You are browsing the archive for mayo.

A local quiz… answers

May 10, 2012 in Quizzes

Below you will find the answers to the picture questions I published in A local quiz for local people.

Before that though, I just want to highlight a question from last Friday that I didn’t think of on Tuesday.  It could be the worst question I’ve ever heard, in terms of phrasing anyway.  Here it is:

“Who did Enda Kenny climb Croagh Patrick with last weekend?”

Do you know the answer? As it happens, we actually got a point for this one but only by getting inside the brains of the question setter to figure out who they were on about. I think we would have been within our rights to have answered John O’Mahoney, Michael Ring, John Delaney, Mayo Rose Dervla Kenny or any one of the several hundred people who climbed the mountain on Saturday, April 28th.  However, the answer they sought was Giovanni Trapattoni.

Now, on with the answers.

Read the rest of this entry →

A local quiz for local people

May 8, 2012 in Interactive, Quizzes

Friday night’s quizzing adventure took me to the town of Kilmaine in Mayo, along with friend Ger.  Due to a miscommunication regarding a funeral, that was our team.  But that’s a story for another day.

My wife’s people hail from Kilmaine and their name is Murphy.  That’s all I knew about Kilmaine before Friday night – the place is full of Murphys.  My lack of knowledge of other facts pertinent to Kilmaine would prove costly before the night was out though.

Firstly, we struggled to find the quiz.  “Where’s it on?” I asked Ger, as we arrived in the town.

“Murphy’s” he said.  That sounded plausible.

So, into Murphy’s Bar we went, only to find the place practically empty, just two patrons, the barman and the Late Late Show on in the corner.

“Is there a quiz on here tonight?” we asked.

“No.  It’s in the other Murphy’s – up the street there.”

Anyway, when we eventually found it, the quiz itself consisted of five rounds of 20 questions.  This is a nice idea, it certainly speeds the quiz up.  However, when one of those rounds is a ‘local’ round, it doubles the pain for those who live outside of five miles from the venue. Why publicize the quiz to the ‘outside world’ if you’re going to rig it in favour of your friends?

Some of the questions in this local round were beauts. Here’s a few I jotted down (Hint: the answer to at least one of these is Murphy):

  • What does the name Kilmaine mean?
  • When was the Kilmaine GAA club founded?
  • What team did they play in their first ever match?
  • Who went in goal for the girls’ U-15 soccer team when they won the Mayo title via a penalty shoot-out this year?
  • Who played the postman in the recent production of the play The Real McCoy in Kilmaine parish hall?
  • Who won this year’s Kilmaine Strictly Come Dancing?
  • Which bog is being cleaned this weekend as part of Kilmaine’s Tidy Towns?

Oh yes, a question starting with the words “which bog…”

Read the rest of this entry →

Now that’s what I call answers

December 22, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

Here are the answers to the questions posted last week in Now that’s what I call…

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

Now that’s what I call…

December 15, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

… a Christmas quiz.*

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

Delightfully obscure answers

December 6, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

Here are the answers to the questions posed in yesterday’s last week’s Delightful obscurity post.  I’m sorry these took so long to appear on the site.  I’ve had a very busy last few days. Chief among those activites which kept me away from the site was the upgrade to Mrs tablequiz.net’s website, leavingcertenglish.net. Check it out if you feel like being educated!

Anyway, let’s move on.  Click the continue to see the answers.

Read the rest of this entry →

Delightful obscurity

December 1, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

Not long after Mike’s post on questions and how, knowingly or unknowingly, the question setter may ease them for the benefit of the crowd hit this site, I attended the weekly Tuesday quiz in Gilligan’s Bar, Claremorris.

This week’s quizmaster was Mick, my recent team-mate on a couple of successful outings.  He produced a quiz to savour with questions coming from all angles and obscure locations. He opened up with a round featuring songs with numbers in the title. Let me tell you, not alone had I not heard of some of the songs involved, but, in two or three of them, I’d never heard of the artist either!

That set the tone. A couple of rounds were played out to a soundtrack of audible groans from the crowd but, after Bruges and this week’s discussion on difficulty, I found it very entertaining.  Why do we quiz if not to be challenged?

My favourite was a round on Shakespeare.  Yes, we all know “Forsooth I know not why I am so sad…” but do you know what play it’s from? And which character said it? It turned out that I did, although it was an educated guess.

My team finished second on 83, behind the winners’ 91.  These weren’t out of 100 though.  Several of the rounds had 11 questions, many of them had multi-part answers (worth a point each and a bonus awarded to any team who got all) and the picture round had 22. Truth be told, I don’t know what the potential full score was!

Read the rest of this entry →

Twofer won: answers

November 20, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

Here are the answers to the two quizzes worth of questions posed in Twofer won. Or should that be “two quiz’s worth”?

I’m on quiz master duty again on Friday evening.  If you’re anywhere in the vicinity, please come on in to The Dalton Inn, Claremorris, for a quiz in aid of Claremorris Community Radio.  Kick-off is scheduled for 8.30pm, tables of four are €40 and all are welcome!

Right, let’s get on to those answers.

Read the rest of this entry →

Twofer won

November 18, 2011 in Gilligan's, Quizzes

If only I had read the full title...

I have been very busy this past week and unable to come to the blog.  However, this does mean that today I have a bumper, two-for-one blog for you.

Starting last Thursday, I’ve quizzed twice in the past week and, I’m happy to say, ended up on the winning team both times.  The first of those was in The Loft Bar, in Ballina.  Ger was the svengali behind this excursion, rounding up Pat and Mick, two of the regulars, at Gilligan’s the previous Tuesday night.  Once there, we performed like a wonder team – even more than the sum of our parts – and won out by four points.  It’s not often you get to score over 100 points in an Irish quiz so our 107/115 was something to savour.  That said, the runners-up must have felt hard done by – they scored 103!

This quiz, which was in aid of Croí, featured three handouts, only one of which was a picture round.  The other two were quite clever: Famous slogans and Anagrams of Irish towns.  I’ve included them both below.  One the whole the quiz was very well organised. We did suffer at the hand of some very pedantic marking though when we weren’t awarded the point for identifying Joe Frazier’s nickname correctly. What we wrote down: Smokin’. What they wanted: Smokin’ Joe. Even a trip to the correctors’ table by one of the guys didn’t result in any flexibility. Ah well, luckily it didn’t matter.

I hadn’t been to Gilligan’s on that previous Tuesday. My head needed some time to recover from Bruges.  By all accounts it was a dramatic night with Ger’s team eventually winning on the sixth, sudden-death, playoff question. This Tuesday night my team-mates Mick (the same man as above) and Aidan ensured that the crowd would have no such drama – we scored 92/100 and won by three.

Read the rest of this entry →