Thursday's Near Miss

I apologise for the incredibly late update of this post, but that's what may have to happen periodically over the next couple of weeks. I can only hope that you think this is finally worth it. We knew that following up our win last week would be tough, but we can happily say that we finished the quiz very respectably. We were 3rd, and only 3 more points (out of 18) would have seen us take the top prize home again. That of course means that it was quite possible that YOUR absence cost us the match. Could you have helped us to carry our winning momentum into next week? Here's your chance to find out. As always, comment below or tweet me at @MPRTaylor, especially if you could have made all the difference.

Venue: The Queen's Arms                                                            Team: Me + the Teacher
Score: 62 - 3rd  (1st place - 64)                                                     Prize: £5 (pulled out of a hat)

Best Team Name

My personal favourite from last week was 'Quizlamic State', but the actual winner is 'I'm Not a Gynaecologist, But I'll Take a Look', so well done them. You can see the full shortlist here. We have only a few on the shortlist this week.

- A Game of Four Halves

- Michael Barrymore's Swim Team

- Overly Specific Knowledge

 

I will endeavour to write down a few more next time, but you're not missing out too much. Get voting, again either comment or tweet me. Now let's get on with the quiz...

Questions

Identify these well known faces from their pictures -

1)                                        2)  

 3)
                   














4) The cereal 'Sugar Puffs' has been renamed this week. What is its new name?

5) What, in the human body, is the hallux? Clue: Most people have two of them.

6) Not counting its claws, how many legs does a crab have?

7) On Groundhog Day, what does a groundhog have to see for the winter weather to stay for 6 more weeks (allegedly)?

8) Do peanuts grow about or below ground?

Identify these musical artists from their songs. (Bear in mind that the Teacher and I were only played 10 second clips.) Click on the links below to be taken to a YouTube video. As always, watch out for adverts.

9) Song 1               10) Song 2                11) Song 3              12) Song 4            13) Song 5

14) Which song was a hit for the Jackson 5, Gloria Gaynor and the Communards?

Questions 15, 16 and 17 all contain a hyphen in the answer.

15) What was the name of Captain Pugwash's main enemy?

16) In 2013, Apple overtook which company at the top of the list of the World's 100 Best Global Brands?

17) The German Doctor Ernst Grafenberg has what named after him?

18) You need both of these for 2 points. (Get one wrong and you lost points.)
Name both of One Direction's No. 1 albums

Tie-Breaker) Salisbury claims to be home to the world's oldest working clock. In which year was it first operational?

Answers

1) Elizabeth Olsen
2) Jack Nicklaus
3) Christina Perri
4) Honey Monster Puffs
5) Big Toe
6) 8
7) It's own shadow
8) Below ground
9) Joan Armatrading (Drop the Pilot)
10) Culture Club (Do You really Want To Hurt Me)
11) The Mavericks (Dance the Night Away)
12) Soul II Soul feat. Caron Wheeler (Back To Life
13) Matt Cardle and Mel C (Losing You)
14) Never Can Say Goodbye
15) Cut-Throat Jake
16) Coca-Cola
17) The G-Spot
18) Take Me Home and Midnight Memories
TB) 1368

Post Match Analysis

1) The picture we were given looked like Hilary Duff to me, which is that answer that we went with. The Teacher was onto something as the thought that it was either Mary Kate or Ashley, but I took the approach that it couldn't be one of a pair of twins as that would be tremendously unfair to anyone besides their parents. Having said that, neither me nor the Teacher had ever heard of their sister.
Fact File: Born in 1989 in Sherman Oaks, California, Olsen followed her sisters into acting and has achieved recognition for her roles in 'Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene' and 'Silent House' and also appeared in the 2014 version of Godzilla.

2) The Teacher is quite hot on most sports, but golf is perhaps not his forte. He realised afterwards that the picture is of a left handed golfer, which means that he reckons he should have got this one. I couldn't possibly comment.
Fact File: Born in 1940 in Upper Arlington, Ohio, Nicklaus is regarded as one of the best golfers of all time, winning a total of 18 of golf's major tournaments, beginning with the US Open in 1962 and finishing with the Masters in 1986. His nickname is the Golden Bear and he developed a rivalry with fellow golfer Arnold Palmer. As I have mentioned once before, Nicklaus is colour blind.

