Category Archives: Quizzes

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End of the Week Quiz

There seem to be a few wisps of tumbleweed on the ‘Spill lately, so maybe this will create some interest. There is also the possibility of a small prize, if you read on:

1. You have not decorated your living room for 15 years. You make a start, but are hampered by small child, attached to X-Box and assorted paraphernalia with umbilical cord. Do you:

(a) Decorate around him, leaving the middle of the room murky yellow while the rest is terracotta and coral flair?
(b) Call a computer geek to sever the cord and lead him howling to his bedroom?
(c) Give up and contact a painter and decorator (it’s only money)?

2. You have too many books and, to your horror, you discover Aubrey Beardsley next to “The Children of Green Knowe”. Do you:

(a) Donate all the books to Oxfam, no one ever reads them;
(b) Take all the books off the shelves, go through them, decide you can’t bear to lose them and put them back?
(c) Sit on the ladder with a cuppa and a biscuit, and start reading the Aubrey Beardsley?

3. Your son assures you he can play blu-ray discs so you buy “Life of Pi” as neither of you has seen it. He rips off the wrappers (so you can’t return it) and then tells you you’re stupid because he can’t play blu-ray. Do you:

(a) Take him back to the shop, abandon him there and buy yourself a blu-ray player / download relevant software?
(b) Flog it on E-Bay, if you can be arsed;
(c) Forget about it, you’re too engrossed in that book?

There you are – the prize is “Life of Pi” on blu-ray disc for the first person to tell me they want it. Otherwise it’s ‘Spill points as usual for the wittiest answers. Have fun.

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Apropos of nothing – EOTW quiz

Kathy & wombat Jan 08

I have posted a picture of my friend with a wombat for no particular reason, other than it is an example of now wombats can be very good friends. I have nothing interesting to say; I am slightly lost, slightly bored and slightly drunk. So here are some spill-it-all questions for you:

1. Cutlery drawer. I have asked this before, but it was a long time ago. How do you do yours? Knives, forks, spoons/ forks, knives, spoons? Spoons, knives, forks? You get the idea. And does it annoy you when someone buggers it up?

2. You have just eaten a nice piece of banana cake off what you now realize to be the cat’s dish. You have also spilled instant coffee on the work top in the kitchen. Do you:

(a) throw up; clean up the coffee and apologize to the cat?
(b) apply the 5 second rule, stop worrying and leave the coffee for the morning?
(c) take your mind off both by posting a spurious quiz on t’Spill?

3. You have given up work to look after your child / parent / wombat / aunty Flo. Do you embrace the opportunity or lament the demise of life as you know it?

4. What is the worst thing about getting out of bed in the morning?

5. What is the best thing about getting out of bed the morning?

Light-hearted answers requested and here is some music to jolly you along:

Apologies if I have pipped anyone to the EOTWQ, it’s not even the EOTW yet.

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Take Out Some Insurance quiz

A quiz to keep you amused while we’re waiting for the new topic: and no, it’s nothing to do with insurance…that’s just the song. After the title there’s a series of 20 images each one representing a Tom Petty song. Your task is to identify all 20 of them! Some of them are very easy. Some of them are fiendishly hard. It’ll help if you’re a film/theatre/TV/radio buff; and oh yes – the answers are in alphabetical order, so that should help too. And googling is allowed.

While you’re puzzling over the images you will, of course, be able to enjoy the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers version of Jimmy Reed’s Take Out Some Insurance. Well, I hope you enjoy it anyway – this is the only version I’ve got of them doing the song and I think it’s just plain marvellous.

(I’ve had an earlier version of this video – I made it easier, folks! – up on YouTube overnight and it’s still there, so I’m hoping this one is safe and won’t get taken down. Famous last words? Possibly.)

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Jolly Yuletide Quiz

Having found all the Grauniad quizzes and the crossword far too taxing this year, I have devised a little light hearted quiz to take my mind off having to go back to work tomorrow. I hope you are all having an enjoyable time, and are looking forward to the New Year in spite of the doom and gloom pervading the news. Please join in, if you’re in the mood for frivolous distraction. Apologies if we’ve had any of the questions before, but here we jolly well go:

1. Amazon recommends … what is the strangest combined offer you’ve had from Amazon (or anyone else) this year?  Mine is “6 pairs mens thermal socks size 6-11; The Bed of Procrustes – Philosophical & Practical Aphorisms; Ben Ten Galactic Racing and Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diababte.”

2. Do you have a Christmas tree? If so, what is on the top? As you can see from the photo, we have the Bogeyman – handmade by a ghost of Christmas past. Can you top it?

3. What present are you struggling to be grateful for this year? And does it make you think the giver just doesn’t know you at all, or that they know you too well? Mine is a voluminous pair of ice-cream pink flannelette pyjamas with cats on – my efforts to project my image as a hard-driven career woman / cougar / middle-aged sex symbol have obviously failed, thus far. Perhaps I’d do better with Amazon.

4. What percentage of your Christmas cards includes a portrayal of an animal or bird of some kind? (Warning: this may involve standing up and using brain). Mine is 50%, including a turkey on the mast of a lifeboat. Go figure, Amazon!!

