Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 23/03/11

SPW lose - Opsimaths win to go top!!

Results & Match Reports

Prodigals scored a memorable victory over SPW in the small back lounge of the Albert Club whilst just next door in the larger lounge, SPW's main rivals........

The Opsimaths were just getting the edge in an epic tussle with Compulsory Meat Raffle

Electric Pigs triumphed over the Calluna Pussycats by 6 points at the Fletcher Moss

TMTCH beat Albert. Dave reports in:

"TMTCH started like a whippet in the Morpeth Derby only to be left hanging on by their fingertips. Fortunately Scaramouch turned up at the cliff-hanger of a finish proving that the WQL can be stranger than fiction. In his farewell appearance Two Brains Stevenson stormed to 4 consecutive 2s which, while not SPW material, is still a TMTCH record!"

Ethel Rodin fell to the Historymen. Peter emails in:

"In what turned out to be a closely fought encounter at the Stadium of Murk (which had beer this week), the Historymen surged to a 9 point lead by the halfway stage, only to see the advantage reduced to a single point at the end of round 7, eventually emerging as victors by 4 points."

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's paper was set by The Charabancs of Fire.

Excellent! Full of variety and interesting stuff sprinkled with some trademark Gerry Collins wording (the thought of WW2 being decided in an afternoon by a couple of Cup Winners slugging it out was magnificent). Round 2 contained a devilish twist at the end which nearly stumped us until my crossword brain realised that it was the 3 letters themselves that were reversed. My own favourite, though, was the Blockbuster round which the Charas try out regularly. Best answer of the week came from the Prodigals who worked out that the obvious 'O' that you would give someone on their 80th wedding anniversary was Oxygen. Reactions from around the grounds tally with my own impression - the paper went down really well. And while we're about it, Gerry has found time to pen a moving drama following the events as they unfold in a typical evening at the Stadium of Murk (I never knew Gerry had played County Cricket).

The Question of the Week

This week the Historymen's vote goes to Rounds 7/8 Question 7 (a Blockbuster question to which the answer was a word starting with a 'B'):

Which 1923 novel written in Austria and filmed in America in 1942 was banned by the Nazis as a political allegory of their treatment of the Jews?

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

Chatterbox

The Val Draper Cup Draw

After the two Albert Club matches had subsided last night all 4 teams gathered in the backroom around the Club's tombola barrel. 12 ping pong balls conveniently labelled 1 to 12 were swirled around and then as the little wooden door was opened the most august quizzer present (I speak naturally of Rachael Neiman of University Challenge fame) plucked the first ball from within. "Number 5" (which, when I'd found the numbered slips I'd secreted in my pocket, turned out to be The Historymen). Kieran stepped forward to pluck The Bards' ball from within, and so on until the great Val Draper draw was completed. You will find the full draw on the fixtures page. We agreed that the first team with a bye into the second round (which happened to be Rachael's own team, the Meat Raffle), will do the setting for the Round 1 week and thereon Highest Scoring Losers would carry the setting burden.

The other thing sorted last night (I hope) was the great handicap debate that has raged on the message board these past few days. Taking into account all the submissions, I have made an executive decision (well, someone has to - it's not a bloody democracy, you know). In each Cup and Plate match right through to, and including, the Finals the handicaps will be determined by comparing the two teams' 'Average Score For' in the end of season league table. The team with the lower figure will start the match with a total equal to the difference between their 'Average Score For' and that of their opponents (rounded to the nearest whole number). So, for instance, based on the current table, if TMTCH (Average Score For = 28.1) had been were playing the Pigs (Average Score For = 34.3) then the score at the start of Round 1 would be 6-0 to TMTCH.

I hope this works out OK - but if it doesn't then we can have the same debate next year and try something else!!

Please note the actual schedule for the Cup games may vary when we decide with our Stockport colleagues the date for the WIST Champions Final

Father Megson

Waiting For Biffo

A Chairde,

They'll be humming in the Reeks tonight. Culture is finally coming home. To Ladybarn. Ladybarn, the economic powerhouse of East Fallowfield and the Transnistria of the North. It has taken months of blood, sweat, tears and other bodily fluids too rancid to mention but finally Britain's inaugural Suburb of Culture has broken its duck. Dusty has finally come good. With a little help from Fr Megson of course (very little actually but heh, who's counting?). Here at last is what you have all been waiting for. And I hope it chokes youse, youse fcekin impatient shower of Paxman-leaning, hairy-arsed, pseudo-intellectuals.

