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Ben Russell Jones's avatar

Great set again - decided to do this after the WQC because I clearly like torturing myself with the inevitable Baader-Meinhofs that come up.

R1: 20

R2: 19 (I Want My Hat Back)

R3. 9

R4. 16 (Catafalque, Gawker, Rubato, Victorinox)

R5. 5 (got balafon, Wait Until Dark, Tomyris, Alan Rechy and Asamoah Gyan; like Frances, I also guessed Jess Gillam for the saxophonist)

Great stuff! See you next week :P

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Jonathan Gibson's avatar

Great set of scores again Ben. Another formidable round 2 performance - you've been all over the fundamentals so far, which is tremendous credit to your strength as a quizzer. I'm glad I managed to find one literature question that caught you out. YGK your picture books, especially when they've got New Statesman think-pieces written about them lol (https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2023/03/i-want-my-hat-back-bleak-masterpiece-explains-human-condition).

I've not had a look at the WQC paper yet, but it would be very exciting if any of my sets so far were prophetic.

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Ben Russell Jones's avatar

Great literature set - I had heard of the Klassen book because of its ending but was not able to drag anything beyond “Can I Get My Hat Back?” or something of that sort. Thank you for the article - will give it a read through!

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Frances Hadley's avatar

Fun quiz, as with the previous two. Literature is far better for me than Geog or Sport, but then the pop music I am terrible at so swings and roundabouts.

R1: 19 (Just didn’t know the Elvis song)

R2: 13 (Definitely a couple of misses I should have known but couldn’t quite remember, namely Sayers, but glad to have pulled Dancing at Lughnasa)

R3: 2 (I more or less live under a rock when it comes to pop music so honestly I can’t complain about getting 2. Pussycat Dolls as a complete guess, and then I just knew Caligula came from Little Boots)

R4: 12 (Some misses I should have got - Hamiltonian in particular, but this was a very fun round)

R5: 3 (Dredged Balafon from old GCSE Music knowledge, got Rapp as a complete guess, and then I’ve seen Tokyo Godfathers so knew that. I guessed Jess Gillam for the saxophonist, so clearly this is a sign I need to keep up with newer musicians more than I do! I should really have remembered Tomyris but oh well)

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Jonathan Gibson's avatar

Excellent work! I’m a big fan of both of those serendipitous points in R3 and Rapp is an inspired guess if you didn’t know it. Jess Gillam is also a new name on me, but I’m glad I know it now - she may make an appearance in a future week!

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Tom Bratcher's avatar

20/20. My first! I'm getting the hang of this! I'm getting the -

5

3

13

5

...as you were, then. Literature rounds are bad enough without questions that require you to have read the books: that's like writing a maths round and asking people to solve an equation.

Despite some pulls towards the end, actually happiest at getting mascara having gotten that wrong in OQL before

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Polly's avatar

43, but rushed through it as I was away

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Toby Cox's avatar

R1 20

R2 15

R3 10

R4 18

R5 4

Nice set of questions again, Jonathan. Bit annoyed to have missed Reverend and the Makers, who I have actually seen live, but did rather better on the music than I expected.

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Jonathan Gibson's avatar

Thanks Toby, and congrats on another great set of results!

That particular question was one of two references in R3 to the collaborative “hype playlist” one of my quiz teams compiled this year, including both Song 4 Mutya (my own addition to the playlist and probably my favourite song in the round) and Heavyweight Champion of the World (which had hitherto passed my by, but is now a firm part of my listening life thanks to the superb taste of one of my colleagues).

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Andrew Fanko's avatar

HCoTW is a real delight, isnt’ it?

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Toby Cox's avatar

I've relistened and tend to agree. I saw them at the after party for a 20-mile obstacle race (good practice for any modern pentathletes out there) and after a few beers and they were really good. Getting everyone bouncing around when no-one's legs were really working was quite the achievement.

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Tom Mead's avatar

I like that one of the hardest questions in that round was a nice local one for me #Sheffield

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Robert's avatar

R1: 19/20 (missed Helen Mirren)

R2: 14/20

R3: 8/20

R4: 10/20 (a couple of guesses inspired by the letter sequence paid off)

R5: 3/20 (Renee Rapp, Tomyris and Andesite)

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Jonathan Gibson's avatar

Very nice set of scores. Narrowing down your options as you work out the letter sequence is very much the joy of the A–Z round, so I’m glad it paid off for you! Covering an impressively broad range with your R5 answers as well.

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Dennis Wang's avatar

R1: 17

R2: 10

R3: 5

R4: 12

R5: 3

That R3 score does not do wonders for me being a big proponent of “saying before my time is valid”. One of those answers being solely from knowing the etymology of Caligula is quite funny

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Jonathan Gibson's avatar

Honestly if you'd asked me those 20 questions on New Years Day 2010, directly after living through the decade in question, I think I'd have got Love Machine and Dido and might have guessed Norway, but not much else - I really was not paying attention at all back then. A lot of my pop music revision for quiz has been "oh that's what the song I heard fifty times on the radio aged eleven and haven't thought about since was called!"

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Davet Hyland's avatar

1. 19 (philosophy a massive blind spot)

2. 6 (literature not much better)

3. 12 - provided first name acceptable for Mutya

4. 8 - knowing catafalque helped

5. 1 (Gyan)

46 total

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Jonathan Gibson's avatar

Good work! 6/20 isn’t at all bad on a blind-spot category, and a great foundation on which to build. And 8 is lovely work on (I thought) a pretty demanding set of questions in round 4.

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Tom Mead's avatar

1. 20

2. 10

3. 19 (blanked on name of singer of 20, though that song is now stuck in my head)

4. 7

5. 1

Good practice for today’s WQC :)

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Jonathan Gibson's avatar

Nice one - and impressive speed! Sorry about q20 of the music round - but also you're welcome because the song rules!

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Ian Riddoch's avatar

1) 16

2) 9

3) 0 (though might have gone for Little Boots as a wild guess)

4) 5

5) 1 (Iveco)

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John Hayes's avatar

Hi Jonathan, really enjoying your weekly quiz. Just one quick question or two. You say you don't really do lists, but how do you learn say the elements of the Periodic Table? And do you use Anki or something similar, or do you do something else or different. Thanks and keep up the great work.

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Mark Cooper's avatar

Very enjoyable again.

R1 20

R2 19 (missed the kids book)

R3 18 (A moment like this and Amerie)

R4 13 (helped by the A-Z aspect)

R5 5 (John Le M, Wait Until Dark, Iveco, Hayling Island, Gyan)

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Ben Spicer's avatar

Team Spicer's scores this week:

R1: 20

R2: 16

R3: 11

R4: 12

R5: 1 (Gyan)

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Andrew Fanko's avatar

R1: 20

R2: 14

R3: 16

R4: 14

R5: 2 (Iveco and Gyan; should probably have got Le Mesurier and Hayling Island)

Total: 66 (a PB!)

Happy with some solid scores until the inevitable cliff-drop in R5. Thanks for inspiring some much-needed revision on LoTR geography. Had no idea Jack White was in The Raconteurs. Empedocles was recently acquired knowledge, so that’s always pleasing :-) Thanks as always

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