My Apologies

I'm sorry to have to deliver yet another apology for not having updated this blog recently, but unfortunately I'm been swamped with things to do. I'm hoping I'll be able to get some breathing space by next week and maybe I'll be able to upload a few backdated quizzes. Until then, happy quizzing everyone!

Not Even a Pear

Don't ever doubt my dedication to you, as last Monday I hauled myself out on my lonesome to bolster this blog. The Bristol Pear quiz however, has always been a very tough nut for me to crack, even with a solid team behind me. I don't think I disgraced myself, but I was far from glory (though I did manage to win some lager as a spot prize). Having just one more person on the team is usually a huge boost as you can run with each others thoughts and guesses. In this case though, there wasn't much I could do, and only a very small number of answers where I went the wrong way (as opposed to having zero ideas). Shall we get started?

 

Outline:

Venue: The Bristol Pear                                         Team: Just me :(      
Score: 38/60 (8th approx.) - 1st = 49/60                Prizes won: Pitcher of Carling             

Plug: If you fancy coming along, the address of the pub is Bristol Pear, 676 Bristol Road, Birmingham, West Midlands B29 6BJ. The quiz starts at 8.30 on Mondays.

Best Team Name:

Some decent candidates this week to be fair. It's up to you to decide which of these is the best, so comment below or tweet me at @MPRTaylor. Here are the hopefuls...

- You're a Quizzard, Harry!

- The Cunning Stunts

- Al Qaeda Will Hate My New Coffee, It's French Press

- Selly Oak Swingers Club

Get voting, the result will be up next week.

 

Questions:

I didn't do too badly, especially considering the size of some of the teams I was up against. By the way, if you're not a fan of bad language, avoid question 9 this week. Let me know how you found these...

1) What is the original reason for the presence of the slice of lemon or lime served in the neck of bottles of the lager Corona?

2) Which US law enforcement agency uses the motto 'Justice. Integrity. Service.'?

3) After Thanksgiving, on which day do Americans consume the most food?**

4) The 2007 New England Patriots scandal, which featured Head Coach Bill Belichick being fined $500,000 over the videotaping of the New York Jets' coaches gameplay signals, was dubbed what '...gate'?

5) At the grounds of which Belgian football club was a banner unfurled depicting the severed head of player Steven Defour, causing him to kick the ball into the crowd?

The third round (Quickfire Round) asked you to establish whether the following American laws are real or made up.

6) In California, it is illegal for women to drive a car whilst wearing a bathrobe. True or False?

7) In Denver, Colorado, it is illegal for people to perform dance moves that may frighten horses. True or False?

8) In Florida, it is illegal to catch jellyfish on Tuesdays. True or False?

Identify who said the following famous quotes...

9) 'No one dies a virgin, life fucks us all.'

10) Which actor repeated this Eric Cantona quote when asked about a nude scene he had participated in? - 'When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea.'

The final round was the music intros round, which really cost me. Here are 7 songs for you to guess BOTH the artist and the song - half a point for each. Clink on the links below to be taken to a  relevant YouTube video. As always with this round, avert your eyes and watch out for adverts. You only have about 15 seconds to work out what the song is.

11) Song 1     12) Song 2     13) Song 3    14) Song 4     15) Song 5    16) Song 6   17) Song 7

Would you have won anything on these bonus questions? Why not give them a go too?

B1) In which year did Donald Duck make his first appearance in a cartoon?

B2) In which year did Deirdre Barlow first appear on Coronation Street?

B3) In which year was the first film in the 'Naked Gun' series released?

