Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 10/12/14

Ethel lose to DD whilst the Bards beat the Opsimaths; the tussle at the top stays wide open

Results & Match Reports

The Bards beat The Opsimaths in a close fought match at the Cricket Club. The Bards went ahead early on but there were never more than a handful of points between the two teams and the result was in doubt until the latter half of Round 8. It was a good-natured affair with fine sporting give and take over some questionable wording in the paper. The result (along with tonight's outcome at the White Swan) means that there are plenty of options open at the top of the table with only 5 points separating the top 5 teams as we head towards the league competition half way point next week.
It was good to see Eric (assisted by Dom) reading the questions and keeping everybody in order. Amongst his many other skills Eric is no mean painter and last night he let on to us that he is well into painting a portrait of Tony in full judicial regalia (when Tony was 'QMing' for ERII a few years ago, that is). The 'work-in-progress' portrait is shown here. Two points for those of you that can put your finger on Tony's tippet!

The Prodigals just lost to Compulsory Meat Raffle at the Albert Club. Home captain Anne-Marie described the visitors as 'rampant'. Visiting Captain Rachael had this to say....
"It was a very enjoyable evening with our charming hosts, The Prodigals, who are always wonderful opponents and fantastic company. We managed to notch up a six point lead by half time which The Prodigals then clawed back leaving us just enough space to creep home by 2 points."

Ethel Rodin lost to Dunkin' Dönitz at the White Swan/Ladybarn Social Club. It seems that the lads (why no ladette Dunkers?) from the Griffin are getting backto their old ways. Barry was back and firing on most of his cylinders with the 'classic' DD line-up on show for the first time this season. A victorious Kieran reports from deepest Rome Ladybarn....
"On a great night in the twin cosmopolitan honeypots of Rome and Ladybarn we fielded our normal four, Barry, Martin, David and me for the first time this season. We were duly rewarded with our most convincing victory so far and can only apologise to Ethel that they were the unlucky opponents to meet us running in to some sort of form. Barry is not 100% yet - far from it - but playing the last two Wednesdays seems to have suited him and he responded superbly tonight with 6 twos. He likened it to United signing an injured Wazza and, once fit, the former boy wonder delivering a champions league hat-trick in his first game. I'm not aware that gerontophilia is amongst Barry's peccadilloes but if in only a half fit state he can get 6 twos every week I'll line up all the ladies of a certain age I can find!
Speaking of the Champions League .... no I won't. I'll just smile rather a lot and continue to enjoy a superb night.
Ethel were gracious, fun and competitive and it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening with a very good paper full of points for those quizzers who were alert to the Pigs' turn of mind. I'm afraid I renamed Ethel's prime Rodinista 'I've-lost-the-plot-Roddy' after tonight's excellent QM, Liz, came up with this phrase whilst stumbling for the only time in the evening, over the question order in one of the rounds. I hope it sticks though - it got the biggest laugh of the night.
It's good to be back and especially good to have Barry back. On to Monaco.. sorry The Pigs next week."
..and James' take on the same events....
"I've forgotten the score, but a back-to-full-strength Griffin side beat Ethel by half a dozen points or so. There weren't many steals - basically they just scored more twos than we did. Barry managed 6 - as did Greg. Alas, after 4 weeks of scoring 5 twos I could only scrape 1 tonight."

Meanwhile at the Turnpike The Charabancs of Fire just got the better of The Men They Couldn't Hang. Hangman Dave chips in....
"TMTCH do their tried and tested Devon Loch impression and lose on the final pair of questions of the night. Graham was a model of consistency with another 5 twos. How long before the European giants come sniffing? Nobody is perfect but I could have been had I chosen 'Pick Your Own' question18 instead of some Wagner opera!"
...and Damian speaks for the victors....
"A cracking quiz tonight in the presence of a full squad of Hangmen with some new blood in evidence to keep them even more competitive. The result was an exciting, down-to-the-wire affair with never more than a point between us in all 8 rounds, and with the Hangmen leading in all but 3 of them. The outcome was only our 4th victory this season and keeps us well in contention for achieving Father Megson's ambitious aim of captaining The Most Mediocre Team of The Year!"

