Questions that haunt you!

As dedicated quiz players there will be a vast range of questions we have all heard over the years time after time, its a staple of the obsession we all have! But do you seem to find that one particular question haunts you for a short period and you can't escape it? A purely random question that seems to pop up on every tv show you watch, every book you read and every crossword you try?

I go through these phases all the time and at the moment questions relating to the quote "A Little Learning is a dangerous thing" by Alexander Pope has cropped up so many times its getting scary.

Getting work as a Quizmaster..............

I am very keen to have a stab at being a Quizmaster. As a tutor/teacher I have the confidence to it and the experience of attending quizzes to carry out a quiz. The hard part is finding the work.....most pubs around this area either........

a) Have a long term Quiz Master they will never replace
b) Have tried and failed to get a quiz night running
c) Don'g believe a quiz night will work

I really don't know where to start bar phoning up/visiting pubs and asking around. I have sent a letter off to a local pub (which actually has no phone or email) as I know the owner is opening another pub around the corner and I have asked about a quiz night, but otherwise I am stuck so any help would be nice!

Update - New Look, Work News and Quiz Tour Plans

Any regular readers of the site will have noticed a new look to TQA blog. I really was not liking the black look so had a fiddle round and got a basic template in place to make it lighter and hopefully more readable to anyone browsing, Ill probably fiddle with it again within the next few weeks as I'm never happy!

Work wise and it isn't looking too great as redundancy looms. I am frantically searching  for another post at the moment as my redundancy date is the back end of August/early September. Ill be sad to leave the company and obviously the financial implications will hit home hard should I fail to find another role before that. I have thus began to watch my spending a little more and although it hasn't hit my quizzing yet it may in the not so distant future.

I shall soon have my driving licence and with that in mine I am planning to do a 3 month or so quiz tour (I was going to say Quiz Trip!) around the local area. I have some money aside and providing I can find work after this job ends I aim to visit as many north east quizzes in a short a period as possible so anyone from the area especially keep an eye out for that to find new quizzes. I still also intend to carry out my Quiz North East site with diaries, reviews and information solely on the North East Scene but until work is sorted I dont want to start that.

Thanks

University Challenge - Round 1 - Episode 3

A cracking game tonight between Oxford and Cambridge, finishing with only a ten point difference between the the two teams. Certainly two of the strongest contenders on the series so far and I expect both to go very far. Cao and Janes made an excellent pairing and drove their team to success with some great quiz playing!

Again questions about areas local to me arise....last week my home town of Peterlee got a mention and this week the local town of Middlesborough had a few questions...............I was myself surprised I got the Transporter bridge question correct as I convinced myself it had another name and that the Transporter Bridger was just our local term.

Full expect both of these teams to go quite far!

More Quiz Trippers.....Kevin's Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/kevinquinn105?sk=wall

Another contestant voicing their opinion online of the show Quiz Trippers

Quiz Trippers - Blog from one of the Trippers

Some very interesting comments about the Quiz Trippers show from one of those taking part

http://audclark.blogspot.com/2011/07/quiz-trippers-my-verdict-if-you-want-it.html?spref=tw

A Positive Side Effect from Quiz Trippers!

Although Quiz Trippers has not been received very fondly by all there has been on noticeable occurrence that has happened in my local area this week.......a rise in attendance of local quizzes with more than one person claiming Quiz Trippers got them back into the pub quiz scene! Could this be a positive effect of the show that perhaps we didn’t think about before hand?

Example.....A warm Thursday night, usually the weather and the fact that the quiz is not very well advertised usually means a poor attendance of maybe 6-7 teams. This week....packed! There were around 13-14 teams in play. Of course this cannot all be attributed to Quiz Trippers however I heard these comments....

At the bar  - “The Wife has been watching that new quizzy thing on channel 4 and she fancied trying one for herself”

In a team next to us – “We haven’t been down here for years, but we have been watching quiz trippers and its put us right in the mood again”

Those quotes are around about what was said but you get my point. Quiz Trippers could therefore bring in a wave of new players, improve competition and the quality of quizzing and help pub quizzing through this difficult time.

If it has any positive effect on the quiz scene in terms of people taking part at all, then that surely can only be a good thing!

Quiz Trippers 4

Well, the Quiz Tripper journey continued with the weeks fourth quiz....this time “the best quizmaster in the world” or something else was claimed. Tensions mounted, Laurens improve died a death and her cringe worthy joke of being a man was believed by Jen and Aud......but more to the point how was the quizzing?

The team faired badly this week coming 7^th but as Kevin stated this was mostly a 50/50 quiz with anagrams etc and only a smidgen of general knowledge, not my cup of tea but still fun to watch.

And I continue to enjoy Quiz Trippers for what is is!

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire - Live Special! - Tonight 9pm

With the normal series of WWTBAM now seemingly dead in the water, Tarrant returns for another of these irregular charity specials. This airs tonight (Friday 15th July) on ITV 1 at 9pm.

The focus is very much on the idea of, as the title suggest, the start of the school holidays. Celebs will appear with their teenage children to win money for charity so I expect they will cover a more obvious mix of generations in the questioning.

In whatever format its always good to see some new WWTBAM episodes

New Quiz Excitement !

I have mentioned before that quiz day always brings an extra spring in my step. Having the quiz to look forward to in the evening makes the day pass quicker and gives me something to look forward too, which is especially pertinent in this time when I face redundancy in just under 8 weeks time.

