Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 04/02/09

History Men and SPW tie in a nail-biting finish at the Griffin whilst the Charabancs and the Opsimaths keep up their challenges with home wins

.......but top story this week has to be the long-awaited first win of the season for TMTCH

The Results

TMTCH broke their duck with a victory against the Getaways at the Parrswood. Triumphant captain, Dave, sums up:

"It's gone. Just 4 games short of achieving the equivalent of a full season the streak is finally over. We should have seen it coming. In the part of the website, known in The Men They Couldn't Hang circles as The Bath Flannel, the Sage of Didsbury had prophetically claimed he didn't know why TMTCH hadn't won a game. Which came as something of a surprise to us because we know full well why. And there was none of this 'overheard in the urinals in a Didsbury hostelry' nonsense. It's all there in maroon and straw.

Not that it wasn't a close run thing. The lead had changed hands all night but going into the final pair TMTCH were a point down. The Yukon brought things level which put all the pressure on myself with the last question of the night. I hadn't heard of Johnny Depp but before you could say 'Jack Sparrer' I had 30 fingers up my nose. Why anyone would want an 'I wanna ride her for ever' tattoo is beyond me. And so to that historic final scoreline.....

TMTCH 24 - Getaways 23."

Opsimaths eventually edged ahead of Ethel Rodin at the Albert Club - though it could have gone either way right up to the final round

SPW fought out a thrilling tie against the History Men at the Griffin. Kieran comments:

"Well, one of those incredibly close contests where any of the three possible results would have been fair. There were never more than 2 or 3 points in it."

...and for the History Men Ivor reports in:

"As is often the case with harder quizzes the game was close all the way through. A draw in heavyweight boxing is usually anything but - however in heavyweight quizzing it does often reflect a hard fought slug against the setters.

The questions (even the obscurer ones) were well balanced and the unanswerables, the 2s and the 'steals', all broke evenly. We came close to winning but SPW got a 'steal' on the Yukon and then could have won it had Kieran gone for a 2 on Winona Rider. We have lost only one of our last four games at the Griffin (though we've lost 6 of our 7 home games against SPW)."

Down at the Fletcher Moss Electric Pigs lost to Snoopy's Friends

In the depths of Ladybarn Charabancs of Fire notched up a comfortable victory over Albert. Damian reports:

"Despite having to fight the local Darts Team for use of the Darts Room at Chez Swan these days (our own quiz room being mysteriously out of bounds for some weeks now) we enjoyed a friendly and agreeable evening playing most agreeable opponents.
Highlights of the evening included Mary exploring the ancient pictures on the wall of the Dart Room, attempting to put them straight (an ill-omened no-no if ever there was one) and then looking under the various antique pieces of furniture. She seemed convinced that the table her team was sitting at had once belonged to Queen Anne. Although known to be fond of a tipple, it seemed unlikely that 'Brandy Nan' (as her friends liked to call her) would ever have been caught boozing in the murkier recesses of Ladybarn!"

The Paper

This week's paper was set by the X-Pats.

At the Club we found the paper similar to the History Men's efforts last week - tough but with plenty of 'tip of the tongue' material. We had 15 unanswered questions (too high for comfort) and 15 '2s'. The result was a lengthy affair with loads of team conferences punctuated by stern words from Jitka who was worried about the bar closing before we got to the end. Although personally I could have done with a shorter contest, I do relish the serendipitous conversations that emerge from team conferences. I also had the delight of guessing the Che Guevara tattoo and dredging up Jaroslav Drobny (who Czech-born Jitka hadn't even heard of!) - both for 2 points. So, on balance, I had a good evening out. Thank you X-Pats.

On one matter, however, the Albert Club contestants agreed with Kieran at the Griffin:

"Oh, and the Rocky Mountain Elks house rag question is one of the worst questions of the season."

From the Stadium of Murk Damian passes judgement:

"This paper was right up our street with plenty of history and German philosophers. Luvly jubbly! The themes were generally well-worked out - though the musical instrument theme round was somewhat tarnished by the one about the Rocky Mountain Elk foundation journal! Did anybody actually know the answer to this? Surely there are plenty of more gettable questions out there that would give the answer 'Bugle'.

Minor quibbles aside, we found it an enjoyable paper. There were only 3 unanswered questions. Suggestions for QotW included the one about Lassie being Greer Garson in a fur coat (don't know how Greer felt about that one - or Lassie for that matter)."

Ivor provides the History Men's reactions:

"The second theme round stumped us (but not SPW). We went down the false trail of Northern Irish footballers (Hamilton, Jennings….). Our nomination for QotW? The tattoo pair. Wrong answer of the week has to be the Swiss scientist who invented, not cellophane, but the ice-cream cornet!"

and finally Dave from the 'now on a winning streak' TMTCH:

"As for the QotW I did like stand-in QM Johnny Hatchback's 'Do I ask the spares now?' closely followed by Quiet Man Hudson's 'Does this mean we have to buy the round?' - the answer to which was 'no the bar closed at half time'. Seriously any question to which the answer is Che Guevara must be a contender - whilst the 'Author of Birds of the West Indies' did bring forth the old 'of course it is - I knew that' which is, I feel, the sign of a good question. An overly liberal use of the Bumper Book of Stinky Quiz Questions particularly 'Chapter 12 - Ones they'll never get!' was definitely detectable."

