LVP travel around the world!

Written by Cath Moyse - Tue 25th May 2021

The LVP 'Around the World' quiz gave us all a much needed chance to travel the world without polluting the environment or needing to worry about quarantining and vaccine passports, especially Celia who hadn't been on a plane since 1973!

The quiz wasn't restricted to Boris' list of 'green' destinations, but covered all seven continents. Questions were grouped by continent and ranged from geography, to politics and popular culture.

I learnt some interesting facts such as "Antarctica accounts for 9% of the world's landmass yet holds 90% of the world's fresh water", "Madagascar has 2000 species of animal which aren't found anywhere else in the world" and "Justin Bieber has been banned from China for offensive behaviour". Who knew that Antarctica has a working ATM? And that the ozone hole wasn't discovered until the 1980s!

The first round on Europe included a scavenger hunt for a foodstuff from Italy, the most popular being a bag of pasta. It is strange to think that this time last year supermarket shelves were empty and pasta couldn't be found for love nor money.

The Oceania scavenger hunt produced bottles of wine, a can of Fosters, a kiwi fruit, a scarf displaying the Australian flag and an Australian bottle brush plant. But the most interesting item was an Australian miner's licence belonging to John's great grandfather giving him the rights to dig for gold.

In typical British fashion the first few minutes before the quiz started were spent discussing the weather (cold, wet and windy) so the Antarctic scavenger hunt was a welcome chance to don hats, gloves and scarfs.

The Africa round tested our artistic skills as we had 30 seconds to draw three African animals. My first drawing was a quite detailed giraffe, but with time running out I quickly scribbled a strange looking elephant and a snake. I think snakes were very popular!

In the Asia round we had to write down as many of the 48 countries in Asia and the Middle East as we could in 45 seconds. I managed 16, but should have concentrated on the shorter names instead of trying to spell Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In a similar question in the final round we had to list as many of the 45 US presidents as we could in 45 seconds. I managed 12 but stupidly forgot Obama and trump (even though they only had five letters each).

One question which seemed to flummox most people was the international airport in South America with the code EZE (the answer was Ministro Pistarini airport in Ezeiza near Buenos Aires).

After the first four rounds I was surprised to find myself in the lead with 34 points (one point ahead of Sarah and Simon). Amazingly I managed to maintain my one point lead, finishing with 55 points. Sarah and Simon were second with 54 points and Martin third with 52.

The evening finished with a singalong to two world-themed songs: Status Quo's "Rocking all over the World" and "Top of the World" by the Carpenters.

Thanks very much to Julia for organising another entertaining evening. Hopefully it won't be long before we can start having face-to-face social events again.

If you would like to find out more about joining LVP click here for more information.