TheGreenElves Posted July 12, 2019 Share Posted July 12, 2019 https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jul/12/sports-quiz-week-football-tennis-cricket-golf 5 for the guardian sports quiz 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eednud Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 6 for sports. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cardinal Richelieu Posted July 13, 2019 Author Share Posted July 13, 2019 In innovations news, I actually tried adding some stats into the league table this week, but they were a blistering disaster when it came to sorting the teams, so you'll just have to imagine how exciting they might have been. I wonder if previous powerteams like WhiteRoseKillie or FrankieS occasionally pop their head round the door and are amazed at how much everyones' scores have improved of late. I guess not, since they're probably clever enough to realise we've switched to an easier quiz. Also, in another world first, I didn't have to nag anyone. All scores submitted by the deadline, with the exception of BigBo10 who had already prooked a 3 week holiday. (yes, you read that right, prooked. I'm never sure when pre-book actually becomes just book). In the top shop, the league's most decorated team gets even more decorated and Salvo is only a point behind. 10s very prevalent again this week... which makes Rugster's solitary 2 on Tuesday all the more noticeable. Down he goes with Leedsy ... Ziggy is in the play-offs thanks to QD. The DA is the SWL champ and returns to the comforting bosom of the Premiershit. JamesP_81's perfect 10s gets him promotion and Peasy23 is in the play-offs. At the other end, wastecoatwilly must be wondering how a score of 38 sees him relegated when it was good enough to win the league a few months back. Nae joy would be the reply. pleslie99 is down and NJ2 edges into the play-offs. And in the BHL, a fine performance from the Nazi gold hiding, cuckoo-clock making, Toblerone-chomping, punctuation rules flouting Ross. sees him return to the SWL alongside mathematics. blackislekillie's 10 sees him in the play-offs. This weeks' wooden spoon is heading over the Irish Sea to Jacksgranda. Hopefully it won't put too much of a dampener on the traditional celebrations. You were actually in a promotion spot on Tuesday but it all went a bit wrong after that. Now, it's over to Thailand to the man with all the questions (well, one question - but it's usually a doozy). @SlipperyP 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Captain Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 17 for Joe. Robots not a clue. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlipperyP Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 Thanks once again @Cardinal Richelieu, yes @Jacksgranda took a beating on Friday with my massive 9 (2nd every in history). I hope his tears bring floods to NI this weekend and sinks the fucking place. Weekend means two things, Forfar will be handing out a tanking and Playoff questions will be handed out. Movers and Shakers this weekend. Midnight Tokers @Ziggy v @peasy23 Sağmalcılar Prison Takers @NJ2 v @blackislekillie Question - How many Earthquakes were recorded around the British Isle in the last 100 days. Answer to be Richtered to the PM safe haven no later than Monday 06:00 TT Good Luck Everyone 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scotfree Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 22 hours ago, alang1993 said: 10 for Friday. Think I may have run out of greens after giving them to everyone that got 10 Aye. It seems that a lot more 10/10's happen with this new quiz. Even @Tynierose got a 10. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacksgranda Posted July 13, 2019 Share Posted July 13, 2019 1 hour ago, Cardinal Richelieu said: This weeks' wooden spoon is heading over the Irish Sea to Jacksgranda. Hopefully it won't put too much of a dampener on the traditional celebrations. You were actually in a promotion spot on Tuesday but it all went a bit wrong after that. It's more or less in permanent residence over here. (Didn't dampen my celebrations, at any rate...) 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wastecoatwilly Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 23 hours ago, Cardinal Richelieu said: wastecoatwilly must be wondering how a score of 38 sees him relegated Fecking hell if the woman's snoring isn't bad enough I wake up to this pish. I Demand more parachute payments. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacksgranda Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 5 minutes ago, wastecoatwilly said: I Demand more parachute payments. Rather than parachute payments you just need to want it more... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wastecoatwilly Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 14 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said: Rather than parachute payments you just need to want it more... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacksgranda Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross. Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 On 13/07/2019 at 09:14, Cardinal Richelieu said: In innovations news, I actually tried adding some stats into the league table this week, but they were a blistering disaster when it came to sorting the teams, so you'll just have to imagine how exciting they might have been. I wonder if previous powerteams like WhiteRoseKillie or FrankieS occasionally pop their head round the door and are amazed at how much everyones' scores have improved of late. I guess not, since they're probably clever enough to realise we've switched to an easier quiz. Also, in another world first, I didn't have to nag anyone. All scores submitted by the deadline, with the exception of BigBo10 who had already prooked a 3 week holiday. (yes, you read that right, prooked. I'm never sure when pre-book actually becomes just book). In the top shop, the league's most decorated team gets even more decorated and Salvo is only a point behind. 10s very prevalent again this week... which makes Rugster's solitary 2 on Tuesday all the more noticeable. Down he goes with Leedsy ... Ziggy is in the play-offs thanks to QD. The DA is the SWL champ and returns to the comforting bosom of the Premiershit. JamesP_81's perfect 10s gets him promotion and Peasy23 is in the play-offs. At the other end, wastecoatwilly must be wondering how a score of 38 sees him relegated when it was good enough to win the league a few months back. Nae joy would be the reply. pleslie99 is down and NJ2 edges into the play-offs. And in the BHL, a fine performance from the Nazi gold hiding, cuckoo-clock making, Toblerone-chomping, punctuation rules flouting Ross. sees him return to the SWL alongside mathematics. blackislekillie's 10 sees him in the play-offs. This weeks' wooden spoon is heading over the Irish Sea to Jacksgranda. Hopefully it won't put too much of a dampener on the traditional celebrations. You were actually in a promotion spot on Tuesday but it all went a bit wrong after that. Now, it's over to Thailand to the man with all the questions (well, one question - but it's usually a doozy). @SlipperyP On my way to replacing @Cardinal Richelieu as the Stirling Albion of the P&B quiz league. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cardinal Richelieu Posted July 14, 2019 Author Share Posted July 14, 2019 I hope @Frankie S won't mind me sharing his magnificent tale about a pub quiz he went to in Edinburgh ... I once did a SNP fundraising quiz at Corstorphine bowling club in Edinburgh with Brian Pendreigh, Colin Cruickshank and Barry Haniford, who happens to be a member. My comments on the quiz are not a slight on the SNP, or indeed SNP fundraising quizzes (SNP MSP Marco Biagi has set several excellent quizzes in the past), but this particular set was woefully misjudged. I suspect we were the only team there with any kind of quiz pedigree, the other teams were probably just SNP members who thought they'd give the quiz a go as it was supporting the cause. I'm not really sure where to start with this, such was the utter devastation that ensued in what can only be described as an instrument of torture masquerading as a quiz. The first round, on anagrams of game birds, didn't get things off to the best start, when the jumble of letters that suggested it might be 'Capercaillie' was found to be a couple of letters short of a full complement. The next round was a specialist subject round, 30 questions for 30 points. A 30 point specialist subject round, this should suit us I thought. It was bound to be a wide-ranging topic, for that many points. Perhaps Literature, History, Geography, Film, Sport, Mythology? Any of those would suit. As long as it wasn't Pop Music. As it turned out, the specialist subject had rather narrower parameters than we had expected - it was to be 30 questions on the 1950s TV series, 'Para Handy - Master Mariner', its '60s offshoot, 'The Vital Spark', the 1954 movie spin-off 'The Maggie' and the '90s series, 'The Tales of Para Handy.' The QM was clearly a Para Handy aficionado and the questions were comparable in difficulty to Mastermind specialist subject round level (typical question - which actor played The Mate in 'The Maggie'?) All I knew about this particular TV series (which I would have described as 'psychological torture' rather than 'situation comedy') was that Gregor Fisher appeared in the '90s remake, so I sat this round out and let my team-mates get on with it. We didn't score many, but we had the lead after squandering half an hour of our lives to the minutiae of this little-known BBC Scotland sitcom. Next round was music, never one of our better subjects, but when it was revealed that it was 'songs performed by actors and actresses' we perked up, as Brian is a movie expert. We couldn't resist a few predictions of the upcoming musical treats: 'Something Stupid' by Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams was almost bound to appear. If we were lucky we might get Richard Harris performing 'MacArthur Park', or even William Shatner's version of 'Common People.' We'll gloss over the unfortunate technical problems with the bowling club's PA system that compelled us to crowd around the QM's laptop to listen to the tinny sounds emitted