Sorry about that, Chief: answers

Here are the answers to the questions posed in Sorry about that, Chief.

Don’t forget, I’m hosting a quiz in Claremorris tonight.  It’s at 8.30pm in Warde’s Bar on Main Street.  Please come along if you’re anywhere near! We’ve got some picture rounds, an audio round and a couple of Hallowe’en themed rounds.  It should be a fun night.

Ok, on with the answers.  I alluded to the fact that one of the answers called out the other night was wrong.  To be more accurate, one of the questions was wrong.

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Sorry about that, Chief

After a couple of weeks away, I returned to Gilligan’s for Tuesday quiz night last evening.  The welcome was warm but the questions were hard.

At the end of the night, my team had scored a hard-fought 59.  Pitiful on any other night but good enough for second place on this occasion, just two points behind the winning team.

I’ll give you a sample of how this state of affairs came about, after the Continue.

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Don’t work… too hard: answers

Some breaking news: the low scores earned by the teams on Monday night last mustn’t have deterred me, as I have agreed to be the quiz master once again, on Friday night next (October 28) in Warde’s Pub, Claremorris.  The quiz starts at 8.30pm and you’re all invited! See the calendar for more details.

Anyway, back to the post.  Here are the answers to the (quite difficult, I admit) questions posted in yesterday’s Don’t work… too hard.

I wrote a bit about the concept of ‘quiz knowledge’ yesterday.  To flesh this out a little more, my point is that all knowledge is (or should be) valid.  It’s just a case of a situation arising where the more (shall we say) ‘obscure’ bit of your knowledge become useful.  But… shouldn’t the probability of any particular question coming up be identical across all fields? *

It isn’t. I knew almost nothing in the Popular Culture round below but that has never really mattered before.  99% of the time, in Irish table quizzes, questions like these never, ever, come up.  Is that ‘right’?

Consider the flip side: you might know someone who would do very well in the round being discussed but, if you asked them, would tell you that they are “terrible” at table quizzes and never take part in them. Surely there’s a flaw here?

By which I mean: is there a flaw in the way most Irish table quizzes are created? Do question setters, perhaps, consider their potential crowd and then design a quiz to suit them more than to really test them? Probably not consciously but almost certainly.  To take it further, is there a vernacular in the Irish table quiz world? Could the spectrum of knowledge tested at table quizzes be considered a ‘specialist subject‘ in-and-of itself?

This is a disquieting notion.

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Don’t work… too hard

Question: How do you know the quiz you’ve (partially) written was too hard?

Answer: When the winning table scores 49/100.

That’s right, just 49%. And there was a playoff.

The night before its students decided to abandon Rag Week, NUI Galway played host to yours truly on the microphone, calling out questions in the back room of the College Bar.  I created three of the rounds used on the night (one of which you can see below).  The others were created by the members of my regular team so it was a rare occasion in that all four of us were at the top table, with the others collecting and correcting at various times.

Knowledge, or what one could consider ‘useful (quiz) knowledge’, is subjective and differs from person to person.  Even with my own abilities, this quiz featured a round I would have scored 2/10 in.  Of course, I’ve also included that for you to have a go.

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Today’s news today

Good morning everyone.  Here’s a short post to invite anyone in the Galway area to come along to the Comedy Soc quiz which is taking place tonight in the NUI Galway College Bar.  It kicks off at 7.30pm (or thereabouts) and will feature questions written by myself and some of the team that will be representing Ireland in the European Quizzing Championship in Bruges next month.  I may even be MC for the night but that isn’t definite yet.

So come one, come all.   First prize is €200 and the night will also feature a raffle and, as the poster proudly proclaims, free food!  Admission is €20 for a table of four.

Few other things:

• After the Fact, my new quiz show on Claremorris Community Radio, is now three weeks old.  You can listen back to all the episodes by using the big button on the right of the page or by visiting www.mixcloud.com/claremorrisfm/playlists/atf/
• I was quizzing on Friday night.  Yet another one point defeat. 😦 As I was preparing for tonight’s quiz, I haven’t written up a report yet but you can check out this little Audioboo I recorded on the night.

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Round 10: The B*st*rd answers

Good day to you all.  Here are the answers to those fiendish questions posted in yesterday’s blog.

It’s a good job I typed up yesterday’s post when I did as I have since lost the piece of paper on which the featured questions reside.  Thus, I will have to do the round all over again.  That said, it is a lot easier when you’ve heard the answers within the past week!

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Round 10: The B*st*rd

The title of this post is the name by which the quiz master at the Kelly’s monthly movie quiz always refers to the final round.  He’s clearly proud of it.  He must spend a lot of his week before the quiz going through Halliwell’s Film Guide, looking for the most obscure movie facts he can find.

Normally we do ‘ok’ in this round – by which I mean 6 points, or thereabouts. However, if you’ve read my post from last week, you won’t be surprised when I reveal that we scored a miserable 3 points this time out.  I’m going to include the whole round below, as a separate set of questions to let you have a go.

We had been joint-leaders at half-time on 35 points but, after that final round, we ended up third on 64 points.  That being said, we only lost by 3 points.  Everyone else must also have found the final round to be a bit of a b*st*rd…

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De ja voodoo: answers

Here are the answers to the (tremendous amount of) questions posed earlier in De ja voodoo.

My mate Ger is next week’s quiz master at Gilligan’s but I’m afraid I won’t be there to report on his quiz.  A ticket to next week’s big European Championship qualifier between Ireland and Armenia has come my way so, obviously, I’ll be in Dublin on Tuesday night.

Hopefully, the Ireland team won’t catch the grabbing-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory bug that’s going round.

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De ja voodoo

The week is but halfway through and already I have done two quizzes.  Whilst one was in Galway (and featured movies, some music and more movies) and the other was in Claremorris (and featured our return to Gilligan’s Bar), they had some striking similarities.

None more obvious than the fact that, in both of them, my team were in a leading position at the start of the final round before throwing it all away.  Of course, nemesis rounds do happen from time to time but they seem particularly cruel when they occur in round 10*.

As a post on the movie quiz will require some work (stills and audio clips etc), I’m going to take the easy way out and report on these in reverse order.  Thus, let’s start with the opening evening of this year’s Gilligan’s Tuesday quiz night.

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Listen to the radio

Dear readers, sorry if I have been a bit sparing with the blog posts in the last week.  I have been busy preparing for the start of a new quiz show I am hosting on Claremorris Community Radio.  It’s called After the Fact and it’s broadcast on Thursday evenings at 7pm.

The first episode went out last Thursday and it’s now available online via the Claremorrisfm account on mixcloud.com.  Alas, I haven’t yet found a way of embedding mixcloud files directly into this site so the best I can do is point you in the direction of the specific programme. I hope you enjoy it!

Listen here: www.mixcloud.com/claremorrisfm/after-the-fact-alcohol/

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