by John Nolan
January 27, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
Good day all. Here are the answers to the questions posed in yesterday’s post, Snooker loopy.
Apologies to anyone who saw yesterday’s post within the first hour as you’ll probably be surprised to see 16 answers below. The original version of the post only included 14, as the other two were hidden around the back of my note-taking device.
At least that’s proof I don’t take my iPhone out during quizzes… 
by John Nolan
January 26, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
The theme in this week’s quiz at Gilligan’s Bar, Claremorris, was clearly snooker. How else could one explain almost 10% of the questions being on that one sport?
Ok, one could suggest that the quizmaster sat down to write his questions during the recent Masters Tournament from Wembley Arena but I’m not going to do that. 
As it was, we got more than half them right, so I probably shouldn’t complain.
18 people took part this week, so the natural thing to do was six teams of three. I was with Kathleen, who had been on my team on my first night there, and Ann, who asked the questions two weeks ago.
by John Nolan
January 24, 2011 in Quiz Show
Trivia is a six-part comedy-drama series, which starts on RTÉ One on February 3. In the build-up to the first episode, I had a chat with writer Damien Owens about the show and his own quiz experiences.
Damien Owens is a writer of many talents. The author of four published books, he even writes Chick Lit under a cunningly ambiguous pseudonym. Trivia, which explores the relationships between the four members of a table quiz team, is his first TV show.
So what gave him the idea for the show?
“I had the idea for the lead character, Lawrence, first. He’s basically just an exaggerated version of myself. He’s obsessed with learning trivia. I wanted him to have a crazy goal and I hit upon the idea that he’d want to win the table quiz in his local pub for 52 weeks in a row – a full year. No-one else even knows he’s doing it but, to him, it’s the most important thing in the world.”
by John Nolan
January 20, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
Here are the answers to the questions posted yesterday in Yeoutch!
It wasn’t all doom and gloom at Tuesday night’s quiz. I’ve previously mentioned Aiden’s amazing ability to pluck seemingly impossible answers from his memory. This week he didn’t disappoint.
by John Nolan
January 19, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes
Last weekend I felt old. This week I feel stupid.
The quizmaster at last night’s Tuesday Quiz Night in Gilligan’s was Elaine. She was a noteworthy host for two reasons:
If my posting of questions I got wrong is the thing you find most interesting on the site, well, congratulations – you’re going to enjoy a bumper crop today!
I had felt pretty good about my chances. The random draw had put me on the same team as Aiden, the sauvante from a memorable night last Autumn. We also had Austin and Catherine on our team, a couple from Ballyhaunis who were making their debuts. They seemed keen.
Alas, at the end we’d only scored 67/100. This was still good enough for third place! Even the winners didn’t do too much better, scoring 73. 73% is a low score to win a quiz IMHO.
by John Nolan
January 17, 2011 in Quizzes
After a day’s delay, here are the answers to the questions posed in Saturday’s post: Time waits for no man. Before I get to that, I’d like to tell you about two questions we managed to get right on the night.
Firstly, one I was quite proud of. “What was the name of the baby in the film ‘Three men and a baby‘?” From some deep, deep hidden memory of watching the film in school (presumably in religion class) I plucked an answer.
“How sure are you?” my team-mates asked.
“Not at all… but it’s not as if we have anything else.” Well, I was right as it turned out!*
From the sublime to the ridiculous, the other noteworthy question is possibly the easiest I’ve ever heard: “A new terminal was opened in Dublin Airport recently. By what name is it known?”
This one nearly stumped us, as we spent about five minutes over-thinking it. Was there a trick to it? Had the terminal been named in honour of someone? How had we missed it, if so? Surely this question couldn’t be as simple as it appeared?
Well, it turned out to be as simple as it appeared.**
by John Nolan
January 16, 2011 in Back in the day, Quiz Show
On Friday night, Theresa Lowe, the former host of RTÉ quiz show Where in the World?, appeared on The Late Late Show with her husband, pianist and former political candidate, Frank McNamara. This appearance had a direct effect on this site as over 400 people visited between 9.30pm and midnight, brought here by this post.
Great for tablequiz.net, to be sure, but what lies behind this surge in interest?
Well, thanks to the WordPress system’s thorough statistics, we can actually see what search engine terms lead people to wash up on the site.
by John Nolan
January 15, 2011 in Quizzes
I feel old. In a quizzing sense, that is.
Last night I hooked up with Ger, his sister Marie and brother-in-law Willie and took part in the Claremorris GAA Club quiz. It was our first outing as a group since our epic triple overtime win last April so we felt confident. However, it wasn’t to be.
The reason for our defeat was quite plain: the music round. Nothing in the world of quizzing makes you feel aged more than listening to some modern tunes and being totally baffled by them. It’s one thing to think “Oh yeah, what is that one?” and spend some minutes trying to drag the song title from the depths of your brain. It’s totally disheartening though to listen to a track and not have a single flicker of recognition.
Unfortunately, the music round was worth 20 points (one each for title and artist) and, being the only such round on the night, meant that doing badly here was doubly punishing. We scored 12/20, with the eventual winners getting 20. Their not-so-secret weapon was a teenage daughter.
I need my own little girl to grow up fast!
