Withington Pub Quiz League

Comfortable win for the Pigs who progress to Round 2;

for the Opsis it's the Plate

Val Draper Cup - Round 1

Electric Pigs beat Opsimaths

Electric Pigs (+4) beat Opsimaths (+6)

The Pigs cruise through to Round 2

Mike reports on the Battle of Les Crèmes de la Derrière

League placings played out as the Opsis just couldn't outpace the Pigs. It was close-ish early on but then the Pigs opened up a comfortable lead and cruised home by 7 points (9 if you disregard the Opsis' handicap advantage).

It was quietish early on in the Moss front room but then a bunch of particularly noisy Didsbury Good Neighbours piled in about 15 minutes into our quiz. Being on the elderly side they were presumably a little hard of hearing so needed to talk louder than most. Ivor and David as joint QMs upped their volume in reply and so followed a race to a total noise blanket meaning every question had to be repeated a number of times with the QM leaning in to each team in turn. It made for a particularly lengthy contest given that some of the questions required a fair bit of conferring.

Dundee's Hermione

(R1/Q5)

Despite the noise challenges it was a very affable occasion with both teams enjoying each other's company. The line up for the Pigs was Guy, Dave, Andrew and, an all too infrequently seen Master Pig, Gary - with Howell, Brian, Paul and myself for the Opsis. I didn't keep detailed stats (I'm afraid I'm no match for Ivor) but did note a few more unanswered questions coming the way of the Opsis - at least in the first half. Of the Pigs I seemed to notice Guy on pretty good form and (for once) on the Opsis side of the room I got a few twos (5 in fact).

So onwards to Round 2 of the Val Draper Cup for the Pigs and an instant 'walk of shame' for the Opsimaths as we get the Round 2 setting duties. and then an automatic place in the Plate semis on April 22nd.

Oh, and finally, I was able to use the evening to chat up the Pigs who have kindly agreed to present the trophies and run the evening's quiz at our End of Season do in a few week's time.

Golden Brits

(R7/Q4&5)

Ivor reports from his QM pulpit

David and I were in attendance to do QM duties and observe whether the Opsimaths could get early revenge on the Electric Pigs who beat them last week in the league. Long story short: the Opsimaths failed but not by as much as at the last match. The Electric Pigs were excellent hosts and more than generous suppliers of liquid refreshment to the co-QMs. Of course we required throat soothing refreshment as the background noise in the snug required stentorian efforts from the QMs.

Quiz stats: the combined score (before adding the handicap) was 73 which, as setters, was just about our difficulty estimate. The Opsimaths (going second) had the worse of the first half but by the end although the Opsimaths got more unanswereds (7-6) they also got more twos (12-10) and their defeat was due to leaking more steals to the Electric Pigs (7-2). No doubt others will comment on the triumphs, near-misses and perceived injustices from the questions. Mike B was MVP (5 twos). Howell and Gary were the joint Jonahs (3 unanswereds each).

Deputies, but only one who wore the crown - so far!

(Round 2)

Long-standing Premier ex-Villans

(R6/Q3 & R8/Q7)

This week's Quiz paper set by...

... The History Men

Average Aggregate score 73.0

It can't be much fun slaving away on a question paper at fairly short notice in the knowledge that only two teams will tackle it (plus maybe a few thousand on-line?). No matter the History Men's effort shone out as every bit as good as the best of the season to date. The announced themes of 'X' in the answer, 'RST' in the answer and answers that ended with a double letter were just right in terms of thematic assistance allied to good general knowledge teasers. The Run-ons were pretty good and the paired questions rounds fine.

Only one slip up when Trafford rather than Tameside was given in the question relating to the Moors Murders. The question went to the Pigs who clearly knew the answer but were nonplussed by the 'Trafford' link. Howell stepped in smartly and queried the fact with Ivor (the QM) who acknowledged the mistake and so the Pigs got their just desserts (BTW I've corrected this mistake on the question paper shown on the site).

Many thanks Ivor and co for stepping up with a grand paper.

Arsenal wunderkind

(R8/Q2)

... and some comments from Ivor on behalf of the setters ...

We almost succeeded with our target combined score of 75 - and 73 is about average for all quizzes this season. We also almost succeeded with the 'Dave Barras litmus test' of a good evening for quizzers as 7/8 players got at least 2 twos, and Paul would have, had the Irish mythology spares been in the main quiz (he also might be one of the few people able to pronounce Meadhbh properly).

Setting a quiz never seems to get easier and no matter how we check or re-check there is always the possibility (probably a certainty if that goddess Nemesis has anything to do with quizzing) of an error creeping in. Last night it was stating that the Moors murderers were living in, and arrested in, an estate in Trafford. Fortunately Gary (whose question it was) knew the question was wrong and was prompted by opponent Howell (who also knew the question was wrong) to “just say what you think it is” for the two points. Such sporting behaviour makes it easy to be a QM.

The other dilemma of setting is that with over 50,000 questions already in the quiz archive it is sometimes difficult to think up new ones although we do try to be novel, or at least re-package old questions (or even quiz classic chestnuts) in different ways. Even that can catch you out. In the last 25 years the youngest player to score a Premiership League goal has changed several times. Quizzers with good memories will often spot a re-used question years later. If we have used one of your good questions consider it homage rather than plagiarism!

Actually I will confess to using (I think) Young Michael T’s question on the Nobel Literature winners who have also won an Oscar. He mentioned to me once that when he originally set the question the only answer was 'GBS' but by the time it was actually used in a quiz 'BD' was also an answer. He averted the error. Tonight I had a lucky escape from a mistake in the companion Nobel question which originally was: “Which two hereditary peers had won a Nobel prize”, with the answer Rayleigh and Russell. Even Google AI failed on checking. Not only were there two others who became hereditary peers AFTER winning a Nobel Prize (Rutherford and Adrian) there was also a third who was an hereditary before winning a prize: Viscount Cecil of Chelwood (me neither).

I hope we have concluded setting duties for this season and we will try harder next time. Now we just have to keep winning our games in the Cup.

Why, oh why?

(R5/Q7)

Question of the Week

Lest we forget, with all that Iran stuff going on, I've chosen Round 5 Question 7 ...

1) Which comic actor portrayed a teacher unexpectedly elected president in the satire Servant of the People in 2015? Later, real life was to imitate art.

For the answer to this and all the week's other questions click here.