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Charabancs lost to History Men
A convincing 9 point win for the History Men keeping them in 5th
place
 "Dr
Ivor, I'm in trouble"
"Well don't ask me!"
Our first game of 2025 in the company of our old friends the
Charabancs. Despite a City match being televised in that
staunchly City pub, the Griffin was most pleasant with an ambient
temperature surprisingly low for the Griffin, and a relatively quiet
empty room. This might have been due to the presence of a cone
(perhaps a refugee from John Major’s purge of unnecessary
anti-libertarian street furniture) at the entrance. It
certainly kept out non-quizzers, though it was so discreet that Anne
walked straight through it.
Thursday night people
(R4/Sp)
The Charas (like City) went into an early lead but by the end of
Round 7 we were one point ahead. Then (like PSG) we had a
rampant surge winning the last round 9-1, which, as regular readers
know, is most unlike us. The combined score of 59 is rather
modest. This is not because both teams were not trying.
As Anne often notes: we have run out of knowledge - or as the late
Mike H once said: we know the answer but we just can’t remember it.
QM Gary was patient and sympathetic but had to declare there were 15
questions which failed to produce an answer from the collective
consciousness of X8, or whatever the number of brain cells is these
days.
Lack of knowledge is one explanation but there was also the 'wrong
seat syndrome', 'zigging instead of zagging' and failure to pick up
any useful hints or connections whether hidden or overt. Even
worse, despite playing with our 'canonical four' (Anne, Vanessa,
David and me) some of us had a poor game. Anne did not get a
single two all night - and I could not recall the ant-hypertensive
drug class (luckily David did), and my excuse that I am on a calcium
antagonist, and that anyway, I have been retired for four years so
cannot be expected to remember all this medical stuff, cut no ice.
We also plumped for the wrong pain killer that has bumped off a lot
of Americans (though oxycontin has done that too).
Hattie being wude
(R5/Q7)
 Damian
falls for Anne's red top trick
Our
lowest score of the season so far. As usual we started off
well being in the lead for the first two rounds and, either level or
a couple of points adrift, in the others. Then came the
dreaded Round 8 where we scored just one point to our opponents'
nine (which included two steals from us). So yet another
drubbing from our old adversaries - albeit favourite opponents.
I
was particularly miffed that Ivor got the history question about
which king was buried at Reading Abbey. I was so sure of a
steal on that one. Personally, I think as a good Irishman (or
at least Ulsterman) he spends far too much time researching English
monarchs. I mean, I thought it was understood that I was the
old Queens' expert! Despite the lopsided defeat, proceedings
were made much more fun by Gary's QMing which, whilst being
efficient and to order, included his amusing attempts to perfect
dear, departed Jitka's accent as she solemnly pronounced "There are
no points for this question". This happened so often that he
was almost word perfect by the end of proceedings.
I
must also confess to being distracted by Anne turning up wearing a
red top instead of her usual black. She certainly knows how to
play mind games does Anne! The
evening's fun ended with my pathetic attempts to get out of the back
seat of David's car. Despite Ivor's strenuous attempts to haul
me out I was, at one point, ready to call the fire brigade!
Rising water in Cheshire
(R6/Q2)
Bards beat Opsimaths
The Bards remain 4th - but they only just beat an improving
Opsimaths team
 Howell
reveals how Ken Bruce still being alive was fatal for the
Opsis
It
was an enjoyable match between the Bards and the Opsimaths in a new
section (for me, anyway) of the massive beast that is the Parrswood.
The
score difference was never more than 3 points and the teams were
level at the end of Rounds 5, 6 and 7 before the Bards crept ahead
to win by 3 points.
The
Opsis had a lengthy debate over which of the team's that Ipswich had
never previously played in the Premier League were their opposition
on October 26th. We plumped for the wrong one of the 3
candidates we had settled upon (i.e. Bournemouth, Brighton and
Brentford) and it proved somewhat fatal. This was followed by
my mix-up going for the very much extant Ken Bruce rather than his
Scottish counterpart. Well, that was the 3 point difference
between the teams at the end.
N ice
Work - many thanks!
(R8/Q5)
Mike was on good form this week. He very much enjoyed the
quietness of our surrounds and having helped the discussion about
the Lutyens question, was proudly (or should that be loudly?)
sharing his knowledge of local Lutyens-designed buildings only to
hear the paired question along exactly the same lines getting asked
while he was talking! Which reminds me ... Lutyens designed my
favourite WW1 cemetery in France (see Cabaret-Rouge below).
