En Passant: I’m knocked down a peg

YOU KNOW WHAT: you’re never as smart as you think you are. I think I have a reasonable general knowledge, but a random trivia quiz of just 10 questions proved I’m pretty dumb.

The quiz was in a popular magazine, and anyone who thinks they’re smart (like me, for example) cannot resist a trivia quiz, because we expect it will confirm our opinions of ourselves. Boy, was I shot down!

I started well. Question 1: According to the idiom, how many lives does a cat have?

Easy, hey? Nine, right? Don’t ask me why it’s nine, and who decided it was nine, or sat around researching the question. It’s now generally accepted that a cat has nine lives. OK, next question.

2: Who is the wife of musician Jamie Cullum? Who the heck is Jamie Cullum? might be a more pertinent question. I dunno; never heard of him let alone of his wife.

You see, I have already decided that all the music that I ever want to listen to for the rest of my life, has already been written and performed. Nope, next question, please.

OK, question 3: What is an ice hockey puck made from? Good question. I have never ever handled an ice hockey puck. You don’t have that many opportunities in Vryheid. My guess – hardened rubber maybe?

Question 4; In what manner do you play according to the musical direction “allegro”? Answer: fast. Next question.

5: How many squares are there on a chess board? Now this is interesting. I’ve never played chess but I have played draughts or checkers so I know it’s 64. But more than that, I remember the tale about a Persian king (at least I think he was Persian) who wanted to reward the inventor of chess, and the king said, Name your reward, and the inventor said, OK, take the chess board and on the first square put one grain of wheat (or it may have been rice), and on the second square two grains, and on the third four grains, and on the forth eight, etc etc, doubling up the number – 8, 16, 32, 64 etc – for the whole 64 squares.

And the king said, No problem, Sunshine, let it be done, and it turns out that the the world has yet to produce enough wheat to complete the number on the 64th square.

Question 6: Which two ingredients are mixed to create a ganache? A what? A ganache. I have no idea. I presume it’s a food since they say “ingredients”, but it might be a form of pig iron for all I know.

Question 7: In the Stephen King short story, what are the creatures that eat time? Mmmm… what about AbaQulusi municipal councillors? They can sit down for a meeting and whole mornings disappear. I don’t suppose I’m right but I have never read a Stephen King book, nope, not one.

Nor, sad to say, have I read a Henning Mankell novel, which is a pity because question 8 is: Which fictional police inspector was created by crime writer Henning Mankell?

Question 9: Which singer, and later a US congressman, had a number one hit song in both the US and UK charts? I have got no idea. In fact, I doubt I could name you half a dozen US congressmen (unless they later became president) let alone one that sang. The only one I can immediately think of who was once in the entertainment industry would be old Ronnie Reagan and I’m not sure old Ron could sing. I dunno.

OK, last question, question 10: Which island country has the greatest number of snake bite fatalities each year?

This is ambiguous. Do they mean which island country of all the island countries has the most fatalities, or do they mean which country, which happens to be an island, has the most fatalities?

I dunno. OK, so first of all you need some poisonous snakes and an island country, so forget Africa and Europe, and there ain’t no island states in North or South America, and as far as I know the West Indies don’t have a reputation for harbouring vast numbers (if any) of poisonous snakes.

Nope, my guess would be in the far east, but many of the countries there consist of many islands – the Phillipines, Indonesia for example. About the only country in that area that is comprised of one major island, that I can think of, is Sri Lanka, once called Ceylon. That would be my guess.

OK, that’s 10 trivia questions. How did I do?

The answers are: 1. Nine 2. Sophie Dahl 3. Rubber 4. Fast 5. 64 6. Chocolate and cream 7 The Langoliers 8 Kurt Wallander 9 Sonny Bono 10. Sri Lanka

So I got five out of 10. Not so clever after all.