Answers

1) To keep out flies and other insects*
2) The US Marshals
3) Superbowl Sunday**
4) Spygate
5) Standard Liege
6) True
7) False
8) False
9) Kurt Cobain
10) Shia LaBeouf
11) Achilles Heel - Toploader
12) Shoot the Runner - Kasabian
13) Lifted - The Lighthouse Family
14) In For the Kill - La Roux
15) Ready For the Floor - Hot Chip
16) Flux - Bloc Party
17) Jesus He Knows Me - Genesis

Post Match Analysis

Best Moment: Correctly identifying a song by Snoop Dogg ('Drop It Like It's Hot') on the music round. This is the equivalent for me of most people identifying a piece of classical music and the composer on University Challenge.
Worst Moment: The rest of music round, as you can see.

1) *This was not something I was going to get. I pontificated that it might be to stop air reacting with the liquid and making it go off too quickly. However, I have had difficulty verifying this nugget of information. This website actually comes up with several theories as to why the slice might be there...
Fact File: Corona was first brewed in 1925 in Mexico by Cerveceria Modelo. The name is taken from the Spanish for 'crown', which features on its logo. It is Mexico's leading export brand and in 1997, Corona overtook Heineken to become the highest selling foreign beer in the United States. The lemon and lime are not commonly used in native Mexico. It is now owned by the world's largest brewer AB InBev.

2) Another one that I had some trouble with. I was fairly sure that the FBI's motto utilised the initials FBI, so it seemed logical to go for the CIA on the basis that these sorts of questions are usually one or the other. Not the case this time though, but I doubt that many teams in the pub got this question correct either.
Fact File: The United States Marshals Service was formed in 1789, the same year that George Washington became President of the US. This makes the Marshals the oldest federal law enforcement body in the country, having celebrated 225 years in 2014. Its chief role is to uphold the decisions of American courts and it is also responsible for the Witness Protection Programme. Probably the most famous member is Wyatt Earp, a Special Deputy who took part in the Gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881. There is one full Marshal for each of the 94 federal judicial districts, and they are appointed by the President. It is a part of the Department of Justice, is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, and the Director is Stacia Hylton.

3) **This is not the actual question that was asked in the quiz. That was 'After Thanksgiving and Christmas...' to which my answer was Valentine's Day. It could happen. However, I lacked any knowledge on this front anyway, so the point was lost, despite this being a somewhat topical story.
Fact File: The Super Bowl sees the winners of the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL) compete for the coveted Vince Lombardi trophy. The Super Bowl has been contested since 1967, is traditionally held on the last Sunday in January or the first in February, and has recently continually broken its own record for highest TV audience in the US (2014's Superbowl is thought to have averaged 111.5 million viewers.) 2015's Super Bowl XLIX saw the New England Patriots defeat the Seattle Seahawks 28 - 24 at the University of Phoenix Stadium. Perhaps the food most associated with the big day is chicken wings, of which it is predicted that Americans will have eaten over 1 billion on 1st February.

4) Another American Football question. I nearly went with the correct answer of Spygate, but it seemed a little too obvious to me. Given that the Quiz Master mentioned Bill Belichick, I assumed this might be a clue and accordingly went for 'Bill-Gate'. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a joke too far.
Fact File: Belichick's fine of $500,000 was the maximum amount possible under football rules and the Patriots were fined a further $250,000. Belichick was first appointed as Head Coach in 2000, and is still in this position, having contested 6 Super Bowls with the team and won 4. The scandal did not stop the Patriots contesting the Super Bowl in 2008, though they lost to the New York Giants (17-14).

5) Didn't know, and there was nothing I could do. I badly needed the Teacher's help here.
Fact File: Royal Standard de Liege was founded in 1898, and the club plays at Stade Maurice Dufrasne. The banner, featuring the words 'Red Or Dead' was unfurled by Standard Liege fans unhappy with Defour's recent transfer to rival team R.S.C. Anderlecht, Defour having played for Liege from 2006 - 2011. Defour, who played for Belgium in the 2014 World Cup, was sent off for his reaction, and Liege beat Anderlecht 2-0.

6) Bizarrely enough, this appears to be true. I should have used a bit of quizzer's instinct here, but I couldn't for the life of me come up with any reason why somebody should need to legislate for this, particularly in relatively liberal California. If anybody could enlighten me I would be grateful.