5. What did you have for Christmas dinner, and are you still eating it? In my case, Mr Munday brought us a shepherdless shepherd’s pie (green lentils) – I had some yesterday in a stew and today it’s soup … meanwhile the cat is sulking and out looking for shepherds.

6. Tell us an amusing anecdote about Christmas – any Christmas. Mine is probably the year my brother fell down my other brother’s stairs in the dark, playing hide and seek with us kids, circa 1973. He wasn’t badly hurt but had the pattern of his string vest etched into the bruise. And the banisters were wrecked. Probably our last true family Christmas, for some reason …

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Went to see the Captain, strangest I could find

I was contemplating doing another Festive Crossword when Sakura’s recent post put the opening line from Ship Of Fools in my head. Several hours of head-scratching later, I came up with this. If it ain’t exactly a Festive Crossword, it’ll do until the real one gets here, to paraphrase Sherriff Ed Tom Bell in No Country For Old Men.

Hopefully, this grid is usable if you open it in a new window. If not, let me know and I’ll drop it somewhere.

Answers next week.

OOPS: There’s a mistake in 1 down! Due to my imperfect memory, the answer is missing an ‘N’ (so should be an 8-letter clue, not a 7-letter one).

Please follow my mistake and omit the ‘N’. The clue doesn’t work otherwise. (A mistake in 1 down? Bloody amateur! – Ed.)

Oh, and tfd points out, quite correctly, that 27 across is (3,3), not (6)!

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Happy Thanksgiving

Can’t be bothered to write the tags & we haven’t had a quiz in while. ‘Spill points for 1st to name the artiste (don’t worry, threw in some easy ones). Originally wasn’t fond of this Holiday, as it seemed to dilute the trad. UK Krimble blow-out. Have come to appreciate it as the one Holiday that all Americans can enjoy & share. Happy Thanksgiving.

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Today’s EOTWQs are brought to you by the letter C

1 Candy? Collard greens? What’s your favourite food beginning with a C?

2 Alarming news: the Cliff Richard 2012 calendar is already selling fast. What calendar would YOU like for next year? (NB does not have to begin with C.)

3 The nights are drawing in (if you’re in the same hemisphere as me) and soon the clocks will be going back. What do you like about this? What do you NOT like? (And do you own a clock that needs to be put back manually?)

4 I’ve been to my last conference (probably). What’s the best conference you’ve ever been to? What would be your ideal one?

5 Rumour has it that shops are already putting Christmas merchandise on display. Have you seen any yet? (Have you bought any?)

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Breaking Bad

It’s alright for most of you, but Summer here means crap telly, just when you want to huddle around the A/C. Glimmer of hope in that season 4 of Breaking Bad will be out soon. For those not familiar, it’s the story of Walter White; An underachieving 50 year old chemistry teacher, with an unplanned baby on the way, holding down two jobs to make ends meet & then he’s diagnosed with lung cancer & given two years left to live. Walter decides to stop playing by the rules. Assisted by his likable, but not too bright, ex-student, Jesse; Walter decides to get into the Albuquerque, New Mexico crystal meth market to provide for his family. Things do not go smoothly.

Brilliantly written & photographed with tremendous performances from a great cast. Best TV since The Wire, I reckon (as long as you take your comedy black & played straight). It also has great tunes. Here are some of them. Why not make it a quiz? I’ll give you the titles – ‘Spill pints for the artists:

1. Breaking Bad Theme
2. Out Of Time Man
3. Rocket Scientist
4. Waiting Around To Die
5. Veneno
6. Life
7. The Hand Clap
8. They’re Going To Take My Thumbs
9. Windy
10. Any Way The Wind Blows
11. You’re Movin’ Me
12. Electricity In My Bones
13. Koop Island Blues
14. DLZ
15. Shimmy Shimmy Ya
16. Negro Y Azul (The Ballad Of Heisenberg)

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Carole’s latest quiz

Hi ‘Spillers, it’s time to start earning more of those valuable ‘Spill points again.

But remember;

Your ‘Spill points will not be brought to you by Xerox in 4 parts without commercial interruptions.

Your ‘Spill points will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.

Your ‘Spill points will not be televised.

Your ‘Spill points will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia. Your ‘Spill points will not give your mouth sex appeal.

Your ‘Spill points will not be televised.

Anyway, there are a dozen intros from songs, some pretty well known, others maybe less so.

Over to you.

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The All-New ‘Spill Weekly Song Challenge – Week 2

He's seen the I&Os - have you?

Well, here we are again for what might be called Weekly Song Challenge – Week 2 (unless it’s called Challenge 32…can’t decide) and, as you may imagine, I’ve got my entry picked out so here we go.

The format is the same as for the Facebook 30Qs: you choose one song in response to each theme and post it with an appropriate justification and ideally a link. Based on discussions so far, here are the guidelines for how we can make this work as a weekly thing – they are of course open to tweaks and adaptations as we go along:

- A new challenge will appear every Tuesday – 10pm became the traditional time for the 30Qs but I’m sure this will be more flexible as stewardship changes hands each week

- We take it in turns to set the challenge – whoever wants to set next week’s challenge, make yourself known over the course of the thread. If no-one has volunteered by, say, Friday, the job defaults to whoever posted first. We’re OK for next week – on Tuesday 17th mein host will be Abahachi.

