Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 24/11/05

Results & Match Reports

Fifth Finger kept up their unbeaten record with a victory over the X-Pats (we're all looking forward now to the December 7th clash at the Griffin when the Fingers take on chart-topping FCEK!)

Electric Pigs lost at home to the improving Albert. Mary writes:

We didn't like the paper very much. In fact we thought the "spares and rejects" questions should have been in the main quiz!

Our question of the week was undoubtedly Round 6 question 8 but not for the obvious reasons. Neither team got the right answer which thrilled the QM, Gary, who announced: "I've been waiting for this", leapt to his feet and sang the whole verse and chorus to his astonished team mates, an amazed Albert team and several bemused strangers. Who needs the X Factor? When asked for an encore at the end of the quiz, he declined saying he didn't want to be banned from the Albert as he drank there quite often!

Definitely, a night to remember!

Ethel Rodin just edged it against Albert Park in a low scoring match at the White Swan. A somewhat miffed Roz writes:

The final score was a very low 28 - 24 (to Ethel), with 23 of the 64 questions going unanswered.

The themes were a bit off-beam, with some of the questions bearing little relation to the actual theme. For instance, Round 1 seemed to have run short of Rebeccas, so finished off with links to Daphne de Maurier; and in Round 7 Dylan Thomas's middle name was linked to Music & Ships!
The 2nd Monopoly question cited two streets from different 'blocks' (Round 5 Q2) whilst the three questions on the Dark Materials Trilogy went down like a lead balloon.
Both teams agreed that the States and Countries round would have been much better if more of the surrounds (as per Mike's round a few years' ago) were visible.And our vote for Question of the Week went to either of the two Mae West quotes from the spares.

St Caths lost to table-topping FCEK in a "75% match" at St Caths club. Damian from FCEK writes:

The remarkably low score was a result of St Cath's aborting the match at the end of Round 6 and conceding it to us despite the narrowness of the margin at that stage. They had decided that the club was getting too noisy to continue (the club starts its own quiz evening at 9.30).

That said, we thought Snoopy's questions (up to Round 6 anyway) a bit uneven, ranging from bog standard general knowledge to rather obscure stuff (e.g. writers, tone poems and song choruses we'd never heard of - but maybe that was just us!!)

The map questions were an excellent idea but the presentation was too austere. It would have been better to have had one or two clues pointing us in the direction of the right continent - and the question about how many Man U players went on to become managers, would have worked better if we had been asked to name them (or some of them) rather than just having to guess the number.

As the closeness of the score indicates, it's anyone's guess what the outcome might have been had we completed the last two rounds. But history is full of "what ifs" and "maybes". So there it is. Whatever the unusual circumstances, FCEK's string of unbroken victories marches on.

Opsimaths were fairly comprehensively overwhelmed by the History Men at the Albert Club.

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper came from Snoopy's Friends. Damian, Roz and Mary provide some feedback above. For us (the Opsimaths) it was a pretty miserable evening: we knew little, and, by the end, cared less. On reflection I think my chief gripe (grape?) was the unevenness. For instance, the round that announced itself as "Fruit and Music" had 4 questions with apples in the question or answer, 2 questions about music with the word "creation" in the title, a question referring to pomegranates with Oscar Wilde as the answer (old fruit?) and a final flourish about fruit AND music (The Love for Three Oranges). Good raw material but no editing! To be fair, I have to concede that we were on particularly poor form and our opponents, The History Men, scored highly ensuring that the aggregate score for the evening was at a reasonable level.

.....and a postscript on last week's paper courtesy of Andrew the Pig (he of the Reporter's letters' page). Andrew writes....

I'm not normally this anal (I don't think!) but it's been rankling with me since the quiz last week. The Father of the House question was one that we Electric Pigs were right to quibble over. Alan Williams, MP for Swansea West has been an MP continuously since 15th October 1964 and is listed as Father of the House (source www.parliamentary.org) and this was the answer we gave. However, the 'official answer on the night' was Dennis Skinner who entered parliament as MP for Bolsover on 18th June 1970.

