by John Nolan
November 26, 2010 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
Here are the answers to the questions I posted yesterday in Faster than a speeding bullet.
There’ll be more posts over the weekend as I’m off out quizzing tonight. Huzzah!
And introducing a new feature…
Things I learned at this quiz (but my team-mates already knew):
by John Nolan
November 25, 2010 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
This week’s Tuesday night trip to Gilligan’s, Claremorris, saw a noteworthy moment in my own quizzing history. It wasn’t just that I got back to winning ways, or that we scored 98 points (out of 110). No, what’s noteworthy is that it was probably the biggest margin of victory I’ve ever enjoyed: 14 points!
That’s right, at the final whistle our nearest challengers had scored 84. Would that every quiz could be this relaxing… 
In truth, it’s just that the random allocation of team-mates fell kindly for me this week. I got another John, who’s been there every week so far, Eddie (who was on the team that came second in the Ballyhaunis Inter-Pubs) and comeback girl Thérese, making her first appearance since March. I doubt we’ll ever be put together again!
by John Nolan
November 23, 2010 in Quizzes, Rehab
Following on from yesterday’s photographic treat, here are the answers to those questions from last Friday’s Rehab All-Ireland Quiz final.
As Mike mentioned in Sunday’s post, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh is a host par excellance. He supervised the giving out of a spot prize at every gap between the rounds. Nothing novel about that you’ll say but, in this case, prizes could only be claimed by knowing the answer to a question dreamt up by the man himself. He does have a talent for coming up with tiny links between questions and GAA trivia and most of the questions followed this template. On one occasion however, he outdid himself and pretty much gave away the answer to one of the actual questions from the previous round, well before the collectors had completed their duty.
The question (in the round) had been “In which sport does a team have to travel 2.5 metres to win?”
At the end of the round, Mícheál then offered a spot prize to the first person who could tell him who was the first man to have an All-Ireland winner’s medal and an Olympic gold medal. ”And I think it was actually for tug-of-war, funnily enough.” Cue groans from the teams that had already written said answer down.
by John Nolan
November 22, 2010 in Quizzes, Rehab
Thanks very much to my team-mate Mike for taking care of yesterday’s blog post. His blog was entertaining and told the tale perfectly. Curse you, ‘Name the Year‘ round!
I’ll be posting the answers to the featured questions later. In the meantime, I’ve included a rarity on tablequiz.net: a gallery of photos!
Click ‘Continue…’ to check them out.
by Mike Coyne
November 21, 2010 in Quizzes, Rehab
John’s away this week, so Mike here to give a brief account of Friday’s All-Ireland Table Quiz final.
I’m sure Eamonn Coghlan could tell it in an interviewer’s face when the question approaches: “Tell us about when you finished fourth in the Olympics”. Gentleman that he is, he no doubt responds with a smile and a query: “Are you referring to the 1500 meters in 1976 or the 5000 meters in 1980?” Fourth place stings. Fifth? Sound. “You were off the pace. It wasn’t your day.” Sixth? “Ah, sure you tried your best?” This gentle intro has no doubt informed you that John, Dave, Shelly and I finished fourth on Friday night. Chronological order be damned: stick the important fact up front. If the scoreboard is to be believed, we’re the best quiz team in Galway (West of the Shannon, even), but we were pipped to the cash prizes. More about that in a while.
First up, it was an enjoyable quiz, with Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh pretty much an ideal quizmaster. How he managed to connect a question about the Indian Ocean (and many more besides) to a random bit of GAA trivia was quite an achievement. Such tangents have not been seen since Bugs Bunny missed that left turn at Albuquerque and ended up in ancient Rome. It was a fairly brisk ten rounds of six questions, all posted up on the big screen: a presentation tool that we’d recommend for every big quiz, especially when hosting duties are delegated to Mumblor the Magnificient. The standard of questions was pretty high, as the few we missed should suggest, as were the contestants. I don’t recall at what stage I looked at the scoreboard – again, very professionally done and often updated – but there were 23 teams within three points of the leaders!
by John Nolan
November 19, 2010 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
Not the victim of pirates.
It’s the day of the All-Ireland Table Quiz final and I’ll all a-flutter.
However, I must do as a I promised and post up the answers to the questions I included in yesterday’s article.
I hope you got them all right. After all, you had way more time than I had!
by John Nolan
November 18, 2010 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
Another Tuesday, another visit to Gilligan’s Pub, Claremorris. It’s the nature of this quiz to combine random teams with a random quizmaster, so one’s experience can vary radically from week to week. I’ve had a great time there on my first two nights. Unfortunately, this week’s quiz wasn’t as enjoyable – for a number of reasons.
Before I get to them, I also have to admit that I don’t know if I was on the winning team this week. To explain, I received a phone call from my better half just before the start of the last round, telling me that our daughter wasn’t well and asking me to hurry home. I explained this to my team-mates and quickly looked over the final round (pictures, see below) with them before dashing out the door. We had been in second place at half-way and I don’t think we had an exceptional second half so I doubt we were in the winners’ enclosure. Then again, you never know!
Our quizmaster (quizmistress actually) was freshly returned from a holiday in Spain and she certainly had recharged the batteries. She flew through each round. Round one kicked off out of the blue, so much so that we didn’t even have a pen. By the time we’d hurriedly got one it was already question four!
by John Nolan
November 12, 2010 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
“Two parts of the eye were discussing who told better puns. The debate raged on, ’til one said to the other, ‘You, my friend, are simply the pupil. I am by far the cornea of the two of us.’…”
Boom, and indeed, boom.
Getting back to the point of the blog, after a day of ‘batten down the hatches‘, I now have the time to post the answers to the questions I posted on Wednesday.
Eye hope you weren’t blinded by …. [I need to stop it. Seriously!]
