Tuesday 29 January 2019

Contestant Call

Noticed this tucked away on Facebook. A new music quiz show....looking forward to watching it, but don't think Im up to having a go! Hopefully it will be useful to someone out there...

Monday 28 January 2019

Last Nights Jackpot Questions

 
Last nights quiz in the Albert (Sunderland City Centre) was a close one all round but still no one managed to win the full jackpot. A side prize was won the World Leaders question but elsewhere the other three went unanswered. How would you have done?
 
 
 
Musicals
Which Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is based on a novel by David Garnett?
 
 
Sports Equipment
Mondopoint, is the official international system, for measuring the size of what piece of sports equipment?

Abbreviations
Teachers often have INSET days at the start of new terms. What does INSET stand for?

 
World Leaders

Which world leader is married to a woman who once was his literature teacher at school?

 

Sunday 27 January 2019

Popmaster now available as a Podcast!

 
I imagine its part of many quizzers daily/weekly routine to listen to Ken Bruce's Popmaster quiz on Radio 2. Usually airing around 10.30am on a weekday morning, in the past, for people like myself who can't listen live, the only way to catch up was to make stream from the iplayer, search for the time and listen.
 
Now there is a handy Podcast available, and has been for a month or two by the looks of it! Ideal...cut into  a 15 minute episode with listener feedback from Ken!
 
 
BBC have it HERE but its on all major postcast platforms, my favourite of which at the moment is Castbox

Friday 25 January 2019

Podcast Suggestions - Soul Music



BBC Soul Music
 


Having ran for 27 series, chances are you may have came across BBC's Souk Music series before. Being a fan of podcasts I have recently just discovered the huge archive of Soul Music available on BBC Sounds and most of the other podcast sites. Each week the show takes a look at a famous piece of music, covering all genres, and delves into the history of the song, the era, the composers and the show ends after 30 minutes having thrown an array of facts and interesting stories at you!

All well worth a listen, and yet another podcast to add to the "must hear" list....

See the BBC site HERE for details

Wednesday 23 January 2019

Book Suggestion - A History of Sport on Television

If you are sports fan you have probably heard Martin Kelner, whether it be on Fighting Talk, live sports commentary or offering his views across various media platforms.  This book was released a few years ago and focuses on the History of Sport on Television offering not only a fun and interesting read on Sport but also a plenty of useful facts.



Board Game Review: Who Dares Wins?


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Who Dares Wins?
 

I almost forgot that part of my Boxing Day was spent playing the board game based on the TV show "Who Dares Win?". Thanks to Lauren on the comments board for the prompt!
 
If you have seen Who Dares Wins? before you will know that it involves listing items from specific list and the board game sticks closely to the TV format with bids and challenges etc. The only major differences are a) there are bonus cards to give you a second chance or indeed make the other team play another guess etc b) every list has only 10 answers and c) there is a board to travel around to win.
 
The game is very very fun and ideally needs 2-3 teams to make it totally worthwhile. 1 v 1 would work fine, but the team work element makes the game even more enjoyable. Like the show, the lists are either definite with only 10 possible answers of may be the dreaded "According to a survey/poll/magazine ranking....". I would say though that the latter only make up 10% or so of questions.


All in all, one of the very few board games that are actually better than the TV show itself! 


Tuesday 22 January 2019

Suggested Quiz Book

One of the books I really should have included in the end of the year rundown of my most useful titles last year is the first (of which I home many will be made!) quiz books from the Telegraph. Set largely, if not entirely, by former Mastermind winner Gavin Fuller, this is a collection of quizzes in that style of those that appear every weekend in the Telegraph paper.

The questions have a mix of gimmies and testers but are all well written and certainly give plenty of food for thought. Presented in an easy to use format this is a quiz book that is well worth working your way through!



Monday 21 January 2019

Guardian Weekly Quiz

The Guardian publishes a fun quiz every week, with General Knowledge and Only Connect style questions, that I have only just realised is also available online. You can find the full archive of the quiz HERE and well worth spending some time looking over

Last Nights Jackpot Questions

An excellent quiz at the Albert last night, and here are the questions that would have been worth £75 ish if you could have got one right on the microphone. No body won the main prize but somebody picked up a side prize by answering the Sports questions correctly and taking away £20

How would you have done?


