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Welcome back everyone. I may get around to uploading some more recent past quizzes. I should, in theory, have had enough time to do it. But it seems a good idea to me to get this one from the Queen's Arms out in the open first, as our Duck & Scholar matches are almost always the same (i.e. some strong rounds, usually scuppered by Disney). I am gently falling back into my quizzing routine and may even devise an original quiz at some point as an apology for my two weeks of relative negligence. This week's Queen's quiz should be up in the next few days with any luck. We only won this one by a point, but we barely put a foot wrong so we're pretty happy. On we go...

Venue: The Queen's Arms                                                   Team: Me + the Teacher
Score: 65/80 (1st)                                                                 Prize: £20

Best Team Name

In your infinite wisdom, you decided that last week's Best Team Name Winner was 'We're Rubbish' which just squeaked it, but not by much. You can see the shortlist here, but it was hardly the best ever you could have chosen from. I think that this weeks one is a definite improvement. The candidates are as follows:

- Two Doctors and their Fab Fruits

- Michael Barrymore's Swimming Team

- We Know Stuff

- Why are there no aspirin in the jungle? Because the parrots ate 'em all

- Emma's Drunk On the Train

 

And now, on with the quiz... 

Questions

First, identify these well known faces...

1)                                                                        2)

3)

4) Which band had hits in the 1980s with 'Secret Lovers' and 'Always'?

Identify the artists from their songs. Click on the links and avert your eyes. As always, watch out for adverts. (Maybe you might want to squint.)

5) Song 1                 6) Song 2                   7) Song 3                 8) Song 4                9) Song 5         

10) What is the name of the reindeer in Frozen?

11) Which children's TV character has friends called Rebecca Rabbit, Suzy Sheep, Kylie Kangaroo and Pedro Pony?

Get both answers on these next two questions and you earn two points. Get just 1 or 0 and you lose 2 points. Don't commit to an answer and you get away unscathed.

12) What are the names of Oasis' first two UK No. 1 albums?

13) Leicester was one of the teams to be promoted to the Premier League at the end of the last football season. Which were the other two?

Tiebreak) In miles, what is the length of the M69, which connects Leicester and Coventry (answer to one decimal place)?

Answers

1) Sir John Mills
2) Paul Collingwood
3) Sophie, Countess of Wessex
4) Atlantic Starr
5) Gene Pitney (24 Hours Form Tulsa)
6) The Ramones (Baby, I Love You)
7) Del Amitri (Always the Last To Know)
8) Paloma Faith (Trouble With My Baby)
9) Eliza Doolittle (Let It Rain)
10) Sven
11) Peppa Pig
12) Definitely Maybe and What's the Story (Morning Glory)?
13) Burnley and Queens Park Rangers
TB) 15.7 miles

Post Match Analysis

1) No chance here. Whether we should have known about the great man is another question, but neither of us are massive film buffs. It's also relatively uncommon to see someone who has deceased in a picture round nowadays. 'That guy who's in that film' was too long to fit into the box and I can't remember what our guess was.
Fact File: Lewis Ernest Watts Mills was born in North Elmham, Norfolk in 1908. His promising career in acting was largely deferred for the beginning of the Second World War, in which he became a Second Lieutenant until being discharged in 1942. Mills went on to appear in over 120 films over his career, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Michael in the 1970 film Ryan's Daughter. He was knighted in 1976 and died in Denham, Buckinghamshire in 2005. He is the brother of Muffin the Mule's companion Annette Mills and father of the actresses Juliet and Hayley Mills.

2) If you thought we should be better with films, we are positively cricket-lite. I just haven't got the time to get into it, and so we're pretty much consigned to umming and aahing whenever a cricket question rears its head. Cricket questions are actually relatively few compared to many subjects, possibly being football dominates sport so much in general. I think we went with Graeme Swann.
Fact File: Paul David Collingwood was born in Shotley Bridge, County Durham in 1976 and made his first class debut in 1996. He is regarded as an all rounder and currently captains Durham County Cricket Club. He also captained England to their first ever ICC trophy in 2010. He has played for IPL sides Delhi Daredevils and Rajasthan Royals and the Australian Perth Scorchers. He retired from the England team in 2011.

3) I was happy to have correctly identified a member of the Royal family, but I really should have known that it was Prince Edward's wife. The Teacher, a noted republican, wasn't going to be of much help on this one. Our answer was Zara Phillips.
Fact File: Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones was born in Oxford in 1965. Embarking on a career in public relations, she went on to open her own firm (RJH Public Relations) with Murray Harkin in 1996. She met Prince Edward at a charity fundraiser and they married at Windsor Castle in 1999. Their children, James, Viscount Severn and Lady Louise Windsor are currently 9th and 10th in the line of succession to the throne, but will be relegated further after the birth of Prince William's second child.

4) This was a connections round (the connection was oceans), so we were 90% sure that the answer here would feature the word 'Atlantic'. However, rack our brains as we might, we couldn't conjure up the name of this band.
Fact File: Atlantic Starr were formed in White Plains, New York in 1976. Hosting a large and constantly changing line up, their 1985 song 'Secret Lovers' and their 1987 song 'Always' were their only Top 40 hits in the UK, reaching #10 and #3 respectively, with Always topping the Billboard Hot 100 back in the US.   