by the device's pitifully inadequate speaker and move on to the esoteric nature of the song clips themselves. If I were to label them as 'obscure', then that might lead you to the conclusion that someone, somewhere, let's say a Kevin Ashman perhaps, might have recognised them. With due respect to Kevin, I suspect he might have struggled here. Fifteen snippets of music later, we were the top scorers in the round, with 2 points from a possible 30. The one song that we recognised was "Puttin' on the Ritz", and we confidently scribbled down 'Fred Astaire' as the likely singer. Needless to say, it wasn't Fred Astaire's version, it was the slightly less well known Jimmy Stewart version. We managed to guess the performer of the only clip of comparatively recent vintage - Johnny Depp - but we hadn't a clue as to the name of the song. As we strained to hear the mistakable musical stylings of Ida Lupino, Paulette Godard, Ethel Merman and Ronald Colman emanating from the computer, I was wondering what on Earth I was doing at a rubbish SNP quiz in a bowling club in Corstorphine on a Friday night, when I could have been doing almost anything else instead. The next round was a photo round, on Scottish TV, theatrical and movie types; to describe them as 'stars' would be to attribute to them a disproportionate level of luminosity. James Cosmo was probably the closest to a 'household' name, if by 'household' we mean a place inhabited exclusively by people with an obsessive interest in lesser-known Scottish actors and actresses. At one point, I remember Brian saying, 'I think I wrote his obituary for The Scotsman, but I still have absolutely no idea who he is!' The next round was The Movie Round. This should be right up our street we thought, optimistically. Wrong. We were provided with a still from the movie and the year of the film's release. Almost every film seemed to be from the silent era. 'A Chump at Oxford' seemed to be the most recent and best known of them. The final round was a beauty. It was a series of questions composed from information 'freely available on various Edinburgh District Council websites' and, therefore, according to the QM, we would have 'no-one to blame but ourselves' if we hadn't studied the relevant sites in forensic detail. The only question I can remember, due to it's unintentionally humorous nature, was the following: Q) What was the first animal purchased by Edinburgh Zoo, and, how much (in old money) did it cost?Turns out it was a gannet and it cost 2 shillings and sixpence. Who knew? Not us, or, surprisingly, anyone else in the pub. At the conclusion of this 'final round', we were told that there would be a special 'bonus question' worth 50 points. At this stage we were leading, by a considerable margin, having accumulated something like 15 out of a possible 100 points. Every other team was on (low) single figures. 50 points was more than the aggregate score of the entire pub. As it happens, the question fell kindly for us: "Which actor, who has appeared as an answer in this quiz, is related to which other actor, who has also appeared as an answer in this quiz, and what is their relationship?' Brian knew it, almost certainly because he wrote his obituary. James Copeland (The Mate in The Maggie) was James Cosmo's father. So we won, with a grand total of 65 points, by something like a 60 point margin. The QM, who clearly meant well, was fairly surprised when it was suggested afterwards that his quiz had been a bit on the obscure side. Apparently he works at Waitrose and regularly writes quizzes for the staff there, and his quizzes 'go down very well' with Waitrose's finest quiz brains. I don't think the legendary 'SNP quiz at Corstorphine Bowling Club' can ever be matched, let alone beaten, in the 'most misjudged quiz' category. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Orton Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 (edited) Edited July 14, 2019 by Tynierose 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen Archer (Raconteur) Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 12 minutes ago, Cardinal Richelieu said: I hope @Frankie S won't mind me sharing his magnificent tale about a pub quiz he went to in Edinburgh ... I once did a SNP fundraising quiz at Corstorphine bowling club in Edinburgh with Brian Pendreigh, Colin Cruickshank and Barry Haniford, who happens to be a member. My comments on the quiz are not a slight on the SNP, or indeed SNP fundraising quizzes (SNP MSP Marco Biagi has set several excellent quizzes in the past), but this particular set was woefully misjudged. I suspect we were the only team there with any kind of quiz pedigree, the other teams were probably just SNP members who thought they'd give the quiz a go as it was supporting the cause. I'm not really sure where to start with this, such was the utter devastation that ensued in what can only be described as an instrument of torture masquerading as a quiz. The first round, on anagrams of game birds, didn't get things off to the best start, when the jumble of letters that suggested it might be 'Capercaillie' was found to be a couple of letters short of a full complement. The