Withington Pub Quiz League

The Prods nick Albert's 100% record to consolidate their position at the top; the Bards and the Opsis fight to a standstill with the season's first tied match

Opsimaths tied with Bards

History Men lost to Ethel Rodin

CKC lost to Electric Pigs

Albert lost to Prodigals

Latest WithQuiz League Table

CKC lost to Electric Pigs

The Pigs are flying high with this away win

Kieran welcomes Barry back for a fleeting visit - but still no win

Another Wednesday evening, same old same old. Even the resurrection of the Lowestoft Lazarus couldn't change our fortunes. Lazarus/Ben is mired in some tedious legal nonsense concerning leasehold title and is yet to move one inch towards the planned Norfolk retirement. Ah, the Law of Property Act 1925, they don't write them like that anymore, for very good reason. Barry's also been suffering for most of the summer from fairly severe back knack. Let's hope his alter ego has better luck in Perth in 24 hours time - he's not Rory Burns (or Steve Harmison) so he's already ahead of the game.

Anyway we scored more twos than our opponents again, were primed for the win at the end of Round 7 again, and lost. Again. At this point there's not much we can do except believe that surely this torment must end soon, like having an itch in an inaccessible part of your back or sitting through a Wagner opera.

The Pigs simply knew more answers than we did and they are the friendliest and most engaging opposition so the evening was very enjoyable. Perhaps we're getting used to being Liverpool this season or City last. There were some wild variations in aggregate round scores, from 13 in both Rounds 1 and 7 to just 5 in Round 8, the quiz ending in a whimper.

I'm still open-mouthed (fnarr fnarr) after Michael's revelation about History Man, David's diet whilst on his Japanese holiday. I'm never going to be able to order Miso soup again.

Manchester music legend

(R1/Q5)

History Men lost to Ethel Rodin

Ethel get back on track after a fruitful visit to the Parrswood

James tells how a soulful finale by Ethel clinched it

One of the most entertaining fixtures of the calendar. Watching Anne chastise her team so colourfully is always one of the highlights.

There were three examples of excellent sportsmanship from the History ladies and gentlemen that do deserve particular mention: firstly offering to take a spare for Ekitike when the QM accidentally added the Liverpool part of the answer to the question as he repeated it; secondly for allowing my quick clarification of scrofula having initially said TB (I think the question could have been better phrased given that scrofula IS essentially a symptom of TB - Ivor as a retired microbiologist might provide some nuance to that…); and thirdly for insisting that they take only one point for an answer where the degree of conferring wasn’t entirely clear. It can be annoying when after conferring, the person to whom the question was originally given works out the answer all on their own. We won by 4 points, but at the time, the game was still very much alive.

I enjoyed the 'footballer palindromes' questions; the reason I got these quickly was because next time we set, you were all going to get the 'Eze/Ekitike' palindrome posers. Adding 'Hannah' to the first question was an extra level of inspiration.

A whole round on German cities was perhaps pushing the window a bit - but with the points dropping 4-3 it wasn’t the scoreless draw it could have been. If we had had Roddy playing I suspect we’d have nailed that round given his extensive knowledge of Germany.

However, Rob definitely came into his own with several answers that Roddy probably wouldn’t have known. 'Descartes' was one of those; so was 'Ed Davey' - which was passed over to us after a wrong answer. From that we successfully predicted what the reverse pair would be - allowing Greg a slam dunk 2 points. Kemi has some limited value after all.

It was fairly close throughout, but Ethel never led until the final round when the soulless Historymen flunked all 4 of their questions giving us 4 steals. The final question in that round - and of the quiz - was perhaps a bit harsh as a last question, especially if the game had still been live. I’d be interested to know what the teams that tied thought of it.

It was our souls wot won it!

Piers laughs at Stephen's jokes

(R7/Q6)

Ivor welcomes David back after his Far East adventures

A pleasant evening in the Parrswood. Young David has returned from his Japan trip and although somewhat tired after his 40 hour return via Shanghai and Paris, was keen to play and only slightly delayed by, and nonplussed by, unexpected ice on his car windscreen (his Japanese trip was rather hotter and humid, at least in the larger cities).

The Charabancs are proving to be our nemesis this season so far. Having trounced us in the opening game by 12 points they have now served up a paper that has led to our second defeat. We would have won had the game ended after Round 7. Sadly our two point lead quickly evaporated and we ended not only scoring no points, but conceding all four questions as steals to Ethel Rodin in Round 8. I suppose we can't complain (but we will) as our two previous matches were unexpectedly snatched from our opponents in the last few questions. Swings and roundabouts. Overall the quiz was well balanced with only six unanawereds (splitting 3-3).

Quercus robur - strength in wood

(R3/Q7)

Players who don't seem to know whether they're coming or going

(R1/Q7&8)

Albert lost to Prodigals

The Prods march on destroying Albert's 100% record

No bitterness from Jimmy - just a stout defence by the Prods

As you would expect it was a tense, top of the table tussle in the salubrious Sun in September with no quarter given or asked for. I did ask for a pint of bitter however and was told they had none, only Stout or Light Mild due to supply issues. My suspicions were raised immediately; is Sam Smiths under digital siege? The victims of a heinous cyber-attack by disgruntled tech users? No matter, as the Stout was a more than adequate substitute.

The match was very tight and though we led nearly all the way, the final outcome was in the balance until deep into the final round. Post-quiz the chat turned to football; the exciting final group round of World Cup qualification received some attention but not as much as QM Mike O’Brien’s new scarf. A yellow and blue beauty which defeated the Prodigal’s best attempts to ascertain which club it showed allegiance to. I won’t reveal the answer as I have the feeling that other WithQuiz teams will enjoy testing themselves against Mike’s muffler.

