Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

Christmas Quiz 2020–2021

The prizes, kindly donated

Game now over!

Each year at Christmas, following the Scandinavian custom, BtP sets twelve days of Procol puzzles which great numbers of the band's adherents follow with much interest and merriment ... at the end of the trail is typically a tiny answer, which you send in by e-mail to the webmasters, to win one (or more?) of the prizes below.

The puzzles start on Christmas Day, and we hope they will be specially welcome this year when, for Covid reasons, so many other seasonal recreations are suspended.

The twelve days of Lockdown Christmas will simply offer you three questions a day, some simple, some a bit cryptic, but all centring on Procol and the band's former players. The information required is here at 'Beyond the Pale', the only Procol Harum work of reference you'll ever need. Keep a note of your answers daily, and the final session will tell you how to 'process' them to create the necessary one-word answer.

This year's fine trophies are, we trust you'll agree, every bit the equal of anything from 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, or 2019: special thanks to Procol Harum, their management, Esoteric Records and Mr Dave Bronze. Click here, in due time, to view the schedule of winners

A	One XL black 2020 Procol Harum tour tee-shirt designed for a gig last January and – for obvious reasons – never offered for public sale: Gildan 'softstyle' 100% cotton, printed both sides, one with the band name and a very groovy panel in red and blue, and the other side, again with the band name, listing concerts of which not one ever occurred (thanks, Barry)
C	One Gary Brooker Boxed Set CD collection from Esoteric Records. Because this product has not been announced yet we are unable to reveal the exact contents, but at the very least it will contain remastered CDs of No More Fear of Flying, Lead Me to the Water, Echoes in the Night, and Within our House, with associated singles and B-sides, and an exhaustive liner-note essay based on brand-new Brooker interviews and contributions from other notable involvees. This prize will be sent to its winner by Cherry Red Records when it's published, some time in 2021 (thanks, Vicky)
D	One *2CD remastered edition of Procol Harum's Something Magic* album** with bonus tracks including the band's full performance for the BBC TV and Radio series Sight & Sound In Concert from March 1977, and a lavishly illustrated and comprehensive liner-note booklet embodying new interviews with Mssrs Brooker, Reid, Solley, Grabham and the Albert Brothers (thanks, Mark)
E	Two Procol concert posters kindly donated by a former band member: one, A3 paper, from Warsaw 9 February 1992; the other, dated 17 January 1992, is from Zurich and is a most unusual size and proportions, towit 21 by 14 inches ... definitely 'suitable for framing' (thanks, Dave)
I	A Large black 2020 Procol Harum tour tee-shirt designed for a gig last January and – for obvious reasons – never offered for public sale: Gildan 'softstyle' 100% cotton, printed both sides, one with the band name and a very groovy panel in red and blue, and the other side, again with the band name, listing concerts of which not one ever occurred (thanks, Barry)
J	One 2020 CD, Songs for the General Public, by The Lemon Twigs (notable Palers' Band alumni from Long Island in America), and a band that numbers Gary Brooker, Todd Rundgren, and Elton John among its illustrious admirers. Songs for the General Public was recently placed in the Top 50 CDs of the year by Rock magazine (thanks, Ronnie)
L	Another *2CD remastered edition of Procol Harum's Something Magic* album** with bonus tracks including the band's full performance for the BBC TV and Radio series Sight & Sound In Concert from March 1977, and a lavishly illustrated and comprehensive liner-note booklet embodying new interviews with Mssrs Brooker, Reid, Solley, Grabham and the Albert Brothers (thanks, Mark)
O	One Procol concert poster kindly donated by a former band member: designed by David Singer, on good stiff paper, suitable for framing, it's from Procol Harum's Fillmore West gig on 29 October 1970, promoted of course by Bill Graham (thanks, Dave)
R	A Medium black 2020 Procol Harum tour tee-shirt designed for a gig last January and – for obvious reasons – never offered for public sale: Gildan 'softstyle' 100% cotton, printed both sides, one with the band name and a very groovy panel in red and blue, and the other side, again with the band name, listing concerts of which not one ever occurred (thanks, Barry)
S	Another Gary Brooker Boxed Set CD collection from Esoteric Records. Because this product has not been announced yet we are unable to reveal the exact contents, but at the very least it will contain remastered CDs of No More Fear of Flying, Lead Me to the Water, Echoes in the Night, and Within our House, with associated singles and B-sides, and an exhaustive liner-note essay based on brand-new Brooker interviews and contributions from other notable involvees. This prize will be sent to its winner by Cherry Red Records when it's published, some time in 2021 (thanks, Vicky)
T	Yet another *2CD remastered edition of Procol Harum's Something Magic* album** with bonus tracks including the band's full performance for the BBC TV and Radio series Sight & Sound In Concert from March 1977, and a lavishly illustrated and comprehensive liner-note booklet embodying new interviews with Mssrs Brooker, Reid, Solley, Grabham and the Albert Brothers (thanks, Mark)
U	Another XL black 2020 Procol Harum tour tee-shirt designed for a gig last January and – for obvious reasons – never offered for public sale: Gildan 'softstyle' 100% cotton, printed both sides, one with the band name and a very groovy panel in red and blue, and the other side, again with the band name, listing concerts of which not one ever occurred (thanks, Barry)

Competitors should rank the above twelve prizes in the order they favour them, and send in their preference – all twelve letters, please! – with the solution to the puzzles. Your message will look something like: "The brief answer is [x] and my prize preferences are JOCULAREDITS or JUDOARTICLES or whatever"

We shall allot the first three prizes on a beat-the-clock basis, where the earliest correct response earns its first choice of prize and so on; after that all subsequent correct entries received in the next 48 hours will be placed in a specially disinfected BtP Homburg and the remaining nine prize-winners will be drawn by a suitably Glamorous Assistant, if Social Distancing permits.

In the somewhat unlikely event of there being fewer than twelve winners, the first people to submit correct answers will get more than their fair share of the prizes!

The quiz starts on Christmas Day and runs through to Twelfth Night. You can join in at any time, if you have a pencil and an internet connection. Best to play on your PC or laptop ... you could get eye-strain if you try to do it on a phone.