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Electric Pigs lost to Albert
Another convincing win for second-placed Albert
 Jeremy,
gives a Seoulful account of a friendly affair at the
FM
My debut as a cub reporter arises because, instead
of realising that, like many new retirers, I wonder
how I ever found space in the day to do some work,
Ashton delegated the task of writing Albert’s
contribution to me, commenting that I must now have
time on my hands.
It was a welcome return to our old stamping ground
of the Fletcher Moss. We commented that,
although less than ideal for quizzing, being noisy
and crowded, it has more pub atmosphere than the
Sun. The Pigs were, as ever, affable and
pleasant opponents. They edged a point ahead
in the first round and stayed there until the fourth
- after that we pulled ahead by a further couple of
points in every round.
Hammering Germany in 1966
(R5/Q7)
The quiz began pretty poorly. It’s seldom a
promising start for the first question of the
evening to go unanswered and the rest of the first
round didn’t really get any better. Things
improved after that, and the questions were
refreshingly free of imbalance. Ian was
inspired to get the theme of the fish-based round at
the second question, which certainly helped me to
come up with Seoul (a guess born of complete
ignorance, I have to confess) later on. We
liked the film Run-ons too. Altogether, a good
evening.
Butcher's moll
(R1/Q6)
History Men lost to Prodigals
The Prods continue moving up the table after their
poor start
 Ivor
reveals his Bull's Blood and Black Tower days of
yore
The Parrswood is so big that we can rotate round
several quizzing spots if it is a busy night.
This time we were, like ordinary people at a
celebrity restaurant, tucked round the back close to
the secret loo. This is no hardship especially
as the average quizzer is a gentleman of a certain
age. With Guy and Anne away in Ibiza we had
Steve, Vanessa, David and me as History Men taking
on the Prodigals A team (John, Jimmy, Richard and
Michael). In the QM seat was Alison (Mrs C).
We arranged ourselves in order of deafness which
allowed Alison to introduce a new QM way of hurrying
up her husband’s team if they cogitated too long -
namely a poke in the shoulder with a biro.
This is a surprisingly effective and low-cost means
of stopping longueurs. I wonder if such an
innovation would help in the Premier League or in
Test matches.
The Reverend takes his morning constitutional
(R7/Q5)
Long story short: we lost. We were 7 points behind
after two rounds and consider ourselves lucky we
only ended 8 points adrift at the end. We
actually had more twos (10-8) and fewer unanswereds
(2-3). It was the Prodigals superior steal
rate (3-8) that was decisive. Vanessa was our
MVP with 5 twos. We had the usual wrong seat
questions and we zigged instead of zagged too often,
but the main dilemma was that the Prodigals were too
good (or maybe, as Anne often argues, we have run
out of knowledge). As per usual we remember
the injustices and forget the lucky breaks. I
got two questions on football (no idea) but got the
microscope and the steal with typhoid (my former
life not completely dimmed).
What mess?
(R7/Q2)
Plenty of time for chat afterwards. We
appreciated that the Dickens questions were confined
to the spares, and the younger Prodigals reflected
that they do not like old television questions,
minor royals or too many Bible questions.
Later conversation turned to drinking hours of our
youth (10pm closing times), limited availability of
wine (Hungarian Bull’s Blood for red and Black Tower
for white) and the Ulster measure of quarter gills
for spirits rather than the English sixth. Happy
days!
Walter & Shergar
(R2/Q8)
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Brief Encounter ends in Beverly Hills
(R2/Q7)
Opsimaths lost to CKC
CKC win handsomely to creep further up the table
 Kieran
enjoys his après-quiz moments
The comfort of spending a late autumn evening with
old friends, rivals, adversaries even; the
discomfort of doing so in the remarkably
quiz-unfriendly ante-room of the Albert Club.
What is it about the acoustics of that place that
makes cacophony the default condition? Oh my
dear, the noise! And the people!
QM Brian coped superbly with the racket and also
with the absence, initially, of Round 1 and the
start of Round 2. The missing questions made
it to Brian's phone soon enough thanks to the magic
of the internet and the diligence of Anne-Marie -
and all was well.
Modest man who built modern Britain
(R5/Q1)
All was done by just after 10pm leaving plenty of
time to discuss Hebridean seafood, Mike's excellent
radio show, Scandi voting systems, the absurdity of
Barney Ronay and French fascists. As you do.
Just another Wednesday in the wonderful world of
WithQuiz.
