Right, as trailed at the end of my earlier post, here is a list of my plans for the future of the site – and perhaps for quizzing in Ireland.  I know that probably sounds a bit grandiose but read on. Judge me afterwards.

I drew up this to-do list over the Christmas holidays:

• Enter the Pioneer Superbrain competition.  Alas this one is already a non-runner.  I got in contact with Michael Keane, Chairman of the Association’s National Leisure Committee, and it turns out that the competition is no longer open to non-members of the PTAA. It used to be open to all comers but the rule was changed in 2009.  Unfortunately, their website hadn’t been updated to reflect this (it will be now).  Anyway, I’m afraid I’m no Pioneer, so that’s the end of this particular road.
• Report on Mastermind Ireland. Well, it is happening.  I had a chat with one of the production staff involved in the show. It is due to be filmed during the month of March.  If you were hoping to give it a shot, I’m afraid you’re probably out of luck*.  It’s going to be Celebrity Mastermind.
• Enter the Scór quiz.  This is happening.  I’ve been in contact with Hugh, the local GAA club’s Scór organiser, and he’s keen on my taking part. It will be happening from mid-February on.  I’ll keep you informed.
• Host an Irish heat of the World Quizzing Championship. I’ve volunteered to be the organiser of an Irish heat for the World Quizzing Championships.  This event happens in June each year with quizzes taking place in several venues throughout the world on the same day (32 countries last year).  I’d hope to have an event in a central, easy-to-reach location.  Whether that will be Dublin, Athlone or Limerick Junction, I haven’t decided yet. If anyone would like to help out (or take part in the discussion over venues), please mail me at quizmaster@tablequiz.net.
• Set up an Irish quiz federation.  Our trip to Bruges last November was put together in a very ad-hoc fashion. We were willing to go and they were glad to have us.  There is no Irish quiz body which can select an Irish team to travel to such an event.  Up to last year, one could have selected one based on the results of the Rehab All-Ireland table quiz.  Alas, that has gone now. So let’s get a group together and fill this vacancy.  A volunteer body which could organise national quizzing championships for both individuals and teams and also nominate (and perhaps even fund, all going well) a team or teams to travel to the European championship. I had figured I’d get the wheels rolling on this right away.  I’ve since reconsidered and now think that perhaps the evening of the Irish heat of the World Champs would be the best time for an inaugural meeting.  Surely, we’ll have more Irish quizzers in the one place that night than on any other?! Again, if you’d like to contribute, contact me on quizmaster@tablequiz.net.
• Return to the European Quizzing Championship. If things go to plan with the previous point, I guess I’ll have to try and qualify!

* I say “probably” but perhaps I’m discounting the site’s heretofore silent celebrity readership?

I don’t have anything else to tell you… so let’s get on with it!

Questions we missed:

1. Name the two students who won the 2012 BT Young Scientist & Technology Award last week. A> Eric Doyle and Mark Kelly
2. What is the largest lake in Great Britain? A> Loch Lomond
3. Who played Louise in the movie Thelma & Louise? A> Susan Sarandon
4. Which is Japan’s second-largest city? A> Osaka *
5. Which river forms part of the border between England and Scotland? A> Tweed
6. The space shuttle programme came to an end in July 2011. Which shuttle completed that final flight? A> Atlantis
7. Who was the first Irish person to win the Noble Prize for Literature? A> William Butler Yeats
8. What is the fourth largest country in the world, both in terms of area and population? A> USA **
9. What is the name of the second-highest peak in the Alps? A> Monte Rosa
10. What is the name for a female ferret? A> Jill
11. Who played the Toymaker in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? A> Benny Hill
12. What flag is traditionally flown by a ship that is about to leave port? A> Blue Peter
13. Rickets is caused by a deficiency of which vitamin? A> D

Picture round (click to embiggen):

1. Linda Martin
2. Gary Lineker
3. Hector Ó hEochagáin
4. Bridie Gallagher
5. Davina McCall
6. John O’Donoghue
7. Justin Bieber
8. Courteney Cox
9. Seán Lemass
10. Anthony Worral Thompson
11. Arthur Griffith
12. Kate Middleton ***

Moving swiftly on, I’ll have another post up later details my plans for the site for the coming year.  Stay tuned!

Footnotes:

* A tricky one as Tokyo hasn’t officially been a city since 1943.  It has a special status: metropolis.

