Braggarts and St Caths make it a two-horse race at the top

Results & Match Reports

At the top of the table both the Braggarts and St Caths kept up the pace with victories respectively over  Dr O'Neil and the Albert. 

In 3rd and 4th positions things were not quite so rosy.   Snoopy's lost at home to Albert Park and the Historymen stumbled again, losing pretty heavily to TUFKAC.  TUFKAC have left their end of season surge to the very last minute yet again - nevertheless a welcome and emphatic victory for them.

The gap between the two at the top, the Braggarts and St Caths, and the next 2, the Historymen and Snoopy's, is now widening.  It looks like a 2-horse race with Snoopy's against the Braggarts, and the Opsimaths against St Caths, in 2 week's time being the deciding matches.

In the other game this week Fr Megson's Brains ended up easy winners over the Opsimaths at the Royal Oak (for detailed match report see Fr Megson's weekly contribution below) 

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper was set by SWMCC.  It was a pretty mixed bunch: some questions to which I would be very surprised if anybody in South Manchester, yet alone the quiz league, knew the answer (e.g. Round 8 Question 6: Roy Rogers' real name), whilst there were some real gems (e.g. Round 2 Question 1: Which TV character was based on Donald Sinclair?).  Although the Crossword round is not to everybody's taste it gets good marks from most.  The pictures too were good'uns - especially that one of Bob Dylan looking at death's door.  Marks too for innovation for starting what could be a trend: questions about consecutive dotted letters (Round 7 Questions 3 & 4).  In summary the aggregate scores came in between 55 and 69 which is a bit down on the norm.

The Question of the Week

My question of the week award goes to Round 5 Question 1:

Who died in the village of Roslin in February?  She was six and a half and had a progressive lung disease.?

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

Chatterbox

You will have noticed with the quiz paper on Wednesday evening came Gary's plans for this season's cup competition.  Since by the end of last year's competition teams were beginning to get the hang of how the draw worked Gary has made it even more complicated this year.  I have to own up to complicity here as, when asked, I advised him that the Opsimaths had found the complexity of the draw as much fun as the actual quiz papers themselves (I seem to remember we played the Albert on 3 consecutive Wednesdays as we struggled to knock each other out!!). This year we have a Plate competition as well as a Cup for those who manage to achieve the impossible and get knocked out of the main event.  I have placed the draw on the Fixtures page of the website and will keep you up to date as to how the results progress - and therefore who is playing whom, and who is setting the papers each week.

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Last week I stuck my neck above the parapet and suggested the 10 golden rules for a good quiz paper.  Since I posted this onto the website somewhat late in the day (Saturday morning I believe) I thought I'd put it in again this week.  Already there has been a reaction from Pete Taylor (at St Caths) who has taken exception to my victimisation of his question last week about Hannibal's famous battle at Cannae and is threatening to bring his elephants down to the Albert Club in a couple of weeks time and lay waste to the Opsimaths.  Gerry Collins (Brains) has also commented.  He suggests (and I agree) an eleventh rule that should float above all the others and that is the 'tip of the tongue' factor.  He says that as far as is possible each answer should be on the 'tip of the tongue' of at least one person in the team to whom the question is aimed (easier said than done).  Anyway please do give me some more feedback and I will publish your views here.

Here are my original 10 golden rules first published last week:

The Perfect Quiz Paper 

1.    An aggregate score of between 65 and 80 points.  If possible this would be made up of at least 16 x 2 points, 40 x 1 points (conferred or passed over) and a few no scores.  Many more than 80 means the quiz was too easy, and less than 65 means it was too hard.

2.    A fair crack of the whip for both teams.  Unless you've gone for the Bingo format, this probably means paired questions (one of each pair going to each team).  Preferably the second half of the pair should be some distance from the first half so that the likely answer for the second question of the pair has not been discussed just a few seconds before it was asked as part of the process of answering the first question in the pair.  It also means avoiding questions where the answer is one of a few possibilities explicitly mentioned in the question - so that a wrong answer by team one leaves team two with a much better chance of guessing right.  An example of this would be the recent question asking 3 of Dickens’ books to be listed in the order in which they were written.  A wrong answer by team one considerably simplified team two’s task.

3.    Avoiding overpopulation by one sort of question.  For instance 6 questions in one paper about football seem too many.  4 might just be OK.  Themes are OK as long as they are used as a lead into what is regarded as a pot pourri of general knowledge questions.  A whole round where the answer is the name of a film or film actor is not OK, but a round on November 5th that leads to questions on history, chemistry, religion and questions whose answers contain the name of a firework is fine.  However 64 questions derived from a November 5th theme is almost certainly 48 too many.

