Border Collie 4. Ergodic theory 5. Grundig (named after Max Grundig) 6. Australia (Arnhem Land) 7. Shukhov radio tower (from Vladimir Shukhov) 8. Abydos 9. Birkirkara 10. Kizomba 11. Gymnastics 12. Tourbillon (meaning 'whirlwind') 13. Lorentz National Park 14. Red Stripe (brewed under license in the UK by the Bedford firm, Charles Wells) 15. Jerzy Pawlowski (1932-2005; refusing to be included in one of the spy exchanges at Berlin’s Glienicke Bridge ten years after he was jailed, he chose to remain in Poland and spent the rest of his life as a painter and faith healer)

Rejected Questions

2009-04-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

These are swap-outs from the first Shadow paper, which I've just about done. And I say, it's bloody hard work, what with it being 12,000 words long.

BH157: Alternates
1. Founded in Magdeburg in 2001, their music has been called emo, teen pop and glam rock. Which German band released both their second German-language album Zimmer 483 and their debut English album Scream in 2007 and led to them winning their first MTV Europe Music Award for Best InterAct?
2. The well-known theme music for the long-running PBS series Masterpiece Theater is the ‘Rondeau’ from Symphonies and Fanfares for the King’s Supper. Also known for his opera-ballet Les fêtes de Thalie and Le Triomphe des sens, which French composer (1682-1738) and Paris Opera orchestra director composed this signature tune?
3. This musician, a member of the International Submarine Band, The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, died at the age of 26 in a hotel room in Joshua Tree, California. A pivotal influence on country rock and alt-country, his 1973 & 1974 albums GP and Grievous Angel are often bundled together on one CD. Name him.
4. Which English pop singer had her career breakthrough in 1981 with ‘Kids in America’, but is best known in the US for her chart-topping cover of The Supremes’ hit ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’?
5. Sometimes known as the “Arabian Elvis” and el-Andaleeb el-Asmar (‘The Dark Nightingale’), which singer (1929-1977) is widely considered to be one of the four greats of Egyptian and Arabic music thanks to such songs as Ahwak (‘I Love You’), Khosara (‘A pity’) and Qariat el-Fingan (‘The Fortune-Teller’)? He also starred in Egypt’s first colour motion picture Dalilah.
6. What number gave the title of a series, which debuted on Dutch television in 1991 and originated the reality TV concept of putting strangers together in the same environment for an extended period of time and recording the resultant drama?
7. At 9,242 feet (2,817m) Phou Bia is located in Xiangkhouang Province. It is the highest point of which landlocked country?
8. Which group of Christian Anabaptists are named after a religious leader (1496-1561), who was born in the modern day Dutch province, Friesland? His writings articulated and formalised the teachings of earlier Swiss founders and there are now about 1.5 million followers worldwide.
9. Moors, Kaffirs and the Malays are ethnic communities in which island country, known as Taprobane in ancient times?
10. Which Russian anarchist communist organisation, whose English name means ‘The Black Banner’ (as in the black flag used as a symbol of anarchism in Russia) emerged as a federation of cadres in 1903 and was the largest and most conspicuous collection of anarchist terrorists in Imperial Russia?
11. Designed by Santiago Calatrava from a 1993 commission, Oriente Station is a transport terminus that serves which European capital?
12. Used by an average of 3.64 million people per day, what is the world’s busiest train station in terms of passenger throughput? Its nearest rival is another Tokyo station, Ikebukuro, which is used by an average 2.71 million per day.
13. Currently numbering about 750, the Batek or Bateq – their name meaning ‘original people’ - are an indigenous group who live in the rainforest of which Asian country?
14. The principal sources of its basic vocabulary were the six (at the time) most widely spoken languages: Mandarin, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. Which constructed, syntactically unambiguous human language based on predicated logic was created by the Logic Language Group in 1987, its predecessor being Loglan, the original logical language created by James Cooke Brown?
15. Opened in 2004, the Chanel Tower was designed by New York-based architect Peter Marino. The largest retail space for the eponymous French fashion house, it is found in which capital city?
