Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 08/10/14

Major upset at the Griffin as the Bards notch up the highest score of the night

Results & Match Reports

TMTCH lost to Compulsory Meat Raffle at the Parr's Wood in a fairly low-scoring affair. Gracious as ever Rachael praises their hosts for providing a great evening, whilst Graham reports from the losers' corner......
"There were the Hangers thinking they were a shoo-in with just, haha, Adam and Rachael on the opposition benches.....until Richard showed up (for a 2 point answer I hasten to add). From that point on we knew the writing was on the wall and it was all downhill. I have to say it was another one of those where we thought the toss of a coin would have done us a favour......but probably not that much."

Electric Pigs lost to Ethel Rodin at the Fletcher Moss.

In the most surprising result of the evening Dunkin' Dönitz lost by a margin of 22 points at home to the Bards. These heavyweight local derbies (Stockport's almost Didsbury team against Didsbury's almost Stockport team) have a habit of being momentous occasions often signalling the outcome of some title or other but I can't recall such a hefty margin in past encounters. Tony sheds some light....
"Dunkin' Dönitz were a man down tonight and we triumphed handsomely. Kieran had a justifiable beef on the balance of the quiz which we thought favoured the team going second. Nevertheless he refused to accept that as an excuse and conceded that the Bards were the better team on the night. I hope tonight's result throws the title race totally wide open for the rest of the season."

Opsimaths beat History Men in a close fought contest with the margin only becoming marked in the final round. As the History Men entered Round 8 trailing by just a single point Ivor rallied his troops with memories of previous final rounds in which they had lost the round by 10 points to nil. It certainly did the trick as the margin turned into 8 points before you could say 'Alastair Cook'. All in all a good fun evening in the back lounge of the Albert Club.

It was a close run thing at the Turnpike as well, where the Charabancs lost their second match of the season - this time to the Prodigals. Anne-Marie sums up the match as "a strong start for The Prodigals with the Charas closing the gap in the last 2 rounds" whilst Damian's offers these reflections......
"We Charas are definitely making progress at the start of this season. Last week we lost by 13 points - this week we narrowed the deficit to a mere 4. Hey, that's progress isn't it?
This was definitely a game of 2 halves. In the first half, the Prods led comfortably in every single round and finished 24 points to 11 ahead of us. In the second half, the Charas won 3 out of the 4 rounds and finished 20 points to 11 ahead. However the Prods' better score in the first half meant they finished 4 points ahead on the night. If only we had managed to score more than 1 point in Round 6, we might have had a better chance of turning things around - but that's the way the quiz cookie crumbles!
Tonight, the Prods decided to bring out their heavy artillery in the shape of Egghead Dave. A touch of overkill you might think considering our average form these days but maybe a sentimental tribute to our long departed days of glory. At any rate, Dave's presence added his customary lustre to proceedings and, as usual, helped make the evening a thoroughly amusing and convivial affair. Perhaps a tad too much so, as at one point our esteemed captain Father M was so overcome with conviviality that he actually helped Dave and co. to confer on a question that we'd got wrong. Sometimes I think that man is just too friendly for his own good!"

Quiz Paper Verdict

The paper this week was set by Albert.

It seems to have sparked quite a range of reactions and scorelines with average aggregates from the 'too hard' 58 at the Parr's Wood to the 'very respectable' 72 at the Griffin. At the Albert Club we found the early rounds dragged a bit with the pairing of 'Brians' in Round 2 and 'Owls' in Round 5 pretty unbalanced (who on earth can remember the second series of Big Brother?). As the paper moved on, however, the questions got more interesting culminating in the fascinating Round 6 pair of gliding/surfing novelists.

At the Griffin Kieran and co. just didn't like it. Tony's view, however, was not so harsh.....

"It was interesting that both teams considered and rejected the correct answer to the glider ace question but Kieran chose the surfer answer correctly. God knows why. It was an inspired guess I suppose. I thought the quiz was an interesting mix of theobscure, the second best and the downright interesting."

From the Turnpike Graham comments "If Sherlock Holmes kept bees in 221b Baker Street I'll eat me honeycomb hat....." whilst Rachael sums up for the Meat Raffle....

"The paper was enjoyed by all. A good range of topics and some generally interesting information included in many of the questions. We enjoyed the Ultravox question and the bee-keeping one and were fascinated to learn about the novelist's secret aviation career! The one slight blot on an otherwise excellent quiz paper was the question asking for the word 'BACK' to be spelled out using chemical element symbols. Our opponents gave the answer 'Barium, Carbon and Potassium' which was perfectly correct, but the only answer given on the paper was 'Boron, Actinium and Potassium'. They obviously got the points for their answer. The paper should have allowed two possible answers."

From the Fletcher Moss James gives Ethel's verdict.....

"There was controversy re 'BACK' with Barium, Carbon and Potassium being an equally valid answer. 'WIRE' seemed somewhat harder either way. However - a good quiz. We are normally flummoxed by the popular culture in Albert's quizzes, but this one was well balanced and interesting from the start. Lots of those questions where inspired guesses seemed to yield results."

....and from the Turnpike Damian's feedback......

"Albert's paper was a relatively straightforward mix of pairs, themes and assorted bric-à-brac on a variety of subjects. Yours Truly would have liked a bit more history but old queens seem of flagging interest to most teams these days. One might suggest that such lack of interest bears unpatriotic overtones given that the world's most famous old queen is currently reigning over us!
QotW? I don't think we had a consensus on this but I did like the one asking what The Clockwork Orange in Anthony Burgess' novel actually was. I didn't know it, but was fascinated to find out.
Most Improbable AotW? Being asked to believe that the 1979 season-ending episode of To The Manor Born, one of the more wretched sitcom offerings of the late 1970s, actually captivated the nation's telly addicts to such an extent that a quiz question could be asked about it 35 years later? Were we really all so sad and desperate for something good to watch back then?"

.....supplemented by the mutterings of a disgruntled Fr Megson....

"The least fun I've had in a darkened room since the bailiffs broke in and confiscated my Vince Hill album."

The Question of the Week

This week pretty well every team voted for a pair of questions in Round 6:

Which prolific author was one of the pioneers of British surfing, learning to surf prone in South Africa then to surf standing up in Hawaii in the 1920s?

along with

In 1931 which prolific author designed a glider which could be towed over long distances and 1984 was awarded the Bishop Wright air industry award for this contribution to aviation?

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