Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 18/12/13

Rejoice! The Men storm into the second half of the season on the back of a famous victory

Results & Match Reports

The History Men got the better of the Prodigals at the Red - as Ivor recounts...

"Our mid-table clash sees us leapfrog our opponents so that only half way through the season we are dreaming of Champions League possibilities next season.

As always a very pleasant evening with plenty of laughter in the Red Lion with the Prodigals and lots of post-quiz banter. The Prodigals had Ed on their team tonight who reports that the standard of our league questions is easily on a par with the London league and indeed the questions used in the British Quiz championships."

At long last - and to the universal delight of every member of every team in the league - The Men They Couldn't Hang chalked up a victory, beating Compulsory Meat Raffle at the Parrswood. As Graham reports...

"The duds came good at the Parrswood in an entertaining evening administered by QM ('Call the Midwife') Gilly. Unsurprisingly she felt there was an overwhelming whiff of male genitalia as she delivered Round 5 without complications."

The Charabancs lost at home to the unpredictable Albert who notched up the highest team score of the night. Mike O'Brien reports:

"This seems to have been a well balanced quiz which the Albert liked because the topics seemed to be within our range - which hasn't often been the case this season. In the 'size is everything' round I offered the possibility that the highest point in Cornwall might be Lord Hereford's Knob. Now this is the wrong answer, but it isn't a ridiculous answer. However it seemed to send my own team, no doubt inflamed by the topic of the round, into paroxysms of laughter. So much has this grabbed their feeble imaginations that they are now threatening to address me as Lord Hereford or Your Lordship. I have demanded a written apology from each of them before the next match!"

....whilst this is how it looks from the Charabancs point of view (courtesy of Damian):

"Our last quiz before the onset of this year's Christmas festivities saw a relapse into losing form for the Charas. We fell behind immediately in Round 1 and the gap steadily increased in each succeeding round. At no point after Round 1 were we within 7 points of the Albert. Our main goal by about Round 6 was to at least break the 30 point mark barrier which we triumphantly managed to do in the last round. Of course it wasn't nearly enough to salvage any hopes of catching up with our opponents but, these days, we have to rely on small triumphs like this to keep our spirits up and persuade us that we can, to paraphrase the great Marlon, still be contenders and not just be bums. Seasons greetings to one and all!!"

The Opsimaths were trailing Ethel Rodin throughout most of the first half but rose to the challenge straight after the break. Tony kindly acted as QM with James and Jitka either side to see fair play. It was a typically jolly WithQuiz evening with lots to discuss and plenty of humour along the way.

The Electric Pigs just missed out at home in the Fletcher Moss against visitors I've Never Been To One.

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper was compiled by The Bards (or 'The Bawds' as they were dubbed early in the second half). At the Club we all felt it was an excellent paper with which to end the 2013 quiz-playing year. Full of interest with plenty of clues to guide you towards the answers - whether in the hidden themes, or actually embedded in the question text in the paired rounds. Aggregate scores were just about right hovering around the 70 mark.

Kieran reports on the how the paper was received in the Fletcher Moss...

"Excellent, accessible Bards quiz, not too easy nor too dull and boring - just right. And it produced a splendid game with the result in doubt right up to the last few questions. The unanswered questions went 7-3 against us but it didn't feel like a difficult paper.

We feared the worst going into the last round only 1 point ahead. When 'A humble tribute' was announced Dickens seemed inevitable. Fortunately we know our Mandela rather better though Martin, again our star man, professes little interest in the 'by popular acclaim' saint.

We assume that the euphemisms round was written a few days ago since surely the recently deceased Peter O'Toole would have been a shoo in otherwise."

Ivor sums up the feedback from the Red:

"As the score indicates a difficult quiz for us but with many interesting questions and cunning pairings. We did like the theme round on the nicknames of the 'membrum virilis' (as old Latinist anatomists, such as Tim and me, refer to the organ in question). But let us not be frightened of the word 'penis' (though it might well be an organ to be frightened of especially if Mike Tyson is still in possession of his).

Pair of the Week was the Windsor/Saxe-Coburg-Gotha coupling - but only if it is actually true that the bombing finally led to the family name change (surely 3 years of war and over half a million deaths might have set the scene)."
Finally the verdict from Damian and the Charas:
"Tonight's quiz from the Bards was a straightforward and amusing medley of topics that we always felt we had a chance with. But we could never quite get our memory into gear on the ones we should have known, particularly in the case of Yours Truly on the historical questions. Inspired as our guesses might have seemed at the time, especially on the themed rounds, they sadly fell short. Nevertheless we did find the themes to be well conceived and not too taxing for the diminished brain capacity we seem to be working with these days.
Although I suspect the Naughty Round with its not so subtle references to private parts of a masculine nature had been done at least once before, I could not resist the question about Lord John Thomas and have unilaterally decided to nominate it as question of the week and possibly of the entire pre-Christmas season. So there!"

The Question of the Week

This week I've chosen the pair of questions from Round 3 (questions 5 & 6):

In 1917 London was bombed by the heavy airplane Gotha lV with what consequences?

followed by

How did Kaiser Wilhelm ll respond to this?

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

Father Megson

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