Five years ago I was involved with a Quiz Night at my children’s primary school and put together a round called Dead Pubs of Chiswick. People still say nice things to me about it. It was a bit of fun, and that’s one of my two criteria for a successful quiz round. I took photos… Continue reading Dead Pubs of West London
This monthly round-up of trivia seems to have displaced monthly round-ups with different themes that occupied my mind last year. In 2016 there were light-hearted “Coincidence Corner” pieces for a few months, and regular pieces about Earworms. These days my brain seems to be filled with trivia and quiz questions. As I noted last month… Continue reading A trivia round-up for April 2017
Recently I heard the following quiz question: “Which group of orchestral instruments has a name that is an anagram of supersonic?” The answer is “percussion” (not strings, woodwind or brass). I like anagrams, and had never come across this one before. It made me think of other noteworthy collections of letters. There are surprisingly few… Continue reading A few recent anagrams
A question in the last series of “Only Connect”, BBC2’s fiendish weekly quiz show, was right up my alley and has been on my mind ever since. It listed the four artists who have reached #1 in the UK charts and also won an acting Oscar (Best Actor or Best Actress). Can you think of… Continue reading Music and movies: three questions from “Only Connect”
Our viewing habits remain the same. The quiz shows mentioned in last month’s round-up of recent trivia are still on series record, and my children and I watch many of them together. “Pointless” has been part of our family viewing for many years, and now so is “The Chase”. My 12-year-old son has recently become… Continue reading A trivia round-up for March 2017
Since the start of the year I have been thinking even more than usual about trivia, quizzes and game shows. I posted a round-up of recent trivia in February and have now become a regular watcher of “The Chase”, to accompany the long-standing slots in my viewing habits taken by “Pointless”, “Only Connect”, “Mastermind” and… Continue reading Peri-Peri Chicken in a sandwich? Really?
There was a lovely question on “The Chase” recently about numbers and Scrabble, along these lines: if the following numbers are spelt with Scrabble tiles, which one is the same as its Scrabble score? The options were: Ten, Eleven, Twelve. You’ll probably work it out but if you want to double check, the correct answer… Continue reading Board Games and Quiz Questions
[There are 1100 words in this post.] In recent weeks I have attended a couple of Charity Quiz Nights, invited both times by people who rarely go to pub quizzes, and who watch fewer quiz shows on TV than I do. On both occasions I was invited to add something more to the teams, to… Continue reading A round-up of recent trivia (February 2017)
Geography doesn’t stand still. When I was a boy the Soviet Union (or USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) counted as one country with one capital city (Moscow). After the break-up of the Soviet Union, it split into many more countries. How many, exactly? I didn’t know until very recently so looked it up.… Continue reading A mnemonic for the former Soviet Union
Breakonium is, according to Nicholas Lezard in this recent piece in the New Statesman, “the most fragile substance on Earth”. I read the piece and laughed aloud, not for the first time when reading one of his Down and Out in London columns, and have been using the word breakonium ever since. It’s not an… Continue reading Word of the week: breakonium
The Compartments 