So, pub quiz, music round, name the artist… the first one we hear is 3 Times A Lady. We roll our eyes and put down The Commodores. When the answers are read out, 3 Times a Lady is by Lionel Ritchie! Turns out that is what all the other teams have put down too! After a consultation with the quizmaster, he begrudgingly gives us HALF A MARK for The Commodores (as he concedes that Lionel was once their singer) FFS!!! HALF A MARK!!! I didn’t want to be the guy who waves his smartphone around at a friendly pub quiz but if I was the man I was 5 years ago, I’d have taken a flamethrower to that place… Grrrrr
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I’ve been in Pub Quizzes like that – the lead singer of The Sex Pistols is Sid Vicious (apparently) and the Band Aid single was released in 1985.
OK, a pub quiz is not really Mastermind, but when I was told that Arsenal won the FA Cup in 1980 I did request to see the “Alternative History Of The World” Quiz Book they were using
Tell them:
“Fuck off, is it me you’re looking for?”
I was at one a few weeks back where Pete Best was “the first drummer in the Beatles”. I’ve read the Lewisohn book and… he wasn’t.
These need to be compiled into a “Great List of Civilian Pop Facts” that you end up having to second-guess, Family Fortunes-style, in these situations.
Pete Best – wasn’t he? Who was then?
I went to a sports quiz a few years ago where I tried very hard, but failed, to get the quizmaster to understand that Ryan Giggs played for English Schoolboys because he went to school in England and talks like he does because he was brought up in Manchester, but having been born in Wales, to Welsh parents and with four Welsh grandparents he absolutely couldn’t have played for England, as his answer had wrongly suggested. But he just couldn’t get it, even when I told him that if Pelé had gone to school in England he could have played for English Schoolboys!
Actually, another one in the same quiz was when he asked how many defeats Spurs had suffered that season. We, like many other teams, had answered 3, but the quizmaster insisted it was 2, cos he’d checked in Sunday’s paper before setting the quiz. We had to point out to him that today was Thursday and they had lost last night, but he wasn’t having it.
Had to go and look that up in Lewisohn… Best didn’t start playing with them til the first visit to Hamburg. They’d got through more drummers than Spinal Tap by that time – but I think technically it was Tommy Moore – a modern Jazz drummer, older than the lads who was also a forklift truck driver at Garston Bottle Factory- Lewisohn mentions him being the first person on the drum stool after they adopted the The Beatles name as opposed to Silver Beetles etc.
This enjoyable book suggests that Colin Hanton, who was drummer with The Quarrymen from summer 1956 till January 1959 (at which time the band consisted of Hanton, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison plus pianist John “Duff” Lowe), was the first drummer to play with L, McC & H at the Cavern.
http://www.originalquarrymen.co.uk/html/colin_book.html
Colin was the drummer on the first John, Paul and George recording – their version of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be The Day” and the McCartney / Harrison song “In Spite of All Danger”.
https://youtu.be/Y8tobAFqjPY
But Hanson never played in the band when they were The Beatles. I thought Best was with them when they were The Silver Beatles, therefore he must have been the first drummer when they were The Beatles, but seems I was wrong, as per Dr V’s post above.
I thought that as well! But I bow to the good Dr’s knowledge!
Apparently the movie which featured Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around” was “Love Actually” not “Four Weddings And A Funeral”
A recent one I had was a ‘guess the year’ round – Blue Monday by New Order (the original 12″ mix by the way) came out in 1989 apparently.
Apparently it’s Tom Hanks who provides the voice of Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story, not Tim Allen like I thought!
Yes, Thriller was a UK number one single apparently. The question master declared the answer as if it was obvious and couldn’t believe no one guessed it.
No, it was definitely Quentin Tarantino who directed True Romance. I have the DVD at home.
The Police’s first single was Roxanne. That’s happened to me twice.
I wasn’t sure and I don’t always believe Wiki, however, Wiki says Roxanne was released first but failed to chart or get playlisted by the BBC and was re released after becoming a hit in the USA and Canada. Meanwhile Can’t Stand Losing You and So Lonely were released as UK singles before the re release of Roxanne.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Police
I’m pretty sure Fallout was their first with the original guitarist.
You’re right, of course. Something didn’t seem right about Roxanne but I couldn’t remember. As for Wiki……
I’ve got it in the loft somewhere. Not the valuable version, unfortunately.