16. Affecting blood flow to the extremities (the fingers, toes, nose and ear) when exposed to cold temperatures or in response to psychological stress, which vascular disorder is name for Maurice _______ (1834-1881), the French physician who first described it in 1862?
17. Popularised by Professor Vernor Vinge, what two-word term is given to the theoretical future point that takes place during a period of unprecedented technological progress sometime after the creation of a Superintelligence, its name coming from an analogy between the breakdown of modern physics near a certain type of location and the drastic change in society that may occur following an intelligence explosion?
18. A colourless, odourless, viscous liquid widely used in pharmaceutical formulations, which chemical compound – also known as trihydroxypropane – is produced on saponification and is a 10% by-product of biodiesel production via the transesterification of vegetable oils or animal fats?
19. Classified as a pepo by botanists (a special type of berry with a thick outer wall or rind formed from hypanthium tissue fused to the exocarp), its name generally refers to four species of the genus Curcubita, which is native to Mexico and Central America. Also called marrows depending on variety or the nationality of the speaker, which plant is divided into summer and winter types, the latter including butternut, Hubbard, spaghetti and pumpkin?
20. Discovered in 1841 by botanist William D. Brackenridge, the carnivorous California Pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica) has what alternative name due to the resemblance of its tubular leaves to a rearing snake, complete with a yellow or purplish-green forked leaf, which resembles fangs or a serpent’s tongue?
21. Lasting from 1905 to 1907, the Maji Maji Rebellion was a violent uprising by indigenous Africans against colonial rule in which German colony of German East Africa?
22. Different methods are called “shuttle” and “needle”. The term for it in most European languages is derived from French frivolité, which refers to the purely decorative nature of textiles produced by this technique. What is the technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace constructed by a series of knots and loops called?
23. One of the most influential modern Chinese-language novelists, he co-founded and became the first editor-in-chief of the Hong Kong daily paper Ming Pao in 1959. Born Louis Cha, he wrote 14 novels in the Wuxia genre, which have been translated into Korean, English, Japanese, French, Vietnamese, Burmese and Thai. What is the pen-name of the author of such novels as The Book and the Sword (1955), Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain (1959) and Sword of the Yue Maiden (1972)?
24. This man has played various English-language parts, appearing in Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen, Elizabeth, Eastern Promises and Guest House Paradiso. In his native France, his breakthrough role was that of Vinz in Le Haine and he has since gone on to star in L’Appartement, Irreversible and Dobermann. Which actor won the 2009 Cesar for Best Actor for playing the bank-robbing title role in Mesrine?
25. It has been called the tallest sea cliff in Europe and the world’s second tallest in many books and brochures, although at least two European cliffs (Preikestolen in Norway and Slieve League in Ireland) are higher. Situated less than 2km from the town of Camara de Lobos, which lofty sea cliff rises from 560 to 589 above sea level on the southern coast of the island of Madeira?

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Answers to BH157
1. Tokio Hotel 2. Jean-Joseph Mouret 3. Gram Parsons 4. Kim Wilde 5. Abdel Halim Hafez or Abdel Halim Ismail Shabana 6. 28 (it was titled Nummer 28) 7. Laos 8. Mennonites (from Menno Simons) 9. Sri Lanka 10. Chernoe Znamia 11. Lisbon 12. Shinjuku Station 13. Malaysia 14. Lojban 15. Tokyo 16. Raynaud’s disease 17. Technological singularity 18. Glycerol or glycerine 19. Squash 20. Cobra lily or Cobra plant 21. Tanganyika 22. Tatting 23. Jin Yong 24. Vincent Cassel 25. Cabo Girão

Random Question Dumping

2009-04-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

Just to clarify, message me via my username, thereby plonking your request for info etc in my inbox on the Quizzing site. Or leave a message in the comments box and I'll try and find your email address from my computer banks. Ta very much. In the meantime...

