Rules, Guidelines and Terminology and Explanation of This Blog

Hi everyone! I'm Adam, or Addy, whichever you prefer, the "Quizzing Ronin" and "Erudite Esotericist". I've been writing this blog long enough that the time has come to fully explain both what it is that I do, the self-enforced rules and guidelines I adhere to, and the shorthand/terminology that is used here. This post will be post-dated and always at the top of the front page. I will review and update it regularly to ensure it remains current.

All information accurate as of: January 2018

Most of this post is below the cut, but my first and key rule will be above it:

Rule #1: I will always respect people's right to privacy, above all else.

Rule #1a - I do not name individual people, ever.

Next Update Delayed

Hi folks,

Just a quick one to say that I'm unfortunately not going to have time to post my weekly roundup this weekend. I've been rushed off my feet sorting out the quiz I'm hosting tomorrow and contending with an unusual level of exhaustion (I slept for 11 hours last night...) so in the hour or so I've got left before I head out to another quiz, I'm gonna need to chill out for a bit.

I'll try and post it during the week, or else as a double update next weekend.

Weekly Roundup - Week 6, W/E 09/02/2018

Pub Quiz Results

Quiz #18 - Sunday 4th February, Turf Tavern, Carlisle (Team: 4)

Round 1: Pictures (people, mixture), 7/10
Round 2: Current events, 7/10
Round 3: Top 5 test cricket nations, 4/5
Round 4: Top grossing films of 1980's, 4/5
Round 5: Alpha Links, 10/10
Round 6: Hidden link connection, 3/5
Round 7: Wipeout (general knowledge), 6/10

Total Score: 41/55 (74.55%), 1st/6

Quiz #19 - Monday 5th February, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (Team: 4, Host: G)

Round 1: General knowledge, 15/15
Round 2: History, 12/15
Round 3: Music - lyrics, 13/15
Round 4: Flags of the EU, 17/20
Round 5: "In what year?", 12/15
Round 6: Food and drink, 14/15

Total Score: 83/95 (76%), 1st/unknown

Quiz #20 - Tuesday 6th February, Queen of the South, Dumfries (Team: 5)

Round 1: General knowledge, 8/10
Round 2: Sport, 4/10
Round 3: Dingbats, 13/15
Round 4: History, 3/10
Round 5: Played music, 11/15

Total Score: 39/60 (65), 1st/7

Quiz #21 - Wednesday 7th February, Granary, Dumfries (Team: 5)

Round 1: Sport, 9/10
Round 2: Films - 2000's, 5/10
Round 3: Music - 1990's, 6/10
Round 4: Riddles, 10/10
Round 5: General knowledge, 10/10

Total Score: 40/50 (80%), 1st/7

Quiz #22 - Thursday 8th February, Anchor Hotel, Kippford (Team: 5)

Round 1: General knowledge, 6/8
Round 2: Famous people, 6/8
Round 3: Answers start "arm" or "leg", 8/8
Round 4: Film & TV, 5/8
Round 5: Pictures - website logos, 8/8
Round 6: The UK

Total Score: 47/56 (83.93%), 1st/8

Quiz #23 - Friday 9th February, Grapes, Springholm (Team: 1)

Round 1: General knowledge, 56/65
Round 2: Sport, 6/15
Round 3: History, 9/15

Total Score: 71/90 (78.89%), 1st/3

Overall Weekly Score: 321/411 (78.10%)

Total Monthly Score - January: 722/1057 (68.31%)
Month-to-Date - February: 418/527 (79.32%)
Year-To-Date: 1140/1584 (71.97%)

Weekly Roundup - Week 5, W/E 02/02/2018

Pub Quiz Results

Quiz #14- Monday 29th January, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (Team: 3. Host: K)

Round 1: General knowledge, 18/20
Round 2: Sport, 15/15
Round 3: Themed questions/answers - colours, 13/46
Round 4: Crossword, 15/15
Round 5: First letter of each word spells something out, 13/15
Round 6: Hidden link connection, 10/10
Round 7: Played music, 9/15

Total Score: 93/105 (88.57%), 1st/10

Quiz #15 - Wednesday 31st January, Granary, Dumfries (Team: 5)

Round 1: Pictures - airline logos 10/20
Round 2: Riddles, 10/10
Round 3: General knowledge, 18/20

Total Score: 38/50 (76%), 1st/12 after tiebreak

Quiz #16 - Thursday 1st February, Anchor Hotel, Kippford (Team: 4)

Round 1: General knowledge, 8/8
Round 2: Fiction in fiction, 7/8
Round 3: Spelling, 7/8
Round 4: Palindromes, 7/8
Round 5: Dingbats, 12/16
Round 6: TV spinoffs, 7/8

