Still offline, I’ve been wandering in the wasteland that is the wit and wisdom of Magic 105.4 radio (a region we’ve visited previously).
Currently, they’re running a phone-in competition, a general knowledge quiz, with the potential for winning £20,000, so you might expect sensible questions. Ha!
A question just asked – How many dots are there on a standard dial? What dial? Speedometer? Telephone? Sundial? Braille clock? Buggered if I know. Anyway, it’s quite a while since phones had dials, so they’re out.
The answer, which a caller got right, was 21. How? How can anyone, other than by pure luck, get the answer to that question right? And yes, I have typed it exactly as read out over the air. I’ve also put the question to several other people, who asked the same question I did – what kind of dial?
I mean, really, what’s a standard dial anyway? If it comes to that, what’s a dot, in this specific context? Unfortunately I’m offline at present, so I can’t Google it. The only thing I have access to is Word’s Thesaurus, which has the vocabulary of a particularly dim 10-year-old (without it being able to go online). Even knowing the answer, I’m no wiser.
The caller who said 21 admitted to having looked it up but, based on the question, what did she look up? There just isn’t enough information. Mind you, with few exceptions the callers that I’ve heard are able to get right the questions they’re had a couple of hours to research online, but at the next question they crash in flames (the question is then carried over, giving people the chance to look it up. Sorry, that’s not testing general knowledge – the question should be binned, and the next session start with a new one. Otherwise all they’re testing is the ability of callers to use Google. One guy got his looked-up question right (barely), but displayed mind-boggling ignorance when, for his second question, he was asked to name the capital of Portugal.
Which brings me to another, log-standing bone of contention – why are people who call phone-in competitions, with very few exceptions, thick? If you are so goddamned dumb you don’t know the capital of England’s oldest ally then you really shouldn’t be calling a general knowledge quiz.
I think he said DIE you know, like a dice! What do you reckon? x
Dunno Fi – sounded like dial to me. Anyway, how many people know that die is an alternative form of dice?
Sorry to hear of the problems you’re having, but it is nice to have you back.
With regard to TV and radio phone in quizzes, I fear they attract a paticular kind of dimwit who, not realising the usually inane nature of the question, is suddenly propelled (in their mind) to genius status as they know the answer.
Ask them anything after that and the wheels usually come off!