Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 07/01/09

Tense stuff at the top with SPW just edging it against the Charabancs whilst Snoopy's and the Opsimaths tie

The Results

Getaways romped into the new year with a convincing home victory over the X-Pats

Electric Pigs lost by a 9 point margin at home to Ethel Rodin

TMTCH were out of the traps and away, coasting to a convincing half time lead against the History Men. It was downhill from there, however, as they finished 7 points adrift. Ivor writes:

"The bottom of the table clash in the vault at the Parrswood was a real four-pointer with the Historymen over the moon and TMTCH sick as parrots. It was a game of two halves, with TMTCH nine points ahead after the first half only for the lead to evaporate. But enough of football clichés. Our improvement in form might be multifactorial but we were playing with not one but two Annes (our senior members have gone off on holiday to Costa Rica wherever that is). At this rate a name change to Historywomen might be appropriate - or even Historyannes."

Opsimaths fought Snoopy's Friends to a standstill in a nailbiting tie at the Albert Club

Charabancs of Fire entertained SPW at the Stadium of Murk in the evening's top fixture. It was a close contest (as you'd expect) but at the final whistle SPW's 100% record remained intact. Damian writes:

"Well we did our damnedest to overcome our jinx and beat the best team in the league but 'twas not to be! We covered ourselves in glory in Round 1 and were leading by 4 points but then the questions turned quirky and we fell behind in the next 2 rounds scoring a grand total of 3 points. Although we recovered to be on level terms by the end of Round 5 we steadily slipped behind once more.

Father M's knowledge of British virgins proved to be a tad rusty (he's promptly booked himself on a course to reacquaint himself with the notion of virginity) whilst the rest of us stumbled in similar fashion, failing to recall Heather Mills' watery exploits, mistaking Marilyn Monroe for Katherine Hepburn and thinking the Three Stooges were 'Curly, Larry and Moe'."

The Paper

This week the paper was set by the Albert. The general feeling from around the grounds is that Albert provided the perfect antidote to a cold, wet, depressing early January evening.

At the Albert Club it was thumbs up from both teams to a challenging but highly enjoyable paper. Jitka had been struck down by a virus so the QM role went to Colin. He managed pretty well until Round 6 Question 2. He read out the question ("Of which Hollywood actress did Dorothy Parker write 'She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B?'"). When Snoopy's Kate asked for clarification "Was that Dorothy Parker?" he said "Yes, well done, 2 points." It took a few minutes to get him to acknowledge that there may have been a little more required than simply repetition of part of the question.

There was, however, one trouble spot in the paper. Round 8 Question 2 asked for the name of the war concluded by the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The answer given (The Thirty Years War) was hotly disputed by both sides. Tony was adamant that it was The Peace of Westphalia that rounded off The Thirty Years War. In the end we decided against a spare but it was a close run thing.

From deepest Ladybarn Kieran writes in:

"Cracking as ever when playing Gerry and friends. Never more than a few points in it and the result in doubt up to the last pair. A return to enjoyable Wednesday evenings after a few poor weeks. We came away very relieved to have the points and we're looking forward to the second half of the season. Pretty good effort from the Albert - a few bum moments but overall plenty to make you think and at least give you a chance of getting something close to the correct answer. Bravo!!"

....whilst from the same match Damian comments:

"We thought the Albert's questions were a curious mixture of the interesting, the quirky and the obscure with paired questions that varied from being well-thought out to rather obvious (e.g. the 'twins' round). Nonetheless, it proved to be a reasonably high-scoring quiz and at least 2 of the Albert's questions have provided our respective teams with possible names for next season. SPW Barry fancied 'Gustave Eiffel's Knocking Shop' whilst the Charas fancied 'Swiss Kriss' as our future nom-de-guerre. Watch this space!"

Meanwhile from the dogfight at the bottom our correspondent Ivor gives the paper another thumbs up:

"The football questions about quakers and shakers, and glovers and hatters were elegant both in construction and pairing (and even had a confounder in Luton Town that trapped the unwary!). However neither is our nomination for QotW. Rather we are going for Louis Armstrong’s promotion of laxatives and Gustav Eiffel’s unusually sited shagging parlour."

The Question of the Week

This week the Opsimaths nominate Round 3 Question 8:

What product was advertised with the slogan 'There really are no negatives'?

For the answer to this and all the week's questions click here.

Chatterbox

Thanks to Damian, Roddy, Anthony Armistead and Bill Parry (from the Albert Club) for representing WithQuiz on today's Becky Want Show on GMR (broadcast live from The Didsbury). We duly assembled early this afternoon to entertain the listening masses. I fired a few typical Opsimaths-type questions whilst they stumbled and fumbled on air. Roddy came out the winner and earned himself a free pint. This is now the fourth occasion within the past few months that GMR have asked me to do a bit of quiz-chatting on air. Move over Lord Rainford!!