Total Score: 48/56 (85.71%), 2nd/7

Quiz #17 - Friday 2nd February, Laurie Arms, Haugh of Urr (Team: 5)

Round 1: General knowledge, 14/20
Round 2: Natural world, 10/10
Round 3: Sport, 8/10
Round 4: TV, film & music, 9/10
Round 5: Abbreviations, 8/10

Total Score: 49/60 (81.67%), 2nd/15 after tiebreak

Overall Weekly Score: 228/271 (84.13%)

Total Monthly Score - January: 722/1057 (68.31%)
Month-to-Date - February: 97/116 (83.62%)
Year-To-Date: 819/1173 (69.82%)

Weekly Roundup - Week 4, W/E 26/01/2018

Pub Quiz Results

Quiz #10- Monday 22nd January, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (Team: 3. Host: S)

Round 1: General knowledge, 15/19
Round 2: Famous 1sts, 10/15
Round 3: TV, 10/15
Round 4: Food & drink, 9/10
Round 5: Pictures - car logos, 20/30
Round 6: Music (unplayed), 8/10


Total Score: 72/99 (72.73%), tied 2nd/9

Quiz #11 - Wednesday 17th January, Granary, Dumfries (Team: 3)

Round 1: Characters from TV adverts, 7/10
Round 2: Linked answers: birds, 5/10
Round 3: Answers all begin "arm" or "leg", 8/10
Round 4: Film plots, 9/10
Round 5: Closest football ground to given British landmark, 8/10

Total Score: 37/50 (74%), 2nd/11

Quiz #12 - Thursday 25th January, Anchor Hotel, Kippford (Team: 3)

Round 1: General knowledge, 3.5/8
Round 2: Film & TV 3.5/8
Round 3: Scotland, 6/8
Round 4: Cryptic bands, 6/8
Round 5: Dingbats, 10/16
Round 6: Link theme - dragons, 7/8

Total Score: 36/56, 5th/9

Quiz #13 - Friday 26th January, Grapes, Springholm (Team:1)

Round 1: General knowledge, 54/102

Total Score: 54/102, 1st/3

Overall Weekly Score: 199/307 (64.82%)

Month-To-Date: 591/902 (65.52%)
Year-To-Date: 591/902 (65.52%)

Addy's Proxy Pub Quiz

Hi everyone, I'm delighted to announce the 2nd edition of what I call, "Addy's Proxy Pub Quiz"!  APPQ is an opportunity to do a British-style written pub quiz, in conditions mirroring those of the actual pub, wherever you are, at a time that suits you. I've done this once before, within the Trivial Warfare Army Facebook group and that was a huge success, so I'm expanding it now to readers of my blog/my Twitter followers! This post is mostly a copy-paste of the announcement thread in the TWA group I admit. The quiz itself is the one I host in Dalbeattie at the Kings Arms - the exact same quiz.

To participate, you just need to provide me an email address that I can send the quiz to. Might be best to do this via Twitter, since you won't want to post your email in the comments here. Or maybe you can contact me directly via Blogger? I'm not sure. Oh well, here's the rules (below the cut):

Weekly Roundup - Week 3, W/E 18/01/2018

Pub Quiz Results

Quiz #7 - Sunday 14th January, Turf Tavern, Carlisle (Team: 3)

Round 1: Pictures - People (Mixture), 7/10
Round 2: Current Events, 6/10
Round 3: Brit Awards (Music), 2/5
Round 4: US State Capitals, 5/5
Round 5: Alpha Links, 10/10
Round 6: Hidden Link Connections, 5/5
Round 7: Wipeout (General Knowledge), 7/10 

Total Score: 42/55 (45.45%),1st/8

Quiz #8 - Wednesday 17th January, Granary, Dumfries (Team: 3)

Round 1: Words ending in "ology", 18/25
Round 2: General Knowledge, 17/20

Total Score: 35/45 (77.78%), 2nd/11

Quiz #9 - Thursday 18th January, Anchor Hotel, Kippford (Team: 6)

Round 1: General Knowledge, 4.5/8
Round 2: Fictional People, 6/8
Round 3: Link Theme - Fire, 7/8
Round 4: Answers containing consecutive letters "eek", 7/8
Round 5: Map of UK (Joker), 12/16
Round 6: World Geography, 2/8

Total Score: 38.5/56, joint 3rd/7

Overall Weekly Score: 115.5/156 (74.04%)

Month-To-Date: 392/595 (65.88%)
Year-To-Date: 392/595 (65.88%)

