Lightspeed Quiz - Football Special

Last month, I began to attend Lightspeed Quiz events once again after a few months off. The Lightspeed events themselves have developed into a fun day of quizzing with the main event, a QU12 qualifier for the end of season £500 game as well as a special set by one the players. I particularly enjoyed Brenda Curtis' Football themed set below....

Next Series of 15-to-1

For those of you waiting for Series 9 and 10 of Fifteen to One to begin, it looks likely that the show has been pushed back until later Summer. I believe the original plan was to air it this week starting with Series 9 and going straight into Series 10 afterwards.  As a contestant on Series 10, we weren't given any indication of the air dates but roughly suggested it could be July. Either way, they have two series in the bag so hopefully it will come to air sooner rather than later.

Pub Quizzes in Sunderland

I have set up both a Facebook group (HERE) and a Twitter account (@PubSunderland) intended to promote quizzes in the local area. It is very difficult round these parts finding an accurate quiz listings or any information so I am hoping these two groups will help that cause :)

Sunderland Echo Quiz League Champions - Ashbrooke

Congratulations to Ashbrooke who last night sealed the Sunderland Echo Quiz League title, edging out the champions of the past three season Newbottle.

The 2017-2018 season has been another tight affair for us (Chester's) and we managed to win the final game giving us a winning season, as well as the third highest points average in the league.

The Sunderland Echo Quiz League now takes a break for the Summer and we will back in August-ish time for the start of the Knockout Competition. If any local players are reading this then get in touch if you are interested, whether you are an individual or a team! It would be great to see more players in the League.

Sunday Nights at the Albert Sunderland!

The Albert - Sunderland and Jackpot Rounds

Last night, I held my first Quiz in the Albert, a pub located in the heart of Sunderland City Centre. Congratulations to Quizzy McQuizFace who managed to win with an impressive 72 points. After trailing by 1 point in round one, they fought back and due largely to a clear victory in the Sports Round, managed to take home the prize

 

The Jackpot round was not won, giving us a roll over for next week so make sure you get yourself down at 7.30pm on Sunday! Ill post up the questions later in the week

Tomorrow Night - The Albert Pub Quiz, Sunderland

Just one final shameless plug for my quiz taking place in The Albert in Sunderland tomorrow night! 7.30pm start and I have a great quiz planned with a chance to win money, beer and the all important jackpot!

This Sunday - My Quiz in Sunderland

This Sunday night, my new regular quiz night kicks off at the Albert in Sunderland (located in the city centre in what used to be The Vestry). The picture round will be given out at 7.30pm with the quiz starting around 8 and including rounds on News, GK, Sport, Connections, Top 5's and Entertainment as well as a Music Round and a Jackpot. The bar have been very supportive with prizes and I have put together what I think is a really solid quiz, so I hope if you are in the Sunderland area, it would be great to see you there!

Pub Quiz Review

 

 

The Blue Bell, Sunderland

Tuesday Nights - 9pm

 

 

Our search for a new quizzing home on Tuesday Nights continues (due to a rather harsh ban on two of our team from playing the quiz we have attended on Tuesday for the past 6 months) and we headed to the Blue Bell this week which is based in Fulwell, just outside of Sunderland City Centre.

 

I had been to this quiz a couple of times before, but it had been probably 3 or 4 years since my last visit. The quiz kicks off with a straight forward picture round, followed by 10 questions on current affairs, 20 on General Knowledge and a jackpot round. The quiz is hosted by a member of the local quiz league and thus the question standard is higher than you would expect elsewhere, with a nice range of questions and a handful of ones that had us thinking.

Prizes on offer include money and beer tokens and there were 12 teams in attendance which is a good figure for this area. The quiz itself is well worth attending if you are in the area, and although it is perhaps a bit on the short side, it is certainly somewhere I would return again. (Especially as we now have vouchers for free beer!).

 

 

 

Tony (the host of this quiz) himself has also written a quiz book, containing 4000 quiz questions across a range of subjects. All the kind of things you are likely to come across at your local quiz night and well worth a look.

 

 





Lightspeed Quiz - April 2018, Oxford

It has been a while since I last attended a LightSpeed quiz for a variety of reasons, but when I heard Chris Curtis was hosting one in Oxford, I made the effort to take the four hour drive there last weekend. The whole event was fun, above is the first video of the initial rounds and Ill post up all specials etc as they are uploaded to the site by the organiser.

Very high standard as always, and some fantastic questions by Chris!

QLL Brain of London Finals Night

Last week was the Final of the Quiz League of London's individual Brain of London contest. For the past few years, they have been streaming the finals live on Facebook. Well worth a watch if you want to see how high quality questions and a fantastic range of questions. Available to watch HERE

Pub Quiz Review - The Chequers, Oxford

 

Last Friday of Each Month

8.30pm

The Chequers, Oxford

 

 

Last Friday, I took the long drive down to Oxford for a mini-weekend of Quizzing. The main focus of the trip was to attend a Buzzer quiz event (LightSpeed quiz....more on that later) but as it transpired there was a quiz happening nearby the night before which a group of us tried out. The quiz is ran by Dale Collins, of whom I had heard great things, and hence I jumped at the chance of attending.

 

The pub itself was pretty much full to capacity and they would have struggled to get any more teams in, so my advice if you wish to attend is to book in advance. As well as our table of keen quizzers, a Mastermind champion was in attendance and the standard throughout was very high.

 

 

The quiz differed to anything I played in the past in one key area....there is no overall winner. Every round is separate with prizes for the winners. There were picture rounds, music rounds, forward thinking (in which you got 5 bonus points if you predicted your score), entertainment and sport rounds meaning everyone could get involved, and the standard of questions was very high.

