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History Men beat Ethel Rodin
The History Men's win puts them in 5th place 5 points clear of
their opponents
 James
looks forward to Ethel's luck improving
Yet
another defeat for ER. As with recent weeks, we felt that we
pretty well maximised our score from the questions we got, but that
was well short of what the other team achieved. We are not
suddenly a rubbish team - it’s just we have been exceptionally
unlucky recently. So many ‘wrong seat’ questions (everyone
else in the team knows it) - and dodgy pairs. We have had
hardly any blurts or own goals.
What
Ashton wrote last week - about us not doing badly, just they did
very wel - was pretty much exactly right, and could be applied to
tonight as well, and indeed most weeks recently.
We won our
first toss of the season (yes - we had lost 10 in a row) and then
chose the wrong set anyway, yet again. Eight unanswered questions
for us to 3 or 4 for the History Men (Ivor will have a better
record of this) - and several other very poorly balanced pairs which
didn’t favour us. It was 10-10 after 3 rounds, and we had
already had 6 unanswered by then, including a hat-trick of ducks for
Greg. Surely it couldn’t get worse after that. Well. it
didn’t really get much better. It was 15-12 to the HM at half
time. The aggregate score of 68 felt flattering to the setters
and was rescued even to that level of mediocrity by just two rounds,
Rounds 5 and 8.
Next week we will
surely end our run of bad form and even worse luck when we play …
The Prodigals.
The Stormcock
(R4/Q2)
 Ivor
tells us of Anne's intolerance for smut
Back to the Parrswood for the first time this year. It was as
cavernous and depopulated as before and, with its four possible
quizzing spots available, we opted for the one Behind The Velvet
Curtain (doesn’t that sound like a Roger Corman film title?).
The place is so spacious we did not know that the KFD v Bards match
had turned up later (crowding in the Griffin due to the football)
until after their game was finished.
We were playing the defending league champions, Ethel Rodin, who
seem to be having a Manchester City-like run this time. We
were in our lucky seats and playing with our canonical four (Anne,
Vanessa, David and me) whereas Ethel had their canonical three
(John, James and Greg) with Rob promoted from the bench as Roddy was
indisposed. They did win the toss (apparently for the first
time in ages) and elected to go first. After three rounds they had
mustered 10 points and been dealt six 'unanswereds'. We almost
felt sorry for them, were it not for the fact that we only had 10
points ourselves (but with only two 'unanswereds'). The
Historymen’s definition of a hard quiz is failing to reach double
figures by the end of Round 3, so it just failed to qualify as
'hard'. The last five rounds, however, were well-balanced with
two 'unanswereds' each. In the end it was our four 'steals'
that ensured victory.
RIP Macclesfield's finest
(R8/Q2)
The sight of the night was young David desperately trying to recall
the name of the England rugby coach. When hand wringing and
waving was insufficient, he managed to retrieve the correct answer
by squeezing his head and presumably massaging the answer up the
neural circuits from the depths of his cerebral cortex.
Sadly no amount of thinking could recall the name of the UN
ambassador or the Indian viceroy. It does make one think that
some day a Google search on their name might have our quiz site
appearing on the first page of results.
Anne was on good form. Despite being our 'chougher-in-chief' she has
a low tolerance to double entendres and smut, especially if thought
to be uttered by her own team. Poor David was condemned for
thinking the Soho club might have been Raymond’s Revue Bar - and,
when he admitted he had misheard his question about the stormcock,
thinking that it was that which was the fungal infection on a
decoration. The spare question on the Robbie Burns poem led to
me being instructed: “Don’t you say anything”. So it was with some
surprise that we learnt that Anne was familiar with the Channel 4
programme where young men were happy to expose their 'membrum
virile' (as we anatomists like to say in Latin to protect/confound
the laity) to a TV doctor and an audience of millions including
possibly their grandmothers.
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Children of our time
(R1/Q1&2)
KFD lost to Bards
A win for a 'Tony-less' Bards team places them third level on
points with KFD
 Kieran
really didn't like the paper but applauds the Bards
Electric Pigs I apologise, I take it all back. I was unduly
and unfairly harsh about your quiz paper last week. This
week's effort from the Charas put things into perspective.
De-homed from the Griffin due to a wake (not the one threatening to
develop at the Etihad) we headed to the Parrswood. I wouldn't
have thought it possible but the barn was even emptier than usual.
When we arrived, just about when Brugge looked like making it a
night to forget, the entire population of the place was 11 desperate
souls: the nine involved in the History Men / Ethel game in their
usual curtained off ante room and two women enjoying (?) a very
quiet drink at a table by the door. They left as soon as they
realised our arrival had doubled the headcount. That pub makes
no sense on any level.
