General Knowledge Quiz

My quiz on Wikiquiz today is General Knowledge focused. 40 questions to get stuck into and you can find the quiz HERE

Good Luck!

The Chase Quiz Books

If you have been enjoying the new ITV series "Beat The Chasers" then you will very much enjoy the 10th Anniversary Quiz Book from The Chase. Ideal for lockdown entertainment, packed full of great questions from the show itself and certainly a good way to keep quizzing when the quizzes aren't running!

Beat The Chasers

Hopefully, you managed to tune in to Beat the Chasers last night, which premiered on ITV. Going into the show I knew very little about the format of the show, other than that all five Chasers were involved.

A great deal of thought seems to have been put into the show to try and make it as different from the usual show as possible whilst retaining all the key elements that make it such a success. In all, the show was a very entertaining hour of television and is sure to be a major hit!

The Cash-builder element has changed entirely, the only similarity being the £1,000 per correct answer. The questions are multiple choice and there is not a time limit, rather the players keep going until they get one wrong. It is much more relaxed than the usual cash builder and the tougher questions start to come sooner. If you happened to fall foul of the very first question on "Beat The Chasers" then you are out of the game altogether. As Paul Sinha pointed out on the show last night, this is one brutal aspect of the show. The first question is very much do or die!

Once the players have amassed the cash, they move onto the Beat The Chasers main game. This involves the player having 60 seconds to answer questions correctly. With every correct answer  your clock stops and the Chasers clock starts...and so on. If the players clock runs out before The Chasers.....they don't win. However, if the player still has time left when the Chasers clock runs to 0....they win the Cash Prize.

Speaking of the Prize, it varies from player to player, with 5 offers made. For example here is one of the contestant offers from last nights show. As you can see a new tactical element is introduced and the players can take on 2-5 chases, with different levels of time available. The groupings change every time so there are large tactical decisions to be made!

Then thats it.....the contestant either goes home with a cheque and the knowledge they have Beat The Chasers, or the Chasers win and the contestant leaves empty handed. The next contestant emerges and repeats....

The show was very fast paced, the live audience give the show a "big occasion feel", the questions were of course up to the usual high standards of the show and it works superbly well in prime time TV. This could easily have gone so wrong, but Beat The Chasers works and works well. I hope very much after this back-to-back run of shows, we see many more of these shows

If you missed the first episode you can find it here

The Year in Sport - 2004

The next for you to get stuck into that I have written and posted up on Wikiquiz is "The Year in Sport - 2004".

40 questions about the year in sport to tackle...see how you get on by following the link HERE

The Year in Music Quiz - 2005

Another week and another set of quizzes available that I have written using Wikiquiz. Today we start off with the Year in Music - 2005. 40 questions about mainly pop music from 2005 (UK Charts).

To play follow This Link

Good luck! Open until 4pm tomorrow

The Year in Sport Quiz - 2003

My latest quiz is now open for the next 24 hours (well until 4pm tomorrow). Its all about Sport from the year 2003 Play it HERE

The Year in Music Quiz - 2004

The next in my series of Music Quizzes is now live. This time, we are up to 2004, and there are 40 questions for you to tackle HERE

Online Quiz League

Around the country, and indeed the world, quizzers are coming up with new ways to keep each other entertained during lockdown periods. I will write a separate post at some point, but the whole 'necessity is the mother of invention' idea may well lead to long term changes and innovations in the quiz community that can only be for the better.

Anyway, today I just want to mention the Online Quiz League which has been set up by Merseyside based quizzer Jon Stitcher.  It is likely, that if you follow quiz shows with an attentive eye, you will have noticed Jon pop up on various shows including recent editions of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? and a recent series of Mastermind. 

With the closure of quiz leagues for the foreseeable future, the Online Quiz League takes the individual question format many leagues around the country adopt (QLL style) and moves it online using Zoom. A fine range of quiz setters are on board, there are two divisions of players from across the UK including Mastermind champions, Brian of Britain winners and some of the top ranked players in the country.

It all takes place on a Wednesday night and although the two divisions are full at the moment, Jon in on the hunt for further players for an 'overspill' division, Full details of the league, including a couple of sets of questions from the opening games are found HERE. Whether you are an individual or a team looking to fill that quiz league void...I am sure Jon would be keen to hear from you.

The Year in Sport 2002 - Quiz

...and my sports series is also available. 40 questions about the Sporting Year in 2003! Click the link HERE to play

The Year in Music - 2003

Speaking of Wikiquiz...my latest quiz is now live on the site. The series on year-by-year music continues with the music of the year 2003. See how you get on HERE

Wikiquiz

I do hope everyone is safe and well in these testing times. Something I have been involved in, both as a player and a setter, is the superb Wikiquiz, which I just want to give another quick mention to today on the blog. It is a system all set up by Will Jones and is aimed at quizzers who enjoy a variety of quizzes, testing questions and a community-feel.

All the information on the quizzes is HERE and I will keep posting up my sets as I do them on here with a direct link.

