Results & Match Reports

This week sees the halfway point of the league season.

• Brains beat Albert Park by a single point at the Oak

• Opsimaths lose to the recovering Historymen

• Fifth Finger march on at the top of the table undefeated and now 4 points clear - this time beating Stumped in a record high-scoring encounter at the Griffin

• Ethel Rodin beat X-Pats in a last question thriller at the Red

• Albert lose to the Electric Pigs who now leapfrog them and move off the bottom of the table

• St Caths lose for the third week running, this time to Snoopy's Friends who go past them into second place

Quiz Paper Verdict

Dummy (aka Gerry Hennessy) was on setting duty - and for the second week running it was a bingo quiz.  As far as we were concerned at the Albert Club this was a cracking paper - confirming what we'd always known, namely that Gerry H was the best setter of all time.  As you can see from the stats below this was by far the highest scoring Wednesday so far this season, although I'm aware that a high aggregate score is not the be all and end all.  Only one query from me: (Question 71) Was one time England soccer international and coach, Don Howe, a well-known politician as well, or was Gerry getting a bit knackered towards the end and made a wee slip?  John Brennand of X-Pats also has a bit of a gripe with Gerry's paper:

"Mike - one other contentious issue for us was in Q36 - "With which TV cartoon character created for children...".  Everyone knew the answer was Postman Pat - but our man convinced himself otherwise because he knew, quite rightly, that Pat was not a "cartoon" character (he was animated).  Our man conferred and then exploded apoplectically when P.P. was the right answer (just ask any of the Ethel's). Threatening to castrate Gerry if it cost us the quiz - which of course it did!!   So Gerry had better watch out for a scalpel toting X-Pat.  Quite amusing actually."

Across the matches the average aggregate score this week was 83.7.  Actual aggregates varied from 73 (Brains/Park) to a massive, possibly record(?), 92 (Finger/Stumped).  This was the highest scoring week of the season beating the previous highest (78.4) from the Fifth Finger paper on November 26th.

The Question of the Week

The Opsimath vote for 'Question of the week' (chosen by Brian this week) goes to (Question 61):

“The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its crescent tail.”  Which 1973 novel opens with these words?

To see the answer to this and all the other questions click here.

Chatterbox

The Perfect Quiz

Gerry (from the Brains), myself and Kieran (from Fifth Finger) have opened this season's debate on what makes for the perfect quiz paper.  Kieran shares many of Gerry's views and gives a stout defence of the Brains bingo paper from 14th January - despite its toughness.  To have a look at these exchanges click here.  I'll leave a link to this for a week or two.  Do email me if you wish to contribute and I will add your comments to the special page.

Refurbishment at the Red

A warning for the coming weeks:  we believe the Red Lion will be closed for refurbishment during the last week in March and the first week in April.  The Historymen and Ethel Rodin will need to make some alternative arrangements and we will have to fix an alternative pick-up point for the questions.  The Fletcher Moss has been suggested as a pick-up point.  Anyhow, Gary D is on the case and will advise all concerned shortly.

Mastermind

Such is the popularity of our site that researchers from the BBC are calling.  I received a message this week inviting anyone interested to apply to appear on the next series of Mastermind (go on Martin have a bash).  This was the message:

"I am looking for contestants for Mastermind 2004 - if anyone is interested could they please contact me on 0161 244 3528 or mutale.nkonde@bbc.co.uk"

Etc

I am reliably informed that Paul Ince has NOT scored goals for 5 different Premiership clubs (despite what I said in last week's Quiz Biz).  Apparently his spell at West Ham was before they were a Premiership club - so there!!