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Electric Pigs lost to Charabancs
At last the Charas enjoy a 2026 win
 Damian's
a happy tosser
At long last we
make our debut as a winning team in this half of the
season. It was a long time coming but, better
late than never, I guess. With Chara Bill away
on the piste, we fielded super-sub Alan who came
good for us with 4 two's. The rest of us
didn't do too badly either and we totalled 10 two's
by close of play versus 8 for the Pigs. The
steals broke even at 5 apiece but our worthy
opponents fell foul of the unanswereds which broke 5
to them with just one for us. It seemed to be
another occasion where losing the toss favoured the
losing tossers - in this case us. Lesson for
all concerned here, never give up hope just because
you have lost the toss. It can often work in
your favour as it did for us tonight.
Coffee that's good for you!
(R2/Q3)
With a total score of 73 this
seemed to meet the season average and I don't think
any of us had beef with any of the questions with
maybe the odd exception. It wasn't clear to us
whether the name of Robbie Williams' album was
required, or the actual football shout it was based
on. We plumped wrongly for the name of the
album but our graceful opponents very generously
allowed us the point because of the ambiguity.
Cheers to the Piggies for that!
Legend lost in Tennessee
(R3/Q1)
CKC beat Albert
CKC put a dent in Albert's ambitions for second
place
 Kieran
delights in CKC's literary buffery
Our
best win of the season by some distance. Many points
came as a result of Thomas's encyclopaedic knowledge
of basketball (a sport in which he has no interest)
but his stand out moment was insisting on Daniel
Deronda for a morale-boosting point at just the
right time. Martin matched him with Far from
the Madding Crowd and for a while we were quite
the literary buffs though we somehow missed out on
the Shaffer twins despite being more or less handed
them on a plate in the question.
Eventually dredged up by Vanessa
(R4/Q2)
The 'Twins' round was good for us but the contest
shifted 180 degrees when we got to spin bowlers. At
the halfway point we trailed by seven but once we'd
all turned our arms over the scores were level.
Four Russki dogs who love cricket were always going
to score heavily on that round. Alf Valentine
was one of very few spinners we hadn't written down
at the start and missing out on that point was
annoying. I dragged Verity Lambert out of god
knows where and I also got something near a worldie
with Lausanne as the Euro host. David's love of
Scottish guitar bands earned us more points; Martin
finally settling on Debussy did similar and it was
one of those nights when we just worked really well
as a team and got our reward in the end.
aaa
(R5/Q5)
Events elsewhere (nothing more to say about that)
meant we were forced to play in the alcove at the
back, just by the door to the beer garden and
opposite the toilets. We've only played there
once before - also against the Albert - and we won
that one too. Noises off from a three-quarter
full Griffin provided an entertaining backdrop to
the quiz along the lines of "for f***'s sake how did
he miss that"? At times both teams could identify
with that anguish.
Manc with Two Brains
(R5/Q3)
Our season of one and then two thirds continues.
The Bards paper in November gave us our first win of
the season after five debilitating defeats and since
then we've scarcely looked back. A right shooing
from the Prodigals two weeks ago, yes, and a
comfortable victory for the Albert in WIST, but
otherwise it's been pretty good. We've still
got a decent shot at the last top four spot and we'd
be very happy with that after the start we had to
the campaign.
And we get to see Black Bob at least once more in
the cup next month. Sometimes I really quite
enjoy (most things about) Wednesday evenings.
George's Travelling Supergroup
(R1/Q5)
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Charlie the drummer
(R7/Q7)
History Men beat Opsimaths
Another good win edges the History Men closer to the
runners up position
 Ivor's
winning glee is tempered by the Val Draper Cup draw
Another pleasant night in the Parrswood. Anne and
Guy are away for a bit of R and R in Ibiza; but
Kieran fear not (or maybe be afraid) because unless
the Middle East conflict spreads further westwards
they will be back for the CKC game next week.
Tonight we had the return of Steve and, as QM, Ray
making his QM debut. He avoided the tyro QM’s
greatest fear - that of blurting out an answer
before it is passed to the opposition. Instead
he had a dodgy photocopy for some Round 2 questions
and the challenge of a question in French, but he
earned his spurs.
Mr Lulu
(R7/Q4)
We
note that our match combined score of 64 was by some
way the lowest of the evening. It was a game
of two halves. We were ahead 26-18 after four
rounds where there were only two unanswered
questions. This had taken less than half an
hour and Young David made the unwisest assessment
since the US general who said “The enemy couldn’t
hit a barn door from that distance…” by noting that
there would be lots of time for drinking. The
second half was a slow grind and, of the Opsimaths
16 questions, 8 were unanswereds and four conceded
as steals. We were little better with six
unanswereds and three conceded as steals. Of
course we would have done better if we had known the
answers (other teams obviously did). The
battle for the minor league places continues but so
far the Historymen have had a good campaign.
Pioneering BBC drama producer
(R5/Q8)
Tough for us but we always learn new facts on quiz
nights: Luke Goss had an acting career, the formula
for Gibbs free energy (whatever that is), a Virgin
City that is not Inverness. For me the most
impressive answers were Emma effortlessly
identifying the composer who damned Wagner with
faint praise, and Vanessa’s two minute
brain-churning successfully dredging to the surface
the Beowulf character. I was also pleased to
remember the poet with the premature obituary.
In fact he also had a second premature outing
because he was still alive when the plaque to 16
Great War poets was revealed at Poets’ Corner in
Westminster Abbey though he did shuffle off this
mortal coil three weeks later.
Our joy about winning, however, was soon replaced by
despond when the draw for the Cup was made. To
add salt to the wound it was a Historyman who made
the fateful pick from Mike Bath’s hat that sees us
as setters for the first round. Time for
thinking caps again. At least only two teams
will suffer our efforts this time.
69 years from obituary to death
(R8/Q7)
 Reserved,
Mike speaks out
I was
the reserve player this week, so I turned up to the
Parrswood hoping to watch City triumph in Madrid on
the telly and then join my colleagues at the end of
the evening for the Val Draper draw. In the
event no TV (the Parrswood has gone all Sam Smiths)
- and from a City supporter's point of view, just as
well since the Bernabeu news was most painful.
All of which meant I sat in the excellent 'study
area' of the cavernous boozer watching the assembled
WithQuizzers tackle the Bards' offering.
JR & LP
(R3/Q2)
Ray (Ivor's
brother-in-law) QMed whilst Vanessa, Steve, David
and Ivor head-to-head with Howell, Emma, Charlotte
and Paul tried to provide him with the right stuff.
An extraordinary match of two halves ensued with 17
twos from the first four rounds and just 2 twos
after the break. The History Men took an early
lead which they never relinquished.
As
ever it was a very good-hearted affair with plenty
of cheerful chat once the final whistle had been
blown. Well done to the History Men;
they are now in with a very good chance of ending up
second in the league following Albert's loss at the
Griffin.
From World in Action to the Bourne
freanchise
(R4/Q5)
Ethel Rodin lost to Prodigals
The Prodigals just keep on keeping on
 Michael
was devastated his spin went unnoticed
And
so, our annual trip to the Stadium of Murk, where,
to my astonishment, the average age of the clientele
seems to have fallen by about 20 years since my last
pilgrimage. All power to the Ladybarn Club for
tapping into the local student market, but I've
never felt so old as when I was ordering pints
beside Freshers. Upstairs, there was no peace
either, for a sect of voluminous City fans were to
be found making their discontent known all night.
Only the cheers which greeted Donnarumma's penalty
save interrupted an impressively constant stream of
expletives.
As for
the quiz, we were 12-10 down after 2 rounds and did
not expect things to get much easier; Ethel have
been very tough to beat over the years. We
pulled ahead, however, during the difficult second
half, although I think we were flattered by the
final score. The 'Awesome Stab in the Murk'
award went to Jimmy for guessing that Swansea was
the copper-laden city; Richard spotted 'Gibbs Free
Energy' when we were floundering; and John pulled 'Futcher'
and 'Shaffer' from nowhere. While I was
delighted to get the 'Dusseldorf' question - the
Neander Valley luckily featured in my last book - I
was outraged that my four first-class wickets were
not enough to merit inclusion in the hidden theme
round about spin bowlers. The Daily Telegraph will
hear of this.
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This week's Quiz paper set by...
... The Bards
Average Aggregate score 73.3
Very
close to the season's overall average - but, at
least in our match at the Parrswood, a very great
discrepancy between the level of difficulty in the
two halves (44 points in Rounds 1 to 4; 20 in Rounds
5 to 8). One or two questions too, where there
was some tricky arbitration for the QM - such as the
'Hartley' one. History Man, Steve, said "JR
Hartley" (of fly-fishing and Yellow Pages fame) and
got a 'wrong' whilst the Opsis offered "EE Hartley"
and also got a rejection. Inspecting the paper
afterwards it seems the initials in the answer were
parenthesised so that "Hartley" as the answer would
have been fine. However JR Hartley is
definitely someone well-known who is NOT the right
answer (which is LP Hartley). In the event
neither team got any points for this which was
probably the just outcome, though pretty harsh on
Steve.
Capitalist lizard
(R1/Q1)
I
really liked the 'Spinners' theme round (though the
examples chosen were mostly from long gone eras
which didn't help our youthful Parrswood quizzers).
However the best round, I thought, was the
'Eurovision venue' round. Hard questions but
enough clues offered to give plenty of help to those
who never ever take any interest in this dreadful
annual songfest.
Parson & Foxhunter
(R2/Q6)
...
so what were Kieran's views ...
A
splendid Bards quiz. We always enjoy their
papers and it was the perfect antidote for our last,
dismal performance. Martin divined the twins theme
early, though for a moment David thought he had said
"twats". With a pair of McWhirters and another
of Thatchers, David was closer to the true nature of
the theme than he may have thought.
...
and Damian's ...
All
in all we thought this was a good mix of questions
with something to appeal to everybody. It
certainly appealed to us!
1978's most expensive defender ever
(R7/Q5)
...
and Ivor's ...
Despite the exposure of our shortcomings we did
enjoy the quiz with its old and new variations.
The spin bowlers eluded us but not Thunderbirds
or male animals or twins. Good to have a whole
round on a variation of Eurovision (all quizzers
love Eurovision) though sadly we did badly.
...
finally Michael has his say ...
We
thought it was a good, erudite quiz, and the final
question of the night drew snorts of approving
laughter.
Question of the Week
This week we had to wait to the end to get the
quirkiest fact of the evening but then it came at
Round 8 Question 8 ...
Which Jamaican political activist was so
upset by reading his own premature and
uncomplimentary obituary in January 1940 that he had
a stroke and died?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
Died of dying
(R8/Q8)
... and
also
...
A couple of points to note this week ...
Val Draper Cup
We
carried out the draw for the Val Draper Cup
competition this week following the History Men v
Opsimaths match at the Parrswood. The draw is
shown on the fixtures page but you may be
particularly interested to know that the knockout
Round 1 match on April 1st (reducing the pool of
teams to 8) is to be between The Electric Pigs
and The Opsimaths with the
paper for this initial round set by The History
Men.
"A beautiful sunset, mistaken for
a dawn"
(R2/Q1)
John Hegarty is Chased
You
may care to tune into The Chase (ITV) this
Friday (13/3) at 5pm to see how John Hegarty from
The Bards gets on. The show was recorded back
last October apparently. With a bit of luck
he'll be buying the drinks next time your team meets
the Bards!
President dying for all to see
(R8/Q6)
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