** There’s some contention here over the size by area list.  Both USA and China claim third place!

*** The Duchess of Cambridge was also accepted!

Not so on Tuesday night last, when I attended the weekly quiz night in Gilligan’s, Claremorris.  Question 1 it was.  The very first of what would turn out to be 104 questions.  I doubt anyone in the room got it right.  That said, the team whose answers we were marking did manage to get the first names right so perhaps I’m being quick to judge.

After that, things got considerably easier.  The winning team’s final score of 92 points making this pretty clear.  My team trailed in second, on 88.

Have a look at the questions we did miss:

1. Name the two students who won the 2012 BT Young Scientist & Technology Award last week.
2. What is the largest lake in Great Britain?
3. Who played Louise in the movie Thelma & Louise? *
4. Which is Japan’s second-largest city? **
5. Which river forms part of the border between England and Scotland?
6. The space shuttle programme came to an end in July 2011. Which shuttle completed that final flight?
7. Who was the first Irish person to win the Noble Prize for Literature? ***
8. What is the fourth largest country in the world, both in terms of area and population?
9. What is the name of the second-highest peak in the Alps?
10. What is the name for a female ferret?
11. Who played the Toymaker in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
12. What flag is traditionally flown by a ship that is about to leave port?
13. Rickets is caused by a deficiency of which vitamin?

Picture round (click to embiggen):

Alright, off ye go.

Update: answers here.

Footnotes:

* A 50/50 question we managed to get wrong.

** Watch out for this one. It’s finicky.

*** See footnote 1!

I’d like to tell you about one more unpleasant thing that happened at this quiz.

A member of a team who are, apparently, in the hunt for victory each year in this quiz copped on pretty early that we were a serious team.  This chap got in to the habit of coming by our table after each round to see how we’d got on.  We were sitting near the bar so I guess he could claim that he was (always) just on his way up for a drink but we thought his intention was clear enough – he was worried about how well we were doing.

Now, whenever I’m doing a quiz I tend to put my phone out on the table.  I don’t think there’s any need to deny that I own a phone.  Also, I’m not doing anything surreptitious with it, so what have I got to hide?  At the midway interval, your man came over to see how we’d got on with the previous round.  We told him we’d definitely missed the Italian scorer in the Premier League question below.  “Are ye sure?” he asked. “Yeah, we’ve just looked up the answer on the phone,” we told him*. He did a very dramatic ‘Tut, tut’ thing and moved on.

Anyway, so what, you’re asking.

Well, after the picture round, when we weren’t at our most ebulient, he arrives over to see how we’ve done.

“We’re out of it” we tell him. “We only got seven of them.”

“Seven?!” he said, his tone indicating that they’d done much better.  “Well, I guess ye couldn’t look them up on the phone.”

What. A. P&:<k.

Here are the answers to the picture round:

1. Marco Pantani
2. Tony Pulis
3. George Berry
4. Sid Waddell
5. Alain Roland
6. Craig Johnstone
7. Gavin Dykes
8. Roberto Mancini
9. Arsene Wenger
10. Jim McGuinness
11. Richie Burnett
12. Manuela Spinelli **
13. A Claremorris runner ***
14. Pete Warren
15. Michael Robinson
16. Henry Coyle
17. Wes Hoolahan
18. Davy Keogh (on right)

Here are the answers to the few questions I can remember:

1. Which former Olympian is now a senator? A> Eamonn Coghlan
2. The battle of Tel-el-Kebir in 1882 gave its name to which Leinster Senior League football team? A> TEK United
3. Name the only Italian player to score for five different English Premier League clubs. A> Benito Carbone
4. Who is the current Chairman of the Galway GAA county board? A> Noel Treacy
5. Kevin O’Brien set a new world record for the fastest 1-day century in Ireland’s victory over England in the Cricket World Cup last year.  How many balls did it take him to reach 100 runs? A> 50
6. Footballer Kevin Cassidy was asked to leave the Donegal panel after the publication of which book? A> This is our year
7. Name the four runners who set the world record for the 4 x 1 mile relay in Dublin on August 17, 1985. A> Eamonn Coghlan, Marcus O’Sullivan, Ray Flynn and Frank O’Meara

If you like your sport, you’ll have enjoyed that challenge.  If you don’t, well fear not, there won’t be another all-sport quiz for a long time.

Footnotes:

* Which surely proves that we hadn’t looked it up on the phone during the round. We’d have gotten it right if so.

