Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 28/10/15

Ethel win to stay top; Albert beat the Bards to stay a close second; The Opsimaths win at the Griffin and the Prodigals win at the Club; but best of all The Men chalk up their first victory of the season at the Fletcher Moss!

Results & Match Reports

Dunkin' Dönitz lost to The Opsimaths who bounced back after their mauling last week at the hands of the Bards. Clearly the paper this week suited Opsimathic interests a whole lot better. I arrived at the match hotfoot from the Etihad to find both teams enjoying a spot of post-match relaxation. Apparently the Dunkers took an early lead but then lost it to an Opsimaths mid-match surge. Late on the home team rallied but by then it was too late.

The Bards of Didsbury lost to Albert. Mike O'B reports:

"The scoring was close for 6 rounds and the lead changed hands several times. The only discordant note of the evening was the complaint by a member of the Albert team, clearly still bearing a grudge over Westbromwichalbiongate, that another member of the team was being given all the easy questions while she was being left with all the hard ones and it would have required a woman with two heads (shades of Blackadder) to get any points."

...and Tony sums up for the losers:

"Unlike last week the quiz did not play to our strengths. We were beaten by the better team on the night, although to be fair to ourselves we did lead up to Round 5. Early in Round 8 the game was lost so we were safe in allowing Steve to dash for his bus as the quiz set by the History Men (in defiance of the new ethos) took ages to get through. I ascribe our defeat to the toss. Albert simultaneously called both heads and tails, so decided that they had lost the toss. No-one told me or I might have said toss again. We hate choosing, so we then tossed to decide whether we should go first or second. Bad decision. We went first and paid the price. Mike was on devastating form for Albert and the rest were not far behind."

The Prodigals beat Compulsory Mantis Shrimp. Anne-Marie reports a very enjoyable evening at the Club with a pretty close result to boot.

The Electric Pigs lost to The Men They Couldn't Hang who to everyone's delight secure their first points of the campaign. Dave texted this:

"That rarest of commodities a Men They Couldn't Hang win by the narrow margin of four points. Our youth policy paid dividends tonight and debutant Richard even had the perspicuity to supply Angus Deayton as the most likeliest of pairs as he sat waiting to steal David Mitchell. Had to feel for Piggy Dave - his 5 twos were as many as the entire noose-dodgers managed between them. Question of the week would have been the one about young David's holiday in Cambodia but only if the answer had been the Dead Kennedys."

....whilst TMTCH team mate, Graham, makes these observations:

"The Hangers recorded their first win of the season against the Electric Pigs at the Fletcher. Although the Pigs were only three handed in a quiz admirably QM'd by Ivor, we're not about to show any sympathy for absentees. The 'Jose Mourinho' grimace turned into a broad smile as Il Capitano Dave Barras led the team with inductee Richard to a famous victory."

The Charabancs of Fire lost to Ethel Rodin who stay at the top of the table having only dropped a single point so far this season. A joyous James reports:

"The margin of the final result, however, has to be taken in the context of the score after 5 rounds which was 23-22 to Charas. Roddy was our star player scoring freely well indeed all evening."

...with a not so joyous Damian commenting:

"A quiet and convivial evening in the Turnpike in the company of Roddy and his Rodinettes brought scarcely any greater comfort for the benighted Charas after last week's drubbing. Not even the return of Father M made an appreciable difference as we managed to score just one more point than we did seven days ago. All those retreats to exotic lands, including last week's pilgrimage north of the border, have brought us no respite. Maybe he is just in the wrong religion. I believe voodoo priests have had better results captaining quiz teams. Maybe his next retreat should be to Haiti where he can learn the ancient art of fashioning wax dolls and where to stick the pins. He could come back and teach us how to use them against our quiz opponents. As you know, we Charas are always up for a challenge!"

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the questions were set by The History Men.

Another pretty good paper that seemed to please most of you most of the time. The evening's average aggregate at 66 was a tad below the season's average to date (74) but still quite acceptable. Reading the paper for the first time on Thursday morning I clocked Ivor and co. sticking their collective chins out in the preamble to their paper with this statement "We note the debate about having short questions stripped of interesting information. We have chosen to ignore it." This does seem to accord with the general feeling since the papers so far this season haven't been noticeably shorter than last season. Perhaps the key is not brevity but 'answerability' - avoiding the 10 minute ponders with neither team ending up getting anywhere near an answer. To this end the average scores have generally been higher.

Here is the feedback of those of you who did sit the evening's historical inquisition....

