10 November 2023 , 15:02
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Keeping your mind healthy is just as important as the rest of your body, and while you can't hit the gym or go for a run to exercise your brain, there are other ways you can give yourself a good mental workout. One of the best ways to do this is through puzzles and brain teasers, and if you enjoy watching any of the numerous quiz shows that grace our TV screens every evening, then you'll already be familiar with the feeling you get when you answer a question correctly.
One of the most popular quiz shows on telly is the BBC series Pointless, in which contestants - and those watching at home - are tasked with finding obscure answers that no one else is able to work out. The series is so popular, in fact, that the team behind the show have released a fact-filled quiz book that comes jam-packed with all-new puzzles that are sure to have you scratching your head in confusion.
The book, titled Pointless Facts for Curious Minds, was written by Alan Connor, the question editor of another BBC game show, Only Connect. Alongside a collection of obscure and unlikely facts, the book also contains new quiz questions, and while they may look easy on the surface, they're more than a little tricky.
One question in the book involves naming UK cities, which might seem easy for most of us who know our local geography - but there's a twist. The cities included in the question all have repeated letters in their names, but we've only been supplied with the first appearance of each letter.
In the book, the question reads: "We are going to show you five names of UK cities now, but in the names we have removed repeated letters, so each letter is only shown once. For example, if the answer was London, the clue would be 'LOND' as we've removed the second 'O' and the second 'N'."
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True to Pointless fashion, you have to select the answer which you think would be the most obscure - but since you're answering the questions by yourself and not on telly, you can try to answer all five for a bonus point! The five cities are as follows:
- EXTR
- CHIESTR
- ARMGH
- INVERS
- SWANE
How many can you work out? Which one do you think will be the most obscure? The answers printed at the back of the book also tell you how many of the 100 people asked gave each answer so you can know for sure if you've given the best possible answer in the round. We're about to tell you the scores for each answer, so if you haven't worked them all out yet, don't scroll any further!
Solutions
- Exeter - 85
- Chichester - 60
- Armagh - 66
- Inverness - 87
- Swansea - 77
If you gave Chichester as your answer for number two, you got the best possible score on this question! None of the five answers completely stumped the 100 people asked as the lowest possible score was 60, but a whopping 87 out of 100 people were able to work out Inverness, closely followed by 85 knowing that number one was Exeter.