Just a brief post to say that I’m planning some fairly radical changes here soon…

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I’m not a fan of quiz shows at all, but someone at work sent this to me and I thought it was fabulous! Hopefully readers abroad will understand most of it.

QUIZMANIA (ITV)
Greg Scott: We’re looking for an occupation beginning with ‘T’.
Contestant: Doctor.
Scott: No, it’s ‘T’. ‘T’ for Tommy. ‘T’ for Tango.
Contestant: Oh, right . . . (pause) . . . Doctor.

DANNY KELLY SHOW (RADIO WM)
Kelly: Which French Mediterranean town hosts a famous film festival every year?
Contestant: I don’t know, I need a clue.
Kelly: OK. What do beans come in?
Contestant: Cartons?

BEG, BORROW OR STEAL (BBC2)
Jamie Theakston: Where do you think Cambridge University is?
Contestant: Geography isn’t my strong point.
Theakston: There’s a clue in the title.
Contestant: Leicester.

BBC NORFOLK
Stewart White: Who had a worldwide hit with What A Wonderful World?
Contestant: I don’t know.
White: I’ll give you some clues: what do you call the part between your hand and your elbow?
Contestant: Arm.
White: Correct. And if you’re not weak, you’re…?
Contestant: Strong.
White: Correct - and what was Lord Mountbatten’s first name?
Contestant: Louis.
White: Well, there we are then. So who had a worldwide hit with the song What A Wonderful World?
Contestant: Frank Sinatra?

LATE SHOW (BBC MIDLANDS)
Alex Trelinski: What is the capital of Italy?
Contestant: France.
Trelinski: France is another country. Try again.
Contestant: Oh, um, Benidorm.
Trelinski: Wrong, sorry, let’s try another question. In which country is the Parthenon?
Contestant: Sorry, I don’t know.
Trelinski: Just guess a country then.
Contestant: Paris.

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE (BBC2)
Jeremy Paxman: What is another name for ‘cherrypickers’ and ‘cheesemongers’?
Contestant: Homosexuals.
Paxman: No. They’re regiments in the British Army who will be very upset with you.

THE WEAKEST LINK (BBC2)
Anne Robinson: Oscar Wilde, Adolf Hitler and Jeffrey Archer have all written books about their experiences in what: prison, or the Conservative Party?
Contestant: The Conservative Party.

BEACON RADIO (WOLVERHAMPTON)
DJ Mark: For Pounds 10, what is the nationality of the Pope?
Ruth from Rowley Regis: I think I know that one. Is it Jewish?

THE WEAKEST LINK
Anne Robinson: In traffic, what ‘J’ is where two roads meet?
Contestant: Jool carriageway?

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE
Bamber Gascoigne: What was Gandhi’s first name?
Contestant: Goosey?

GWR FM (Bristol)
Presenter: What happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963?
Contestant: I don’t know, I wasn’t watching it then.

RTE RADIO 2FM (IRELAND)
Presenter: What is the name of the long- running TV comedy show about pensioners: Last Of The …?
Caller: Mohicans.

QUIZMANIA
Greg Scott: We’re looking for a word that goes in front of ‘clock’.
Contestant: Grandfather.
Scott: Grandfather clock is already up there, say something else.
Contestant: Panda.

PHIL WOOD SHOW (BBC RADIO MANCHESTER)
Phil: What’s 11 squared?
Contestant: I don’t know.
Phil: I’ll give you a clue. It’s two ones with a two in the middle.
Contestant: Is it five?

RICHARD AND JUDY
Q: Which American actor is married to Nicole Kidman?
A: Forrest Gump.

RICHARD AND JUDY
Leslie: On which street did Sherlock Holmes live?
Contestant: Er . . .
Leslie: He makes bread . . .
Contestant: Er . . .
Leslie: He makes cakes . . .
Contestant: Kipling Street?

MAGIC 52 (NORTHEAST ENGLAND)
Presenter: In what year was President Kennedy assassinated?
Contestant: Erm . . .
Presenter: Well, let’s put it this way - he didn’t see 1964.
Contestant: 1965?

