Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 11/02/09

SPW and the Charabancs both win to set up the (probable) league title decider next Wednesday when they play each other at the Griffin

The Results

Opsimaths kept up their challenge for a place in Europe (well Stockchester actually) with a tough but, in the end, convincing win over the Electric Pigs

SPW were made to work hard to earn a home win over Ethel Rodin

Charabancs of Fire had a comfortable victory against X-Pats - Damian reports:

"A bit of a lop-sided contest especially in the 2nd half with the Charas facing a 3-man team of X-Patters. Tears of nostalgia filled X-Patter John's eyes as he fondly recalled his time propping up the bar at Chez Swan back when it was his local around 1862. His explanation for the absence of a 4th team member was intriguing. Apparently the selected X-Pat was afraid to enter the Swan having recently bought a laptop there and then run off to Germany without paying for it! We were frankly quite sceptical of this tale since we couldn't believe anyone in the White Swan had ever heard of a laptop (or Germany for that matter)."

Albert lost a close home encounter with the resurgent History Men who are now screaming up the table

Snoopy's Friends romped to a home win against the Getaways to revive their flagging challenge

The Paper

Fresh from their 'special moment' last Wednesday, this week's paper had been set by TMTCH.

This was a grand and meticulous effort from the team that are quickly becoming the most eagerly anticipated setters. As ever Kieran puts it most succinctly:

"Excellent return to form from The Men. Loads of points to be scored and loads of gettable themes that made the whole evening thoroughly enjoyable. Some spectacular twos but question of the week must be (Private) Spongebob (Captain) Square (of the Eastgate platoon) pants, knocking off two of the characters from one of the three best ever sitcoms in one go......(Bilko and 'Allo 'Allo since you ask)."

For various reasons it turned into a marathon evening down at the Albert Club during which our patience was tested to the full. Had it not been for such excellent fodder provided by TMTCH we might have found the going too hard. There was loads of conferring and relatively few twos (which added to the length of the affair). One thing, however, (there always has to be a 'however' you know)...both the Opsimaths and the Pigs agreed that rounds where the theme appears in the question rather the answer are a waste of time. Much better to field a round of paired questions or even a Bingo round. Having said that the rounds with themed answers were spot on last night.

Ivor reports in from the Fletcher Moss:

"An excellent contest that could have swung either way. Lots of 2s - only 5 unanswerables and plenty of interesting themes. Is it really 30 years since the demise of the alleged killer Sid Vicious? Can’t imagine him singing “Consider Yourself At Home” though the band did a passable version of the Max Bygraves song “You Need Hands”.

Mary (O’B) got a 2 on the question about Fawlty Tower’s Polly’s surname that would have astounded the three Princes of Serendip - it was the only name of a tank she knew that had not appeared in the round up to that point!"

...and Damian from Chez Swan:

"The Hangmen's questions were their usual intriguing mixture of the fascinating, the well-thought-out and the obscure. I remember only 2 unanswered questions the whole evening, so that tells you something.

We liked Round 1 on Bridges and voted it as ROFW whilst QOTW, by popular consent, was the one about the most recent British monarch to succeed a predecessor of the same ordinal number. That one even stumped the celebrated old-queen fancier Yours Truly!"

The Question of the Week

This week Opsimath Nick chooses Round 1 Question 8:

Who was the last British monarch to succeed to the throne with the same ordinal number as his, or her, immediate predecessor?

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

Chatterbox

Before we started last evening's match at the Albert Club there was the usual social (and sociable) chat between the teams. During this Andrew showed me an obituary item in Wednesday's Guardian (p35 of the main section) He'd written it about his father, Bill, who died a couple of months ago. A wonderful man and a wonderful, short panegyric about a fascinating life. But most interestingly for us it seems Bill Simcock has over the past few years contributed a number of questions to Pig papers. If the quality of Pig output dips in the future we now know why.

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Like me a number of you probably get unctious emails from research assistants for TV quiz shows seeking fodder for their upcoming series. To be honest after dabbling with a few of these shows I've got bored. The process of applying and then auditioning is pretty wearisome and then there is always the prospect of being humiliated in some practice round before even being able to preen oneself for the cameras and the fifteen minutes of fame.

Of course I know that for some such dabbling has been a life-enhancing experience (Lord Dave comes to mind). Nevertheless I wouldn't normally mention TV quiz shows in this slot but the latest research assistant email has got me excited.

I reckon a sizeable minority of our Wednesday quizzers like themed rounds and therefore relish the traditional challenge posed on Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz. Well many of you (like me) may therefore have got hooked on the new BBC4 quiz show Only Connect, which is a tighter, less garrulous, version of the RBQ format. It's a bit like one of our themed rounds inverted. Instead of being given the theme to help you work out the answers to General Knowledge questions (as happens in our papers), on Only Connect you get given 4 answers and then have to deduce the connecting theme. Some of the links are extremely devious giving wonderful 'penny-drop' moments when, and if, you get the theme.

So (as you may have guessed by now) I have received an invitation to form a Withquiz team (of 3 people plus a reserve) for the upcoming second series of Only Connect. Applications have to be in by February 17th and recording will be on March 9th, 10th and 11th in Cardiff. There will be auditions between February 17th and March 9th in Manchester.

Anyone up for this?

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As a sample of the type of question, the email I received included the following 2 typical Only Connect questions:

What do these four have in common?

Tendon

Bone

Network

Weight

What’s the rule for the sequence – and what comes next?

Birmingham

Edinburgh

Glasgow

More details can be found at