Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 08/05/13

The Bards take the WIST Champions Cup after extra time

Results & Match Reports

WIST Final:

The Bards went ahead in the early Stockport-structured rounds against I Blame Smoke Fairies, but were then relentlessly pegged back as the WithQuiz structure took over. When it came to the final question to Tony, the Bards had fallen 2 points behind. Unperturbed, Tony went straight ahead for Sir Mortimer and earned the extra time. As so often happens in such situations the team with the momentum carry on and so the Bards ran up an impressive 10 points to the Fairies 4 in the extra time round. A really great evening thoroughly enjoyed by all present (which included a few passing quizzers - and, of course, timekeeper and photographer Eric 'the Hand' Gow).

Perhaps the proudest moment for the Fairies was notching up more points than the Bards on the Wigan round in the face of Tony's knowledge of all things Wigan; for the Bards Steve seemed pretty chuffed to have plucked the answer to the Shipwright's Way county out of thin air.

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper was compiled by Mike Wagstaffe of the Stockport League. A good, middling to high-scoring paper with an excellent balance keeping the outcome between WithQuiz's two heavyweights in doubt until the end of the Extra Time Round 7. Feedback from both teams was very positive with the only real glitch coming from the QM (me) who foolishly referred to pie-eating before, not after, the Harry's Bar question in Round 4.

Barry - who can be a fierce critic of themed rounds when they aren't constructed with enough care - especially liked the way the theme was handled in Round 6 with the cryptic round title letting the theme arrive gracefully as a confirmation of a suspicion.

Only area of contention really concerned The Eight Lancashire Lads who (according to Tony) also featured Stan Laurel, a pretty famous alternative to the answer given. I have to say, however, that I have now checked on Wikipedia and find that Laurel never appeared with the Lancashire Lads although he was Chaplin's understudy in Fred Karno's Army.

So well done MIke Wagstaffe for coming up with a cracking paper with which to end our competitive season - and also for bearing the brunt of the Stockport question-setting duties this season (note, though, it's WithQuiz's turn to set next year for all the WIST matches). Mike hasn't finished with us yet - he's compiled the end of season presentation evening paper and will be our guest at the Albert Club in a fortnight's time.

The Question of the Week

This week the Fairies vote for Round 6 Question 5:

Which river, the ninth-longest in Britain, is formed by the confluence of two streams: the Daer Water and the Potrail Water?

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

Chatterbox

One thing that was overlooked in last week's celebrations of University Challenge triumph alongside the CMR/Charas cup victories, was the inexorable rise of the Turnpike as the watering-hole of South Manchester's intellectual giants. I can remember the days but a few years ago when the Turnpike was the meeting place for all sorts of villainy. One time we were playing a quiz match in the Red when a scally nipped into the Red's front lounge and nicked one of our team's mobile phone. He rushed out of the front door hotly pursued by quizzers. Instead of dashing down the road into the alleyways of Withington he simply strolled into the Turnpike sure that he had reached a safe haven. If he tried the same trick today he'd be savaged by massed ranks of eggheads armed with a choice of cheap cups, plates and engraved glassware. Is nothing sacred? To understand the effect on the local underworld of the Turnpike's rebirth as a haven for successful quizzers see the message board.
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Next week there is no WithQuizzing but the week after (Wednesday May 22nd) you are all invited to the Albert Club for the end of season Presentation evening. This year Mike Wagstaffe from the Stockport League has kindly offered to set the paper. I hope as many of you as possible can be there to see off what has been yet another wonderful season.
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During the past week I received a most gracious email from Mick Edwards of the RAFA Vulcan Club in the Five Towns Quiz League:

"Merely a humble note to thank you for your terrific web site and your quizzes this year. As a recent recruit to quizzing and as member of a relegated team in The Five Towns Quiz League, I feel your questions are more difficult than ours. I am impressed by the fact that your quizzes are set in-house whereas ours are bought in. I am sure that your website brings pleasure to a universal audience and I personally will have the blues until late September."

I've received more indications than usual through the past season that the fame of WithQuiz was spreading far and wide via the website (I think it was Dave Rainford who said that Egghead, Daphne Fowler, was a regular WithQuiz user). Prompted by these thoughts I've checked the website stats...... Through the 2012/13 season the site has been accessed just over 100,000 times - an average of almost 500 times each day. Not bad!.