But there is one type of quiz that gets me more excited......a new quiz!

After the plans have been made to attend a quiz we have never been to before, the excitement builds even earlier than normal. What type of quiz will this be? Whats the standard? Wondering if that nights new quiz is going to become a regular haunt and will that one jackpot question come out you actually know and can qalk away with a pricely sum?

This has backfired before as I have mentioned when you walk into a new quiz and win.....I have had accusations of cheating, comments about my age (25) and "bloody students" remarks even though I have been a student for 4 years. 

Sure there will be looks here and there, regular winners will give you a wild west type look down to check out their new competition and the dangers of sitting in the regular players seats are more prone, but nevertheless the anticipation of walking into a new quiz and taking part is second to none.

Quiz Trippers 3

Into the third show and probably the easiest quiz of the week for the team. There seemed to be more quizzing action in this episode than the other two of the week and I am still enjoying this.

This episode saw the team in Dundee at a Student Quiz of sorts and the questions seemed to be much easier than previous weeks reflected by the fact that not only was I getting most right, but the Quiz Trippers were too. It was a close call and the Trippers managed to get into another tie break. Which resulted in a ……paper aeroplane race?

Now the first think people will suggest is that this was staged for the camera, however at my Student Quizzes the same thing would happen. Tie Breaks would be silly things so maybe it wasn’t staged as such but it sure did make for convenient television. I never liked the idea of a quiz ending in a random challenge but nevertheless it was something different.

Aud and Lauren are starting to grate a little but luckily the show focused more on the quiz last night.

I know a lot of “serious” quizzers are suggesting this is a whole load of rubbish but pure and simply, it is what was to be expected. Anyone expecting anything different from a teatime channel 4 show was kidding themselves. Its light hearted entertainment based around quizzing. It was never going to be “Eggheads-on-tour”, it was never going to be Mastermind type intellectual wise but it doesn’t pretend to be.

I will be watching for sure as the weeks go on!

QuizMaster Pet Hates!

As much as I, am most readers of this blog, love quizzes there are a few strong pet hates I have when it comes to quiz night and one of my biggest one is when the quizmaster "gives the answer away".  Now this can only happen with a certain type of question. Ill you give my latest example....

Question - Which fictional TV character comes from the planet Gallifrey? (Cue a sigh in the quiz crowd)

Now straight off I knew this, answer was down on the paper before the sigh from the larger older teams had stopped. The quiz master should have left it there but he didn't....................

"Its easier than it sounds......" he said before moving onto to saying...."I like watching him on Saturdays on the BBC"..........(Pause)..."although I used to like the old ones better than since they brought it back a few years ago"

Now, this I must say annoyed me. As I have said before I am not one of these ultra-competitive, win at all costs type of quiz player but I like a fair quiz and to me this isnt fair. The quizmaster clearly knew that over half the room did not like the question and did not know the answer.....but giving them clues was really frustrating for me. First off, I knew the answer which made it a bit worse but secondly this was the only question of the night in which he did this.....questions I didnt know did not result in a  massive sigh from me.

So basically for the 70% at least in the room who had no idea of the name of the character afetr his clues they know knew it was

a) A Male
b) On BBC
c) On Saturday
d) It used to be on tv but was brought back recently

That leaves of course only one show it could be....................Most teams ended up getting it.

So my pet hate number 1 is clues for questions when they shouldn't be needed!


Any other quizzers have pet hates?

Quiz Trippers Episode 2

Thank goodness for Channel 4 +1! After a session in the gym and a mistake involving my Sky Plus I had to scramble to catch this on the digital channel last night!

After a positive start on Monday the show moved on tot a better episode for its second show. All round I really enjoyed this edition and am really finding this series to be fun, enjoyable and interesting. Although the tensions between Lauren and Aud is a bit annoying and a bit "Big Brother" esque, it doesn't ruin the core of this episode which was a straight down the line pub quiz. After last night I was hoping for more questions and we got them and the team started to show their worth in most cases.

A simple quiz compared to last nights but a good one none the less. Quiz Trippers is indeed starting to be far better than I was anticipating! 

Quiz Trippers Episode 1

Well, after all the talk and the largely negative response the show had gained before coming to air, Channel 4's new teatime dose of reality began tonight in the form of Quiz Trippers!

I actually found the show to be quite enjoyable, light hearted, cheeky, "reality" and cheesy entertainment that is good for tea time viewing. All the quips and style is there for the successful and enjoyable Come Dine With Me show and Channel 4 have used the "If it aint broke.......just repackage it" approach to formula!

The quizzing side of things could prove interesting. I didn't expect too many actual questions and answers but I think we got a fair whack on this first show and the show had just the right balance. I think its going to be very interesting seeing all these weird and wonderful quizzes ran across the country, and although I certainly think there was an element of this quiz being, well not "fixed", but "styled" to suit the show it was still a fun part of the show.

The contestants have not made an impression on me yet but again with it being a key TV slot and a show intended to be more humorous than serious, it makes me wonder how actually "serious" these folks are about their quizzes. Obviously Kevin is having been on Mastermind and 15-to-1 but some of the others seem to have been chosen for various other reasons other than their ability to contribute to a quiz team!

Overall though this show was pretty much everything I was expecting and I think it has gotten off to a good solid start!

TQA is still here.............

For anyone just new to the sit or wondering where the frequent updates have gone, as you may have read below I am facing troublesome times on the work front so havent had the time to get this updated. I will be back on a regular basis from this post forward......