Are You Smarter than a British 5th Former?

The rain continues. The pond grows. But today we had a sliver of sunshine. Could this be the light at the end of the (admittedly short) dreary tunnel? Fingers crossed.

Last night I went to Quiz Night (trivia night) at the British High Commission. My team consisted of six VSO volunteers and spouses and there were a total of 7 teams playing.  My team got along really well and seemed to be the rowdiest of the bunch. It was great fun. I thought music would be my strength but it turned out to be math… and a couple of general knowledge things. When we started though I didn’t think I’d be able to contribut anything. The second question was “Name all of Henry VIII’s wives.” Uh, yeah… I’ll just be over here being Canadian if you need me for anything… I may not know all of Henry’s wives, but you guys have never even heard of Kraft Dinner. Yeah, take that.

But it soon picked up. There were questions on History, Geography, Math (or “maths” as they’d say), Music, Gym (which was sports) and General Knowledge. Although I got back in the game after the first two questions, this was no game for sissies. The geography quiz was a sheet of flags and you had to name the countries they represented. Could you identify Guyana’s or Kazahstan’s or Egypt’s flag on sight? Thank goodness Jesse is freakishly knowledgeable about that stuff. Our team was kicking butt and leading for the first four rounds but another team snuck up and overtook us and we weren’t able to regain our supremacy. I think we ended up losing by only two points, which is respectable I guess, but I would have rather had the money. The winning team gave their winnings back to the High Commission’s charities, so I guess our loss was for the greater good. We poor volunteers would have pocketed the cash and not looked back.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s trivia and then there’s completely freakin’ useless knowledge that no one should know, like “if a group of lions is called a pride, what is a group of cheetahs called?”  Our group decided that cheetahs are solitary animals so a group of them would be called “an anomaly of cheetahs”. J

Here are some other questions – don’t cheat!:

• What is the highest possible check out in darts?
• How many balls are on a snooker table at the start of a game?
• What country’s flag is solid green?
• How many holes on a Chinese Checkers board?
• To the nearest 10 yards, what is the distance of the longest hole in one ever recorded?
• How long is a marathon in yards?
• In music, what does the term “adagio” mean?
• Name all the Bronte sisters.
• If you bet $200 at 5:1 and $400 at 4:1 and $600 at 16:1 and all three of your bets win, how much money do you have?
• What is the difference between isosceles, scalene and equilateral triangles?
• If you have a bottle with a base of 24 cm and a height of 20 cm, what is the volume (assuming pi is 3.14)?
• How much is 30 degrees Celsius in Fahrenheit?
• What colour is an airplane’s black box?
• What does a pedologist study?
• Lyric: “You can turn the world around and bring back all those happy days” Name the song.
• If you’re born November 25, what sign are you?
• How many keys on a piano?
• Who was the 34^th U.S. president?
• What are the colours of the Olympic rings?
• What follows “once”, “twice”, “thrice”?

I think that’s enough school for today, kids.