Great Lives

Posting up the podcast suggestion yesterday (BBC's Great Lives Series) reminded me of a great Book I have been working my way through this year. Great Lives by The Times. This is a huge tome of obituaries of 124 famous people from History. All fact filled and easy to read. Perfect to get a decent overview into the lives of people who appear in quizzes time and time again. I certainly picked up a lot of interesting facts (and being a question writer, a heck of a lot of material for future questions). The £30 new price tag is hefty, but click the link and head to the Amazon Marketplace section and you will see its available for pennies!

There are several other editions which I intend to dip into (such as Great Scottish Lives) too!

Useful Podcasts for Quizzing - Great Lives

Over the next few weeks I am going to post up some links to some of the best podcasts currently available that are either directly Trivia focused or are extremely helpful/interesting to quizzers. Many of which you will have heard of and be avid listeners of, but as a huge podcast fan, I know it can be time consuming finding consistently good shows. Hopefully I can help you find one or two more...

I am going to start with one that I am sure you have come across before...Great Lives from the BBC. The link to the shows site is HERE




Each show, as the title suggests, involves an expert, a famous-fan and the presenter discussing the life of a famous figure. The sheer breadth of personalities they have covered over the years is astounding and the show is always consistent with high quality, fact driven discussion.

There is many a time, since I started listening to this religiously, that I have been able to scrape out answers in quizzes because of what I had heard on the show. The archive is huge (currently standing at around 420 episodes on the iplayer radio app/site) all of which can be downloaded for ease of use.

I will recommend many podcasts over the coming weeks that are worth trying, but very few will exceed this in terms of usefulness to quizzing.

Book Suggestion: TV Cream Toys

Another great and very useful book I have read this week (useful for both facts and helping me devise some cracking quiz questions) is TV Cream's: Toys. TV Cream is a site you may have seen before (and if not, its well worth a look) and focuses on the 1960s-1980s. It originated as a site for TV Shows but it now cover's just about everything you could want in terms of nostalgia.

I picked this up from the Amazon Marketplace for pennies (see below link) and its basically and A-Z of Toys and Games from the 1960s to 1980s. Loads of great facts included (including learning who the father of current MP Jesse Norman is? The place Tom Stone, of the parachute regiment has in history?) and a fun book all round.

Well worth a look and would also a be great gift too....

Counterpoint Grand Final

Just in case you missed it, this week saw the Grand Final of the latest series of Counterpoint. One of my favourite quiz shows, and well a listen if you have never tried the series before this is a perfect point to dive in! The show can be heard here for the next few months.

The site itself has a couple of useful quizzes on too!

Sunderland Echo Quiz League Archive

I have kept meaning to mention on the blog, that the Sunderland Echo Quiz League have been, for the past few seasons, adding some extra sets to the website for people to see. The direct link can be found HERE.

Unlike most leagues, the Sunderland Echo Quiz League is based on team questions with up to 6 brains working at any one time to get the points. I always add my sets to the blog which you may have seen, but the site will give you a flavour of the league. We have some fantastic setters and I am sure you will enjoy them :)

Connection Round Answers

As promised here are the answers to the 3 connection rounds posted yesterday...

1.      Standing in Lancashire, what was became the tallest structure in England when it first opened in 1894?	Blackpool Tower
2.      What is the surname of the actor who played Fred Flinstone on film and voiced Sulley in Monsters Inc?	Goodman (John Goodman)
3.      “Never know how much I love you, never know how much I care, When you put your arms around me” are the opening lines to which famous song?	Fever
4.      Which TV Presenter is the daughter of journalist Eve Pollard?	Claudia Winkleman
5.      What is the connection between the above 4 answers?	Strictly Come Dancing

1.      Which British politician lead the Labour Party from 1983-1992, making him the longest serving Leader of the Opposition in British History?	Neil Kinnock
2.      Which British celebrity became a father for the first time in at the age of 54, when his partner Lauren Silverman gave birth to his son Eric?	Simon Cowell
3.      Which actor links Ron Burgundy, Ricky Bobby and Elf?	Will Ferrell
4.      Which rapper is married to Beyonce?	Jay-Z
5.      What is the connection between the above answers?	The names of the 4 main characters from “The Inbetweeners”? (Simon, Will, Neil, Jay)

1.      In 1996, Newcastle United broke the world football transfer record when they bought Alan Shearer from which other club for £15 million?	Blackburn Rovers
2.      What type of classical female singing voice has the highest vocal range of all voice types?	Soprano
3.      Bengal, Siberian and South China are all species of what type of animal?	Tiger
2.      Which low budget 1998 horror movie concerns three students who set out to make a documentary in Black Hills Forest?	The Blair Witch Project
3.      What is the connection between the last 4 answers?	Tony (Tony Blackburn, Tony Soprano, Tony Tiger, Tony Blair)

Question Time: A Journey Round Britain's Quizzes

Released in the first week of October, Mark Mason's book on quizzing is well worth your time! Having previously written the very entertaining "The Importance of Being Trivial" (see link at the bottom of the page, also well worth your time), this takes a more direct look at Quizzing in the UK featuring many names you will recognise. At just over 200 pages, its a nice brisk read and one or two passages in the book will divide opinion, but other than that I imagine it is a must for quizzers. We are being spoilt a little at the moment with this, the raft of new quiz books from the BBC and the excellent "Joy of Quiz"! All worth your time and all links below!

