The late Steve Wright used to have a feature on his BBC Radio 2 Show called Serious Jockin’, or Jockin. It wasn’t clear whether there was an apostrophe in Jockin’. This page on the BBC website, from the final episode of his afternoon show, spells it both ways. Regardless of the apostrophe, there was definitely… Continue reading Livin’, Laughin’, Singin’, and Movin’: #1s with no Gs
Here are the questions and answers for an episode of the ITV quiz show “Tenable” broadcast today, Friday 30 August 2024. The format used here is the same as that used elsewhere on this Blog (such as here, for the episode broadcast on Monday 11 September 2023): the questions, how the team fared and the… Continue reading “Tenable” questions, Friday 30 August 2024 [Series 7]
Between January and April I posted over a dozen “Oven-ready quiz rounds”, for reasons explained in this introductory piece. I return to the theme now, with two short rounds (5 questions in each) about The Beatles and Games. The Beatles Here are 5 questions about the Beatles (John Paul George and Ringo). The answers to… Continue reading Oven-ready quiz rounds: 5 about The Beatles, 5 about Games
The following question appeared earlier this month in the weekend edition of The Guardian, in the quiz compiled by Thomas Eaton: “What tool is made from potassium, nickel and iron?” It’s more cryptic than most of the questions in this weekly quiz. The answer is “Knife”, made up of the chemical symbols for potassium, nickel… Continue reading Knife (K-Ni-Fe) and other words that be made using chemical symbols
Monday night is quiz night, as explained in this piece from March 2020. For five successive years, starting in summer 2019, we have had a trio of serious quiz programmes scheduled between 7.30pm and 9pm on BBC2 on a Monday night: “Mastermind”, “Only Connect”, “University Challenge”, in that order. There is no money at stake… Continue reading Not ready for the new quiz season
In this piece from June 2022 I mentioned a JetPunk quiz which gives you 15 minutes to list 196 countries: the 193 sovereign states recognized by the UN and three others which are not officially recognized as countries (Vatican City, Kosovo and Taiwan). My daughter had spent much of the most recent half-term holiday taking… Continue reading JetPunk 392/392
I return to the theme of acts who have spent one week, and one week only, at the top of the UK charts. This earlier piece lists 40 acts that spent a single week at the top of the album charts. The list below is for every act, up to May 2024, that has spent… Continue reading Every act that has spent a single week at the top of the UK singles charts
If you have been involved with enough quizzes, seen enough quiz shows, and care about pop trivia you will know that The Who never had a UK #1 hit single. They were Stuck at 2 twice: “My Generation” was kept off the top for 2 weeks by “The Carnival Is Over” (The Seekers, 1965) and… Continue reading 40 acts who spent a single week at the top of the UK album charts
A week ago I teamed up with some friends and family to take part in a pub quiz for the first time this year. I wanted to catch up with the guy who hosts it, and there was also a decent jackpot on offer: £680, in cash. The prize for the winning team is a… Continue reading Word of the week: Belgrade
The current UK #1 is “Too Sweet” by Hozier, his first UK chart-topper. This is the 10th example of the word “Sweet” appearing in either the title or the name of the act at #1. I could offer this as a challenge: how many others can you name? Usually when I do this I leave… Continue reading Sweet Number Ones
The Compartments 