I’ve been called a lot of names this week. That’s not news. I’m called a lot of names most weeks, but this was different as it was largely down to the difficulty of the Competition With No Name.
Yeah, it was tough, but you can blame my colleague Rob for that as he got the first draft of too easily and enraged by the sight of his smug face, I made it much tougher than it had been. The answers, complete with flimsy explanation are as follows:
#1 It’s Smith And Jones. In particular, I was looking for Smith’s first name, which is Mel. The next picture is Matt ‘Handsome Devil’ Damon who is probably now best known as Jason Bourne. Picture three is somehow a politician, Boris Johnson. That was the reddest of red herrings however as I was after the name of the famous pub in the background, which is the Old Vic or the ‘Vic’ as I’m sure I can remember many a bad actor call it in a worse cockney accent. That last one is Winston Churchill and it’s a double clue. He was a Tory and he’s doing the V for Victory sign.
Stick them altogether and you get Melbourne Victory.
#2 Picture one is the Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, California. You don’t really need to know that because I was using merely to highlight it’s extreme gradient, which some would call ‘steep’. The next one is a magazine cover featuring Elle ‘the slightly more wrinkly body than it was’ McPherson. That last picture is a ‘chase’.
That should have got you to Steeplechase.
#3 You needed a bizarrely good knowledge of random geordies and Jewish relgious rites. I would imagine the Venn diagram of people that applies to has a tiny cross section.
First up, that’s Donna Air – remember the Air part. That’s Richard Branson. To some he’s a Dick, but I reckon he’s really good friends call him ‘Rick’. That weird rabbi/scissors/baby combo refers to the Jewish covenant of circumcision also know as a ‘Bris’. It’s far less divine, but the last picture is a car getting a ‘tow’.
Stitch them together (and use your imagination a bit) and you should have got Eric Bristow – the darts legend currently munching on koala balls in the jungle.
#4 I know I’ll get slated for this, but here goes.
The first part is kind of a red herring. That’s Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, but specifically, the Green Monster which is a famous 11 metre high wall at the stadium. The second picture is there to communicate the concept of a ‘lab’ and that last picture of a woman in a hammock on a sunny beach is an attempt to portray the notion of ‘ease’.
I you figured out what I was doing, then you should have got Wallabies. Sorry about that.
Number four was what tripped up lots of people. We got lots of people nailing three of the four, but only two people nailed it. They are MagnusLombard and KeenBean and because they were the only two people with a full house, they’ve agreed to split the £120 Free Bet down the middle and give them a £60 Free Bet each.
Well done lads, you’re both inspirational.
There may be more competition fun soon.
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I took a week off from wrecking your heads. I wish I had a better excuse, but in reality I was denying allegations from Jeremy Paxman that this was ‘a hugely popular and thoroughly researched quiz’. Regular quiz-players will recognise that for the lie it is, but you know how rumours get around.
Anyhoo, I’m back now and so is The Competition With No Name. If you haven’t played before, don’t let the lack of a catchy title put you off.
It’s simple. Well, not simple, more ‘easy to understand’. Each of the images below roughly corresponds with a syllable that makes up part of a name or phrase associated with the world of sport. Your job is to decipher the vaguely cryptic clues, string them together and give me the four answers I was trying to communicate. I would say this week is quite tricky, but you can blame Rob for that as I ran a few clues by him and he got them too easily. Feel free to troll him on the internet.
Don’t worry if you have failing eyesight, if you click on the image, you’ll see a bigger version.
Competition
Send your answer to competitions@paddypower.com with the subject line ‘Let us once again dice with cryptic death’. Or don’t, it doesn’t really make any difference to your entry.
DON’T PUT YOUR ANSWERS IN THE COMMENTS SECTION – you’ll only be helping an opponent and giving me license to take the piss out of you. You’re allowed more than one guess, but please note that only your most recent guess will count. So if you happened to get four out of four first time out, then have a rethink and only get three out of four – tough noodles – that one is gonna count.
As I skipped last week, I’ve got prize budget coming out my ears. This week’s edition is for a BUMPER £/E100 Free Bet. But that’s not all. The prize will grow by one euro or pound for every time this tweet gets retweeted:
Your knowledge & luck could land you a £/€100+ Free Bet for winning this quiz – pdy.pr/WaQZDY Retweet to increase the prize ; )—
Paddy Power Blog (@paddypowerblog) November 13, 2012
Or every time this competition gets shared on Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn. That should boost the fund rather substantially and you might win that prize, so you should definitely do it. In the event we get more than one person with all four correct answers, the winner shall be drawn from my hat of mystery.