Retail Brands

Which company has their own fashion range called “Find”?

 

Recent Pop Music

Who is the oldest member of One Direction?




Sports

Of all the new sports being introduced into the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, which is the only one that takes place on Water?
 




The Albert Pub Quiz runs every Sunday in Sunderland City Centre from 7.30pm

Grid Questions - Pub Quiz Trial

For the past 6 months, at the Sunderland Pub Quiz I run at The Albert I have been doing two Top 5 list style rounds but due to struggling to come up with good content and wanting to give the players something new to do in 2019, I have tried a handout round last night.

Rather than write a list as such, players have to circle 5 correct answers. Round 6 gives a choice of 10, whilst Round 7 becomes a but more tricky. What do you think of these questions? How would you get on?


Round 6
 
Q: Unusual middles names. Which of these celebrities are listed with their actual middle names?

Richard
Tiffany
Gere
 
Teresa
Margaret
May
Sean
Martha
Bean
Donald
Pierre
Trump
Hugh
Mungo
Grant
Daniel
Florence
Craig
 
 
Robson
Golightly
Green
 
Nicolas
Kim
Cage
James
Kimberley
Corden
Tom
Mayflower
Cruise

 

 

Round 7
 
Q:  Can you circle the five words that appear in the English name of MORE THAN ONE country?

 
North
 
 
East
 
South
 
Republic
 
New
 
 
Central
 
 
States
 
Saint
 
West
 
 
United
 
El
 
Costa
 

 

Sunday 20 January 2019

Quiz Tonight - Sunderland

After last weeks review of 2018, my pub quiz at the Albert in Sunderland returns at this week. 7.30pm with a jackpot of around £70 and plenty of other prizes to give away, I hope to see you there!


Tonight sees the introduction of a new "Grid Style" round, a theme of "Compass Points" in Round 4 and all the usual News, Connections, Entertainment and General Knowledge questions!

Saturday 19 January 2019

Request for Quizzes in Merseyside

One of the comments from a regular poster on the blog recently asked if I was aware of any good pub quizzes in the Merseyside answer.

Can anyone help Andrew out? Please post in the comments if you are aware of any with dates, times and locations etc

Friday 18 January 2019

Quiz Trek: The Albert, Sunderland


The Albert Sunderland
Pub Quiz
Sunday Nights
7.30pm
 
 
Before we start, regular readers may be already aware, that this entry into the "Quiz Trek" for 2019 is a quiz I host. Part of the reason for this series of posts is to promote quizzing as much as I can and make sure people are aware of quizzes that are up and running! Especially in my hometown of Sunderland. So no harm in mentioning my own Quiz in Sunderland....
 
 
This time last year I had no real desire, or given any serious thought, to becoming a quiz host but an opportunity came up in May last year to host at a wonderful venue right in the heart of Sunderland city centre and I jumped at the chance!
 
 
We have a good bunch of regulars, with varied winners and a good cheat-free quiz running that usually starts at 7.30pm and is over by 10pm-10.30pm ish. Cash prizes, beer tokens and a rolling jackpot are all on offer and I have worked out a good format that changes from time to time.
 
Pictures, News, Connections, Music, a weekly themed round, Top 5, Entertainment and a General Knowledge round.
 
Ill post some examples of the quiz up over the next few weeks to give you a flavour of the questions!
 

 


Thursday 17 January 2019

The Quiz in the North - Stockton, March 30th

 

I have criminally failed to mention Quiz in the North as much as I should have over the past few years on the blog. The next event is coming up on the 30th March in Stockton and is well worth considering!
 
The event was set up a few years back for quizzers to get together and compete in testing quizzes in a fun, socialable environment with plenty of quizzing action throughout the day. Every event I have been to has been well organised, fun and with great sets of questions and I expect nothing less when the Quiz in the North hits Stockton on March 30th. Ill copy and paste the blurb below from the website.

