Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 28/09/11

The Smoke Fairies and Historymen maintain a 100% record; Opsimaths lose to The Bards

Results & Match Reports

Compulsory Meat Raffle lost to the Historymen. Ivor chips in:

"I think this has been the hottest quiz night of the ten years we have been competing (including our late June finishes) but the Turnpike with its open doors and air conditioning proved to be an excellent venue. We have now stopped calling our David 'Young David' (he is 39) having discovered that CMR are fielding Tom’s brother Richard who is just 19. Richard is a mathematician but the applied engineering questions didn’t really suit him (nor did they us). Perhaps we should be fearful of what CMR might ask when they set in future (and, heaven help us, their new player Adam is a classicist)."

Electric Pigs suffered a narrow defeat in the first Fletcher Moss derby of the year against Albert.

The Bards of Didsbury, playing their first game of the season (they were last week's setters), overcame a stiff challenge from league champions, The Opsimaths, at Didsbury Cricket Club. No Grapes of Wrath this week for Tony as Jim with his detailed knowledge of Aberdeen FC, and Sarah with her encyclopaedic grasp of fictional nags, just pushed the Bards over the line.

Prodigals slipped up at home to Ethel Rodin in a low scoring encounter.

Charabancs of Fire lost to I Blame Smoke Fairies in a slow slog at the Parrswood (CMR having first call on The Turnpike). Damian writes in:

"Since the Meat Raffle were playing at the Turnpike our first home match of the season was actually played in the Parrswood. So that's two weeks of the season gone and we still haven't played in our new home venue. Anyhow, whatever venue we chose to play in tonight probably wouldn't have made any difference to the outcome. Having narrowly led the Fairies for the first 3 rounds and actually surged into a 3 point lead in Round 5, it all came tumbling down for us as we failed to score at all in Round 6 and then only got 2 points in Round 8. The Fairies did what they do best - held steady and swept past us in the final three rounds."

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's paper was set by The Men They Couldn't Hang.

As ever Dave and his colleagues served up a beautifully crafted paper. "Hard but interesting" was the collective Albert/Pigs verdict. At the Cricket Club in the Bards/Opsimaths encounter each round provided fresh interest but it did take an awfully long time to get through. The construction was 'classic WithQuiz' with 4 head-to-head paired rounds and 4 themed rounds. Personally I thought the themes in Rounds 6 and 8 worked better than those in Rounds 2 and 4. The theme in Round 4 was a bit loose leading to debates as to whether or not the answers fitted the theme closely enough. Sarah loved Round 3 Question 1 which she answered with some aplomb quoting verbatim from the script of Fawlty Towers and My Fair Lady. Indeed at the start of Round 3 we thought we might be in for a whole evening of fictional animals.

Ivor's verdict from the Turnpike:

"A hard paper with 20 unanswered questions. The redeeming feature (as always) was that even the hard questions were interesting. Hard quizzes tend to lead to close results which adds to the tension. When you drag an answer up from somewhere deep in the cerebral cortex that you were not even aware was there (in my case the unfortunate cremated-in-life Jan Hus) this is especially satisfying. Our QotW was the 'four candles' connection (Rachael almost got this) and its pair the literary horses. Again Rachael spotted Dragonfly but didn’t push the answer to disbelieving team mates so it became a steal for yours truly who had to read National Velvet as a first former in 1970."

...and Damian....

"Good paper again from the Hangmen although we couldn't help but wonder which of the setters has the obscure metallic ore fetish. Those questions were among the few unanswerables of the night. Other than that, a good effort with some good themes. We loved the Shakespearean theme which we guessed pretty quickly. It was a pity we couldn't use the theme to help answer any of the questions!"

The Question of the Week

Mary (on behalf of the Pigs and Albert) vote this week for Round 1 Question 3:

What is the alias of the fictional villain Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, the owner of the Iceberg Lounge?

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