Henry Padovani
My mate and I were active participants in the Bury Times League about 20 years ago. We were good at it too as he had an excellent general knowledge and I just knew lots of random stuff. At my wife’s suggestion we went to a charity quiz at a local golf club. The Quizmaster spoke like he’d been at DJ school with Smashy and Nicey. First question: By what name is Scotland’s Holy Island better known? We weren’t aware of “Scotland’s Holy Island” but put Iona which seemed like a decent guess. The answer of course was Lindisfarne. Nobody disputed it except my mate who harangued the Quizmaster pointing out loudly that Lindisfarne is in Northumberland, which is in England, and that the band of the same name do not sing “The Fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine, och aye the noo, Jimmy”. The Quizmaster was quite taken aback and said “That’s what it says on the card. I don’t write the questions”. I had to remind my mate that it was for charidee.
FWIW I’ve heard Paxxo utter incorret answers to University Challenge questions on (rare) occasions – despite the horror-struck hapless contestant’s brow furrowed and slack jawed disbelief. I think they edit out most such gaffes and restart the quiz before the duff answer is discovered to be ‘on the card’. Don’t ask me to quote an example that slipped through and was broadcast; they are so rare that I nearly choke on my Korma when they happen, and only remember the fact that they did, not what the substantive question actually was.
In the mid 90s I was an associate producer and question writer for TV quiz shows. They were so cheap to do, and so quick, that we’d be doing several at once, and as a result (along with the ageing process) I can hardly remember any of them. I do recall a pilot for an edgy pop quiz, which ‘featured’ a disguised David Van Day out of Dollar, who had to be identified by the panellists. I had the misfortune to be on the same train back to Brighton afterwards as Van Day out of Dollar. We also had Vic Reeves, one of the contestants, sing ‘Alright Now’ by Free, whilst he listened to ‘Alright’ by Supergrass. Pure Gold. That pilot was presented by someone who didn’t tell us that he’d already shot a pilot for a thing called Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Hedging his bets, innit.
Cheap they may have been, but they were a nice earner: it tended to be a fiver a question, though each one, even if it was ‘What is the home ground of Manchester United?’ had to have three verification sources, and this was before the internet. One year, around this time, a very well known quiz show should have been won by the person who officially finished second, because a couple of ‘right’ answers were actually wrong…..
In which country is Timbuktu? We put Mali. WRONG! Required answer was Africa. No arguing with quiz ‘master’. We still won, mind you.
I was in a nearby pub a couple of years ago when their new quiz started – hosted and set by the ‘know-all’ who sat at the bar most nights. Every question apparently came out of his head.
I witnessed the first two rounds of ten question each, and spotted glaring errors with six of those questions – either they were too vague to have just one correct answer, or had no correct answers at all. “What was the first brand of footwear to appear in the dictionary?” being one notable one – how do you go about answering that? Another asked for the name of the actor who played a certain character on TV – I could immediately think of four actors who had played him in different TV adaptations, and there’s been many more. I can’t recall what the other errant questions were, but they similarly flawed.
I left soon afterwards, and haven’t visited the place very much since.
“hosted and set by the ‘know-all’ who sat at the bar most nights” is a familiar theme for many pub-goers.
Pubs closing is a terrible thing, but the tiniest glimmer of a silver lining is not having the tyranny of these awful fuckers any more. Where will they go? The golf club, I suppose.
Holmes paused in the middle of a particularly melodic phrase from one of Mendelssohn’s Lieder, his eyes open wide, his bow arm frozen in space. “Heaven’s, Watson, I have it!” he said.
Watson looked up from The Times and with a quizical frown asked Holmes, “What is it old friend, what have you discerned from amidst the crochets and quavers?”.
“That chap who was found in the carriage-park behind the Royal Oak Inn, an axe in his skull. No-one was ever successfully prosecuted for the murder, but I think I know now what Lestrade missed. He didn’t ask about the weekly Inn Quiz that took place earlier in the evening. I’ll wager the murderer was the captain of the team that came second, and that the axe victim himself was the author of the questions!“.
“Good grief Holmes,” ejaculated Watson, as the penny dropped, “I believe you mean that as the quizmaster he’d set questions with incorrect answers provided! Of course, why didn’t we think of that before! Once we have corroborated your theory, we’ll have our man! Extraordinary!”.
“Perhaps,” ruminated Holmes, “but I fear the killer will escape the hangman’s noose all the same, and propose himself as the real victim, claiming mitigating circumstances due to intolerable, inhuman psychological torture!”