An Old Dog
(R2/Q8)
The
Bards were without Tony who is not too well right now. We, and
I'm sure the rest of the league, wish him a speedy and full
recovery; he's one of the great characters, one of the big beasts of
our funny little community and we want him back healthy and playing
- just as he has been for many years - very soon.
Congratulations to the Bards on a clear victory; the league title
having been beyond our reach for several weeks now made our defeat
slightly less painful.
High spots? Hardly any. The Didsbury Joe Root was
excellent, our best player, fully cementing his place as an
essential part of the team. That's about it.
WIST next week and the wonderful Alexandra. A nailed on jewel
in Edgeley's somewhat shabby crown. Oh, for a decent paper
please.
RIP Yosser
(R8/Q4)
Albert lost to Prodigals
Just keeping on keeping on the Prods beat one of their chasing
rivals
 Mike
is stumped by a Mr Halley
Well I took a day off last week and, to be fair, they won.
Since then I have been distracted sorting out their various
problems involving probation officers and court appearances.
Last night we were very competitive having led several times until
the bingo round came along at the end.
The
paper contained one of the hardest questions I have ever come
across. Did anyone know enough about Halley's activities to
get the answer?
Defense nominee gets ready for a bit of self-defence
(R6/Q1)
Electric Pigs beat Opsimaths
The Pigs leapfrog their opponents moving off the foot of the
table
A bit of Swedish knitwear
(R5/Q5)
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Quiz paper set by...
...
Charabancs
Average Aggregate score
74.0
I'll stay out of it
this week since I was sojourning at the Etihad on Wednesday evening
watching a thrilling, and eventually fruitful, second half of
Eurosoccer courtesy of City and FC Brugge.
However if you're a
Chara I suggest you take a deep breath at this point before you read
on.
Sheffield takes the top 2 spots in the World's Greatest
Yorkshiremen poll
(R2/Q5)
...
Kieran's verdict was pretty clear ...
We didn't care for the paper. More rugby questions, more crap
culture soap opera questions, more shockingly ill-balanced pairs,
more answers that were answers just last week.
On
the subject of seeming to repeat last week's less than enjoyable
experience, another error that didn't matter in the end because,
this time, the answer was unarguably correct was the one about
Scottish female monarchs ... Including Madge from Oslo there have
been four Queens regnant of Scotland as an independent country.
Anne, the correct answer, her big sister and almost immediate
predecessor Mary II and, you know, Mary the actual Queen of Scots.
Still not much harm done.
Then there was the bingo round. As I said above, Tony was absent
tonight but I'll presume to speak for him as well as KFD. We
have long detested the cursed, awful, joy-sapping bingo format and,
if there's a quiz paper hill to die on, I choose the Charas wretched
innovation from many years back. It's randomising, it's
normally unforgivably unbalanced, it carries the potential to ruin a
couple of hours of blow-for-blow competition in less than ten
minutes. It's an idea that was worth trying once and should
then have been ditched never to appear in a quiz paper again.
Quite the worst idea there has ever been in WithQuiz.
What's that you're thinking? Nope you're wrong. We were behind at
the start of the bingo round and we stayed behind throughout it.
Bingo wasn't the reason we lost the quiz. Doesn't make it any less
bloody awful though.
Carter's 90 year-old eulogist
(R2/Q3)
... and
so what did James make of it ...
Overall,
sorry Charas, but this really was a turgid and uninspiring set of
questions. Air on a G String provided one of the very
few moments of light relief, and would probably be our nomination
for QotW, even if it was a fairly obvious answer.
... Mike O'B's
verdict was much kinder ...
The paper itself was
very traditional with lots of interesting questions although there
was a strange fixation with Dickens and music.
... finally
Ivor found the paper OK'ish ...
The quiz had all the hallmarks of a Charabancs paper and did play to
the strengths of our two teams. From the highbrow (proper
music and literary works) to the lowbrow (‘Spoons pubs and Jonathon
King works) there was plenty to interest, and plausible confounders
that encouraged and delivered several blurts.
Question of the Week This week
James and the Ethel squad opt for Round 5 (the clothing inspired
round)Question 6 as providing one of the few smiles of the evening...
The famous Hammond Organ introduction to Procul Harum's 1967 hit
A Whiter Shade of Pale drew inspiration from which classical
J S Bach composition?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
RIP Bradford's Bradley Hardacre
(R4/Q5)
... and also
Next week is WIST semi final week.
Not surprisingly the teams in the all-WithQuiz
semi final (The Prods and Ethel) have opted to play on Wednesday
rather than Thursday. Their paper should be available at the
Fletcher Moss early doors on Wednesday as per usual.
The paper for the other semi on Thursday will
also be at the Fletcher Moss for KFD to pick up and take across to
the Alex in Stockport.
Stockport's doyenne quizzer Alice Walker is the
setter this time round so it should be a good'un.
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