Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 05/03/03

Leaders St Caths lose at home while the Braggarts win to draw level at the top of the table

Results & Match Reports

At the top of the table things are hotting up again. St Caths lost at home to Dr O'Neil in the major upset of the evening. With the Braggarts winning at home against TUFKAC, this means that St Caths and the Braggarts are again level on points at the top.

Other results this week:

Opsimaths eventually eased home against the Pigs down at the Albert Club

Albert, despite being undermanned, romped home to victory over Albert Park at the Fletcher Moss

Snoopy's Friends kept up the pressure on the top 3 by winning away at South West

Quiz Paper Verdict

The paper this week was set by the Brains of Oak. As is the custom the bingo style was used with 8 pictures scattered across the paper to liven things up. There were a few glitches (e.g. question 29 seemed to be the second half of question 28, and the picture quoted in question 41 should have been picture A not F) but overall the standard was excellent as we've come to expect from Gerry and co. Not too many Irish-flavoured posers this time (although a few more Roman Catholic ones than usual).

I know some teams prefer to ignore the bingo protocols and just take the questions as they come. This does run a risk, however. In a bingo paper no care will be taken to balance alternate questions in terms of hardness or subject matter - the serendipity of picking questions randomly should, on average, ensure fairness. To flout the setters' intentions can cause spectacular loss (or outrageous victory!). It seems that St Caths' defeat owed not a little to their decision to take the questions in order and then get all the stinkers. I even wonder if the 'bingo faction' deliberately make alternate questions very easy (or very hard) just to confound their ideological opponents. My own tactic for these quizzes is to choose high numbers if possible, since by the time a setter is getting to the sixtieth, or so, question they will be mentally knackered and be ready to fling in giveaways (but please don't tell Gerry this).

The Question of the Week

It was really hard to chose a Question of the Week - there were so many good'uns. In the end my vote goes to Question 61:

Musically speaking, where is a Volkswagen, registration number LMW281F, preserved for posterity?

For the answers and full details of all the week's questions click here.