Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 02/04/14

Albert, Charas and Historymen through to Val Draper Round 2; Ethel, Pigs and Meat Raffle go into Plate semis

Results & Match Reports

Albert beat Ethel Rodin at the Fletcher thanks to their handicap advantage of 2 points - otherwise the scores would have been tied. As Mike reports...

"A tense evening at the Moss. Some of the questions were very elaborate but the aggregate score of 76 suggests it was a reasonable paper with lots of conferred answers. Ethel' s reward for winning the toss was to get the last question with the scores tied - a fiendishly difficult question for all of us but a very clever one! Just bad luck on Ethel that it came at that point in the match. Really that last question deserves to be question of the week."

James' feedback on the evening...

"The scores were tied on the night with just the handicap deciding the outcome. Some very good questions and some inspired and educated guesses from both teams. A very close game all the way through. Shame the last question - which was a crucial conundrum - wasn't more gettable. Ethel won the unanswereds 4-1 including the last question!

We have had three very close games with Albert this season. All of them went to the last question, and provided in turn a nailbiting win, a frustrating defeat and a deflating tie."

The Charabancs of Fire slowly ground the Electric Pigs down in a lengthy contest at the Turnpike with most questions demanding a lot of solo and then joint ponder-time. The whole affair was overseen by question paper author, Dave, and myself (as QM). As ever with Dave's papers the content was wondrous to behold with plenty of 'along the way' clues to seemingly intractable problems - but it did take a long time. The early advantage of the single point handicap to the Pigs soon disappeared and from then on the Charas' lead slowly mounted.

The History Men beat Compulsory Meat Raffle in a nailbitingly close encounter at the Red. Ivor tells the tale:

"The handicap system worked well tonight as we only finally caught up with CMR half way through the last round and sneaked through by a point. Aficionados of stats will be interested to know (well probably not) that there were no less than 19 'steals' tonight (12 to us, 7 to CMR) which probably means we would have preferred each other’s questions! So we move on to face the mighty Opsimaths (with a 7 point start) and run the risk of having to set the following week, whilst CMR head straight to the Plate semis with a chance of retaining the trophy they won last year (Rachael tells us it has been brightly polished already)."

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper was compiled by The Men They Couldn't Hang.

I just love being QM when it's one of Dave's papers. The desire to stop and chat about pretty well every question is very strong. Thirteenth most populous country? Well who'd have thought that? How on earth do they work out that that square is the second most visited square on the Monopoly Board? How can an Asteroid make you smell a location? Da-da-dada-da-dadada, da-da-dada-da-dadada!! Opening line of a Shakespeare play in the Sun? Surely not? Mallard, Beano, the North face of the Eiger and Bill Shankly in common? Must be that they're all shining examples of Dave's ladhood obsessions?

For a more measured view listen to Ivor:

"As always a very good set of questions from TMTCH and most with an alternative route in to an answer if we thought long enough - and because we did think long enough it led to a late-ish finish (are the Pigs still playing???). The 'daisy chain/worms' method certainly sounds a good way to devise questions whilst in conference. We must try that ourselves now that the HM question bank is depleted. But as usual the themes largely defeated us. We thought we had cracked a beer theme with Robinson and an inspired Marston Moor but we should have realised that is far too clichéd for Dave B to have truck with. The questions if anything got better as the quiz progressed. Who would have thought a Dickens question could be interesting? And by common consent the very last question of the quiz proper is possibly the most subtly fashioned and 'gee whizz I should have known that' question of the season.

...and finally a word of caution from James:

"Note to setters: The final question in potentially close matches has to offer a scoring opportunity for the teams rather than simply reflect a clever bit of wording."

The Question of the Week

This week Albert understandably vote for Round 8 Question 8 which their opponents failed to answer and so won the match for them:

Which honorary Member of the British Empire’s record breaking day of the 28th of September 1996 started on Wall St and ended with spectacular leap off Fujiyama Crest shortly after 17.35?

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