Weekly Roundup - Week 2, W/E 12/01/2018

Pub Quiz Results

Quiz #3 - Sunday 7th January, Turf Tavern, Carlisle (Team: 3)

Round 1: Pictures - People (Mixture), 6/10
Round 2: Current Events, 8/10
Round 3: 2017 News, 0/5
Round 4: Childrens TV, 2/5
Round 5: Alpha Links, 5/10
Round 6: Hidden Link Connections, 4/5
Round 7: Wipeout (General Knowledge), 0/10 

Total Score: 25/55 (45.45%), 3rd/6

Quiz #4 - Monday 8th January, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (P) (Team: 3)

Round 1: General Knowledge, 15/20
Round 2: Map of Africa, 17/21
Round 3: Quotes/Sayings by Literary Figures, 9/20
Round 4: 2017 News, 14/22
Round 5: Played Music, 14/21

Total Score: 69/104 (66.35%), 3rd/9

Quiz #5 - Thursday 11th January, Anchor, Kippford (Team: 6)

Round 1: General Knowledge, 7/8
Round 2: Food & Drink, 4/8
Round 3: Lyrics, 2/8
Round 4: Acronyms, 3.5/8
Round 5: Dingbats (Joker), 14/16
Round 6: Human Body/Medicine, 3/8

Total Score: 33.5/56, 2nd/5

Quiz #6 - Friday 12th January, Grapes, Springholm (Team: 1) 

Round 1: General Knowledge, 37/68
Round 2: General Knowledge, 39/50

Total Score: 76/118, 1st/3

Overall Weekly Score: 203.5/333 (61.11%)
Month-To-Date: 276.5/439 (62.98%)
Year-To-Date: 276.5/439 (62.98%)

Weekly Roundup - Week 1, W/E 05/01/2018

Pub Quiz Results

Quiz #1 - Wednesday 3rd January, The Granary, Dumfries (Team: 4)

Round 1: Disney Films, 3/10
Round 2: Unplayed Music (General), 6/10
Round 3: Film & TV, 7/10
Round 4: True or False, 8/10
Round 5: General Knowledge, 9/10

Total Score: 33/50 (66%), 3-way tie for 4th/9. Winning score: 36

Quiz 2 - Thursday 4th January, The Anchor Hotel, Kippford (Team: 2)

Round 1: General Knowledge, 5/8
Round 2: World Geography, 4/8
Round 3 (Joker): James Bond Films, 16/16 
Round 4: Science & Technology, 5/8
Round 5: Spelling, 5/8
Round 6: Cryptic Sci-Fi Films, 6/8

Total Score: 40/56 (71.43%), tied 2nd/9. Winning score: 45

Overall Weekly Score: 73/106 (68.87%)
Month-To-Date: 73/106 (68.87%)
Year-To-Date: 73/106 (68.87%)

New Year, New Beginnings

Hello everyone, yes, I'm back, again! Not for the first time, this blog has risen from the ashes, like a phoenix. They've always my favourite mythological creature, since their powers of resurrection make them resilient, like me. A setback doesn't need to mean defeat, after all. You may be wondering where I've been these last few months, why my reasonably regular posting came to a shuddering halt, but I'll get to that in what is a bit of a stream-of-consciousness style post akin to my occasional "Life Update" posts last year.

There's a few quotes that have been running through my mind, lately; one in particular: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all"

Weekly Roundup W/E 27/10/2017

Until tonight's quiz, completing this roundup will make me fully up to date with them, and I fully intend both getting this week's roundup done this weekend and then moving towards a more regular schedule for such posts. Then I can actually start considering other, non-roundup posts again. At least I'm doing it at all, which is far more than I expected, especially after building up such a backlog as I did. So, in the interests of completing my recovery, here we go!

Quiz # 186 - Sunday 22nd October, Turf Tavern, Carlisle

Weekly Roundup, W/E 20/10/2017

Two more weekly roundups to do and I'll finally be up to date! Last week was exciting, as not only did I appear on TV, but I finally moved house! Very awesome, though not massively conducive to productivity either. Still, I'm getting there, and by the end of the day, these should hopefully be finished. So let's get on with it, shall we?

Quiz #182 - Sunday 15th October, Turf Tavern, Carlisle

Weekly Roundup, W/E 13/10/17

Finally, I've gotten round to saving a template for these posts so I don't have to keep constantly redoing the headers! I've still got 3 more roundups to do, so I'll spare you the introductory waffle and just get to it. 4 quizzes this week, all at the front end of the week as I once again decided against the trip to Kirkcudbright, and there wasn't one on Friday.

