Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 07/11/07

Tricks and Treats galore with tonight's paper.

Albert Park continue their unbeaten surge whilst the Girls glide on.

The Results

At the Club Albert Park lost their unbeaten record fairly decisively to Ethel Rodin - who thereby recorded their first victory of the season

Charabancs of Fire had a comfortable victory over Snoopy's Friends at the White Swan. Damian writes:

"Nomination for Q of W: I would have nominated the one about the Royal Georges except that dear old Albert did not get it quite right - the wives of the first FOUR Georges were indeed German but the wives of BOTH G5 and G6 were British born!!"

Electric Pigs lost by a small margin in another of the evening's low-scoring affairs to X-Pats

Napier Girls just edged it by one point against Opsimaths after being behind for most of the match. Martin's observation early on that each week the Girls' score has decreased by 5 points (or thereabouts), and that all the Opsimaths had to do was score 31, came true. Trouble is the Opsimaths could only manage 29!!

The Men TCH lost somewhat more heavily at home to the History Men in a quiz that didn't appeal much (though TMTCH's venue won some points). Ivor writes:

"A low scoring quiz with 23 unanswerable questions on the night. Peter (in seat 3 answering first) had 7 which I think is a record 'Jonah' score. The questions, though, were well-balanced and not without interest but occasionally tested knowledge that was sorely lacking (no jazz cats or population geographers at our match tonight).

TMTCH’s venue is excellent (own room off the lounge, quiet) though beer a disappointment to some. It might be a shock when they come to the Red Lion especially if it coincides with a Man U game or a cackling hen night."

The Paper

Albert set this week. A pretty tough paper as the low aggregate scores demonstrate (overall average of 56.6 per match which is the lowest of the season so far). No themes - just pairs. No problem in that - in fact a lack of themes is welcome as a contrast to the style of the paper we get most weeks. Personally I found many of the questions to my taste, if some a little obscure. Sprinkled around were a few old chestnuts (did Fay Weldon do nothing else whilst she was in advertising? - Round 1 Question 7). However any question on the length of a basketball court or a bowling alley is just a lottery. I doubt if any teams got this right through actually knowing the answer rather than guessing. Similarly the questions asking you to rank 4 European cities in order of size - though an interesting debate - were ultimately lotteries, especially since a number of the cities cited had very similar population numbers.

And a final grouse from the Opsimaths (who after all were only two points away from beating the mighty Girls).....the Dumbledore IS a beetle as well as being a bumble bee (Round 6 Question 6). Not allowing beetle as a valid answer cost us the match!!

The Question of the Week

This week my vote goes to Round 5 Question 8:

Which Spanish word meaning ‘good weather’ is used in English for a rich source of wealth suddenly gained?

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