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by John Nolan

This week’s quizzing…

March 27, 2012 in Housekeeping, Quiz Show

A few things of interest for you this week:

  1. Last week, I converted the Quizopædia into a wiki.  You can now add facts or correct errors so please feel free to do so.  I’m going to retain the ability to have final say on things though so no funny stuff!
  2. The final (scheduled) episode of After the Fact will be broadcast live on Thursday evening at 7pm.  If you’d like to listen in, please go to Claremorris Community Radio‘s page anytime around then and click on the Listen Live link.  The series is finely poised with Team A leading by a single show.  Thus, if Team B can get the win on Thursday (the topic is Zero, by-the-way) the series will have to go into extra-time! That is, we’ll have an extra show next week. Either way, this week’s show will be quite exciting.  For more info, check out our After the Fact page.
  3. The next competition window in the IQA’s Hot 100 world quiz rankings event opens tomorrow, Wednesday 28th, and runs until 10pm on Monday next.  If you’d like to give it a go, please email me at quizmaster@tablequiz.net.  Only two of us gave it a go last month so we’d definitely be keen on some more company.  We’ll probably do it in Galway city again, sometime over the weekend.  Whatever suits people best.

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Avatar of John Nolan

by John Nolan

Do you know Jack’s answers?

March 21, 2012 in Quizzes

Here are the answers to the questions and picture rounds posted in Do you know jack? the other day.

Often, a winning team is faced with a dilemma with their winnings, if those winnings are cash.  Thankfully, this wasn’t a problem for ourselves on Friday last as we got a (non-Christmassy) hamper featuring bottles of whiskey, yummy Kettle Chips and Easter Eggs.  It genuinely was a hamper as it came in a nice wicker basket and, obviously enough, featured four of each item thus preventing any arguments breaking out over the Easter Eggs. :-)

Click the link to see the answers. By-the-by, how did you do with that tricky final one? We thought the answer was obvious but, judging by the reaction in the room, that wasn’t the case at all tables.

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Avatar of John Nolan

by John Nolan

Do you know jack?

March 19, 2012 in Quizzes

Strangely, with all the quizzing that goes up and down this land, it’s rare that a quiz establishes itself sufficiently that it becomes an annual event.  The Claremorris AFC sports quiz is one such contest but they’re quite rare.

So it was cool that, last Friday night, Ger and myself entered the Ballyhaunis Town FC quiz in The Hazel bar as the defending champions.  12 months ago we’d had a very good night in the company of my father and father-in-law.  Not only did we win the quiz, but we also won most of the raffle prizes!

This year, the quiz veterans were both otherwise engaged so we had to call upon two chaps of our own vintage: Kevin and Adrian. Our team turned out to be, erm, a bit better than everyone else in the room and we ended up winning by just 14 points.  eek! :-)   We finished on 92/100 and no-one else broke 80.

We only won a bottle of wine in the raffle though…

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Avatar of John Nolan

by John Nolan

Questions pour un Irlandais

February 13, 2012 in Quiz Show

Still miss Going for Gold?  Well, move to France where its spinoff show, Questions pour un champion, still airs – as it has done since November 1988.

I’m currently in France (on holiday – thankfully not as an attendee at this match) and I happened upon an episode of it last night on French TV.  I was struck by the format, which is identical to Going for Gold, and the all-action host – who is nothing like Henry Kelly!

I intended just putting up any old clip for you to check out but I found something even better.  It’s an episode form last March and features an Irish man – Sean Dingle from Dublin.  Have a watch and see how he got on.

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by Mike Coyne

Pedantic answers

February 8, 2012 in Movies, Quizzes

Since I got my waffle out of the way yesterday, straight to the answers ;-)

Congratulations again to the winners who scored an impressive 71/80. The next movie quiz was announced for 5th March.

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Avatar of Mike Coyne

by Mike Coyne

Pedantic, moi?

February 7, 2012 in Movies, Quizzes

Correcting quizzes is essentially a thankless task. Writing questions is fun. Hosting is fun (though less so for the audience if your host-with-the-most persona is a git). Marking sheets and totting up scores is free of any such glamour. All you need is a red pen and a bit of cop-on. Which brings me neatly to the pedantry at this week’s quiz.

What constitutes a right answer is a long-standing bugbear of mine. Most quizzes accept surnames without firstnames, though some penalise for incorrect attempts at both (a bit harsh, but you’re usually forewarned). Phonetic answers are usually acccepted, unless you’re asked to spell Schwarzenegger or similar. In my book though, what’s crucial is whether the stem of the answer is in place. In movie quizzes, that identifier may distinguish a movie from another entry in a franchise, or a movie with a similar title. However, I’d challenge whether denying us a point in the last movie quiz for identifying the poster for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is truly in the spirit of quizzing. Surely we gave the pertinent information? Likewise for giving Bella’s full name from Twilight series as Bella Swann (as in the Wiki entry) as they only accepted Isabella. Pendantic or what?!

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by John Nolan

Looking out for No. 1

February 7, 2012 in Interactive, Quizzes

Here’s a quick post, just to publish the audio round from last Friday night’s Gorthaganny National School quiz.  As I said in my previous post, the theme was simple: each song features a number in its title. Teams had to identify the number in each case and enter it in to their swanky buzzer.

You can listen to the 10 tracks by clicking the ‘Read the rest….’ link.

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Avatar of John Nolan

by John Nolan

Behold, the future!

February 5, 2012 in Interactive, Quizzes

Here it is.  The buzzer with which my team took part in last Friday night’s quiz in Ballyhaunis Golf Club.

The quiz was a fundraiser for Gorthaganny National School for, as the headmaster said at the end of the quiz, it’s now a case of “back to the ’80s” in the schools sector with fundraising events becoming common once again.  The money raised at this event will go towards the purchase of the this very buzzer system.  If it provides the school children with as much entertainment value as we got on Friday night, it will be money well spent.

The quiz itself was broken up into four sections: 40 trivia questions, 10 picture questions, 40 trivia questions and 10 music questions.  The trivia questions were, as I predicted, just like questions on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, with four options.  The picture round was funny but a tad easy, as each question showed a famous person and a professional look-a-like, with us having to enter A or B to identify who was the real deal.  The music round showed off another of the buzzer’s modes.  Each of the songs featured a number in the title and we had to type this number into the device.

On the whole, it was a very enjoyable quiz which is testament to the school staff who created it.  The first 40 questions dragged on a bit as no time limit was enforced on the participants.  However, after the interval, they did introduce a limit of 30 seconds on each question so they obviously had noticed the slow pace themselves.

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