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amusements

Annual Impossible Exam

As is traditional, once again we bring you this year’s King William’s College General Knowledge Paper 2023-24.

For over a century the College has set an annual general knowledge test, known as the General Knowledge Paper. The pupils sit the test twice: once unseen on the day before the Christmas holidays, and again when they return to school in the New Year – after spending the holiday researching the answers. The test used to be mandatory but these days participation is voluntary.

The quiz is well known to be highly difficult, a common score being just two correct answers from the list of several hundred. The best scores are around 12% for the unseen test and about 70% for the second attempt – and of course the average scores are going to be very much lower than this.

The quiz is always introduced with the Latin motto Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis, ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est, “To know where you can find anything is, after all, the greatest part of erudition” – something my father always impressed on me as “Education is not knowing, it is knowing where to find out”.

You can find this year’s GKP on the King William’s College website at https://kwc.im/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/General-Knowledge-Paper-2023-2024-Questions.pdf.

I’ve not yet tried this year’s test myself, but unseen I don’t normally have many more clues that the KWC pupils!

Enjoy your Christmas!

music, personal, ramblings

A Secular Carol

Yesterday morning I happened into BBC Radio 3’s Breakfast show just after 08:30 – well actually I blame the alarm clock! Between two pieces of very mainstream classical music the presenter Petroc Trelawny played what he described as a secular carol. It was rather entrancing, but I didn’t catch what it was. And oh dear, it isn’t listed in the online playlist (it is now!). A quick email to Radio 3 got a very prompt answer …

It turned out to be the Halsway Carol, performed by a group called The Neighbours on their (short) album Winter (2020). The lyrics are by Iain Fisk, melody by Nigel Eaton. And no wonder it was entrancing as Eaton is listed online as “internationally renowned Hurdy Gurdy maestro”. It goes like this:

Lo for the tiding of the long night moon
Let the sunrise call about the morning soon
Short is the biding of the fading light
Sing for the coming of the longest night

North wind tell us what we need to know
When the stars are shining on the midnight snow
All of the branches will be turned to white
Sing for the coming of the longest night

A winter day, the summer grass turned hay
Frost in the field ’til the dawn of May
A summer’s light never shone as clear or as bright
So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night

Lo for the tiding of the long night moon
May the harvest last until the springtime bloom
Home is our comfort at the winter’s height
Sing for the coming of the longest night

All of the colours of the sunrise sky
Shine a light upon us, as the day goes by
Sun-setting shadows fading out of sight
Sing for the coming of the longest night

A winter day, the summer grass turned hay
Frost in the field ’til the dawn of May
A summer’s light never shone as clear or as bright
So dance in the shadows of a winter’s night

The Neighbours’ album Winter is available as a download from Amazon; it’s altogether a rather nice 30 minutes seasonal folk music. However I can find out nothing about the band.

There are quite a number of renditions of the Halsway Carol on YouTube, and I’ve listened to several. After The Neighbours’ version, I prefer this one from Jackie Oates.

And, just for my Godparents, there’s also a version on Northumbrian pipes. There’s also some basic sheet music online.

An unexpected delight! But who can tell me about The Neighbours?