Answer on a general knowledge quiz.

Oh Gawd!

It's like a fairly recent edition of The Chase.

Q. Who was king during WW2?
A. Henry VIII

well if they had just said ohio i could sort of see the logic - mid west = central... bless

merlot that has just reminded me of a game of Trivial Pursuit when ds1 (now 35 ) was considered too young to play, but was allowed to read the questions. He asked a question, no one got the answer so asked what it was. The reply? "Henry Vill"

Another question that he read out was "which writer of Skiffy books..."

Took the players a few moments to realise the question was actually "which writer of sci fi books......."

I like skiffy books!

There are usually some great answers on 'Pointless'...one of my favourites was "name the historical figure who was 'assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas' "....the answer given was JR Ewing!

Also on "Pointless" which French military leader was born in 1769?
Answer Charles de Gaulle !!

Surely the most staggering answer (to the first question) was on American Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

Q. What is George W. Bush's first name?
A. Henry

How about 'Who wrote Handel's water music?'. A. Mozart.

Going back a few years on Family Fortunes.

Q. Name an ache.

One of the contestants quickly buzzed.....Fillet of Fish.

I just wonder why some people put themselves forward to enter a general knowledge quiz!

I just hate it when someone (possibly of the younger generation) gives the wrong answer to what is obviously common knowledge to me and the other half, and the other half immediately says - 'Everyone knows that!', Well, obviously, everyone does not! On the other hand we have absolutely no idea of the answers to some of the more modern questions, music, theatre, films, and these are on the tip of the younger peoples' tongues. Is a generation thing then?

I love quizzing. I watch all the programmes and play on line. But I would never put myself on a programme.
Do they do an interview with the contestant? And if they do, are you rejected if you answer too many questions.
I try to forgive younger people certain questions. But there are a lot of people ( of a certain age) who are quite frankly, dim.

Also on Family Fortunes when Les Dennis was in charge -

Les: Name something you wave

Contestant: - a Mexican

Not dim, ignorant. I do OK until they get onto football, pop music after 1980, soaps, celebrities.......That's why I like Pointless, you can know several answers but still have to pick the one that will score least. A lot of the quizzes with multiple choice answers depend on luck anyway.

I suspect many of us are the same - we would do well on literature, poetry, history, geography, possibly science, but we would fail miserably on popular culture. When I was in a quiz team, we always had a youngster and a sports fanatic on our side!

I remember on an old episode of Coach Trip, one female contestant, who wasn't a youngster, got into an argument with a fellow contestant. The gist of this row was that whilst travelling through Europe on this coach journey, she had no idea where any of the places they visited were in proximity to Britain, or indeed where they were located in mainland Europe, or anything about the language/food/culture of that country. When challenged about her obvious level of ignorance, her argument was that when she went on holiday it didn't matter that she didn't no where she was going "because that was the pilot's job". I find it puzzling that anyone would want to visit a different part of the world, or for that matter part of our own country and not want to know anything about it.

I loved that programme, because it showed so much of Europe, but I felt sorry for poor Brendan. He said that no matter where he took some of them, all they wanted to do was booze. They were often rude to people showing them round and he was obviously embarrassed for them.

People do get strange ideas - I had a long argument once with a woman friend who was convinced that the earth is bio-luminescent. She said she had seen it shining in pictures from the space station. I asked her what she thought happened at night - did somebody switch off the light?

I don't think it is a question of education - I am afraid teachers fare very badly sometimes! I expect many of us older people got a great deal of information from wide reading and, of course, on the history questions we often remember events happening.

Yeah Greatnan, I felt sorry for Brendan too.

My son has related several stories about some very young colleagues in the clothes shop where he has worked since A levels and university. One girl in particular never ceased to amaze, she actually believed the moon and the sun are one and the same, and in another conversation she said to him "have you heard about that Hitler bloke, it's awful what he's doing, someone should stop him!" He tells me that this comment was not tongue in cheek!

I had a friend who visited Paris for a week and when she came back complained about the food. Thinking she had tried some strange French recipe I asked her what the problem was - she said she had problems finding a restaurant that sold fish and chips and couldn't find a McDonalds! (this was some years ago before they took over the world)

We were in Paris this time last year , and found there was A "SUBWAY",
we were quite astonished !!

PS , the sandwich bar , by the way !!

Your posts are so funny. I'm weeping with laughter!

I worked with a young girl who said things I could scarcely believe. She asked someone one day which sandwich they had bought from Subway today. The person said 'I had the manager's special'. She replied 'how come you were allowed to have that, you're not a manager'. !!!!

I love the expression on Jeremy Paxman's face when one of the teams gives an answer that is so, so wrong! He looks as if he has swallowed a turnip!
I can answer a lot of general knowledge questions myself, but I'm useless at questions about modern music and culture - though my granddaughters regard me as reasonably "cool"! I just love quizzes, the one place where I let my competitive side come to the fore (it's usually having a nap under a duvet somewhere).