The Question of the Week

This week the vote comes from the Albert/Charabancs match and goes to Round 2 Question 3:

Barcelona FC member no.108,000 (a fine amateur keeper in his day) died in 2005. How was he best known?

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

Chatterbox

Something that's been troubling me for a while has been the variation between the various web browsers.

If you've been using Internet Explorer then the WithQuiz site looks fine (that is if you like my new colour scheme - which not everybody does) but if you're using Chrome, Safari or some other browser then it has looked a bit of a mess.

Well last weekend I sat down and laboriously ironed out the differences so that non-Internet Explorer users should now get as clear a picture as the rest. It really is pretty useless that there are still such differences between the browsers in how they interpret the HTML code that forms each web page. Anyway I hope this makes things look a little better for some of you.

As for the clarity of the content of Fr M's column then I'm afraid you'll have to take the matter up with Rome.

Fr Megson

There'll Be Blue Birds Over The White Bits of Dover......

A chairde,

We begin with an impassioned plea from a Mr I. Denisovich from the Ladybarn area:

"Sir/Madam,

Due to the inordinate length of last week's quiz I felt compelled to sink under the table for a much needed catnap. I woke up in the midst of a heated discussion about the merits of Ben Dover. Could you please furnish me with some further information about the size and accessibility of the said Ben Dover. I have consulted my Bumper Book of Munroes on the matter but to no avail."

A judge who is a regular participant in Withquiz but who wishes to remain anonymous was only marginally more awake:

"An intriguing question. One of those where you have the porn star on the tip of your tongue but you can't quite get it out. I could see his naked pate bobbing up and down in his much garlanded portrayal of Gandhi but I couldn't for the life of me recall his surname. Didn't he also appear in Corrie or am I confusing him with Elsie Tanner?"

So how was it for Ben Dover himself and was this his first appearance on a website?

"Yes I was quite nervous at first", admitted Mr Dover (52 - that's only his age by the way, so don't panic).

"I've been on hundreds of websites before but this was the first time I had able to keep my clothes on. It was a bit awkward at rehearsals. I didn't know what do do with my hands and my bits and bobs. I was also a bit worried that the audience might think that the question I appeared in wasn't hard enough but thankfully it was all right on the night, as they say.

"It's never easy performing in front of strangers - and you've got a lot of strange people in Withquiz - so I was glad to recognise The Men They Couldn't Hang. I bump into them most weeks at auditions. They haven't quite made it into any of my films yet which is a shame because they have got loads of potential. They tend to go at it hammer and tongs at the beginning most weeks but unfortunately they can never quite manage to keep it up until the end. Keep plugging away lads, and give it another four or five years, I feel sure you'll find success eventually.

" It was also nice to have my old friend, Fr Megson, hovering around in the studio. It was him that first got me into porn back in the old seminary days. We were always short of money for the tuck shop so Meggers suggested that we send our piccies off to Soho. Paul Raymond was very impressed and he got us published in Playpriest. From there we got some small parts in various theologically erotic films that were all the rage in the '70s. Stuff like Come Pray with Me and Danish Deacon on the Job. Then things really took off when we auditioned for the ground breaking and lucrative Confessions series. My agent persuaded me to change my name from Ben Mablethorpe to Ben Dover and for some reason, which even to this day I can't fathom, my career really took off after this trivial adjustment.

"Unfortunately the wheels started to come off "Tich" Megson's porn career around this time. For reasons best left unexplained, he couldn't find an agent who was willing to handle him. Then his coach took him aside after five-aside training one day, placed a paternal arm round his groin and told him that he would never measure up to being a professional porn star. To add to his woes, his mother wrote him a blistering letter which I think spelled the beginning of the end:

'Dear Megson junior', she penned, 'me and the neighbours went to see the matinee performance of yer new fillum in the Reeks Rex last Monday and I didn't know where to look. It wasn't the prancin' around in the buff like demented eejits that mortified me - God knows, we've all done our fair share of that sort of thing at various weddings and wakes over the years - no, me boyo, what really pierced my heart was seeing my own flesh and blood up there on the silver screen gabbing away nine to the dozen and him with his mouth stuffed full. Is that the kind of thanks you give your poor oul' Ma after her giving up the best years of her life to teach you impeccable table manners.

I've talked it over with the parish priest and we both agree - stop making them filthy fillums NOW or ye'll end up doing your own laundry.

Your lovin' mammy,

Mammy.'

"He became a changed man after that, making a solemn vow at his ordination in Rome that he would never take his clothes off in public again unless it was integral to the plot. He did try to make a comeback as a serious director a few years ago but I believe his Bergman-inspired trilogy Fully Clothed Confessions of a Celibate Priest of a Winter's Evening drew very mixed reviews and sporadic outbursts of one hand (and paw) clapping from an audience of specially invited shepherds and sheep dogs in the Reeks Rex. It was very popular in the Cornerhouse though.

Yours etc, BD"