2012 TQA Awards

Just a bit of fun, inspired by David Clark's excellent Life After Mastermind Blog, lets have a look back at some of my highlights of the year in the style of some awards.

Best Quiz Show of The Year 

2012 has been quite a good year for all the major quiz shows with Mastermind, won by Gary Grant, clocking up another great series, University Challenge as strong as ever and Only Connect throwing in arguably the best series yet so this one is a tough call. The Chase remains a daily fixation as it continues to remain strong, the addition of a new Egghead spiced things up on the ever-present BBC 2 hit and changes made to Pointless showed it has plenty of legs left in it yet. Only Connect would however come a close second to me to Mastermind. I have upped my enjoyment of this show by taking part in the weekly Wiki Challenge and it is still, for me, the benchmark of serious quizzing in broadcast.

Winner - MASTERMIND

Best New Quiz Show of the Year

This year we have some quiz shows fade out without as much of a whimper including the likes of Question of Taste. The Exit List was one of the better shows ITV tried, Tipping Point being about the worse and Channel 4's The Bank Job was not terrible, but 1001 Things You Should Know is!

There is a clear winner here however and sadly it is from a show that has not been re-commissioned. Cleverdicks was Sky's attempt to cash in on the Quiz Show market on its new Channel Sky Atlantic. Anne Widdecombe started slowly but became a good host in my opinion and the show was based around finding the finest quizzers and pitting them head to head. It worked well and its well worth catching up on on Challenge where it is being repeated frequently.

Winner - CLEVERDICKS

Best Quiz App

You have probably gathered I am a fan of Quiz apps for my iphone. There has been many released this year as usual, in fact new ones come along almost every day so this has taken some time. The Only Connect app has continued to entertain, although it was to the back end of last year so that is ruled out. The Big Pub Quiz app is well worth a look but it is Mastermind again that wins this one. Earlier this month a new Mastermind app, similar to the game which appears online, was released for free and has plenty for any quizzing fan to get stuck into.

Winner - MASTERMIND (Iphone App)

Best New Quiz Book

My quiz book collection has expanded considerably this year and its very tough to pick just one out. Very honourable mentions go to the likes of The Wordsworth Quiz Book and the Quiz League series of books I have mentioned before but Mastermind completes the triple by winning this as I found the quiz book the BBC put out in September to be very engaging.

Winner - MASTERMIND QUIZ BOOK

Special mention - Pocket Pub Quiz

A special mention here regarding the Pocket Pub Quiz Magazine which was released this year. I mentioned it earlier in the month so if you are interested check out that review. Otherwise, suffice to say that the book fills a hole in the market. We have plenty of weekly/monthly puzzle magazines so its great to see a Quizzing title on that shelf. Hopefully 2013 will see the magazine take off and increase circulation as the quality of the questions and effort put in deserves it!

Best Quiz Event

A few could have taken this title I suppose. The Sunderland Echo Quiz League has been something I am enjoying considerably, the Brunton Shield which ties into that (sort of) was my personal highlight of the year and of course the December GP at Rolleston where I met several quizzers and had a great day.

But because it was my first major quizzing event where I met some great people, had a fantastic day in my first visit to Edinburgh and a cracking team quiz in the afternoon it has to go to the World Quizzing Championships, specifically the Edinburgh Venue.

Winner - World Quiz Championships 2012, Edinburgh 

Best Pub Quiz 

Since moving to Sunderland my quizzing has widened but there is only one contender here. Every Thursday Fitzgeralds in Sunderland hold a pub quiz which has a total control on cheating, a great environment and superb formats and questions. If you are local, check it out every Thursday at 9pm!

Winner -Fitzgeralds Quiz Sunderland

Best Quiz Site

A few could have fallen in with a chance this year but for consistency and regularity the award again has to go to David Clarks Life After Masternmind site which continues to be a very readable, fun, informative and witty look at the quizzing world from a  man who has literally been there, done that and probably fort the T-Shirt!

Winner - Life After Mastermind