Later on Mike quietly sat through a long question about the home of
Ross County before giving an answer that he probably could have
given after the first three or so words!
Cabaret-Rouge War Memorial, Pas de Calais - another Lutyens
masterpiece
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First jab to end a nightmare
(R1/Q2)
Ethel Rodin lost to Albert
Albert scale the 50 point mark - way ahead of all the evening's
other scores
 With
Mike away Ashton hails the start of a new softer regime
No
MOBO tonight - would we crumble without his steely presence in the
dug-out? Well, no as it turned out. It seems that the
removal of the hairdryer allowed us to express ourselves in lovely
patterns of free-flowing quizzing. What will all this mean on
Mike's return? Will he be forced to admit that his
sergeant-major style of management is an anachronism in the modern
era of quiz? Will the barked orders be replaced by a fatherly
arm around Jeremy, Ashtanga yoga sessions with Jullien and
aromatherapy massages for Eveline?
In
fairness, a paper with such a preponderance of sport and geography
was catnip for me (more rugby league questions please!) - and the
number of medical questions gave Jeremy the opportunity to shine,
and at least partly repudiate the rest of the team's long-held
suspicion that he is only now a barrister because he was struck off
from the medical profession.
Everyone scored well, and our occasional new player Ian has taken to
the WithQuiz format as well as you might expect from a semi-finalist
in the current series of Mastermind (keep your eyes peeled
for his next appearance sometime in March).
It
never felt like Ethel played badly and a glance at the other scores
suggests that they would have been competitive elsewhere, but it was
just one of those nights when the questions fell squarely into our
wheelhouse.
Music fit for a King
(R1/Q8)
Prodigals beat KFD
The 100% Prods just get the better of a top of the table tussle
 Jimmy
attributes success to a bit of luck - and to having Kate!
Another tense and bruising encounter with KFD. It always is;
no quarter given nor asked for. We had our noses in front for
most of the match but never really convincingly. I put our
eventual victory down to good decision-making when conferring on two
possible answers; we had one of those nights when we always seemed
to plump for the correct solution.
We
seemed to get the luckier end of some badly balanced pairs - but
them’s the breaks and we just about staved off a late rally by our
visitors to claim the maximum points and keep our excellent run
going.
I
must pay tribute to Kate who has taken Richard’s seat for the last
two games whilst he's been off grilling University Challenge
hopefuls and has performed magnificently. We only have a very
small pool of players this season but everyone has really played
their part.
Tolpuddle memorial
(R2/Q2)
 Kieran's
failing memory averts a very sticky situation
What a thoroughly depressing evening! Though let me quickly
say that playing yet another storming contest against our hosts was
not depressing at all. Somehow serially losing to this
Prodigals team doesn't seem as disheartening as it should; they're
just so, so good. Also they're friendly and fair and excellent
company with whom whiling away a cold winter's night is (almost) a
pleasure. We do take some small solace that this season
they've laid waste to the combined knowledge of the rest of the
league by 114 points in eight games whilst against us the margin is
just 3 over our two matches. Still it is a margin in their
favour and being second is just the first of the losers.
Barry managed the rare feat of being both the MVP with four twos and
the Jonah with two unanswereds. We outscored the Prodigals on
twos 11-7 and only gave a net 1 back in pass-overs, so they won
because they've nicked our famed conferring expertise and taken it
to a different level.
The
Prodigals allowed us 'butt of sack' for 'butt of sherry' right at
the start of the evening and we reciprocated at the end when they
got close enough to "tell him about your plans" for the point which
mathematically decided the contest. The whole game was played in
that spirit which is one of, if not perhaps the most important, of
reasons why playing against the Prods is always a pleasure.
Madox Manchester Mural
(R7/Q1)
That's just as well because a potentially difficult moment was only
averted by my memory and quizzing ability slowly declining with
age. There was an error in the first spare for Round 1: Andrew
Motion hasn't been the Poet Laureate for sixteen years. A far
more serious blooper, or at least it could have been, was Round 5,
Question 8. The quote about faking honesty and fair dealing is
usually attributed to either Groucho Marx or George Burns. I found
one Google entry suggesting it was said by Tony Hancock, but no
corroboration, and in any case both Burns and Marx would pre-date
Hancock. I knew the origin was American and I even had Gracie
Allen (George Burns' wife and comedy partner) in mind. I knew the
surname began with 'B' but the name wouldn't come and in the end I
said Jack Benny with almost no belief that it was the correct
answer. The Prodigals had clearly seen that one Google hit
because they picked up a bonus for Hancock. If I'd remembered
George Burns I'd have felt I was very hard done by not to be told my
answer was correct - and that three point swing would have reversed
the result of the game. Anyway I didn't get it right and the
Prodigals won fairly and deservedly.
