Harsh, but fair
The BBC's quiz of the week is an opportunity for you to discover how little of the week's news you paid attention to. Seven multiple-choice questions shouldn't be too hard, though, should it?
At the end, your score is graded into one of three categories, with a light-hearted description based on the theme of the seventh question.
This week's final question related to Gibraltar being designated a city for the second time in its history. Apparently those in the know forgot that Queen Victoria had bestowed that honour already, 180 years' ago.
I'm a small town boy (or girl)
, which is bravely binary of the BBC; none of that pandering to the special queers nonsense here. But I thought the laggards were treated a little harshly! (LOL)
This week's quiz of the week ended with a question on the UK following the Dutch lead in banning nitrous oxide, or laughing gas
, for recreational use. It can also be used for whipping cream, of all things, which is how last September's village idiots get their punishment. Or pleasure; it takes all sorts. (shrug)
This week's quiz finished off with a question on the BBC Proms: Pop star Self Esteem was included in the line-up for this year's BBC Proms. But which children's TV show also has two slots in the eight-week classical music festival?
In keeping with my middle-of-the-middle-of-the-road form, I scored a none-too-prideworthy 5/7. But the category seems to be one more suited to catholic priests. (eek)
Len Goodman, head judge of Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars, died this week, and the BBC's quiz of the week honoured him with its final question. The categories' descriptions are three of his witticisms (apparently, I never watched the bloody shows myself).
I'm really not sure how the second is better than the third. (confused)
The death of Marvel Comics artist John Romita Sr, who worked on Spider-Man during his career at the comics publisher, was marked by three quotes from the webslinger's adventures. I'm not really a Spider-Man fan, and none of them were familiar to me. The only quote that springs to my mind would've been perfect for the top spot: with great power comes great responsibility.
It couldn't've been dropped because it didn't come from Peter himself, because the third one—which doesn't make sense, if you think about it too much—apparently didn't either.
Anyhow, one of the earlier questions concerned Ariana DeBose (who?) hosting the Tony Awards unscripted, due to the strike by the Writers Guild of America. One of the incorrect options actually related to Drew Barrymore's withdrawl from hosting the MTV Movie & TV Awards, in support of the strike, which must've come as some disappointment to both of the show's viewers. Still, it's nice to see that, as her career slips ever more into irrelevance, Barrymore no longer craves exposure as she once did; fawning over a man in a dress aside.
Celebrity deaths seem to be quite the thing for closing the BBC's quiz of the week. This week's ended with the passing of Tony Bennett. But that's not what made it remarkable, at least for me, because I knew about Bennett's death already, albeit not that his stage name had been given to him by Bob Hope.
No, what made it remarkable was what I'd learned from one of the earlier questions. The British Board of Film Classification has uprated the viewer classification of 1978's Watership Down from U to PG. But which of these reasons were not cited: bad language; mild violence; or sex references?
I've seen Watership Down, and I recall that some of the bunnies met a grisly end, so that's the mild violence checkbox ticked. And it's about rabbits, so sex, natch. By process of elimination, therefore, the one reason that couldn't've been cited by the BBFC is bad language.
Wrong! (exclamation)
It was sex references. The film, based on the eponymous novel by Richard Adams, tells the tale of a group of rabbits who leave their burrow in search of a new home, facing tragedy along the way. After being resubmitted, its rating was raised to "remain in step with societal standards", because of “mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language".
Bad language? Are they kidding? Back in those days, kids didn't even say arse
, let alone fuck
. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what societal standards
have slipped to if a 45-year-old child-friendly cartoon is now deemed to include language bad enough to require parental guidance. I think the BBFC must be a bunch of fragile poopyheads. Oh yes. (snowflake) (poop)
This week's BBC quiz of the week ended with a question on astronomy, hence the scores' categories. Now, we all know that Space Oddity was a '70s hit for David Bowie, and Lucky Star was by Madonna, back when she was interesting and relevant; but what about Waiting for a Star to Fall, released all the way back in 1988? That was by Boy Meets Girl, and I knew the answer without having to look it up. (proud)
The reason I didn't have to look it up is not because I love the song, nor am a die-hard fan of the duo. Quite the opposite. I couldn't stand it when it was being played to death on '80s radio, and I'd cheerfully forgotten it in the interim. But it was being played at a seaside fair when I visited the UK recently, and that's when I looked up the artist. [shakes fist]
A week of news that I barely paid attention to ends with a quiz result that speaks both to me and of me in equal measure: Supermassive Black Hole.
How apt.
Madonna opened her greatest hits Celebration Tour in London on Saturday, and with it this week's BBC quiz of the week. Performing four decades of songs, from her first album released in 1983 through to 2019, Borderline was not part of the set list.
Spoiler alert! That was the answer to the first question, by the way, if that wasn't clear enough from the 4–6 category description.
The tour has met with wild enthusiasm from her fans—are they still called wannabes?*—with several venues adding extra dates to cope with the demand for tickets. Those old-timey hits are certainly popular; the split across her career being decidedly front-ended.
* It'd be sad if they were, they're middle-aged now.
This week's BBC News quiz ends, as is so often the case, with a celebrity death. This time, it's that of Glynis Johns, and the category descriptions all refer to her stage hit, Send in the Clowns.
Perhaps it's happenstance. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But perhaps the BBC quiz droid agrees with me that the song should have ended with the fools present.
This week's quiz started with a hero, and ended with an antihero.
Russ Cook cemented his claim as Hardest Geezer
by running the length of Africa in 352 days, raising over £700,000 for charity. Then pretty much uncemented it by celebrating with a strawberry daiquiri.
Would you like a boyfriend to go with that, Russ?
The final question concerned the upcoming Joker: Folie à Deux, and the final score categories come from some of the character's lines over the years. Mine references a joke from the great Bob Monkhouse. Although he got a better reaction than Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck, it's probably because his version was pithier:
People used to laugh at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they're not laughing now, are they?
Bob Monkhouse
Joker would do well to remember it's the delivery that matters in comedy.
The second question in this week's quiz concerned the announcement of the UK's first fully blind overseas ambassador, asking to which country she was being posted: Serbia; Slovakia; or Slovenia? I couldn't help but think the second and third choices were part of an unintentionally cruel joke, confusing the names of two countries that differ by only two letters for someone who's visually impaired. But then if she's truly blind, it wouldn't matter anyway.
Nevertheless, I guessed wrongly: she has to become fluent in Slovene by summer. Welp!
It was the answer to the fifth question that truly floored me though. Concerning the selection of an impartial jury to hear the Orangeman's criminal trial, one potential juror was excused for making social media posts expressing amorous thoughts about the outspokenly liberal actor
, the actor in question being Mark Ruffalo, of all people. I realise there's a paraphilia for seemingly anything these days, and even as a heterosexual man I can understand the attractiveness of certain male celebrities.
But Mark Ruffalo FFS? Come on! That's just wrong on so many levels. (SMH)