pub quizzes

cool · Post by **cool** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 7:38 am

The conversation in Glasgow remains me of my pet hate, pub quizzes! People asume that because I like machines I like pub quizzes , not so.
They are generally run by people whose sole attribute is that they can read . Normally they are run by a bunch of planks. The quizmasters decision is final , so that when they are challenged with the correct answer, even with proof they wont change their mind.They often ask stupid tiebreakers like 'what did I have for breakfast this morning ' and with the advent of mobiles and blackberries is there anybody who isn't cheating? This brings me to my favourite tale- I was talking to a pub landlord who had a cheater playing. He asked which of three lakes is the biggest.The cheater dashed to the toilets, came back with the answer. Except that the landlord said it was wrong and the answer was Lake Chad as the lake periodically floods to many times its original area.Are there any good quizzes in the south , so I can send a swot team in to take the spoils?

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 9:39 am

i used to run a pub quiz and occasionally still host charity events but the generic pub quiz is 90% shit. there is no wit in the questions, the charisma of the quizmasters is negative, inaccuracies are widespread and if you learn anything new it is invariably some drivel about soaps.
(apart from myself) i have never been to a pub quiz where the teller had much acknowledgement of the interests of his/her audience instead wheeling out tired cliches and folkloric gibberish.

like many cash cows it is moronically easy to produce an adequate version while producing something a little more sophisticated is deemed not worth the time or the money. for this reason you get a glut of outsourced quizzes which cost the pub about a fiver and some clueless barman reading the questions with complete ignorance of the answers and dreadful pronounciation. they also tend to adopt ridiculous pseudonyms

on a similar note the wetherspoons (eee) magazine crossword doesn't even have rotational symmetry

if i'm in a pub on quiz night, unless i'm with very good friends, i will find another local pub wherein to spend my money.

Cardinal Sin · Post by **Cardinal Sin** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 10:03 am

Agree to both points. The amount of cheating that goes on is laughable, I've found myself walking out a quiz before when the whole pub, apart from my friend and I, were blatantly cheating, and the quizmaster cared not a jot. The trick would be to set questions which are too hard to cheat on (some of which can be found in the Phoenix!), but that is beyond the ken of most quizmasters.

However, what really rips my knitting about pub quizzes is the prizes. If I go to a pub which advertises a £100 1st prize, I don't mind paying a couple of quid to enter. However, what invariably happens is that you spend 90% of the time answering round of questions where the first prize is a bottle of wine / round of drinks. Then at the end, they draw numbers out of a hat and you play some game (e.g. play your cards right, pick a box), which determines whether you win the jackpot. It has absolutely nothing to do with the quiz, and is in fact, just an illegal lottery.

harry 3 · Post by **harry 3** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 11:06 am

I have played in and set questions at quizzes for a number of years. Agreed people cheating is widespread, but obviously some people take it very seriously and others, always the average player, have to laugh off their shortcomings with stupid answers You have to set questions that Mr Average can answer otherwise they go off in a huff, so soap questions and useless trivia are common. If you asked in my local where the Taj Mahal was, they would say "It's the curry house up the road". For the more serious there are several quiz leagues around. Always remember playing the local hospital team who hadn't lost in three years and the final round came up with us one point behind with one question each to go. Their team comprised of two surgeons and two doctors. They got a question about heavy metal and were clueless. It was thrown over to us and we knew the answer was Guns & Roses. Final question comes up and it's "Which state has the capital Little Rock ? We answer,"AR-KAN-SAS" and they start squealing,"NO NO NO, it's AR-KAN-SAW". A fight nearly breaks out but the adjudicator gives us the winning point. Needless to say they don't get the drinks in and skulk off at the end of the evening.

echoes · Post by **echoes** » Tue Aug 29, 2006 10:10 pm

Being a keen quizzer I've taken part as a regular in many different quizzes over the years and I'd agree that the vast majority of them are awful.

Your average punter is looking to head along with some mates, get pished and maybe win a crate of lager at the end of it. It's rare to find people that actually enjoy a fun and challenging quiz.

