Week 5: Standings - 28th August 2011

Another pretty successful quiz is over and another new winner emerges triumphant. This week saw the highest scores of the quiz so far all round and the mean average was 47.7 which is over 10 points higher than the mean average from any other quiz (37 in weeks 2 and 4) so it was definitely found to be easier and I knew it was but I think it was better this way and more people enjoy it. So without further ado here are the results...

58     We Thought It Was a Disco

53     We Are Not Connecting

52     Quiz-Team Bleakley

48.5  Top of the Class

47.5  The Quizzy Rascals

47     Only On the Internet

43.5  Young Farmers

43     That's Tragic

37     Bar Stewards

Well done to 'We Thought It Was a Disco' who clearly benefitted from having a larger team on their third quiz outing. Teams are now becoming wise to the Wipeout Round and only one team suffered at the hands of it - That's Tragic (quite apt!) whilst four teams (the top 4) managed to get full marks on it.

Next week the quiz remains as awesome as ever and the jackpot for Open the Box is up to £100 now.

Tonight's quiz can be found in the usual place.

Week 4: Standings - 21st August 2011

After last week was decided by half a point this week was almost as close as there was only one point in it at the top. And once again it was the story of the Wipeout Round that decided the team's destinies. Again proving to be strong contenders week in week out were the Chapel Fields Mafia but being one person down this week may have cost them as they lost out by one point to Mike Oxlong who have recorded the highest score of the quiz in its history beating Chapel Fields Mafia's previous record by just half a point.

49   Mike Oxlong

48   Chapel Fields Mafia

39   Young Farmers

37   DEA MINUS S

36   That's Tragic

35   Quiz Team Bleakley

31   US 2

30   Hilltop

28   The Losers

5 teams fell foul of the Wipeout Round and the top 3 teams all played safely and picked up four, three and three points respectively. Both the top two teams could have had full marks and the bonus five points in the last round so had Chapel Fields Mafia been that bit more daring they could have stormed to victory with 55/60 as it is 2nd place will have to do.

Again the Open the Box was won and for the second consecutive week it was won by the same woman. Picking the key out correctly both times had odds of less than 1% and then multiply in the fact that one of the tickets is picked out at random by someone in the pub. Unbelievable good luck I'd say. So she has no pocketed £200 in 2 weeks from the pub.

This week's quiz is up at the facebook page and I hope to see as many if not more faces same time, same place next week on Bank Holiday weekend.

Week 3: Standings - 14th August 2011

 Well, what an exciting week this was. A slight improvement on turnout this week meant that a total of 11 teams were bidding for the much coveted accolade of winning the Coniston Pub Quiz. Now I predicted it in my last blog post and it came as no surprise to me that the Chapel Fields Mafia have notched up their first victory having been pretty much the most consistent team out of the three weeks. An impressive total score of 48.5 (of which 7 points were dropped on the Wipeout Round) meant that their all round knowledge was just marginally better than 2 nearby competitors.

After a slightly dented performance last week the Hill Top Mafia were on form tonight and were on 30/30 after 3 rounds of the quiz but then identifying the number ones of 14th August stumped them to an extent which made room for 4-1 to nick second place. For 4-1 this proved not to be of importance to them because although they lost by just one point and missed out on £50, their team did end up wining the £150 jackpot on the Open the Box beating odds of 1 in 10!

Here are the full results:

48.5   Chapel Fields Mafia
47.5   4-1 (Four Minus One)
47      Hill Top Mafia
41.5   Losing the Game On a Weekly Basis
39.5   Young Farmers
39      Quiz-topher Columbus
32.5   Halal Sandwich
30.5   Mike's Minions
30      We Thought it was a Disco
26.5   Leave My Ass Alona
25.5   Taylor Tigers

Interestingly not one question went unanswered and all 3 top scores are higher than all previous scores in the quiz so far which means the level is approaching the Goldilocks zone. Still some work to be done on my behalf though as I would like to see those scores raised up by 10% or so and I don't like seeing teams with less than 50% correct answers. The difficulty comes with still trying to keep the fundamental element of a quiz.



Perhaps it is noteworthy to mention Quiz-topher Columbus who, had they known ascorbic acid to be vitamin C would have won the quiz by half a mark. As it was their capitulation on the Wipeout Round plummeted them to mid-table mediocrity.

