Results & Match Reports

• Albert couldn't quite emulate Ethel's efforts of a fortnight ago, going down to the (almost) all conquering Finger

• Opsimaths were walloped by Electric Pigs at the Albert Club

• History Men edged home past Ethel Rodin in the Red derby - thus securing their second place slot in the table

• Albert Park chose South West Cricket Club to stage their famous late season one match rally when they uprooted Stumped's timbers

• Meanwhile down School Lane the Brains proved they travel well by knocking title hopefuls, St Caths, down a slot to third place in the league

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's setters were the X-Pats.  With a name like that and Wednesday being St Paddy's day the theme was widely anticipated.  Every question or answer had either a 'saint' or a 'pat' reference.  The intensity of the theme diminished as the paper unfolded.  So, in round one we started off with 'Saint Patrick' full on; by the end we were onto 'PAThogenic'.  They certainly avoided the trap of getting bogged down in Ireland for 64 questions (sorry Gerry/Ivor).  It was happily possible for the setters to stick fairly to General Knowledge questions whilst keeping to the constraints they had set themselves. 

Reactions were mixed.  Some found the theme wearing towards the end, whilst others commented favourably (Ivor, for example, is full of admiration for X-Pats' ingenuity).  Kieran was less impressed than he was with their 'Terrorist paper' of last season (which he rates as one of his all time favourites).  Roz and Ethel were not best pleased at all, finding too many 'celeb and football' type questions.  At the Albert Club we were perfectly happy with the paper - we just didn't know many of the answers.

The average aggregate score this week was 62.8 - a bit on the low side but respectable enough nevertheless.  Actual aggregates around the games varied from 57 (History Men/Ethel) to 67 (Brains/St Caths).

The Question of the Week

Richard Seed, of the resurgent Park, nominated Round 1 Q2 as 'Question of the Week'.  At the Albert Club neither team got this one but Tony H (who valiantly stepped in to QM since Jitka and Brian are away in Scotland) said he could have guessed the answer correctly since he had once known a law student from the country concerned who had bright red hair and had been educated (and some suspected fathered) by the Christian Brothers.  Oh, and the question was:

Of which African country is St Patrick the patron saint?

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

Chatterbox

Thursdays?

You may recall that we had a vote at the end of last season on changing from Wednesday to Thursday evenings as our regular match day.  It was a close run thing but Wednesdays just won the vote.  Chatting to the teams at the Oak this week there was a feeling that the groundswell for Thursdays has increased and that we need to have another vote.  I don't see us changing in mid league season but how about changing to Thursdays as an experiment for the cup matches (especially if there is local interest in the later stages of the European Champions Cup)?  Can we use the website as a sounding board for this issue?  I'll publish any feedback I get.

Feedback 1:

St Caths and X-Pats discussed this issue after their recent match and were firmly in favour of sticking to Wednesdays.

Feedback 2:

Copland has come back saying that Stumped also vote strongly against switching to Thursdays.

Feedback 3:

Mary O'Brien (Albert) favours keeping to Wednesday - at least until we've had a chance to debate the issue again at this season's gala night.

Feedback 4:

Ethel Rodin are finding Wednesdays at the Red Lion almost impossible to negotiate, what with wide- screens and football at every turn.  They would favour moving to Thursdays.

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 may 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.

This just received from X-Pat John Brennand:

"Mike - when in the Red on Wednesday (17/03) Carl told me the pub will close completely on March 28th (only the front bar area remains open now).  It will reopen fully on April 8th.  Would be worth a double check next week and then decide what the pick up arrangements will be for the two Wednesdays it's closed."

Fr Megson

In Which Fr. Megson Casts A Dark Shadow Across The Cabinet

A Chairde,

Fr. Megson was in town last Friday night ministering to the needs of fallen women and of those who were about to fall off their high-heels after twelve Baccardi Breezers.  He was just enticing one such hapless victim back to his exclusive parish-financed pied à terre (rhymes with lair) when who should he see berating the bouncer outside the City Arms tavern but The Government.  They had been dragged kicking and screaming up to the barbarous north to model their new Spring Collection in G-Mex.  He took 'em back to Vespers, a luxurious club for good men fallen among quizzers, for a quick debriefing session in the sauna and, as often happens when a posse of power-starved, half-blitzed men get together, they fell to talking about the local quiz league.

Apparently one of Tony's most pressing concerns, while he awaits his new financial year invasion targets issued by his Head Office in far off Pentagon House, is the woeful level of educational standards in the bottom half of the Withington quiz league (nor is he overly impressed by the political balance of its website and he darkly hinted that Mike Bath would do well to read A DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH for useful future survival tips like how to rescue a dimp out of a spitoon, but that need not concern us here).

"The level is scandalous, worse than Johnny Prescott's school report", he blazed.  "How can decent people be expected to tag along complacently with a mediocre government when they can't even stay on-line with basic educational requirements like having a grasp of the history of Great Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest or knowing how many bottles of champers constitute a Jereboam.  You can't fall into a pub in South Manchester these days without seeing a gaggle of anoraked middle-aged men and, God forgive me from saying this but it's true, quite a few Clare Shortish-tempered women sitting in a darkened corner engaged in not answering questions.  Questions, I might add, that would be the lifeblood of intelligent debonair free  spirits like me and John Prescott and countless tens of others who take the time and effort to watch Reality TV and pay attention to the BAFTA results.

"I ask you in all sententiousness (impressive word eh? - Alastair Cooke let me have it when he retired) to consider the future.  These sad Robin Cook throwbacks, these alternative quizzers, probably cycle home, eat a vegan bacon buttie and in the absence of any intellectual stimulation like, for instance, watching the latest salutary instalment of HOW CLEAN IS YOUR TOILET on the telly, they probably find nothing better to do than breed.  And if its anything like Islington round here they will tend to breed faster, and with more baying to the moon, than your average urban fox.  And what a dystopian future awaits their unfortunate progeny!  Dingy 4 bedroomed detached hovels unlit by the joys of ITV.  How can these poor benighted creatures ever hope to attain their allotted role in life - that of decent Sun reading Sunny Delight swigging couch potatoes and polling-booth fodder?

"Imagine, if you will, a home where the History Channel is considered to be the norm.  A home where cryptic crosswords are left shamelessly lying around the kitchen.  A home where encyclopaedias are not guiltily snapped shut and stashed under the cushion whenever snotty-nosed little tots walk into the room without knocking or cleaning their boots.  A world in short without the joy of YOU'VE BEEN FRAMED or the life affirming bathos of HEARTBEAT.  A world, fellow Americans, without celebs.  A world, in short, without ME.  I swear to you, fellow Manchurians, I swear to you on the sacred career of Gordon Brown that such a world shall not come to pass in Manchester or in any other State of our Union.  Goodnight fellow Ninja Turtles and may God bless Ant and Dec."

These things having been slurred (I am indebted to Sister Euthanasia of The Mount Lourdes Convent in Enniskillen for sending me this rare example of an Ablative Absolute), Tony and HM Government joined Fr. Megson in a peaceful slumber in the urinal furtherest from the left.

And as they slept Clare Short sat knitting on the Bull Ring and dreamed of passing rose red tumbrils.