Avatar The jelly baby quiz: answers

Apparently when I set the jelly baby quiz way back in, I don’t know, the late 1990s, I promised that as well as prizes there would be answers. Well, the prize (singular) has now been distributed, so all that remains is to dig in to the answers to see how Kev came to be the winner.

Strap in for some detailed admin as we rake through all the questions, and everyone’s answers, one by one and in forensic detail.

Q1. Jelly is made using which animal product?

Jelly is produced using gelatine, which is made from collagen using animal bones.

  • Kev said “Cow or Pig Gelatine”. 1 point.
  • Smidge said “Bone Marrow”. 0 points.
  • Ian said “Gelatin”. 1 point.

Q2. Babies are born without which bones?

Kneecaps. Babies are born with cartiledge where their kneecaps will eventually form.

  • Kev said “Kneecaps!”. 1 point, plus a bonus for exuberance.
  • Smidge said “Horns”. 0 points.
  • Ian said “The ass”. This is not a bone recognised by medical science. 0 points.

Q3. In a classic red-yellow-green multicoloured jelly scenario, what flavour is the green one?

The UK jelly market has a standard colour scheme that applies to most brands. Green is either lime or lemon and lime. Either of those flavours will be accepted.

  • Kev said “Lime”. 1 point.
  • Smidge said “Go”. Go has no flavour. 0 points.
  • Ian said “Some kind of zesty juu?”. Like all humans, Jews taste like chicken. 0 points.

Q4. To the nearest 400, how many babies were born in the UK in 2023?

The Office for National Statistics recorded 591,072 births in England and Wales for 2023; the Scottish Government recorded 45,935; the Northern Ireland Registrar General recorded 19,962. This makes a total of 656,969. I don’t know what “to the nearest 400” even means so I will rank answers by how close they are to the right number.

  • Kev said “598,400”, which is short by 58,569, or almost the population of Scarborough.
  • Smidge said “598,401”, which is short by 58,568, or slightly more than the population of Gravesend.
  • Ian said “Let’s see, one born every minute, erm 525,600”, which is impressively close given the wayward methodology, but still short by 131,369, or approximately one Watford.

Smidge was the closest and scores 3 points. Kev was second closest and scores 2. Ian was furthest away and scores 1.

Q5. Which is the correct part of a jelly baby to eat first?

I eat the head first, so the jelly baby won’t suffer during the rest of the eating process. However, I will accept any reasonable answer. Reasonableness is at the quizmaster’s discretion.

  • Kev said “Head”. This aligns with my own approach. I approve. 1 point.
  • Smidge said “The bit that isn’t between your fingers”. There is an irresistible logic to this that I find impossible to deny. 1 point.
  • Ian said “Trick question. You eat all of it at the same time”. This appears to introduce no additional suffering beyond my own “head” method and is undeniably efficient. I have also definitely done this myself sometimes. 1 point.

Scores

Having reached the end of the questions we can now look at the scoreboard.

  • Kev had a storming quiz and scores 7.
  • Smidge had a slow start but picked up big points on the birthrate question, and scores 4.
  • Ian’s performance was a mixed bag throughout, and scores 3.

So, well done to Kev, who has probably finished his jelly babies by now, and commiserations to Ian, who appears to have somehow lost out to the eternally confused Smidge Manly. Better luck next time.

Avatar Clompotition time

Gather round, gather round everyone. It’s time for a fun competition that we can all take part in. Grab your friends, grab your relatives, even grab your doggo! Come one and all to start the new year the right way.

The right way being… over two weeks after it’s already started. Yes, I’m finally awake again and can form sentences that moderately make sense some of the time (and that’s all you can hope for when you’re me).

When I was at me mum’s house over Christmas, she had started the usual clear out of cupboards and tidying but sadly more pressing matters got in the way. She has a habit of forgetting about and then not using things before their sell-by date. These then get pushed near the back of the cupboard and are usually removed around December. Occasionally things get pushed to the very VERY back and are lost to time and space. How big are these cupboards? Not very, although you’d think they were the size of the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford when we move to the next part.

I fished out a couple of food items that were well past their best. Using state-of-the-art technology, I have removed the date and it’s up to YOU to guess when it expired. You get one point for the month and one point for the year. If you get both right you’ll receive a bonus point meaning there are three points up for grab each time. There are four games to play over the next four months and with minimal participation (for some of us, wink wink) you could win a superb prize (to be chosen at a later date, and not an imaginary prize like those jelly babies Christopher was jabbering about some months back).

First up – Mint and dark chocolate fondant thins from Sainsburgers. Choose your month and year, gentlemen.

Avatar Midlife Crisis

I’m not sure if a building built in the 1500’s can be said to be having a mid life crisis in 2024, but if it can, then this one is. Like a post-divorce Michael Gove popping up in an Aberdeen nightclub, Temple Newsham is entering it’s “rave stage”.

We visited on Sunday and it was off it’s tits on something. The whole garden had been filled with mysterious lights (and hairy balls) and it had put it’s loudest attire on to have a good old boogie.

Fair play I say. Happy New Year all!

Avatar Letting the new year in

We are about to find ourselves in 2025, the quarter-way mark of 21st century, a bewildering thought for those of us who still think of the 21st century as some weird new thing and the 20th century as a kind of default.

Since 2025 is going to be rung in nationwide with the traditional combination of drinking, forgetting the words to Auld Lang Syne and feeling like new year never lives up to the hype, it feels like a good moment to look back at the moment, 25 years ago, when we rung in the new millennium.

You join 16-year-old Chris at his aunt and uncle’s house, this being the venue for the family’s new year celebrations at the end of 1999. Most of the family is here, at a big house in a village near Selby. Music is playing, drinks are flowing, and every conceivable surface is creaking under the weight of bowls of nibbles and snacks.