The quiz for this evening can be found on the facebook page.

Week 2: Standings - 7th August 2011

As expected the turnout this week reduced in size and as I predicted it was almost exactly by half as the initial 80 or so was down to around 40. 8 teams started the quiz yet only 7 ended it which is not a great sign. I think I'd exhausted them too much meaning they merged into one big team in the end.

11/55 of the questions were answered correctly by all teams and a bit of a trend occurred in these answers as it seemed to be the pop culture ones such as knowing the theme tune to Knight Rider, the film Love Actually inside out and one that no one should admit to knowing is the cast of TOWIE (The Only Way Is Essex) yet everyone seemed to.

There were sadly 6/55 questions that went unanswered including knowing the GOTCHA headline by The Sun when the Belgrano was sank, that Margaret Beckett was "fingered" on Question Time, that Rihanna's perfume is called Reb'l Fleur and perhaps quite rightly not knowing about Tom Pellereau's yellow socks which was purely put in for the Connection (which incidentally went unanswered too). The 9 answers were all 'Reasons to be Cheerful' as listed by Ian Dury and the Blockheads and at the interval I even very subtly (muahahaha) played a looped CD of the song to them all hoping that maybe someone would pick up on why the same song was being continuously played. Sadly not.

And there were 2 unique answers both answered by Quiz Team Bleakley. These were knowing Woody Guthrie sang 'This Land is Your Land' and knowing that The Beautiful South's only UK #1 single was 'I Need a Little Time'. Yet despite coming up with these two nuggets they missed out on the first place spot. So who beat them to it...

45.5   Losing the Game on a Regular Basis

43.5   Quiz Team Bleakley

43      Famous Five

37      Chapel Fields Mafia

34      That's Tragic

31      Hill Top Mafia

25      Boozers In The Bar

Again, I think it is worth pointing out that the top 3 teams bagged all 10 points in the Wipeout Round and Chapel Fields Mafia were the highest placed non-maxers-on-the-wipeout-round. I'm sure if they keep coming their first quiz victory is just around the corner.

Apparently the difficulty still needs a bit of tweaking although a top score of just over 75% would suggest otherwise and 6/7 teams surpassed the 50% mark. But, if that's what the people want then that is what the people will get. Perhaps the range needs to be that every team will get over 50% and the winning team get 80-90%. As someone else put it to me "you don't mind losing a quiz when you've scored quite a few right, but when you can't answer many it's just not worth doing". Wise words.

So, thanks to those who came and for bringing new faces in too and hopefully I will see you next week and some more faces too where the quiz prize will still be £50 and the money for Open the Box will be more than £100.

The questions from tonight are all posted to the facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sunday-Night-Quizzing-at-the-Blacksmiths-Arms-Coniston/230325693675886

Week 1: Standings - July 31st 2011

In its debut week not one question went unanswered. On the plus side, this means none of the questions were pointless to ask.

40  The Blue Bell

39  Thick as Pig Shit                  
38  Chapel Fields Mafia             
36  Quiz Team Aguilera
35  50/50

35  I'll Have a J2O, Please

35  Mike Oxlong

33  Young Farmers

33  Totally Useless

32  Rascals

31  I've Just Lost the Game

30  Luke

30  Amazing Brain

24  We Thought It Was a Disco

23  That's Tragic

23  Team Razzy Dazz

My favourite thing when going through the answer sheets is seeing the frantic scribbling and people's thought processes particularly for the 2 anagram questions and the parts involving a connection.

The anagram questions were:

1. SOME TART HERE is an anagram of which famous historic person born in 1910?
2. I WIN RACES LOL is an anagram of which retired sportsman?

And the connection questions involved firstly identifying Jack Johnson, Queen, BB King and Ace of Base from four songs and then realising that they are connected by Jack, Queen, King, Ace.

The other connection involved answer 9 questions and working out the connection. The 9 correct answers were:

• Chinese Checkers
• Clipper
• Nick Clegg
• Chandelier
• Chip
• Thumbelina
• Shiny Happy
• Winchester
• Cape Fear

And the connection is...

...each answer contains a part of the body in its wording.