next round was a specialist subject round, 30 questions for 30 points. A 30 point specialist subject round, this should suit us I thought. It was bound to be a wide-ranging topic, for that many points. Perhaps Literature, History, Geography, Film, Sport, Mythology? Any of those would suit. As long as it wasn't Pop Music. As it turned out, the specialist subject had rather narrower parameters than we had expected - it was to be 30 questions on the 1950s TV series, 'Para Handy - Master Mariner', its '60s offshoot, 'The Vital Spark', the 1954 movie spin-off 'The Maggie' and the '90s series, 'The Tales of Para Handy.' The QM was clearly a Para Handy aficionado and the questions were comparable in difficulty to Mastermind specialist subject round level (typical question - which actor played The Mate in 'The Maggie'?) All I knew about this particular TV series (which I would have described as 'psychological torture' rather than 'situation comedy') was that Gregor Fisher appeared in the '90s remake, so I sat this round out and let my team-mates get on with it. We didn't score many, but we had the lead after squandering half an hour of our lives to the minutiae of this little-known BBC Scotland sitcom. Next round was music, never one of our better subjects, but when it was revealed that it was 'songs performed by actors and actresses' we perked up, as Brian is a movie expert. We couldn't resist a few predictions of the upcoming musical treats: 'Something Stupid' by Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams was almost bound to appear. If we were lucky we might get Richard Harris performing 'MacArthur Park', or even William Shatner's version of 'Common People.' We'll gloss over the unfortunate technical problems with the bowling club's PA system that compelled us to crowd around the QM's laptop to listen to the tinny sounds emitted by the device's pitifully inadequate speaker and move on to the esoteric nature of the song clips themselves. If I were to label them as 'obscure', then that might lead you to the conclusion that someone, somewhere, let's say a Kevin Ashman perhaps, might have recognised them. With due respect to Kevin, I suspect he might have struggled here. Fifteen snippets of music later, we were the top scorers in the round, with 2 points from a possible 30. The one song that we recognised was "Puttin' on the Ritz", and we confidently scribbled down 'Fred Astaire' as the likely singer. Needless to say, it wasn't Fred Astaire's version, it was the slightly less well known Jimmy Stewart version. We managed to guess the performer of the only clip of comparatively recent vintage - Johnny Depp - but we hadn't a clue as to the name of the song. As we strained to hear the mistakable musical stylings of Ida Lupino, Paulette Godard, Ethel Merman and Ronald Colman emanating from the computer, I was wondering what on Earth I was doing at a rubbish SNP quiz in a bowling club in Corstorphine on a Friday night, when I could have been doing almost anything else instead. The next round was a photo round, on Scottish TV, theatrical and movie types; to describe them as 'stars' would be to attribute to them a disproportionate level of luminosity. James Cosmo was probably the closest to a 'household' name, if by 'household' we mean a place inhabited exclusively by people with an obsessive interest in lesser-known Scottish actors and actresses. At one point, I remember Brian saying, 'I think I wrote his obituary for The Scotsman, but I still have absolutely no idea who he is!' The next round was The Movie Round. This should be right up our street we thought, optimistically. Wrong. We were provided with a still from the movie and the year of the film's release. Almost every film seemed to be from the silent era. 'A Chump at Oxford' seemed to be the most recent and best known of them. The final round was a beauty. It was a series of questions composed from information 'freely available on various Edinburgh District Council websites' and, therefore, according to the QM, we would have 'no-one to blame but ourselves' if we hadn't studied the relevant sites in forensic detail. The only question I can remember, due to it's unintentionally humorous nature, was the following: Q) What was the first animal purchased by Edinburgh Zoo, and, how much (in old money) did it cost?Turns out it was a gannet and it cost 2 shillings and sixpence. Who knew? Not us, or, surprisingly, anyone else in the pub. At the conclusion of this 'final round', we were told that there would be a special 'bonus question' worth 50 points. At this stage we were leading, by a considerable margin, having accumulated something like 15 out of a possible 100 points. Every other team was on (low) single figures. 