REPORT FOR JANUARY 2018
To start with, I have to apologize to two teams whose scores were sufficient to be in the prize category. When I went over to the scoring table, I was in too much of a hurry to make the final report and coupled with the very small font of the alphabetized listing (we should have aligned the final scores) two good scores were missed. Those teams have been notified and liquid recompense will be afforded in March.
It was a good crowd of nearly 100 and only two missing teams perhaps due to the flu/cold that buried me for two weeks. Round 1 set a record with an overall score of 76% with the only 10 of the night gained by the eventual victors, Cashew. The Blonde Artifacts came in as a close second one point shy of Cashew with a very strong 56 points. I was surprised that only one team missed Frida Kahlo. Good on the House to know some Mexican art history. I thought the easiest question of the night was identifying Leonardo diCaprio even though two missed him. Also, to my surprise, 6 teams knew Maude Abbott whose name graces our sitting area on the second floor of the Faculty Club. That was good. Two teams did not know John Cleese and one of them was the high-scoring Blondies who originally had Cleese but suggested David Cameron. Every team but two knew Taylor Swift so it was a fast start.
Round 2 came back to normal more or less with a 50% score. EVERY team must have been to IKEA for meatballs as it was a rare, perfectly answered question. Interestingly, only two teams knew the first name of Brian Mulroney and these were The Ministry and the Idaho Spuds. A variety of names were provided including Jean, John, Joseph, Ben, Benjamin, Francis, Steven, Patrick, Kevin, Sean, Pierre, Andrew and Liam AND Clarence. Clarence? Quite a few teams knew the 4H names but a few other H-names were displayed including Harvest, Hearth, Help, Humility, Honor, Happiness, Hope, Handy, Humble, Honest, Harmony, Horticulture and even Horses. HELP! Where was Harpp? The level of art understanding was shown to be pretty high as all but 5 teams knew the setting of Edward Hopper’s painting “The Nighthawks” although the team, We Came for the Food, suggested a bar. They made up for that by being one of 10 teams who knew the musical question “Gypsy” and Ethel Merman’s great rendition.
Round 3 had a 62% score with most all knowing about string cheese. Most also knew “The Misfits” stars with two teams showing off by mentioning both “icons” as Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable and these were the Ministry and The Cheap Dates. Most knew “canter” as the pace of a horse but fewer had the correct number of squares in the game “Twister”. All but 4 teams knew the film showing Claude Monet but only two teams got the year of the film and these were We Know Stuff and Simple Minds. Most gauged the time earlier than it was at 1915. The question on the phrase “Who knows what evil lurks..” was well-answered as was Bryan Ferry in the music question-to my surprise.
The fourth Round scored a typical 56%. Fourteen teams knew that Hemingway wanted to take Joe DiMaggio fishing. I was surprised that the highly literate, academic Blonde Artifacts suggested Faulkner as did a few others. Quite a few thought that either camels or yaks were engaged in polo as opposed to the more trainable elephant. Ten teams knew that Michael Bloomberg was the billion-dollar donor while quite a few suggested Clinton. He is rich but nowhere near in the billion category. No one suggested the 45th President (for good reason). Two thirds of the House got it that Wilt Chamberlain was the 20-20-20 game star in 1968. The teams that missed this gave excellent possibilities showing good basketball expertise. Ten teams knew the Yukon River bisects Alaska and most of those teams were in the top echelon of the scoring indicating it was a good question.
Round 5 averaged 57% and most all knew about the edible squab. This delicacy is not part of the Faculty Club menu yet as far as I know. Just as well. as they might be confused in the eater’s notion of being a senior pigeon from the city. Not even ONE team got the 1936 tax question (Alberta). Most said either Ontario or Quebec. It is pretty rare that any question goes unanswered. Most teams got Edward and Henry as the most popular King’s names. Nearly half the House got it that Charles Dawes (not a well-known VP in the US) was the correct answer for having musical talent and winning a Nobel Prize. Well-done- as the others either predated the Prize (Fillmore) or did not have the talents assigned.
The 6th round delivered a 62% score with nearly 20 teams getting the term “provenance” used as a term to define the history of an object. Every team but three knew the math for the surface area of a sphere - impressive! Seven teams knew that Bank of Canada started in the 1930s but many said the 1870s. That was reasonable as that was the decade just after Confederation. Fifteen teams knew that former Chancellor Richard Pound was a swimmer in the 1960 Olympics but he was accorded expertise in rowing, track and field, athleticism, and finally a few teams did not know 1960 was a summer Olympics (evenly divisible by 4) and suggested the bobsled, skiing and figure skating. I shall have to inform him about his legacy.
The last round showed a 55% score making the overall percentage for the evening at exactly 60 which was a few points higher than the usual 56% average largely due to the unusually great start in Round 1 (maybe unusually easy). Most knew Angola as the new name for Portuguese West Africa. About half knew the rugby term for the player who throws in the ball as a “hooker” but there were several good alternatives including half back, pivot, striker, fly leaf, front guy, sweeper, wing man, scrum half, scrum master and scrummer. Excellent. Only three teams (I think guessed) as to the most-used two letter word as there were many excellent choices, the main one being “is” and “it”. Eleven teams knew who Bob Hope and James Cagney were and ten teams got the year within three but Wasted Synapses got it all correct with 1955 being the year of the video. What an excellent video it was!
I thank as usual, our excellent scorekeepers who are still also excellent students whose names still all end in “a”, Katya, Julia and Cordelia, and of course Kim Stephenson for gathering the money and some of the prizes. March 14 is the next contest in the New Year. We Know Stuff leads overall by a single point over the winner, Cashew.
On the next pages are the overall results for January and the totals.
Results for January
Results to date
