Search Results for a-matter-of-facts-the-insider-s-guide-to-quizzing

Humor

A Matter Of Facts The Insider s Guide To Quizzing

There is no way of reconciling these entirely incompatible levels of knowledge (or interest), so most male quizmasters don't bother. By pretending that women aren't there, or don't matter, you can include all manner of complicated ...

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9781405530446

Category: Humor

Page: 256

View: 583

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Marcus Berkmann is a competitive obsessive but where he was very bad at cricket (see RAIN MEN) he's a brilliantly knowledgeable nerd and a great success at pub quizzes. He's possibly the only man in Britain whom Nick Hornby is jealous of - because his team beat Hornby's in a pub quiz and went on to win the EVENING STANDARD knockout tournament. This hilarious book will do for quiz culture - from Mastermind to Fifteen to One to the quiz in your local - what LOST IN MUSIC did for bad rock bands. Thousands of people take part in quizzes every week answering questions such as who won the League Cup in 1972 (Stoke City beat Chelsea 3-2) and which of Henry VIII's wives was both a widow and a virgin when she married him (Catherine of Aragon)? Funny, informative, original: this book has all the answers - including the one to question six.
2013-05-02 By Marcus Berkmann
Humor

Set Phasers to Stun

Boldly going where several other people have been before, Marcus Berkmann tells the story of this sturdy science fiction vehicle from its first five-year mission (rudely curtailed to three), through the dark years of the 1970s, the ...

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9781408706848

Category: Humor

Page: 304

View: 909

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Forty-seven years after NBC killed it off, Star Trek celebrates its half-century in a state of rude health. Boldly going where several other people have been before, Marcus Berkmann tells the story of this sturdy science fiction vehicle from its first five-year mission (rudely curtailed to three), through the dark years of the 1970s, the triumphant film series and The Next Generation, to the current 'reboot' films, with a younger cast taking on the characters of Kirk, Spock, McCoy and co. With wit, insight and a huge pile of DVDs, he seeks to answer all the important questions. Why did Kirk's shirt always get torn when he had a fist fight? What's the most number of times Uhura said 'Hailing frequencies open, sir' in a single episode? (Seven.) And what's the worst imaginable insult in Klingon? (Your mother has a smooth forehead.)
2016-03-24 By Marcus Berkmann
Music

Berkmann s Pop Miscellany

He's also the author of the bestselling Berkmann's Cricket Miscellany, concentrating on the ridiculous true stories and the weird characters of that most eccentric of sports.

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9781408713846

Category: Music

Page: 336

View: 861

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Marcus Berkmann was for many years the pop critic of the Spectator, waiting like most freelances to get fired. He's also the author of the bestselling Berkmann's Cricket Miscellany, concentrating on the ridiculous true stories and the weird characters of that most eccentric of sports. Here he combines the two, in a wildly entertaining ride through the galloping absurdities of pop, from Elvis Presley's real hair colour, through Janet Jackson's more intimate piercings, to Courtney Love's hatred of cheese. Why does Bono always wear sunglasses? Did Ozzy Osbourne really urinate on the Alamo? What actually happened at Keith Moon's 21st birthday party at the Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan? There's sex, there's drugs, there's violence, there's even a little rock 'n' roll from time to time. But mainly there are vital questions, now finally answered. Which notable guitarist has unfeasibly tiny hands? Which Britpop star was forced to wear lederhosen as a child? Who said, 'The majority of pop stars are compete idiots in every respect'? And was she wrong?
2021-06-03 By Marcus Berkmann
Biography & Autobiography

A Shed Of One s Own

None of it seems fair. With age should come dignity and respect, but instead everyone makes tired jokes about buying a motorbike. Marcus Berkmann isn't having it.

