Quiz World Cup

For the past few weeks, I’ve been competing in the Quiz World Cup run by Quizzing.tv. This is a competition run from the UK but involving, initially, 80 teams from 24 countries. Our team, Kiwiz, is run by our quizmaster at The Old Bailey, where we go quizzing weekly. This year, he invited me to join his team. It’s the only team from New Zealand, so I am, in a totally informal way, representing the country.

The quiz is run via Zoom, on the weekend, at a time agreed between the teams. The time differences make it a bit of a challenge for little ol’ New Zillund, especially when we compete against USA teams. The format includes individual rounds as well as team rounds. We’re sent the round subjects 20 minutes in advance, but they’re usually pretty vague (“Science” or “Lakes”, for example) so it’s not possible to try and Google answers before you begin…memorise all of Science in 20 minutes! Obviously, Googling or getting any other assistance during the quiz is a no-no – it was widely suspected that one competitor was using his phone, so we now have a rule that hands must be visible at all times!

The first round was a group stage – 16 groups of five teams each. The top two teams in each then graduated to the next group stage, so last 32. These were 8 groups with four teams. We came second in our first round group, so qualified for the next stage (losers go into a series of “rosette” competitions so final rankings can be determined). Some of these teams contain the best quizzers from their countries: in round 2 we found ourselves up against Scotland B, which includes Anne Hegerty (The Governess from The Chase). We lost by one point against them so picked up a bonus point there. We won the rest of our matches, including against Quiz Van Der Rohe, a German team which includes one of the German Chasers known as The Quiz Volcano from their version of The Chase,  Gefragt – Gejagt. So one-all on Chasers faced! Not bad, eh?

We’re now in the final 16, which is quite an achievement in itself. We’ll be playing another American team, The Zoomtown Rats, who apparently include America’s best quizzer (he’s won over $1m on Jeopardy!, and also is ranked #2 in the world), this weekend. Wish us luck!

Sponsorship

As you may or may not know, my employer, ANZ National Bank, is a major sponsor of sport in New Zealand. With the National Bank brand, they sponsor the Black Caps, New Zealand's cricket team. As ANZ, they sponsor netball, and more recently, the Rugby World Cup and the New Zealand Olympic team. As part of the sponsorship deal, they run competitions for customers and members of the public. Staff are usually precluding from entering these competitions, so they also run internal competitions exclusively for staff, through the Staff Supporters Club.

As the build-up to the Olympics began in June, the official sponsorship deal was revealed, and a number of competitions unveiled. Prizes included travel to the UK and tickets to the Olympics, but there were also other competitions, with other prizes. I entered one of these, and thought no more of it...until Monday, when I received a phone call telling me that I was one of four winners in New Zealand for this particular competition: A new 42" HD 3D LED television, and a party pack so I can host a party, in time for the rowing finals on Friday night (at which New Zealand are expected to do well).

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and faffing about (the details of which I won't bore you with) it was delivered this afternoon, and I set it up earlier this evening. It has the wifi's. It has the bigger GBs (careful - contains swearies). It can Facebook, and Quikflix, and Skype - so we'll be able to Skype you from our sofa, like Lord & Lady Muck (once I get a camera installed - probably this weekend). So those dinosaurs out there (you know who you are) who haven't set up Skype yet: get cracking! And we'll see you on a TV near us soon!

It looks like this:

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