OK, I know we'd still have lost by a couple of points but we also need to consider the unsettling effect on our squad of seeing the ball cross the line only for the goal to be disallowed.....

Fair comment. To be fair to the Fingers too, I know Kieran offered an unreserved apology for this mistake via the Withquiz Message Board. He was also pretty contrite for the Huw Edwards age question which came in for some stick last week.

The Question of the Week

The vote this week (courtesy of the Albert team) goes to (Round 6 Q8):

Give the chorus of this song written by Battisti and Fish:

"A look from your eyes, a touch of your hand

And I seem to fly to some other land

When you are around my heart always pounds

Just like a brass band?"

Click here to see the answers to this and the rest of the week's questions and answers.

Fr Megson

The 'E' word

A Chairde,

..............sorry, be with you in half a mo. Just checking how many 'F's in esoteric......here we are......words beginning with 'E'.......God, there's an awful lot of them.......bear with me....let's see.....'E' for Entertainment.....nope, can't use that one. Erotomania - nice word that. Always reminds me of the Electric Pigs for some reason.

Eruct....that's a new one...."to void wind noisily from the stomach through the mouth".....quite useful that.....might e-mail it to Kieran later on.

Escort.....no way could I afford one of them on a single priest's pittance ......Esker....."Irish name for the ridges of post-glacial gravel".....fcek me, that's a good un'....here we are.....Esoteric. Nope, I was right, no 'F's in it. Interesting definition though......"communicated to, or intelligible by, the initiated only".

The "initiated" tonight, presumably, being those who have read Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy in its entirety. Or those of us who like to while away the evening salivating over pencil sketches of the contours of Delaware in splendid isolation from the other 49 states in the fiefdom of Bush.....and at this stage we welcome Barry from the Griffin....."Evening Barry. Thought that would get you out of bed".

Ranting aside, does anyone get my drift here? I love hard quizzes but if I want an esoteric evening, I will choose to stay home and watch Anderlecht on the box. You see I am aware of Pullman's trilogy and I suspect it is pretty good. But I haven't read it. Now, to ask me who wrote it or even to name one or two of the novels that comprise the trilogy is, roughly speaking, a valid GK question. But to delve further into it and ask me questions on the text becomes esoteric rather than general. Yes, Tony and fellow friends of Snoopy, I know that we all do this with Shakespeare or even Dickens but we have to accept that the general body of quizzers will have at least a passing knowledge of the classics. I would love to sit down and set an entire quiz on the collective works of Flann O'Brien (who I think is the greatest thing since sliced spuds) and a few of you might even lap it up and say, "God, that was a fierce good quiz altogether, I think the one about the bicycle should be the question of the week, don't you?". But most of you would hate it and that's why I wouldn't do it.

Playing against Snoopy Dog is always a pleasure and Tony must be one of the nicest judges currently playing on the quiz circuit. Yes, I know he has personally hanged 17 persistent offenders so far this year, but they were gaggin' for it as they say in forensic circles. But I'm afraid I will have to ask Tony to stand up and accept this Cardinal Sin award for esoteric quiz setting in November 2005.

I hope this will be accepted as constructive criticism. No team is better suited to set a wide and varied quiz. So spray your many nuggets of wisdom around a little bit wider next time, Tony and keep us hanging on your every word....

And speaking of hanging on, St Caths didn't last night. They told us we had won at the end of round 6. But thereby hangs a different tale and one perhaps best told by the likes of Flann O'Brien. Who unfortunately is dead.

Now, just one more 'E' word before bed - they're bloody addictive these 'E' words, aren't they?....... let's see now...........Esox......."a large fish mentioned by Pliny".....hmmm.....now if I could just find another 7 large fish mentioned by Pliny........could be the theme round of the season..............

Fr. M.

PS: As I write, Radio 4 has just announced that scientists have discovered that a good memory is dependent on the ability of the brain to unclutter itself of the things it no longer needs to know. So that explains why the Oopsimaths never forget to send me a birthday card every year......Bless.