I don't know if anyone here has ever watched the program Pointless. It's a quiz game where contestants have to come up with the most obscure answers to the questions asked. 100 people have been asked the same questions and the aim is to come up with an answer that as few as possible of the 100 people came up with. So for example if the contestant came up with an answer that 25 of the hundred came up with, they score 25 points. If none of the hundred came up with a correct answer that was given by the contestant then the contestant gets zero points (ie a Pointless answer). And that is the aim of the game, to get Pointless answers. Anyway enough of that crap. "Why are you posting this rubbish?" I hear you asking (that's assuming you got this far). Well I'll come to that in a moment. The topic of horse racing came up tonight and the questions were: 1. Unit of measurement used oin racing that equals and eigth of a mile 2. Became the first jump jockey to achieve 4000 wins in November 2013 3. Horse which won the Grand National in 1973, 1974 and 1977 4. Year in which Denman beat Kauto Star to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup 5. Name the horse which retired in 2012 with an unbeaten 14 wins OK so the grammar may be a bit dodgy but we know what they meant Now, just to prove how popular horse racing is, here are the number of points that would have been scored for each (remember the lower the score, the more obscure is the answer) 1. 62 2. 16 3. 72 4. 2 5. 6 6 people out of 100 knew the answer to No 5 Only 16 people knew about A P McCoy's achievement Who were they asking? It's not called Pointless for nothing.
I do watch this sometimes, and what gets ME curious is where do they do these surveys? Presumably they don't ask the same 100 people every time - they couldn't, as the topics are wide and varied and some would be known more or less widely depending on the age of the surveyee. But I find the celebrity version a bit more entertaining - some celebs aren't famous for their intellect and there are plenty of cringe moments Being retired has it's drawbacks
Its amazing how many people will never forget the name Red Rum. During any quiz on TV if there is a racing question and they do not know the answer they just say Red Rum. Which horse did Sufferagette Emily Davison throw herself in front of during the Epsom Derby ? Red Rum Which horse won the 1980 Derby by 10 lengths ? Red Rum Over what distance is the Ascot Gold cup run? Red Rum
Ahem ............. if you mean Shergar it was 1981 (10 seconds slower than Henbit who won it in 1980 btw)
What alcohol goes best with Coca-Cola? Red Rum Which famous racehorse name featured in "The Shining"? Red Rum What is a baboon's most noticeable feature? Red Rump
I've seen racing related questions come up quite frequently on the show. In recent months: Name a winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup Name a post-war Epsom Derby winner Name a Grand National winning jockey Needless to say I'm usually yelling at the tv
Always amazes me on these quiz shows. Loads of the most obscure questions and they come up with the answers but give them the simplest of questions on horse racing and they haven't a clue.
I often wonder who they are surveying when I see some of the subjects where even what one might consider to be an obvious answer only scores a handful of points. The “name a country” ones are usually hilarious. There was one the other day about naming countries that had United Nations World Heritage sites and it was amazing the places in South America and Africa with World famous sites that scored zero points whilst the top three (i.e. worst) answers included the United States and Australia (which one of the contestants was stupid enough to say!). I think the people surveyed are just given thirty seconds and told to name as many as they can. At Wetherby the answer would be 200 yards; elsewhere it would probably be a furlong.
Watched that and I got all 5. Was completely sure about 4 of them but the Denman/Kauto Star one was a bit of deduction
I am going to take the five questions to some folks that I know and I predict they will get one right – the one that Emily Davison poured her Coca-Cola over. If any of them get two it will be because they will remember me rabbiting on about him a couple of years ago.
