Winning by a single point more than the Bards, the Opsimaths jump to the top;

Dunkin' Dönitz kept their title challenge alive with a confident victory over The Men They Couldn't Hang.  Kieran sums up:

"We switched the game to the Parrs Wood assuming the Griffin would not be quiz-friendly due to deluded, or at least alcohol-dependent, City fans hoping for the 'Miracle of the Nou Camp'.  The patrons of the Parrs Wood are clearly more hard-headed, or less addicted, because there were barely any manic City fans.

Almost the end of the season and still anything could happen.  Well Barca have form for dodgy financial dealings and murky corruption don't they?   Now where did I put Monsieur Platini's number?   And his brown envelope?"

Ethel Rodin lost to The Opsimaths at the former White Swan - now the plush Ladybarn Social Club.  The margin was surprisingly substantial given the fact that you could hardly place a cigarette paper between the two teams' performances to date this season.  The resulting 17 point victory margin was just enough (by a single point) to lift the Opsimaths above the Bards at the top of the table as we enter the final two weeks of the league season.  I was Guest QM and felt the visitors got the rub of the green when it came to question balance - but only just.

James' view on behalf of the home team....

"Opsimaths were the stronger team, no doubt, but 17 points stronger....?  No!  And Ethel are certainly not so weak a team as to merit being 15 behind after 3 rounds.  As such, a frustrating night.  I don't think we'd have won with our opponents' questions but it would have been a damn sight closer."

The Charabancs of Fire lost to The Bards of Didsbury at the Turnpike.  Tony reflects on the visitors' victory....

"Fr Megson decided he preferred to drink wine with a certain Mademoiselle from Armentières before going of to inspect the Hindenberg Line and Neuve Chapelle en route for Loudun.  The net result was that the Charas led from Round One until eventually being overcome by our tactics.  Damian accepted that he had played an 'Edward Snowden' and blown the gaff by blurting out what you need to do to win a quiz.  I quote: 'All you need to do is score more points than they do'.  We took his advice and are now waiting to hear what has happened elsewhere.  Roisin offered £20 to anyone who could answer a question on Slovenian Philosophers.  We were genuinely curious to learn if anyone in the entire league knew the answer to that one." (Ed: As it happens the Slovenian question came up as a spare in the Ethel/Opsimaths match and a certain Opsimath got the right name before the question had even been half asked!  Roisin, can you please forward the cheque for £20 made out to 'N. Mills'?).

....and Damian on the home team's defeat....

"Ouch!  Yet another whooping to add to all our other whoopings.  In the absence of Father M who informed us he was on retreat in France (and that's what I told that nice chap from Interpol who called to see me the other day), our other resident QM, Jane kindly stepped into the breach and helped reduce the eventual deficit from something that could have been even more embarrassing!  For us, it was a quiz of 2 halves with the Charas keeping within a respectable distance in the first half and slumping dramatically in the second.  Our esteemed opponents, on the other hand, merely gathered strength as the quiz wore on!"

Electric Pigs lost a hard fought match at the Fletcher Moss to The History Men.  Ivor gives his views....

"We had a very good start and were 13 points ahead after three rounds - but the last five rounds were rather more even (and low scoring) at 16-16.  With a combined score of 57, 14 unanswered questions and only 7 twos this was a moderately hard test.  Plenty of interest though, and the pairing and the themes worked very well."

The Prodigals lost to Albert who scored their second successive victory at the Albert Club.  Mike O'B reports:

"As the relative low aggregate score suggests this was on the tough side, but it's always a good evening in the company of the Prodigals.  The first half was tougher than the second half not least because some of the early questions were so long-winded."

This week the paper was set by Compulsory Meat Raffle.  'Wot no Pop!' - or at least very little.  And of the very few music questions even I knew the European city whose lyrics were featured (Paul Heaton of Beautiful South was an Albert Club member for many years living as he did just a few hundred yards away in West Didsbury).  This was a toughish paper but rammed full of interesting material.  The questions were fairly long-winded but, in most cases, full of material that helped in the quest for an answer.  So the main concern at the Ladybarn Club was the amount of time spent nudging the contestants to offer an answer.  The scene was set right at the start of Round One with the excellent question about the one-club 1966 World Cup Final players.  A really interesting ponder but, boy, did it take a long time to get to Round One Question 2!

Other views?

"Enjoyable enough paper, though asking for five of the Labours of Hercules was a bit tough.  The Men were genial as ever and, fortunately for us, Dave was unable to repeat his 7 twos from our match earlier in the season.  The Men, going first first, definitely got the rough end of the unanswered questions with 12 of them to our 7 - especially The Man in seat 2 (one of their Steves) who copped for 5 of the 'too hard' questions when no one else had more than two unanswerables.

Answer of the night was definitely TMTCH's suggestion of The Waltons as the Salt Lake cannibals.  Now there's a TV show I would have liked to have seen!"

....and Ivor....

"A tricky quiz from the Meat Raffle."

This week the Opsimaths and Ethel Rodin were much taken with the name 'Fannie Flagg', the answer to Round 4 Question 3 concerning the author of the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café (we think this might be a good candidate for Dunkin' Dönitz's team name for the 2015/16 season).  In the end, however, I have selected Round 3 Question 2:

TV Quiz Shows etc.

Firstly congratulations to Opsimath, Nick Mills, who, with his Chessmen team mates, scored a crushing victory in last Monday's Only Connect semi-final.  One of his team mates is Henry Pertinez who has played with Rachael's CMR team in past years, whilst the other Chessman, Stephen Pearson, is the trainer and overall manager of the recent succession of excellent Manchester University University Challenge teams.

Secondly....During the week I have received the following invitation to apply to appear on a new BBC4 Quiz Show to be called The Hive.  The message was: