Withington Pub Quiz League

Off to a flying 'points-fest' start; wins for the Bards, the Charas and Albert - but Champions Prods slip at the first to Ethel

Prodigals lost to Ethel Rodin

Albert beat Opsimaths

Charabancs beat Electric Pigs

History Men lost to Bards

Latest WithQuiz League Table

Albert beat Opsimaths

Albert off to a emphatic start against last season's wooden-spoonists

Mike finds it all a strain

The evening certainly had a hint of Old Testament about it. Because we were a player short I asked Kieran if CKC could provide a QM and he sportingly agreed to do so. On the night we were surprised to find that he had sent his son Thomas, a Manchester City season ticket holder so that he could beetle off to the Etihad himself; Abraham shoving Isaac onto the sacrificial altar springs comes to mind but 'Isaac' rose to the occasion and we are very grateful for his sacrifice.

I found playing a terrible strain (all this having to know things is a strain). I can't wait to get back to QMing where I can expand my brutal style without having to know anything about anything.

Eyck's Ghent masterpiece

(R8/Q2)

... and Brian welcomes a result with a prospect of improvement

Happily, when the Opsimaths started the evening, not only were we not bottom of the league, but we were ahead of last season's league winners, the Prodigals (it's amazing what alphabetical order will do when nobody has played a match!).

Sadly, when Opsimaths finished the evening, normal service was resumed and we are bottom of the league (it's amazing how character-building it is, not to win a World Cup or WithQuiz match).

PS: The only way is up! Hopefully?!

A Scot at just on 3,000 feet

(R7/Q4)

... while Howell fears a hard winter

The sad demise of Humphrey over the close season had not brought any Sun back to an autumnal night in Burnage! And the close season has not seen an upturn of Opsimaths fortunes.

We were almost quicker to finish than Mike was returning from the Etihad - obviously the mobile phone ban meant that we didn't even know the City result until he arrived!

We did get off to a bad start when the first question offered a choice of answers - from which we had to pick one. The wording of the question regarding rugby, however, confused us (it was very early in the season) and we picked a country rather than a team. Perhaps knowing the competition a bit better would have helped ... but not as much as wording the question marginally better.

Mind you we won Round 1 5-3 (going first first) before losing all of the remaining rounds as Albert's lead just kept getting bigger!

It could be a hard winter... but perhaps not...

When 'W' stood for wicket-keeper

(R7/Q2)

History Men lost to Bards

The Bards gallop to the joint highest score of the evening

Happiness x 1; Hurt x 8

(R2)

Charabancs beat Electric Pigs

A comfortable first win for the Charas to start their season on a high

Damian heaps praise on Charas guest quizzer, Alan

I guess you can't get a more auspicious start to the season than winning your first match. The trick is to keep on winning which is a trick we have yet to master consistently enough to finish in the top half of the league table by the season's end but let's not get ahead of ourselves already. It was a satisfactory debut to kick off the new season

This was a close fought match with most of the points coming from some excellent conferring by both teams; one occasion when losing the toss and going second worked out well for us. We established a narrow lead at the start and maintained it for five of the eight rounds. It was our superior steal rate (6 vs 3), which swung it for us. Guest Chara Alan was our man of the match with 4 twos to his credit but we all contributed our share in that department.

Goodbye Boothferry Park, 20/10/2009

Hull 0 - Darlington 1

(R5/Q4)

Prodigals lost to Ethel Rodin

A shock early defeat for last season's Champs in a nail-biter at the Club

Greg's happy for having avoided the season's first iceberg

Well, that was a surprise. A close-fought tussle. Ethel were 3 points ahead at the halfway stage, but the formidable Prods clawed it back to within one point with two rounds to go. The scores were level going into the last question. Rather than go for glory, we conferred and clinched the win by a single point.

Rob's view of the proceedings: "A Night To Remember". Hopefully, our luck will hold and we don’t hit an iceberg after such a promising start to our maiden voyage of the season.

James reports everything went perfectly to enable Ethel's win

It’s been a while since Ethel beat the Prodigals - it may have been a while since anyone beat the Prodigals - but to do so required the perfect combination of everyone being in the right seat for the right questions, nearly every educated guess being correct, every confer working out well, and dredging several good answers from the depths.

A close game all the way through, never more than 2 or 3 in it. As ever, we got hardly any steals from the Prodigals- but we didn’t give many away either. A high scoring game all round with everyone in both teams contributing plenty of two pointers.

All in all a good night at the Albert Club, competing with the small crowd watching Man City vs PSG. Fortunately though, they weren’t being given too many reasons to be excessively loud, so Anne-Marie didn’t need to raise her voice that often.

Michael warns: the Prods lost their opener last season; then ...

As the Qataris and Emiratis debated who had the best petrodollars on the big screen at the club - the Qataris prevailed, of course - the Prodigals hosted Ethel. We have made a ritual of losing our first match of the season, and so it proved again. There were never more than 3 points between the teams and the whole affair was of a high standard; indeed, I don't think there was one blurt or an instance of "Ah, we should have got that".

Westminister's Minister for Funk

(R6/Q3)

This week's Quiz paper set by...

... CKC

Average Aggregate score 82.0

Like at least some of the setters I was away at the Etihad for this first week of the League season watching a different sort of 'points-fest' against PSG - so I'll leave the critique to others.

... so what were MOBO's views ...

The paper itself was a sound traditional WithQuiz paper with a wide range of subjects and The Albert cannot complain given our final score.

... and Howell's ...

This was a typical CKC paper - questions that offer only limited opportunity to work out the answer - but written smartly in such a way that "can we have the question just one more time" is rarely spoken.

Question of the Week? I rather liked R6 Q5 about the 4th of November.

World's Top Thinker?

(R8/Q4)

... and Greg's ...

A good paper from CKD with plenty of points on offer.

My nomination for QotW is the one about Britain's oldest pub chain.

... and James's ...

A very good set of questions; well-balanced throughout; can’t remember any that were even vaguely mismatched or controversial.

The round with the first and last letters being subsequent letters enabled educated guesses to otherwise non-specific questions e.g. Citric Acid and Richard Dawkins.

... and Michael's ...

We had no real complaints about the paper. If we had been in slightly different seats, we might have won, but I'm sure that applies to everyone every week, and only the pair of quarks and Kindle seemed unkind. Actually, I lie - I got questions about maths and Catholic archdioceses. Vile! But seriously, we always enjoy KFC/CKC quizzes.

... and Damian's ...

As the points score shows it was a high scoring affair which indicates the general accessibility of the questions. There was something in it for everybody and you can't say fairer than that. The rubric of the three Graces of Greek legend for the former dukedoms round was a bit curious and questionable but it didn't seem to impede us from guessing the theme. The 60 years of hurt round seemed to go down as the most popular offering of the night with us all excitedly dredging up the names of former England managers none of whom managed to ease the decades of pain, not even the imported ones.

Le PM

(R7/Q8)

Question of the Week

This week Greg and his colleagues especially liked the one in the 'Nobel Words' round about the oldest pub chain; plenty of pondering then a very satisfying 'penny-drop'. So the vote goes to Round 7 Question 6 ...

What is Britain’s oldest pub chain? They have rebranded from a three-word name to a sole identifier.

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

U.N.C.L.E.'s Uncle

(R5/Q6)