Next week it's the Club again and the slightly
misfiring (by their extraordinary standards)
Prodigals. More sound and fury, likely
signifying nothing, for us at least. This time
last year we duelled with the Prodigals in the Club
on a Pigs paper and it was maybe the greatest quiz
game we've ever played. It ended 44-44 and it was
certainly the most enjoyable match I can remember.
There probably won't be a repeat but I can enjoy the
anticipation, and then write a measured, fair and
good humoured match report.....
Wayne and Lorena in happier times before he lost
it completely
(R4/Q1)
 Mike
ponders the addition of audio clips to our quizzing
fare
Well, as Kieran, says above we were hammered (but
not in an alcoholic sense, you understand). We
kept making wrong 'zags' (as Ivor calls them);
choosing 'Vickers' as opposed to 'Wilkinson Sword'
for the very first question of the evening when both
seemed possible. And, of course, as usual our
blurts were epic ('Genesis' as opposed to 'John's
Gospel', the double-lettered Edward Hopper as
opposed to the double-lettered Grant Wood, Peter
Davison rather than Sylvester McCoy, etc., etc.).
Heartfelt apologies from me to Hilary when I plumped
for 'Miss Smilia's Pla(i)ce for Snow' when she knew
the the novel and the correct 'eely' answer. I
was just being greedy for another two.
As Kieran says above there was a problem at the
start since the Bards had omitted page one of the
quiz paper from our envelope (it was in the Charas
envelope by mistake). A quick bit of
messaging, a phone photo and a text from Anne-Marie
to Brian and the delay to the start of the quiz was
just a few minutes. Consider that situation 50
years ago (almost) when we started this harmless
Wednesday obsession and it would have been a major
panic.
Thinking on this I wonder whether technology
advances might tempt us soon to include music
questions in our armoury. Each of the 4 QMs on
a Wednesday would access some shared cloud-stored
music file via their phone and play the required
piece to the teams. Any takers?
From billions to extinction in 50 years
(R8/Q4)
Ethel Rodin beat Charabancs
Ethel stay top with a win over the Charas
 Confession
time for Damian as he slips up on a Pope round
Our first defeat of the season and hopefully not the
first of many. In truth, we never really got going
until Round 6 when we managed to claw back a 15
point deficit at half time to just being 8 points
adrift at the close of proceedings. Now if
only we had had another round or two. Although
we won the toss and elected to go first it didn't
seem to do us any favours. Going second would
probably have been a better choice. Ah the wisdom
of hindsight!
 James
goes hunting for the wrong sort of villain
A fairly comfortable evening for Ethel in a quiz
which didn’t favour our opponents. I agree
with Damian that they would have done better losing
the toss and having our questions.
Charabancs can be a tough game with the right
questions. They would perhaps be first to
admit that their lack of popular culture knowledge
can be a disadvantage - but the team, and Damian in
particular can pluck out some incredible answers if
their questions move into more favourable
territory.
It wasn’t a particularly close match, and the final
score perhaps flattered the Charas as they won the
last 2 rounds something like 13-5 which helped
reduce the large goal difference that has worked
against Ethel in most cup competitions of recent
years. I blurted a few answers on questions that I
would have conferred over if it had been closer -
and we had several 50/50s that fell 0/100.
Our favourite answer was probably the Sauron one.
We had worked out Guinea-B - but then fixated on
Bond villains and having failed to put Ernst Stavro
Blofeld alongside anywhere in West Africa, offered
the almost entirely tenable Guinea-Bissau/Auric
Goldfinger pairing instead.
Anne Marie acted as a fine host as we were sans Rob
Ford (still on Sky News psephology duty) and Roddy
who would have QM'd if available. Anne-Marie's
running commentary during the quiz is always fun,
even if it is often some way off the mark!
"Oh! this one’s really easy ...!". Errrm….
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This
week's Quiz paper set by...
... The Bards of Didsbury
Average Aggregate score 74.0
An
excellent paper from the Bards, full of interest,
points and well-worked themes. There were no
discernible factual errors that I noticed.
One
quibble (there has to be one to convince the setters
of the sincerity of my overall praise). The
second run-on round was a bit light on the
overlapping elements. On the whole we prefer
the overlap to be a whole word or at least a (say)
4-letter syllable. Soundalike overlaps of a
couple of letters can be a bit flaky.
Grant's American Rural Midwest
(R4/Q8)
...
so what were Kieran's views ...
