Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 01/10/14

WithQuiz's 37th season starts with a high-scoring thriller at the Albert Club narrowly won by Dunkin' Dönitz

Results & Match Reports

The Bards beat Albert at the Cricket Club.

TMTCH lost to The Opsimaths at a throbbing Parr's Wood Hotel where the clamour from the afternoon's wake was eventually eclipsed by the noise from the big screen as Gary Neville laid into Liverpool's European performance (now there's a surprise). Penetrating all this Gilly put on a bravura performance as QM despite suffering from a throaty cold.
The Opsies were dominant in the first half with The Men clambering back into the match in part two. This season the Opsimaths have decided to drop their Irish star, Paddy, (we're trying to keep on the right side of the WithQuiz Fair Play Rules) and instead have brought in local scouser Clare on a season's loan. Actually Paddy is off in London making TV programmes and his successor, Clare, comes from the same University Challenge Production team stable that brought us Paddy last season. They offered us someone called Jeremy but frankly he was hopeless in the audition failing to answer the same question even though it was put to him 14 times.
Electric Pigs enjoyed a comfortable win at the Fletcher Moss beating Compulsory Meat Raffle.

Prodigals just failed to do enough to catch up with Dunkin' Dönitz in the evening's 'close shave' match at the Albert Club. Kieran comments:
"Close result but we were always ahead and took our foot off the gas in the last round when the Prodigals came back strongly and gave us a serious scare. It's good to be back."

Charabancs lost rather effectively to Ethel Rodin in the season's first encounter at the Turnpike. Roddy's verdict...
"Ethel led from the start, and, to be fair, somewhat ran away with it - our biggest margin of victory in recent years against the Charas, a team who we tend to lose to as often as we beat. The questions fell nicely for us - Ethel got 2 unanswereds vs the Charas' 6 - but I'm sure Ivor will fill you in with such details."
and Damian's....
"Normally we do quite well on one of Ivor's papers but such was not the case tonight. Ethel led from Round 1 and never looked back, each round opening up an ever greater gap between us. Despite my original impression, a quick scan of previous seasons' results showed that this was the first time in at least the past 3 seasons that the Charas had failed to win their opening round. Given that we have never gone on to win the league in the past 3 seasons, does this mean that we will now go on to win at the end of THIS season? Father M calmly assured our opponents that we always come good by Christmas and that they should not read anything into tonight's results. The fact that he has been saying the exact same thing now for the past 10 seasons is, of course, neither here nor there! As for Question of the Week...there seemed to be no consensus but I quite liked the one about which American president was so fat he got stuck in his bath. I already knew the answer but I still enjoyed hearing it asked again."

Quiz Paper Verdict

The paper this week was set by The History Men.

"Great opening quiz paper" was Anne-Marie's reaction. Kieran similarly praised the paper...

"Excellent start to the season courtesy of The Historymen. Mike Heale would have been purring. All over in 85 minutes and not much trickery or new question styles just for the sake of it."

Damian commented....

"We thought tonight's paper was a nicely eclectic assortment of various themes and topics. We particularly enjoyed the 'Pick Your Subject Rounds' (well, we would wouldn't we?). I was personally disconcerted by the subject 'Current Pop' and felt sure that Ivor had omitted the final 'es' in the second word but Ivor, who waspresent to monitor our reactions and performance, calmly assured me that, for once, he had managed to restrain his perennial enthusiasm for Pontifici Maximi and literally meant which bunch of artistically challenged teenagers was flavour of the month in the current Pop Charts. Personally, I remain sceptical."

At the Parr's Wood the Opsimaths thoroughly enjoyed the evening's questions - which is surprising as the History Men's papers traditionally throw the Opsimaths into a downward spiral. I suspect at least some of the questions were concocted pretty late on yesterday with Ivor in his last minute desperation casting his eye around the Cartmill cloakroom for inspiration and noting the motto emblazoned on Ms Cartmill Junior's school blazer (Rounds 7/8 Question 10).

The Question of the Week

Both Andrew Simcock from the Pigs and Nick Mills from the Opsimaths voted for the 'Eurovision question' from the 'Pick Your Own Subject' rounds 7 & 8:

The shortest distance between two consecutive hosting cities of the Eurovision Song Contest (held in different countries) is only 18 miles. The years were 2013 and 2014 but can you name the two cities?

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

Chatterbox

As the headline above states this is our 37th season (thanks to Roddy and Barry Whitehead for confirming this fact). I wonder is there any quiz league in the UK that has been going longer (or stronger for that matter)?

Finally just a quick prompt for comments after each Wednesday's matches. Thanks to those who regularly email/text (and have again this evening). Any new contributors very welcome.