Yes, sadly it's true. Sunday marked my last Bar Wars appearance for the next few months, as I am off to do a Masters. I hope that my team, the Mighty Ducks, won't miss me too terribly. (I am, of course, lying.) Happily, my last showing was one of the greatest triumphs in my 5 year long pub quizzing history, as I can happily report that not only did we just pip the main quiz, we also netted the cash prize as well! We still dropped a few questions here and there, so you can see if you would have made our victory even more amazing had you been there. I am optimistic that I will still be able to carry on my quiz dissections from university, but I may have to spend less time on them. For now however, why not see how you fared with the ones that stumped us?21/09/2014
Venue: First Bowl Hereford Arena Team: Me + 3 others
Score: 72/82 (1st) Money Round: Win! (£300)
The team names at TGS are always the same, as they compete for the Tim Evans Cup at the end of the year, so I am not offering you a choice of best team names to pick from this time. But hopefully that will resume at my last Victory quiz on Tuesday. Here are our main quiz woe-bringers:
Questions
1) Which Internet service provider is owned by eBay?
2) Which singer was the godmother of fellow singer Dionne Bromfield?
4) Which country is currently experiencing the highest economic growth in the European Union?
5) The recent drought and wildfires in California are causing concern over the continued production of which crop, of which California is estimated to grow 80% of the world's supply?
6) Identify the celebrity from these two separate clues (Clue No. 1 only if you can) -
Clue 1) I was born on Brooklyn in 1966 into a Jewish family. My mother was a nursery school teacher and my father was an electrical engineer. Both of my parents have Russian heritage.
Clue 2) I discovered that I had a talent for stand up comedy and my breakthrough came when I was hired to write for and later perform on Saturday Night Live. I went on to co-star in the 1993 film Coneheads, alongside Chris Farley and Dan Aykroyd (amongst others).
7) The Victoria Cross cannot be awarded to civilians - True or False?
Answers
1) PayPal
2) Amy Winehouse
3) 100000 people
4) Ireland
5) Almonds
6) Adam Sandler
7) False
Post-Match Analysis
The Cup of Knowledge: PayPal is headquartered in San Jose, California and was founded in Palo Alto by Ken Howery, Max Levchin, Elon Musk, Luke Nosek and Peter Thiel in 1998. Its purpose is to allow people to conduct financial transactions/purchases safely online, and as such the U.S. government often forbids its use to individuals or states over whom the U.S. is exerting economic sanctions. It has been owned by eBay since 2002.
2) We had no idea. Slightly irritatingly, the team next door to us very definitely knew and delighted in our struggle. We went with Beyoncé ('She's old enough to be a godmother...'). I'm not too irked by this, we were never going to get it.The Cup of Knowledge: Dionne Bromfield was born in 1996 in Tower Hamlets and first came to prominence when she recorded a video of her singing a cover of Alicia Keys' 'If I Ain't Got You' with Winehouse. She was later signed to Winehouse's record label, Lioness Records.
The Cup of Knowledge: The first major fireworks display of this kind took place on 1st January 2000, when it was estimated that a colossal 3 million people were present. It has been occurring regularly since 1st January 2004, and it is thought that around 500000 attended the last one in 2014. The tickets will cost £10 and you can book up to four as of now, should you fancy it.
4) A fair few floated through our minds. Once again, I had read the relevant news, I just hadn't internalised it. I'm not 100% what we put, but I think it was Poland.The Cup of Knowledge: After first entering recession in mid 2007, and soon after experiencing the damaging burst of a property bubble (having previously been dubbed the 'Celtic Tiger'), Ireland grew 1.5% over the last 3 months for which figures are available (April to June), making the country an impressive 7.7% larger than this time last year.
The Cup of Knowledge: Almonds are thought to be collective worth $4.3 billion to the economy of California, with nearly a million acres of the state dedicated to their growth, and it is now considered to be America's favourite 'nut'. However, technically the almond is a seed from inside the drupe (fruit) from the almond tree. Its botanical name is 'Prunus dulcis'.
6) I wasn't ashamed not to know this straight away, but from the first clue I thought it might potentially have been Helen Mirren. Luckily, somebody also pointed out to me that I had done my maths wrong. Good job we waited for the next clue then, and after hearing the third one we got it correct.The Cup of Knowledge: Sandler is probably best known for the films Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, the titles of which he combined to make the name of his own production company Happy Madison. Sandler's 2011 Jack and Jill is notable for earning Sandler the title of both Worst Actor and Worst Actress at the Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies).
7) We should have put our thinking caps on for this one. Why would Leon have asked otherwise? It was 99% likely that it was true, ergo it was false...The Cup of Knowledge: First established in 1856 by Queen Victoria during the Crimean War, the cross is typically awarded for distinguished military service, with the counterpart for civilians being the George Cross. The Victoria Cross can however be awarded to civilians if they were acting under military orders whilst performing their act of heroism, and 5 men have received it for this reason. This is the highest level of award that can be conferred by the UK to a member of the Commonwealth or former colony.
I didn't feel that any of these truly showed us up (Helen Mirren notwithstanding), and we were understandably chuffed this week. Up next is the money round - how would you have fared with these? We only got 13, so we squeaked it. It's always worth having absolute certainty on your side, so give them a whirl...
Final Fling Questions:
1) In which U.S. state was Harley-Davidson founded?
2) Who is the Church of England's only saint?
Answers & Analysis
1) Wisconsin. One of our team actually suggested the right answer, but we weren't sure and in the end we went for Tennessee. The Cup of Knowledge: Harley-Davidson was founded in by William S. Harley and Arthur, Walter and William Davidson in 1903 in Milwaukee. It provided vast numbers of motorcycles for the U.S. government during the two World Wars and is one of only two American motorcycle companies to stay in business during the Great Depression (the other being Indian, which went bankrupt in 1953).
2) Charles I. We didn't have an idea about this one. Well, we kind of did, but had our answer of St. George been correct then this question would have been uncharacteristically easy for the cash round. We wouldn't have thought of anything else under the time pressure, and of all the monarchs we might potentially have thought of, Charles I wouldn't have been particularly high on that list.The Cup of Knowledge: This question is really asking who was the only person to be canonised by the Church of England after the Reformation (i.e. since Henry VIII rejected the authority of the Catholic Church in 1534). Charles I was canonised because he was regarded by many as a martyr after being beheaded during the English Civil War. However, his status as a saint is not universally recognised and 'St Charles' is not a name that most English people would realise to be a former monarch. This is the sort of question that I love though, so no complaints here.
So there you have it, the round up of my last Bar Wars for a decent length of time. Hope you've enjoyed it and if you have any quibbles with what I've written, please comment. Also, don't forget to let me know how you did with these questions. Until we meet again, Bar Wars...
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