TMTCH came off second best in the basement battle with Albert.  Mike O'Brien reports:

"A pleasant evening at the Didsbury marred only by an outrageous piece of corruption at the beginning when Graham invited us to call the toss and, when we did so correctly, allowed his own team to choose.  We did not object however since we wanted to have something to moan about later when we got all the hard questions!"

Electric Pigs spent a most convivial evening in the company of the Charabancs from whom they eventually nicked a victory.  Damian sees it thus....

"After last week's somewhat lopsided victory, the Charas soon got back to their losing ways - although it was a pretty close affair all the way down to the very last question.  At no point in the proceedings were the teams any more than a couple of points apart and, as you can see from the final tally, it was a pretty high-scoring affair with very few unanswered questions in yet another thoroughly enjoyable contest against one of the best teams in the league."

Ethel Rodin lost at the Cricket Club to the travelling History Men.  Our special correspondent Ivor sends this dispatch:

"Back to the Cricket Club for the second week in a row and a better result for us.  Our games with Ethel are usually close and it was tonight as well.  As is often the case one round proves a swing round (in this case round 2 to us) but it swung the other way (in round 6) and victory was only secured with two questions left.  It is always more enjoyable to win by a whisker than a landslide (though having said that the agony of losing by a whisker is more painful than a total capitulation)."

Meat Raffle lost out to the Bards at the Turnpike.  Tony tells the tale...

"We were 26 all after round 6.  The Bards got most of their 2s In the last two rounds.  The students were leading after round 4, then fell back and then caught up in round 6."

INBTO were some way behind the Opsimaths when the final whistle went - and so at long last we have new league leaders.  I was otherwise engaged at the Etihad so only caught up with the evening's shock result by text - and then through dropping in on the way home to chat to the late birds.

Barry and David were still at the Griffin when I called and we were able to reminisce about two great men who died this week.  Bill Foulkes, the giant at the heart of United's first European Champions Cup winning side of 1968, in the days when there was true mutual respect between the Manchester clubs, was one.  The other was a quiet, self-effacing, impish ex-clergyman who from the late 1950s to November 16th this year brought so much pleasure and so many wry smiles to Guardian readers of all ages.  He was of course John Graham, Araucaria, the incomparable and irreplaceable doyen of crossword setters.  I doubt if there were many pubs that host our weekly quizzes that have not had a group of happy solvers gathered round their pints and their Guardians on an 'Araucaria day' over the past 50+ years.  I was fortunate enough to get an invite to his 80th birthday party in London (courtesy of the Guardian) and then with Colin Mackenzie (one of the original Opsimaths) to his 90th birthday at King's College, Cambridge a couple of years ago.  R.I.P. the both of them and thanks!

Anyway back to the quiz....Kieran emailed me late on with the following: 

"Not our sort of quiz but once the Movember theme of round 4 was revealed we had to agree that it was very well done.  We felt the pairings and degree of difficulty between the questions in rounds 2 and 3 went a bit askew to say the least.  OK we thought they were very unbalanced and those rounds accounted for 11 of the eventual 12 point deficit.  To take the positives - we're happy to confirm that we're not nerds!"