Sunday Sun Note....

For my fellow north-east readers, in case you have not seen it already each week the local paper "Sunday Sun" has a decent pub quiz style set of questions in it which always get my brain awake on a Sunday Morning. Always a good set of questions, typical pub quiz style and a bit of entertainment for a lazy Sunday morning.

North East Quiz Nights - Update

A few days ago I posted of my intention to amass a database of North East Quiz Nights to enable anyone in the north east looking for a quiz to have a simple, easy to use site where they can hunt down what quiz is on when and maybe a review or two so they know what to expect.

The response so far has been good with a thanks to Clive Dunning who has been in touch about a big quiz in October with a £300 prize fund to take place at the Buffs club Stockton. I will certainly post more details as and when I can and will be trying to attend this. Thanks Clive!

Also Anthony Gold from the Sunderland Echo Quiz League has been in tough. I have emailed Anthony on a previous occasion and the league is something I am definitely interested in playing in. For now though check out the website at http://www.sunderlandquizleague.co.uk/ if you are interested in.

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Just lastly, as I continue to work on my database of Pub Quiz in the North East, I will add odds and ends on this blog for anyone looking for a quiz night. I have reviews of various quizzes local to me all across this blog but some short sharp reviews just to keep you going....

Moorcock, Peterlee (Sunday Nights) - 20 Pictures, 40 Questions and a Jackpot. A well attended quiz hosted by Bob Garrigan (?) who has been doing quizzes in this area for a long time. good range of questions plus a free hot buffet! Decent cash prizes!

Southside Social Club, Easington Village (Tuesday Nights)- 60 questions, free entry and pint cheque prizes. Nice mix of general knowledge questions and a good turn out.

Chaplins, Sunderland (Thursday Nights) - Ran by a friend of mine, a quiz I will attend weekly when my driving is sorted. Great turn out, good mix of questions, wipeout rounds, cash prizes and a jackpot.


If anyone wants to get in touch with information on other North East Quizzes Please do! fully234@hotmail.com

New BBC Series Seeking Contestants

Not sure if this is a new show or a new series but a BBC daytime show called Breakway is seeking contestants. Nick Hancock looks set to host and very little is said about it on the BBC website but a pretty standard application form is there. http://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/shows/beonashow/breakaway

My application is in!

Pub Quiz Machine Guide - Part 3

Its been a while since I made an entry into my series looking at the pub quiz machine located in most bars around the country. I have reviewed Battleships and Eliminator thus far and today will have a quick review of another common game. The 1 vs 100 pub quiz machine version!

Anyone who has seen the show on tv, which I rather enjoy, knows the basic premise of this. Its you the player vs one hundred people. You are given multiple choice questions (3 options), if you get it right you stay on the game and whoever gets it wrong out of the 100 is eliminated so 1 vs 100 quickly becomes 1 vs 73, 1 vs 43 etc etc. If you get down to and defeat the 100 you go into a money game where you have to eliminate all the pairs of amounts and whatever is left at the end you win!

So how hard is it and how likely are you to win anything on the pub quiz machine for your 50p?

It starts off very easy and anyone with a basic general knowledge will get to 1 vs 60 easily. Its then the game goes one of two ways. The questions doe get genuinely well written, some of the finest on the whole machine. You have 2 Dodge’s to play with meaning you can avoid the question whilst still making progress and also a Double which means you can use one of your answers to take away double the normal amount.

The stopper questions as usual are the ones to get you and they are bad here! I got a question along the lines of,  “How much, after tax did Steve Mcmanaman earn in January 1999? A. £242,050 B)  £243, 100 C) £244, 400. Pure guess work, only if you have taken the Dodges to this stage will you have a chance. Sometimes though the machine wants you to win and gives you tough questions (but gettable) between 1 vs 60 and 1vs 30 and then ease you home with some easy one’s! Its tough to call!

Overall a fun game with a horrible tendency to rob you!

