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British Champions

Flitwick Grand Prix: 06.08.11 : Results

WQC in Bangladesh

For the third year running quizzers gathered at the 'Future Group' premises in Dhaka to take part in the World Quizzing Championships. The venue was supervised by Mr Aneek R Haque (he's the smiling guy in the red shirt and glasses appearing in half of the images appended below).

As the Bangladeshi iQa group posting on Facebook reported...

"... We had an absolutely wonderful day and we are all so proud of you! ... We thank Aneek Bhai for being at his best form that evening. I personally thank Zafir and all the teammates for all the dedication and effort. ... Despite the political instability 84 Quizzers Participated. For the first time, two Quizzers scored three figures!

Ahmed Fayezi-Bin-Saad, the top scorer of 2009 came back strongly with 117 points! He secured 148th position in the Global Ranking and 15th in the Under 30 Category worldwide! This is the first time any Bangladeshi made it to Top 150. Overall scores have been incredible! We all are so proud of you!

The Nation score of Bangladesh is 312 and we have achieved the 18th position! We have left behind countries like Hungary, Singapore, Russia, Sri Lanka and 10 more countries! Take a bow Quizzers! ..."

Well, our friends in Dhaka obviously enjoyed themselves - as can be seen in some of these images - reproduced with the kind premission of Mir Shahrukh Islam.

WQC in Lithuania

Almost 60 Lithuanians took part in this year's World Quizzing Championships. The website of the iQa in Lithuania carries images of their contestants in two venues, a bar in Vilnius and a bookshop-cafe in Panevėžyje. ENJOY.

Quizzers in Vilnius

Quizzers in Panevėžyje

Top Lithuanian, Aidas Puklevicius.

Pat Gibson retains World crown!

There were 1,483 competitors in total for the 2011 World Quizzing Championships on Saturday 4 June (a better than 25% increase over 2010), results of top 200 follow (blue bold = age 20 and under, blue = 30 and under, green 60 and over, bold green = 70 and over).

Mahaquizzer 2011

Thanks to everyone who came and made this a success at our UK venue - and to Rolleston Club for hosting us (and feeding us so well), and thanks of course to the BRILLIANT setters in India. Here are the UK scores... (main score followed by scores for one and two-star tiebreakers)

95/5/5 Pat Gibson
69/4/3 Iwan Thomas
65/2/2 Chris Jones
64/3/3 Barry Simmons
63/4/3 Diane Hallagan
62/1/4 Scott Dawson
61/2/2 Martin Croke
57/1/1 Gareth Kingston

And congratulations to everybody who finished in the Top 10 :)

Ian Bayley is BBC Mastermind

One of the stalwarts of the Grand Prix quiz circuit, joined by three friends in the final (Diane Hallagan, Julia Hobbs and Paul Steeples) was officially crowned with the BBC Mastermind title in the final broadcast of the 2011 series. We wish him well and bow down at his completion of a Brain of Britain and Mastermind double!


Recorded as long ago as October 2010, Ian Bayley's triumph was somewhat overdue - especially when you also have regard to the fact he first made the final of the competition in 2008, on that occasion only losing narrowly to Nancy Dickman. Ian's triumph will be so warmly welcomed in the UK quiz community (and wider) in light of the fact he is so well liked and respected. A UK Order of Merit Grand Master and England international, a former holder of the Brain of Britain title and dubbed 'the Machine' for his uncanny speed in buzzer quizzes, there's scarcely anyone more worthy of the title 'Mastermind'.

Congratulations and commisserations also to the gallant five who joined Ian in the final. All proved themselves worthy of their place. Special warm regards to Diane Hllagan, Julia Hobbs, and to Paul Steeples, whose blistering 18 in the General Knowledge round meant that for most of the second half of the quiz, his was the score to beat.

And finally, a thank-you to the BBC production staff, everyone involved in the preparation of questions, and of course all the 'Contenders', for once again serving us up with another fabulous season of quizzes. Here's to the next series, which begins shooting soon!