50 points was more than the aggregate score of the entire pub. As it happens, the question fell kindly for us: "Which actor, who has appeared as an answer in this quiz, is related to which other actor, who has also appeared as an answer in this quiz, and what is their relationship?' Brian knew it, almost certainly because he wrote his obituary. James Copeland (The Mate in The Maggie) was James Cosmo's father. So we won, with a grand total of 65 points, by something like a 60 point margin. The QM, who clearly meant well, was fairly surprised when it was suggested afterwards that his quiz had been a bit on the obscure side. Apparently he works at Waitrose and regularly writes quizzes for the staff there, and his quizzes 'go down very well' with Waitrose's finest quiz brains. I don't think the legendary 'SNP quiz at Corstorphine Bowling Club' can ever be matched, let alone beaten, in the 'most misjudged quiz' category. Is the answer Hull City? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacksgranda Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 1 hour ago, Cardinal Richelieu said: I hope @Frankie S won't mind me sharing his magnificent tale about a pub quiz he went to in Edinburgh ... I once did a SNP fundraising quiz at Corstorphine bowling club in Edinburgh with Brian Pendreigh, Colin Cruickshank and Barry Haniford, who happens to be a member. My comments on the quiz are not a slight on the SNP, or indeed SNP fundraising quizzes (SNP MSP Marco Biagi has set several excellent quizzes in the past), but this particular set was woefully misjudged. I suspect we were the only team there with any kind of quiz pedigree, the other teams were probably just SNP members who thought they'd give the quiz a go as it was supporting the cause. I'm not really sure where to start with this, such was the utter devastation that ensued in what can only be described as an instrument of torture masquerading as a quiz. The first round, on anagrams of game birds, didn't get things off to the best start, when the jumble of letters that suggested it might be 'Capercaillie' was found to be a couple of letters short of a full complement. The next round was a specialist subject round, 30 questions for 30 points. A 30 point specialist subject round, this should suit us I thought. It was bound to be a wide-ranging topic, for that many points. Perhaps Literature, History, Geography, Film, Sport, Mythology? Any of those would suit. As long as it wasn't Pop Music. As it turned out, the specialist subject had rather narrower parameters than we had expected - it was to be 30 questions on the 1950s TV series, 'Para Handy - Master Mariner', its '60s offshoot, 'The Vital Spark', the 1954 movie spin-off 'The Maggie' and the '90s series, 'The Tales of Para Handy.' The QM was clearly a Para Handy aficionado and the questions were comparable in difficulty to Mastermind specialist subject round level (typical question - which actor played The Mate in 'The Maggie'?) All I knew about this particular TV series (which I would have described as 'psychological torture' rather than 'situation comedy') was that Gregor Fisher appeared in the '90s remake, so I sat this round out and let my team-mates get on with it. We didn't score many, but we had the lead after squandering half an hour of our lives to the minutiae of this little-known BBC Scotland sitcom. Next round was music, never one of our better subjects, but when it was revealed that it was 'songs performed by actors and actresses' we perked up, as Brian is a movie expert. We couldn't resist a few predictions of the upcoming musical treats: 'Something Stupid' by Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams was almost bound to appear. If we were lucky we might get Richard Harris performing 'MacArthur Park', or even William Shatner's version of 'Common People.' We'll gloss over the unfortunate technical problems with the bowling club's PA system that compelled us to crowd around the QM's laptop to listen to the tinny sounds emitted by the device's pitifully inadequate speaker and move on to the esoteric nature of the song clips themselves. If I were to label them as 'obscure', then that might lead you to the conclusion that someone, somewhere, let's say a Kevin Ashman perhaps, might have recognised them. With due respect to Kevin, I suspect he might have struggled here. Fifteen snippets of music later, we were the top scorers in the round, with 2 points from a possible 30. The one song that we recognised was "Puttin' on the Ritz", and we confidently scribbled down 'Fred Astaire' as the likely singer. Needless to say, it wasn't Fred Astaire's version, it was the slightly less well known Jimmy Stewart version. We managed to guess the performer of the only clip of comparatively recent vintage - Johnny Depp - but we hadn't a clue as to the name of the song. As we strained to hear the mistakable musical stylings of Ida Lupino, Paulette Godard, Ethel Merman and Ronald Colman emanating from the computer, I was wondering what on Earth I was doing at a rubbish SNP quiz in a bowling club in Corstorphine on a Friday night, when I could have been doing almost anything else instead. The next round was a photo round, on Scottish TV, theatrical and movie types; to describe them as 'stars' would be to attribute to them a disproportionate level of luminosity. James Cosmo was probably the closest to a 'household' name, if by 'household' we mean a place inhabited exclusively by people with an obsessive interest in lesser-known Scottish actors and actresses. At one point, I remember Brian saying, 'I think I wrote his obituary for The Scotsman, but I still have absolutely no idea who he is!' The next round was The Movie Round. This should be right up our street we thought, optimistically. Wrong. We were provided with a still from the movie and the year of the film's release. Almost every film seemed to be from the silent era. 