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WITHQUIZ The Withington Pub Quiz League QUIZBIZ 18th February 2015 |
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| WQ Archive | Comments | Question papers | |||
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WITHQUIZ The Withington Pub Quiz League QUIZBIZ 18th February 2015 |
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| WQ Archive | Comments | Question papers | |||
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Ethel, Albert and the Opsimaths win whilst Dunkin Dönitz tie; still very tight at the top |
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Results & Match Reports |
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Albert beat The History
Men at the Fletcher Moss to keep their strong title challenge on
track.
The Men They Couldn't Hang lost
somewhat decisively to Ethel Rodin who not only picked up
2 points for a win but 28 points to boost their 'Score
Difference' column. As has been said already in these columns,
in such a tight race this season 'Score Difference' has a good
chance of being a title deciding factor. The Opsimaths beat The Bards of Didsbury by the slimmest of margins in the back lounge of the Albert Club in front of a trio of spectating Charabancs setters. The match was pretty level throughout with neither team gaining a lead of more than 3 points. As it turned out the Bards ruled the roost in the middle rounds but the home team started on top and ended Round 8 just sneaking ahead. As has been said elsewhere the luck of the draw in the Bingo rounds was crucial. In Round 8 Jim chose the stinker ('L') about which no-one had a clue (there are only a few well-known collective nouns which strike me as reasonable quiz fare and this was not one of those). Meanwhile Howell got the cleverly worded and very gettable one about pyramidal and circular shapes ('TB'). On such serendipity matches turn when Bingo rounds are on the loose - and so it was.
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Quiz Paper Verdict |
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This week the paper was set by The Charabancs of Fire.
This was slightly harder than the average with an aggregate of 64.6 (a
little down on the Charabancs 69.8 in their first paper of the
season before Christmas). As ever with Charabancs papers there were plenty of fun topics and amusingly crafted questions. The 'buts'? Well I didn't like the 2 'which words with the same endings' questions - far too vague. First of all why not say 'which words that end with the same 3 letters' - secondly it transpired that there were quite a few words ending with 'ate' that could be construed as synonyms for 'reduce in intensity/lessen' and for 'to combine or merge'. Another 'but' was the answer to Round 4 Question 6 which was hotly contested as debates about what constituted a dwarf planet raged. Finally a big 'but' for the answer given to 'PMT' in the Bingo Blockbuster rounds. The Bards answered 'Potteries Motor Traction' and were marked down as the answer given in the paper was 'Potteries Motor Transport'. On checking the various relevant websites there is plenty of evidence that the name immediately prior to privatisation did indeed include the word 'Traction' not 'Transport'. With the match result turning on just a single point this was a decisive error. On the brighter side there was general consensus that Round 3 Question 8 was the Question of the Week with suggestions ranging from 'Order of the Garter' to the rather naughty 'Rear Admiral'.
Rachael on behalf of her Meat Raffle squad.... The quiz was well received with a good range of topics and some genuinely interesting and challenging facts. The blockbuster bingo round was as much fun as always! The second word definitions question caused some debate as we all agreed that there seem to be several alternative answers for the first part of the question, all of which fitted both the definition and spelling. We enjoyed many of the questions but the Pigs particularly liked the rugby question about the Bradford Barbarians. Mike on behalf of the Albert team...
As the score suggests this was on the hard side but
like panning for gold there were little flecks of the bright stuff
amongst the sludge, e.g. the non-biting Luis Suarez question, which
helped to
Ivor speaking for his History Men colleagues.... A rather hard quiz we thought with with a combined score of 64, and 19 unanswered questions. We did not spot the Chaser question (though the Albert did and remembered Anne Heggarty against whom we have played) but no one knew of Lisa Thiel. As always the Blockbuster delighted and frustrated in equal measure. Young David got the Haysi Fantayzee title (but claimed ignorance that it was about attempted anal rape) and, although we guessed that a character from Sesame Street probably talked more sense than most of the Congressional Committee Members, we unfortunately plumped for Ernie (who if alleged rumours are correct might one day be lobbying for gay marriage) rather than Elmo lobbying for musical education. James from Ethel's camp offers his answers of the week: "Duke of Pork / Order of the Garter for Round 3 Question 8." Anne-Marie proffers this Question of the Week: "Round 1 Question 3 about the meaning of 'sitzpinkler' - made us all laugh anyway." Finally Kieran smarting from the Prodigals/Dunkin' tie at the Griffin reinforces his poor opinion of Blockbuster Bingo rounds with this comment.... "The blockbuster bingo was very poorly thought out and contained questions with a variety of difficulty (or ease) not to say impossibility that should be unacceptable in quiz paper setting. Yes we chose all the impossible ones. Call it sour grapes if you want. I stand by my opinion of it." |
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The Question of the Week |
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This week the vote goes to Round 3 Question 8:
For the answer to this and all the week's questions click here. |
