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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.

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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…”

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World Quiz day timetable

May 5, 2012 in IQO

As announced on Facebook last evening, the Irish heat of the World Quizzing Championship now has a home. It will take place in The Bounty, which is the clubhouse at Buccaneers Rugby Club, Ahtlone, Co. Westmeath, on Saturday, June 2nd.

This is a solo quizzing event and is run along the lines of a day during the Junior or Leaving Certificates. Albeit, a short day at the Leaving Cert, as the two papers are only one hour long each.

Here’s the timetable for the day’s events:

  • 11am: Paper 1
  • 12 noon: Correction of paper 1
  • 12.30pm: Lunch
  • 1.30pm: Paper 2
  • 2.30pm: Correction of paper 2
  • 3pm: Results and presentation of local awards*
  • 3.30pm: Innaugural meeting of the Irish Quiz Organisation

For more information on how the event is run, please read my report on last year’s event or visit the International Quizzing Association’s site www.worldquizzing.com.

It costs €5 per person to enter and all are welcome.  Please book your place in advance though as we have to print out a copy of the two papers for each competitor.  You can do so via email at wqc@tablequiz.net.

Footnote:

* We will have small awards for the best result in the venue in the various categories.  For more info, check out the worldquizzing site.

The Irish Quiz Organisation

April 30, 2012 in IQO

Allow me to introduce the Irish Quiz Organisation, a body I’m endevouring to set up between now and the end of June.

In the short-term, it will take care of the organisation of the Irish heat of the World Quizzing Championships and the selection of a team for the European Quizzing Championships.

In the longer-term, hopefully it will eventually oversee competitive quizzing in Ireland.  I can forsee events such as resurrection of the (formerly Rehab) All-Ireland table quiz, helping third-level students restart Challenging Times and maybe even the creation of a Belgian-style individual quiz rankings ladder.

That’s all in the far future though.  Right now, it’s me on my lonesome.

The WQC takes place on June 2 and the afore-mentioned Irish heat will take place.  I’ve yet to nail down a venue but hope to have that done by the end of the week.  At that event, we will then convene the inaugural meeting of the IQO and, all going well, elect a committee for the coming year.

That’s all I can tell you for now.  If you’d like some more info, please visit the IQO page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/IrishQuiz.

Something tasty – answers

April 12, 2012 in Quizzes

Here are the answers to the picture rounds posted in the Something tasty post on Tuesday.  You’ll find them after the read the rest… link.

In other, surprising, news last week’s episode of After the Fact wasn’t, it turns out, the final show in the series.  In honour of today’s significant anniversary, tonight will see a special Titanic-themed episode of the show being broadcast on Claremorris Community Radio at 7pm.  Visit the website around then and click on the Listen Live link to hear the show.

It should be an interesting show.  For a start, I’m going to be on the receiving end this week and a guest host will be asking the questions!

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Something tasty

April 10, 2012 in Interactive, Quizzes

The first-ever Galway Food Festival came to an end last night with a quiz, hosted by yours truly, in The King’s Head, on High Street.

What a great night! Everything worked, the crowd were lovely (and copious – there were 31 tables!) and the questions hit the right standard (the winning score was 88/100). The King’s Head itself is a great venue for a quiz as its large screen is visible from both floors and the front of the bar can be curtained off, so as to allow non-quizzers to revel away without bothering everyone else.

I was only given one brief when asked to create a quiz for a food festival: make it general enough that the chefs aren’t guaranteed to win. Well, I didn’t quite manage that as the winning team, the Bronze Turkeys, was made up of the staff from The Kitchen, the restaurant in the Galway City Museum. They were delighted with their achievement and told me that they intend to display the Galway Crystal trophy* in the restaurant for the coming year!

To decrease the inherent advantage of food experts, I included a music round (where the song titles included a food term), a round featuring the posters from 10 films which have food in their titles and a round featuring 10 uniquely shaped bottles.  You can see the last two at the end of this post.

However, to boost up the foodies, I did include an interactive round in which each team received a plate with five small bun cases.  Within each case was a seed, herb or spice and the teams had five minutes to identify the substances.  Everyone seemed to love that and most teams got all five correct!  Obviously, I won’t be including this round here on the site. :-)

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To quiz or not to quiz answers … and more

April 3, 2012 in Housekeeping, Quizzes

Firstly, I must say thank you to Evelyn for her report on last Friday night’s quiz. I still cling on to a hope that some day she’ll see the light regarding quizzing… ;-)

After the break, you can see the answers to the picture rounds she included in her post, To quiz or not to quiz.

In other news:

  1. I am the host at Gilligan’s Tuesday night quiz this evening. Please feel free to come on in if you’re in the neighbourhood (of Claremorris). Admission, as always, is €3 per person.
  2. Following a great win by Team B last Thursday night, the first series of After the Fact has gone in to extra-time. The (definitively) final showdown takes place this Thursday as Andrew and Marcella take each other on without the assistance of team-mates. You can listen in on Claremorris Community Radio at 7pm on Thursday night or prepare yourself by listening to our previous shows.
  3. Think you know your food? I’m hosting Galway’s first ever Foodie Quiz on Monday night in The King’s Head bar, on High Street. Tables of four are just €20 and this includes a bottle of wine! If you’d like to enter a team, please email john@tablequiz.net.

Right, on to those answers…

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To Quiz or Not to Quiz…

March 31, 2012 in Quizzes

Let me begin with a confession. I do not quiz. My multitude of university qualifications suggest that I am really quite smart but all it takes is half an hour of quizzing and you’ll find me huddled in the corner, rocking back and forth, drooling. Quizzes make me feel stupid. Very stupid!

But last night I broke my no-quizzing rule and headed to Paddy Phillip’s bar in Ballyhaunis for a table quiz run by the local golf club. Accompanied by three of my best girly mates – two of whom actually like quizzing – we didn’t entirely shame ourselves, coming joint sixth out of twelve teams. By all accounts it was a tough quiz, the winners achieving just 74 points out of 100. Our meagre 57 points weren’t completely dismal however – third place were only three ahead of us on 60!

Meanwhile John was at home rocking back and forth in the corner, trying to deal with missing a quiz he’d like to have attended so that his wife could go to a quiz she made it clear she was, at best, ambivalent about attending. Apologies John. I’ll babysit next time. And the time after that. And the time after that. Well, you get the picture!

Anyway, you can check out a couple of the rounds below and hopefully you’ll be spared my comedy cringe moment from last night: about four minutes after announcing to my team-mates that I hoped there’d be a dingbats round (implying that here at last my quizzing strengths might come to the fore), a dingbats round appeared! So far so sitcom moment. Then I tried doing them (see below). And let’s just say I didn’t cover myself in glory!

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