The
paper suited us perfectly, thanks Bards. We
built a 16-point lead by the end of Round 5 and then
held steady for the remainder of the contest.
There were only 6 unanswereds and, curiously, we
copped for 5 of them. Popes, fish, films and
celebrated stand-offs were all right in the
Space Dogs sweet spot and we helped ourselves to
twos, conferreds and bonuses aplenty. The
last checkmate in the World Chess
Championship happening almost a century ago was an
echt WithQuiz moment; one of those bits of trivia to
carry with you forever now it's known.
War and bikinis
(R6/Q2)
...
and Ivor's ...
We
all enjoyed this quiz. The level of difficulty
was fairly tough for an individual player, but if
your team is eclectic enough to have all the bases
covered it was a reasonable and satisfying
challenge. So, well done to the setters and
the moderator. We spotted the Rugby theme (not
that it helped), got the fish early enough, and
missed the popes. The Run-ons were inventive
and at least we had heard of the films. Plenty
of confounders for the unwary. We got caught
out with our answer of Guinea-Bissau/Auric
Goldfinger; and, as I knew Stravinsky was buried in
Venice, had eliminated him as an answer for the
composer who died in New York (I hope his relatives
were not paying Ryanair for extra baggage). No
one got Lord Fisher’s three word acronym to
Churchill (though FYI and LOL were proffered).
No one got the unusual chess ending in 1929 though
the Prodigal’s answer of stalemate was more likely
than our Hail Mary answer of “One of them turned the
board upside down in a fit of pique like a child
playing a family game of monopoly.”
...
and Damian's ...
Ably QM'd by guest presenter Anne-Marie from the
Prodigals, we thought the paper was a bit of a
toughie and we struggled for points in the first
half. Despite Anne-Marie's frequent urgings of
"Come on, you know this!" we found that too often
that she was being a tad optimitistic. There
were though some interesting never-knew-that
moments. My Catholic radar was misfiring on
this occasion as I failed to spot the hidden pope
theme on account of never having heard of a Pope
Theodore (has anybody?). A quick after-quiz
google, however, confirmed there had indeed been
two. Straight to confession for me on that one.
"I never saw that coming, mate"
(R8/Q2)
Question of the Week
This week Kieran really liked Question 2 in Round 8
(the 'Firsts and Lasts' Round) that looked too
obvious to be right but on further reflection could
well have been true - as indeed it was! A
well-thought out piece of deception worthy of the
QotW gong ...
In the World Chess
Championship what last occurred in Game 8 of the
1929 final between Alekhine and Bogoliubov?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
Gifts from the east
(R2/Q2)
... and
also
As you can see above in his match
report Kieran dwells on the standard quiz night
racket at the Club.
By the way for the younger readers
the reason the Opsimaths first moved to the Club as
a venue was its sepulchral emptiness back in the
1990s. Unfortunately some of us decided this
emptiness was daft for the burgeoning DINKY-ness of
West Didsbury where disposable income was going
through the roof and a gem of a site like the Albert
Club should be serving the area better. We
succeeded ... in making the Club flourish (its
membership rose 500% in the space of a few years)
... and its quiz-friendliness plummet as all those
wretched DINKYs came to share their day's angst from
working in City Centre Manchester's offices blocks
in increasingly noisy tones (and that's before the
orange-clad cyclists from Chorlton found their way
to West Didsbury).
Anyway in this week's post-match chatter at the Club
with our ageing and increasingly deaf quizzers (like
Martin and me) we got to rate our various quizzing
venues.
Here goes ...
1. Parrswood Hotel
Occasionally noisy (e.g. the Folk Festival that took
place in the main bar area during the Pre-Season
Friendly against Stockport earlier in the autumn)
but so cavernous that it's always possible to find a
nook or cranny in which to hide away.
2. Griffin
Plenty of separate, and usually empty, alcoves/rooms
- although sometimes darts or TV football frenzies
can drown the whole place out.
3. Ladybarn Club
Usually very quiet with the occasional drunken
snooker disagreements spilling over to interrupt.
4. Sun in September
Quite quiet - but with an authoritarian regime
inherited from its Yorkshire roots that upsets some
of us.
5. Albert Club
(see above)
6. Fletcher Moss
Constant noise buzz wherever you sit - often caused
by carousing Labour party apparatchiks debating how
to continue ruling the world in the face of Green
and Reform threats - and keep the excellent longest
serving member for Didsbury East in post for another
few years.
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