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History Men lost to Albert
A solid victory cements a solid third place for Albert
 Albert
skipper Mike contemplates manslaughter
A
gentlemanly (and womanly) end to the league season. The Bards quiz
produced a close contest for most of the evening until Albert drew
ahead towards the end. The quiz was very much weighted in
favour of literature, history and high culture but, in fairness,
produced very few unanswerables. In between the questions QM
Tony regaled us with old college gossip including an incident of
manslaughter during an inter-college boat race. I was thinking
that Albert could come up with something similar from the old days
of quizzing. Eveline is bound to be able to recall the odd
case of attempted murder.
Meanwhile look out for the semi final of Mastermind on Monday
which features Albert Quiz Team member Ian.
MOBO during
an Albert training session
(R3/Q2)
 Ivor,
it seems, has much in common with strong man MOBO
Sadly we were unable to achieve the win or the draw that would have
placed us in a Champions' League spot. I am reminded of the
line used by Richard II after the suppression of the Peasants’
Revolt: "Serfs ye are and serfs ye shall remain”. It was not
for lack of trying and we were only three points behind going into
the last round. There was not to be a crucial head-to-head
this evening between me and Eveline, thank goodness, as we have had
a few of those in our 50+ meetings. We were missing Anne but
Ray had another good outing (I think it is his first losing game
with us) and Vanessa and David were reliable as ever.
Ivor learns
his craft
(R1/Sp)
The Albert were especially strong tonight with a superior steal rate
(7-2) and Ashton had 6 twos. Ashton was not their only
Mastermind alumnus as Ian was also in the team tonight. He
will be answering questions on the Clash in the Mastermind
semi-final on Monday night. Perhaps we should be adopting
rules for quiz qualification so that we dullards can also shine.
It’s a bit like the Oxford-Cambridge boat race controversy. I
jest, of course, as in our league the difference between being a
hero or a zero is finely poised. It all depends on the
question.
On the subject of famous Oxonians Tony was in the QM seat tonight.
As expected he was in Paxman mode and took no nonsense so the quiz
fairly rattled along with few constipaters and very few unanswereds.
We were gently teased at our lack of knowledge of Catholic saints
(especially the one named after his college), and, not for the first
time, my Ulster pronunciations were queried ("you say Hayber, I say
Hahber"). It was nevertheless a fun evening with everyone
getting at least one two except Jullien, who, in the 'LL' theme
round, hoped that the between-the-wars Polish music hall pianist
after whom he derives his unusual forename would make an appearance.
He waited in vain.
Non-playing captain MOBO did not have to admonish his team tonight
at all (he didn't give them any praise either!). Of
course we strong captains never give praise; 'good' is the enemy of
'best'.
Rachel enjoys
a bit of tea-time fun
(R1/Q2)
Prodigals beat Electric Pigs
A magnificent end to a magnificent season for the Prodigals
 Jimmy
just loves those Zairean World Cup shirts
A
most convivial ending to the league season was enjoyed by both teams
at the Albert Club.
The
quiz itself was a good'un; I particularly enjoyed the 'Harris' round
and was chuffed that perennial panto principal boy Anita 'slap me
thigh' Harris got a shout out. Though the Prodigals were the
victors, the man of the match award definitely went to Dave from the
Pigs who scored 7 two-pointers and just missed out on the much
coveted full house.
Post match, prompted by one of the 'double L' questions, we
discussed the 1974 World Cup finals where I stood firm on my opinion
that Zaire's kit with the Leopard's head on the shirt has to be the
greatest football top of all time. I will fight and die on
that hill. Bradford City's promotion chances were also
dissected and the dodgy denizens of Salford 7 and the Cussons Soap
Factory got a mention. A great finish to a great season. Roll
on the Cups!
... whilst
another Rachel shows off her Inside Out house
(R2/Q4)
 ...
and Anne-Marie has an early night ...
Earliest
finish ever v The Pigs!!
Shout out to Dave Pig
with an evening's haul of 7 twos - and it would have been 8 if he
hadn't blurted on the first round. Thems the breaks!
