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by John Nolan

Back to the front: answers

June 20, 2011 in Movies, Quizzes

Here endeth the post created last Thursday, Back to the front.  My apologies for the delay in posting the answers.  I feel as if I am in the plot of a Richard Curtis movie as, within the last two months, I have been at four weddings.  Well, the fourth of those took place last weekend and it knocked me out of my ol’ routine.  Heck, even my little Friday podcast was only uploaded this morning.

I mentioned last week that this month’s Kelly’s movie quiz was won by ‘Things to do in John Denver when you’re dead’. And well done to them.  They almost pulled off a clean sweep of the available prizes but were beaten to the top spot in the ‘Best Team Name’ competition, as voted for by audience applause, by the (hopefully) inaccurately named ‘Three Men and a Massive Slut’.  Mind you, the team was made up of a 3:1 male-female ratio…

The poster included in the previous post was from the 1978 film, The Wild Geese.  It was the only one of the ‘Photoshopped Posters’ round that eluded us.  I must check it out sometime, it has quite the cast.

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by John Nolan

Back to the front

June 16, 2011 in Movies, Quizzes

One of the beauties of table quizzing is that it’s rare you feel you are the cause of your team’s defeat.  However, on Monday last, that unfortunate “honour” landed on my shoulders.

We have become the ‘playoff’ team as, apart from the first movie quiz three months ago, we’ve always been involved in a tie-breaker for some position or another.  Three months ago we won the opening quiz but, since then, it’s been a playoff for third, a playoff for second and, this month, a playoff for third once more.

Mike is our star man when it comes to movies and it had been only right that he was our nominee for those previous playoffs.  However, on Monday night, perhaps lacking the motivation to compete for a slab of beer (which we found difficult to give away, when we won it a few months back), he deferred.  Consensus was that I should be the man to approach the stage…

There I met Luke, the other team’s representative.  He looked about as up for this as I did – and I don’t even drink beer.  “OK,” Dave the quizmaster told us, “we’re going to play another piece of music.  The winner is the person who identifies it first.”

On came the music. After about 10 seconds I looked at my opponent.  He shrugged his shoulders, indicating that I wasn’t the only one who HADN’T A CLUE what it was. “Alright,” says Dave, “let’s try another one.”

After another 10 seconds, myself and Luke had become impromptu comrades in this crucible of embarrassment.  This second tune was (apparently) much easier as people in the crowd were now hurling invective in our general direction.  Invective which said ‘Ah come on. This one’s EASY…”  Still, Luke and I just stood there.

David on the mic was getting a bit impatient. “I’m going to run out of questions soon!” he told us.

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by John Nolan

The late Peter Murphy

June 9, 2011 in Back in the day, Culture, Quiz Show

My own copy of a Peter Murphy quiz book

The death occurred on Friday last of Peter Murphy.  He was 88.  Some remember him as the the host of Landmark, RTÉ‘s farming programme, which ran from the 1960s to the 1980s.  Others remember him as the host of Cross Country Quiz, a county-versus-county quiz on Irish TV.  Yet more will have one of his 14 published quiz books on their shelves.  But, for me, he was the man who compiled the Quizword in the Sunday Independent for the past 20 years.

Quizword, a crossword whose clues are trivia questions, is a shared passion for me, my mother and, on the other side of the fence, my father-in-law.  Every Sunday for the past indefinable number of years, I have assisted one with its completion and then done my best to give gentle hints to the other later on in the day.  I can only hope that the ‘Sindo’ will keep it going but the worry persists that, even if they do, it will never be the same.

Peter Murphy only took up creating the Quizword after he had retired from a very active life as both a farming organiser (with Macra na Feirme and the IFA) and TV and radio star.  A noted public speaker in his youth, he became the voice of authority on all things trivia after landing the role as host of Cross Country Quiz, the most popular quiz program on RTÉ, Ireland’s sole TV station at the time.

From that point on, he was always willing to travel the byroads and highways of Ireland, acting as guest quiz master for almost every event that contacted him and asked.

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by John Nolan

World Quizzing Championships 2011

June 6, 2011 in Quizzes

The 2011 World Quizzing Championships took place on Saturday last, June 4.  The event was held in 79 venues, spread across 32 countries.  Alas, there wasn’t a heat in Ireland – the nearest was in the UK.  As luck would have it, myself and my long-term quiz buddy Mike were in England at the weekend for the wedding of our old friend Patrick to his fiancé Ruth.

Sure, it took almost two hours to drive from Leeds, where the wedding was on, to Lichfield, where the quiz took place.  But, again luckily, the wedding wasn’t until 4pm so we managed to fit everything into a very packed day.  We set off at 9am and arrived in Lichfield just before 11.  The quiz itself takes the form of an exam.  Paper 1 started at 11:30am and took one hour.  As we were running to a tighter schedule than everybody else, we were allowed to start Paper 2 pretty promptly and ended up finishing up around 1:50 pm.

However, even then, we couldn’t get on the road straight away as I got nabbed for an interview with Adam, a journalist from The Sunday Telegraph.  Never the shyest, I couldn’t resist this albeit I did bring the interview to a close at about 2.05pm.  After that it was into a garage for some crisps and a Mars bar before getting back onto the motorway. We made it to Leeds just before 4pm and were in our seats a good 10 minutes before the bride arrived! 😉

So, what was it like?  Well, you’re talking quizzing royalty here.  For instance, I bumped into Kevin Ashman as I walked down the corridor in the direction of the toilets! I was hoping to have a word with Pat Gibson, probably Ireland’s greatest ever quizzer and the reigning champion, but unfortunately our paths didn’t cross.  In fact, due to our hurried circumstances, we didn’t really get a chance to talk to anyone, except those who were beside and opposite us at our exam table.  These were Roderick Cromar, a Scottish gent in his 50s, and Jesse Honey, an English guy (with an unforgettable name!) who was around our age, that is to say early 30s.  These guys were very welcoming and friendly.  They were also a little surprised that this was our first event on the quizzing ‘circuit’.  That we had decided to dive right in at the deep end was the summation of their reaction.

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by John Nolan

The song remains the same: answers

June 6, 2011 in Quizzes

I will be putting up two blog posts today as I’ve had a very notable weekend, quiz-wise.

However, there’s no point putting the cart before the horse.  Some of you are waiting on the answers from last Friday’s post, The song remains the same, and I will put those online first.

A funny thing happened last Thursday night at the quiz.  When we were asked “What is the largest lake in the Republic of Ireland?” debate ensued between proponents of two answers: Lough Corrib and Lough Ree.  Someone came up with a genius solution: “Let’s pop outside and look at the map on the wall.”  Our pub, The Corner Bar, does indeed feature a large map on its gable wall.

So, off our intrepid researcher went.  He came back in about 10 seconds.  “Erm, it’s just a map of Mayo!”

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by John Nolan

The song remains the same

June 3, 2011 in Podcast, Quizzes

This time last year*, The Corner Bar team scored 88/100 in the Ballyhaunis Inter-pub quiz.  A good score you’d think.  However, it turned out that our efforts were nowhere near good enough as the winners got 99 points.

Believe or not, the exact same scenario was played out again last night when we emulated our score of last year.  And, yet again, it turned out we were 11 points behind the winner.  Winners, actually, as there was a tie at the top.  Paddy Phillip’s and The Hazel had to go through an extra round before the former was declared the winner.

The winning score in this round was never announced so I can’t say how close our 7/10 was.  Not that it matters, of course.  Our 88/100 was only good enough to finish third-last in the field of 12!

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