Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 21/01/09

Ethel move above Snoopy's into 4th place - above them SPW, the Charabancs and the Opsimaths all win at home

The Results

X-Pats slipped up at home against Albert

Opsimaths won a close, low-scoring match against TMTCH

Ethel Rodin just edged it at home against the Electric Pigs

Getaways missed out at home to second placed Charabancs of Fire in a most convivial encounter at the Gateway

SPW sneaked past Snoopy's Friends in the final furlong (or should I say 10 chains?)

The Paper

This week's paper was set by the History Men.

Pretty tough stuff with plenty of unanswered questions (14 at the Albert Club, and 16 at the Sun in September). At the Club we liked the early rounds but struggled with the bingo fare. With only 8 twos all evening (5 of which went to TMTCH) it meant lots of conferring and a very protracted contest. I hope this doesn't sound patronising, but I'm really surprised TMTCH haven't notched up a single victory yet this season. They fought us close all the way and easily outgunned us on the picture round - and this in what is turning into the Opsimaths' best season since Sarah Bernhardt popped her clogs!!

SPW's verdict from the Griffin (courtesy of Kieran):

"Pretty hard paper and very few twos (none for Martin - absolutely unheard of) but enough to keep you interested in the questions all night. A good example of setting a hard paper and getting the interest element just right."

...meanwhile Mary comments from the Sun in September:

"Rather than a question of the week, can we put forward an answer of the week? The question was which poet's death scene hangs in the Tate - the answer came 'Pam Ayres'."

Ivor, representing tonight's setters was at the Griffin. He adds:

"Tim contributed the killer Q40: 'Who wrote The Worst Journey in the World'. Tony selected it from the Bingo board as the very last question by which time SPW had already pipped Snoopy’s by 3 points. I did tell Tim this could well be voted 'The Worst Question in the World' but he assures me it is a well known title and was filmed by the BBC a few years ago - though I would not be surprised if the only other copy of the book (apart from Tim’s) is the one in the British Library."

and finally from the Getaway/Charabanc match at the Gateway Damian reports:

"The Historians' paper was their usual mixture of the fascinating and the obscure. All in all it was a pretty satisfactory effort as evidenced by the fact that I could only remember one unanswered question. The Charas were particularly pleased at the Historians' efforts to perpetuate the grand tradition of Bingo Quizzing in the second half which we introduced into the Withquiz scene about 85 years ago. We felt the concept of the Bingo Quiz was fully vindicated by the fact that the Getaways, who were 11 points adrift at the end of Round 5, managed to narrow the gap to 4 points by the end of Round 7.

Highlights of the evening included Father M's excited recognition of the street in Buenos Aires where he had apparently been picked up by the local fuzz for various misdemeanours."

The Question of the Week

This week the Opsimaths get the vote and it goes to Bingo Question 3:

Which player scored a total of 6 goals in games played at Goodison Park during the 1966 World Cup Finals?

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

Chatterbox

Haven't mentioned the WithQuiz website search facility of late. Well each week I get a report on its usage from the (free) software provider. I usually glance and then bin it. This week I thought I ought to let you know which words/phrases have been used as search arguments most recently. Here goes (in no specific order).....

regiment

photography

paris

Albert Questions

jazz

chemical formula

mens boom

peter

beer

alcohol

what comes next

mammal

rudolphs dad

mike bath

2008 WIST

"wist trophy" +2008/09

WIST +2008

havel

No, neither have I.

Fr Megson

Lancet and Chance it....

A Chairde,

A grotesquely swollen postbag at Withquiz this week after Dr Ivor's learned tract on that hoary old chestnut of orchitis. Many of your comments, though predictably lacking any vestige of intellectual merit, were at least legible (unlike Dr Ivor's sicknotes). Some of them even made grammatical sense. Something that most assuredly did not, however, came from a Mr George W, an unemployed brazilionaire from Texas.

"Sure was a swell peas of riting - as swell a peas of speechifying as what I have ever come across....and I sure don't mean that in a missexual sense. Nosiree."

As usual, the subject of bulls had Dusty riding eloquently on the horns of a dilemma:

"Dear Dr Scrote,

I read your genital-tinglin' expose of orchitis in the community with baited breath and a nice bottle of Asti Spumante. Ever since then I have been a martyr to the Swarfiga and latex gloves syndrome. It just confirms what Sister Eustacia used to say when she was learnin' us how to do 'A' levels at the convent of St Dymphna Of The Divine Succours. 'All men and bulls are lower than the beasts of the field', she would tag on to the end of the rosary every night, 'and should be avoided like the pox'.

Thankfully Mr Dusty is not the type of man to chase bulls but I shall be hidin' his wellies in future just to be on the safe side. Not to mention a nice bucket of Jeyes Fluid by the bedside.

Of more pressin' concern is the proposed visit of my cousin Concepta from the Reeks. She's a good clean convent girl despite livin' over the brush with a protestant merchant banker heathen in Chipping Sodbury. She promised to come up at the weekend to see me new parlour and to help me give Mr Dusty a hard time. The trouble is she used to walk out with a chartered surveyor called Kevin whose sister had an affair with a man who knew somebody who used to be something big in the BAIS (Bovine Artificial Insemination Service) . As you can appreciate Doctor, I'm worried sick. Do you think I should phone her up and tell her to fcek off and never darken me doorstep again, ye unwittin' carrier of the male spores of the Divil, or do ye think I should do the charitable thing and pretend that she was normal and say nuthin'? I could maybe get her to use the public convenience in Stockport (there's a direct bus past the house every 20 minutes) and I could bury her teacup and spoon in the concrete bunker at the bottom of the garden. As you can see Doctor , I'm on the horns of a dilemma..."

Incidentally, if you are troubled by irritating nocturnal emissions or have any other medical concerns, don't forget that Dr Ivor and Dr Tim are currently available to give free advice. Their surgery is held in The Red Lion (daily from 11:30am to midnight) but try to get there as early as possible as, generally speaking, the validity of their advice tends to wane as the afternoon wears on.

"It is extremely magnanimous of us", concedes Dr Tim, "but we feel it is the least we can do for the indolent unwashed masses one tends to find infesting the ghetto that is South Manchester these days - and in any case we could not possibly afford to spend so much time in what can be a rather expensive public house if we had to buy our own beer. Yes, I am fully aware of the fact that it is unusual for doctors in the hard-pressed NHS to have so much free time on their hands but you must remember that we are currently 'resting'. I much prefer the term 'resting' to the somewhat vulgar 'struck off' - such an indelicate phrase, don't you think?

In any case, the tribunal has not found against us yet - some legal nonsense about having to wait until the complainants recover consciousness. I do wish they would get a move on so that myself and Ivor could sign on like the rest of the clientele in here. It's all a bit of a storm in a teacup, actually. Anybody who has ever worked in the pressurised environment of an operating theatre will know how easy it is to get the technical terms 'testicle' and 'ventricle' confused after a few bottles of decent claret washed down by a rather nifty little Armagnac.

Now, if you'll excuse me, little unwashed priest, they're playing my song on the juke box. ....sing up Ivor, you dozy Irish git.....altogether now......

"The firsht cut is the deephest............"

Fr M.