Quiz Akabusi

Thank You!

There is plenty in this post for everyone: a full report of the results, a league table of teams and even a chance to have a go at the quiz yourself, but priority number one is to say a massive thank you to all our contestants who came along to our two quiz nights on the 18th and 25th March. 

Not only did you make each evening a hoot, but over the two nights you raised a stunning £1,484 on behalf of TEAM! which has already winged its way to Diabetes UK! 

On behalf of us all, thank you very much indeed.

We would also like to express our gratitude to a few other folks who were invaluable in helping make this happen, you are all brilliant:

• The amazing guys over at The New Moon in Leadenhall for letting us use their pub; their service and support over the two nights was superb
• Lucky Voice, Roast, Killik, Riverford, Kernel Brewery, EDF and Loake who all very kindly donated prizes for the raffles which were responsible for raising £519 of the total
• Alison and Dave for their hours of work pre-quiz and strict policing during

Scores On The Doors!

There were some outstanding performances - for all sorts of reasons! - and both nights produced tooth and nail battles right until the final rounds. 

Usually there is only one winner, but in this case there were two and so congratulations go to our Victors of Quiz who were:

The Uffington Wassailers (18th) and The Mankini Men (25th)

For everyone else, while you are all champions in our eyes, for the competitive amongst you we've combined the two nights' scores in to the fabulous league table below - which you can click to make bigger - so you can see how you fared; the numbers in green are the best scores for that particular round over the two nights. 

N.B. The General Knowledge rounds changed slightly between the nights and the figures have been adjusted accordingly.

Let's Get Quizzical!
Finally, if you were part of these moments in history and you would like to relive your glory, or if you would like to have been but were not and fancy chancing your mental-arm against our Quiz Titans, then you can have a go at the quiz here!
Instructions for each round follow, if you do have a go, enjoy, and although there is no longer any entry fee, our donations page is here.
Good luck!


Round 1: Out Of Order!
Click on the answer sheet to the left and either print it out or write your answers on a bit of paper.
All you have to do is rearrange the letters in to the right order demanded by each question.
When you have done, here are the Quick Answers and here are the Detailed Answers. One point for each letter in the correct box.
Score to beat: Uffington Wassailers 11


Round 2: General Knowledge
Here are the Questions and here are the Answers
Score to beat: Quizimojo 17


Round 3: Absolute Beginners
In the video below are the introductions to 20 well known songs from the last four decades. One point for artist and one for title, but be warned they are quick! You can listen to them twice.

Score to beat: Mankini Men 38

WARNING: The video also shows the answers, so make sure you don't look at the screen while it is playing - unless you want the answers that is! To help you, the music - and the answers - only start after 10 seconds. (Mobile device users click here for video)

Round 4: Who's Who?
Click on the picture sheet to the left.
You get 2 points for identifying each of the 10 people pictured and you get a bonus of 5 points for working out what the connection is between them! 

When you have done, here are the Answers
Score to beat: Norfolk & Chance (Johnson) 18



Round 5: Classical Conditioning
Another music round in the video below, but this time there are 10 contemporary songs all of which borrow themes and melodies, almost note for note, from pieces of classical music. All you have to do is identify each original classical piece from which they borrow heavily - a point for composer, a point for the piece.
Score to beat: Max Is Out 16

WARNING: The video also shows the answers, so make sure you don't look at the screen while it is playing - unless you want the answers that is! To help you, the music - and the answers - only start after 10 seconds. (Mobile device users click here for video)

Round 6: True or False?
Does what it says on the tin! Here are your Questions and here are the Answers
Score to beat: Lootun Masseev 22

Quiz Top Scorers: Uffington Wassailers 104 

What Is Diabetes?

Run Graffiti

I've already commented on society's collective ambivalence regarding diabetes and alongside our fundraising, it is important to us that we continue Emily's personal mission to educate people about the condition and with this in mind, I wanted to put together a piece which would serve as a beginners guide to diabetes. As the condition itself is complex, there are many factors and details which have been simplified or left out, but hopefully not to the detriment of the science.

Before Emily was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, my understanding of the condition was based solely on experiences of my Nana and someone at school. 
From these, I concluded that diabetes could affect old people but bore no major consequence aside from a prescription of tablets, a requirement for diabetic jam and that when it affected young people, it permitted a Marathon bar (now called Snickers) to be eaten in lessons and the occasional skive off PE.
Diabetes really didn't seem to be a big deal and I wrote it off as something quite benign and unimportant. However, the reality of the condition, as this blog's very existence makes brutally clear, is that underlying all the labels, the science and terminology and in the face of society's blithe, sometimes mis-informed, fingers-in-ears indifference towards it, diabetes is a big deal; a really big deal.

It is easy to understand that when your heart stops beating you will die, but in order to beat, the heart muscle must have a source of energy and this is true of all the processes that give us life - every cell and every organ in our body needs energy to survive and function.
Unfortunately, your cells are quite picky regarding their energy, in fact as far as they are concerned, they will only accept one type: glucose, and your body is constantly at work making it by taking what you eat and drink and turning whatever it can that is not already glucose in to glucose and pumping it in to your bloodstream.
Once there however, the amount of glucose in your blood needs to be kept in constant check - too much is toxic and too little means your cells run out of energy and your body ceases to work - and there are several systems in your body which act together to maintain an optimum level. 
If your body senses that there is too much glucose in your blood, it releases a messenger called insulin from special cells found only in your pancreas. The message insulin carries to your liver, skeletal muscles and fat cells, tells them to remove surplus glucose from your blood which would otherwise be harmful and it is this messaging system which becomes compromised in diabetes mellitus:

• With Type 1 diabetes, the pancreatic cells that make insulin have been completely destroyed and therefore can no longer produce insulin. 
• With Type 2 diabetes, insulin may still be being produced by the pancreas however, it is not as effective as it should be because its message is either not strong enough, it has become scrambled, or although correct, it is no longer being understood by the cells themselves. 

