Usually, I have something to say before I get into the meat
of a weekly roundup. Today, I have
nothing. Which isn’t strictly true, I have a huge amount to say, but none of it
is strictly relevant to this, the week before last. I was at QuizFest last
Saturday, see, and my perspective has been significantly changed by that.
Before I can review the week’s quizzes that followed that, I’ll need to put up
a separate post explaining what I mean. For now, I’d prefer to reflect on
things as they actually were, before all this.
I suppose I do have something to say in that regard. The
week before this one was utterly chaotic, and that didn’t really change as this
one started, since Monday was to be my 3rd quiz and I was woefully
underprepared. The quiz itself was ultimately written, but as Sunday’s first
quiz of the week loomed, it still wasn’t fully printed. An inauspicious
beginning, but I shall reveal what happened beyond those busy hours…
Quiz #137 – Sunday
23rd July, Turf Tavern, Carlisle
This time, unlike last week, there was no major gig on in
Carlisle and it was back to normal in terms of parking. Convenient, since I
hadn’t allowed any extra time to get there! M must have been working as it was
only myself and J. Didn’t see many of his other friends there either, though
JDSS were in attendance. 3 of the regulars plus one other, that I could see. We’ll
beat them eventually, I’m sure it can be done even with Other J there! He’s the
guy who has won this quiz solo, remember.
We didn’t make the best of starts, unfortunately, being
restricted to 4 on a tough picture set. I always make a point of looking up
people born on this day, and found it was the obvious Daniel Radcliffe this
time. Current events was much better though, as we put ourselves above the
average with 7.
The top 5 lists were potentially critical to our chances
here, and the first was a kind set about words. It wanted the 5 words that can
be made from the letters “arts”. That’s obviously one of them, and rats, Tsar,
star and tars followed in quick succession. The other list was sport, which is
unfortunate, but tennis, which is better. Specifically we were looking for any
5 of the 6 countries which have, between all players, ever won 8 or more Wimbledon
men’s singles. The first 4 – USA, Switzerland, Australia and UK – were very
obvious if you know your tennis, which meant a decision about the last. We
eventually went for France based on their strong pedigree in the sport and
their large number of current top 50 players, even though none of them has been
a serious contender for Slams in the Big Four era. That was correct, Germany
being the other, and we’d considered that as well. Job well done!
Alpha Links ought to have been better, but it seems we
traded some of our usual points in it in exchange for our 10 on the lists. 5
was disappointing if I’m honest, and we were unfortunate on the connections
round too, getting just 3. In fairness, one was a mistake I’ve made before –
mixing up Leonard Pierce with Leonard Rossiter – and the other was always going
to be an educated guess on the title of a collection of books with the name Raj
in it, since it was about 19th century India. The connection itself
was Big Bang Theory Characters.
Wipeout time, and we needed to be careful. We were confident
we had a decent number of points but there were plenty of guesses in there too,
so we couldn’t afford to be blasé here. 7 of the first 8 fell to us quite
easily, reflecting the general recent trend towards easier Wipeout questions
recently (with the Alpha Links becoming consequently and not coincidentally
harder) and we decided against a 95% chance on the last. We’d have been right
but no matter.
Our final tally of 36 wasn’t quite enough for the podium, as
we finished 4th on a high-scoring night, but for just the 2 of us it
was an excellent score, I’m sure my best ever with only one teammate. JDSS won
with 43 of course. A great score that I’m very happy with, so we were just
unlucky with the placing. Nothing to be done about that!
Result: 36/55 (65.45%), 4th/11
Quiz #138 –
Tuesday 25th July, Ship Inn, Dumfries
After a 2 week absence, S & A returned to the Ship Inn
tonight, and we were joined by B. D was meant to be with us but ended up not
showing. Fair enough, his company is always much appreciated but not all that
common these days. Most of the usual suspects were in attendance, including the
lawyers who appear to be back as regulars which is good to see. The regular
host, however, was not there. This worried me as the unfortunate incident in
which we were unjustly accused of cheating occurred when his replacement took
the helm last time. I was wary but A was unconcerned, and I’ll say it now –
while the quiz ended in farce, it was not his fault at all. Technical issues
that I’ll explain later couldn’t be pinned on him, and he apparently received
the quiz itself only minutes before the start time, which explains the slow
pace and overrun. Given that my own quiz started late and overran in
circumstances that were much more my fault, I really couldn’t complain. I
admittedly did a bit, but I don’t ultimately blame the host.
