Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 21/09/11

Off to a formbook start apart from TMTCH's victory over the Meat Raffle

Results & Match Reports

Smoke Fairies beat the Prodigals at the Griffin by a fairly comfortable margin

Albert lost to the Historymen. Ivor writes:

"The match was relocated to the Royal Oak (former venue of the Charabancs before their many wanderings over the last decade) because, unusually, the Fletcher Moss had a 65^th birthday function (many in our league are also probably hurtling to that finishing line). A fun night - it was almost as if we had never been away."

Ethel Rodin lost to Charabancs in a close tussle at the White Swan. Damian writes:

"We celebrated the start of the new season and our new venue (The Turnpike) by playing at...well...our old venue, the White Swan. It seemed like fate especially when Sean the Barsteward undertook to serve us personally. He kept giving us odd looks as if to say 'You don't get away from me that easily!' but, then again, he's been giving us odd looks for years so maybe we're just getting a little paranoid. All in all, a fairly jolly introduction to the 2011/12 season as far as we were concerned."

Comp Meat Raffle lost to TMTCH. Ex-Pussycat Graham reports in under the headline: "Pussycat Hanger Liaison Pays Off Shock":

"The Hangers achieved an opening victory against a slightly depleted Meat Raffle in a cliffhanger at the Turnpike. Both sides struggled at times, including incorrect guesses at artists at the court of Spanish Kings and a lack of knowledge of Prefab Sprout. However we all gave a thumbs up to the venue (especially at the beer prices of £1.55 for a pint of Sam Smiths!!) with no telly, just chat."

Opsimaths beat Electric Pigs in a match that see-sawed this way and that with never too many points between the teams. Clearly the Pigs with their new signing, Simon, are going to be in contention again this season.

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's paper was set by The Bards.

At the Club the consensus Opsimaths/Pigs view was that it was a fairly tough start to the season with plenty of good conferring material. The North East themed round seemed a little tilted towards the team that went first with 3 of the even numbered questions being unanswered. From Jitka's (the QM's) point of view the questions were relatively short (compared to some of the Bards past multi-lined efforts) so she was quite happy. Bronzed from her recent holiday on the Cote d'Azur she managed the occasion well with her notorious Czech twang only failing us on one occasion......Guy was heard to be arguing to his Pig colleagues that the style of hut asked for in Round 7 Question 3 had to be Nissen. Only real glitch in the paper was the 'Napoleon of Crime' question (Round 5 Question 5) which could equally correctly have been answered Macavity the Cat as the answer actually given (Moriarty). In our match this question came to the Opsimaths and we conferred arguing ourselves away from Moriarty to Macavity thus losing the point to the Pigs.

Kieran's verdict from the Griffin:

"OK start to the season was the consensus, given that the Bards wouldn't have had much notice to set the paper - it's always difficult doing the first one. Not too inspired but not much controversy either. Macavity has equal claim to being the Napoleon of Crime given that Eliot modelled him on Moriarty. Other than that.... too much Wales and too much Dickens was the feeling at the home of the champions elect (I had to put that just to wind you up)"

From the Royal Oak, Ivor's judgement:

"The quiz itself was well received. Good old traditional matched pairs and no notable gimmicks. Nick from Albert seemed to have visited most of the exotic locations in the questions but luckily for us could not quite remember where exactly he had been. QotW was Round 1 Question 1. No one got the answer and I am sure that the good citizens of Manchester and Cardiff would be alarmed that we thought their city might have been described as a shithole by the spokesman of an eminent pop group (or should that be poop group?)."

From Damian at the Swan:

The quiz itself was a reasonably well balanced affair which studiously avoided the pitfalls of hidden themes and stuck to straightforward pairs all the way through. We felt that that whoever went first in the first half (i.e. us) got the easier draw and some of the pairs were a little obvious e.g. the questions about fedoras and trilbies. If it wasn't the one, it had to be the other. But that's often the danger with trying to pair questions. It kind of all balanced out in the end as only 4 points separated the two teams at the finish and there weren't too many unanswerables.

...and finally Graham from the Turnpike:

"Tell the Bards, more Welsh questions please."

The Question of the Week

Despite Ivor's nomination above the Opsimaths went for Round 3 Question 8:

Who was responsible for the Gateshead's Flasher's Erection?

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

Chatterbox

The Bards found that they had too many consecutive away games so they have done a few swaps which I have implemented on the Fixtures page. The Bards v Ethel Rodin games (16th November & 29th February) have been swapped round as have the Bards v Electric Pigs matches (7th December & 25th January) and the Bards v Charabancs (5th October and 8th February).