The Bards return to their winning ways at the top of the heap; the Meat Raffle break their duck

Electric Pigs lost in a match where they were always chasing the game against the (almost) all-conquering Bards.  This week Bard Steve reports on the league toppers:

"As Tony has had to be up and away very early on business, deciding whether to let various miscreants back onto the streets, he has given me a first (and probably last) probationary turn at doing the honours......It was a good contest with the Pigs in which no prisoners were taken.  Our opponents stole into a very early lead and mugged us for a few points that should have been ours.  However, we wounded them with some heavy blows mid-contest and eventually managed to kill them off.  Even an excellent final round couldn't arrest their fate and justice was seen to be done."

Charabancs failed dismally in their weekly attempt to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.  They won - just.  And the Opsimaths didn't.

Prodigals lost a nail-biting encounter with Compulsory Meat Raffle who notch up their first - well overdue - victory of the season.  A joyous Rachael comments:

"After an incredibly closely fought match at the Albert Club tonight we beat the Prodigals by the narrowest possible margin when I guessed Emergency Ward 10 for the first TV inter-racial kiss.  It was a very high-spirited friendly match.  The Prods were great fun."

TMTCH lost to Albert in a close contest at the redecorated Parrswood.

Smoke Fairies managed to attend to the defeats of both Ethel Rodin and Bayern Munich in the same evening - sadly it didn't change anybody's position in the table.

This week's paper was set by The Historymen.  It's getting rather boring saying "what a good paper it was this week".  So I won't.  But it was.  The average aggregate was pretty reasonable (71.6) though the spread between the highest of the aggregates (83 at the Turnpike for the Opsimaths/Charabancs outing) and the lowest (60 at the Griffin for the Smoke Fairies/Ethel tussle) was extraordinarily wide.

Mary O'B's input from the Parrswood:

"Dave's choice for question of the week was the picture pair for Dickens' Bleak House. We also had a contender for answer of the week for the question about the morse code for the letter 'V'.  Eveline remembered it was 'V' for Victory and that the BBC used to play the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth which imitated the code ("da, da, da, daah").  This sounds as if Eveline is old enough to remember WWII but, of course she isn't!"  (Ed: Eric will be very disappointed about that.  He was so looking forward to sharing his reminiscences with her).

Rachael and the victorious Meat Raffle vote for Round 7/8 Question 9 (the subject was given as 'Uranus'):

Name two of the three most abundant gases emanating from Uranus.