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9780748125920

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 256

View: 470

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For many men, middle age arrives too fast and without due warning. One day you are young, free and single; the next you are bald, fat and washed-up, with weird tendrils of hair growing out of your ears. None of it seems fair. With age should come dignity and respect, but instead everyone makes tired jokes about buying a motorbike. Marcus Berkmann isn't having it. Having marked his fiftieth birthday by hiding under the duvet for six weeks, the author of the cricket classics Rain Men and Zimmer Men is now determined to find some light in the all-consuming darkness. Musing over birth, death and all the messy stuff in between, he concludes that however dreadful you look in the mirror today, it will be much worse in ten years' time. His brutally candid despatch from the frontline is not for the faint-hearted, which is to say anyone under thirty-five.
2012-01-19 By Marcus Berkmann
Sports & Recreation

Ashes To Ashes

In summer 2009, by far the most popular event in the cricketing calendar comes round again - the Ashes series between England and Australia.

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9780748111633

Category: Sports & Recreation

Page: 256

View: 666

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In summer 2009, by far the most popular event in the cricketing calendar comes round again - the Ashes series between England and Australia. The anticipation will be intense, the hype absurd, the sense of expectation never remotely likely to be satisfied, for two good reasons. England won in 2005 by a whisker. We can't expect anything so good again, possibly for the rest of our lives. The second reason is even more brutally realistic. For the truth is that, over the past twenty years at least, Australia have usually won very easily. We begin with hope, we end in despair. For the many of us who follow English cricket closely, it's a strange and terrible form of biennial punishment for crimes we didn't know we had committed. 'Hell is other people,' said Jean-Paul Sartre, and as so often he was completely wrong. Hell is Ricky Ponting winning the toss on a perfect batting strip on a glorious sunny day. Hell is what happened in Australia in 2007, when the home side won 5-0. Of course we look forward to 2009. But we also dread it, as we would dread exams or major surgery. We would be foolish to do otherwise.
2009-06-18 By Marcus Berkmann
Biography & Autobiography

How to Be a Writer

Often asked how you become a writer, his advice remains: Please do not. There's already enough competition out there and we don't need any more. His advance for this book was about enough to buy a packet of Jaffa Cakes.

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

ISBN: 9781408713822

Category: Biography & Autobiography

Page: 208

View: 580

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Marcus Berkmann has been a freelance writer since 1988, working for newspapers and magazines and occasionally writing a book, like this one. He reckons to have written literally millions of words in that time, several of them in the right order. This, his 13th or possibly 14th book, is about those years of writing: the triumphs (few), the heartbreaks (many), the sackings (more than you would expect), the biscuits (many, many more than you would expect). In it he somehow makes the act of staring out of a window wondering what to say next seem both fascinating and, in some strange way, enviable, whereas, like most writers, he rarely leaves the house other than to go to the pub or the off-licence. Often asked how you become a writer, his advice remains: Please do not. There's already enough competition out there and we don't need any more. His advance for this book was about enough to buy a packet of Jaffa Cakes.
2022-06-07 By Marcus Berkmann
Sports & Recreation

Berkmann s Cricketing Miscellany

Marcus Berkmann, author of the cricket classics Rain Men and Zimmer Men, returns to the great game with this irresistible miscellany of cricketing trivia, stories and more fascinating facts than Geoffrey Boycott could shake a stick of ...

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9781408711750

Category: Sports & Recreation

Page: 336

View: 554

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Marcus Berkmann, author of the cricket classics Rain Men and Zimmer Men, returns to the great game with this irresistible miscellany of cricketing trivia, stories and more fascinating facts than Geoffrey Boycott could shake a stick of rhubarb at. Which England captain smoked two million cigarettes in his lifetime? Which Australian captain, asked what his favourite animal was, said 'Merv Hughes'? What did Hitler think of cricket? Which National Hunt trainer had a dog called Sobers? Who was described in his obituary as 'perhaps the only unequivocally popular man in Yorkshire'? No other sport is so steeped in oddness and eccentricity. There's the only Test player ever to be executed for murder, the only first-class cricketer to die on the Titanic, and the only bestselling author to catch fire while playing at Lord's. (It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The ball hit a box of matches in his pocket.) All cricket is here, including an XI entirely made up of players who share their names with freshwater fish.
2019-07-11 By Marcus Berkmann
Humor

The Spectator Book of Wit Humour and Mischief

The Spectator Book of Wit, Humour and Mischief collects some of the magazine's drollest contributions of the past twenty-five years, bringing a sharp eye to bear on the strangenesses of modern life.