My family has a longstanding tradition – much beloved of my grandma, who is here somewhere, probably on one of the La-Z-Boy recliner chairs in the living room with a glass of Bailey’s – that the new year must be “let in”.

This tradition stipulates that good luck will befall the family for the coming year if the first person to open the door and cross the threshold on the first of January is a tall, dark man bearing symbolic gifts. Should anyone else be the first to open the door and “let the new year in” – a chubby ginger toddler, perhaps, or a fair-haired woman of merely average stature – the year would be beset with problems. My grandma often told a cautionary tale of the year she absent mindedly unlocked the front door and went into the house first, only to find she had let the new year in herself. Nothing went right that year.

For many years my grandad was nominated to let the new year in. He was an imposing figure, a senior policeman over six feet in height with a no-nonsense jawline and black hair. Luck was always on their side when he turned the door handle. But over the years the duties were shared out. Once he had grown up my dad got to do it sometimes, or his brother. At my aunt and uncle’s house my uncle – not easily described as “tall”, but certainly dark haired and a man – would do the honours.

Anyway, the millennium was considered a special event. I was 16, and to my surprise was asked to let in the new year. The news was broken to me in hushed tones, a coming-of-age moment and a sign that I was joining the grown ups.

At about ten to midnight, I put my coat on and was handed the gifts I was to bring in. There was the shiniest coin anyone could find, to bring wealth; a match and a piece of coal, to bring warmth; and some food, to bring food or plenty or something like that. And with my pockets duly stuffed, I stepped out of the door.

Not much was happening outside, so I walked round to the living room window, where I could see everyone inside and could make out the Hootenanny on TV. The cat was sitting on the windowsill so I gave him a scratch under the chin. After a while, the moment arrived, there was much cheering, and inside the house glasses were clinked and hugs were exchanged. In the distance some fireworks started to go off. I then made my way to the front door to let myself and the new year in. It was locked. Nobody had put the Yale lock on the sneck, so when I went out it had locked itself.

I knocked on the door. Nobody was in the kitchen. I rang the bell. Nobody could hear it over the music. I went back to the living room window. Nobody was looking. Eventually, when there was a lull in the music, I banged on the double glazing, someone finally saw me, and there was a stampede to the door as it dawned on the party that one of their number had been standing outside since the previous century.

When the door finally opened, I’m not sure whether it was me or the cat that actually let the new year in. But I can make the claim that, 25 years ago, I saw in the new millennium standing on my own, in a front garden, and holding a match, some coal, a slice of white bread and a 50p piece.

This year I intend, once again, to be safely inside a warm house when the fireworks begin. Having tried the alternative I recommend it. Wherever you are, have a very happy new year. And don’t forget your lump of coal when you step through the front door.

Avatar Why not indeed?

Well, let me tell you. What you’re really asking there is three questions. Firstly, why don’t I use trains more? Secondly, why didn’t you ask me sooner? Thirdly, what kind of lunch is the best lunch?

I only wish that I could use the train more because it provided fast and easy travel when I was mooching about in my 20s and 30s, especially when Reuben and I had the benefit of the family railcard. I’m currently trying to buy train tickets to London for a gig in November and they’re still not available when usually they’re released some months in advance. This doesn’t feel like they’re taking my mini-break very seriously and I for one will be sure to ram it up their junction should I get the chance!

You should have asked me sooner. I am always considering going to Leeds and very rarely get the chance to do so. Oh, you know what it’s like. Things get in the way and before you know it, there’s weeds to be plucked, cobwebs to be dusted or shopping to be done. Last night I insisted on putting time aside to press my trousers yet after doing the washing up, cleaning the kitchen and going out for a three mile run, it was after 11pm and there’s no chance of me using anything where there’s a risk of scalding myself when the light isn’t great and I have work in the morning. It’s just not happening.

The best kind of lunch is a hot lunch, one that’s dispensed from a lunch hatch with lots of meat and potatoes. They come in all different kinds these days. When I were a lad, you only got three kinds of meat: turkey (at Christmas), chicken (usually from the freezer, have you ever sucked a chicken?) and ham (full of water and slimy like a frog). All of this lamb ostrich alligator kangaroo burger nonsense is miles away from what I would consider to be a decent meal. If you can’t get a video… wait, that’s wrong. If you can’t get a hot lunch, a sandwich is a perfectly acceptable alternative providing you also have a bag of crisps and a drink to go along with it, and something sweet for afterwards. It seems as though most meal “deals” these days (if you can call them that) aren’t deals because for more money they give you less food and I’m not happy about that.

You meant Leeds Castle, right?

(Ian practising at being a rambling old codger).

Avatar Timer.exe

Here is a gift for you at the end of August.

Sometimes you have a rummage around to find something and you turn up another thing entirely. Recently I was looking through some old CDs I’d burned in the 2000s with backups and old pictures on them to find something, and found a little file I’d forgotten about. 

In about 2000, when I was supposed to be revising for my A-levels, there was a part of my revision where, for some reason, I needed to do something in a certain amount of time. I could do that by looking at a clock, but what would be much more productive, I decided, was halting all work on revision while I coded a small Windows application to count seconds and minutes. I am happy to embrace the very obvious fact that this says a huge amount about the person I was aged 16.

This was a terrible use of my time, and plainly an afternoon spent procrastinating instead of revising, and the program has only grown less relevant with the passage of time as smartphones have given us all sophisticated stopwatches with lap timers and other features in our pockets at all times. 

Still, the nice thing about it is that, 24 years on, it still works perfectly on any Windows PC, so if you need to time something in a very feature-limited and inconvenient way, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Timer.exe