Fix watch

-          When you double you will always get 4 eliminations

Call for North East Quiz Nights!

I am currently working on a Quiz website that is going to act as a listings page for Quizzes in the North-East. There are one or two out there at the moment that give you an idea of quiz nights in the north east but I have found them to be out of date, inaccurate and not very detailed.

So my current plans is to spend a few weeks researching pub quizzes in the north east and devise a weekly calendar of course labelling what. I aim for this site to also eventually include reviews but initially I am just looking for the names, locations and times of pub’s in the North East Area (covering anywhere in Tyne and Wear, Teeside and County Durham) which hold a quiz night.

I am not relying on other websites, even pub websites as these are often wrong but will simply be relying on quizzes I attend around the region, other people’s input and any venues I speak to.

So if anyone has any information of quiz nights they actually know still run please email me at fully234@hotmail.com with information on venues, times and anything else such as format and prizes if you wish but as long as I have a Venue and a time then Ill publish it online.

A New Member of the "Chase" team and looking for contestants!

Thanks to quizzing.co.uk for this report but the latest news from one of my favourite shows, The Chase, is that a new member of the cast has been chosen. Regular face on the quiz scene Paul Sinha has been chosen to join the Chase.

The Chase is also looking for contestants. I think I will apply http://www.itv.com/entertainment/quiz/thechase/applicationform/default.html is the site. A very simple form!

"Marking up".......again!

I mentioned briefly earlier in the week how my team mates have said they would rather not attend the usual quiz on a Sunday Night as they are sick and tired of the "marking up" used by the Quizmaster to keep the quiz close. As discussed earlier I can see why a quizmaster would do this, mainly to encourage re-attendance, but I have found marking up in this case is having the opposite effect.

It has happened every week no matter if you are only a few points off the lead or last......you always know extra ticks will be on there. This week for instance we came 6th out of the 11 teams in play, 2 points away from 2nd and 2 points away from 11th. We had on our sheet 3 extra ticks for obvious wrong answers he failed to mark wrong. This just isn't him missing or being a bad marker, he does it on purpose to most teams.

What this means is for people like us, who just want a fair quiz, a fair score and a fair placing...we have no idea where we have come in reality. Yes 6th was our final placing but because he marks in two rounds there is no way he can be consistent. what if he marks a team up in round one who suddenly has a stormer and goes on to win the prizes? Either way it has taken some of the enjoyment out of the quiz.

As I mentioned before I have no problems coming last, especially in quizzes where there is just two of us against much larger teams, but all I ask for is a fair placing and a genuine score. The fixated idea the quizmaster has of marking up therefore is, and not just in our case, driving people away.

Nevermind. Rant over :)

Tuesday Night Quizzing....Lack of Wednesday!

Well, it was off to the Southside Social Club, Easington Village last night after discovering the quiz last week and rather than just the two of us we ended up with a team of 6 this week. We ended in a tiebreak for second (which we lost) but were happy with the score and the quiz was enjoyed by all.

Some problems arose though mainly the 5 questions on the Troggs and the 4 questions on The Mallard. Due to this knowledge gap in all our team members we lost out on around 12 points as bonuses were awarded on certain questions. Again, the quizmaster did a similar thing last week asking about Creedance Clearwater Revival  so I assume this is a habit.

Straight away I have spotted that, although a great quiz, themes have been popping up....American State Capitals, Capital Cities, German State Capitals and most populous cities in certain American States. improving my knowledge of these will help us massivley in this quiz.

But other than the repetition the quiz was varied, fun and I definitely learned a thing or two so well worth a trip out and my Tuesday Night Quizzing home will remain Southside Social Club.

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Wednesday is still in the middle of a drought in this neck of the woods with no quizzes near by. It's the perfect night for us too as my other half is off the next day and its good to get out in the middle of week but I am not to have that particular pleasure. If anyone knows of any good quizzes in the local North East area let me know as if I know there is a good quiz further away I will travel!