- No artist can be duplicated in one week – whoever posts firsts gets to keep their choice. No gratuitous selections of Tom Petty or The Grateful Dead just to piss tfd or Chris off as that would be mean. [But genuine honest selections of TP will be fine with me – tfd.]

- However, unlike in the 30Qs, song choices can be repeated in subsequent weeks (though we might want to impose a one-week prohibition following selection – [Edit: of songs, not bands] – as with artists making the RR Top 10) because it’s doubtful anyone’s going to want to keep track of everyone’s choices indefinitely.

- Challenge questions don’t have to be as pithily worded as the 30Qs – with so many of the big things in life covered last month, we’re inevitably going to be peeping into the cracks so we can probably afford to be more precise and/or convoluted in our questioning than would have been appropriate for the Facebook masses.

- I’ve not set it up so don’t look at me but we can get together a Dropbox folder of choice cuts each week. This worked well with bethnoir’s choice last week – shall we leave it that people put songs in the box on request?

Feel free to add to and alter those rules. Now here’s my decidedly unpithily-worded challenge:

A song by an artist/band you’ve never seen live but wish you could (or wish you had, if they’ve packed it in for any reason, eg death)…

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The All-New ‘Spill Weekly Song Challenge

After the emotional hothouse that was the 30-Day Musical Challenge, we now step into the pasture of mutually supportive self-immolation that will become the Weekly Song Challenge (or something with a better name, once the focus group – that’s you guys – kicks it around for a bit).

The format is the same as for the Facebook 30Qs: you choose one song in response to each theme and post it with an appropriate justification and ideally a link. Based on discussions so far, here are the guidelines for how we can make this work as a weekly thing – they are of course open to tweaks and adaptations as we go along:

- A new challenge will appear every Tuesday - 10pm became the traditional time for the 30Qs but I’m sure this will be more flexible as stewardship changes hands each week

- We take it in turns to set the challenge – whoever wants to set next week’s challenge, make yourself known over the course of the thread. If no-one has volunteered by, say, Friday, the job defaults to whoever posted first.

EDIT: We now have takers for the next two weeks. The challenge on Tuesday 9th will be set by treefrogdemon. On Tuesday 16th mein host will be Abahachi.

- No artist can be duplicated in one week - whoever posts firsts gets to keep their choice. No gratuitous selections of Tom Petty or The Grateful Dead just to piss tfd or Chris off as that would be mean.

- However, unlike in the 30Qs, song choices can be repeated in subsequent weeks (though we might want to impose a one-week prohibition follwoing selection, like with artists making the RR Top 10) – because it’s doubtful anyone’s going to want to keep track of everyone’s choices indefinitely.

- Challenge questions don’t have to be as pithily worded as the 30Qs – I’m just saying this to cover myself, as you’ll see below, but with so many of the big things in life covered last month, we’re inevitably going to be peeping into the cracks so we can probably afford to be more precise and/or convoluted in our questioning than would have been appropriate for the Facebook masses.

- I’ve not set it up so don’t look at me but we can get together a Dropbox folder of choice cuts each week.

Feel free to add to and alter those rules. Now here’s my decidely unpithily-worded challenge:

A song by an artist/band you’d never heard of a year ago (or you knew about but had never knowingly listened to)…

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30-Day Musical Challenge: The Results


And the winner is….

The Spill Community, I reckon. Tons of music, plenty of enthusiasm, lots of discussion and no falling out. Here are the (updated) statistics.

Over the 30 days:

  • 43 Spillers have posted
  • 3,581 comments
  • nominating 959 different songs
  • from 714 different artists.
  • 19 Spillers posted every day and
  • 2 of those – debbym and May1366 – chose 30 different artists.

The most significant artists – for good and ill – were:

  • The Beatles, picked 15 times, by 14 different people
  • Tom Petty, with and without the Heartbreakers, picked 15 times, all by tfd
  • Bob Dylan, picked 14 times, by 10 different people
  • Grateful Dead, picked 14 times, by 4 different people (but 11 times by me)
  • Pink Floyd, picked 8 times, by 6 different people
  • Rolling Stones, picked 8 times, by 5 different people
  • Velvet Underground, picked 8 times, by 5 different people
  • Belle & Sebastian, picked 6 times, by 5 different people
  • The Cure, picked 6 times, by 4 different people
  • The Smiths, picked 6 times, by 4 different people

The spreadsheet containing all this data in a handy, sortable form is in the RR box.  So, with thanks to tinny for setting it all up, and to you for making it such a pleasure, that’s a wrap.

Continue reading →

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30-day Musical Challenge: Day 29

The World-Famous Official ‘Spill 30-Day Musical Challenge

(Rules)

Day 29 topic: Kate & Will’s first song should be….?? ? scooped by Maki!

New Day 29 topic: A song for whoever posted before you (first post) yesterday (1st person – do the last to post)

Please include song name & artist in your post for Chris

.