Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 09/03/11

SPW tie with the Meat Raffle giving the winning Opsimaths just a glimmer of hope

Results & Match Reports

Albert lost to the resurgent Historymen. As ever Ivor writes in:

"Albert, batting first, were 8 points ahead at half time (largely due to a 9-2 3^rd round) - then came Round 6 which ended 0-8 in our favour. The final round saw the Albert receive four unanswerables which rather stymied a potential nail-biter."

After raiding the student grants last week the Bards returned to their best form beating TMTCH

Calluna Pussycats lost to the Opsimaths in an amicable encounter at the Albert Club overseen by setter James

Compulsory Meat Raffle tied with SPW. Rachael reports:

"SPW are great opponents and we were really happy to draw against them. These heart-stopping results, however, are not doing our nerves much good!"

Charabancs lost to the Prodigals. Damian lets on:

"A very pleasant evening was had by all at the Stadium of Murk. John even thought the beer tasted a tad 'beerier' than has lately been the case. The Prodigals unleashed the big guns on us with the appearance of both Dave Rainford and Anne (star of the ITV quiz show The Chase). We held our own for 7 of the 8 rounds with no more than a point or two difference between us but in the final round the Prods pulled away to win by the convincing margin of 8 points."

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's paper was set by Ethel Rodin. Usually I find Ethel's papers earnest, erudite and a tad elitist but this time I thought they'd pitched it just right. Plenty of interest, a few laughs and a good aggregate score. The range of subjects covered was commendably broad and quite a few Question of the Week suggestions leapt out at us at the end of the evening. It was somewhat surprising to find therefore that blessed SPW could only muster 29 points and (at least according to Kieran) were underwhelmed:

"I'm loathe to praise such a dull paper but somehow it managed to produce an exciting match. Little else to say about it other than yet again Ethel strayed out of their comfort zone onto the football pitch. Bradford Park Avenue is not a league club now, and nor was it in 1974. Badly phrased question. Ethel should really stick to wrist bones about which they seem to know a lot. Oh, and an entire round on obscure bits of London was just not on."

Totally disagree with you on that last point, Kieran. We don't have anything like enough on London. Bring on the tube map I say!!.

Rachael's view from the other side of the SPW/CMR tie:

"We enjoyed the paper but found some questions pretty challenging - though this did lead to some exciting flashes of inspiration! True to form we struggled on the 70s TV questions but there was enough variety in the paper to make our lack of knowledge on that subject unimportant!"

Now the defeated Charas seemed quite content. Damian reports:

"Tonight's paper was a fair mixture of topics with something to please everybody. Nobody had any complaints. A good, well-balanced paper was the verdict for most of us. And for QotW we quite liked the brain-teaser: "Who was the last Prime Minister to win a General Election whilst representing a Scottish constituency?"

...and finally Ivor's view from the Historymen/Albert tussle:

"Overall impression was that this was fairly difficult quiz with some unevenness in the pairings. Our nomination for QotW was the one about French cuisine (though one wonders what an 19^th century Lancashire bargewoman would rustle up from the waters of the Bridgewater or Manchester Ship Canal - Crap Suzette?), with the Scottish PM winner as an honourable runner up (though a notable biography of this PM is sub-titled Britain’s Unknown Prime Minister)."

The Question of the Week

This week the Historymen vote goes to Round 4 Question 3:

What is the French cooking term for 'in the style of the barge man's wife'?

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

Chatterbox

For those itching to see the downfall of the Coalition there is a practical way to help.......Ethel's James is doing a Labour Party fundraising quiz night on Sunday 13th March at the Albert Club, from 8pm. It's £5 a head and £3 for the unwaged. Good prizes and a raffle - and most importantly a decent quiz with the emphasis on an entertaining evening.

Last week I received this mysterious message via the website's Contact Us page from someone signing in as 'AW':

"Your question about Heathrow Airport is inaccurate as 2 of the buildings mentioned are no longer standing."

which is probably also true of whichever of us set the question in question!!

....and finally I rather liked this little tale I heard the other day:

"During a recent audit, it was found that an Essex girl was using the following password: 'MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofyLondon'. When asked why she had such a long password, she said she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and include a capital."