7&8) I did quite well on this round (7/10), with only these slip ups. At least you could conceive of these two scenarios having a reason for their being drawn up.


9) I can't find when exactly Cobain said this, but it is definitely attributed to him. I wouldn't have thought of Cobain, but I wasn't too far out with fellow musician Ozzy Osbourne.
Fact File: Kurt Donald Cobain was born in 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington. Cobain is best known as the lead singer and guitarist of pioneering grunge band Nirvana, most famous for the song 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' released in 1991. Having experienced difficulty coping with fame and his marriage to Courtney Love, Cobain was found to have committed suicide in 1994. This made him a member of the fabled '27 Club' and he retains a strong cult following.

10) I haven't really seen Shia LaBeouf in anything since he was in Even Stevens many years ago, so he wasn't exactly the first person on my mind. Indeed, the thought of a character from childhood doing a nude scene is quite a surreal thought.
Fact File: Shia Saide LaBeouf was born in Los Angeles in 1986 and first found his acting feet through the Disney Channel. His first film role came with 'Holes' in 2003 and he has found his greatest fame through starring as Sam Witwicky in the Transformers franchise. He has also appeared as Indiana Jones' son Henry in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He iterated this quote at a 2014 press conference at the Berlin Film Festival for the Lars von Trier film 'Nymphomaniac'.

11) I had heard this before, but I had completely disconnected it from Toploader, consigning them in my memory to the status of One Hit Wonders.
Fact File: Achilles Heel is Toploader's only Top 10 hit besides their cover of King Harvest's 'Dancing In the Moonlight'. It reached #8 on its 2000 re-release on the UK Singles Chart and is taken from the album Onka's Big Moka. According to Wikipedia, Toploader were the last band to play at the old Wembley Stadium. The band hails from Eastbourne and was formed in 1997.



12) Didn't recognise this at all, but I'm beginning to think I should always put Kasabian down in situations like that.
Fact File: Shoot the Runner was taken from Kasabian's second album Empire and released in 2006, and peaked at #17 in the UK. It was written by the band's guitarist Sergio Pizzorno. Kasabian was also formed in 1997, in Leicester. The video is notable for the use of 'rotoscoping' animation effects.

13) I'm sure I would get into them, but I have never really listened to the Lighthouse Family, so had nothing going here either.
Fact File: Lifted was the lead single from the Lighthouse Family's debut album Ocean Drive. On the song's re-release the song reached #4 in the UK. Tunde Baiyewu and Paul Tucker originally formed in the group in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1993.

14) I was demoralised enough by this point not to be able to really think what this one was. A run of bad answers can often break your ability to think straight and I'm pretty sure I was a victim of that here.
Fact File: Peaking at #2 in the UK, In For the Kill was the synthpop paring La Roux's breakthrough single in 2009. They achieved a No. 1 later in the same year with 'Bulletproof' and both singles come from their self titled debut album. Elly Jackson and Ben Langmaid formed La Roux in London in 2006.

15) I'd never heard this song before, so no chance here.
Fact File: Ready For the Floor was taken from the album Made In the Dark and released in 2008. It is the electronic group's second single and reached #6 in the UK. Hot Chip were formed in London in 2000.




16) Ditto.
Fact File: Flux was released in 2007 and is taken from the album A Weekend In the City. It was the fourth single from the album and reached #8 in the UK. The band was formed in London in 2003.

17) What more is there really to say? On listening to this song properly for the first time, I have to say I actually rather like it.
Fact File: Genesis released the song from the album We Can't Dance in 1991. Reaching #20 in the UK, the song is intended to attack televangelism, with Phil Collins portraying the pastor Ernest Angley in the accompanying video. 