Quiz Book Recommendations #1 - The Pub League Quiz Book 1

(Sorry about the terrible image, struggled to find one online that wasn't microscopic)

When it comes to Quiz books I am, it must be said, an obsessive. Every time I see a quiz book I haven't got I have to add it to my collection, hence why I try avoid ebay and amazon searches for them! I would dread to think the amount of money I have spend on them in recent years but its all been worth it as I love nothing more than dipping into a good quiz book and testing myself and learning something new. Over the next few weeks I am going to have a look at some of my favorites to give readers an idea of the best ones out there and ones to keep an eye out for.

The first in this series is the excellent Pub League Quiz Book 1.

This edition was published in 1988 (when I was merely 3) and can be picked up easily on ebay and I think I paid no more than £1 for it. Its issued by the QuizMasters of Great Britain and contains a section of actual questions from the National Pub Quiz League itself.

The Book opens with what it calls 5 Family Quizzes. These are intended to be played in some sort of came and you get scoring charts to copy if needed and a brief set of rules but you can just as easily use the book on your own. Each quiz has 200 questions broken down into pages of 20 each on subjects including pot luck, sports, entertainment, science, the UK and geography. In each page there are 7 easy questions, 7 medium questions and 6 it consider hard. This gives a nice balance and a nice mix to the proceedings and will test most quizzers. I have definitely learnt a lot from this book and the questions are so well written its clear time has been taken putting the whole thing together.

Perhaps the section that interested me most was the back section which has a 9  actual Pub Quiz League sets of questions in them. With various rounds, individual questions and a split into questions for each team its well put together and gives you a flavor of the Pub Quiz League, albeit in 1988, but the questions aren't dated at all
as current affairs has been avoided.

All in all this is an excellent little book full of great questions. Puts some modern day titles to shame!

Quiz Ramblings

Just a few odds and ends from this weekend and coming week.

- Attended the usual Sunday Night Quiz at the Moorcock in Peterlee. The quizmaster returned to the usual anti-cheat round (not that he class it this) involving naming cars based on cryptic clues. This meant the mobile phone team did not get the win this week. It was a good set of questions this week, really tough but his "marking up" of papers to make the quiz close at the half way stage is starting to annoy and some of my team mates have refused to go back and want to find a new Sunday Quiz.

 - Oh and a bit of smug satisfaction in the fact I was the only one to get a certain question right in the whole pub....on Cher of all things.

- I must have been on a different planet when the first series of Celebrity Eggheads went to air as I have no memory of this at all so will be tuning in it that this week. Its showing at 6.30pm on BBC2 just after the current Series 9 repeats.

- In case I haven't mentioned it before for fans of Eggheads CJ has a lively Twitter account http://twitter.com/#!/cjdemooi

University Challenge - Round 1 - Episode 4 - July 25th

The current series of University Challenge continued last night with two cities competing who I have vested interests in. Belfast is a city I have visited on several occasions and always found it to be friendly and welcoming, but my support was for the local side Newcastle and didn't they do well?

Form the off it was clear Newcastle had the edge and once they started to build a lead there was no stopping them. 235-80 is a very impressive score and we are seeing some strong teams this year. Newcastle have a really strong team, the captain (Helena Turner) was very decisive and took the lead in answering questions without time consuming conference if she knew it. Ben Dunbar also deserves credit for a stellar performance.

And what more can you ask for than a round on Eurovision! How dare Paxman insult the holy grail.......:)

Quiz Pet Hates #3

A small pet hate for the day to continue my series of Quiz Pet Hates.....Quizmasters who ask questions based on their own personal interests!

One certain quiz I attend, the guy running is obviously a massive Creedance Clearwater Revival Fan and thus questions arise each week regarding that band. Another one is clearly a massive admirer of Doctor Who so sure enough each week Doctor Who questions emerge.