WAITING FOR BIFFO

A dramatic outpouring by Dusty (based on a nocturnal emission by the late Lemuel Feckett)

SCENE: A suburban pub on a rainswept Monday night. A bar steward stands behind the bar. He waits and watches. An electric bulb flickers fitfully. A dog sleeps on the bar.

A barmaid enters. She kicks the bar steward and gently strokes the sleeping dog. From upstairs is heard a ghostly jazz ensemble rehearsing a syncopated rendering of Mussolini's poignant unfinished composition: 'I'm hanging from a lamp post watching all the girls go by'.

Oestragen (the barmaid): Pustule still sleeps.

Vladimir (the bar steward): Aye.

O: .....and snores.

V: Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone.

O: Shakespeare?

V: Mr Dusty.

O: Not many in tonight.

V: Nobody.

O: Like the grave.

V: Only half as lively.

O: I must repair to the powder room to adjust my cleavage. Scream if it gets busy.

Vladimir turns the television on. The clock ticks. Eventually even the little hand moves. Pustule wakes himsel by breaking wind, opens an eye but changes his mind and goes back to sleep.

V: Feck you too Pustule. Come on Liverpool.

The door opens and O'Shaunissey, an itinerant pig castrator from Co. Laois enters.

O'Shaunissey: Are youse open?

V: As a gaping wound.

O'S: A Guinness and a crème de menthe with one of them wee umbrellas.

V: How are you paying?

O'S: (unties the bailer twine from around his donkey jacket and produces a bloodied package from his trouser pocket) Will these do? They're fresh. Only came off this afternoon.

V: Bollox

O'S: It will have to be money so. Is Milan still winnin'? Do ye think there's any hope that Liverpool will make a stunnin' comeback and win on penalties?

V: I'll be taking the feckin video back if they don't.

O'S: Where's the beguilin' Oestragen tonight?

V: In the bog, adjusting her cleavage.

O'S: Nuthin better to put a head on a man's pint. (he shuts his eyes and dreams)

The clock ticks and the little hand moves again. Suddenly the skylight opens and Dusty drops in, a woman of remarkable beauty and intellectual capacity but fatally dogged by bunions and epistemological uncertainties.

Dusty: Do ye have any bottles of strong drink left, Vladimir? Give us a dozen so, me uvula is parched. I fell proper dogged tonight. As ye know I am a martyr to me bunions and me epistemological uncertainties have been playin up again.

(She takes her dozen bottles of strong drink over to a table in the corner away from the maddening glare of the lightbulb where she sits drinking, ever and anon chatting up Roddy's bicycle and softly crooning her version of the old 'Tight Fit' classic from the hit parade 'In the boxroom or on the sofa, my husband sleeps tonight'.)

The clock ticks and the little hand moves again. Oestragen returns with a pertly readjusted cleavage and renewed hope.

O: Do you think he will come tonight?

V: Move that feckin pert cleavage. I can't see the match.

D: Do you mean Biffo or the Lone Ranger? They be sayin that Biffo is penniless and they won't be givin him any dole money of account of him workin on the lump all them years. The Lone Ranger might come though. He always comes - pronto. A bit like Mr Dusty back in the days when passion was still an issue. The National Health advised him to think up a list of landlocked countries but it was feck all use because he only knew Lesotho in them days. That's why he joined the quiz league. A fat lot of use the quiz league and the National Health and fcekin landlocked countries ever did for a woman of my engorged sensibilities.

The clock ticks and the little hand moves again. Enter Scrote, a wrinkled retainer accompanied by a tall mysterious woman. She is naked except for a pair of high heel metal-tipped boots.

Scrote: Good evening bar steward and allow me to compliment you on the Olympian disregard you favour your punters with. I shall partake of a pint of your finest Cherry B and the lusty lady craves an Old Tom.

V: (gazes first into the gaping chasm that is the lounge bar and then drinks in the bronzed beauty of the naked lady from the pinnacle of her golden tresses right down to the heels of her metal-tipped boots). You're barred, love.

FINIS. EXEUNT OMNES