I will say that this was a very special week for me, as I was on a TV quiz show for the first time on Tuesday! It was a BBC1 show called "The Boss" and there's still a few days left to see it on iPlayer if you're in the UK and haven't already. I'll make an actual proper post about that in the future, but I'm mentioning it now as it is relevant to what happened over the course of this week. So much for skipping the intro!

Quiz #178 -  Sunday 8th October, Turf Tavern, Carlisle

Weekly Roundup, W/E 06/10/2017

So to week 3 of my 5 week backlog, and this one started unusually because I was away in Llandudno for my first "Quiz in the North" experience. That's a true competitive quiz, and I'd like to do a proper review of the experience from a newbie's perspective, but in another post. So for now I'll skip over that and return to the normal reviews. The Sunday quiz didn't happen because the host was away, but this was still a 4 quiz week, so I'd best get to it...

Quiz #172 - Monday 2nd October, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (P)

Weekly Roundup, W/E 29/09/2017

After a much longer roundup in my last post, this one will be a lot shorter. 5 quizzes in an epic week down to 2, in part because I was hosting my own quiz on the Monday. That does funny things to my performance, and my desperate hastiness to get that written meant I was much more rushed than is healthy for the Sunday quiz. I had it finished and with me, though, which is better than has been the case in the past. With 3 more roundups to do after this one, let's try and clear this pretty quickly.

Quiz #172 - Sunday 24th September, Turf Tavern, Carlisle

Weekly Roundup, W/E 22/09/2017

Hello everyone! I'm back, at last! Part of the reason I really try to keep my reviews up to date is because when I'm trying to recall what happened on a given night, I use the blog. The notes I keep in my notebook aren't really enough, especially because I'm generally trying to be social and secretively writing stuff down in that way is pretty much the opposite. My memory can't easily stretch back far enough to cover more than a week or so of quizzes, but hey, that's what I've got to go on for the last few weeks.

With this one, I actually started writing it but didn't complete it. It was a 5-quiz week, and that's a big time commitment in itself, plus I managed to lose a couple of the quiz sheets so I found myself writing it out of order. The longer I delay completing this though, the worse my problem gets, so let's start from the top and see what I can get through! 

By way of an overview, it looks like I was targeting at least one win from the 5 quizzes I was doing, so let's start there.

Quiz #167 - Sunday 17th September, Turf Tavern, Carlisle

Situation Update

This is a very quick post to apologise to my loyal readers, for I know you are out there, for my total lack of posting. Looking at my last post, it mentioned imminent chaos, which is exactly what happened.  

The same night I posted that update, I was indeed asked to host the quiz a week later. I pulled it off, but it unfortunately proved too hard and I don't think it went down very well. That hit me quite hard, as I honestly believed it was a good quiz with a fair difficulty. The lowest scores were some way below my previous quiz, but the high scores were higher and it was a very very close contest. The poor reception took me a while to get over, I must admit.

I've also now completed the house move, though more remains to be done. I'm typing this from my new couch, but still my couch as my laptop will go on living here - I have space for an office allocated but have yet to buy the PC for it. It's on my list...

Speaking of "my list", my 5 - yes, 5 - weekly roundups are on there. I still intend completing every single one by the end of this week. Which will mean I have 6 to do by then, and as Friday is my birthday and I'm not quizzing then this year, the last of those will go up early next week as I am quizzing on Thursday.

Normal service will resume, I promise you that, but a flood of posts is potentially incoming and a regular schedule is not yet in place. Please bear with me, please continue to read the blog if you enjoy it. 

If you would like to speak to me in any way, please let me know and I can provide you with contact details. A comment here is just fine if you only know me through the blog!

All the best everyone, hope you're doing great!

Where Have I Been, Again?

There's always things I could be talking about, in this blog, but only this post is actually what I could call "time sensitive". I'm aware that I kinda disappeared for a couple of weeks at the start of September, though the weekly roundups are now up to date, so I just want to provide a general update as to what my current situation is.

Weekly Roundup, W/E 15/09/2017

Lest I fall even further still behind with this blog, I'm going to power on with my latest roundup. This one ought to be a bit shorter, as it's 4 quizzes rather than 6. Have to say, I'm glad to have finally finished the last one as it was kinda hanging over me, due to the inevitable length. Enough chitchat, let's find out what happened this week.

Quiz #163 - Sunday 10th September, Turf Tavern, Carlisle

Weekly Roundup, W/E 08/09/2017

So, with the fun and games of gigs and such like now a memory, it's time for me to knuckle down and get some serious work done. I started writing this earlier in the week but I've still a decent way to go as it stands. It was a busy week , this one, and one which really called for good results, after the way things had been going. Let's find out!

Quiz #157 - Sunday 3rd September, Turf Tavern, Carlisle