Dr Paul

05/11/2025

Getting it warm at the Eastway

Feeling the chill? That calls for a mulled wine!

05/11/2025

Winning teams and jackpots/rollovers from last night's quizzes:

05/11/2025

https://youtube.com/shorts/sXZI8mfiZNA

Five quick questions from last night's picture round at the Safari Lounge. Topics include Queens and Pantomimes, Clowns and cats, languages and boy bands. Le...

05/11/2025

People are from all over.

Londoners, Geordies, Germans, Ukrainians, Americans, Canadians, Finns, Frenchies, Aussies and South Africans, Chileans and Kazakhs - They all come to the quiz on a regular basis.

Remember to be NICE to foreigners. You’re representing Edinburgh. You’re representing Scotland.
Not that I need to say this. You lot are pretty nice.

But occasionally, very occasionally, someone gets booed at a quiz, just for being English or American.
Imagine how crappy that would feel.

Imagine you went somewhere on holiday and you went into a pub and you took part in a quiz and then you got booed for being Scottish. Yuk. Nasty.

For sure, the people doing the booing would always say “Oh - it’s not serious - just banter”. OK -but how are you supposed to know that if you’re the one getting booed? how do you know it’s not a precursor to something even more hostile?

As Scottish people, we love to tell ourselves how hospitable we are. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all lived up to it?

See you tonight!

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6 pm – The Joker & The Thief (with me)
Jackpot – £30
Free answer - PICTURE round: "LIGHTNING"
Book: 0131 556 3274 or Facebook
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6 pm – Oz Bar (with Stuart F)
Jackpot – £30
Free answer - PICTURE round: "METATARSALS"
Book: 0131 259 6295 or Facebook
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7 pm – Ship Inn, Musselburgh (with Barry)
Jackpot – £60
Free answer - PICTURE round: "LIBERAL DEMOCRATS"
Book: 0131 665 2642 or Facebook
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8 pm – West Port Oracle (with Stuart F)
Jackpot – £30
Free answer - PICTURE round: "SEATTLE"
Book: 0131 283 1960 or Facebook
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8.30 pm – Brass Monkey Shore (with me)
Jackpot – £50
Free answer - MUSIC round: "HALL & OATES"
Book: 0131 555 7306 or Facebook
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With quiz and love,
Dr Paul

04/11/2025

Saint Andrews United seating area. For home or away fans. No segregation.

04/11/2025

You want to win quizzes? Being parents. Multi generational teams are always the best.

04/11/2025

There was a team of proper teuchters in from the Western Isles last night. They called themselves “Steòrnabhagh” which is Gaelic for Stornoway.

I made a mild jibe after the first round about their eight points being the highest ever score by a team from the Western Isles… and still four rounds to go!

Then the reason they only got 8/10 came to light when they asked why they didn’t get full marks. An investigation ensued and it soon became clear what had happened.

For the last question the answer was “Alfred Hitchcock” and the older fella told the younger fella to write down “Alfred Hitchcock” but, between dodgy ears and the vast amount of shots they were chucking down their necks, the younger one heard that as “African Hedgehog” - and that’s what he wrote.

After finding this out, I gave them the points. After all, quizzing in a second language is not always easy.

Anyway, here are tonight’s quizzes:

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6 pm – Old Eastway Tap (with Manet)
Jackpot – £30
Free answer - PICTURE round: "PINK FLOYD"
Book: 0131 259 3495 or Facebook
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6.30 pm – Brass Monkey Gorgie (with me)
Jackpot – £50
Free answer - MUSIC round: "PET SHOP BOYS"
Book: 0131 327 0543 or message their Instagram
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6.30 pm – Porty Tap (with Isla)
Jackpot – £30
Free answer - PICTURE round: "WIMBLEDON"
Book: 0131 629 6266 or Facebook
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8 pm – Waverley (with Alan)
Jackpot – £60
Free answer - PICTURE round: "EGYPT"
Book: 0131 557 9855 or Facebook
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8 pm – Gilded Saloon (with Dee)
Jackpot – £150
Free answer - PICTURE round: "ELECTROLUX"
Book: Opentable
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9 pm - Safari Lounge (with me)
Jackpot – £30
Free answer: PICTURE round: "DICK WHITTINGTON"
Book: 0131 661 4741 or Facebook
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With quiz and love,
Dr Paul

04/11/2025

Fictional dogs and the timeline of toplessness.