One other point ... in the spares the Charas included a poser about a contemporary Irish musician. What’s this? Damian and co. finally acknowledging the 21st century as we are nearly a quarter of the way through it? Come gather round people because the times they are a-changing.

Eclectic Pig

(R5/Q3)

Mike has a warning for the people of Costa Rica

A very straightforward paper with the odd imbalance which made it better to go second. For all that we could have won but for the odd ill-judged blurt, because there was rarely more than 3 points between the teams throughout the evening.

I had hoped that having deported Jeremy to Costa Rica there would be a lower level of lunacy in the team but it is a very ingrained trait in The Albert, so in the coming weeks I may be forced to take a more active role by playing myself in order to restore some discipline to our proceedings. In the meantime I fear that the people of Costa Rica will come to realise that it is all very well not having a standing army but it does make it much harder to keep out people like Jeremy.

A record that's recently ex-spired

(R2/Q1)

Opsimaths tied with Bards

A nail-biting finish at the Club ends with honours even

Mike finds his early convent years education at last pays dividends

Another small rung up the ladder to respectability as the Opsis tussle to a tie with some of the league's big beasts. We started off trailing the Bards by a bit and just carried on in that vein, always in touch but never quite on a level with our opponents (Tony, Mike, John and Jim). That is until the final pair by which stage we'd hauled ourselves back to a 2-point deficit. My Catholic convent education grounding came in very handy when to my team's delight I slotted home St Elizabeth for a two. The hopelessly ill-matched paired question concerning Faust's deal with St Lucifer yielded a couple of wild and inaccurate guesses to leave the match tied. As Jim said of that final Faustian question: "The Bards had infinity to ponder over, and the Opsis infinity minus one."

It was a jolly enough evening in the Club's back lounge. The Bards got there early and nicked the table leaving the Opsis (Hilary, Tehmeena, Charlotte and me) to splay ourselves over the settee round the low coffee table - never a good start. The fact that the Club was playing host to a Poker night and a Darts match (not to mention a bevy of orange-clad Chorlton Wheelies) made for challenging auditory conditions but Brian as QM rose to the occasion with some stentorian action.

Food warriors

(R7/Q2)

On the whole the paper was pretty sound and had plenty of interesting variety for us to navigate. As ever one of the joys of a Bards match is watching his team mates struggle to contain Tony's occasional urges to blurt. So it was with the the Moulin Rouge question in Round 5. Quick as a flash Tony said "Montparnasse" - "No, no" came in one voice from the remaining Bards but by then it was too late. Over it came and the Opsis as one said "Montmartre!". "Sorry", said Brian "the answer is "Pigalle." The point was lost but a quick check via Google proves us right. That lost point would have given us victory. Hey, ho.

Nevertheless, a good evening for the Opsis team as we claw our way back to mid-table mediocrity.

Quiz paper set by...

... The Charabancs of Fire

Average Aggregate score 72.3

Pretty much bang on the season's average to date with loads of variety and interest. What's not to like?

I really enjoyed the German cities round - just enough clues to make the answers guessable without any giveaways. Perhaps a few floppy bits where tighter editing might have helped (see my 'Montmartre/Pigalle' moan above) - but on the whole a good night for quizaholics.

Runners up

(R6/Q1&8)

... but what did Kieran make of it ...

A decent enough paper from the Charas who are Kryptonite as setters for us. Most of the stats were even between the two teams and we have no complaints for once.

... and Jimmy's view ...

The quiz was interesting and varied and in terms of difficulty bang on our season average.

Iconic Manchester music venue and how it got its name

(R1/Q6)

... and James's take on the paper ...

We thought there were a few pairs where the team going second had the easier run - e.g. naming both Stephen Mangan and Nicola Walker from a relatively obscure TV show vs naming multi-award winning Claire Danes from the worldwide smash hit series Homeland. But on balance an interesting and entertaining quiz.

Leading Pig

(R5/Q4)

... and finally Ivor's conclusions ...

The quiz itself was well regarded and all the rounds were pretty eclectic. We could have the usual bleating, or grunting, about niche knowledge, wrong seat syndrome and falling for blurt tempters. However the delight of quizzing is that the occasional high of dredging up an answer long thought lost (in my case the pig in Charlotte’s Web) is balanced with the occasional low of missing the obvious (the ghost of Miss Turkington, my primary school teacher and a Plymouth Brethren member, no doubt will berate me for saying Mary’s Magnificat was addressed to Gabriel).

The rounds were fairly novel and well constructed which always goes down well. 'German cities' questions were not to my taste - I was not sure if I could even name eight cities never mind get a clue from their football teams (Anne has instructed me that I must not use the term 'Association Football' or 'soccer'), but fellow team members came to the rescue. It is horses for courses I suppose (like the Maryland Hunt Cup).

Homeland Hero

(R3/Q4)

That last round! Surely Mrs Hudson had to be Doyle’s soul of discretion (she wasn’t)? Surely All Souls cannot have been founded before the end of the Wars of the Roses (it was, but to commemorate Hundred Year’s War victims)? Surely Dr Faustus would negotiate a longer period of power and wealth from the Devil (24 years sounds like an unduly lenient life sentence these days)? We failed miserably no matter what questions we would have got. So well done to Ethel and we pray for their souls (as well as our own).

Manchester's Palazzo masterpiece

(R7/Q7)

Question of the Week

This week Bard John took a fancy to the somewhat quirky nature of the football pair in Round 1 - in particular Question 7 ...

George Hannah scored the third goal for Newcastle in their 3-1 victory against Manchester City in the 1955 FA Cup Final. Why was this goal unique until Eberechi Eze scored the winning goal for Crystal Palace against the same opposition in the 2025 FA Cup Final?

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

Betula pendula - elegance in wood

(R3/Q8)