Uruguay is not in Europe though. Neither is Israel of course, but that's a rare exception!

But it is the Eurovision Song Contest, yes I know Israel, Turkey and a couple of Central Asian countries take part but not South America. So stupid answer Still stands.

To be fair, I think it's more that it was the EUROPEAN song contest and the answer was a South American country

But then they do have Australia in it these days, so stranger things could happen. Also it isn't "the European song contest", it's a song contest arranged by the European broadcasting union, using their Eurovision network - initially as an experiment. There has never officially been any geographical limitations on the entrants, but have traditionally been ones that could receive the Eurovision broadcasts.

but yeah, would have been better odds of fluking it by guessing a European country at least

Australia was a one off to celebrate the 60th anniversary. If I remember rightly they were picked because the Eurovision Song Contest is very popular there

They're back this year

This has been discussed before. If you are talking about a relatively obscure pop culture reference it may be relevant whether the person was alive at the time, or indeed likely to be currently aware of it. Freddie Mercury is far from an an obscure reference though. Obviously not everyone will know about him but it is reasonable to expect most will. Would you be surprised if a teenager said they had not heard of, for instance, Marilyn Monroe?

And might become permanent after that, yet to be confirmed.

Actually I would not expect a teenager today to have heard of her! The question however was not about whether you'd heard of Freddie Mercury. It required you to know who was the lead singer of Queen. I don't think many people would know that, as he was far more famous than the rock band he was in.

Perhaps they thought it was funny to say "You're a guy"

Ye fair enough answering a question is different, and someone said it wasn't "Freddie who?" which might make it harder for some. If you don't think many teenagers would have heard of MM so be it. I would be very surprised but unless there is some survey on it we will probably never know for sure. I would wonder what is going on if more than an occasional teenager said they had not heard of her. Everyone of my friends did at that age and it was still decades after she died. Oh well it doesn't matter anyway.

The Chase

Q: Cars with the plate ZW come from which country?

A: New Zealand

Pointless; the village of Waterloo is located in the modern day country of... England.

Also thought it was fought around about 1500.

I saw that, WTF.

Why is that stupid?

I don't know what it is and there is a 'Z' in it, so it's not a stupid guess Have also noticed that car number plate codes don't always seem to match with the country.

Not that daft as it does have a Z in it

Is the answer Zimbabwe?

Probably thought of Waterloo station.

That Waterloo round was diabolical, from what I heard of the muttered answers while they were considering them. Even Richard seemed a bit taken aback.

There are several villages called Waterloo in England.

It really was woeful wasn't it. No idea as to which century, how fought in it, where it was fought. I don't even think you need to have a particular interest in History, it's one of those things that is so well known it is basic general knowledge, like Henry VIII having 6 wives.

I guessed 1812 so I wasn't too far out, but as they pointed out we did learn all this at school, but admittedly it was a long time ago.

I stand corrected

My brother, who has a history degree, thought Nelson fought at the Battle of Waterloo .

Last year being the bicentenery of the battle was a good clue!

To be fair, Napolean did suffer several appalling defeats in 1812, including in Russia (as detailed in War and Peace) so it's understandable that would stick in the mind.

Oddly enough, we skipped the Napoleanic Wars at school. Did the French Revolution in the 3rd year then skipped over to the American War of Independence and the build up to WW1. Then, my A level started with the Treaty of Vienna, 1815 which was Peace Agreement after Waterloo.

I think most of my knowledge of that era comes from reading/watching Historical novels/drama like War and Peace, Vanity Fair, Scarlett and Black and then reading up on it having had my interest piqued.