SIMPLY THE BEST (ITV)
Phil Tufnell: How many Olympic Games have been held?
Contestant: Six.
Tufnell: Higher!
Contestant: Five.

FORT BOYARD (CHALLENGE TV)
Jodie Marsh: Arrange these two groups of letters to form a word - CHED and PIT.
Team: Chedpit.

LINCS FM PHONE-IN
Presenter: Which is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world?
Contestant: Barcelona.
Presenter: I was really after the name of a country.
Contestant: I’m sorry, I don’t know the names of any countries in Spain.

RADIO 1 EARLY MORNING SHOW
Presenter: How many toes would three people have in total?
Contestant: 23?

NOTTS AND CROSSES QUIZ (BBC RADIO NOTTINGHAM)
Jeff Owen: In which country is Mount Everest?
Contestant (long pause): Er, it’s not in Scotland, is it?

THE MICK GIRDLER SHOW (BBC RADIO SOLENT)
Girdler: I’m looking for an island in the Atlantic whose name includes the letter ‘e’.
Contestant: Ghana.
Girdler: No, listen. It’s an island in the Atlantic Ocean.
Contestant: New Zealand.

NATIONAL LOTTERY (BBC1)
Question: What is the world’s largest continent?
Contestant: The Pacific.

ROCK FM (PRESTON)
Presenter: Name a film starring Bob Hoskins that is also the name of a famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci.
Contestant: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN (ITV)
Steve Le Fevre: What was signed to bring World War I to an end in 1918?
Contestant: Magna Carta.

JAMES O’BRIEN SHOW (LBC)
O’Brien: How many kings of England have been called Henry?
Contestant: Er, well, I know there was a Henry the Eighth … er … er … three?

NATIONAL LOTTERY
Eamonn Holmes: There are three states of matter: solid, liquid and what?
Contestant: Jelly.

RICHARD ALLINSON SHOW (RADIO 2)
Allinson: What international brand shares its name with the Greek goddess of victory?
Contestant (after long deliberation): Erm, Kellogg’s?

BLIND DATE (ITV)
Girl: Name a book written by Jane Austen.
Boy: Charlotte Bronte.

CHRIS SEARLE SHOW (BBC RADIO BRISTOL)
Searle: In which European country is Mount Etna?
Caller: Japan.
Searle: I did say which European country, so in case you didn’t hear that, I can let you try again.
Caller: Er … Mexico?

DOG EAT DOG (BBC1)
Ulrika Jonsson: Who wrote Lord of the Rings?
Contestant: Enid Blyton.

PAUL WAPPAT (BBC RADIO NEWCASTLE)
Paul Wappat: How long did the Six-Day War between Egypt and Israel last?
Contestant (after long pause): Fourteen days.

NATIONAL LOTTERY
Eamonn Holmes: Dizzy Gillespie is famous for playing what?
Contestant: Basketball.

NOTTS AND CROSSES QUIZ
Jeff Owen: Where did the D-Day landings take place?
Contestant (after pause): Pearl Harbour?

DARYL DENHAM’S DRIVETIME (VIRGIN RADIO)
Daryl Denham: In which country would you spend shekels?
Contestant: Holland?
Denham: Try the next letter of the alphabet.
Contestant: Iceland? Ireland?
Denham (helpfully): It’s a bad line. Did you say Israel?
Contestant: No.

PHIL WOOD SHOW (BBC GMR)
Wood: What ‘K’ could be described as the Islamic Bible?
Contestant: Er . . .
Wood: It’s got two syllables . . . Kor . . .
Contestant: Blimey?
Wood: Ha ha ha ha, no. The past participle of run . . .
Contestant: (Silence)
Wood: OK, try it another way. Today I run, yesterday I . . .
Contestant: Walked?

NATIONAL LOTTERY
Dale Winton: Skegness is a seaside resort on the coast of which sea:a) Irish Sea, b) English Channel, c) North Sea?
Contestant: Oh, I know that, you can start writing out the cheque now, Dale. It’s on the east coast, so it must be the Irish Sea.

THE VAULT
Melanie Sykes: What is the name given to the condition where the sufferer can fall asleep at any time?
Contestant: Nostalgia.