** This is Giovanni Trapattoni’s translator, in case you’re baffled.

*** Apologies to this lady.  As I said the other day, I’ve lost my notes since the quiz.

And so it was, at the annual Claremorris AFC Sports Quiz, which took place in the Dalton Inn on the Wednesday before Christmas.  RTÉ’s Martin Carney was the host, for reasons I couldn’t fathom.  He added a little glamour to the whole occasion I guess!

It was my first time taking part in the event but I’d heard great things about it.  The questions were said to be of a very hard standard with a great variety of sporting knowledge needed to prosper.  So, being in contention throughout the night before hitting the front after round 8 would be something to be thrilled about, surely?

In quizzing, as in sport, how a result arrives dominates the memory of the result itself. Who’s more happy with a 2-2 draw – the team that lead 2-0 or the team that pulled back the two goal deficit? Yet, they both finished with the same result, didn’t they?

Alas, from such a great position, we didn’t even get a draw. Our downfall was round 9, the evening’s sole picture round. It was a bad round to struggle on. For a start, it (strangely) featured 18 pictures whereas the other rounds had all included 10 questions.  We performed terribly, and only scored 7 out of 18.

Your only hope after such a pitiful score is that everyone else found it just as hard.  Alas, that was not the case.  A couple of teams scored 15 and there were several more above 12 points.  So, when the scores were called out after round 9, we weren’t even mentioned!

Here’s that particular picture round:

I’m afraid I’ve lost my notes with the other questions we missed.  However, we missed so few, to be honest, that I think I can remember most of them.

1. Which former Olympian is now a senator?
2. The battle of Tel-el-Kebir in 1882 gave its name to which Leinster Senior League football team?
3. Name the only Italian player to score for five different English Premier League clubs.
4. Who is the current Chairman of the Galway GAA county board?
5. Kevin O’Brien set a new world record for the fastest 1-day century in Ireland’s victory over England in the Cricket World Cup last year.  How many balls did it take him to reach 100 runs?
6. Footballer Kevin Cassidy was asked to leave the Donegal panel after the publication of which book?
7. Name the four runners who set the world record for the 4 x 1 mile relay in Dublin on August 17, 1985.

There are only about three or four other questions.  That’s how well we did, aside from the picture round. Oh well.

Update: answers here.

Bob Holness, the host of the 1980s student quiz Blockbusters died last Friday.

My memories of the show are a little vague, to be honest.  This may or may not be dependent on the fact that the British channels didn’t always work in our house during my youth.  What I do remember is: 1. the mascots, 2. I could never understand why it was two versus one (unfair, surely!) and 3. the dance at the end!

Looking at the video above, I can now add the the questions were easy and the hair styles were massive! Funny what you retain, isn’t it?!

And so, late to the party I arrive and whether I’ve brought the finest wine or the cheapest bottle of generic vodka will be in the eye of the beholder. The entrées have been provided by John and an intriguing little number supplied by Mike but enough of tortured party metaphors and let us talk of Bruges.

Looking back after this length of time, it is even more obvious to me that there are fundamental failing within Irish quizzing that mean that Ireland as a nation is a long way from ever appearing in the finals of the EQC. John and Mike have made most of the salient points on this issue but there are a couple more I’d like to throw into the mix

I think Mike nailed it on the head by challenging quiz setters to no longer pander to their audience. Something I’ve been accused of more than once is setting table quizzes that are far too hard and I did write half the questions for the supposed quiz from hell (see Don’t work… too hard; however, the shocking round was written by the silent-but-deadly Michelle) but I honestly believe that a) it wasn’t that hard a quiz and b) that making it a quiz where the scores are higher, the central premise of it being a GK quiz, i.e. the display of more general knowledge than your opponents, would have been lost. This is not the Special Olympics, not everyone “can be a winner” so why not accept that and reward ostentatious outbursts of intellectualism?

The dumbing down of quizzing is a real bugbear of mine going back to my own brush with TV quiz glory. I’ve always felt that Challenging Times was doomed once it moved from the intelligent time zone between Prime Time and BBC Question Time to the slot after Home & Away on Network 2. The time change seemed to influence the standard of question as in later series, the early rounds were frankly basic (Smart kids do well because they do anyway but they do really well as questions are aimed at the less smart kids). For a while it appeared Mastermind was changing tack with specialist rounds on pop culture replacing those on the classics but at least there is still a need for obscure minutiae even if the topic is ‘The Life and Works of Katie Price’. However, one show that has driven me to despair with its dumbing down is Pointless. The clue is in the title and yet most contestants are clueless. It is a show where to win cash, you need obscure, particular knowledge (Steve, quizzings’ Tony Cascarino proved this by winning the jackpot) yet when teachers can appear on it and say Mexico is a state of the USA and everyone goes “Oh what larks”, I find myself yelling at the TV “No they’re morons! Please treat them like Morons!”

Pointless becoming easier may be traced back to it moving from BBC2 to BBC1. It is significant that more intellectual programming remains on BBC2 and BBC4 (to our chagrin we cannot go on Only Connect, damn having to actually live in the UK) where viewing figures and yoof programming are not the be all and end all.

But at least they have quiz shows in the UK. It occurs to me (and I am open to correction on this) that the only regular show where Joe Soaps are asked about obscure knowledge is Ceist GAA on TG4, whose fundamental failing as a General Knowledge Quiz is quite obvious. When UK shows like 15-to-1 disappear, there is still Mastermind or Brain of Britain on Radio 4, my love/hate (love the quiz and knowledge; hate the mong contestants) Pointless or the less heralded but equally interesting The Chaser. Since the demise of WWTBAM (IRE), Irish TV and quizzing have gone their separate ways. But it was not always so. As well as Challenging Times, there was Blackboard Jungle, Rapid Roulette, Where in The World? and Murphy’s Micro Quiz-M. However, since Bunny Carr and the late Peter Murphy left our screens, there has been no consistent multi-series General Knowledge quiz on Irish TV. Yet table quizzing remains strong in the country so in theory Ireland should be producing as many international quality quiz teams as an equivalent country such as Belgium.  So why don’t we?

John’s audioboo with Stejn and Mike’s discussion with Chris from Belgium explain how different Belgian quizzing is from our own.  The non-use of pubs is a red herring as one of the British quizzing scene’s biggest threats is the closure of village pubs, something I discussed with former Mastermind winner David Edwards (in a gratuitous namedrop). As Mike has points out, it is more than just an issue of team make-up or question phraseology so  maybe Irish quizzing has within it an inherent flaw. There were thirteen countries in the Team competition in Bruges and while none of the British Isles teams were as aided by local questions as we felt the German and French were, we were surprised that there wasn’t at least one gimme question for an Irish team in any of the four major quizzes. Is that the fault of the question setters? Of course not, as it doesn’t have to be compulsory to pander to contestants. In Ireland, however, we do, not just in making questions simple but in the major failings in Irish quizzing of all forms: Hibernocentrecism and parochialism.

In our fund-raising quiz, I asked a question about who were the 2010 Galway Senior hurling champions, using the logic that that Clarinbridge were also All-Ireland champions. But this very simple question highlights one of the faults of Irish table quizzes. GAA questions only appear in Ireland but, as such a central tenet to Irish life, it would be difficult to leave out any mention of GAA in an Irish quiz. However, given that they won’t come up in international quizzing (and that has to be the context in which this whole diatribe is seen) it is time that parochial and Irish questions be set aside for more worldly topics. After Bruges, I know I don’t know Central European literature, the myths of India, South American geography and the flora and fauna of Asia. These topics don’t come up in Irish quizzes but Gráinne Seioghe always seems to.

If Ireland wishes to make an impact on world quizzing, then we need to abandon the insularity and accept that unless we embrace Polish harpsichordists, or classical music as a whole.  Compare Challenging Times’ and University Challenge’s music rounds – we will never impact the finals.

The blog’s Chinese correspondent, Kieran, pointed me in the direction of a quiz billed as the “world’s hardest”.  It was published on The Guardian’s website on December 22.

Secondary school students on the Isle of Man are obviously very knowledgeable – generally.

From the Guardian website:

Pupils at King William’s college on the Isle of Man have been tormented by its annual general knowledge quiz since 1905. Until 1999, the quiz was compulsory, with 300 pupils aged between 11 and 18 having to answer the 100 cryptic questions in a set time – the average score being two.

So, do you think you can beat a score of two? I glanced through it and I think I’ve got about five but they are cryptic and the answers won’t be announced until the middle of January so even I will have to wait and see.

Check it out at: www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/dec/22/king-williams-college-quiz-2011

I’ll be back later today with a post about a very tough quizzing experience I had last night.

In the meantime, click on the Continue Reading… for the answers.