UK's 'Euro-style' results from Norway Open

These second set of UK results show the position when all 40 questions per genre count for full marks (i.e. as oposed to the standard UK version wherein a genre is 30 standard value questions plus 10 tiebreaks worth 0.1 mark each).

Quizzing.co.uk is back!

I'm delighted to report that the quizzing.co.uk website, under the guise of the official British Quizzing Association website is now back up and online.

You'll find LOTS of new features on the site:

- Games! There are FOUR games to play on the site. Two are played on your own and two allow you to compete against each other.

- Online Quiz Leagues! Playing the games will earn you points towards the online leagues. You have 20 playing days each month and you can choose when those are (the remaining days are training days that don't count towards your ranking). You get four FREE games every day with paid members getting an additional four games per day. Annual membership works out at as little as 3p per extra game.

- Friends! The new site works a little bit like Facebook. You can have friends on the site and will be told when they are online and you will be able to chat to them too.

- Profiles! Your profile allows you to add information about yourself and a picture.

- Stats! Your profile will also hold information on how you're doing when you play the online games. You'll be able to see which subjects you’re strongest and weakest in at a glance.

- Questions! You will also be able to submit questions for everyone to play and you'll be able to discuss and amend questions too. The questions get graded for difficulty based on how many people answer them correctly too.

- Tournaments! Once you've had chance to familiarise yourself with the site, we'll be holding online tournaments too :)

So hopefully this gives you some idea about what the new site can do, and of course, most of the old stuff is still there too. Have a play around with it and please bear in mind that we still have a bit of work to do, so we know that some bits are still in German. The functionality is all there, and so we just didn't want to keep you out any longer!

The odd account from the old site has been lost when we moved the data over, and doubtless many of you will have forgotten your passwords. But worry not, if you can recall your user name (you could always browse the site to spot one of your old posts for a reminder) you'll be OK, just go through the login process and the site will help you create a new password - sending you a reminder to the mailbox you created your initial account with. If all else fails, just create a new account.

Have fun!


You can access the site HERE.

Clockwork Quiz, Leuven

This year's annual Clockwork quiz will be on May 21st at 20.00 in the usual venue (Achturenhuis, Leuven). During the Saturday afternoon (14.30 onwards) there will be a pairs "trash" quiz.

Those quizzers traveling to Belgium on Friday can look forward to an evening's entertainment in the Cafe Amedee, with quizzing provided by our 'Clockwork' friends.

If you've never been to Leuven for one of these quiz weekends then, my friend, you've been missing a real treat. If I don't attend myself in 2011 it will only be for lack of sufficient funds.

2011 Quizzing Grand Prix Schedule/Venues

5 Feb: Bristol, Cotham Parish Church Hall. Cotham Road, BS6 6DR (see also previous post)

5 March: Duston, St Crispin’s Social Club, Berrywood Road, Duston, Northampton, NN5 6XA

2 April [Norway Open]: TBA (considering Burton-on-Trent and Hednesford Town FC, nr. Cannock)

7 May: Altofts, Lee Brig WMC, 1 St Mary's Rd, Normanton WF6 2JH

4 June [WQC]: TBA (considering Burton-on-Trent and Hednesford Town FC, nr. Cannock)

2 July: Kent, The Vines, Victoria Street, Rochester, ME1 1XN

6 August: Flitwick, Village Hall, Dunstable Road, Flitwick MK45 1HP

3 Sept [BQC]: TBA

1 October: Rainhill, St Ann's Millennium Centre, Prescot, Merseyside L35 0LE

4-6 Nov [EQC]: Brugges http://www.eqc2011.be/site/championship

3 Dec: TBA

Rothwell Grand Prix Team Quiz (Amended)

The three-way tie for first place saw a member of each team involved invited-up to see which of them was quickest to identify a character from opera - while listening to an audio excerpt. The tiebreak was won by Pat Gibson for Team 1.