Let’s Get Quizzical!
I can’t pass up a good pub quiz. It’s just not in my make-up. A and I have been out on a date night in the past, only for me to see that there was a quiz on in the pub next door. Within 10 minutes there we were, trying to work out whether the chap in the badly photocopied picture round was Frank Bruno or Laurence Olivier from his “Othello” triumph.
Perhaps not that tricky after all…..
We went to a quiz last night. It was the most efficient quiz night I’ve ever attended. It was scheduled to start at 18:30 (I’m doing this in 24 hour clock as it seems fitting for the minutely timed circumstances). It started at 18:30:01. We whizzed through 4 rounds of questions and were done and dusted by 19:10. Speed-quizzing – it’s the ultimate answer for the time-poor and trivia-rich.
Just for fun (no prizes I’m afraid, just the satisfaction of knowing that you, too, have a vast store of totally useless knowledge) here are some of the questions:
1. Who said “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”?
2. Where is the most southern town in the world?
3. What is a Martini made with onion (yuk!!!) called?
4. In a recent survey in the UK, what came top of the list of “Things to do before you die”?
5. What is the collective noun for owls?
Your time is up!
Answers:
1. Alfred Lord Tennyson
2. Chile
3. A Gibson (still sounds disgusting)
4. Swim with dolphins (sounds lovely!)
5. A Parliament of Owls.
How did you do? All 5? Congratulations – you, too, are totally trivial!
[Photographs courtesy of rapidonline.com; shakespeare.berkeley.edu; news.bbc.co.uk]
Carrot Crush in the Hindu Kush 
I said Punta Arenas… do I get an extra point?
Quite a fan of quizzes here too…
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Oh yes, definite swot points there.
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You’d get along with my partner. I’m horrible at remembering facts. He loves quizzes. He spent an afternoon reading through ALL the cards in Trivial Pursuit (the original version with the most obscure facts) in high school. Round here they’re called nerds or geeks. Swot sounds less offensive 🙂
Oh and I knew it was a parliament of owls though didn’t remember til I saw the answer… I guess that’s still 0 points eh?
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I think I might have done that with Trivial Pursuit one boring summer holiday. It provided a quality break from practising my handwriting. Perhaps I should have spent the time trying to make friends….
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Yes, but no-one answered “take part in a pub quiz” to number 4, did they?
And did Alfred L T say “‘Tis better to have answered and lost, than never to have answered at all”? No. Thought not.
And I don’t believe anyone drinks Martini with an onion. That’s just made up for pub quiz people.
And you never see a group of owls, because they are solitary creatures (and it’s dark anyway), so the collective noun is useless. I expect it was made up by pub quizzers.
I’m not a pub quiz person myself… I never know any of the celeb questions, and – come to think of it – not many of the others either.
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Talking of solitary creatures, did you know that the collective noun for tigers is an ‘ambush’? One of the more appropriate collective nouns I reckon.
Not to worry about not being a pub quiz person. We could go in a team with Ms PlanB, leave her to answer all the questions by herself (Punta Arenas?!) and get stuck into the gin at the bar. Plan?
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I have newly found your blog, and this post confirms my suspicions that I will like it here.
I adore pub quizzes. I only got number 5 though.
I agree a cocktail made of onion does not sound in any way appealing.
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Welcome 700words! It’s lovely to have you. Pull up a chair. Fancy a cup of tea? A chocolate hobnob? Please make yourself at home.
I think we all agree on the cocktail/onion interface. Some things are just Plainly Wrong.
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Oooh a chocolate hobnob, your biscuit based offerings reaffirm my feeling that this is good company to keep. Perfect for dunking – may I take two? I must disagree with the swot/geek/nerd debate though. I always hated swot, and even now when my mum asks me how my swotting is going (revision) I shudder a little. I much prefer geek, its practically de rigueur these days, although my big thick glasses actually have prescription lenses in.
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