Let's not talk about Paris.
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Quiz paper set by...
...
Electric Pigs
Average Aggregate score
71.3
An evening's
aggregate a tad below the season's overall average of 75.6. A
surprisingly wide spread of team scores ranging from 25 to 50.
Some complaints about Rugby featuring too prominently (though
not from Ashton!) and a few ill-balanced pairs but overall pretty
enjoyable.
... and
this was Damian's verdict ...
As the scores indicate tonight's offering from the Pigs was a bit of
a curate's egg with some good stuff mixed in with a lot of
obscurities and, for my money, too much reliance again on sport -
which I frequently complain about and which seldom plays well with
us. The themes were sometimes easy, and sometimes trickier to
work out although we liked the 'English counties' and the
'Comedians' themes.
30 years on and Jonathan Edwards is still a world record holder
(R6/Q7)
...
and Howell had this to add ...
It's good to learn new things from a set of WithQuiz questions, and,
as someone who's been taking a drug ending in '-pril', I'll
certainly be getting a better night's sleep knowing that I have an
'Ace' inhibitor working inside me, rather than just an average one.
That's NICE for you, isn't it!! Now I just have to find out
what it's inhibiting.
There were a few comments made about the balancing of pairs (e.g.
Richard Hillman vs Moriarty) or the dirge-like guessable God Save
the Queen vs the rarely heard Hearts of Oak!!
...
and Kieran really didn't like it ...
It felt like a bad toss to win and go first but the unanswereds were
5-3 against us so the balance wasn't terrible throughout just
absolutely bloody awful every now and then. For example some
Coronation Street character paired with one of the greatest
villains in literature, the National Anthem with Hearts of Oak
and a rugby team at which you could have a decent guess with a
player that you would only know, if you knew. Yes we were on the
wrong end of all of those.
There was far, far too much rugby, too many crap culture soap opera
questions and a recurring shrug of shoulders as yet another 'so
what' answer was revealed. And are the Pigs unaware of any
counties north of Leicestershire? We've enjoyed the Pigs
papers a lot over recent years and their first effort this season,
back in October, was a belter, but this was a long way off their
usually excellent standards.
An enjoyable evening but, in our view, not an enjoyable paper.
Lutyens masterpiece right here in downtown Manchester
(R3/Q4)
...
and Jimmy has his say ...
The quiz itself was
quite tough, maybe just slightly ill-balanced; certainly KFD
received two in a row where I thought we had the rub of the green.
The lyrics from the patriotic songs is the one that sticks in my
mind.
QotW? I liked
the 60s photographer one even though we got it wrong. It was
one of those "aah yeah I should have got that" posers that just
hover beyond your memory's reach.
...
and Ashton's views ...
An old-school WithQuiz set. Little variety in the
round-by-round formats but good, solid interesting questions and the
only howler (Andrew Motion is definitely not still poet laureate)
was in the spares. I was particularly pleased to see a round
on English counties - surely all the impetus I need to resurrect my
unfairly maligned rounds on a single county for the next time we
set...
...
and finally Ivor's feedback ...
That we found the quiz difficult does not mean it was a bad quiz at
all (and the Albert’s 50 points in an 83 point aggregate suggests it
was not that difficult). Perhaps it did not play to our
strengths. Rugby (of either code) challenged us. We did
not spot the Comedian connection - but as Lenny Henry (rather less
funny than fellow Dudley-born Billy Dainty or Norman Pace; indeed
arguably the least funny person from the West Midlands since Enoch
Powell) was one of those referenced, perhaps we can be excused.
BB by Mr Faye Dunaway
(R3/Q2)
Question of the Week This week
the vote goes to Round 3 Question 2 which hovered just beyond
Jimmy's memory's reach ...
Who was the celebrated British photographer best known for
documenting the fashion, styles & celebrities of the 1960's?
He was married to Faye Dunaway in the 1980's and died aged 81 in
2019?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
Staggies at home by Cromarty Firth
(R7/Q8)
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