Last Saturday it was my turn to be the host with the most and, like my 'pick your own subject' quiz a few weeks ago, I decided to tailor the quiz for each player. This week I asked them to secretly pick a year and I would stump up a number of questions based on the 365 days they had selected.
The guys picked 1979, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1997, 2015, 2016 and, I'll be honest, I thought this was going to be a doddle. They are picking the year, all I had to do was think of ten topics, do a quick Google search for each year and Robert is your father's brother. Erm, didn't quite turn out like that if I'm being honest!
The first hurdle was picking suitable topics that were a) appropriate for every year, b) had a decent variety of questions and c) could be attempted by everyone regardless of what year they picked. There were some pretty obvious topics that were first in; TV, Film, Music and Sport but after that, I had to dig a little deeper. Up rolled Politics, Science & Technology and Food & Drink. Finally there was a fair bit of barrel-scraping to come up with Current Affairs, Celebrity and Famous Faces.
The obvious subjects were straightforward to create questions for but some had me scratching my head, I mean, what actually is Current Affairs? In my head, it was whatever was newsworthy that year. Celebrity turned into a round of born/married/divorced/dead but Famous Faces worked out better than I had thought. I pinged a picture to everyone and asked why they were in the news at a specific point in that year (yeah, yeah, I'm struggling to work out how that is different from Current Affairs too). It gave me a chance to send a picture of Margaret Thatcher to AM's phone, that was an unexpected bonus!!!
Before the actual years and years quiz, I asked 5 'impossible' questions that were worth 5 bonus points each. Well, they would have been impossible if I hadn't given the answer to one of the questions out by mistake when I said SDC needed to be in the quiz as she was the answer to one question...doh!
It also turns out that I didn't know the answers to one of my own impossible questions too, RH pulled me up and gave the right answer to the 'how many questions on football are there' question - nice one mate!
I toyed with the idea of running through the quiz in chronological order but thought it would be more interesting to randomise the whole thing. I announced each round by changing the virtual background with a picture depicting the year. This was an idea I completely ripped off from DE's quiz the week before!
Talking of ripping off ideas, I stole TC's idea of not doing a presentation so there were more engagement and interaction with everyone and then I had his idea off to reduce the options in the multiple guess to 3, not 4 to make the quiz a little easier. With some of the questions, I think the reduced choice was a godsend!!!
It is difficult to write the normal review of the night as I didn't take any notes, I was still drinking pretty heavily and I was totally focused on getting through the quiz and not letting it drag on too late. So in lieu of any funny anecdotes, here are 10 things we learned from the questions (in the randomised year order they were asked):
1. Burger King opened its first restaurant in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar in 2015, not in the Cameroon capital Yaoundé or Iceland's Reykjavik. - Food & Drink
2. The Tuareg-language homage to Prince's 1984 film Purple Rain is called Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai and translates to 'Rain the Colour of Blue with a Little Red In It', not 'Cold Purple Sky Urine' as I put as one of the options - Film
3. In 1992 Emma Bunton made her TV debut on Eastenders playing a mugger. - TV
4. The Clash didn't have a number one album in 1979 but Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin did. - Music
5. In March 1986, it was Freddie Starr was splashed all over the tabloids for allegedly eating a hamster (in his 2001 autobiography he wrote: "I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any other small mammal") - Famous Faces
6. The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit is not a pedal bike designed for the Tour de France as stated in one of the options but is, in fact, a plane, also known as the Stealth Bomber. - Science & Technology
7. Drivers on London Underground's Piccadilly line went on strike for 24 hours in March 2016 because of bullying, not because they were issued with shirts that said “Happy To Help” embroiled on them as I added as an answer. - Current Affairs
8. In 1997, Labour won 418 seats at the General Election. - Politics
9. The World Snooker Championship Final of 1985 was between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, not Steve Davis and Cliff Thorburn (1983) or Steve Davis and Jimmy White (1984) - Sport
10. Pamela Anderson was Playboy's playmate of the month in February 1990, not Yasmin Bleeth or Gena Lee Nolin. - Celebrity
I had chatted to RH earlier in the week and mentioned I was struggling for subjects, he suggested I should get one topic and ask a question from all the years people had chosen. This was a great idea so I added three rounds; Music, Christmas Number Ones and the icing on the cake, Cliff Richard!
After the individual rounds, we started with 'Cliff Is A Massive Cult' where, amongst other things, it was revealed that in 1984 he did a duet with an upcoming singer called Janet Jackson to give her career a boost (true story), then it was on to 'So Here It Is, Merry Christmas Number 1s' which brought to light that Adele and Justin Bieber were kept off the number 1 spot by an NHS choir in 2015.
Finally, it was the only part of the quiz that was a presentation, the inventively titled 'Music Round'. I went through the years the guys had chosen, picked a song I liked then made a megamix. Based on this mix, everyone was asked who was the singer, what was the name of the song and what year was it in the charts.
This should have been a straightforward round to create but I struggled with 2015 as I only recognised two 'hits' from that year, 'Shut Up And Dance' by Walk The Moon and 'Lean On' by Major Lazer (described as 'utter, utter shite' by AM). Hard lines AM, Major Lazer was in and they rocked! Two run-throughs of the mix and the quiz was done.
After a quick check, it turns out we had rattled through over 200 questions, I think that is some sort of record yet we managed to finish at an almost respectable time. Thankfully we got an hour back at 2 AM so our extended drinking session post quiz didn't hurt quite as much the following day.
It turns out that Miss L narrowly won ahead of TC and DE but, as I say every week, it isn't about the score, it is about getting together, having a few drinks and a bit of a laugh. As it was a singles game there were bragging rights in houses across the patch but I'm too much of a gentleman to reveal who came out on top!
Next up is SDC and EDC's Halloween Spooktacular! We have been told that fancy dress is essential and that one of the rounds is called 'Bobbing For Yer Nonce' - this quiz sounds boss already!!!