5) I should have got this. 24 Hours From Tulsa is probably Pitney's best known song and it is from a musical era that I know fairly well. He also has a fairly distinctive voice, so there's not much in the way of excuses here.
Fact File: Gene Francis Alan Pitney was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1946. He is best remembered for his singing career, though he is the author of several notable hits for other artists. Winning a Golden Globe Award for the song 'Town Without Pity' in 1961, Pitney achieved his UK breakthrough with 24 Hours from Tulsa in 1963, reaching No. 5. He remained popular for much of the 1960s, and he was brought back to attention in 1989 when he duetted on his 1967 hit 'Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart' with Marc Almond, topping the chart. He died of a heart attack in Cardiff in 2006, whilst embarking on a UK tour.

6) Again we should have got this one. The Teacher recognised the song but nothing was coming.
Fact File: The Ramones were formed in 1974 in Queens, New York City. They were extremely influential in the development of punk rock and their best known songs are arguably 'Blitzkrieg Bop' and 'Sheena Is a Punk Rocker'. None of the 8 members of the band was called Ramone, though they all adopted the surname for their time in the band. The best known Ramones are the original lineup, Dee Dee, Johnny, Joey and Tommy. Only Johnny and Joey remained with the band until it disbanded in 1996. 'Baby, I Love You' is a cover of the 1963 single by the Ronettes, and it is the Ramones' highest charting single in the UK, reaching No. 8 in 1980.

7) On a slightly happier note for us, we didn't have a hope in hell of remembering Del Amitri.
Fact File: Del Amitri were formed in Glasgow in 1983. The only consistent members since formation have been vocalist and bassist Justin Currie and lead guitarist Iain Harvie. 'Always the Last To Know' reached No. 13 on the UK chart in 1992. The group disbanded in 2002, but reformed in 2013.

8) If we'd have had our brains in a higher gear we'd have put her down. I think Paloma is destined to become a staple of quizzing life. Hadn't heard this song though, it looks like a very recent release.
Fact File: Paloma Faith Blomfield was born in Hackney in 1981. Notable for her somewhat 'ditsy' personality, Faith has been prominent since the release of her debut album 'Do You Want the Truth Or Something Beautiful?' in 2009. Her recent hit 'Only Love Can Hurt Like This' is her highest charting single to date (No. 6), but her appearances in the 'God Only Knows' advert for the BBC music website and on the new Band Aid 30 single suggest that she will probably top the chart at some point in the near future. Faith has also recorded INXS' 'Never Tear Us Apart' for the 2012 John Lewis Christmas advert and appeared onscreen, including in Heath Ledger's last film 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus' in 2009.   

9) A more modern artist here, but she is reasonably distinctive so we should have thought of her. Our desperation was such by this point that I think we just put down any old artist and hoped for the best.
Fact File: Eliza Sophie Caird was born in Westminster in 1988 and is the daughter of Frances Ruffelle, who represented the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994. Doolittle took the name from the character from My Fair Lady, who she had been nicknamed after. She is probably best known for the 2010 song 'Pack Up' which reached No. 5. 'Let It Rain' reached No. 55 in 2013 and Doolittle has since appeared on England's Official Football World Cup song, a cover of Take That's 'Greatest Day'.

10) The Teacher had a moment of realisation when the answer was read out, not because he had seen the film but because one of his students had written a story about Sven a few months ago. As you might expect, I was pretty useless with this question, but I have heard rave reviews of Frozen and it might become one of those quizzer's must sees...
Fact File: Sven is the companion of the 'iceman' Kristoff, who helps Princess Anna of Arendelle to find her missing sister, Queen Elsa. Sven's movements were based on a real reindeer, Sage, in an attempt to add greater realism to the film. Frozen became the highest grossing film of 2013 worldwide, is the highest grossing animated film ever and won Oscars for Best Original Song and Best Animated Feature. 

11) Again, modern children's media didn't play to our strengths (it might be worrying if it did) and having only a vague idea we went for Dora the Explorer.
Fact File: Peppa Pig was brought to our screens by Astley Baker Davies and E1Kids. With four series and an audience in over 180 countries and territories, the programme has been shown since 2004. Peppa has a brother called George, cousins Chloe and Baby Alexander, and many other friends including Candy Cat, Danny Dog, Zoe Zebra, Freddy Fox and Gabriella Goat.

12) It was a good job that we didn't go for this one as although we mentioned the two correct answers, we may have substituted 'What's the Story?' with a made up album.
Fact File: All 7 of Oasis' studio albums have reached No 1 in the UK with their last, Dig Out Your Soul, doing so in 2008. Definitely Maybe was released in 1994 and became the fastest selling album in the UK at the time. (What's the Story) Morning Glory? achieved the same feat and is currently the 5th best selling album in the UK and has sold over 22 million copies worldwide, and it propelled Oasis to the height of their fame. With the recent demise of Liam Gallagher's band Beady Eye, it has been speculated that Oasis may reform.

13) The teacher was right on this, but after last week we erred on the side of caution. We probably need to get these football facts etched into our brains somehow as they are pretty frequently recurring.
Fact File: Leicester won the Championship outright in 2014. Burnley, managed by Sean Dyche, was also promoted after finishing second. QPR, led by Harry Redknapp, finished 4th in the table and won the consequent play off against Derby County, Wigan Athletic and Brighton and Hove Albion to secure their place in the Premier League.


TB) Lucky we didn't need this. We changed from our original answer of 16 to 18.5, which might have been fatal, so every question was critical in this quiz. To win outright was a massive relief as well as a great moment in its own right.
Fact File: The M69 first opened in 1977 between Leicester and Coventry. Football matches between Leicester City and Coventry City are known as 'the M69 Derby'. It equates to 25.3 kilometres.

There we go, this one took too long to do, hopefully the next write up won't have to take place in the same avalanche of general business. Until next time, and let me know how you did with those!