4.    Not veering too far from general knowledge.  'General Knowledge' is notoriously hard to define but most people have a good feel for what it is and what it isn't.  Specialist knowledge acquired at work (whether in the labs at Christie's, on the bench in Crown Square or in some software company) probably isn't General Knowledge.

5.    No questions that depend on a subjective judgement for getting the correct answer.  For instance ‘Who is the most famous….?’ or ‘Who is the best……?’

6.    Up to 4 questions in a quiz with the ‘well I never’ factor.  Too many of these indicate a question setter who is trying to show off arcane knowledge.  But a few sprinkled around can really enhance an evening.  These are usually the questions that get mentioned the next day at work, I find.

7.    Up to 8 questions which tempt the whole team to confer for a while debating the subject matter and eliminating less likely options to arrive at a preferred answer.  A good example this season was ‘How many of the original founding football league clubs are in the Premiership this season?’.  Too many of these sorts of questions, however, can lead to 'quiz constipation' and very late finishes which can be pretty antisocial.

8.    Make the wording clear and capable of being answered correctly by just one answer.  Incidentally an answer that has to be qualified by a statement such as: ‘only accept ….’  usually means the question wasn’t clearly enough worded.

9.    Keep the wording of the question to as few words as possible but, more importantly, make sure the answer is short.  The best questions usually have one word answers.

10. A bit of innovation.  However sound a format we have developed for our papers over the years we are all going to get bored by it sooner or later.  Each season it is essential to have a few new ideas for the format.  The SWMCC crossword round this season was a welcome addition.  Last season the Brains floated the 'most northernmost, southernmost, etc' questions.

Fr Megson

Very little Shock or Awe 

A Chairde, 

Angry demonstrations by the away fans here tonight following rumours that Opsimath's troubled chairman, Mike Baa'th, whose family had until recently unbridled control over the massive Tie-Rack franchise in Ballydad, is keen to liquidate the club and its many supporters.  The anger was fuelled when Mike's lookalike spokesman (also called Sadie) confirmed that he is to sell Colinski, their brilliant but volatile Belorussian snapper up of unconsidered trifles, to FC Partizan Peshmerga in exchange for John Hartson and 2 other beasts of burden.  Quite how he purposes to use Hartson whose knowledge of Shakespeare and writing in general is said to be suspect remains to be seen. Curfew permitting, Colinski is set to make his debut in Kirkuk next Wednesday and we wish him well.  With both teams already guaranteed mediocrity the result of the quiz itself was largely academic, an adjective not normally applied to either team.  For the record the result was:  

Real B'Oak 3 (Damian Figo and Roisin Raul(2)) :      Opsimaths Utd 1 (Ruud Awakening)

The questions set by SWMCC tried hard to dispel the lassitude and ennui of the teams and often succeeded.  B'Oak of course lapped up the 64 special questions on inter-county hurling (1378 - 1978) but I felt a momentary twinge of sympathy for the small band of Gastarbeiter Sassenachs who eke a living and a Quiz out of the Reeks.  Obviously they lack the cultural inheritance of the natives and most of them probably still think a Hurley is a small brain trapped in a low-cut dress.   Maybe the odd cricket question could be lobbed at them as a sop and comfort blanket.   On second thoughts, sod 'em.  Let them go to the fleshpots and themed Sassenach bars of Dingle if they want that sort of thing.

SWMCC is, of course, a new name in our league this season - and an unpronounceable one to boot!   According to my indispensable copy of "The Rough Guide To Unpronounceable Even Rougher QuizTeam Names" (Frank McClintock Press; 38 korunas and a pint of house lager), SWMCC is actually a 19th century Serbo-Croatian variation of the 12th century Welsh anagram CWMCS as indeed are most of their fiendishly concocted and inventive questions.

Their lead singer Eddie Araucaria (ex Catatonia and of course The Drifters) tells me they are hoping to go acrostic next season with the release of their new album "Electric Pigs - Unplugged."

Mike Baa'th is busy this weekend re-indexing his grand children (congrats. from all of us) and of course redecorating his palaces and repointing his statues.  He has asked me to nominate a Question of the Week (or as that underestimated American oral poet Donald Rumsfeld recently called it, "one of the unknown great unknowns."  And the winner is:

Q: How many pieces of wood are carried off the field by the losing team in the Ballyboke versus Ballydad Reeks hurling final?

A: 37 (their own hurling sticks; their opponent's (broken) hurling sticks; 4 goal posts; 2 crossbars and Sarah Bernhardt's wooden leg)

Bet you didn't know that, Kieran.

Slan