With at least 3 weeks to go without physical quizzing occurring, this is a superb resource to tackle, literally, dozens of quizzes per day

New Chaser

Congratulations go to Darragh Ennis who this week has been announced as the latest addition to The Chase. Joining Mark Labbett, Paul Sinha, Anne Hegarty, Jenny Ryan and Shaun Wallace, Darragh becomes the first new Chaser to join the show since 2015.

Irish Quizzer Darragh, as you can see from the picture above, may be a familiar face to The Chase viewers, as he appeared on the show in March 2017, taking on Paul Sinha and to take a direct quote from the latters Twitter

"If it is, the best player I faced was an Irish guy who looked a bit like Micky Flanagan"

Best of luck Darragh!

Beat the Chasers

Taking the huge success of The Chase, ITV are launching a bit of 'Event television' next week with a 5-night run of Beat The Chasers. Full details can be seen below, but be sure to tune in on Monday 27th April from 9pm to find out what this exciting new show is all about!

The below is taken directly from the ITV.com press release - 

Beat The Chasers is a brand new prime time spin on ITV’s smash-hit quiz show The Chase, challenging contestants to take on two, three, four or all five Chasers at once. 

Hosted by Bradley Walsh, this nail-biting 5-part series will be stripped across a week, starring all five of the nation's favourite quiz geniuses: Mark ‘The Beast’ Labbett, Anne ‘The Governess’ Hegerty, Paul ‘The Sinnerman’ Sinha, Jenny ‘The Vixen’ Ryan and Shaun ‘The Dark Destroyer’ Wallace. 

Bradley will call contestants down from the studio audience to compete. In the Cash Builder they’ll face five multiple choice questions, with the chance to bank up to £5,000. But get the first question wrong - they’re out! 

Next, contestants are given the option of playing between two and all five Chasers for increasing amounts of money, but with a decreasing time advantage against them. As the money goes up, so does the number of Chasers they must face. But those brave enough to take on all five Chasers could walk away with a huge cash prize. 

Play sees questions swap from contestant to the Chasers. But get a question wrong and their individual or team clock keeps counting down until a question is answered correctly. First to run out of time loses the game. 

With the Chasers forming the greatest quiz team on the planet, it remains to be seen - can anyone Beat The Chasers?
 

Beat The Chasers will broadcast 9pm, Monday 27th April to Friday 1 May over five consecutive nights.

Fingers on Buzzers

Just a quick heads up that the superb 'Fingers on Buzzers' podcast is back with new content. Created by comedian Lucy Porter and Chaser Jenny Ryan, the show is a lively mix of chat and quiz questions, about the hobby we all enjoy!

If you have not experienced the show yet, now is a good time to get stuck into the archives too. The show is free and available across all the normal podcast channels, with my favourite being Castbox which you can find HERE

General Knowledge Quiz

Open until 4pm tomorrow. A tame-ish GK quiz for you to tackle

Click Here

Brain of Britain

Just in case you missed it, with Round Britain Quiz ending last week, the new series of Brain of Britain began yesterday on Radio 4. 

The first episode is HERE. From what I can gather, around 8 episodes have been recorded so far, with some heats remaining, so whether this series will run continually in this current climate is another matter.

Music Quizzes

My Music Quiz  series, which I am running over the the excellent Wikiquiz group on Facebook, has started again for the week. We are up to the year 2000 today and on the link below you will 40 questions to test yourself with about mainly chart music from that year!

Good luck and Click Here To Quiz

Ten Books To Suggest #10

As part of my series of posts of pointing you in the direction of Podcasts, sites and online quizzes to take part in at a time when your normal quizzing more than likely is shutting down, I am also going to suggest a series of books that you can get stuck into if you find yourself stuck inside for a considerable period.

The final entry in the series (although I may extend it) but I have saved a real gem for last. Certainly a topic that has and will come up time and time again in quizzing....the shipping forecast area. This book nicely combines that alongside plenty of info on British Geography and History to give you a fascinating read

Ten Books To Suggest #9

As part of my series of posts of pointing you in the direction of Podcasts, sites and online quizzes to take part in at a time when your normal quizzing more than likely is shutting down, I am also going to suggest a series of books that you can get stuck into if you find yourself stuck inside for a considerable period.

Now time for something a little different....Opera! I have urged many quizzers to invest time into the book below and always had good feedback from people about it. This book takes 100 operas and gives you the plot, the history, the key arias in just the right amount to make sure you have everything you need for the next time a opera question comes up! Works as both a primer, and a superb revision tool!

The Year in Music - 1998 - Quiz

Click HERE for my latest daily quiz on the year in music (1998). I have been running these daily over at the Wikiquiz group as well as a similar quiz on years in sport.

Feel free to play and let me know how you did!

Ten Books to Suggest #8

As part of my series of posts of pointing you in the direction of Podcasts, sites and online quizzes to take part in at a time when your normal quizzing more than likely is shutting down, I am also going to suggest a series of books that you can get stuck into if you find yourself stuck inside for a considerable period.

A recent book this time, telling the tale of Faber and Faber with content from some of the most prominent writers of the time. A gripping book that is packed with information on the literary giants who have been associated with Faber and Faber. I certainly learned a great deal from this and not only that, it is a darn good read!