'A Chump at Oxford' seemed to be the most recent and best known of them. The final round was a beauty. It was a series of questions composed from information 'freely available on various Edinburgh District Council websites' and, therefore, according to the QM, we would have 'no-one to blame but ourselves' if we hadn't studied the relevant sites in forensic detail. The only question I can remember, due to it's unintentionally humorous nature, was the following: Q) What was the first animal purchased by Edinburgh Zoo, and, how much (in old money) did it cost?Turns out it was a gannet and it cost 2 shillings and sixpence. Who knew? Not us, or, surprisingly, anyone else in the pub. At the conclusion of this 'final round', we were told that there would be a special 'bonus question' worth 50 points. At this stage we were leading, by a considerable margin, having accumulated something like 15 out of a possible 100 points. Every other team was on (low) single figures. 50 points was more than the aggregate score of the entire pub. As it happens, the question fell kindly for us: "Which actor, who has appeared as an answer in this quiz, is related to which other actor, who has also appeared as an answer in this quiz, and what is their relationship?' Brian knew it, almost certainly because he wrote his obituary. James Copeland (The Mate in The Maggie) was James Cosmo's father. So we won, with a grand total of 65 points, by something like a 60 point margin. The QM, who clearly meant well, was fairly surprised when it was suggested afterwards that his quiz had been a bit on the obscure side. Apparently he works at Waitrose and regularly writes quizzes for the staff there, and his quizzes 'go down very well' with Waitrose's finest quiz brains. I don't think the legendary 'SNP quiz at Corstorphine Bowling Club' can ever be matched, let alone beaten, in the 'most misjudged quiz' category. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The DA Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 5 hours ago, Zen Archer said: Is the answer Hull City? I put down mascarpone. One of us has to be right. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesP_81 Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 I hope [mention=35584]Frankie S[/mention] won't mind me sharing his magnificent tale about a pub quiz he went to in Edinburgh ... I once did a SNP fundraising quiz at Corstorphine bowling club in Edinburgh with Brian Pendreigh, Colin Cruickshank and Barry Haniford, who happens to be a member. My comments on the quiz are not a slight on the SNP, or indeed SNP fundraising quizzes (SNP MSP Marco Biagi has set several excellent quizzes in the past), but this particular set was woefully misjudged. I suspect we were the only team there with any kind of quiz pedigree, the other teams were probably just SNP members who thought they'd give the quiz a go as it was supporting the cause. I'm not really sure where to start with this, such was the utter devastation that ensued in what can only be described as an instrument of torture masquerading as a quiz. The first round, on anagrams of game birds, didn't get things off to the best start, when the jumble of letters that suggested it might be 'Capercaillie' was found to be a couple of letters short of a full complement. The next round was a specialist subject round, 30 questions for 30 points. A 30 point specialist subject round, this should suit us I thought. It was bound to be a wide-ranging topic, for that many points. Perhaps Literature, History, Geography, Film, Sport, Mythology? Any of those would suit. As long as it wasn't Pop Music. As it turned out, the specialist subject had rather narrower parameters than we had expected - it was to be 30 questions on the 1950s TV series, 'Para Handy - Master Mariner', its '60s offshoot, 'The Vital Spark', the 1954 movie spin-off 'The Maggie' and the '90s series, 'The Tales of Para Handy.' The QM was clearly a Para Handy aficionado and the questions were comparable in difficulty to Mastermind specialist subject round level (typical question - which actor played The Mate in 'The Maggie'?) All I knew about this particular TV series (which I would have described as 'psychological torture' rather than 'situation comedy') was that Gregor Fisher appeared in the '90s remake, so I sat this round out and let my team-mates get on with it. We didn't score many, but we had the lead after squandering half an hour of our lives to the minutiae of this little-known BBC Scotland sitcom. Next round was music, never one of our better subjects, but when it was revealed that it was 'songs performed by actors and actresses' we perked up, as Brian is a movie expert. We couldn't resist a few predictions of the upcoming musical treats: 'Something Stupid' by Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams was almost bound to