B1) I wasn't too far away with this, but hardly bang on. I knew that Donald Duck has been around for a while before WWII (thanks in part to this video), so I went with 1937.
Fact File: One of Disney's 'Sensational Six', Donald Duck's first appearance was in the cartoon 'The Wise Little Hen', where he fakes having a stomach ache to avoid planting corn. Having featured in over 150 films (the most of any Disney character), Donald's distinctive voice has been provided by only two actors during this time, with Clarence Nash lasting in the role for 50 years, and Tony Anselmo taking over in 1985. He is also apparently the fifth most published comic book character in the world, with only superheroes Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Wolverine ahead of him.
     

B2) Soaps have never and never will be my bag. I assumed that her first appearance would roughly coincide with that of her future husband Ken.
Fact File: Deirdre Barlow was played by Anne Kirkbride for 42 years on the show. She was originally called Deirdre Hunt and first married Ray Langton. After their divorce, she fell in love with Ken Barlow and it was estimated that more people in the UK watched her marriage to Ken than the Royal Wedding between Prince Charles and Diana Spencer in the same year (1981). Though the two split, they would later remarry in 2005, once again eclipsing the viewership figures for Prince Charles' marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles. Saldy, Anne Kirkbride died of breast cancer in 2015 without having left the show.

B3) I was one year out on this one (1989) which was a little frustrating but I did at least get one of the bonuses, so I can't be too upset.
Fact File: Starring Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley, 'The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad' features the Police Squad department tasked with protecting Queen Elizabeth II during a state visit to Los Angeles. The film is based on the 1982 series 'Police Squad', also starring Nielsen and known for its surreal and fast paced style of comedy. It is directed by David Zucker.

There you go. As always, let me know how you would have done with these ones that got away by commenting or tweeting me @MPRTaylor. Maybe I'll even see you there in the future. Until next time then.

Return Of the Queen's

Hi everyone, it's good to be back! We've missed a couple of Queen's quizzes already this January, so we were itching to get back into the swing of things. We also had some really stiff competition this time around, so it was a bit of a surprise this week to find that we had come second. Not that we demanded a recount of course. I'm not going to beat around the bush any longer, let's get cracking with my first update of the year...

Plug: If you fancy having a go at the 'best quiz in Birmingham' (and to be fair, it does deserve that title), the address is The Queen's Arms, 150 Newhall Street, Birmingham B3 1RY and it starts at 8.30. See you there!

Bio:  Venue: The Queen's Arms                           Team: Me + the Teacher
         Score: 69/80 (2nd)                                        Prize: £10

Best Team Name Competition

Not a bad haul for our first quiz back. We were 'The Seasiders' as always, which isn't funny but at least it's consistent. Judge for yourselves which is the best of these and let me know by commenting or tweeting me at @MPRTaylor.

- In Last Place...

- The Uncivil Engineers and the Hypocritic Oath

- Quiz Akabusi

- If Page 3 is coming back, then I'm going to splash out on a copy tomorrow

 

I'm pretty sure which is my favourite, but this is your opportunity to correct me if I'm wrong. Get voting. On with the questions...

 

 

Questions



 



This was quite the recovery from my abysmal performance at the Bristol Pear on Monday. But as always, we could have been a bit better. Here's the bundle that we got wrong...

 

Firstly, identify these well-known faces...

 

1)                                                                                     2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3) Which English Premier League football club's shirt sponsor Alpari was reported to have applied for insolvency proceedings this week? 

 

4) In ITV soap Emmerdale, what is the name of the vet played by Dominic Brunt?

 

Here are the 5(!) songs we didn't know this week. You only have to guess the artist for the points. Click on a link below to be taken to a YouTube video of the song in question. Avert your eyes and watch out for adverts, as always.

 

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

 

10) What is added to gin to made a 'Pink Gin' cocktail?

 

11)  What was the name of the horse that won the 2014 Grand National at Aintree?

 

12) In American Football, what is the maximum number of players per team that are allowed on the pitch at any one time?

 

Tiebreak) In Earth days, how long does it take for Mars to orbit the Sun?