Damian....

It was the last Wednesday in October yet tonight's paper from the History Men managed to avoid the temptation of setting a Halloween-themed round and presented us instead with a variety of announced themes, bingo and a lucky dip. The variety was impressive and that is something which is usually guaranteed to warm the cockles of our hearts. Nonetheless we were amazed at all the fascinating and interesting questions about China, Japan and the other East Asian countries that the setters managed to avoid setting in the East Asia Bingo round. The leading lady Malaysian badminton player and some tall structure standing in a Chinese city (don't they all have similar structures these days)? Both teams felt that this was a paper full of good ideas but delivered rather less than it promised.

QotW? We liked the naughty question about the singer whose name is made up of private parts in various languages. I am proud to say that it proved to be one of our few successes of the evening!"

James....

"Enjoyable quiz - generally well set. Not so many fans of the Eastern Asia round - 4 points scored in total, 2 of which were steals with only one person in the room knowing the answer - and then only the surname! We thought Conchita was the Würst QotW."

Dave...

"Tough quiz - i suspect we might be the only team to beat our average score!!!"

Graham....

"Just one criticism about tonight's quiz: Can we never have any more East Asian Bingo Rounds please!"

Prodigal Danny...

"Similar to other contributors we enjoyed the paper on the whole, except that both teams bombed on the Asia round with only two questions answered (both being conferred).

However I am putting myself forward for blurt of the season....
'QM:                     What event did David Rudisha win gold etc.
Danny:                 400 metres
QM:                      Incorrect
Danny:                 Oh no, it was 800 metres
Mantis Shrimp: Er, that will be 800 metres then
Cue frosty stare from big sister, Anne-Marie."

and a less than gruntled Tony....

"The discerning reader will have noted that we were in the lead until the latter half of the quiz when the curse of the bingo rounds struck. When, oh when, are setters going to be told to stop copping out on producing a balanced quiz and lumping a load of questions together to be picked 'blind'? Quizzing is a sport for those who prefer the mental rather than the physical challenges. I doubt if any other area of competition allows pure chance to influence the outcome.

As a footnote we can now add Pyonyang/Pyonchang to PMT (Ed: I trust you're referring to illness rather than transport here, Tony!)."

Finally a postscript from Ivor, the paper's author-in-chief....

"As no doubt many people will mention two errors crept into this evening's paper despite our rigorous checking. In Round 1 Question 4 the author of the Game of Thrones should have been shown as George R R Martin (not George M M Martin). I hope QMs would not have been so ungenerous as to disallow any version of George Martin. Also in Round 5 Question 3 Wisconsin is not the 44th state (which happens to be Wyoming). Although there were two other hints in this question to get to the answer 44 it might have misled some.

I QMed for the Electric Pigs v TMTCH match. TMTCH scored their first victory of the season in a low-scoring game against a trio of Pigs. Dave Pig got 5 twos and Dave Barass got 3, so, although the questions were tricky, it did suit some."

The Question of the Week

This week a number of you have opted for Round 2 Question 8:

What is the stage name of the singer whose forename is the Spanish slang for vagina and whose surname is German slang for penis?

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

Chatterbox

A couple of things this week....

First this season's WIST Champions and A-Trophy competitions. The Quarter Finals take place in a fortnight's time (November 11th). This year WithQuiz has the task of setting all the WIST papers. Dave Barras has kindly agreed to set the paper for the Quarter Finals (even though TMTCH are setting in the League the week before (i.e. next Wednesday). I have agreed with the Stockport League that the WithQuiz teams will collect the papers from the Red in all cases whether they are playing at home or away. Captains please note!

One other related piece of news...Mike Wagstaffe tells me that Chunky have sadly had to withdraw from the Stockport League for a variety of reasons. Pre-season they had withdrawn from the WIST competition being unable to get a team out on Wednesdays as well as Thursdays - but now they've had to call it a day on their Stockport League Thursday commitments. Best wishes from all of us at WithQuiz and let's hope we meet Chunky (or at least Chunky team members) again even if they appear under other banners.

Secondly I have had the Eggheads people on the phone again. They are looking for teams to challenge the Eggheads (as ever). I display their flyer below. I did tell the chap that we have applied twice in the past (2005 and 2014) but had not got past the audition stage on either occasion. Nevertheless he'd still like us to have another bash. I'll happily join in with any WithQuiz team but I'd rather not shoulder the burden of organising an application this time. Over to you.