Bards of Didsbury slipped further down the table with a home defeat to the reviving Electric Pigs

Prodigals just failed to make home advantage count as they fell short in the 'battle of the basement' against TMTCH - Hangman Dave comments:

"The Hangmen avoid a third consecutive wooden spoon.  Never more than 3 points in it, the result was in the balance until the penultimate question."

SPW scored yet another impressive victory over their visitors from Ladybarn, Ethel Rodin.  In so doing Kieran, David, Barry and Martin have now clinched the title for the 12th consecutive year and in a style eclipsing any of their previous campaigns.  This has been a truly astonishing performance.  They have now chalked up 16 straight victories this season.  Kieran writes in:

With Ivor QMing at the Griffin and David doing the honours at the Swan the Historians were in the chair tonight in more than one sense.

At the Swan the Opsimaths and Charabancs gave the paper an overall seal of approval despite being a little miffed at the fairness of some of the pairings (which by and large seemed to go against the Charabancs).  In particular we felt my Andre Previn/Grieg simple lob of a question was considerably easier than Damo's Rocket Man/Piano Man paired poser.  Nevertheless there was plenty to chat about from the subject matter raised so by the end of the evening I think we all felt we'd had a good time.  Oh, and a thumbs up for the music notation questions.  I can't remember this type of question before and it seemed to work pretty well - challenging but deducible.

One slight quibble over the introduction to the piano-themed round.  It said that none of the questions had anything to do with Chopin.  Yet first up was a question about the superb Oscar-winning film, The Piano, which opens to the strains of Chopin's Etude, Tristesse, being played in a Warsaw radio studio.

From the Griffin Kieran comments:

"Ivor was kind enough to QM for us and I think we did his paper justice.  It dragged a little here and there but overall a combined score of 70 with plenty of twos indicates a pretty good evening's entertainment.

Question of the week?  Well purely on the basis that's she's almost as old as us but somehow doesn't look it, it has to be the Nadia Comaneci picture.  It would seem she hasn't spent the last thirty years in the pub answering questions on trivia.  It almost assuages the guilt from what was going through our (nearly) adolescent minds watching her in 1976."

...and James from the Ethel camp:

"Ivor (thanks once again - I think he's QM'd Ethel 3 weeks running) announced that his own team had set an easy quiz.

By 8.55 with the scores poised at 1-1 it was clear that this could well be an optimistic assessment.

As things panned out, however, we all enjoyed the quiz.  It was clear once again that significant effort had been made to produce a challenging and stimulating paper.

If it had been closer, I would have been more annoyed at the dodgy Shameless pairing, but it wasn't.  Despite the fact that we had several more unanswereds than SPW, the plain truth is that on '2's their team is dynamite.

Can all teams who have played them this season let us know which questions they got wrong (a whole 2 steals came over tonight) so we can fix the questions for the Cup?"

...and finally Griffin QM, Ivor, chips in:

The phrase 'to be Bangalored' has recently entered the language.  What does it mean?

Owner of Kosmonaut hostel has kindly allowed me a few minutes on his PC.  Could not access Withquiz site for some reason (surely not political Mike?) but have been informed of Charabancs abject submission to the might of the Opsimaths.  Clearly Megson's days are numbered as the only manager-priest in league.

Last day in Lvov.  Can someone tell Roddy that the city of his forefathers is one of the finest in Europe.  Wonderful city of crumbling infrastructure and buildings especially churches that take your breath away with their beauty.  A bit like old Budapest, Phil, with the drama of its old courtyards hidden away behind doorways that look pretty mundane from the street.  The old Armenian quarter is wonderful and after all that it is nice to find small pubs with no fuss and good beer.  Obviously nothing to compare with the White Swan whose Stalinist spartanism is as yet unsurpassed in the former lands of the Soviet empire.

Regular listeners of Withquiz will know much about my fear of border guards.  Well experience was far better than I was led to expect.  Thought it was a Strippergram actually.  There I was tucked up in my couchette when in burst 2 females in full camouflage gear and big boots - yes Damian, I said boots.  Admittedly they were terribly severe and I don't think I was terribly successful in my attempts to chat them up but I am nothing if not persistent.

"Please ladies," I simpered, "before you leave my boudoir can you just do one thing for me, one thing that I have not had done for me since 1992.  I promise you it will take far less time than you think and it will make me sleep happy......please...".

And you know what?  They stared me in the eye (for about 5 minutes) and then proceeded to fulfil my wildest dreams.  My passport now is the proud bearer of the word UKRAINE.  Wow, did I sleep happy.

Go to Kiev overnight.