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9781408707449

Category: Humor

Page: 480

View: 387

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Approaching its 200th birthday in the rudest of health, the Spectator is known for the quality of its writing and the deep eccentricity of some of its writers. Given the freedom to say what they want, they take that freedom and more, and the result is original, provocative, often very funny, sometimes plain wrong. From Jeffrey Bernard's reports from the Soho frontline and Auberon Waugh fulminating about hamburger gases in the early 1990s, we encounter in turn the wild stream of consciousness of Deborah Ross's restaurant reviews, the pinpoint etiquette advice of Mary Killen, Rod Liddle's frothing but elegantly sculpted outrage and the magazine's secret weapon, low life adventurer Jeremy Clarke. This bumper selection, which also includes eminent diarists, mad letter-writers and Boris Johnson, amounts to a masterclass in comic writing, lovingly compiled and edited by Marcus Berkmann, who still can't believe he wrote a monthly pop column for the magazine for twenty-eight years without being fired.
2016-08-25 By Marcus Berkmann
Sports & Recreation

Zimmer Men

In their minds they run around the field as fast as ever; it's only their legs that let them down. ZIMMER MEN asks all the important questions of middle-aged cricketers. Why is that boundary rope suddenly so far away?

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9780748127085

Category: Sports & Recreation

Page: 256

View: 933

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Ten years after his classic Rain Men - 'cricket's answer to Fever Pitch,' said the Daily Telegraph - Marcus Berkmann returns to the strange and wondrous world of village cricket, where players sledge their team-mates, umpires struggle to count up to six, the bails aren't on straight and the team that fields after a hefty tea invariably loses. This time he's on the trail of the Ageing Cricketer, having suddenly realised that he is one himself and playing in a team with ten others every weekend. In their minds they run around the field as fast as ever; it's only their legs that let them down. ZIMMER MEN asks all the important questions of middle-aged cricketers. Why is that boundary rope suddenly so far away? Are you doomed to getting worse as a cricketer, or could you get better? How many pairs of trousers will your girth destroy in one summer? Chronicling the 2004 season, with its many humiliating defeats and random injuries, this coruscatingly funny new book laughs in the face of middle age, and starts thinking seriously about buying a convertible.
2010-12-02 By Marcus Berkmann
Sports & Recreation

Rain Men

Rain Men is different. Like the moment the genius of Richie Benaud first revealed itself to you, it is a cricketing epiphany, a landmark in the literature of the game.

Author: Marcus Berkmann

Publisher: Hachette UK

ISBN: 9781405530453

Category: Sports & Recreation

Page: 256

View: 232

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There are many cricket books, and they are all the same. 'Don't Tell Goochie', autobiographical insights of nights on the tiles in Delhi with Lambie and the boys; 'Fruit cake days', a celebrated humourist recalls 'ball' - related banter of yore; and Wisden, a deadly weapon when combined with a thermos flask. Rain Men is different. Like the moment the genius of Richie Benaud first revealed itself to you, it is a cricketing epiphany, a landmark in the literature of the game. Shining the light meter of reason into cricket's incomparable madness, Marcus Berkmann illuminates all the obsessions and disappointments that the dedicated fan and pathologically hopeful clubman suffers year after year - the ritual humiliation of England's middle order, the partially-sighted umpires, the battling average that reads more like a shoe size. As satisfying as a perfectly timed cover drive, and rather easier to come by, Rain Men offers essential justification for anyone who has ever run a team-mate out on purpose or secretly blubbed at a video of Botham's Ashes.
2013-05-02 By Marcus Berkmann

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