The History Men beat The Electric Pigs - though not without a wobble or two along the way.  Ivor reports:

Albert upset the form book by beating I Blame Smoke Fairies at the Fletcher Moss.  Ashton from Albert tells the tale....

"A surprise 33-27 win over the Fairies at the Fletcher Moss.  In fairness this owed much to the fact that our opponents played two short - and that the Hanukkah round could not have been better timed for our Jewish ringer playing in place of the holidaying Mike."

The Prodigals were far too good for a dismal bunch of Opsimaths.  Egghead & Head Egg (Dave & Anne-Marie of course) just reeled out those popular culture answers leaving the old men reeling.  So the fabled Orkney Dark trophy, awarded to the winner of the latest Albert Club derby, has another "Prodigals" on it.  It was a most amicable encounter with loads of laughter - in stark contrast to the same encounter a year ago when the position of Sri Lanka between the southern tip of India and Malaysia almost caused a riot.  Indeed amity was so rife at the end that a pair of Glennon sisters were seen chatting up young Howell until Ryan called last orders and broke up the assembly.

"In a seasonally laid-back pre-Christmas atmosphere at the Turnpike, the Charas couldn't manage to finish the first half of the season with a win.  Ethel's a team that has often given us much trouble.  Full marks to them.  Highlight of the evening for us was Chara John getting into the festive atmosphere by actually drinking some beer, something he hasn't done since Sean last pulled a decent pint of beer at the dear old, late lamented White Swan and by 'eck, that's going back a few good years!"

"Moderately hard quiz tonight.  Needless to say any pop question after 1990 is a bit of a challenge but we even failed on 1950s pop.  The History Men did not even spot the 1990s Children's Television theme round (though the younger Pigs did) which presumably was childhood TV for the CMR.  I suppose it makes up for our questions on 1960s game shows a few weeks ago.  The Christmas questions were expected (though still fairly novel) but the Feast of Lights certainly wasn't.  As Gary pointed out, there is always a risk that 8 questions on a specific subject be it Xmas pop or religious festivals risks skewing the balance if only one team knows about the subject (though in this match we were both totally ignorant on either subject).  I suspect had we been asked questions on the 39 Articles of Faith of the Church of England we would have fared even worse.  Anyway why am I complaining?  We won.  The gracious losers had to leave without the traditional drink, and we had our usual fun mulling over a splendid collection of teasers.  Best wishes to all our quiz friends (that's all of you really) wishing you Happy Christmas, Happy Hanukah or Happy Winterval and looking forward to clashing horns in 2013."

and finally from tying Dave at the Parrswood....

"Reaction was mixed.  The Twelve Days of Christmas Round was a good idea but the variation in difficulty between the questions gave TMTCH a distinct advantage (as luck would have it) - and 8 questions on any religion is 6 too many in my book."