Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 10/10/12

(I'm off on a brief break 9am Thursday so the question paper won't get uploaded until Sunday/Monday)

Opsimaths go top; Bards lose to the Fairies; Acronyms United get off the mark as CMR and TMTCH both win

Results & Match Reports

History Men stormed back after last week's defeat to beat Ethel Rodin who have yet to notch a league point - Ivor lets off some steam:

"Ethel did the double over us last season so it was very satisfying to get our first points in the league over what is often difficult opposition (probably just as well since we face the Bards next week)."

Opsimaths continued their good start against the Electric Pigs - "hard but fair" was the Andrew's summation of a long and absorbing evening at the Albert Club ... and wasn't it good to see Gerry back quizzing with the Pigs again?

Albert couldn't keep up with Compulsory Meat Raffle who coasted home with their winning blend of youth and even greater youth - Rachael summed up the evening:

"The quiz was great fun and Albert were lovely opponents as usual."

Bards managed to get beaten by a 'not the History Men' team at last, going down at home to I Blame Smoke Fairies. Kieran reports:

"Our first victory over the Bards for two years and a splendid performance all round led of course by Martin who put away his first 7 twos of the season before inexplicably being unable to bring the charismatic, all action Ed Davey to mind in order to complete the perfect game. In conclusion an excellent evening in the company of the Bards who are as gracious in defeat as they are in victory and.......WEEEEE'RE BACK!."

The Men They Couldn't Hang got their first victory of the season under their collective belts earlier than usual beating The Prodigals at the Parrswood.

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the setters were The Charabancs of Fire. Everybody liked it. The variety ensured that if there was a round you didn't fancy too much then there was something tasty waiting in the wings. Blockbuster Bingo is always a sure fire hit. Some of the comments.... Anne-Marie from the Parrswood:

"Great fun all round. Well put together and well thought out - but quite tough!"

and Rachael from the Fletcher Moss:

"A great quiz as usual from the Charabancs. Loved the Blockbuster and 'Pick Your Own Subject' rounds. Only beef...the royal marriage questions were too complicated."

and Kieran from the Cricket Club:

"The, as ever, excellent Charas paper seemed to suit us more than it did the Bards but there were only 6 unanswered questions breaking 4-2 against the Bards. Overall very fair with plenty of interest. We must stop revising Irish geography in advance of Charas papers though; I don't think they've set a question on that in the last three seasons.

The only tricky moment was when Eric had us scratching our heads trying to work out how you might shoot a European mountain range against a wall on Christmas day. Once we'd asked him to spell 'Ceausescu' we duly got the point!"

and finally from the front parlour at the Red Ivor's verdict....

"Is it just my imagination, or perhaps my brain is ossifying, but are the quizzes getting harder as each season passes? Even my specialist subject knowledge is sorely tested these days and the kings and queens questions were beyond me (having to name them all rather than 2 out of 3 certainly 'constipated' the round).

This was an interesting though tough quiz (we regard a combined score of 72 as par for the course). Who would have thought Angela Merkel was married to a quantum chemist (our feeble guess was violinist Anne-Marie Mutter) - and Rupert’s thoughts that the French word for star (etoile) might be etymologically linked to toilet was thinking not just out of the box but out of the planet. And whilst on the subject of astronomy I am sure a few years ago an answer to a question would be the name of a planet - now an answer is the name of a relatively obscure satellite."

The Question of the Week

The History Men, Ethel Rodin, TMTCH and The Prodigals all voted for Round 7/8 Question 10 (the blockbuster bingo question whose answer was a four word phrase with initial letters 'GBPP'):

What was the full name under which Dublin brewer Arthur Guinness originally marketed his most successful product?

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

Chatterbox

You may recall I published an email from a chap in SW Scotland last week who had some nice things to say about WithQuiz. Here's Gerry's thoughts on those issues:

I was pleased to read the feedback from Jack in SW Scotland, always nice to see such positive comments about Withquiz.

To answer his query about the profile of our players I think we should emphasise that we are a very broad church, the only compulsory requirement being that you have to be able to enjoy the social side of quizzing. While we may have a few outstanding quizzers I think it would be fair to say that most of us could better be described as 'good' or even 'adequate'. Each of us have our strengths and weaknesses. The essence of having a successful team is not to have four infallible brainboxes but to have a mix of knowledge that covers most categories. In other words we are not much different from any other quiz league in the country.

Where we begin to pull away from the opposition is, I think, in our setting. Over the past decade or so we have pulled away from the traditional 'long ball upfield' type of question and evolved our own 'tippy-tappy' style where the aim is not just to pose a direct question but to garland the question with various subsidiary nuggets of information and clues that hopefully will tease the answer out of the quizzer even if he/she initially has no idea what the answer might be. The now ubiquitous themed rounds, blockbusters rounds etc etc have grown organically over the years from the original desire to make knowledge entertaining - something that can be logically if cryptically arrived at rather than something that you either know or do not know. I suppose you could say we are now in debt more to Round Britain Quiz than to Mastermind.

It must be very frustrating for Jack to be so interested in quizzing in an area where quiz leagues are difficult to access. In the absence of the real thing I hope he continues to tune into and be entertained by our Withquiz site.

Regards,

Gerry.

And another email received this week comes from no less a person than the Chairman of the Quiz League of London (Andrew Frazer). I have a sneaking suspicion I know what the majority WithQuiz view is in this area, nevertheless do please use the message board to comment on the following and I will reply to Andrew in due course on the back of what you say:

Dear all,

I am writing to you as secretaries (or similar) of various quiz leagues around the country. In most cases, I have taken contact details from your websites.

I am the chairman of the Quiz League of London.

QLL would like to propose the formation of a national umbrella body for quiz leagues (and similar organisations). The sort of thing I have in mind is described in the attached paper (see below), although the details are very much up for discussion.

We see this as pretty light touch, and not involving a great deal of effort, formal meetings or significant expenditure. The first action would be to set up a simple website with links to links to all our own websites; enhancing our overall web presence should help a few more potential new players to find us. It should also facilitate mutual contact and support between leagues. After that, it would be up to the members collectively to decide what else might be done under the banner of the Association.

I have already spoken to Cliff Houghton, and the Merseyside Quiz Leagues are interested in participating.

Please let me know if your league would be interested in joining an association of this type, and whether you have any comments on the attached or other questions.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Andrew Frazer

Chairman, Quiz League of London

Association of British Quiz Leagues

And here's the attached paper:

Proposal

To establish a not-for-profit umbrella body representing, and open to any organisations, that arrange regular quiz competitions for member teams (“leagues”).

Objectives

To encourage and facilitate the provision of mutual support between member leagues through the exchange of information, best practice ideas, question sets etc.

To organise or facilitate the organisation of quiz competitions between teams from or representing member leagues.

To promote the sport of quizzing and to represent the views and interests of member leagues to other bodies involved in it, e.g. TV companies.

Membership, constitution and finance

Membership would be open to any established not-for profit body that organises regular quiz competitions between member teams.

Any such body would become a full member on payment of a small one-off fee. (This is primarily as a token of intent rather than to raise a significant sum, so the fee would be, say, £20 at most.)

It would also be possible to recognise bodies that did not wish to pay the fee as associate members – this might be appropriate for student quiz societies for example.

The association would be run by a committee consisting of a nominee from each full member league. The committee would elect a chairman, treasurer and secretary from among its membership.

It is envisaged that the committee would conduct business by email and meet rarely if ever.

Any set-up costs, e.g. for a web presence, would be met from the application fees. Any quizzes organised by the association would aim to be self-funding through participation fees. Any other agreed activities involving expenditure would be met by a levy from full member leagues.