 

Answers

 

How did you do with this lot? Answers below the picture.

 

1) Nick Easter

2) Phil Vickery (the chef)

3) West Ham United

4) Paddy Kirk

5) Alphaville (Big In Japan)

6) KT Tunstall (Other Side Of the World)

7) Noah and the Whale (Shape Of My Heart)

8) Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen

9) One Direction

10) Angostura Bitters

11) Pineau de Re

12) 11

TB) 687

 

How did you do? Comment below or tweet me - @MPRTaylor

 

Post Match Analysis
and Fact Files

 

Best Moment: The Teacher always excels at the Connections Round, but extra kudos to him this time when he guessed (correctly) that a connection was 'Star Trek characters' purely from our answer of 'Data Protection Act'. He's not even a Trekkie.

Worst Moment: At the Queen's our weakest round is usually the music round, and this outing proved to be no exception. At least this time, we genuinely didn't know what they were, rather than having heard them and putting down tortuously desperate guesses. But as always, not liking a song is not an excuse for not knowing.

 

1) Not someone who I had even heard of unfortunately. We did at least guess a rugby player, opting in the end for England fly half Danny Cipriani.

Fact File: Nick Easter was born in Epsom in 1978. He typically plays in the role of the No. 8, and has been playing for Harlequins in the English Premier League since 2004, with whom he won the league title in 2012. He has also played for the English national team since 2007. Coming from a sporting family, Easter is the son of former English No. 1 squash player John Easter.

 

2) Interestingly, I suggested Phil Vickery as a possibility for Question 1. However, that would have been a completely different Phil Vickery, and stems from my distressing ignorance of both rugby and chefs.

Fact File: Not to be confused with the England Prop, Philip Vickery was born in Folkestone in 1961 and first began as a chef in the town's Burlington Hotel. Vickery has been a regular face on the BBC2 show Ready, Steady, Cook and the ITV magazine show This Morning since the mid 1990s and is notable for his marriage to former This Morning host Fern Britton. He earned the title of AA Chef of the Year whilst serving as Head Chef at the Castle Hotel in Taunton and has also hosted 'Phil Vickery's Pudding Club'.

 

3) We went with Burnley. I defer entirely to the Teacher on football, so I can't really blame him for going with West Ham.

Fact File: Alpari is a financial services company founded in Russia in 1998, which specialises in foreign exchange and precious metals. Its UK arm was opened in 2004 and it is currently headquartered in London. The talk of insolvency was highlighted when the Swiss Central Bank removed the Swiss franc's attachment to the euro causing the franc to rise by 30% against it. Alpari began its £3 million a year sponsorship deal with West Ham at the beginning of the 2013/14 football season.

 

4) Soaps are another black spot. We just haven't got the time (or ability to undergo so much pain) to anything other than write even pretty basic soaps off. Being in the Star Trek connections round, we thought this one might feature 'Kirk', but our guess of Kirk Dingle didn't hit the mark. I did recognise the character by sight however, when researching for this blog.

Fact File: Paddy Kirk was introduced to Emmerdale in 1997 and has been a presence on the show ever since. He is generally seen as a comedy relief character. He does appear to have had several relationships with members of the Dingle family, including Mandy, Emily, Del and Chas according to Wikipedia.

 

5) I sense that the Quiz Master might be a bit of an Alphaville fan. One to watch out for in the future.

Fact File: I have already done a fact file for Alphaville from this very quiz some months ago. Big In Japan is the German synthpop band's debut single. It was released in 1984 and went to #1 on the German singles charts, reaching #8 in the UK. 

6) Not on our radar (or even radio), though we had heard this one before and I don't dislike it.

Fact File: Tunstall was born Kate Victoria Tunstall in Edinburgh in 1975. On the music scene since 2000, she first received widespread notice for her single 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' from the album 'Eye to the Telescope'. Other Side Of the World is the opening track of this album and it was released as a single in 2005 and reached #13 on the UK chart. It was shortly followed by arguably Tunstall's best known song 'Suddenly I See'.

