A Return To Form

Back again, and this this time with much better news. A hearty second place finish this time, by 1 point only. This means (since one question is generally worth 2 points) that by answering any single one of our pitfalls correctly, you would have been the difference between being Kings of the Quiz and our actual outcome as pretenders to the throne. If that isn't an enticement to read on, I don't know what is. So without further ado...

19/08/2014
The Victory Alcohol Serving Establishment               Team: Me + 4 others
Place: 2nd - 89 points (1st place - 90)                         Snowball: Not chosen

Had we been paying a little more attention to the news, I think this would have been ours for the taking. Sadly, however much news we seem to consume, there's always something else that happened in the week. Handily, we got a perfect score for the Starter for Ten, which happened to be (surprise, surprise) to name 10 of the top 10 names for either boys or girls in England and Wales in 2013. But here are the ones where your help may have been invaluable...

Questions

1) What was the name of Robin William's character in Good Morning Vietnam?

2) In which city did the UEFA Super Cup final take place this week?

3) Which brewery won the 'Best British Beer' award this week?

4) On which island would you find Luqa airport?

5) Neil Hamilton played who in the 1960s television series of Batman?

5 1/2) What does a carpophagus animal eat?


Sod's law tells me that you aced those. But why not check, just to be sure...

Answers

1) Adrian Cronauer
2) Cardiff
3) Timothy Taylor's
4) Malta
5) Commissioner Gordon
5 1/2) Fruit

Post Match Analysis


1) Despite having seen the clip of William's character say the line 'What does the 0 stand for? 0 my God, it's early!' several times on the news over the past week, it actually does seem a reckless oversight on my behalf not to have checked what that character was actually called. All we had to go on was that it was a German sounding name, and our answer was indeed something vaguely German.
The Essentials: Good Morning Vietnam was released in 1987 and earned Williams his first Oscar nomination as well as a Golden Globe for his performance. Airman Second Class Adrian Cronauer was a real person on whose story the film is loosely based. The film was set in 1965 in Saigon, but was shot on location in Thailand.

2) Football. Just football. There's always one and I'm trying to get up to speed with this sport as best as I can, but the Super Cup? Zero idea. I think our answer was Madrid.
The Essentials: The Super Cup is played between the winners of the UEFA Champions League and the Europa League (the successor to our old friend, the European Cup Winner's Cup) and was founded in 1972, being recognised by UEFA the following year. Real Madrid beat Sevilla 2-0 at Cardiff City Stadium, with local football superstar Gareth Bale setting up both of Cristiano Ronaldo's goals. A. C. Milan have won the most Super Cups with 5.

3) This was mainly my fault. I had seen the story, but managed to mix several things up in my head. I could only remember that it was brewed in West Yorkshire and that something (it turned out to be the beer) began with the letter 'B'. Timothy Taylor's was suggested as an answer and I vetoed it, so my bad.
The Essentials: Timothy Taylor's brewery was founded in 1858, and Boltmaker, the winning beer, was first brewed in the 1930s and was originally simply called 'Best Bitter'. It was renamed in 2012 after the Boltmaker's Arms pub in Keighley. 'Landlord' is also produced by Timothy Taylor's, which Madonna claims is her favourite beer.

4) Again, I'd never had the pleasure. In my defence, Luqa was spelt out to us as 'Luka', which made me push for a Greek island, although there are plenty of stray letter 'k's in Malta as well. Our guess was Crete.
The Essentials: Located south east of the capital, Valletta, Luqa (officially Malta International) is the only airport on Malta. It is sited on the former RAF Base and opened as a commercial airport in 1992.



5) Another Batman question. I need to get more up to speed. Having no idea, we tried to work it out logically by reasoning that the name 'Neil Hamilton' sounded more British, so was most likely to be Batman's butler, Alfred Pennyworth. And yet again, we were wrong.
The Essentials: The TV series first aired in 1966 and despite only running for 3 seasons managed to rack up 120 episodes. It featured Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. Alan Napier played Alfred.

5 1/2) We think this was the question that we were marked down on, costing us the opportunity for the tie-break. Casting my mind back a few weeks, I vaguely remembered the carpology question. The answer we put was 'Fruits and seeds', and our markers probably decided that we were hedging our bets. Anyway, we didn't challenge it and the rest is history.

Could you have dragged us over that magical winning post? Let me know.
More to the point, could you have won £100? Why not read on and find out?

Snowballs

Nobody won the money this week, which is great for us as we weren't picked, but showed us up a little in the knowledge department. In which case, if you get any of these, I'm happy to accredit you with that extra slice of genius.

1) William Simmonite was the real name of which TV character?

2) Margarita Cancino was the real named of which famous actress?

3) Eddie Eagan is notable for being the only Olympian to achieve which feat?

4) What was the original colour of Coca-Cola?


Snowball Answers

1) Compo, from Last of the Summer Wine. Compo was portrayed by Bill Owen from 1973 until 2000, Owen having died in 1999. Compo's vice was that he was incredibly lazy and had something of a crush on his neighbour Nora Batty, played by Kathy Staff. Last of the Summer Wine ran from 1973 - 2010, and according to Wikipedia, is the longest running sitcom in the world. It ran for 295 episodes, and was chiefly filmed in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire.


2) Rita Hayworth. Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1918, and she was apparently a brunette in reality, but died her hair red to attract greater attention for film roles. Hayworth is noted for her status as a pin up during the Second World War and for her marriages to Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan. She married 5 times in total. She died in 1987 after complications due to Alzheimer's Disease.

3) He won gold medals at both the Summer Games and the Winter Games in different events. Eagan was born 1897 in Denver, Colorado. He achieved his first gold in the 1920 Antwerp Games for Boxing in the Light-Heavyweight category. He later won at the 1932 Lake Placid Games in Four man Bobsleigh. He later became a lawyer and a US army colonel. Eagan died in 1967, aged 70.

4) Green. This looks like it is just an internet rumour. Coca-Cola denies that this was ever the case. The drink was invented in 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia by John Pemberton. It is not the first carbonated soft drink, beaten by one year by Dr Pepper. Coca-Cola is also not patented, since once the patent expired the company would have to divulge the secret formula involved in making the drink.

Did you win? Don't worry if not, plenty of teams walked away empty handed. Once again, I've spent far too long on this, so hope you enjoy the fruits of my labour. Until next time ladies and gentlemen.