LUNCHTIME SHOW (BRMB)
Presenter: What religion was Guy Fawkes?
Contestant: Jewish.
Presenter: That’s close enough.

BREAKFAST SHOW, RADIO 1
Chris Moyles: Which ‘S’ is a kind of whale that can grow up to 80 tonnes?
Contestant: Ummm . . .
Moyles: It begins with ‘S’ and rhymes with ‘perm’.
Contestant: Shark.

STEVE WRIGHT IN THE AFTERNOON (BBC RADIO 2)
Wright: Johnny Weissmuller died on this day. Which jungle-swinging character clad only in a loincloth did he play?
Contestant: Jesus.

Technorati Tags: british, humor, quiz shows, weird

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This must be the best news headline I’ve ever seen on the BBC News website, though the poor lady is obviously much the worse for such an enthusiastic stunt.

I think the Mayor’s little yellow plastic ducks are very fetching, though…

Technorati Tags: plastic ducks, tomato, weird

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A poor bear got stuck under a bridge in California. Luckily, rescuers managed to save him.

Technorati Tags: weird

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There’s a nice site which uses the data from your Last.fm account to find out how eclectic your musical taste is.

The script takes the 20 top artists in your musical profile from Last.fm, and finds the collection of the top 5 similar artists for the each of the top 20 for your profile. The result is a list of artists similar to your preferred artists. The larger the list (the maximum is 100), the more diverse your taste in music.

My current rating is 95/100. What’s yours?

The script author Anthony Liekens has developed some other cool tools as well, which you can find further down the “eclectic” page.

Technorati Tags: last.fm, music, scrobbling

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I’ve been bothered recently that a couple of folk I know have told me they’re not interested in listening to a new band or album they haven’t heard, because it’s “not the sort of thing” they like, or “so-and-so” is the best band ever, therefore “what’d be the point?”

Please think for a minute about the best artist, band or musician you’ve ever heard. Only you can answer this - that’s how personal the driving force of music is. But for this article, let’s think of sixteen possibilities.

Is it The Beatles? Rolling Stones? Pink Floyd? Radiohead? With me so far?

Maybe it’s the Foo Fighters? Kaiser Chiefs? XTC? Explosions in the Sky? There’s a sense of moving from the well-known to the less well-known in each paragraph here, isn’t there?

What about The Dead 60s? Calvin Harris? The Fratellis? New Young Pony Club? Heard them?

What about Wisp? Yuppster? Lackluster? Eva Garcia? What about them?

What do all of these sixteen artists have in common? Well, at one point, for sure, no-one had heard of them. As a statement of absolute fact, there was a time before the music of The Beatles just as there was a time before the music of Wisp. Then each of them arrived, separated in time, age and background but wanting to make music, hoping to make people feel in some way different to the way their lives were before. Not necessarily happier, nor sadder, nor more interesting, nor more rewarded, sometimes to make people fall in love, sometimes to reflect on hate or negative emotions, but the intention of making music has always been to get the listener involved in some way. Maybe by dancing, perhaps by tapping their feet in time to the rhythm, sometimes by singing along, and often by simply listening as all of the component parts of the music fall into place intellectually or academically. Very often, music has been about making money (of course, historically that was always the purpose of the “record business”), but sometimes these days artists release their music for free just for the sheer enjoyment and thrill of getting their music out there. After all, not all commercially released albums are good, are they? A signed singer or band is no indicator of talent; it only demonstrates that a) a record company have heard them, and b) as a consequence, the record company is prepared to take a financial gamble (though increasingly less so for the major labels and radio stations in these days of pretty karaoke singers who win so-called “talent contests”).

So, for anyone I know reading this, think: would the world have been a less rich place without any of these artists I mentioned above? If there had been no Rolling Stones, would you have found something else to listen to instead? Was there a space in your head and body, waiting to be filled by music, emotionally and physically?

That’s why I don’t believe anyone can make a judgement about music without listening to it. There may be music out there that is the best music I’ve ever heard - better than your Beatles, her Kaiser Chiefs, his New Young Pony Club. And there’s only one way to find out. There’s never been a bigger choice.

Technorati Tags: artists, bands, music, talent

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