David O'Doherty's Blog

Hello!

I mentioned this on the ISOLATING podcast today.

Here is a six round quiz you can do with your friends/family/frenemies in person or over the internet/WhatApp. The questions are mostly from the amazing Louise O’Connor and I wrote some of the less good ones. Please go on Twitter and say thanks to her. She’s @oconnola.

You can use this quiz but the only rule is that you have make a donation to a charity that is helping vulnerable people at this time. In Ireland, good ones are Alone or Age Action. Please find a similar one in your country/area. And if you could ask the people who are playing with you to do likewise.

It’s one point for a correct answer plus a bonus of two if you can get the link that ties each round together, so the whole quiz is out of 72 points. Sometimes it’s easier to figure out the link and work backwards to get the questions.

The way I did it with my family was to use the main O’Doherty family WhatsApp. There are forty people across three time zones on that. I told them we’d be having a quiz at 8pm Irish time and to form teams and nominate a captain. In the end there were six teams and they could converse with the rest of their team across video platforms. At 8pm I cut and pasted the questions from round one up on the WhatsApp and gave them 10 (more like 15mins really) for the team captains to get the answers back to me directly . Then we moved on to round two. There was a threat of excommunication from the family if anyone cheated.

I corrected them and my Dad did the scores while they were deliberating on the next round and it was one of the most fun nights of the pandemic so far!

Good luck with it and let’s all just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Let me know how it goes.

DO’D

ROUND ONE

1. Brazilian forward and politician Bebeto played for which northern Spanish club for four years in the 1990s?
2. What is the currency of Sweden?
3. Name the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber, and provides most the eye’s focusing power.
4. What is the scientific name for the family of birds that includes jackdaws, rooks, ravens and magpies amongst others?
5. What number appears directly opposite 1 on a standard dartboard?
6. What is the Internet country code top-level domain for Colombia?
7. In anatomy, by what name is the crown on the top of the head also known?
8. Which song on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan features a woman’s name twice?
9. Which brand regrettably launched its hard seltzer line in the USA in early 2020 with the tagline “coming ashore soon”?
10. Who is the lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?

ROUND TWO

1. According to singer Edwin Starr, what is good for absolutely nothing?
2. The Pub Landlord comedy character is played by whom?
3. A rock group, record label or film not belonging or affiliated to a major record or film company is known by what name?
4. ‘______snipe,’ is originally Wall Street slang for ‘streetcorner broker.’
5. Which 2020 Democratic presidential candidate was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana?
6. What was Spike Lee’s film about murderer David Berkowitz?
7. Which international football team played with the letters CCCP on their shirts?
8. What was Lewis Carroll’s sequel to Alice in Wonderland?
9. In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, what is the name of the Imperial troop transporter/combat vehicles that defend the ice planet Hoth?
10. French duo Air had a hit with ‘Kellie Watch ___ _____’ in 1998?

ROUND THREE

1. Ursula Andress appeared as Honey Ryder in which James Bond film?
2. After Romeo and Juliet, which character has the third most lines in the eponymous play? We never actually learn this person’s given name.
3. What 1994 Robert Altman film was shot on location during Paris Fashion Week?
4. Otto Octavius is the real name of which myopic enemy of Spider-Man?
5. Louise Fletcher won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of which character, the antagonist of a character played by Jack Nicholson?
6. An 1886 book by Robert Louis Stevenson investigates the dual lives of which two title characters?
7. What does assassin Leon call his work in the movie ‘Leon’?
8. What genre of song was first published in Tommy Thumb’s Song Book, published in the 1740s? Subject material includes the destruction of a major thoroughfare in the English capital, an expedited order of a very special cake, and the threat of a tragic arboreal accident?
9. The term PhD is an abbreviation of which academic title?
10. Jackie, played on TV by Edie Falco, and Betty, played on screen by Renée Zellweger, both share what job in the title of their show and movie respectively?

ROUND 4

1. How are Athos, Porthos and Aramis better known?
2. Which 1991 film stars Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze?
3. How many countries of the world begin with the letter O (in English)?
4. As of 2020, how many times have Manchester City won the premier league?
5. On a typical dart board, which number is directly to the right of the number twenty?
6. How many claws does a rabbit have on its foreleg?
7. In Greek mythology, how many Muses are there? They are the daughters of Zeus.
8. Does a vein carry blood to or from the heart?
9. How many players are typically on a volleyball team?

10. How many countries are permanent members of the UN security council? They are also the only countries with a veto.

ROUND 5

1. What denotes the letter C in the NATO alphabet?
2. What is the surname of the central family in the sitcom Keeping Up Appearances?
3. A ‘black light’ emits what kind of light?
4. Which Louisiana general led the Confederate troops at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 during the American Civil War?
5. Which rock group sang the 1988 number 2 hit, The Living Years?
6. What was first broadcast on August 1st 1981?
7. Which Roman emperor succeeded Julius Caesar?
8. What five letter word, beginning with G, refers to sloppy or sticky semi-fluid matter?
9. A Plantar wart is most commonly known as what?
10. Which (US) city hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics?

