COMMENT is free but facts are sacred, the revered editor C. P. Scott, said. Now facts also have a price: £1.
So think of a question, any question, and Colly Myers, a Zimbabwean who spent a decade heading two of the world’s leading computer companies, will find an answer for it.
Need to know an eco-friendly way of getting rid of slugs? How long it takes to drive from Florence to Pisa? Or how long it would take to skateboard from Amsterdam to Singapore and how much weight you would lose in the process?
Then text 63336 and minutes later you will be sent the answers: empty food cans containing beer; between 45 and 60 minutes; and, assuming seven hours per day at 6mph over 7,170 miles, then 170 days and 170lb, if you used 500 calories an hour and assuming that you ate no extra food.
The idea is beautifully simple but devilishly complicated to execute: a mobile phone service which anyone with a British mobile can text with any question on any subject at any time.
It will, before long, kill the pub quiz, as more devious users have realised. Publicans will be forced to go to draconian and expensive lengths, buying scanners and metal detectors.
“We know Any Questions Answered (AQA) has won several pub quizzes already. Our customers texted us to say we helped them to victory, hiding their phones under the table,” Mr Myers said.
A spokesman for the British Quiz Association said that it posed a danger: “The pub quiz will start having to introduce different types of questions that are not easily researched. But that’s easier said than done.”
Suggestions of cheating at pub quizzes came under the spotlight this week after a dispute during a quiz at the King’s Arms in Bedford resulted in a £17,000 libel settlement.
Dave Crane challenged an answer given by the quiz- master, Tony Barclay, at the climax of a pub quiz in Luton. Mr Crane, 39, an unemployed member of the No Fear quiz team, was ordered to pay £5,000 damages and £12,500 costs by Luton County Court.
AQA is also proving a danger in the exam hall, prompting one college near Grimsby to use a phone detector.
The AQA service began last April while Mr Myers and a friend were sitting at Lord’s cricket ground, frustrated by a crossword clue. It now receives up to 2,000 inquiries a day, the majority from men between 18 and 30. The record of 70 texts in one day is held by a woman.
So how does AQA work? “It works through a patent pending combination of intelligent algorithms, databases and even more intelligent human researchers,” the service replied in less than a minute.
But like all AQA answers — restricted to the 160-character ceiling set by mobile networks — this is only the beginning.
AQA is tiny: it has only three members of staff, three salaried researchers and an administrator. Their secret is an international network of researchers — who must pass a rigorous test — linked by an internet programme and who get paid 28p per answer. AQA tries to answer 90 per cent of all questions in ten minutes.
While the most popular question is the meaning of life, habits evolve. The latest trend is “ego texting” — asking the service about yourself or friends and seeing what they dig up. Other people use it like an interactive horoscope.
If a customer asks: “Should I have a pizza for lunch or be good and have a salad?”, a reply could be: “If you are even having to ask that question then the diet has failed. Gorge on the pizza as if it was your last and don’t forget dessert with ice-cream topping.”
The service is not perfect. Despite Mr Myers’ dedication to the Queen’s English, the scale of the operation means that not every answer can be double checked by senior staff. But Mr Myers, former managing director of Psion, says that the human element is a vital component and that they monitor responses as closely as possible. “We provide a warm, human service that is politically neutral and sensitive to the liberal average man. When we began, we took a decision there would be no humour but it inevitably started creeping in.”
The Times let some of its most cunning questioners loose on AQA, with mixed results.
Get the idea, page 25
Olav Bjortomt, Times quizmaster 2/3
1: In 1911 Jack Daniel, the whiskey distiller, died from septicaemia, which is said to have spread from a broken toe caused by kicking what in frustration in 1905?
AQA said: Jack Daniel is said to have died after he kicked the office safe when he couldn’t open it. He broke his toe, got septicaemia and died. (21 minutes)
Verdict: Correct
2: What corporation’s logo can be linked to the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything?AQA said: 42 Ltd, The Wratten, Hitchin, Hertfordshire SG5 2AS. 01642 422442. The answer is “42”; the question was “what is 6 X 9”. (12 minutes)
Verdict: Impressive but wrong. The answer is Sony, whose logo has 42 dots
3: Which Wagner opera does Friedrich Nietzsche celebrate in his work Die Geburt der Tragoedie for upholding the ideal Dionysian art over the Apollonian?
AQA said: The Birth of Tragedy inspired the end of the Wagner opera Siegfried. Friedrich Nietzsche and Richard Wagner were friends. (20 minutes)
Verdict: Correct
Andrew Pierce's People 1/4
1: Name the first Tory Party chairman
AQA said: The first Tory Party chairman was Neville Chamberlain, who held the office from 1930 to 1931. Chamberlain later became Prime Minister, from 1937 to 1940 (19 minutes)
Verdict: Wrong. The answer is Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland
2: Who was the Tory chairman when the party moved into Smith Square?
The Tory party chairman when the party moved into 32 Smith Square in 1958 was Richard Austen “Rab” Butler (27 minutes)
Verdict: Wrong. Lord Hailsham
3: Who is held in captivity at Buckingham Palace once a year?
AQA said: Annually, a senior member of the Government whips’ office (vice-chamberlain of the royal household) is symbolically locked up until the Queen returns (7 minutes)
Verdict: Correct
4: What portrait dominates Michael Howard’s office?
If you meet Michael Inwards, former Epic chairman, AQA thinks he has a portrait of Gordon Brown, ready to dust off and hang on the wall in three months. (36 minutes)
Verdict: Completely wrong. Was this one answered in Japan?
Giles Coren, Times restaurant critic 2/5
1: In which London restaurant did the vacuum cleaner tycoon James Dyson have his first date with Deirdre, the woman who would become his wife?
AQA said: The AQA service cannot locate the restaurant that James Dyson had his first date with his wife Deirdre. He met her at art school in Kensigton w. London. (50 minutes)
Verdict: Wrong, the correct answer is The Ark in Notting Hill
2: In cooking, what does “le style Loiseau” demand that you use to deglaze the pan instead of wine?
AQA said: Bernard Loiseau was know for innovative cooking - not over using fats whilst cooking and then only using goose fat to deglaze. (46 minutes)
Verdict: Wrong, the correct answer is water
3: In the 1987 English cricket season Ian Hislop, now the editor of Private Eye, bowled 19 overs for The Captain Scott Invitation XI. What was his bowling average?
AQA said: Sorry but no public info on Ian Hislop's (sic) cricket average. You may contact AQA for a refund (65 minutes)
Verdict: The correct answer is 81.00
4: The Elongated Man first appeared in issue 112 of The Flash, dated April-May 1960. What is he doing when The Flash first sees him?
AQA said: The Elongated Man (A.K.A Ralph Dibny) first met Flash in v.#112(April-May 1960) as they were simultaneously attempting a rescue a plummeting kitten. (41 minutes)
Verdict: Correct
5: How is it that Sky Masterson is able to throw a peanut from second base to the home plate?
Sky Masterson made a bet that she could throw a peanut from second base to the home plate. She managed this by putting lead inside it for extra weight. (21 minutes)
Verdict: Correct
