The Results - WIST Champions Cup

INBTO enjoyed a comfortable win over The Printers at The Griffin. Kieran tells the story....

"Very enjoyable evening with our Stockport guests, as well as the author of tonight's paper, unhung Dave. 
Plenty of questions that got us thinking and some very clever misdirection, such as the first three questions of the shipping areas round which made us think that the theme was fish.
Barry couldn't make it tonight and our man in the Barbour jacket will be devastated to have missed an entire round on warblers. It's enough to make a twitcher burn his copy of Bill Oddie's Big Book of British Birds!

What is it about the WIST cup and trauma?  Last season our semi final against Chunky in The Pineapple was enlivened by minute by minute reports from the bar staff describing a patron who had collapsed the worse for wear in the toilets. The account of his blood oozing under the cubicle door was delivered with particular relish.  Tonight a Griffin punter fell into the glass screens round the bar knocking himself unconscious in the act. Paramedics and a none-too-pleased wife were duly summoned. He was ok-ish I think, and the medics asked the normal questions to determine if he'd suffered any brain damage: "Can you tell us your name? Do you know where you are? What year is it? Who is the Prime Minister?" When he answered "David Cameron" to the last of these - quite understandably - they sectioned him immediately.

Can't wait for the blood bath that will accompany our semi final!"

The Bards beat the Tiviot at the Didsbury Cicket Club. Tony gives us the lowdown....

"Our guests were very pleasant company. We'd met Win last week when he turned up a week too early - so keen were our opponents. We were at full strength for once. Dave, as ever, had produced a stimulating and enjoyable quiz with some teasing themes. I could not think why Captain Fitzroy could have been entertaining Isaac Newton to dinner 100 years after the Lucasian Professor had died, only to realise, too late, that Dave had been raised on a diet of Jemima Puddleduck a l'Orange and Peter Rabbit pie, and so the answer had to be Jeremy Fisher. I think most teams would have struggled with warblers.

We were put in first by our opponents. A wise move as we always prefer to go second. By half time we led by exactly the same score as Chunky's were leading Ethel Rodin in the other room. We kept our end up on the Withquiz rounds for once, thus breaking with the time-honoured tradition of losing on our own format. Everyone agreed that the WIST cup is a great night of quizzing, and it is 'roll on the next encounter across the Mersey'!"

Having been behind in the first 5 rounds Traveller's Call crept up on the Opsimaths in the final round to snick a famous victory. In truth the teams were perfectly matched both being in second place in their respective leagues going into tonight's game. It was a most congenial evening in a great little neighbourhood pub deep in the heart of Stockport. Both teams, as well as the QM, enjoyed the challenge of Dave's 'novella-style' questions where competitors find themselves saying "My word that's interesting, oh, by the way what's the question?". Indeed the QM's only real slip up was labelling the visitors as "the team from Wythenshawe". From the bench (like lonely Joe Hart, my position this evening) I was naturally upset at the result but cheered by the awestruck reaction of our opponents to Dave's brilliant paper. It's hard to think of a better product to put in our shop window than this TMTCH tour de force. And so it all ended with smiles, good wishes and a generous helping of sandwiches from the landlord.

Chunky confirmed their position as the top team in Stockport with an 11-point victory over Ethel Rodin. Chunky's John Holden reports...

"Really enjoyable quiz. We were hanging on to Ethel's coat tails for most of the first half, and would have been further behind but for the standard of Roddy's guesswork. We drew level at question 30, and won the written round by two points, but it felt like we'd lost the first half by ten points, instead of winning it by two. 
We got all the second half themes quickly, apart from the sea areas, which came to us just in time, and decided to go for two pointers when possible, usually a recipe for disaster, but we got it right for once.
We couldn't play at the Chunky, and only had 4 available, so a big thank you to Ethel Rodin for providing the venue, and shuffling their team to provide a QM."
The Results - A-Trophy

The History Men ran up an impressive victory over Heaton Mersey Cricket Club at the Red Lion. Ivor offers these reflections:

"Our guests tonight were Dick, George, Anne and Vince (almost the Famous Five except there were only four of them - and no Julian or Timmy). Geographically they are probably the closest of the Stockport league teams to Withington - in fact not much further away than the Griffin. Maybe they might want to throw their lot in with us in the future - though, as some of them have been playing 30 years in Stockport, perhaps not. They reported that, although they are in 'Europe' they have actually been relegated to league 2 this season (just like Wigan), finishing 8th in league 1 last season. In Withington we don’t know we're born! Only one league and no re-election worries for the table-proppers. Mind you at times our league is like Hotel California - we can check out any time we like but we can never leave.