Clearly, quizmasters need to separate what their personal interests are in the sake of a good quiz. This isn’t a special subject round of Mastermind, its the pub quiz and when some quiz masters fail to recognise that, its another of my pet hates!

TV Review - In It To Win It - Saturday 23rd July

One of the quiz shows which I tend to catch on a Saturday Night, if I am in, is the latest Lottery show whichever that may be. At the moment we have Dale Winton's In It To Win It, which is perhaps one of the longest running Lottery shows (I will have to look that up!).

I am sure most people reading this have caught the show before so I wont explain how it works but new for this series I believe is the ability to play along at home via the red button (no prizes, just a score at the end).

Anyway, last nights show was the usual fare with quite a low total being earned at £30,000. I thought the questions were very easy last night and had a few more decent quizzers been on the line up the total would have been much higher.

Bringing me to my main point, as with most prime time quiz shows these days, In It To Win It obviously does not want knowledgeable players in the line up. That is no disrespect to anyone who has been on the show but given the standard of questions last night I firmly believe a decent quizzer could have sat through the entire show, provided they got the luck of getting into the winners row, and answered every question right. Having only 3 multiple choices plus a basic set of questions would play right into the hands of experience quizzers to be able to win big money.

But of course the producers want better television and in this case they got what they wanted with not much prize money actually given away, plenty of Red Zone Action and every contestant with a chance at Winners Row.

Personally even though this is a good source of light entertainment for a Saturday Night I would love to see a version in this format with decent questions, no choices and good quiz players. The Format is good, but the execution could be way better!

Quiz Questions - Architecture Quiz

Well for todays quiz I’m going to have a bit of an Architectural Theme……Answers as usual to your yourself, in comment box or to fully234@hotmail.com

1. Name the famous architect who designed the town plan for Chandigarh, India?
2. In 1851 Joseph Paxton designed which building for the Great Exhibition?
3. Name the school of architecture founded by Walter Gropius in 1919?
4. Which Prize, often known as “architectures nobel” began in 1979 and has been issued annual ever since to a living architect for  their lifetime of achievement?
5. Which building this week, constructed for an event to be held in London next year, was announced as the front runner for the Stirling Prize?
6. Who was the main architect behind the Great London Plan of 1944 to rebuild the city after the war?
7. John Fowler and whom worked together to complete both the Forth Rail Bridge and London Underground System?
8. Which architect and landscape gardener earned the nickname “Capability” due to his stock reply that every garden he worked on had “excellent capabilities”?
9. Which American Architect is often referred to as the Father of Modernism and he Father of the Skyscraper?
10. Which Scottish Architect was responsible for the Caledonian Canal?
11. What was the nationality of the architect who designed the Sydney Opera House?
12. Coventry Cathedral was designed by whom?
13. What is a Campanile?
14. Brunel built which of his Bridges over the Tamra?
15. And finally……..The Albert Memorial and St Pancreas Station were built by whom?

Next week Ill choose a different theme but hope you enjoy this weeks Architecture Quiz!

Help settle a debate.........

Hopefully someone out there will take my side in a quiz related debate I have been having with a friend.

This is what occurred........

At the local quiz a question was asked....What is the state capital of Hawaii? This was around question 15 of a 60 question quiz. Then around question 46.....What is the most populous city in Hawaii?

My friends first thought was.....that is lazy quiz writing. I begged to differ. Yes, the research into that question could have been taken from the same sentence in a reference book or indeed on Wikipedia but that doesn’t make it lazy quiz writing. In fact I think its a nifty little ploy.

I was quizzing without team mates to bounce answers off on this occasion but if I had this would have made a good debate. In my head I was thinking Honolulu must be the right answers, I was scratching my brain to think of other Hawaiian cities I knew. Was it a trick question? Could two answers be the same? It gets you thinking and that is why I think rather than being a lazy peice of quiz writing it was a good idea.