In either case, the body loses, or at very least becomes limited in, its ability to take glucose from the bloodstream which on its own would be bad enough. However, because cells are no longer absorbing and storing any glucose, your body - unaware of the communication breakdown - mistakenly concludes that you must be starving and that energy is vitally needed. In response to this perceived crisis, it releases another pancreatic messenger called glucagon which tells your body to take the glucose which it has previously stored and pump it right back in to the blood stream which, as we know, is unfortunately already full of the stuff.

Your body only has a limited supply of stored glucose (stored as glycogen) and when this runs out, the body - still convinced you are starving - starts to metabolise fat as a last resort and this causes diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), which can quickly become a medical emergency. DKA is rare in Type 2, as there is usually some insulin on hand to stop things reaching such an extreme, but someone who develops Type 1 and who does not receive medical intervention will ultimately fall in to a coma and die. 
Although the condition may not be so immediately life-threatening for someone with undiagnosed Type 2, there are several serious long-term complications which are caused by the permanently elevated glucose levels. These include severe eye damage, kidney disease, pain and numbness in extremities caused by nerve damage and heart disease and stroke caused by damage to blood vessels. Ultimately, even after diagnosis, the life expectancy of someone with type 2 is likely to be reduced, as a result of the condition, by up to 10 years.
There's clearly much more to diabetes than missing PE and buying special jam.

For Emily - as for everyone with Type 1 - no one really knows why she developed the condition. Current thinking is that a person may develop Type 1 diabetes when a genetic predisposition is triggered by a viral illness, dietary factors, particular drugs or something else yet to be identified which in turn causes the body to suddenly destroy the pancreatic cells that make insulin in a self-immune reaction. At the moment, Type 1 is not currently a preventable condition. 
Although development of Type 2 can be due to elements which are out of our control such as genetics and advancing age, importantly there are also other factors which are in our control such as lifestyle and weight which have been proven to significantly affect the likelihood of you developing the condition. 
Click here for a quick online test to see how you score for risk of developing Type 2.

The main symptoms of undiagnosed diabetes can include:

• passing urine more often than usual, especially at night
• increased thirst
• extreme tiredness
• unexplained weight loss
• genital itching or regular episodes of thrush
• slow healing of cuts and wounds
• blurred vision

For those who have developed Type 1 the symptoms will occur very quickly over a couple of weeks and are relieved on treatment with insulin.
For those at risk of Type 2 it may not be as easy to recognise symptoms as it can develop over a couple of years and is usually diagnosed through a routine health check.

Managing diabetes for Type 1 is via injections of insulin several times a day in order to maintain a balanced blood sugar level, combined with a healthy and balanced diet. This is easier said than done and I know Emily struggled when she was first diagnosed since even having a cold or getting upset can tip the scales but with time, Emily was acutely aware of how her body would react to certain foods and activities and made compensatory judgements with the injections to keep an even keel. That said, every coat pocket, handbag, nook and cranny of Emily's flat was littered with Dextro tablets for quickly responding to hypo symptoms when the glucose dropped the other way.
Those with Type 2 will usually be advised to manage the diabetes through lifestyle interventions first such as weight loss (where appropriate) and an increase in regular exercise. If there's no improvement then orally administered drugs and/or injected insulin may be necessary.

Incredibly, just 28 years ago in 1985, there were an estimated 30 million adults with diabetes worldwide. By 2010 this figure had reached 285 million of which 90% were Type 2, the number is now over 370 million. However, these numbers pale against future forecasts. In the UK, Diabetes UK say that 

"Most health experts agree that the UK is facing a huge increase in the number of people with diabetes. Since 1996 the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has increased from 1.4 million to 2.9 million. By 2025 it is estimated that five million people will have diabetes. Most of these cases will be Type 2 diabetes, because of our ageing population and rapidly rising numbers of overweight and obese people."

Diabetes is serious. Do yourself a favour and do what you can to reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. This prediction need not be a reality.

The Tale Of The Half

          Elliot            -         Katie         -        and... Rhian's Badge

The last month of Sundays has been witness to some exciting race action from TEAM! with members toeing the lines of Silverstone and Reading half marathons respectively.
Chip times currently in are:

• James (Silverstone) 02:18:14
• Rhian (Reading) 02:22:06
• Katie (Reading) 02:19:04
• Elliot (Reading) 01:31:20

An outstanding run by Elliot - Chapeau Sir! - who was kept company, at least for the first few yards, by his partner Renal who ran a superb 02:14:38 despite having the sniffles.
You can see some pictures of James through his official time page linked above and although Rhian was too wet and cold to have her picture taken and waved off the paparazzi as she bundled herself in to her car, her excellent race report can be found here.
Well done you heros of the asphalt!