Having relocated to the snug in the Red Lion to avoid noise we had a most hospitable evening. With our Anne unavailable Mrs C got her call up papers for the first time this season to officiate in the QM chair. Bit of a baptism of fire with all the Latin and Greek - she was more Gascoigne than Paxman which perfectly matched the good humour between the teams."

Charabancs were well and truly trounced by The Alexandra at The Turnpike. Damian reveals the sorry tale.....

"What can I say? We were well and truly mugged by our Stockport opponents tonight. At no point in the proceedings were we less than 6 points adrift and the rout only accelerated in the second half. The format and the questions were obviously much better suited to their tastes than they proved to be for us, or is that just my latest pathetic attempt to avoid admitting that they were much better than we were?
Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable and thoroughly civilised evening chez Turnpike in the company of one of our favourite opponents."

whilst Mike Wagstaffe from the Alex looks on from the winner's enclosure....

"This wasn't the first time we have met the Charas in 'Europe'. Once again they were charming hosts and The Turnpike is a significant upgrade on their previous home: we loved the '60s/70s decor which was bettered only by the '90s bar prices.
It would appear that The Alexandra may finally be getting the hang of this European malarkey. Rather than some sort of Pellegrinic transformation in our Euro-quizzing ability, this was due to a set of questions that suited us down to the ground. It helped that we spotted the themes pretty quickly, although, like INBTO, we fell for the fish 'trap' in the shipping forecast round. Last time we met the Charas extra time was required; this time it was nowhere near as nail-biting. That said, the game was a lot closer than the score suggests. A run of inspired guesses towards the end of the written round gave us an eight-point boost, which meant we were in the unusual (for us) position of being able to 'play it safe' in the WithQuiz-style rounds.
A hugely enjoyable evening with good company, excellent questions and change from a tenner. If Carlsberg did quizzes..."

Locomotiv Stöckpört came off much the worse in their tussle with Albert. Mike O'Brien, obviously relishing his team's first adventure into 'Europe' sums up:

"A very enjoyable evening with very pleasant opponents. There is something to be said for conferred quizzes - less guilt about getting things wrong and therefore more relaxing. Is the name A-trophy meant to reflect the physical and mental condition of the participants?"

This week the paper was provided by Dave Barras on behalf of the WithQuiz League.

As the comments above indicate this was a great paper indicating to all and sundry how far the WithQuiz setting skills have developed.  As I say above, at the Traveller's Call the home team were truly gobsmacked at the thought and skill that had clearly gone into the compilation.  The QM specifically asked me to convey a warm thank you to Dave on his team's behalf.

Mike O'Brien echoed these feelings from the Albert/Locomotiv Stockport encounter:

"The quiz itself was well balanced with no complaints about unequal pairs or anything else for that matter.  Dave obviously worked very hard on this paper."

....and Ivor's thoughts:

"Quiz well received.  Dave Barras certainly displayed his usual breadth, depth and invention.  Questions a bit on the hard side but then it is a Champions League (well perhaps not us).  I do not think we got any of the themes before running out of questions in the Withington-style rounds.

Wrong answer of the week was David’s suggestion of a punk band called 'The Revolting Cocks' (he has three albums) rather than the 'Dead Kennedys'.

QotW:  Isaac Newton’s dinner guest - though it was one of 10 unanswered questions in the Withington format."

...and Damian's:

"TMTCH's questions were their usual wide-ranging assortment from the familiar to the obscure.  While always well-crafted and well-researched, they never seem to play to our traditional strengths.  Mind you, after so many muggings at the hands of pretty nearly all our opponents in the last 2 or 3 seasons, it's becoming increasingly difficult to recall what exactly our traditional strengths are, or ever were!"

There were a few contenders for the award.  The 'next in a sequence' question that started with Cardiff South East (Round 4 Question 3), and the band that were an Egyptian version of one of the UK's shipping areas (Round 6 Question 6), featured in dispatches.  But clearly the most popular was the one Tony mentions above concerning Isaac Newton (Round 6 Question 7):

Who threw a dinner party for Sir Isaac Newton and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise with roast Grasshopper and Ladybird sauce on the menu, although Ptolemy, a vegetarian, had to bring his own salad?

The February 19th semi finals of the WIST and A-Trophy competitions have now been determined - they will be:

WIST

Traveller's Call v INBTO

Chunky v Bards

A-Trophy

Prodigals v Alexandra

Albert v History Men

Following last week's 'Pick Your Own' controversy we've received the following from one of our special correspondents....

End pub quiz lottery now demonstration

Orla Guerin reports:

Angry Bards home fans take to the streets to support their team's demands for a plebiscite to end all  'Pick Your Own' rounds in British pub quizzes.

Syria has offered to mediate.

Filed by Orla Guerin - BBC World Service in war-torn Withington