Saucy factory
(R5/Q1)
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First Number
One to hit the Heights
(R2/Sp)
KFD beat Charabancs
Barry's final league match in the Griffin derby ended with a
fitting victory
 Kieran
tells how he dealt with his seat being pinched
The
Charas did that small team thing by occupying the home team bench in
the Griffin's Living Room to try to unsettle us. So we did
the thing big teams do in that situation and stuffed them. Well, it
was a bit rum from them, pulling that one on what, in all
probability, was our man on the wrong side of the room's last league
appearance after thirty two seasons.
Twenty league titles, seven runners up spots and five also-rans.
Not at all bad for a quiz league career. It had to end the way
it did with the Lowestoft Ben Duckett scoring the winning points
with his final two when he naile, oops no, when he correctly
answered Val McDermid to the first question of the final round.
Along the way there were a couple of classic KFD full team confers
for Wakefield Trinity and Jesus, both in the Oxbridge colleges
round. We pretty much had a Young Boys Burnage / Braggarts /
Fifth Finger / Mad Dogs / Napier Girls / SPW / Smoke Fairies / (not
INBTO) / Dunkin' Dönitz / KFD
greatest hits evening and thoroughly enjoyed it.
We
managed to score just enough points for a convincing win but not so
many as to increase our handicap for the cup. The Charas
didn't improve their position either so we'll start six points
behind them when we meet again in the cup in three weeks; on the
strength of tonight that shouldn't cause a problem. Martin
pointed out that, had we won and secured second place in the league
last week, we could have scored zero points tonight to reduce our
cup handicap to nil. "Questions would be asked" said Thomas,
"yes, but not answered" replied Barry.
We're really going to miss him.
To
give you all a head start for next season here's the stuff that
Barry knows and that the rest of us are clueless about: the Roman
Empire, geography, astronomy, military history, science fiction,
natural history, science, computing. What he knows little and
cares less about: musicals (stage and screen), reality TV, religion
...
and that's about it.
Oscar Brits -
first to last
(R2/Q3&4)
 Damian
hails super-sub Alan
Well, all good things come to an end, I guess. We had a good
run the last few weeks and it would have been nice to finish the
league season with one last victory, but it wasn't to be. We
tried our best but KFD were too strong for us.
From the start we were playing catch-up, but never quite managed to
do so. We didn't play badly, our opponents just played better.
They won the battle of the twos (12-10) and scored heavily on the
steals (6-1). Our star player of the night was our guest
player from Stockport, Alan, who often agrees to substitute for
missing regulars (of whom there are several at the time of writing)
so long as we are playing at the Griffin. As many of our
recent matches have been at home we have been able to make use of
his quiz knowledge quite frequently. Of the 10 twos we scored,
five of them belonged to him.
"One day
they'll write a book about this"
(R8/Q8)
Ethel Rodin tied with Opsimaths
A couple of lowly teams enjoy a well-deserved tied match
 Mike
observes a baton handed over
Two old quizzers (Roddy and myself) who've left the crease (©
Rusholme's Roy Harper) sat in the corner of the capacious White Swan
first floor chunnering over days long gone whilst an octet of
sprightly (?) youngsters contested a match between two of this
season's less successful outfits. Ethel have sunk badly since
their triumphant league win last season - though they did memorably
destroy the Prodigals 100% record a few weeks ago; and the Opsis -
without Nick and, for many weeks of the season, Howell - won two of
their first four matches (both at the Griffin surprisingly) and then
plummeted without any further victories or even tied matches to show
for their efforts. Many new Opsimath faces and lots of
learning about how to play the WithQuiz way, but no points.
So, a drawn game was on the cards and so it was. A really
friendly evening at the end of which both teams - and Greg in
particular - showed sportsmanship in handling the dreadful
misprinting on the final question. Hilary took the penultimate
question about Strictly and the Opsimaths scored one point to
go one point in the lead. Over to Greg with the possibilities
of a win, a tie or a loss very much alive. "Who wrote the Lavs
of ancient Rome in 1842?". Baffled by the scatological
reference the question got passed over and Hilary to her credit
spotted the misprint saying: "They must mean 'Lays of ancient Rome!"
and duly gave the right answer. Both teams agreed that a spare
question was required to replace the duff one. Greg insisted
that this spare should go to the whole Ethel team for one point to
be fair to the Opsis. Ethel answered the spare correctly for
one point, the match was tied and both teams felt they'd achieved a
good and fair result.