3) I knew I had seen her before, but couldn't place her. I went with Linda Cardellini, of E.R. fame. Knowing last years big thing is an important part of quizzing and on this front I singularly failed.
Fact File: Christina Judith Perri was born in 1986 in Philadelphia. She released her debut single 'Jar of Hearts' in 2010, which was so successful that it earned the unsigned Perri a deal with Atlantic Records. Jar of Hearts reached No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart.

4) I had seen the news but couldn't quite recall the answer. I can totally see why Honey Monster Foods made the change, but I hope it doesn't get too health conscious as I personally don't see the point of cereal without sugar. I opted for 'Honey Wheat Puffs', which looking back on it, I probably wouldn't buy...
Fact File: As the public becomes ever more aware of their own and their children's sugar intake, this sort of move was more or less inevitable. As well as changing the branding, Honey Monster Puffs have reduced the amount of sugar from two cubes per portion to one and a half, and increased the amount of honey by 20%. Sugar Puffs were first launched in 1957 by the Quaker Oats Company and the original mascot was Jeremy the Bear. The Honey Monster made his first appearance in 1976.

5) I thought I had heard that this was the thumb, but I think this might have been one that I got wrong on a previous quiz. Realising that you have got this sort of question wrong is immensely frustrating, and is after all, what the blog is all about.
Fact File: Unlike the other toes, the big toe is only made up of two, rather than three bones (the proximal phalanx and the distal phalanx). When someone's second (or 'long' toe) is longer than their big toe, they are said to have 'Morton's toe'. The thumb, it turns out, is actually the pollex.

6) I thought this was the case for lobsters and so accordingly we removed a pair for the crab. I also drew a little picture for reference and so convinced myself that 6 legs was the magic number.
Fact File: Crabs are crustaceans which are found in all of the worlds oceans and it is estimated that 1 and a half million tonnes of crab are eaten every year. Like lobsters, they are 'decapods' which means 10 legs, and their claws are usually included in this count. Crabs also have a short tail which is often hidden underneath their bodies and the male of the species generally have the larger claws. The largest crab is the Japanese Spider Crab.

7) Groundhog Day is one of those films that I keep on meaning to see but never actually do. The Teacher and I reasoned that the groundhog must see something unique to the groundhog, but we couldn't think exactly what and this one was left until too late, prompting an unsatisfactory answer of 'snow'.
Fact File: Groundhog Day takes place every year on the 2nd of February in the US and Canada. The best known groundhog is 'Punxsutawney Phil' who was featured in the 1993 film. Given that the day was first celebrated in 1887 and the average lifespan of a wild groundhog is about 3 years, we can reasonably conclude that at least 40 groundhogs have taken up Phil's role at some point. This may help explain his questionable record of only 39% accuracy since 1988. Phil makes his predictions at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

8) It appears that the Teacher was right to suggest that legumes as a rule grow above ground, but the peanut is a notable exception. Just our luck...
Fact File: As mentioned above, the peanut is not actually a nut, but a legume. It is unusual in that it flowers above ground, but the actual peanut itself develops below. A peanuts' seeds are called kernels and the oldest peanuts are thought to come from Peru. Former US President Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer in his youth in his home state of Georgia.

9) This one really stumped us. In my opinion it didn't sound anything like Joan Armatrading, at least not going off the only song of hers that I knew - Love and Affection. This answer was so far from my mind that this answer was completely ungettable, so what can you do?
Fact File: 'Drop the Pilot' is a 1983 song that reached No 11 on the UK Chart. It Armatrading's only other Top 20 hit besides Love and Affection. Armatrading was born on St Kitts in 1950, but relocated to Birmingham in 1958, and made her first public performance at the University.

10) I thought the singer sounded like Boy George, but the Teacher talked me out of it. To be honest, I don't think it mattered, as I might have opted for George as a solo artist. But really, I ought to have recognised the song, given that I could sing the whole of the chorus.
Fact File: Culture Club formed in London in 1981 and is made up of George O'Dowd (better known as Boy George), Roy Hay, Mikey Craig and Jon Moss. In 1983, their hit song 'Karma Chameleon' became the best selling song of the year in the UK. In 1982, 'Do You Really Want To Hurt Me' became the group's 1st No 1 single and it appears on the album 'Kissing To Be Clever'.