"The next Quiz in the North Event is going to take place at the Malleable Club on Norton Road in Norton, TS20 2PH on the 30th of March. It's going to hosted by Clive Dunning, and just happens to take place on a very special day for him. Doors open at 11am and the individual quiz written by Rob Hannah will start at 11.30. The afternoon will feature a team quiz written by Tony Gold and there are plenty of good quality places nearby to go for lunch between the quizzes. The club is also within 5 minutes walks of A Weatherspoons and a number of other pubs and restaurants for anyone who wants to socialise afterwards. If you'd like to take part please register using the Eventbrite link below"

Link to Event Brite Page
If you need any more information let me know and I can put you in touch with the relevant people!

Wednesday 16 January 2019

British Quiz Championships - Pairs Winners

Congratulations to Pat Gibson and Kevin Ashman on victory in the British Quiz Championships Pairs event last weekend!

See the source image

As you will probably know, both Pat and Kevin are part the Eggheads team on TV, and you can compete against them, and most of the other TV quizzers at the monthly Quizzing Circuit Events. Information available HERE

App Review:

Image result for osongpop
 
I have played this on and off for a number of years, and never got round to mentioning it on the blog. But ever since it was first launched Songpop has been one of the best selling and most played quiz apps out there.
 
The app, as you can probably tell, is all about Music and players go head to head with other quizzers to identify pieces of music. It may ask for the artist, the title or the band, but either way you are identifying what you hear and selecting from 4 options. The quicker you get the question the more points you will get. There is a nice range of music and certainly plenty to make you think. Too many music apps go down the "too easy its not fun" route, but not SongPop!
 
The only one downside to the game is that still, after years of player complaints, you can still loose a game by getting 5/5 right and the other player only gets 4 if they are that much faster than you. A small quibble in the scheme of things and one that shouldn't put you off trying the app!
 
A superb app, the finest of its kind (in terms of identifying music) and dangerously addictive!
 
 
 
5/5

Tuesday 15 January 2019

Quizzers in Liverpool Area

Coming this weekend....

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This weeks Jackpot questions

As promised, on the blog this year I am planning on uploading a wide variety of the content from the pub quizzes I am running.

Every quiz I do, I run the jackpot in the same format. All players pay £1 to take part which buys them a guess. I then ask a knowledge based question where the answer is a %, a year or a number. Closest player comes up to the mic, choses a category and then if they get the question they win whatever the jackpot happens to be. If not the majority rolls over and we play for side prizes of around 10% of the jackpot.

Here were this weeks questions...how would you have done?


Jackpot Round

Online Retailers

In the name of the online fashion retailer ASOS, what do the initials ASOS stand for?


20th Century Sitcoms

What 20th century British sitcom followed the lives of the Parkinson family?


Us Geography

The Mississippi River enters the sea as it passes out of which US State?


 
Football

The home stadium of Accrington Stanley shares a name with which famous pop band of the past?

 

 

Australian Geography


What is the most populated city in Australia that is NOT a state capital?

 

Monday 14 January 2019

Quiz Trek 2019: Chaplins, Sunderland


Chaplins, Sunderland
Thursday Night Quiz
8.30pm
 
 
Annually on the blog I tend to post up information about local quizzes I attend under the banner "Quiz Trek". Mostly, these will be from the north east area so I hope it is useful to anyone in the region to find good quizzes to play. Often a lot of sites and listings, even in the local paper, are out of date when it comes to quizzes s hopefully someone will find this useful.
 
I will start with the first quiz I actually attended myself this year, the Thursday night quiz at Chaplins which is in the heart of Sunderland City Centre. I have been going to the quiz on and off for the past 7 years or so, the quizmaster being a friend of mine, and recently have found a new team to play with which has restored my enjoyment of the quiz.
 
The quiz is usually very well attended, free to enter and has cash prizes as well as a rolling jackpot that often gets as high as £200!
 