“Jings” said Watson, “You’re right. Something like that can break a man. The poor fellow.”.
‘Mrs Lestrade!’, he cried to the housekeeper, ‘Summon us a cab without delay!’
[Be quiet in the corner, that’s what it says on my card.]
Mrs Beezer regularly drops me in the clarts re. pub and charity quizzes, nominating me to join quiz teams populated by amateurs and civilians. ‘He knows a lot about music. He made me go and see The Wishbone Ash. And he’s got 3 guitars’
‘Knows a lot’ becomes swiftly ‘fuck all’ after about 1998 though. I’ve let many people down. There’s an Afterword t-shirt for you.
If you made your wife go and see Wishbone Ash, she’s dropping you in the clarts on purpose.
It was Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash, to be clear. No doubt the lass was affronted it wasn’t the Colin H approved official version.
That sounds familiar. Years ago the Cambridge branch of Borders would host music quizzes with gift cards as prizes. My team (including a professional musician) would regularly win a CD each, except for the last time. At the end of round 4, we had 39 points out of 40. The students on the table next to us had 30.
“For one point each, name the artist or song title of everything in this week’s top 10”.
We ended up with, yep, still 39 points. The students, who knew every one of the hit parade, now had 40.
Borders went bust soon after, and we never did another quiz.
Students? in a book shop? You made that up.
The music quiz was held in the cafe upstairs, one of those places where it could take 10 minutes and cost a limb to order your dairy-free mocha green latte.
Thank god for that. Students spunking money on expensive coffee I can handle, but them being near books? Not to be borne.
Who sang “Young hearts run free”. “Candi Staton” says I. “It’s Stanton but I’ll let you have it” – said smug tw@t. Not that big a mistake but still bothers me 5 years later.
For years, I got Candi Staton’s surname ‘wrong’ in a more pardonable way , i.e. in terms of pronunciation.
I pronounced it “Statton”
It should be “Stay-ton”
Drive like a demon from Stanton to Staton
What year did The Beatles perform their last concert? I was suspicious it might be a trick question. “1966 should be the correct answer” I informed my teammates, However I then explained my concern that the wily quizmaster might have 1969, due to the Fabs playing on top of a roof in that year. Went onto explain my confidence on this matter, even identifying Candlestick Park as the venue for the last gig they played. Yes, 1966 was the obvious answer and it was pointless over analysing this. There were nods of agreement. We went with that, it had to be 1966, not 1969.
I was wrong. 1965 apparently.
These anecdotes are giving me real rage. Quizmasters who don’t know their stuff are a real bugbear of mine! It’s really hard to take a deep breath and suck it up as if it doesn’t matter.
That said, I LOVE a fantastic neat quiz question. In a quiz last year I was asked to name the order in which the Beatles appeared on the front cover of Abbey Road…. sounds easy?? My mind went totally blank. This was with workmates who know me as “the Beatles geek”, so my reputation is forever tarnished.
That is a very good one. I tested myselfon it and had to close my eyes think hard and visualise.
John at the front, then Ringo, Paul and George. Got it right.
This is one I came up with when hosting a pop quiz many years ago :
“Who guessed that she wondered how he knew – and how did he know?”
I suppose it’s a pretty easy for this readership but in a work pop quiz context it was met with many a “huh?’.
You can’t just leave it like that, tell us, for goodness’ sake.
It was Marvin Gaye – and he heard it through the grapevine.
Ah yes. Of course.
Had me wondering whether it was some kind of reference to The Kursaal Flyers’ “Little Does She Know”
“Little does she know that I know that she knows
That I know she’s two-timin’ me
Little does she know that I know that she knows
That I know she’s cheatin’ on me
When she finished her laundry she was all in a quandary
And made it for the street like a hare
Her escape was so urgent, she forgot her detergent
And dropped all her clean underwear”
Or maybe a misgendered reference (I think he’s addressing B Ferry esq. in the song) to Eno’s “Dead Finks Don’t Talk”.
“Oh cheeky cheeky
Oh naughty sneaky
You’re so perceptive
And I wonder how you knew”
Absolutely jaw-dropping knowledge there Mike – I like the sound of both of them.
I’m pleased you weren’t in one of the teams that night. “What about The Kursaal Flyers?! OR Brian Eno?!? – eh? eh??!!”
Lest we forget…