Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 10/04/13

Gin'll Fix It join us and have "lots of fun"

The Bards, Opsimaths, Pigs and TMTCH march on to Cup glory

Meat Raffle, Ethel, Gin'll and The Prodigals totter on to Plate glory

Results & Match Reports

Compulsory Meat Raffle just couldn't deflect The Bards from their destiny - a Round 2 clash with the Fairies next week. Ivor was watching this match for QuizBiz central and reports in:

"I was in attendance tonight at the Turnpike. Unusually the front room was quite busy but the Landlord and Landlady do look after the teams well and relocation to the darts lounge (minus darts) ensured a sufficiently quiet environment for answer cogitation - and lager at £1.65 a pint.

The Meat Raffle, despite a generous points handicap advantage, were hampered by having only two players. Remember the blissful days of university life when Easter break was four weeks? It still is. The Bards loaned out not just Dominic (who over the years has been loaned to several teams on the night, including the Historymen) but also Eric.

It took until Round 7 for the Bards to whittle away the handicap disadvantage and then they passed the Meat Raffle in the home stretch. With Jim away the Bards fielded a new player tonight (Bernard) whose debut yielded three 2s. However it was Steve who once again was the MVP with seven consecutive 2s only failing the Grand Slam with the Tom Cruise question (Ed: See below for a similar tale of woe in the Rodin/Opsimaths match). This is the second time this season I have been in the scorer seat to see Steve fail at the last!

BTW Richard from Meat Raffle tells me that Manchester's University Challenge game in the semi-final is against Bangor and will be televised on Monday week."

The Men They Couldn't Hang tied on the night with The Prodigals but their handicap advantage got them though.

Ethel Rodin enjoyed the lead in the early rounds but faded after the break in their tie with The Opsimaths. A special word here for the season's new recruit to the Rodin ranks, Greg. Greg was narrowly edged out of this year's Mastermind final but succeeded in a much tougher arena tonight by getting seven straight 2s only to be denied the perfect 8 by Round 8 Question 3.

The Electric Pigs welcomed Gin'll Fix It to their debut WithQuiz fixture and then scored a magnificent 50 points proving once again that league form is of no relevance when it comes to the Pigs in the Cup. According to Andrew, Gin'll Fix It were unlucky to have one particularly bad round and found themselves unable to recover. From the newcomers camp I received this text:

"Had lots of fun and would like to keep coming. Our opposition were absolute gentlemen."

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper was compiled by I Blame Smoke Fairies. This was another VERY popular paper. Loads of original thinking plus late nights from Kieran sitting up with his Lego kit making models of film posters, works of art and album covers. I understand he's busy with his Meccano building the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower for next season's first Fairy paper. I was spectating at the Cricket Club alongside James 'About to be Father Again' Williamson . I think my favourite round was Round 1 all about Manchester. Is it possible that Orwell actually wrote the "belly and guts of the nation" quote whilst sitting in Tony's family's front parlour? James was quick on the draw with Round 2 where he got the theme at the same time as getting the answer to question 1 - though even after the answer to question 7 of this round had been given it took the QM's explanation to show everybody how it fitted the theme. The explanation was followed by a mass groan. Nevertheless this was a great example of the lesser-spotted WithQuiz themed round. Just the right degree of balance between the get-ability of the theme and the need for thematic assistance in answering the questions.

Anne-Marie has similar reflections from the Parrswood:

"Great quiz as usual from the Smoke Fairies. Loved the Lego round"

From the same venue but the opposite side of the table Graham agrees...

"We especially loved the Lego picture round, and I must remember that the 'Bachelor' was not a tank (my answer to the Chieftain question). All thought it was a great quiz. Congratulations to the Fairies for the Thatcher round at such short notice."

Ivor, our cub reporter at the Turnpike, sees it thus...

"'Excellent quiz questions tonight' was the consensus. The non-tribute round was well constructed and beautifully pitched in the no-man's land between biting satire and malice! We did wonder if the Fairies have had that round ready and waiting to be played for some time - or does it reflect the fact that setters scurry around at the last minute trying to get the quiz finished with one day to go (that's the case with our quizzes)."

From the Fletcher Moss Andrew queries one particular answer...

"The question about the only Manchester Cup Final led to some debate as we had already dismissed the answer given during our discussion. The 1915 FA Cup Final between Sheffield United and Chelsea was played at Old Trafford and the 1911 replay between Bradford City and Newcastle United was also played at OT. Was it a question and answer designed to highlight the fact that OT is in Stretford and not in Manchester!? And if so how come Barry allowed this question to get through the vetting process?"

The Question of the Week

This week the Pigs and Gin'll Fix It collectively vote for Round 6 Question 7 (Round 6 was all about characters with a middle name of 'The' - as in Attila The Hun):

Which hero changes despair to joy, chaos to peaceful sleep and is attractive to pigeons?

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

Chatterbox

A very warm welcome this week to our new team, Gin'll Fix It.

Due to a cock up on my part I failed to book the Albert Club for May 15th and - surprise, surprise - the Club has organised its AGM for the same night. After conferring with a few of you I've decided to put the End of Season evening back by a week to May 22nd. So following the WIST Final on May 8th between The Bards and The Fairies at the Cricket Club there'll be a gap week with no quizzing then the end of season evening on May 22nd. Hope you're all OK with this. Sorry - mea culpa!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another dip into the archive revealed this QuizBiz page from April 9th 2003:

"At the top of the table both the Braggarts and St Caths kept up the pace with victories respectively over Dr O'Neil and the Albert.

