Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 21/04/10

Home advantage was crucial to The Men, Albert and The Prodigals but SPW won away at The

Swan as the Val Draper semi finalists are decided

Results & Match Reports

Ethel Rodin just couldn't get the better of SPW in a close run match at the Swan

TMTCH beat the Electric Pigs on the tie break question in a thriller at the Parrswood. Hangman Dave reports in:

"At quarter to eleven the Hangmen were staring down the barrel of a gun, and we're not talking any old .303 Lee Enfields here. More like your German 88mm flak gun (complete with an Sd Kfz half track - absolute bargain at 3/6d in 1967). Seven points adrift with the last round to go but as the bell rang the Pigs needed a steal on the very last question just to force the draw. Was Bangor a city? Well was it? On to the tie-break. Got to go high. It's big, it's wet, well except for the boring bit in the middle, and 3 sq km is actually not really much of a lake. 10,000? Has to be more than 5000. Has to be! Absolutely has to be! I'll not reveal the Pig's answer but they lost and I am expecting a sizeable charitable donation to keep silent!"

Prodigals took a while to get going but then returned home at a canter after the half time break to beat the Bards of Didsbury

Albert won a really close battle at the Fletcher Moss against the visiting History Men - Albert's knowledge of edgy films apparently proved crucial

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper was set by the Opsimaths.

"Hard but fair" was Albert's verdict. The Men They Couldn't Hang seem to like it - especially the Canadian lake tie-break bit. Mike O'Brien had a fascination for Edgy Films whilst the Prodigals were taken with the thought that Colin was a Pollack. It was a low-scoring and lengthy affair but my overall impression from the Prodigals/Bard clash at The Albert Club was that the paper went down OK.

The innovative 'Chose a topic' Rounds 2/3/6/7 were well received adding an extra frisson to the proceedings. Perhaps we'll try this idea again next season.......

Kieran put his finger on the one obvious mistake of the evening (embarrassingly flaunted in the first question of the evening). Of course there have been 5 UK winners of the Eurovision Song Contest and the Opsimaths forgot all about Katrina and the Waves, Nostra culpa!!

Otherwise Kieran was upbeat about this evening's paper:

"Enjoyed it - liked the rounds where we could pick topics though as Ethel discovered you can add Tarot to the subjects about which we know nothing (morris dancing as well come to that).

In those rounds where we picked the subjects we pulled ahead significantly and when Ethel chose they caught up again so there's certainly something worth exploring in the idea.

Question of the week? Well anything that allows us to delve into edgy films gets our vote!

Does the Earl of Wessex really have a son or is that every bit as fantastical as his title?"

James chips in from the same Ethel v SPW encounter:

"On the whole the questions were very good. An enjoyable quiz. As ever with pairs there was some dodgy balance.....

Easiest answer of the week/year has to be Hitler.

I enjoyed the Icknield/Ryknield St question - my journey to school through inner city Birmingham more or less followed part of this road and was the subject of a school project many years ago.

The 'chosen pairs' rounds (or however you christen them) led to some interesting scoring. On SPWs choices, they won 11-3, whilst on our choices we won 13-8. It does give a significant advantage to the choosing team, but it did even out.

Lloyd enjoyed the chance to avoid the Classical music questions that in previous formats seemed to invariably fall to him.

I suspect the format was a major reason why we stayed in reasonable contention with SPW last night. In fact I think it may have been their narrowest margin of victory all season.

More Tarot questions next year please. SPW were rubbish at it!"

The Question of the Week

This week the vote goes to Rounds 2/3 Edgy Films (Team 2):

The plot of which film follows a girl's effort to raise sufficient money to fund a trip to try out as a cheerleader for the fictional Texas Cowgirls?

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