FE:XXXX
1. What five-letter word, with other uses, was used by Immanuel Kant to describe a subjective principle or rule that the will of an individual uses in making a decision?
2. Which German Expressionist painter and Die Brucke founder produced the 11-work series “Berlin Street Scenes” between 1913 and 1915?
3. Which Caribbean island shares its name with the vessel that was the flagship of the five ships, the others being San Antonio, Concepción, Santiago and Victoria, that set out on an expedition in 1519? The Victoria was, of course, the only one to circumnavigate the globe.
4. Which country’s name is traditionally said to derive from the Spanish pronunciation of “Wallace”, the name of the pirate who set up the first settlement there in 1638, though another possibility relates the name to a Maya word meaning ‘muddy water’?
5. Sights include the Museum of Mining (Hornické muzeum) and the Beneš Wall, a line of garrison fortifications similar to the Maginot Line. Nicknamed the “steel heart of the republic”, it is home to the football team FC Vitkovice and a namesake ice hockey team and is served by Leos Janáček Airport. The administrative centre of the Moravian-Silesian Region, what is the third largest city of the Czech Republic?

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Answers to FE:XXXX
1. Maxim 2. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner 3. Trinidad 4. Belize 5. Ostrava

Oh

2009-04-05T12:03:00.001-07:00

This might explain a few things

I've been having problems accessing thegiantquiz@gmail.com for about a month, so please try and get me via the Quizzing website messaging thingymejob if you have demanded something I owe you, like quizzes.

Nearing the Season's End

2009-04-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

This Month's Blog

(Nah, they'll be more regular this month, me promise)

Howdy. Second seems to be the theme of the last two months: President's Cup, QLL and yesterday's Rochester GP (it's always nice to have them in the south-east, even if the vagaries of our nation's rail system means that it still took me three hours to get there), and I will elaborate on them further when I have the time, or, if I can get out of the strange habit of watching four films a day at the moment. This may have something to do with my renewing my LOVEFiLM subscription and deciding to watch all those DVDs I have neglected to watch, despite buying them and freeing them from their plasticky sheaths. Then, as a bit of an off-shoot from the current cinemania, there's my film blog idea - a movie a day in 100 sterling, sarky words and bewildering neologisms - which is gestating, like the parasite inside lovely (in a weird way) Lizzy Caplan's stomach in Cloverfield. Though I have started and abandoned a half-dozen blogs nobody knows about anyway over the past five years. They be lost in the cyber-seas.

And, of course, once I find the parcel of Norwegian Giant papers I have misplaced (don't fret: they're not lost and neither are their scores, I just need them for confirmation and reasons of mild paranoia when I finally publish), the results will be finally unleashed upon a slightly annoyed by now - and I wouldn't blame you - participants.

Papers for Sale
However, I have been working on two Shadow Papers. Replete with original, brand spanking new 240 questions each and - shock, horror - even photographic pictures, they'll be ready for anyone who wishes to dish out £5 per paper (so let's say May 6).

Yep, I'm out to make a fast buck, but 'tis my trade after all and I can assure you of their high quality (you know my form ... but I utterly deny writing The Wire q for the Brain of London qualifier, so don't be pigeonholing me with cries of "that's a [TQG] question!"), even though I haven't actually written them yet.

However, I won't be running them as a competition (ha ha, he says to himself in light of aforementioned stuff and many an apologetic post) and will be handing you the answers at the same time. I'm not so sure about sending them out electronically, due to the ease of forwarding emails and attached files, so might have to stick on a bit of postage and paper/ink costs to the above fee, if I don't see you in the run-up face-to-face.

Anyway, they're coming, so that's something to look forward to, aside from the consequences of the economic apocalypse that are still in the post, I suppose.