The format involves pictures, music, tv, sport, pot luck, connections, news and a wipeout round. The questions are modern, varied and original for the most part, and the wipeout round adds a bit of strategy to proceedings. Even better, the winners vary so there are 5-6 teams competing for the top places each week!
 
A very fun and testing quiz that is well worth your time if you are free on a Thursday night in Sunderland!

Sunday 13 January 2019

Who Wants To Be a Millionare - Apply Now

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Well, it seems like the new lease of life Who Wants to Be a Millionaire has been given will continue into 2019. With the last run of shows ending last week, auditions have reopened with rumours of a series in March, and with these applications having a closing date of 29th June, it seems the show could be back for a few runs throughout the year. All good news!

Link to the application is HERE

Saturday 12 January 2019

Book Suggestion - Shaun Wallace Autobiography

I only really noticed this book was released due to a random post on Twitter and got hold of a copy just before Christmas. The first thing that surprised me was the length of the book, coming in at 500 ish pages, very little detail is spared. God news for quizzers is that most of the book...80% or so focuses on quizzing with just a little background information on Shaun and his upbringing.

A very interesting look into the path to fame of a TV quizzer.


Thursday 10 January 2019

The Albert Quiz - Returns This Sunday

Now the festive period is well and truly behind us, some sort of normality returns this weekend as The Albert Quiz returns (Sunday 13th January) with our "Quiz of 2018". Jackpot around £50 and plenty of prizes to win......If you are in the Sunderland are and looking for a Pub Quiz then get your team assembled and Ill see you there!

See the source image

Wednesday 9 January 2019

Contestant Call - Who Dares Wins

Who Dares Wins
 
Who Dares Wins?, the BBC show hosted by Nick Knowles, is back and looking for contestants. Applicants need to be sharp though as applications close this Friday (11th January). Well worth a try as this is one of the few big money game shows left on TV!
 
Link HERE

Tuesday 8 January 2019

Book Suggestion - TV Toys

I picked up this book on TV Toys over the Xmas period and managed to read it in the last few years. I always struggle with 1950s-1970s cult TV and was hoping this would add a few facts to my knowledge. Its a very short book, only 50 odd pages but is full of useful facts, illustrations and information that have certainly helped me set a few questions and cement a few facts about these shows. Its very British focused and aimed at Tiy Collectors but for the hour or so it takes to read, its well worth a look.


Monday 7 January 2019

Board Game Review -


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Board Game Review - The Best of TV and Movies (The Logo Game)
 
In amongst the usual festive favourites (Cluedo, Scrabble, Monopoly etc) I managed to squeeze in a few quiz games with family and friends over the Xmas period.
 
One of them was the "Best of TV and Movies" which is under the Logo Game banner. Ignore the Logo Banner for all intents and purposes as it very rarely applies. This is a straight up quiz game that is easy to play and has a good range of questions to suit all. A crowd of entertainment quizzing experts will probably get very little wrong but there is enough testing questions to entertain all.
 
Works really well as a family game, questions over a range of eras and genres and very easy to set up and play. Nothing to complicated which is what you need from a quiz game.
 
 
A solid 8/10 and one to look out for in the sales.
 
Here is the Amazon Link...
 
 
 



Sunday 6 January 2019

Sunderland Echo Quiz League

The Sunderland Echo Quiz League begins again this week. We are about a third of a way into our season but always on the look out for new teams and players. If you are an individual wanting to extend your quizzing and can get to the Sunderland area every Wednesday night....then I can help line you up with a team.

Maybe you are a venue owner looking to get some extra bodies into the pub on a weekly basis? (Quizzers are very thirsty people!). In that case I can chat to you about the next chance to enter a full team in the league.

Either way, if you can email me at Daniel@thequizaddict.com I can give you all the info you need

Saturday 5 January 2019

The Guardian - Kings College Quiz

One of the highlights of the deluge of festive quizzes that come across in the newspapers every year is the Kings College Quiz published each year in the Guardian. HERE is the link to this years quiz and they usually hold off for some time before publishing the answers.

Twitter Feed

I have started to post up more regular daily questions on my Twitter feed linked to the blog. @quizaddictblog is the username and I have a good dedicated group of people who usually take the time to answer some of the questions I post up!