ROUND SIX

1. Which long running BBC music show is hosted by Jools Holland?
2. Which Shakespeare comedy features the characters Benedick and Beatrice?
3. Complete the title of this Duke Ellington song: ‘East St Louis ______ ____’ 
4. What breed of dog is or was a pet kept by, amongst others, Elvis Presley, Martha Stewart, President Calvin Coolidge and Sigmund Freud?
5. What is the chemical symbol for the element copper?
6. The sitcom Frasier was itself a spin-off of which sitcom? I hope everybody knows its name.
7. Which cereal, marketed in the UK and Ireland by Nestlé, features the cereal in question falling into a bowl with blue, red, yellow and green stripes?
8. Which condiment is made mainly of mayonnaise and finely chopped capers?
9. Constantinople was the capital of which empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453?
10. Which Australian musician’s singles include Chandelier and Cheap Thrills?

ANSWERS

Round ONE

1. Derportivo La Coruna
2. Krona
3. Cornea
4. Corvids or Corvidae
5. 19
6. Co
7. The corona
8. Corrina Corrina
9. Corona
10. Karen O

Theme: Coronavirus

Round TWO

1. War
2. Al Murray
3. Indie
4. Guttersnipe
5. Pete Buttigieg
6. Summer of Sam
7. USSR
8. Through the Looking Glass
9. AT-AT
10. The stars

Theme: Oscar Wilde Quote. ‘We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.’

Round THREE

1. Dr No
2. Nurse
3. Pret a Porter
4. Dr Octopus
5. Nurse Ratched
6. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
7. Cleaner
8. Nursery Rhymes
9. Doctor of Philosopy
10. Nurse

Theme: Heroic front line workers at this time

Round FOUR

1. Three Muskateers
2. Point Break
3. One
4. Four
5. One
6. Five
7. Nine
8. To
9. Six
10. Five

Theme: Pi

ROUND FIVE

1. Charlie
2. Bucket
3. Violet
4. Beauregarde
5. Mike
6. Teavee
7. Augustus
8. Gloop
9. Veruca
10. Salt

Children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Willie Wonka

ROUND SIX

1. Later
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. Toodle-oo
4. Chow
5. Cu
6. Cheers
7. Cheerios
8. Tartar
9. Byzantine
10. Sia

Theme: Ways of saying goodbye.

hmmmmm

I have only gone and made a new live comedy album. Recorded it in Dublin over the summer. It’s available for download at https://davidodoherty.bandcamp.com/album/you-only-live

mhplanet:

David O'Doherty at Machynlleth Comedy Festival

As the youngest of 3, my parents had learned a few things by the time I came along. The seven year gap to my brother had given them time to ruminate on the meaninglessness of stock Little Lord Davidy pleas such as I’m not tired, I’m not hungry, I am hungry, I’m only hungry for certain things or, most emphatic of all: I NEED THAT.

I grew up at the dawn of a sinister new era of marketing today known as pester power, but which should be called playing on your parents darkest fears that not buying you this thing will lead to social alienation, crime, alcoholism and ending up like Gerry, our village hobo who used to hit bins with a stick while shouting the names of horses.

 While my brother and sister had somehow managed to get through the 70s with a bag of Lego, some modeling clay and drawing paper, this was the 80s now. The hippies had lost. It was time to turn off our imaginations and buy shit.

I had been too young for Star Wars and Empire Strikes back, but by 1984 the marketing boffins at Kenner toys and Lucasfilm had identified me as their ideal goon. The ads had children who looked like me in ecstatic states of joy playing with their Star Wars action figures. So for birthday 1984, my 8th, that’s all I wanted.

On his day I felt I could get on the right side of my dad. After a sustained campaign of hinting, lobbying, and leaving catalogues on his bed, I had convinced him to get me a BMX. I think it helped that he was a jazz musician, which I’m sure people told him was a craze in the 50s and he should stop spending all his money on Charlie Parker records and stop putting the family piano out of tune playing boogie woogie.

The thought must have crossed his mind, if I don’t get him a variflex skateboard or a Mongoose BMX or a Swatch, what if he misses the opportunity to become the Charlie Parker or Miles Davis of BMXing or skating or wearing a swatch.

With the Star Wars marketing push came a level of hype that had never existed before, and my stupid jazz parents were very reluctant to buy into it. In retrospect, their aversion to hype probably came from dad eeking out a living, while much less talented musicians were living high on the major label rock and roll hog. Dad used to give these dudes lessons. And they’d be terrible and get picked up from our house with the worn carpets in limos.