Pub Quiz - Connection Round

Over the next few days, I will post up some of the Connection rounds of quizzes I have been writing recently. They are aimed at pub quiz audiences so tend not to make them too hard or obscure. Here are the first 3.....answers posted tomorrow.

1.      Which British politician lead the Labour Party from 1983-1992, making him the longest serving Leader of the Opposition in British History?

2.      Which British celebrity became a father for the first time in at the age of 54, when his partner Lauren Silverman gave birth to his son Eric?

3.      Which actor links Ron Burgundy, Ricky Bobby and Elf?

4.      Which rapper is married to Beyonce?

5.      What is the connection between the above answers?

1.      In 1996, Newcastle United broke the world football transfer record when they bought Alan Shearer from which other club for £15 million?

2.      What type of classical female singing voice has the highest vocal range of all voice types?

3.      Bengal, Siberian and South China are all species of what type of animal?

4.      Which low budget 1998 horror movie concerns three students who set out to make a documentary in Black Hills Forest?

5.      What is the connection between the last 4 answers?

1.      Standing in Lancashire, what was became the tallest structure in England when it first opened in 1894?

2.      What is the surname of the actor who played Fred Flinstone on film and voiced Sulley in Monsters Inc?

3.      “Never know how much I love you, never know how much I care, When you put your arms around me” are the opening lines to which famous song?

4.      Which TV Presenter is the daughter of journalist Eve Pollard?

5.      What is the connection between the above 4 answers?

Quiz Review - The Grange, Sunderland

 

Venue: The Grange, Sunderland

Night: Tuesday - 9pm

 

The Grange is part of the "Sizzling" pub chain and I have known about their quiz night for some time, but being just outside the town I have always chosen to attend others for convenience. However, since moving recently this venue is now within walking distance and I decided to try it out last night.

 

The venue uses the RedTooth "Its Your Round" format (at least on a Tuesday as they do also advertise other quizzes on Wednesdays and a music quiz on Sundays). I am a fan of this format and indeed a fan of RedTooth which has for the last few years some of the best setters in the country producing quizzes for them.

 

In case you haven't sampled the format before in a nutshell you get - Picture Round, Current Affiars, Top 5 Rounds, GK Trivia Trail, Connections and a GK Wipeout Round.  I have spoken before about how well written the questions, and doing a similar set for an alternative company myself, I know how hard it is to get a balance right when you are writing for several different venues. But as always the quiz was spot on. It was the first time my non quizzing (and very tolerant) other half has played a RedTooth and she enjoyed it more than some of the quizzes she has played over the years.

 

It's a typical "bar man turns quiz host" for the night style affair but there was no obvious cheating (the scores indicated that) and a nice £30 meal voucher for first prize. He did not announced the prizes but 2nd place was also given a voucher of some value.

 

The night ends off with a Card Bingo session that had a £128 jackpot last night. All in all, a fun, cheat free night of quizzing with the usual high quality of RedTooth questions.

 

Tip: If you download the Green Card App you can get yourself a free beer at the Sizzling Venues!



Ready Made Pub Quiz

I have been meaning to mention this site for a while. Ready Made Pub Quiz  has a wide range of quizzes that have ben uploaded over the last number of years. Of course you can search for tags and such like on topics you want to look into, but each time they upload a quiz (which I think is now up to number 130+) it has the full whack...picture round, general knowledge round and themed round. Great for getting practice on the chestnuts and for (in my case) much needed practice on picture rounds.

Click HERE to view the site

Brain of Britain

Speaking of Brain of Britain (see post below about the release of the Brain of Britain quiz book) - applications for the new series are now open. I have been waiting for the 5 year period to elapse since my last outing so I can try and not embarrass myself this time around and received an email this week.

brainofbritain@bbc.co.uk is the email to get in touch and they will send a form out :)

Brain of Britain Book

Along with the Only Connect book I mentioned during the week, a Brain of Britain quiz book has also been released this week. Just arrived this morning and flicking through the first few pages and book as a whole, it seems well worth your time...

Fifteen to One Applications

Thanks to Dave over at the Life After Mastermind Blog for alerting me to the fact that the applications for Fifteen to One's next series are now open

Link is HERE

Event

My favourite quizzing event of last year returns in November with a few slight changes, including the individual and team events now being on the same day! Well worth a trip to Sheffield to take part in!

More details HERE

QU12

As part of the Lightspeed Quiz buzzer events that run every month up and down the country, the QU12 game is always on of the highlights. Above is a video of the recent set from The Market Tavern in Thornaby with a familiar face involved ;)