appear. If we were lucky we might get Richard Harris performing 'MacArthur Park', or even William Shatner's version of 'Common People.' We'll gloss over the unfortunate technical problems with the bowling club's PA system that compelled us to crowd around the QM's laptop to listen to the tinny sounds emitted by the device's pitifully inadequate speaker and move on to the esoteric nature of the song clips themselves. If I were to label them as 'obscure', then that might lead you to the conclusion that someone, somewhere, let's say a Kevin Ashman perhaps, might have recognised them. With due respect to Kevin, I suspect he might have struggled here. Fifteen snippets of music later, we were the top scorers in the round, with 2 points from a possible 30. The one song that we recognised was "Puttin' on the Ritz", and we confidently scribbled down 'Fred Astaire' as the likely singer. Needless to say, it wasn't Fred Astaire's version, it was the slightly less well known Jimmy Stewart version. We managed to guess the performer of the only clip of comparatively recent vintage - Johnny Depp - but we hadn't a clue as to the name of the song. As we strained to hear the mistakable musical stylings of Ida Lupino, Paulette Godard, Ethel Merman and Ronald Colman emanating from the computer, I was wondering what on Earth I was doing at a rubbish SNP quiz in a bowling club in Corstorphine on a Friday night, when I could have been doing almost anything else instead. The next round was a photo round, on Scottish TV, theatrical and movie types; to describe them as 'stars' would be to attribute to them a disproportionate level of luminosity. James Cosmo was probably the closest to a 'household' name, if by 'household' we mean a place inhabited exclusively by people with an obsessive interest in lesser-known Scottish actors and actresses. At one point, I remember Brian saying, 'I think I wrote his obituary for The Scotsman, but I still have absolutely no idea who he is!' The next round was The Movie Round. This should be right up our street we thought, optimistically. Wrong. We were provided with a still from the movie and the year of the film's release. Almost every film seemed to be from the silent era. 'A Chump at Oxford' seemed to be the most recent and best known of them. The final round was a beauty. It was a series of questions composed from information 'freely available on various Edinburgh District Council websites' and, therefore, according to the QM, we would have 'no-one to blame but ourselves' if we hadn't studied the relevant sites in forensic detail. The only question I can remember, due to it's unintentionally humorous nature, was the following: Q) What was the first animal purchased by Edinburgh Zoo, and, how much (in old money) did it cost?Turns out it was a gannet and it cost 2 shillings and sixpence. Who knew? Not us, or, surprisingly, anyone else in the pub. At the conclusion of this 'final round', we were told that there would be a special 'bonus question' worth 50 points. At this stage we were leading, by a considerable margin, having accumulated something like 15 out of a possible 100 points. Every other team was on (low) single figures. 50 points was more than the aggregate score of the entire pub. As it happens, the question fell kindly for us: "Which actor, who has appeared as an answer in this quiz, is related to which other actor, who has also appeared as an answer in this quiz, and what is their relationship?' Brian knew it, almost certainly because he wrote his obituary. James Copeland (The Mate in The Maggie) was James Cosmo's father. So we won, with a grand total of 65 points, by something like a 60 point margin.The QM, who clearly meant well, was fairly surprised when it was suggested afterwards that his quiz had been a bit on the obscure side. Apparently he works at Waitrose and regularly writes quizzes for the staff there, and his quizzes 'go down very well' with Waitrose's finest quiz brains.I don't think the legendary 'SNP quiz at Corstorphine Bowling Club' can ever be matched, let alone beaten, in the 'most misjudged quiz' category.Honshu, every answer. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Connolly Posted July 14, 2019 Share Posted July 14, 2019 Frankie S probably didn't mind you sharing the story, but every other c**t did. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlipperyP Posted July 15, 2019 Share Posted July 15, 2019 Did not read that novel... Ok Forfar handed out the tanking and the playoff time has run out! Movers and Shakers this weekend were; Midnight Tokers @Ziggy i’ll go for 309. v @peasy23 God knows. I'm guessing whoever measures these things doesn't just count ones that get buildings shaking. I'll go for my house number, 38. Sağmalcılar Prison Takers @NJ2 Good question, as ever. No idea but I’d guess most these happen at sea and we’re not really aware. 50? One every second day? v@blackislekillie NO SCORE Question - How many Earthquakes were recorded around the British Isle in the last 100 days. 56 Congratulations to @peasy23 & @NJ2 See'u 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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