Answers:

1. What is the name of Sinead O’Connor’s new husband? A> Barry Herridge
2. Who was the first woman to be granted the freedom of Galway city? A> Hillary Clinton
3. Who is in charge of the inquiry into the RTÉ programme which libeled Fr Reynolds. A> John Horgan
4. Which former Eurovision winner was paired with Brendan Cole on Strictly Come Dancing? A> Lulu
5. What was the name of the first widely produced camera? A>Box
6. A tradition in Germany at Christmas, what is Stollen? A> Cake
7. Which 1952 Christmas hit, sung by Jimmy Boyd, was banned by the Catholic Church in Boston? A>I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
8. Which is the last European nation to still own territory on mainland South America? A>France
9. Six of the ‘deadly’ sins are:  lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy and pride.  Name the remaining one. A> Wrath
10. Which Mexican plant is known as the ‘Flower of the Holy Night’? A>Poinsettia

Christmas Carols (a la crossword clues):

1. Loyal followers’ advance (1,4,3,2,8) A> O come all ye faithful
2. Bleached Yule (5,8) A> White Christmas
3. Far off in a feeder (4,2,1,6) A> Away in a Manger
4. Monarchial Triad (2,5,5) A> We three kings
5. Nocturnal noiselessness (6,5) A> Silent night
6. Frozen precipitation commence (3,2,4) A> Let it snow
7. Delight for the planet (3,2,3,5) A> Joy to the world
8. Give attention to the melodius celestial beings (4,3,6,6,4) A> Hark the Herald Angels sing
9. Array the corridor (4,3,5) A> Deck the halls
10. Red man en route to Borough (5,5,2,6,2,4) A> Santa Claus is coming to town
11. The dozen festive 24 hour intervals (3,6,4,2,8) A> The twelve days of Christmas

Pictures:

1. Roy Keane
2. Simon Cowell
3. Heather Mills
4. Yasser Arafat
5. John Terry
6. Rio Ferdinand
7. Jessica Wallace
8. Brad Pitt
9. Maria Sharapova
10. Renée Zellwegger
11. Lenin
12. John Cleese

Ho, ho, ho etc.

The final quiz of 2011 took place in Gilligan’s, Claremorris, on Tuesday last and, fittingly, it was Christmas themed.

The picture round featured 12 “santas”, there was a round in which we had to name the carols which matched the cryptic clues and we had a round in which the questions were nothing to do with Christmas but the answers were homonyms of things that were.  It was very well done.

I was on the same team for the second week in a row.  That’s right, even though the tables are pulled from a hat, we three (kings) managed to end up together once again.  Thankfully, while we hadn’t been anywhere near winning last week, this time we managed to take home the final prize of the year.

It turns out we know a lot about Christmas.

Here are the questions we missed:

1. What is the name of Sinead O’Connor’s new husband?
2. Who was the first woman to be granted the freedom of Galway city?
3. Name the judge who is in charge of the inquiry into the RTÉ programme which libeled Fr Reynolds.
4. Which former Eurovision winner was paired with Brendan Cole on Strictly Come Dancing?
5. What was the name of the first widely produced camera?
6. A tradition in Germany at Christmas, what is Stollen?
7. Which 1952 Christmas hit, sung by Jimmy Boyd, was banned by the Catholic Church in Boston?
8. Which is the last European nation to still own territory on mainland South America?
9. Six of the ‘deadly’ sins are:  lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy and pride.  Name the remaining one.
10. Which Mexican plant is known as the ‘Flower of the Holy Night’?

Here’s a round on Christmas Carols (a la crossword clues):

1. Loyal followers’ advance (1,4,3,2,8)
2. Bleached Yule (5,8)
3. Far off in a feeder (4,2,1,6)
4. Monarchial Triad (2,5,5)
5. Nocturnal noiselessness (6,5)
6. Frozen precipitation commence (3,2,4)
7. Delight for the planet (3,2,3,5)
8. Give attention to the melodius celestial beings (4,3,6,6,4)
9. Array the corridor (4,3,5)
10. Red man en route to Borough (5,5,2,6,2,4)
11. The dozen festive 24 hour intervals (3,6,4,2,8)

Picture round **:

Answers coming soon.  Before Christmas at least!

Footnotes:

* This was my fourth quiz since I last posted. However, I’m putting it up today as it’s at the top of my brain, if you know what I mean.

** Look very closely and you may see a clue for #6.