Anyway, to the quiz itself. The unlucky loss of a half point
was the only notable incident in a tough but typical GK first round, in which
we got 5.5 for a mid-table position. Rounds on “Culture” have been seen before,
and this time it was basically Arts and Literature, so that’s what I’m calling
it. 5 is a fair reflection, and it saw us jump to joint-second, the same 2.5
behind the leaders that we were before. The next round was Science &
Nature, which ought to have favoured us and did, our 7 not changing our own
placing but closing the gap to just half a point at the half-way stage.
We jumped over that gap on a large picture round of
fictional dogs, on which we scored 26/32. Now A claimed, and I may agree, that
we thought we scored more than that, but it honestly wasn’t worth disputing,
especially given the pressure the QM was under and the length of time things
were taking. Our lead was only half a point, and this was before the specialist
round on Vin Diesel films. That should have been better than usual, but “better”
doesn’t mean “good” and 4/12 was a more or less standard score on these rounds.
That left us 2nd by 2 points, behind the lawyers.
And that, my friends, is where my scoring ends for this
quiz, and what I consider to be the final result of the quiz. The reason is
that the music round nearly didn’t happen because the sound system completely
broke down. To his credit, the QM made a valiant attempt at salvaging it, but
it just wasn’t happening. I can’t fault him either about trying to come up with
a last round on the fly, which he did: 5 questions on various subjects, worth 5
points each. Aside from the fact that we knew little of what was being asked,
the scoring of this new round would play havoc with my stats, and it was
unclear what the final result was anyway. It was all a bit chaotic, so I’m
taking the executive decision to ignore this last round in terms of my
statistics.
That’s an unfortunate end to the evening, but I honestly
feel sorry for the QM here. Having had a bad day the night before, I have every
sympathy. Interestingly, the number of questions was largely the same as it
usually is, thanks to an unusually large picture round.
Result: 47.5/78 (60.90%), 2nd/7
Quiz #139 –
Wednesday 26th July, Granary, Dumfries
One more quiz to go this week ahead of departing on holiday
for QuizFest on Thursday evening, and our ranks were bolstered for it by J, who
had made the trip from Carlisle. I felt bad that I could neither be there early
nor leave late, but I was alas far too busy for that, thanks in part to
visiting family. He was okay with it though.
J’s a smart guy, and a very useful addition to our team, and
demonstrated that in the first round, on alcoholic drinks, helping us to a
pleasing 8. Sport followed though, and that is never a strong subject for us. J
is better on it, but it was specifically 2015 sport which made it harder. I’ll
never begrudge a 6 though, not on that!
The one thing I enjoy hearing less than “sport” at this quiz
is music, and that was what followed – general unplayed music. I did actually
know a few of these though, and L got many of the rest. Between us all we had
9, and that is exceptional. A sequences round followed, and at least one miss I
really should have gotten – the first letters of the months of the year. Oh,
and square numbers, that was a criminal error, even with my not-great maths
skills. 7 correct answers was some solace, however, going into the final GK
round.
Again, this was a good team effort, and we exceeded our
typical 60% score on these for a 9. That put us joint-3rd, having
scored our best ever out of 50 questions. And that’s from over 2 years of doing
this quiz together! Of course, in the year I was doing it alone I’d not have
bettered that either. As with Sunday, a record score was not enough for a win,
but we did come joint-third, below two teams who achieved what I believe is the
first ever tie-break in my time at this quiz. It was decided on a coin-toss
since the teams didn’t want to split the money, which is fair enough. We beat
some great teams for this score, and I’m very happy with it. It’s a good
example of why I didn’t take note of my finishing positions last year, though I
definitely made the right decision by starting to keep them now.
Result: 39/50 (78%), joint-3rd/14
Week in Summation
Two record scores that were not rewarded in terms of
positions, and a score slightly below the overall average that nonetheless reflects
well on a chaotic but solid and challenging quiz. That’s the TL;DR version of
this week! Perhaps I should start including those!
This week was definitely an improvement over the previous
one, and I think I generally recovered from being so frazzled by the end. I’ve
said it many times, quizzing is a mental game as much as a physical, but
weirdly my actual performance didn’t seem too affected by my stress levels, as
it clearly was the week before. That’s good to see, and potentially speaks to
my resolve, or at least my determination to not embarrass myself at QuizFest.
It meant I was able to attend the event feeling like I was
playing well. “Confidently” I’ll never say, but a couple of strong recent
scores under my belt gave me a much needed boost. Overall, this was definitely
a good week.
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