Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 11/05/11

Handicap system working well with Opsimaths beaten and SPW only just scraping through in a thriller against TMTCH

Results & Match Reports

Historymen beat Compulsory Meat Raffle. Ivor writes:

"Another happy night at the Red Lion, the spiritual home of the league. Tonight we brought along the Plate (we're the holders) freshly polished - so much so that if there was any silver on the surface to start with (which I doubt) it is probably now gone. Of course this was not a Plate game but rather a Cup game and it is the Historymen who progress to the semi-finals for the first time since....well....ever and it is the CMR who must await the results to see if they have qualified for the Plate semis. Our QM tonight was Peter’s wife Liz who also provides a link with the past as she was a stalwart of the league for some decades and played with the late Val Draper after whom the Cup is named."

TMTCH drew against SPW then drew again on the Spares finally going out on the drawing of lots. What a thriller!! Kieran sums up the action:

"The quiz: TMTCH 36 SPW (Deceased) 36; The spares: TMTCH 4 SPW (Deceased) 4; The Ramsbottom solution (drawing lots).....our luck was in and undeservedly TMTCH headed for the tunnel first.

Wow that was good. We started 12 points down and gnawed away at The Men's lead until we levelled by the end of round 6. By the end of round 7 we led by two, only to be tied once more by big Dave's 2 for Macavity on the night's final question. What to do now? Some brief discussion ensued and we decided to play the spares as team questions with written answers. The first team to answer wrongly (provided the other side were correct) would lose. Who would be John Terry and who Imogen Thomas's bit on the side? Well no one as it turned out. Four of the five questions were answered correctly by both sides and we both failed on the Hill Street Blues actor. The only way of resolving the deadlock was to draw lots (well if it's good enough to decide Bury council.......). I 'm known as Nasser by my team for my uncanny ability to lose the toss every week so I was having nothing to do with it. David, feeling lucky on the back of last night's triumph by City and the prospect of Club Wembley seats for Saturday accepted the responsibility and guessed right.

Great night, superb opponents who bore their unlucky exit with tremendous grace, and a total triumph for the handicap system. You must feel so vindicated! (Ed: Actually, by a quirk of fate, it was TMTCH's Dave himself who prompted me to go for a handicap system in the Cup this year).

.....and another perspective on the Parrswood thriller from chief question-setter Graham:

"Subbing as QM for The Men They Couldn't Hang I accepted as an honour, although no-one could have predicted the 'Thriller in Manila' style finish. With TMTCH receiving a 12 point start SPW were really up against it, but tugging on their bootstraps and David's love of Veronica Hamel (or was it Kieran's?) they managed to achieve a 36-36 tie. After five tie breakers/spares honours were still even and so the result had to be decided by me with two rolled up pieces of paper with X on one and O on the other. Has there ever been a more thrilling quiz moment than this - apart from the Opsimaths winning the league, of course?"

Opsimaths lost to Albert in a good-natured contest at the Albert Club. Albert had replaced Mike ("had enough of quizzes this year") O'Brien with Ashton and he was the vital ingredient Mary, Evelyn and Nick needed to tackle the various Pussycat pop trivia questions and swing the contest their way.

Ethel Rodin lost to Charabancs in the Stadium of Murk. Damian our trusty man on the spot reports in:

"Not an especially high scoring affair but not especially low either. Labouring under the yoke of our 2 point handicap, the Charas struggled to keep pace with Ethel for the first half finishing 4 points behind at the end of Round 5. Then the tide turned in our favour and we scored 15 points to Ethel's 5. Thank goodness for pop music and cats! Such was the tension at one point that we invited Sean the Barsteward, who was certain he could identify the building in Father M's photo question, to take his place on the team whilst Father minded the bar for a few minutes - but fully aware of what happened last time Meggers was let loose with the Robbies, he declined!"

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's paper was set by Calluna Pussycats. Quite a tough paper but with plenty of amusement along the way to keep us all engaged. Questionable pairing in some cases (I was the lucky soul who got the Spock question so I shouldn't complain too much) but the feedback and the results (especially the one at the Parrswood) indicate a job well done by Graham and his gang. Ivor comments from the Red:

"It was not a quiz for the young (and CMR are young - even our boy wonder, David, is old enough to have fathered them all). (Ed: Are you sure this doesn't offend any super-injunctions?) Indeed the 70’s police series would tax the middle-aged (and did). However it was a quiz with good themes and lots of interesting and amusing questions which is just the thing we like. The CMR going first did have a very bad run of 10 consecutive questions without scoring a point but then rallied to a respectable score in what was a moderately difficult quiz (19 unanswerables).

QotW? CMR liked the Stephen King theme and the Weird Al Yankovic parody question. To break ranks my favourite answer was the actor Taurean Blacque (who I have never heard of) - it must be the strangest name we've had since Declan Kidney the rugby coach."

.....and Damian from the White Swan:

"A reasonably enjoyable paper from the Pussies. Our only quibble being the quality of some of the pairing (which is usually the target for most criticism). For instance, in the Startrek themed round none of us had ever heard of a character called Chapel but we all roared out the answer in unison to the Benjamin Spock question. Other than that, a pretty good effort."

The Question of the Week

This week the Opsimaths choose Round 4 Question 3:

Katrina and the Waves won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1997 with Love Shine a Light but who did Kimberley Rew allegedly originally compose the song for?

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

Chatterbox

As the lowest scoring losers in Rounds 1 and 2 of the Cup, the Electric Pigs have kindly agreed to set the Semi Finals paper for next week. I'm away on holiday next Wednesday and will miss the Semi Finals (I'll be back in time for the Cup Finals on May 25th). I'm taking my 93 year old Dad on a coach trip around Scotland ending up on the island of Barra!! I'll keep in touch via my iPhone and post the results of the Semi Finals on the message board (providing you email/text them to me of course). Following the Semi Finals the 8 teams not featuring in the two Finals will be asked to submit one Round (8 question plus a spare question) to the 'Knocked Out United' editor (who I will select from amongst the 4 teams knocked out this week and announce on the message board shortly). From these submissions the editor will create the Finals paper for May 25th. Hope this all works OK - in case of any problems please email/text me.