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Fcek Fr Megson! He can whistle for his fcekin' blob until he sees fit to apologise for letting rip from the pulpit and calling me the Whore of Babycham. In a strongly worded epistle to his bishop I have made it clear that me and Mr Dusty will be leaving the Catholic church and going over to join the Epicureans. As from Shrove Tuesday we will devote our lives to strong alcohol, frequent visits to the kebab shop and as much rampant sex as we can fit in between times (with or without Mr Dusty). This state of affairs will continue until such time as Fr Megson sees fit to issue a grovelling apology or we run out of money, whichever comes first. We thought it might be nice to get the Epicurean ball rolling by having a little soirée chez nous as they call it in that fashionable magazine Ladybarn Life that Mr Dusty likes to read when he's on the bog. A sophisticated evening with maybe a few boiled spuds, canapés and wee bangers on a stick - and little bowls of pork scratchings served with a guacamole dip. All washed down with bottles of strong alcohol (or weak alcohol if you are a driver). Stick a smoochy Daniel O'Donnell Greatest Hits tape into your cassette and hey fcekin' presto! you've got yourself a soirée. Who to
invite? It has long been my wish to fill the parlour with suave, sophisticated
and sentient people with beards and things, with whom you could engage in lively
and Well, I got there in good time and all the girls were there, dressed to the nines in cheesecloth and velvet loons. They were pretending to be ladylike and some of them didn't even throw anything at me. It was Anne's turn to babysit the Historymen so we had to wait until she got the little fcekers settled down. Peter was no bother, he'd already nodded off and little Ivor, bless him, was engrossed in a statistical analysis of the demography of Noddy's Toytown. Dr Tim was being a right little monster but we eventually managed to herd him into bed with a cattle prod I happened to have in my handbag. Try as we might we couldn't get baby David settled down so there was nothing for it but to bring him with us and hope that he could suppress the trauma in later life. Roisin had done the planning. We'd start off in the Tommy Ducks where we would sink a few lager and limes, point and yell abuse at the topless barmaids, snigger at the knickers on the ceiling and pretend to be dead and lie in the coffins. Then we would hobble across Oxford Street to Jilly's Rockworld where we would kick off our platforms and bop till we dropped to the strains of Lynard Skynard, the thinking woman's Status Quo. Then it would be time to hit the clubs and look for sugar daddies. Pips and Rotters were always a good bet for meeting men with suits and sideburns and shiny shoes. Sophisticated men who knew the world and would think nothing of buying a whole bottle of Blue Nun and letting you drink most of it while they regaled you with stories of stunning derring-do from their exotic lives as estate agents or trill-phone salesmen. And even if we couldn't cop off with a sugar daddy couldn't we go slumming it in the Conti where we could pretend to be nurses and frighten the bejasus out of the first year geography students with our Chesty Morgan impressions. Have you ever noticed how things never turn out like you planned? A lot of the places on Roisin's itinerary were very quiet or in some cases nothing more than holes in the ground or car parks. Pips was okay though - although we never got the chance to chat up sugar daddies. We were still on our first rum and pep when Anne-Marie started pfaffing around on her wireless phone, taking selfies and tweeting all over the fcekin' place. The fcekin' bouncers came wading in like the Hounds of Hell. They duffed us up and threw us out, telling us to frig off and be anachronistic somewhere else. So, after traipsing around the city centre in the rain for hours we chucked Roisin's 1975 A-Z in the bin, bought baby David another packet of Parma Violets and started looking for the nearest SELNEC all night bus stop. There was no way we were going to risk them newfangled trams. What the fcek would you do if them doors snapped shut with your cleavage in the carriage and your platforms still wedged in the tramlines?
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Dunkin'
Dönitz tied with The Prodigals in a match of high
tension at the Griffin. It seems the last 2 Bingo rounds were
crucial with the Prodigals hauling back a considerable deficit
to end up on level terms.
Compulsory
Meat Raffle beat The Electric Pigs at the Turnpike amidst
some rowdy scenes fortunately unconnected to the WithQuiz match.
It ended in the now traditional
Charabancs fashion with a couple of Bingo Blockbuster rounds where
luck of the draw played a significant part in determining the
winners and the losers. I won't dwell on the merits of Bingo
rounds here - others have their say below. Just to mention
that the initials of the answers offered in these Blockbuster Rounds
were in the most part just single letters making prediction of the
answer in advance impossible. Indeed the only instance of
successful prediction was for the question labelled 'JWIBL' which
Steve chose and pretty well offered the correct answer before, as
QM, I had finished the first sentence of the fairly lengthy (and
rather tasteless) question. When chatting to the Charabancs
present at the Albert Club after the match they said they had
deliberately reduced the number of guessable letter strings to
increase the 'luck of the draw' factor.
What did the rest of you say?
keep the evening moving along in an amiable fashion.
witty debates about Art and Literature and The Archers. But this is Ladybarn,
not fcekin' Bloomsbury so I suppose it was inevitable that I would end up stuck
in the kitchen trying to fend off them hoors from the Griffin and other Withquiz
riffraff. Mr Dusty said we should maybe invite the Withquiz girls as well but
I wasn't sure how to go about it as they always laugh and throw things at me
whenever I be out window shopping at the Cheese Helmet or the fish shop. Anne's
quite nice though and very sensitive. She mostly just sticks to verbal abuse
and hardly ever throws things at me except maybe the odd cabbage which
doesn't hurt all that much. So I rang Anne and told her we were having a
ladylike soirée chez nous and would she like to come? "Would I fcek", was Anne's
reply when she had stopped laughing. "Me, Roisin and the girls are going uptown
on a girls' night. It's going to be a 70s night and it will be chuffin' brill.
You can come too if you like only you'll have to promise to wear a balaclava
back to front when we start hunting for sugar daddies in the clubs."