The Opsis (Howell, Paul, Emma and Hilary) showed signs that the
season of transition and learning was starting to pay off.
Hilary and Howell both scored some notable twos whilst Emma and Paul
looked settled in their roles. Now, next season ....
Meanwhile we go into the Cup competition with a 13 point advantage
should we be drawn against the Prodigals or Albert.
Corrie
legend's Daphne
(R1/Q6)
 Greg
clearly had a great evening
A really good match tonight, played in the right spirit with plenty
of humour.
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Quiz paper set by...
...
Bards
Average Aggregate score 78.5
Well, another paper
that edged up the average aggregate for the season. Last
season we ended the league season with an aggregate across the whole
season of 75.9; this year it's hit 76.5; so we're on an upward
trajectory.
A paper with plenty
of interesting questions too, only let down by the quality of the
printing that caused some real problems at the Ladybarn Club -
especially for the last 'Lavatories of Ancient Rome' question (see
above). If we all club together perhaps we can buy a new
printer for the Bards.
Dirty Scot
(R3/Q5)
... and these were
Damian's views ...
Although tonight's paper from the Bards didn't
play to our strengths as much as previous weeks' offerings, it was a
fair and varied assortment of general knowledge on offer. The
combined score of 80 puts it well over the season's average so that
justifies it as reasonable, if a tad on the hard side.
The themes were mostly gettable
and we especially liked the double 'LL' and 'Run-on' rounds although
we did have an issue with 'Sweden' as the answer to the first part
of the run-on with Denmark as being the country that first issued
paper money and had the oldest flag. A quick Google confirmed
our initial thought that paper money was first issued in China (in
the 7th century to be precise).
Just keep
running
(R6/Q3)
... and Kieran's
thoughts ...
The Bards paper
didn't have any wow moments but it was perfectly serviceable and
fair. An aggregate of 80 and only five unanswered made for a
more than satisfactory end to what for us has to be seen as an
unsatisfactory season. Still there's always the Cup, the
chance of one more trophy; come on quiz gods, do the right thing!
Paddy the TV
destroyer
(R8/Q4)
... and Ivor
had this to say ...
The quiz itself was
quite a points-fest. The questions did not seem to have been
raided from the Daily Star coffee time quiz; they were certainly in
the 'high culture' category (Judge Dread excepted). If Jeremy
had not been in Ecuador the Albert might even have scored more.
Indeed the only eminent musician missing was the afore-mentioned
Jullien and even our modern writers are likely to be remembered in
the distant future (if quizzing survives).
Enjoyable themes and
luckily no Welsh words in the 'LL' round. I note good taste
precluded 'Rolf' in the 'Harris' round. In the 'Mc' round
someday the question might be “Name the comedian who oversaw the
rapid decline of three classic TV programmes: Top Gear, A
Question of Sport, and Inside the Factory.”
... and Greg
sums up ...
An excellent paper
from the Bards (apart from the typographical errors).
Manager's
Crossing
(R3/Q4)
Question of
the Week
This week I've chosen Round 3 Question 4 which had our team
heading off in the direction of the North East before they realised
Bobby Robson had close links to East Anglia and Ipswich in
particular ...
Which river becomes tidal just below the Bobby Robson Bridge
before reaching the sea at Felixstowe?
For the answer to this and all the week's other questions click
here.
Woman of
assault and smells
(R4/Q3)
... and also
Next week we start the Cup with the elimination Round 1 match
between the Bards and Albert which will reduce the number of
contestants to a helpful 8 teams. Remember handicaps apply
(they're shown against teams on the fixtures page as well as in the
League table). For Cup results please report to me the actual
scores after handicaps have been applied.
If anyone wants to fix a friendly match next week do let the Charas
know so that they can send extra question paper envelopes to the
Fletcher Moss.
Bradford's
Pointless woman
(R4/Q7)
If you wish to join the WithQuiz WhatsApp group then let me know ...
... the name by which
you would like to be known (which I suggest has your team name
as the last part of it), and your mobile phone number.
I can then admit you
to the group.
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