Get your answers in before 10am on Tuesday November 20 and I’ll announce the winner soon after. You can use the comments section for begging for clues or general observations on life, but NO ANSWERS please. If you want to contact me, you can do so using the Twitter machine where I’m @PaddyPowerAidan.
Conditions
- Customers must be over the age of 18, have a valid paddypower.com account and remember Paxo from his long-haired hippy days on the BBC Breakfast News.
– Maximum size of the free bet will be €/£150.
- Paddy Power decision is final and moaning will be gleefully ridiculed in public.
I think I know number 3, but without actually knowing the woman’s name. Trying to figure out her name has now become more important than the competition itself. It’s now a game within a game – like the Crystal maze, but without a crap trip to a rock-climbing centre in Northumberland as the prize.
Ha ha!
Blame Rob elflaco. It was going to be much more straightforward until Rob figured it out too quickly.
Now I’m off the play my harmonica patronisingly.
Hi Aidan
Fairly sure on 2, optimistic with another, and all phalanges crossed for the last. Have I scraped into the hat or back to my drawing board of hope and creation?
Brilliant Magnus.
You may have been 85% confident, but you’re 100% right. You are the sole occupant of the hat right now.
Okay iv sent in my entry, but im probably completely wrong on 2 of them. But i did have logic behind the guesses (kinda)
Not completely wrong Dermot – I’d say you have two and a half. Or 2.5 if you’re a committed European. Have another go because it’s a sparsely populated hat at the moment.
Was the half from 2 or 4?
Sorry Dermo, that would constitute too big a clue!
I think you probably know which one is nearly on the money and which one isn’t. The one that is totally wrong is very wrong.
Oh god not another one……
do you get anything for not having a clue of any of them haha
Yes Max. You get a job in our marketing department.
Congrats.
haha thanks could do with a job!
4 is making my brain hurt! I’m pretty sure i have the other 3 though!
You will need the other one Ares21. The only consolation is it’s a very lonely hat, so it’s well worth your while putting in the effort to figure it out.
Bit of tweaking on my answer, any better?
Three out of four, Dermo. And I think it’s fair to give you a little non-clue guidance.
For the one you’re wrong on, you’re not only barking up the wrong tree, you’re not even in the right forest.
Not feeling very confident on a couple of them. How close am I to giving Magnus some company in your hat?
You are at two and a half Keenbeen.
Nearly there on one and barking up the same wrong tree and forest as Dermo for the other.
Is that any better, or do I need to waste even more time in work?
I won’t talk out of wasting more time in work, KeenBeen, but it needn’t be on this quiz.
Well done, you’ve doubled the population of the hat.
Hi Aidan,
Did I make the hat?
Didn’t get your entry yet Giserv. Maybe try sending it again?
Hi Aidan,
Just re-sent – any good?
No4 has me well and truly beaten??????????
roll on 10:00….put me out of my misery
That was Donna Air?? Damn! Seems like I should have known that, given my near-religious devotion to watching MTV Select on the non-Richard Blackwood days.
I can only assume that MagnusLombard and KeenBeen have access to some sort of time-travelling cat like your man in Early Edition, because a couple of those were only guessable with access to the future/your brain. Reminds me of Karl Pilkington’s ‘guess the name of the musician’ competition in his XFM days….
you hit the nail on the head as ever elflaco.
Yeah, access to my brain would be helpful and if you don’t have that you’re struggling.
But then again, I’ve made no secret of my misspent youth watching MTV in an attempt to pretend I liked the crap music and in turn fit in with my peers, so at this stage you should know my influences. Anyone want to borrow my Eddie Temple Morris DVD box set?
Really, wallabies??? Mine was better i think, Boston bruins, cos the team is from Boston, the scientist is BREWing something up in the lab, and she’s IN a hammock. Mine makes more sense (not that im bitter about not winning or anything)
Sorry Dermo.
In fairness, there is a logic to your thought process. I hope that helps soothe the bitter pang of defeat.
It does, it always helps to have people humour my madness.
i now know who wrote the connections in 3 2 1