Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 12/10/11

Fairies, Bards and Historymen sit at the top of the table - with the Bards having a game in hand

Results & Match Reports

Opsimaths lost the Club derby to the Prodigals by a single point in a tense match that required a good degree of patience from both sides to deal with the controversies thrown up by the paper (see below).

Compulsory Meat Raffle lost to I Blame Smoke Fairies. Kieran comments:

"Now that's more like it. Good quiz, impeccably QM'd by Garry Pig. The Turnpike is an excellent venue. I don't think I've been in there for 25 years and nothing seems to have changed including the prices. The Meat Raffle were friendly opposition and good company as ever. Everything was done by 10.30 which was very welcome after some of our Wednesdays so far this season."

Albert lost to the unbeaten Bards.

Historymen just pipped the Charabancs of Fire. Ivor reports:

"Despite being 8 points ahead at half time we almost capitulated in the second half (like last week) but just managed to hang on as Charas John and Gerry proved exceptionally able in the 'School Timetable' Rounds 7/8. Luckily the strategy of playing two Annes just saw us through. Young David, our star from last week with five 2s, was on holiday in Poland. Tim in the QM seat divided his Paxmanesque scorn equally between the two teams though even he acknowledged there were some tricky asks in tonight’s quiz. Speedway does not seem to enthuse any Chara or History person. From the outset, however, we felt we would win when Roisin, deciding to play in seat 1, got a cricket question as her first challenge."

and Damian:

"Good news at last, if only of a relative kind! The Charas continue on their downward trajectory but at a slightly slower pace than the previous two weeks. This time we managed to keep our opponents from scoring 40 points and reduced the deficit to a respectable two points despite trailing by 6 to 8 points for the majority of the game. The Historymen were bolstered by the presence of a couple of honorary men known as 'Big Anne' and 'Little Anne'. On introducing us to 'Little Anne' Ivor went overboard with his praise. Hardly able to contain himself, he described us as...well....quite good! Oh give it a rest Ivor, you old flatterer, you know how easily we get embarrassed!"

TMTCH lost to Ethel Rodin at the Swan. Roddy reports a much closer run thing than the score suggests with everything fairly tight until the Bingo Rounds 7 & 8 when Ethel's choices proved much kinder than their visitor's.

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week's paper was set by The Electric Pigs.

In what has been a pretty stiff start to the 2011/12 season this paper moved into slightly easier territory with an average aggregate of 68 points and fewer unanswerables than we've had to date. Nevertheless it did throw up some difficulties at the Club. For instance in Round 4 how come 'Skating' is too broad a term to define an Olympic sport when 'Athletics' is OK? Or is 'Didsbury' close enough to define the name of the new Metrolink station being constructed behind Councillor Simcock's house to whisk him into town for Council meetings, or does it have to be 'Didsbury Village'? The greatest source of heat (as opposed to light), however, came from Round 6 Question 8 when Thailand was given as the first landfall for a traveller moving due east from the tip of the Indian subcontinent. Full marks to the Prodigals for graciously allowing the Opsimaths two points for saying "Sri Lanka" which a very convenient book from the shelves of the Club proved was indeed the correct answer.

Roddy (on behalf of Ethel and TMTCH) welcomed "a good set of questions despite a few dodgy 'nul point' pairs (in particular on the subject of Speedway)." He did wonder, however (Round 5 Question 4) how Nestor managed to have three parents. There were apparently 12 unanswered questions at the Swan, nine of which fell to the unfortunate TMTCH visiting team.

Tony reported from the Fletcher Moss that both teams enjoyed the quiz and found the paper easier going than last week's.

Kieran's reaction?

"We liked pretty much all of it and we're big fans of the 'Pick your own subject' format even if I did show my historical ignorance when I totally forgot Francis I. The Field of the Cloth of Gold never quite did it for me."

From the Red Damian....

"Tonight's questions were a bit of a hodgepodge. The themes were well worked out and gettable but not so some of the questions. We especially liked the 'Choose Your Subject' rounds but Yours Truly was a tad miffed when he chose 'History 2' for his question and got asked to convert some Roman numerals. Er.....hello. Shouldn't that have been Latin 2, not History 2? Also there were rather too many obscure sporty questions for our taste. After all, if speedway questions are going to become popular then I might just exercise my right to start asking some tennis questions again! So there!"

...whilst Ivor reported....

"Only 14 unanswerables and a good balance. Indeed it was a cracking quiz although none of us got the cracking answer to the last question (Round 7/8 Question 11)."

The Question of the Week

This week Ivor, on behalf of the Historymen and the Charabancs, votes for Spare Question 4:

Which two teams competed in the first ever Premier League game to be played outside England?

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