So my intense campaign of lobbying was ignored and on the morning of 18th December 1984 I opened a dreadful package that contained a new tracksuit and a boardgame - loving gifts thoughtfully selected to untap my physical and mental potential and thus of no real value to me. “Thanks,’ I said smiling falsely.

But all was not lost. I had a Godfather who could usually be relied upon for a decent present. I’d sent him a three word birthday list the week before: STAR WARS MEN, and that evening he didn’t let me down. He arrived with a flat parcel which I sneakily squeezed before dutifully opening the card and laughing at the lame cartoon (8 dogs in the shape of the number 8 ahahaha), knowing I was now the owner of my first two Star Wars action figures.

Would it be Luke and Han, impatiently waiting for somebody else to give me a millennium Falcon to take them on their adventures. Maybe Luke and Leia and their weird plot that I didn’t understand, but still roused something in my underdeveloped loins.

I didn’t immediately recognize the two faces in the parcel so I took them in to school the next day to show Paul Keogh, a boy who had three different Luke Skywalkers and the thing that looks like a dog and the thing that looks like half a dog.

He immediately identified them. I had got Medibot and Ree-yees, about the two most obscure Star Wars action figures you could get. Medibot appears for a few moments sewing Luke’s new hand back on in Empire Strikes back and Ree yees is in a tracking shot in Jabba’s lair. In modern celebrity terms they were the guys who did the raps in Aqua’s Barbie Girl.

But I wasn’t going to give up. And for a full year I’d attempt to replicate the ecstasy of those TV ads with my two figures who had no plot, no backstory and no adventures to go on. They were characters with no characters. Although I didn’t know it at the time, our games closely remsembled aspects of the work of Irish dramatist Samuel Beckett.

“Shall we go down the end of the garden,” Ree-Yees would say.

“Seriously, what’s the point Ree Yees?” Medibot would wonder.

“Well it might be a nice way to pass the time, you know, till something happens, till someone comes along.”

That someone was a friend, or an adversary. Someone who would give meaning to Medibot and Ree Yees lives. Or maybe a dog or a half a dog shaped vehicle to take them away from it. But it never came. Mum and dad were unmoved by the advertising push for these badly moulded plastic soldiers that didn’t do anything and cost too much money.

Medibot and Ree Yees continued their jeopardyless , pointless existence for another year. Sometimes they would get in the bath with me, sometimes they’d come to school in my pockets, all the while, unaware why. Like two work colleagues on a perpetual business trip, with no idea who they worked for or what they were supposed to be doing.

By the following Christmas a new toy had come along. “PLEASE MUM AND DAD. It’s all I want. You could be making a huge mistake.

David they are awful. You’ll be sick of it in a week.

Thankfully they relented and for my 9th birthday I received my first Yamaha Portasound PSS 260 Keyboard. 

Later that year while doing nothing in particular, Medibot and Re Yees were eaten by the actual dog. 

Achill 2013

I trudged to the top of the hill
Through the bog puddles and sodden heather death beds
Of a furrowed field still ashamed by its famine failure,
And stood on the rock where, sometimes,
When the mist or the rain or the wind is right, 
There is 3G.

I select Airplane Mode. 
Then unselect it 
And look on helplessly as it searches.
3 bars of basic.
Then suddenly none.
Then four bars of E,
Whatever E means.
Then none.
Then it appears.
And I feel like Fleming 
Peering down into his petri dish.
One bar of 3G. 

My thumb moves down the screen 
And the spinning sun decides that the time is right to shine. 

Checking for mail. 
Pause.
Downloading 1 of 1.

1 is the loneliest number.
But 1 is also the start
Of something else.
Some thing I don’t know
But is the reason why I plod up here
With my machine and my thumb and my hope.

The line moves across.
Updated.

THE SECRET IS HD BROWS

I turn to walk back down
Thinking of dry socks
And warm soup.

I’M NOT SURE I GET THE POINT OF TUMBLR YET EVERYONE. I MEAN, IS IT JUST A MORE CULTURALLY ALIENATING VERSION OF FACEBOOK WITHOUT THE DRUNK ZOMBIE PICS?

I’M NOT SURE I GET THE POINT OF TUMBLR YET EVERYONE. I MEAN, IS IT JUST A MORE CULTURALLY ALIENATING VERSION OF FACEBOOK WITHOUT THE DRUNK ZOMBIE PICS?

I have written lyrics to the Grand Designs theme music:

Grand de-he-signs
Grand de-he-signs
Starts o-off fine
But 

The caravan
The pregnancy
Snow

Fuck you hay bales
Fuck you light tubes
Fuck you Kevin for 
Your luke warm wrap up

Secretly wish 
we were still 
In the city
Because nobody comes 
to visit us anymore