 

7) This one has me completely fooled. I thought it must have been some dingy heavily emotional 80s band. We guessed the Cure and were astonished to find out how recently this had been made.

Fact File: Noah and the Whale were formed in Twickenham in 2006 and the line up originally included Laura Marling. They are best known for the song '5 Years Time' and Shape Of My Heart is taken from the same album 'Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down'. Shape Of My Heart reached #95 in the UK.

  

8) We went with David Guetta. I wasn't aware that Owl City had done anything other than 'Fireflies'.
Fact File: Owl City is an alias of Minnesota born electronic musician Adam Young and Carly Rae Jepsen of Mission, British Columbia, found fame after finishing third on 'Canadian Idol' and releasing her international hit single 'Call Me Maybe'. The pair issued the single in 2012 from Owl City's album 'The Midsummer Station' and it reached #5 in the UK.

 

9) The last question of the music is usually a topical song on this quiz, but surely we can be excused this one. I doubt you'll find me listening to their greatest hits anytime in the near future.  

Fact File: One Direction is (of course) made up of Harry Styles, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik. The band also found stardom after finishing third on a TV talent show this time the X Factor. The song Night Changes is from their fourth album, titled 'Four'.

 

10) The theme in this round was that all the answers must feature the word 'go' somewhere in them. Accordingly we went with (a slice of) mango.

Fact File: The traditionally English cocktail 'Pink Gin' typically consists of Plymouth Gin complemented with a dash of Angostura Bitters. The drink is thought to have originated in the navy in the mid 19th century after Angostura Bitters was discovered to sooth seasickness and cure stomach upsets. The Bitters include various herbs and spices and are now manufactured in Trinidad and Tobago, though they were invented in Ciudad Bolivar (formally known as Angostura) in Venezuela in 1824.   

 

11) Going for this would likely have lost us two points. This is usually the sort of thing I try and commit to memory for occasions such as these, and I will be making a space for Grand National winners as soon as time allows.

Fact File: Pineau De Re is a gelding (castrated male) born in 2003 and who first began racing in 2007. He was foaled in France by Michel Hardy and was trained by Philip Fenton and Richard Newland in the UK. In addition to the 2014 British Grand National, Pineau De Re has also won the 2013 Ulster Grand National. He is bay in colour and his father (or sire) was the noted Marresca Sorrento.

 

12) Likewise, we didn't have enough knowledge to be sure. The Teacher tells me that the qualification 'at any one time' refers to American football having a team of attackers and a team of defenders that constantly alternate depending on who is in possession.

Fact File: I'm not going to go through the rules here, but American Football was developed from Rugby Union and the first version of the game was played between Rutgers and Princeton colleges in 1869. It is the most popular sport in the US, something clearly observable from the list of most watched US TV programmes, many of which are Superbowls.

 

TB) We went with 595 through averaging our guesses. It wasn't crucial in the end.
Fact File: The average distance of the 'Red Planet' from the Sun is 228 million kilometres compared to the Earth's 149.5 million. 687 days is equivalent to 1.8808 Earth years.

That's all for now folks, hope you've enjoyed my long overdue return. Don't hesitate to comment or tweet me and see you soon hopefully. Until next time...

 

 

Back In Business (Soon)

Hi everyone, and happy new year. This is just a quick message to say that I will be resuming work on this blog again very soon after some hectic commitments over the past month. I will aim to have a new post up by Friday, and possibly two by Saturday if all goes to plan (it usually doesn't). I have been contemplating reducing my fact files recently as they take so long to research and edit, but that would be defeatist. I will not be uploading much of the considerable backlog from December, but I shall aim to begin with the Teacher's and my return to the Queen's Arms. If you're very lucky, I'll also put up my incredibly heavy loss at the Bristol Pear (it was almost sensationally depressing). See you soon!