11) This was the only real aggravation on the music round, given that the Teacher and I both knew the song, but neither of us knew who performed it. It really surprised me to find that the song was from the late 1990s, and not as I had thought, from the mid 1950s. Our guess was Eddie Cochran, with misgivings.
Fact File: The Mavericks were formed in Miami, Florida in 1989. They reached No 4 with 'Dance the Night Away' in the UK in 1998.

12) I knew that I had heard this song, but for the life of me I couldn't place the extract played to us. I thought it might have been 90s, so casting around for girl groups, we went for B*Witched.
Fact File: Soul II Soul were originally active from 1988 - 1997. Formed in London, 'Back To Life' is the group's biggest hit, reaching No. 1 for 4 weeks in 1989.





13) Meh. Neither of us could have got this one.
Fact File: Cardle was born in Southampton in 1983 and found fame through winning the X Factor in 2010, reaching No 1 with a cover of Biffy Clyro's 'Many of Horror', released as 'When We Collide'. He brought out this song with Mel C of Spice Girls fame in 2013 and it got to No. 14 in the charts. The two are widely thought to be a couple.

14) When the quizmaster said the right answer, it all came flooding back, but this caused a bit of brain wracking at the time. I'm not a huge fan of the song, and I had never heard the Communards version, which might have made the difference here.
Fact File: The song was originally written by Clifton Davies for the Supremes, but Motown gave it to the Jackson 5 to record instead. Gaynor's version was the most successful in the UK, reaching No. 2 in 1974. It was her first UK hit.

15) Another Pugwash crisis. I might have to watch a few episodes so we don't keep constantly falling into these traps.
Fact File: Captain Pugwash first appeared the 'The Eagle' comic's first issue in 1950. Claiming to be 'the bravest buccaneer' Pugwash captains The Black Pig whose crew consists of Tom the Cabin Boy, Master Mates, Barnabas and Willy. Cut-Throat Jake, his arch nemesis, commands The Flying Dustman and sports an eye-patch, massive black beard and a West Country accent. Several television adaptions have been made, with arguably the most famous being broadcast from 1974-75.

16) The Teacher and I were both agreed that the answer to this must be very obvious indeed and that it was probably so ingrained in daily life that we would probably overlook it. What we weren't prepared for was that the answer was SO obvious that we had been drinking it all night...
Fact File: I have actually already done a fact file on Coca-Cola, but here's a chance to expand. Coca-Cola (which originally contained small quantities of cocaine) was developed as a non-alcoholic version of John Pemberton's 'French Wine Cola', which in turn Pemberton had created as a healthier alternative to morphine. Since some economic sanctions were recently lifted on Burma, there are only two countries in the world where Coca-Cola is not sold - Cuba and North Korea.

17) No chance here. We were never going to shorten Grafenberg to G, so this one was a lost cause. Grafenberg spot somehow doesn't sound quite as sexual.
Fact File: It is hotly debated as to whether the famed G-spot actually exists, but it is considered to be an erogenous area of the vagina that can produce powerful orgasms in women. Grafenberg was born in Adelbesen in 1881 and fled Hitler's Nazi regime in the 1930s, dying in New York City in 1957. He also invented the intrauterine device (IUD) form of contraception. The G-spot was named in Grafenberg's honour in 1981.

18) This would have been fairly embarrassing if I had remembered both of them. I remembered Midnight Memories from the constant heavy promotion at the time, but the other one was not coming.
Fact File: One Direction (1D) were formed in 2010 for the seventh series of the X Factor, where they came third to Matt Cardle. Composed of Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan, their debut album 'Up All Night' reached No 2 in the UK and Midnight Memories became the biggest selling album worldwide in 2013.

TB) Well, we were almost within 200 years at least. To put this in context, the clock, which is located in Salisbury Cathedral and has no dial, first began its work at a time when Richard II of England had reigned for 9 years, when he signed the Treaty of Windsor (an alliance with Portugal) and recognised John of Gaunt as King of Castile. The Hundred Years War had been raging for almost 50 years by this point, and Germany's oldest university, Heidelberg, (which the Teacher attended) was founded.

That's your lot folks. Don't forget to comment or tweet me and tell me how you did and which was the best team name. Until next time then...