 

The highlight of the quiz was perhaps the final round in which Dale issues each team with a buzzer and you score 3 points for a correct answer but lose 3 if you are wrong. Considering our team consisted of regular buzzer-quiz players, I fancied our chances and sure enough we strode to victory, enabling us to play the jackpot game first. This was basically a list based game where we had to identify the top earning Sportsperson from 2017 from a given list (harder than you think).

 

Overall a great night, being perhaps the best team I have been a part of inside a pub quiz, making it a very unique experience. Yes, it would have been nice to have an overall points total and winner, but it hardly detracts from a very fun pub quiz experience and I would certainly urge anyone to visit a Dale Collins quiz if they are nearby (I will try and get a full list soon).

 

 



Brain of Britain Appearance

Before I start, it is worth mentioning that this post contains Spoilers about yesterdays episode of Brain of Britain. If you want to listen to the episode you will find it HERE

 

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Five years ago, I made my first appearance on Brain of Britain. It was shortly after I had taken steps towards competing in more competitive quizzes and I was full of enthusiasm and trying to enter as many broadcast shows as possible. Things didn't go to plan and I ended up bottom of my heat with 3 points. I was determined to come back 5 years later (the necessary waiting period for re-application) and do myself more justice.

 

 

The show you heard yesterday, was only recorded last Monday (16^th April) at the BBC Radio Theatre in London. During the audition process I had stated I was happy to travel to either venue (Salford being the other) and having been to Salford for the recording in 2013, it was nice to go somewhere different. The Radio Theatre itself is a fantastic venue, and as always with these recordings, was full to the brim.

 

My main ambition going into the heat was to better my performance from 5 years ago. In that time I have done a heck of a lot of quizzing and improved my scores in the GP’s dramatically from where I started (although still highly inconsistent). Despite nerves getting the better of me at a recent TV recording, I felt quite relaxed, until the theme music hit. I wasn’t as nervous this time around, but still had the “blank mind” issue that has plagued me before.

I must admit, the first priority was to score a point. I think the “fear of zero” needed wiped out, so was happy to pick up the Sampdoria question on a bonus. I made a couple of schoolboy errors…..When asked for a character for the Lolita questions, I somehow managed to get in my head they were looking for a historical figure and when it came to the Dennis Meanace questions, I was completely down the wrong tracks looking for a cartoon-duo for some reason!

 

The annoying questions were the Right Said Fred/Taylor Swift question which I only recently read but couldn’t recall in the time, and the Great Expectations question which just didn’t come to mind. Salt N Peppa too is something I will have answered right before, but by that point in the show I think even if they asked me my own name I would have passed!

 

Even on my best day, I would still have been nowhere near to Mark Coopers commanding score. The way Brain of Britain works, it helps if you haven’t got other keen and experienced quizzers in your heat, and Mark gave a masterclass. Anthony Fish too, I later found out, is a keen GP attendee and regular quizzer which explains his stellar comeback towards the end of the episode.

 

However, I have no complaints and again the whole experience was fun, meeting great people and taking part in one of my favourite broadcast quizzes. I will still be under 40 the next time I am eligible to re-apply which will hopefully work in my favour, and I would love to have another stab at doing my self-justice. Somehow I need to master quizzing under pressure, and despite leaving Brain of Britain terribly disappointed I didn’t do myself justice (especially with recent GP scores), it certainly hasn’t put me off!

The Albert, Sunderland - Hosted by me!

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Although I write questions for various pubs, companies, apps and such like on a regular basis, I have never until recently had the fancy to run my own quiz night. But a stroke of luck landed me in contact with The Albert Pub, located in Sunderland city centre, and after a brief discussion I have agreed to host a quiz on Sunday Nights.

If you are in the Sunderland Area, The Albert is a superb location and the quiz will commence on 13th May with a nice jackpot to start us off, and prizes galore. I will post more details nearer the time.

 

Quiz Review - Music Quiz, The Grange Sunderland

 

Location: The Grange, Sunderland

 

Time: Sundays, from 8.30pm

 

 

 

Lying around 1 mile outside of Sunderland City Centre, the Grange is part of the Sizzling chain and probably the closest pub to my home. I have know about the existence of the Sunday Night Music Quiz in the venue for some time, and eventually managed to get round to attending last weekend. I am usually quite strong on music quiz questions, not so much on audio rounds, so didn't know what to expect. I convinced my other half to come along, and we were one of about 8 teams competing for a prize of a meal voucher for the pub itself.

 

I will start with the positives....the format is great with a lot of different styles of rounds to keep players occupied. Pictures, themed audio rounds, traditional audio rounds, list rounds...clearly effort is made to putting together a fun quiz. In all there are around 20 music quiz questions, 16 pieces of audio, 10 pictures in the picture round and a handout round. Last weeks was a list of Oscar Winning songs and you simply had to identify the films from which they came. I did enjoy it on the whole, and my other half also did (which is a rare when it comes to quizzing)....however there is one big criticism.

 

It was pitched at far too low of a level....this isn't me being arrogant, but we scored 57/60 and came 5th. There was a 4 way tie for first place on 58/60 and the lowest score was 54/60. I am all for an easy first half to get people suckered in and thinking they can win, but a harder second half is a must if thats the style. I personally would much rather come 5th with 70% of the points and have learned a think or two, than be 5th with only 3 points dropped. It is very easy to write an easy quiz.....the skill comes in writing a quiz that is going to produce staggered results.

 

I will give it another go, and if you are in the area it is well worth attending. If it is always so simple though, I maybe will look elsehwere