Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 05/01/11

TMTCH and The Historymen play out the first tie of the season - at the top SPW and The Pigs both win

Results & Match Reports

Charabancs just failed to stop the high-flying Pigs at the Swan. Damian reports:

"Graced by the presence of a couple of Meat Rafflers, the Charas attempted to blow away post-Christmas cobwebs by going for the kill. Well, so much for plans! In a closely fought contest, we were pipped at the post. To be fair, the Piggies were ahead in 5 of the 8 rounds and so really deserved the victory!"

The Historymen managed to notch up the first tie of the season playing at home (well, almost) against TMTCH (who have never previously taken any points off The Historymen). Ivor writes in:

"A real nail-biter game and there was never much between the sides. TMTCH have never beaten us, but with two questions to go they were 3 ahead and it took a steal and a 2 to level the game. TMTCH kindly treated us to drinks - we were not too proud to accept them! The match was re-located to the Turnpike which, as on previous occasions, was an excellent alternative to the Red Lion with its 1990s priced ales and roaring gas fire."

Opsimaths ground out an attritional victory over Ethel Rodin in their match at the Club. The first question was unleashed at about 8.40 and the last shortly after 11.10.

SPW (the Manchester United of our league - they seem to nick a result even when they're out of sorts) just pipped Albert in a match relocated to the Fletcher Moss. Kieran sums up:

"Getting a bit fed up with these narrow squeaks. We've won our last three league games by a combined total of three points and the Albert have now lost five matches this season with a total deficit of 16. They must be getting pretty fed up with tight finishes too. Having been ahead for most of the contest we crashed spectacularly in rounds 6 and 7 and were four points behind going into the final round. We didn't draw level until question 62 (thank god for Martin's long held admiration for Clare Grogan on the way) - and then two gratefully taken singles saw us home. Huge credit to David for knowing Frank Sidebottom's real name and being able to dredge up Count Arthur Strong from his Radio 4 memory bank."

The Bards got off to a commanding start to the new year with victory over the Calluna Pussycats at the Cricket Club.

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's paper was set by Compulsory Meat Raffle - their first offering in our league. Ivor comments from the Turnpike:

"Three cheers to the CMR on their maiden quiz setting effort. Some of their questions were a little on the erudite side (e.g. GBS non-fiction and champagne drug soundalikes) and it was a moderately difficult quiz - but there were lots of interesting questions. The themes were even more ingenious than TMTCH themes (and that’s saying something) though I must admit I hadn't a clue about any of them (I have only half heard of Half Man Half Biscuit, not played any computer games since the ping-pong game of 1980, have no interest in defunct Association Football teams and failed to recognise the Sherlock Holmes stories even though I probably read them long before Tom and Tristan’s parents started courting)."

.....and Kieran:

"Very decent first paper from the Meat Raffle. Lots of interesting questions (if some of them were a bit too lengthy). Any paper that starts with a Half Man Half Biscuit theme is going to find favour with SPW!! A couple of slightly misjudged pairs maybe but nothing to really gripe about so well done all round. Though, we did get the point for Queen Maude, I might argue that, even if Queensland is named after Queen Victoria, it no longer constitutes land area!!"

.....and finally Damian:

"The inaugural Meat Rafflers paper was certainly a toughie. We now understand all too well the kind of ordeal those unfortunate wretches on University Challenge have to endure each week. Both teams proved unable to spot the themes apart from the video games round. Despite this it didn't stop us attempting to answer most of the questions. By the end of the evening I felt a bit like Alan Davies on QI - unable to answer much but learning a lot of about all sorts of things. In short, a tad on the tough side but a good first effort from the squad's new addition."

The Question of the Week

This week the Opsimaths vote for Round 1 Question 8:

The Welsh mountain Twmpa, situated near the English border just south of Hay-on-Wye, is better known by what bawdy nickname?

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

Chatterbox

Just before Christmas I started off a thread on the message board about time limits. Many of you chipped in with the usual mixture of seriousness and frivolity. I think the consensus was against any draconian imposition of limits by the QM when a question is first asked - but Howell made a really good point in saying that a passed-over question should be dealt with fairly rapidly. Certainly this evening's paper would have progressed a good deal more quickly at the Albert Club if passed-over questions had been time limited. No criticism of Ethel here - the Opsimaths were equally as guilty. Perhaps we could encourage QMs to introduce more of a 'hurry up' approach in these circumstances?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A strange message came to me earlier this week through the 'Contact Us' page of this site. It was from a Lucy Woodd. It read:

"Could you tell me which fictional character has a purple, green and orange jumbo jet?"

Any suggestions? Should I get excited?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....and a late postscript. In putting this week's questions onto the website Word was forced into making some guesses at misspellings. Desperate Housewives came up as 'Desperate Housewares'. Now that would have been a tale!!