One that springs to mind has a quizmaster that advertises his as one where you can cheat with mobile phones. The questions are often along the lines of "True or false - a monkey once beat a man at ten pin bowling" and the like. He doesn't give a monkey's about a decent quiz so long as a crowd turn up to spend money behind the bar.

The only decent quiz I've ever found ran for over a year until the pub landlord decided it didn't pull in enough punters. Granted, it was a challenging quiz - a 'real' quiz, if you like - and people are generally just not interested in that.

You can relate that to the machines too though. Most people decide to play when they're mashed, with a group of similarly mashed mates in the pub and want to pump a few quid into Bully. How many people play for the challenge?

Nil Satis · Post by **Nil Satis** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 10:14 am

If anyone is based in or around Watford, have you done the Yates's quiz? It seemed a reasonably good one when I was in there during the summer (futilely playing the ItBox rather than taking part), and had a 'fair' Jackpot in the sense that it was one difficult question for several hundred quid but seemed to be something that you could always make a fair guess at and if you were lucky enough to have specialist knowledge on the team then you could actually be spot on and hence win the big cash - the question on the night I was there was something like 'What year was the Grand Union Canal opened?' and the Jackpot stood at £600.

foxy · Post by **foxy** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:23 pm

Here's an actual pub quiz- the one i did last night.
there's 8 rounds, 6 q's per round.you get one joker for double points in a round which you must play before the q's for that round are asked.
there's tv/film -history - sport - science - natural world - music - gen knowledge and literature.
NO CHEATING.
You get about 8 mins per round so go and grab a drink and get ready for round 1!!!
tv/film.
want to play your joker?
1.which film saw the death of a racehorse called khartoum?
2.heve villechaize played the manservant tattoo in which us series?
3.which us sitcom uses the frank sinatra song love and marriage as its theme tune?
4."i do wish we could talk longer but i'm having an old friend for dinner" which film?
5.what sort of creature was aristotle the addams family pet?
6.which 1981 oscar winning film climaxes in paris in 1924?

history
joker?
1.name the plane flown by col.paul.w.tibbets on aug 8th 1945?
2.in which ancient city did citizens practise ostracism, voting to expel citizens they disliked?
3.who packed off his 1st tourists to paris in 1861 starting a holiday revolution?
4.author of the prince which italian political writer's surname has become a byword for duplicity?
5.who gave up the title of viscount stansgate to remain an mp?
6.how many queens have ruled france?

i'll continue later if anyone wishes so!

Istenem · Post by **Istenem** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:35 pm

good stuff foxy.
i know next to nothing about tv & films so not playing my joker on that.

how about anyone who is interested sends their answers by pm to Foxy who marks it and gives the results. (if he is up for it).

of course it is easy to cheat using the internet but we are big boys now and big boys' games have big boys' rules.

i'll pm my answers to rounds one and two now.

foxy · Post by **foxy** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:53 pm

absolutely fine by me.

foxy · Post by **foxy** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:57 pm

thanks to UP for getting the ball rolling.
I can reveal he scored a creditable.........6 points.
who's next?

Cardinal Sin · Post by **Cardinal Sin** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 1:05 pm

Mine are PMing their way to you.. there were some I couldn't even guess

ops: , although some I've definitely got.

foxy · Post by **foxy** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:59 am

thank you all who have taken part so far.
despite being pissed the scores on the doors are...............
the cardinal ...................8 points
grecian..........................10 points
nil satis..........................10 points
i think nil has already declared music as his joker so in the spirit of fair play could everyone declare their joker round.
rounds 3 and 4 tomorrow unless scotland get humped!! :x
oh, by tomorrow i mean later today.

Cardinal Sin · Post by **Cardinal Sin** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 9:07 am

I'll take my joker on science, if that's okay.....

BRING IT ON!

grecian · Post by **grecian** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 10:10 am

I'll take GK as my joker.

foxy · Post by **foxy** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 1:19 pm

thanks to all so far.
there's 4 contestants at the moment and the jokers have been declared.
any more takers?
rounds 3 and 4 tonight.