A Spirited Defeat

Hi again everyone. You're just in time for my round up of our weekly foray into the Victory's halls of quizzing. We weren't quite up to our usual standards of magnificence this week, but we were still at least credible. As usual, please have a glance at the ones that stumped us, and let me know if you could have helped us walk away with some cash. I have now added the much awaited snowball questions.


12/08/2014
Venue: The Victory Stadium (or pub for short)        Team: Me + 3 others
Place: Joint 4th  87/100 (1st place - 94)                    Snowball: Not chosen

As I mentioned above, this was not the best we have ever played, but you can't win them all I suppose. I'm not feeling the best today, so I'll cut the chatter and get on with the goods.

Questions

1) This week, goalkeeper Mark Oxley scored the winning goal for which Scottish team?

2) Criminals stole £8 million worth of oil from a pipeline underneath the home of which MP this week?

3) Often served with haggis, what are neeps and tatties? (1 point for each)

4) What type of creature is a gadwall?

5) Barbara Gordon was the secret identity of which superhero?

6) What is a 'baldric'?

7) 'Some people call me the space cowboy, some call me the gangster of love,' are the opening lyrics to which song?

Snowballs

S1) In the film The Big Lebowski, what is the Dude's favourite drink?

S2) In the film The Bodyguard, which character does Whitney Houston play?

Good? Bad? Awful? Why not have a look?

Answers

I hope you didn't actually click the button. Here they are...

1) Hibernian
2) Nick Clegg (although you should have been able to have Philip Hammond as well)
3) Turnips and potatoes (controversial)
4) A duck
5) Batgirl
6) A belt
7) 'The Joker' by the Steve Miller Band

S1) A White Russian
S2) Rachel Marron

The Excuses

1) You know me, I don't watch football. Is there a type of football I watch even less than English Football? Yes, Scottish football. I have no idea what we went with, but it was probably Rangers (Glasgow). Oxley scored against Livingston, and it's worth a look.
Quiz lowdown: Hibernian or 'Hibs' is based in Leith in the north of Edinburgh and was founded by Irish immigrants in 1875. The club has won the top flight of the Scottish League 4 times (1903, 1948, 1951, 1952) and plays at Easter Road. They play the Edinburgh Derby against Hearts of Midlothian and one of their nicknames is 'The Cabbage' based on rhyming slang 'cabbage and ribs'.

2) I didn't remember this story at all, and I'm usually all over political stories like fingerprints on a touch screen. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg can add this to his ever increasing list of woes. Our teammate was fairly confident that the politician concerned was Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, and we had no reason to doubt him. Plus, if (we assumed incorrectly) that this was under his constituency home, Osborne in Cheshire seemed plausible as I had seen a documentary on house building where the building (in Cheshire) could not take place due to an oil pipeline in the vicinity. As it happens, the estate is in Sevenoaks, in Kent. Oh well...
Quiz lowdown: Clegg was a Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands before joining the House of Commons as MP for Sheffield Hallam in 2005. He became leader of the Liberal Democrats in 2007 and Deputy Prime Minister in 2010.

3) This is one of those archetypal nightmare questions. These kinds of 'neeps' are actually swedes (or rutabaga in the U.S. and Canada) rather than turnips. However, in Scotland, the undisputed home of the haggis, swedes/rutabaga are commonly called 'turnips'. Though Scottish people call ordinary turnips 'turnips' as well, these are not usually served with haggis. Therefore had we been asked this question in Scotland, we would have been wrong, but as we were in England, we were swindled out of a point. ('Tatties' posed no similar problem, in case you were wondering!)
Quiz lowdown: Swede/rutabaga developed as a cross between the turnip and a cabbage.

4) You either know it or you don't. I was tempted to use Quizzer's Instinct here and put 'bird' (it's always a bird), but I think we went with 'fish' after some discussion. And sacrificed another point. Here is the offending duck in all its splendour.
Quiz info: The gadwall is generally found across North America, Europe and Asia. Gertrude Gadwall is a distant relation of Donald Duck, being the great great grandmother of his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie.

5) I have to take the blame for this one, feeling sure it was Wonder Woman. However, I missed the obvious clue in her name, since she is the daughter of Gotham City Police Commissioner Gordon. In my defence, Gordon was the second of 5 different women who identified themselves as 'Batgirl'. Cue the argument as to whether somebody with no supernatural powers is a 'superhero'.
Quiz info: Gordon debuted in issue 359 of Detective Comics in 1967 in the story 'The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!'

6) As a big fan of TV series Blackadder, I was aghast to realise that I actually had no idea what the answer was, not even whether Baldrick was named after a baldric or the baldric was named after the character. Engrossed in thought for a long time, I came to the conclusion that it was probably the latter. A hat, jacket, trousers and even underpants went through my mind (notably bypassing belt, of course) until I came to the conclusion that it was probably a turnip (deja vu) after the massive turnip that Baldrick once bought for £1000.
Quiz info: The baldric is a belt worn over the shoulder typically to carry a weapon, such as a sword. I don't think Baldrick has ever had anything to do with one of these...

7) Despite having played this several times on Guitar Hero, this song didn't even cross my mind. As this was the last question, in a frantic scramble to put something down, we put 'Born To Run' which I opted for mainly because I have still not ever listened to it.
Quiz info: The Steve Miller Band released the song in 1973, but it didn't chart in the UK at the time. However, after being featured in an advert for Levi's, it reached No 1 in 1990, giving it the record for the longest wait for a single to top the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. In case you haven't heard the song, here is a link to it.

Now for the snowballs. No chance for us this week, but to be honest that was fine as we didn't know either of them.

S1) Another classic film to add to the 'to see' list I fear. I get the feeling that if I had actually seen the film I would have known in an instant.
Quiz info: A White Russian cocktail is traditionally made with vodka and a coffee based liqueur (such as Kahlua or Tia Maria) with cream on top. The cream is the only differentiation between a White Russian and a Black Russian, on which it is based. The White Russian appears to have been invented in America in the 1960s, and purists would serve it on the rocks in an Old Fashioned Glass (as pictured). The Big Lebowski is credited with repopularising the drink over recent years.

S2)  As if I would/should/realistically could have known this. Shame on the gentleman who earned his team £50 with the correct answer!
Quiz info: First released in 1992, The Bodyguard co-stars Kevin Costner as Frank Farmer (who happens to be the eponymous bodyguard). The soundtrack album to this film is one of the highest selling soundtrack albums in the world, but figures are unclear as to whether it has sold THE most. The Bodyguard album claims sales of 40 million, but so does Saturday Night Fever. While the Bodyguard has more certified sales than Saturday Night Fever, it has a similar number of certified sales to Grease, which doesn't make such ambitious claims. Confused? You're not alone.

So there we go, this entry has finally been rounded off. Hope you enjoyed it, and let me know if I've got anything wrong. The last person who wants anything up here to be incorrect is me!

See you all again soon.