Quiz

I was genuinely disappointed to see Pat Gibson win Mastermind Champion of Champions last week. This is the highest level of professional quizzing at its least pretty with no chance of that great thrill to us casual, slightly hopeless, quiz players who like it when we luckily guess something right, or, more likely, are absolutely certain of an answer that turns out to be wrong. My trusty team mates in the KGB quiz team will remember my certainty about Vauxhall cars but, there again, I did say we didn't ought to attempt golf questions and then we did.

What I didn't like so much about the machinery of Pat's encyclopedeic knowledge was the time saving tactic of just giving surnames rather than wasting time with first names. John Humphries could have stalled him and asked for further detail on 'which Attenborough' was Director General of the BBC because there was more than one famous Attenborough. And the more likeable Jesse, who had got three or four wrong, was arguably robbed of the title. I don't know and I don't care all that much. It is only a game.

So, here's a game, for Pat, for Kevin Ashman, and for Bobby Bushell, who beats me up at quizzes from his precious bloody quiz book every lunchtime in the office whether I feel like a quiz or not. Look, Bob, I don't know if I ever said I was good at quizzes or not but I've said I'm sorry and I'm sorry.

Let's play at my home ground to give me a chance.


1. Which poem begins, Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard ?
2. General Sir Charles James Napier once sent the simple message Peccavi. What pun was intended?
3. Why is it difficult to say whether Shakespeare and Cervantes died on the same day or not?
4. Which famous English poet’s father drowned crossing the river at Hull?
5. Which possibly anti-semitic clerihew is written in what might be 'iambic unimeter'?
6. Which poet ‘hated Spain’, according to their partner.
7. What was the side effect of the man putting the ‘ram’ in the ‘ram a lang a ding dong’?
8. Which English sonnet begins ‘Mondjam: tarsad, masod a nyari nap?’ And in which language? Admittedly with various additional marks over certain letters.
9. Which poet won the King George in 2007?
10. Which poet might otherwise be against memoir?