It's amazing what can happen in a week! I know I didn't post anything last weekend, but I'll explain all that in a "general life stuff" type blog at some point over the weekend. At least, that's what I wrote on Friday, before not writing much else. I'll try and catchup at some point over the course of this week, focussing for now on the week before last's weekly roundup. There's only two quizzes, though I'm going to take this chance to introduce a new section, the "strategic overview". This is basically something I do now anyway, only now I'm formalising it, "it" being the introductory paragraph I generally write about my own team situation, the opposition, host, expected subjects, etc. Similarly, I'll separate the outcome section too, as there's no reason not to. It makes sense to do this, though I won't be retroactively amending any previous posts. So let's get on with it.
Quiz # 155 - Sunday 27th August, Turf Tavern, Carlisle
Strategic Overview
This was not a typical Sunday quiz, as it was the first anniversary of the current host taking on the role. As such, he decided to commemorate the occasion by doing his own quiz, and throwing in extra bonus rounds of a "closest to it gets it" tie break style. The format remained the same, but it was his own questions and the last round was changed to song lyrics from GK Wipeout. Team-wise, unfortunately both M and J were absent, though JDCS were there. That's not a typo, I've actually been spelling their team name wrong all along, which is idiotic of me but oh well.
Faced with the prospect of doing the quiz alone, I joined instead a local couple sitting near me. They seemed nice enough, but one of them was determined to cheat on certain answers she didn't know, to the point where I had to physically withhold the sheet from her by the last round. Very unfortunate. I'm unfamiliar with the rest of the teams, but despite the bank holiday we had 9 to finish, which is a great number.
Quiz
As I said, the quiz mostly retained the same format as last time, but was the host's own. The pictures were a bit different, however, in that they were all celebrity mugshots from when they'd been arrested, rather than the usual mix of subjects. I only knew a couple but the team had more, so we ended up with a respectable 7.
The current events was replaced with a normal GK round, and an easy one for someone of my quizzing pedigree, so I eased to all 10. One proved slightly more challenging, if I remember correctly, but not enough to deny us the points. The two lists were similarly no problem. The first simply asked for the 5 Nordic countries, so as long as one remembers Iceland, it's simple. The other wanted the 5 kids from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. First and surnames admittedly, but I knew them all. This was a good start, but it was obvious to me at least that the other teams would be doing similarly well.
After the usual short break, we moved onto Alpha Links and could definitely have used another full house. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a relatively inexperienced quiz writer, the host started with A, though it took a couple more questions to confirm that because of the controversy of which is the longest river, the Amazon or Nile. We dropped a couple, but still finished the round with a strong 8. The connections round was predictably a subject beloved by the host - wrestling. I had my suspicions right away, though we nearly misfired on the Tom Cruise film Rock of Ages, and didn't know that Pall Bearer was the Undertaker's manager. Still, we finished with the full set.
This left the replacement song lyrics round, and I wasn't exactly optimistic. The opening line of 10 songs, a point each for the song and the artist. This was where one of the team wanted to cheat, which I was seriously not happy about. Haven't seen them since, incidentally, though I did warn the host in case they appear again and try something. As it was, the round didn't go too well for us. We couldn't even guess the first 3, and it took the 5th to get points. I only knew two of them, Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and Leona Lewis's Bleeding Love. Alas. We got 9 points in total, which was probably not going to be enough...
Outcome
Ultimately we scored very well, but not well enough. JDCS ended up losing on a tiebreak after they and another team got 55. Another team were 3 points adrift, and we 3 points further than that. A much easier quiz than usual but a very fun evening all the same, attempted cheating aside. I wouldn't join the others again, and to be honest would still have gotten most if not all the points on rounds other than the first and last rounds alone, I think. This was decent all the same.
Result: 49/65 (75.38%), 4th/9
Quiz #156 - Wednesday 30th August, Granary, Dumfries
Strategic Overview
I found myself missing the Ship Inn quiz again, which was unfortunate but unavoidable due to total exhaustion. My team weren't going to be there anyway, and there was just no way I was up to it. So, my only other quiz this week was at the Granary. It was a shortened quiz, with only two rounds - the 25 and 20 question variety. L was my partner, as usual, and two of the NCP from the Ship Inn were there. Sporting Quizbon too, and a family team who always change their name but who are regular and high scoring. Need to figure a way to refer to them...
Quiz
The first round was general knowledge, repeated answers. So, Duran Duran, Ai Ai, etc. With a short time limit and our usual issue of needing just one more person in the team to supplement our knowledge base, we missed more of these than I'd have liked, running out of steam and answers two thirds of the way through. We both found ourselves lamenting missed chances, but in the end, there probably wasn't too much more we could have done.
Round 2 was supposedly Film and TV but it became clear early on that it was specifically actors and their roles. Mostly, anyway, there were one or two questions towards the end that weren't. It's not a strong area for either of us, especially as I carry all the film expertise in the team and L isn't an expert on most aspects of TV. Ultimately there's no shame in our 12, which is a pretty typical GK score, and par overall. Fair enough.
Outcome
From a truncated quiz, we ended up with 28/45. Given I'm targeting 30/50 for us these days (not a score we always get but it's what I want), that's definitely below the bar. But there wasn't anything we could have done on the night; we were just lacking in terms of our overall knowledge base. That family team won the quiz with 32, which admittedly is a relatively low winning score in itself, with Sporting Quizbon being 1 point further back. So we actually did come close here, it's just that...we didn't. Next time, perhaps...
Score: 28/45 (62.22%), 5th/12
Week in Summation
The weekend after this quiz, I was planning on writing a life update post that I never did about how I'd fallen into a rut, of sorts. Positive energy, good vibrations, that can be difficult to maintain, especially when questions and results simply don't fall your way. To be honest I don't like how many quizzes I've missed lately, either. Granted it's not all that many, I mean I did 16 in August, but it's more than the...any...it used to be. What I needed at the end of this week was to refocus and rejuvenate. Luck is a factor, but mindset and attitude are more important. Seems this always happens the week of my own quizzes, since I put so much into them!
The results themselves this week could have been better, certainly, though I've had worse too. Unremarkable, and continuing a recent trend of not great results, but there's no easy way to improve the areas I lost points on, so I can't be too worked up about that.
It's really kinda weird writing this now when things have shifted a lot since. I need to start ensuring the reviews get written after the week in question, and not weeks beyond that...
Total Result: 77/110 (70%)
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