In 3rd and 4th positions things were not quite so rosy.   Snoopy's lost at home to Albert Park and the Historymen stumbled again, losing pretty heavily to TUFKAC. TUFKAC have left their end of season surge to the very last minute yet again - nevertheless a welcome and emphatic victory for them.

The gap between the two at the top, the Braggarts and St Caths, and the next 2, the Historymen and Snoopy's, is now widening. It looks like a 2-horse race with Snoopy's against the Braggarts, and the Opsimaths against St Caths, in 2 week's time being the deciding matches.

In the other game this week Fr Megson's Brains ended up easy winners over the Opsimaths at the Royal Oak (for detailed match report see Fr Megson's weekly contribution below)

This week the paper was set by SWMCC. It was a pretty mixed bunch: some questions to which I would be very surprised if anybody in South Manchester, yet alone the quiz league, knew the answer (e.g. Round 8 Question 6: Roy Rogers' real name), whilst there were some real gems (e.g. Round 2 Question 1: Which TV character was based on Donald Sinclair?). Although the Crossword round is not to everybody's taste it gets good marks from most. The pictures too were good'uns - especially that one of Bob Dylan looking at death's door. Marks too for innovation for starting what could be a trend: questions about consecutive dotted letters (Round 7 Questions 3 & 4). In summary the aggregate scores came in between 55 and 69 which is a bit down on the norm.

My question of the week award goes to Round 5 Question 1:

Who died in the village of Roslin in February? She was six and a half and had a progressive lung disease?

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

You will have noticed with the quiz paper on Wednesday evening came Gary's plans for this season's cup competition. Since by the end of last year's competition teams were beginning to get the hang of how the draw worked Gary has made it even more complicated this year. I have to own up to complicity here as, when asked, I advised him that the Opsimaths had found the complexity of the draw as much fun as the actual quiz papers themselves (I seem to remember we played the Albert on 3 consecutive Wednesdays as we struggled to knock each other out!!). This year we have a Plate competition as well as a Cup for those who manage to achieve the impossible and get knocked out of the main event. I have placed the draw on the Fixtures page of the website and will keep you up to date as to how the results progress - and therefore who is playing whom, and who is setting the papers each week.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

And so finally to Fr Megson's weekly match report from the Royal Oak:

Very little Shock or Awe

A Chairde,

Angry demonstrations by the away fans here tonight following rumours that Opsimath's troubled chairman, Mike Baa'th, whose family had until recently unbridled control over the massive Tie-Rack franchise in Ballydad, is keen to liquidate the club and its many supporters. The anger was fuelled when Mike's lookalike spokesman (also called Sadie) confirmed that he is to sell Colinski, their brilliant but volatile Belorussian snapper up of unconsidered trifles, to FC Partizan Peshmerga in exchange for John Hartson and 2 other beasts of burden. Quite how he purposes to use Hartson whose knowledge of Shakespeare and writing in general is said to be suspect remains to be seen. Curfew permitting, Colinski is set to make his debut in Kirkuk next Wednesday and we wish him well. With both teams already guaranteed mediocrity the result of the quiz itself was largely academic, an adjective not normally applied to either team. For the record the result was:

Real B'Oak 3 (Damian Figo and Roisin Raul (2))      Opsimaths Utd 1 (Ruud Awakening)

The questions set by SWMCC tried hard to dispel the lassitude and ennui of the teams and often succeeded. B'Oak of course lapped up the 64 special questions on inter-county hurling (1378 - 1978) but I felt a momentary twinge of sympathy for the small band of Gastarbeiter Sassenachs who eke a living and a Quiz out of the Reeks. Obviously they lack the cultural inheritance of the natives and most of them probably still think a Hurley is a small brain trapped in a low-cut dress.   Maybe the odd cricket question could be lobbed at them as a sop and comfort blanket.   On second thoughts, sod 'em. Let them go to the fleshpots and themed Sassenach bars of Dingle if they want that sort of thing.

SWMCC is, of course, a new name in our league this season - and an unpronounceable one to boot!   According to my indispensable copy of "The Rough Guide To Unpronounceable Even Rougher QuizTeam Names" (Frank McClintock Press; 38 korunas and a pint of house lager), SWMCC is actually a 19th century Serbo-Croatian variation of the 12th century Welsh anagram CWMCS as indeed are most of their fiendishly concocted and inventive questions.

Their lead singer Eddie Araucaria (ex Catatonia and of course The Drifters) tells me they are hoping to go acrostic next season with the release of their new album "Electric Pigs - Unplugged."

Mike Baa'th is busy this weekend re-indexing his grand children (congrats. from all of us) and of course redecorating his palaces and repointing his statues. He has asked me to nominate a Question of the Week (or as that underestimated American oral poet Donald Rumsfeld recently called it, "one of the unknown great unknowns." And the winner is:

Q: How many pieces of wood are carried off the field by the losing team in the Ballyboke versus Ballydad Reeks hurling final?

A: 37 (their own hurling sticks; their opponent's (broken) hurling sticks; 4 goal posts; 2 crossbars and Sarah Bernhardt's wooden leg)

Bet you didn't know that, Kieran.

Slan"