Even better when I get tweeted back with questions from followers for me to have a go at (hint hint)…..

Friday 4 January 2019

Suggested Book - How Music Got Free



Based on yesterdays post about the 2000s documentary series, I have a quick book to suggest. "How Music Got Free" is a great history of modern music looking at how music went from being a physical product bought in shops, to online purchases and ending up today with free streaming we have today. Superbly readable, highly fun and an interesting modern history covering a decade that changed the music industry.

Thursday 3 January 2019

Suggested Documentary Series

Over the festive period, I indulged in the Documentary series currently available from Sky Arts with the title "The 2000s". I believe its part of a series covering decades from the 1980s to 2000s, looking at everything from politics to culture to the economy. 8 hour long episodes and very well put together, full of good facts and useful information.

Well worth your time!

Podcast Suggestions - Presidential

Presidential
 
 
As I have mentioned several times on the blog over the years, I do love a good podcast and this year, over the festive period, I indulged in the excellent series "Presidential". Released in 2016, Presidential was made in the run up to the 2016 US Election, and week by week, focused on each President with discussion from experts, historians and key people involved in the times. Episodes vary between 33 minutes and 1 hour plus, and can be listened to as a series or as one-off episodes if you are keen to learn more about certain presidents.
 
Link HERE but also available on all major podcast platforms (castbox is my choice at the moment!)

Wednesday 2 January 2019

Q Live

Last year marked the launch of a whole host of "Live Trivia" apps in which players, sitting at home on their mobile phones, competing against thousands of others to win cash! HQ came and went with some very large jackpots (may still be available in the USA) and Cash Sow tried something different, paid out a lot of money and then vanished!

In the last few months of the year Q-Live came on the scene with heavy backing, lots of prizes and trying to succeed where others have failed.

 
The app is very reliable and well worth a look. Its a tad tougher than the previous apps and this is shown by the fact that there seems to be less winners than on other apps but with prizes available up to £10,000....its certainly worth a look!
 
If you do download it here are the links. Please use the code "danielfullard1" and we will both get a free life to help us win!
 
 

Tuesday 1 January 2019

2019 Quizzing Hopes

Last year seemed to just come and go, and all my best laid plans fell by the wayside. The one significant addition to my quizzing was the launch of my quiz hosting career in which I was able to launch 3 quizzes in Sunderland and maintain them throughout the year.

I never expected to turn into a quiz host, primarily because I love playing so much, but the weekly tasks of putting together a quiz, seeing how it goes down and doing it all again the next week has proved to be an enjoyable one. Although I have always set quiz questions for apps, books and online games etc, the pub quiz dynamic is every very different and I forsee I will be doing this for some time.

So what of 2019?

 - Well 2019 will actually start with the airing of a TV show I recorded in 2018! Way back 11 months ago I went up to Glasgow to record Fifteen to One Series 10. I will keep you posted on how I do and give a full recap of the experience in due course. I will again try for Mastermind, which is the last of the major shows on my bucket list, but I am not holding out much hope after 3 failed auditions.

 - In terms of the blog, I hope to start posting up my weekly quizzes I am running in pubs in Sunderland, in addition to the launch of a podcast and the next quiz book in the collection. I had great feedback about the first few books so intend to put something together in the first few months of the year.

 - Quiz hosting wise I hope my main quizzes go from strength to strength and if I can add a Monday night quiz to the week even better.

 - I am for now still playing in the Sunderland Echo Quiz League, but more than likely will, be stepping down either before, or after this current season. (Story for another day!)

 - I do hope to get back to the GP quizzing circuit and have been putting in work tailored to that. I have fallen so far behind since the heady days of Top 30 finishes, but hopefully making the effort to go will rekindle my ambition to get back into the Top 50 at least (things have moved on fast!)

- Quiz in the North....a must after missing the last one! Ill post up information as and when these events are advertised.

In all, I just want to keep enjoying quizzing and seeing where it takes me in 2019! I wish you all the best for your own 2019