Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 28/02/07

Results & Match Reports

If you look at the Fixtures page you'll note that 2 weeks ago all the home teams won, last week all the away teams won, and last night all the home teams won again. What's the betting the Pigs, Ethel, the History Men and the Girls taste away success next Wednesday?

Turning to the table, the defeat of the History Men leaves the Girls even further ahead at the top - but does open up the possibility of a really close fight for second slot as the season draws to a close.

Albert beat the History Men at the Fletcher Moss

Electric Pigs overcame X-Pats in a pretty low-scoring affair at the Fletcher Moss

Opsimaths got back to winning ways against Snoopy's Friends at the Albert Club

2 FCEKs welcomed Fr M back with a victory over Albert Park at the Stadium of Murk

Quiz Paper Verdict

Ethel Rodin set this week. Down at the Albert Club we worked hard to squeeze out an aggregate total of 59 points. However the interest never waned and I don't think any of us felt cheated. 'Tough but worth the effort' summed it up for me. Not a bad example of a quiz that shows why copying questions out of The Million Best Pub Quiz Question Book is not what we're after on a Wednesday evening.

Here with his own - slightly different - opinion on the paper is Damian from 2 FCEKs:

A somewhat low scoring paper with a curious miscellany of questions ranging from the "I know this, I know this" excitement of anticipation to the "What the **** - anybody any ****ing idea?!" With the latter type tending to occupy more of the time!

I personally hadn't a clue about what the first track on Coldplay's latest album was, but then I freely admit that my knowledge of modern pop music wouldn't half fill an average sized Spanish sherry glass! But when such aficionados of the modern pop scene as Dave 'mind my ****ing foot' Rainford roll their eyeballs in despair, then I must conclude that the question was a little too specialised for yer average Withquizzer - but I could be wrong!!

We all liked the question "What was first read in Belize in 1715 and most recently in 2005?" and were about to nominate that one for QotW until the one about Alexander Fleming came along and we liked that one even better. So nomination for this week's QotW from Ladybarn is:

"Who said that penicillin will cure the sick but that Spanish sherry will bring people back from the dead"?

That one even brought a smile to the face of the gout-ridden Mr.Rainford!!

Now I've received the Albert/Historymen result my own opinions above seem distinctly overfriendly to Ethel. The Fletcher Moss contestants were markedly downbeat about the paper. Ivor comments:

Low scoring and none of us share your “tough but interesting” summary. There were a few interesting questions but really, naming three adjacent electoral wards, converting metric measures to imperial, and naming first tracks on LPs - all are entering anorak territory. There were 21 unanswerable questions - getting on for half the paper!!

The Question of the Week

The choice this week has been made by the victorious Pigs and goes to Round 3 Question 5 (almost certainly the longest QotW to date):

Who is being described here? He was born in Wales in 1841 with the name John Rowlands. At the age of 18 he went to the United States and became friendly with a wealthy trader in New Orleans whose name he adopted for the rest of his life. In the United States he performed military service with both sides in the Civil War. He later worked for James Gordon Bennett (father and son). Amongst other things he was indirectly responsible for helping establishing the rule of Leopold II over the Congo. He eventually became MP for Lambeth North and died in 1904?

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

Fr Megson

Fr Megson Has Left The Reeks.....

A Chairde,

A significant number of you rabble out there have been asking if Fr Megson was over in Ireland recently to attend the Fr Ted memorial synod on Inis Mor (aka Craggy Island). My considered response to this enquiry would be "feck off and mind your own feckin' business". I will however say that it ill behoves the Catholic hierarchy of Mayo not to, at least, give The Reeks' most successful missionary in Godless Sassana the chance to turn down an invitation to such a bash. If the invite does eventually turn up without a stamp on it I shall be quick to let them know that wild horses couldn't have dragged me there even if the booze was free. When you've seen one pub full of smoking nuns and legless priests running around shouting "feck" and "arse" you've seen them all.

Mind you, I might have quite enjoyed joining the crush in the community hall to witness the "Loveliest Girl With the Loveliest Bottom" competition which followed hard on from the cleaning fluids drinks reception which was named in honour of Fr Jack's favourite tipple. He's an awful hoor, that same Fr Jack. A total disgrace to the cloth - but you could never accuse the man of being a hypocrite - not like some of them boyos in the Vatican.

Any wise dictator will tell you that the trick of staying in power is to stay at home. Fr Megson has been slow to learn this lesson and once again he faces the order of the boot on his return. Holding the Napier Girls to a one point margin and winning a game counts as a winning streak for 2 FCEKs this season and Fr M might well have to be content with joining Sheila in the car outside the White Swan for the remainder of the campaign. Could be a lot worse though - just imagine if Sheila liked quizzes and you had to spend the evening reclining with Howell in a steamed up Trabant with his size 12 steel tipped wellies poking into your ribs. Mind you, he's not bad looking for a man of his age, I suppose........

I'll leave you with a picture of Fr M's country home in the Reeks. It used to be a mobile home before the wheels fell off in the early 60s. I never did get the dog's name. He just breezed in one morning, licked my face twice, yelped once - I think my beard must have hurt his tongue - and then he was gone.

The world would be a far better place if there were more friendly, enigmatic dogs around.

Slan,

Fr. Megson