I hope everyone liked the format of the challenge. The thinking behind it was this: if I’d simply posted 10 questions, I’m sure I’d have gotten several contestants scoring 10/10. This is the era of google and all.  So, as every answer has several possible questions, this format brought a little touch of lottery to the whole thing.

And so it turned out as no-one scored higher than 7. I then had to co-opt the services of my good lady wife, who did her duty by randomly picking one of the six contestants who had reached that score. So congratulations to Pearse Ward from Dublin whose name was first out of the hat! A copy of Trivial Pursuit will shortly be winging its way to his house.

Click read more… to have a look at the actual questions.

Here are the questions as I phrased them:

1. ANZAC Day is commemorated on April 25 each year. It marks the anniversary of which World War I campaign?
2. Whose last minute goal won the 1982 All-Ireland Football final for Offaly and thus deprived Kerry of a 5-in-a-row?
3. Whose debut album ‘The Fame‘ produced the No. 1 singles ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Poker Face’?
4. Who was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics?
5. Noel Edmonds has hosted over 1,000 episodes of which game show since it was first broadcast on October 31, 2005?
6. Which website, launched by Mark Zuckerburg in October 2003, was originally called Facemash?
7. Which team was defeated in the Super Bowl XLIII (February 2009)?
8. Flight 1549, which was forced to land in the Hudson river on January 15, belonged to which airline?
9. The Third Home Rule Bill was passed by the British Houses of Parliament in which year?
10. Which Bell X1 song became famous after it was used as the background to a lesbian kiss in the TV series The O.C.?

So what constituted a correct question?

Well, obviously it was pure fluke if anyone phrased their questions in the exact same fashion as I had.  So I was looking for questions to be on the same theme as mine.

For example, I had said that Q.1 was a history question so anyone thinking it was “Where did the World War I battle take place?” was marked as wrong. They had submitted a geography question, basically.

With others, I was looking for certain keywords. Examples of this include mentions of Lady Gaga’s songs in Q.3, the Noble Prize in Q.4 and The O.C. in Q.10.

Finally, for the sake of interest, I can reveal that absolutely everyone got Q.2 right but, on the other end of the scale, just one solitary individual gave me the right question for Q.9. Almost everyone else thought it was “In what year did World War I start?”

Come on folks – we have standards here!

Before I do that though I must thank everyone who’s entered so far. The top score, at this point, is 7 so, if you haven’t entered yet and you think you can do better, be sure and email me the 10 questions you think I used to arrive at the Challenge answers to quizmaster@tablequiz.net.

Now there is a recession on after all, so the blog (i.e. me) can only afford to one prize this time.  With that in mind, the winner will be able to choose between these two fabulous quiz-related prizes:

That’s Trivial Pursuit (Ireland edition) or Trevor Montague’s A to Z of Almost Everything, one of the best quiz reference books.

The closing date for entries is 6pm on Friday May 22.  I will announce the winner on the following day.

Good luck all!

Click more… to check them out.

Answers:

1. In what year did ABBA first enter the Eurovision? A> 1973. Their first song ‘Ring Ring‘ finished third at the Swedish national selection contest.
2. Which country has won the title on the most occasions? A> Ireland, with seven wins.
3. Where did the first Eurovision take place? A> Lugano, Switzerland.
4. Teach-In won the 1975 contest for The Netherlands, with which song? A> Ding-a-Dong.
5. In what year did four countries share the title? A> 1969.
6. Celine Dion won the 1988 contest, for which country? A> Switzerland.
7. In what year did the UK last win the Eurovision? A> 1997.
8. Who was Ireland’s representative at Congratulations, the Eurovision’s 50 year retrospective event? A> Johnny Logan.
9. As of 2008, which country has competed in the contest the most times without a win? A> Portugal.
10. Which nation has withdrawn from the 2009 contest after the EBU requested they change the lyrics of their chosen song? A> Georgia.

Stay tuned to the blog as on Thursday I’ll be doing a Eurovision-themed pics and vids round. Sorry folks, the week turned out to be busy.

The first Eurovision took place in 1956 and, in the 53 years since, it’s become something of a cult. Nothing else combines culture, popularity and negative street cred as the ESC does. In its time, it’s managed to spawn a Grammy ‘Record of the year‘, a revolution and, perhaps most famously of all, ABBA.

Unsurprisingly, it’s also something of a quizzing gold mine, with venues, hosts, interval acts and gaffs all being viable themes for quiz rounds before one even gets to the acts and their songs.

Anyway, here’s my attempt at digging into that Eurovision trivia seam for a few quizzing nuggets.

I’ll post some regular questions today and some flashy, multimedia questions later in the week.

Questions:

1. In what year did ABBA first enter the Eurovision?
2. Which country has won the title on the most occasions?
3. Where did the first Eurovision take place?
4. Teach-In won the 1975 contest for The Netherlands, with which song?
5. In what year did four countries share the title?
6. Celine Dion won the 1988 contest, for which country?
7. In what year did the UK last win the Eurovision?
8. Who was Ireland’s representative at Congratulations, the Eurovision’s 50 year retrospective event?
9. As of 2008, which country has competed in the contest the most times without a win?
10. Which nation has withdrawn from the 2009 contest after the EBU requested they change the lyrics of their chosen song?

Update: answers here.