Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 30/10/13

INBTO, The Opsimaths and The Pigs surge on while the Bards drop back

Results & Match Reports

The Bards are losing the hang of winning at home as The Electric Pigs came away from the Cricket Club with a convincing 14-point victory. "An intriguing and slow evening" was Andrew's summary. It seems Bard Dom relieved some of the gloom for his colleagues by soaring away in the 'oxidising' rocket round.

Charabancs came close but not quite close enough, losing by 3 points to I've Never Been To One at the Turnpike. Kieran reports......

"Not much to say really. Fairly typical Raffle quiz i.e. we knew very little. The rocket round was not so high scoring! It was a very late finish.........."

..and Damian....

"Despite being reduced to 3 men, the Oners still managed to get the better of the Charas in a fairly close contest with never more than a couple of points between us in most of the rounds. Notwithstanding his ongoing problems with clocks, washing machines and assorted electrical devices, Father Meggers astonished us all by actually turning up on time and wearing a cassock that was only partially stained! A devoted disciple of the great Nazi philosopher, Martin Heidegger, he proudly announced that he intended to write a much awaited sequel to his hero's magnum opus on the importance of punctuality entitled Being On Time!"

The Prodigals hosted fellow Albert Club quizzers The Opsimaths in the first Orkney Dark derby match of the season but got nothing other than blood, sweat, tears and defeat in return. Actually it was an extremely good-natured affair with a trio of Glennons (and QM Stella makes four) supported by Ed. Is there a more hospitable bunch in South Manchester than the Glennons en masse? I'd love to get an invite to one of their family parties. The soaraway Opsimaths included wunderkind Paddy, Howell who'd just emerged from a stint of flu in the Great Bed of Hale, Hilary and the ever reliable Nick.
Just like Finals Day at Wimbledon the official Orkney Dark engraver was on hand to enter the winner's name on the Roll of Honour as soon as the outcome was clear.

TMTCH had another bad day at the office losing at home to Ethel Rodin.

Albert were put to the sword by a gang of marauding History Men.

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper was provided by The Compulsory Meat Raffle.

In the Club we enjoyed it a lot, the two teams scoring an aggregate 69 points - the highest aggregate score of the night. Anne-Marie gave a big thumbs up to the intriguing 'Trick' round with all the urban myths and hoaxes laid bare. There was also great fun to be had in the 'tell us your answer in US State lingo' round. The Prodigals pondered for ages trying to conjure up a US State for the middle pair of letters in 'walnut' only to find they'd got their nuts in a twist.

The Ones verdict?

"The 'work out the answer then work out the States' round was very good and allowed us to come up with 'demonyms' a word none of us had previously heard of. We predicted that the timetabled sport question would be about korfball which seems to be the only sport the Raffle have any interest in and we even knew where it originated."

and the view from the backseat of the Chara...

"Tonight's quiz from the Meat Raffle was a very erudite and wordy affair. We thought it a little on the difficult side as indicated by the rather low score. The questions certainly packed plenty of detail and must have taken several cartridges to print out from the poor sod tasked with typing and printing them. We found that the team who went first seemed to have the slight advantage given that we led in the first half and then the Oners promptly led in the second. The Students' Timetable Round won particular plaudits for its quirky originality and we all liked the 'Guess the American states' round."

and finally from the Fletcher Moss Ivor reports in:

"Quiz well received tonight. The CMR have certainly compiled a quiz that satisfies all the criteria of our league: novelty, erudition and a fair sprinkling of teasers whilst still pandering to our more demanding requirements (e.g. no pop questions after 1985). The tricks and treats were well executed; the themes were as well disguised as a TMTCH offering and the US State round rivalled the Paxman equivalent (but with Mary rather more generous in time allocation). Only the 'rocket round' fell foul of the 'too many similar questions on one theme' rule. But what would quiz night be if the setters didn’t throw in a round to cause a grumble or two?

The 'pick your own' grid was an amusing departure from the norm. I can well believe that some student courses might well resemble that grid. If I am allowed to reminisce..... when I was a student in Edinburgh in 1976 (Ed: Was the Medical course just a year long then, or did you get thrown out after just one year, Ivor?) I had a timetable with lectures starting at 9.00 and practicals ending at 17.00 . A fellow student doing Fine Art had 3 lectures a week and 3 essays a term and he still couldn’t get them in on time.

Unlucky seat of the night was Seat 2 answering second. Jeremy from the Albert started with four consecutive unanswereds but then got a two on the Shostakovich opera which must have been the hardest question of the night."

The Question of the Week

This week the Prodigals vote for the totally impossible Round 1 Question 2 (did anyone get this right?):

What links the dates: 5th November 1955, 21st October 2015 and 2nd September 1885?

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