03/11/2025

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QUIZ NEWS - Start time for Meadowpark tonight in Bridge of Allan (Stirling) has been tweaked to 7pm. Get along! Try it out!
==============

Hey. It’s November, but what does that mean?
If you know anything about Latin roots you know that the string of months we’re in has roots with the following meanings:

Sept - Seven
Oct - Eight
Nov - Nine
Dec - Ten

But why don’t the numbers match the number of months? Why is this the eleventh month and not the ninth?
It comes from the old Roman calendar where the year started in March and only had ten months.
This ten-month calendar ran: March, April, May, Juno, Quintilis (which became July), Sextilis (which became August), September, October, November, December

The rest of the year was just “Winter”. The calendar has gone through a lot since then, Republican, Julian, and Gregorian (you are here).

That’s without mentioning parts of the world that use different standards, ie.e places where it is not 2025.

When I lived in Greece I met some monks at an obscure monastery you that can’t reach by road. We had to walk over the mountain to get there and once there we found that they still use the Julian calendar because they don’t like the idea of the new calendar (that’s the “new” one that’s been around since 1582).

Elsewhere, it’s the year 1447 on the Islamic calendar, 1404 on the Persian, 1947 on the Indian National Calendar and the year 5786 on the Hebrew.

Most countries now use the Gregorian (the “normal” calendar). Exceptions include Ethiopia, Nepal, Afghanistan and Iran.

But I’m sure they’ll catch up eventually.

Anyway, here are the quizzes tonight:
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6.30pm – Brass Monkey Leith Walk (with me)
Jackpot – £50
Free answer - PICTURE round: "MONEY PLANT"
Book: 0131 554 5286 or Facebook or the Monkey's online booking system
============
7 pm – Meadowpark (with Dee)
Jackpot – £30
Free answer - PICTURE round: "MALACHITE"
Book: 01786 834084
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8 pm - Amber Rose (with Alan)
Jackpot – £50
Free answer: PICTURE round : "VENICE"
Book: 0131 226 1224 or Facebook
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8 pm - Ryan’s Bar (with Manet)
Jackpot – £100
Free answer: PICTURE round : "CHAMELEON"
Book: 0131 226 1224 or Facebook
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9 pm – Brass Monkey Drummond St (with me)
Jackpot – £50
Free answer - MUSIC round: "DESMOND DEKKER"
No bookings but you can call the pub for info: - 0131 556 1961
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9 pm - Brass Monkey Grange (with Bonni)
Jackpot – £250
Free answer: PICTURE round : "OBSERVATORY"
Book: 0131 667 2335 or Facebook
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With quiz and love,
Dr Paul














Street

03/11/2025

Two quick questions presented against a backdrop of housing in Fife, and including a recommendation for a cover version of history's greatest gobbledygook pop song.

03/11/2025

Wikipedia Sentence of the Day reached at 08:44:

"Many fishing fleet owners objected to the posting of gale warnings, which required that fleets not leave the ports. "

Basically sums up the "f**k you" element of capitalism.

This is from Victorian times. Robert FitzRoy (Former captain of The Beagle and Governor of New Zealand) had worked on creating weather forecasts and installing barometers in fishing harbours around Britain.

Main ports now had a signalling system of cones which indicated when a gale was forecast and going out of port was not recommended.

Obviously, this had saved a lot of lives, but fleet owners were more concerned about these warnings leading to inactivity and thus cutting into their profits.

If those fleet owners of yesterday had the language of today, they would probably label weather forecasts and gale warnings as "woke".

They'd rather get rid of the warnings and have you, the boat crew, take your chances.

The owners have not changed. If you die, they don't give a f**k. If their profit is cut, they cry.

Still true.

PS - how it worked out (from the same Wiki article):

"Under this pressure, FitzRoy's system was abandoned for a short time after his death. The fishing fleet owners reckoned without the pressure of the fishermen, for whom FitzRoy had been a hero responsible for saving many lives. The system was eventually reinstated in simplified form in 1874"

So, you CAN get better conditions and a lower likelihood of dying at work. But you have to make sure you fight for it.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_FitzRoy