Most emphatically of all, however, the mercurial History Men went crashing to an 18-point defeat at the hands of the table-climbing Albert. A jubilant Mike reports....
"We certainly can't complain about the result. Even the bingo rounds seemed reasonable - but then we would say that wouldn't we? Our only low points of the evening came when Ashton qualified for the 'Paddle of Rebuke' twice for excessive blurting. Only our iron discipline keeps us going."
A sadder but wiser Ivor sees it like this....
"A heavy defeat for us - and it could have been worse had we played three-handed but Mary QM’d for us which meant that our QM (Mrs C) was propelled into seat one for her first ever quiz. Bit of a baptism of fire ending up with 3 of the night’s 8 unanswereds but Alison did secure a two before the end. Everyone got at least one two tonight (Dave Barras from TMTCH would say that that is a criterion of a good quiz- namely that everyone goes away happy with at least one two even if they lose). Unfortunately the Albert proved rather better than us at getting twos (17 to our 7). Ashton got 6 twos - and still got the 'Paddle of Rebuke' from Mike for a blurt on the Wuthering Heights question.
We won the toss and elected to play first. The first half saw us behind 13-26, and although the second half was less unbalanced (18-23), we did feel we got the harder set of questions. However, Albert scored well on both their easy and hard questions and we would still have lost had we gone second. Needless to say we also picked unwisely in the 'Pick Your Own' rounds - culminating in my failure to answer the 'Do You Know More Than a 10 Year Old' question.
Our score difference has taken a knock tonight as well. I shall have to search the archive to see if we have had a bigger defeat. But as Peter says 'It’s only a pub quiz' and we will be back fighting as we take on the Glennons and the Bassets at the Albert Club next week."

Quiz Paper Verdict

The paper this week was set by The Electric Pigs.

A popular offering earning the highest average aggregate score of the season so far (81.0, just beating the Opsimaths' 80.8 of a few weeks back).

At the Cricket Club we enjoyed it though there was, what seemed to us, a glaring inaccuracy in Round 2. Question 4 should surely have said 'NE' not 'NW' (it's hard to think of a film that has been more closely associated with the NE!!). In the 'Pick Your Own' Rounds at the end, our Clare had the misfortune to choose the 'Only Connect - What Comes 4th in a Sequence?' question. Roughly 20 minutes later both teams gave up from mental exhaustion as Eric read out the answer. It seems to me 'Only Connect' type questions don't slot too easily into our format and run the risk of causing major bouts of 'quizzical constipation'. Perhaps this example of the genre was just too hard.

Elsewhere these were the reactions:

Rachael...."An excellent all-round quiz with plenty of variety and some interesting facts. The 'Quiz Shows' round provided a lot of entertainment as did the rounds in which all the answers began with the last letter of the previous answer."

Ivor...."No one picked the 'Conan Doyle' questions which I nominate as pair of the night. There was some debate after the game about bids in Bridge. Had the opponent on the left already bid 1NT then one’s partner would have had to bid 2 Clubs or possibly Double (or Redouble if the opponent had doubled first). However as was pointed out there is no snooker player called Jimmy Double or Ronnie Clubs so I suppose it should have not required too much thinking. The question about where the unknown warrior was buried foxed us, insofar as it was so easy there was the suspicion it was a trick question."

James...."Overall the questions were pretty good - a couple of dodgy pairs perhaps (nobody knew 'Cyprus', everyone knew 'Liechtenstein') but, on the whole, sound subject matter.

We liked the idea of the 'Pick Your Own Quiz Show' rounds - except that the 'Bowie Albums Only Connect' one was way beyond us all (and a bit of an anticlimax after 5 minutes of deep thought by both teams!)."

Damian...."We thought tonight's quiz was a thoroughly enjoyable, well thought out affair with lots of varied themes, pairs and toe to tail rounds culminating in 2 rounds of 'Pick Your Own Subject' of which nothing could be dearer to a Charabanc's heart. We all laughed when Roisin got the question which began 'Which R came out of Northern Ireland...?' whilst Hanger Graham and Yours Truly each made the amazing discovery that we are both smarter than a 10 year old! The whole affair was ably QMed by Jane - and Piggie Andrew was present to witness proceedings and bravely resisted my onslaught over the British Raj question. You can always tell a man who's used to handling the odd onslaught or two! We did not select a particular QotW but we all thoroughly enjoyed the 'Toe To Tail' and 'Pick Your Own Subject' Rounds."

Finally James' comment about Cyprus and Liechtenstein above reminds me of something Howell related this evening. Apparently when Liechtenstein played Wales recently (in one of those terribly important Internationals that warrant the billion pound Premiership being put on hold for a week) the visiting Liechtenstein players just couldn't fathom why the Welsh home fans' boos were so loud when the visitors' national anthem came to be played.

The Question of the Week

This week I'll take Ivor's nomination and choose the second of the two Conan Doyle questions in the 'Pick Your Own' Rounds (Rounds 7/8 Question 13):

What part did Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths play in the life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?

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