It gets even closer at the top with Albert and Ethel losing and the Bards, Pigs, Dunkers and Opsis winning

Results & Match Reports

Albert lost to The Electric Pigs in a crucial match that keeps the tussle at the top of the table alive and kicking - as well as helping the Pigs to join it.  A philosophical Mike O'Brien reports....

"We enjoyed a great evening of quizzing.  The lead changed hands several times and we didn't emerge as winners until question 6 in the final round.  Earlier I wanted to say that Maxine Peake had played the title role in Hamlet until Jim said he thought Shakespeare may not have been alive in 1974 and I sort of felt obliged to agree with him.  We were not overly impressed with the 'Great Continental Divide' question and didn't think Acker Bilk was anything to do with Scooby Doo.  Wasn't last season's Question of the Season - something to do with 'Do be do be do' too?"

"Despite leading in all but two of the rounds, the Charas again saw their early lead gradually whittled away until they were finally pipped at the post in a neck-and-neck finish to Round 8.  At least we managed to keep up with our opponents for a change, as well as managing to hit (and exceed) the magic 30 mark.  The presence of Ivor, Withquiz's chief Performance Analyser, confirmed the closeness of the result with honours spread evenly for the number of twos scored, as well as the number of unanswerables received by each team.  There are no damned lies in that man's statistics!  Of course he couldn't resist dredging up a two himself on the last question of the night to deny us a draw, or at least a mere one point defeat.  Whoever would have guessed he was a secret Elvis Costello groupie?"

You will have noticed from the above that the home team were just a trio so with a pretty close score-line a fourth Shrimp might well have reversed the result.  Indeed Shrimp David was the stand-out player of the evening with 5 twos (against my paltry one at the bottom of the pile - though it should have been two if I hadn't had a brain freeze when trying to remember what followed 'Sty' at the head of Wasdale).  One bit of accidental skulduggery from the Opsimaths.....as Hilary faced the question about 'bordetella pertussis' (Round 6 Question 4) I let out an involuntary coughing barrage (I've had a severe cough for over 2 months now which just won't subside).  Sorry Shrimps!

My only gripe for the evening would be the outrageous bar prices at the Club.  The Bards made a, thankfully brief, attempt to bankrupt the league a few years ago during their short residency at The Woodstock but having two teams playing from a home with these eye-watering prices (even if the beer is decent) could be the catalyst for the second global financial crisis what with all those dodgy second mortgages winning teams will need to take out at the end of the evening.  (Ed: Try losing more often, Kieran - it's much cheaper)."  

Quiz Paper Verdict

Well you know by now I'm a Dave Barras fan so no prizes for guessing the next word....Brilliant!  Dave has taken us on another guided tour round the backyard of his quirky knowledge-land with plenty of coaxing so that we could scrabble our way towards answers without waiting to be told (at least most of the time) - or, as Gilly lovingly, and more succinctly, put it (see Mike O'Brien's report above) a trawl through the sort of shite that Dave's full of.

The average aggregate was 74.6 - pretty much on target for the season's average to-date - and with plenty of close results the balance of the questions seemed well judged - and nothing for the Bingo-haters to moan about with no 'pick your own' formats to fret over.

At the Turnpike we all thoroughly enjoyed the challenges Dave set us.  My own beef?  Well Round 5 (a hidden theme round) claimed to have the theme that 'all questions could have started with a word from the preceding answer'.  Most answers contained an interrogative part of speech (who, what, where, etc.) or at least the sound-alike of one.  But two (including the answer to question 1) included the words 'can' and 'do'.  These are verbs not interrogatives.  This round fell into the trap of distracting our attention with a duffly executed theme at the expense of some really good questions.  In the same Round 5 Question 1 Dave got his Acker Bilk and Frank Sinatra muddled up - but we're all allowed a slip now and again.  Finally if I get done again on a Roy of the Rovers question (Round 2 Question 8) I'm going to do some serious damage to someone.  Isn't this a sort of 'catch out your mates down the pub' question?  Oh, well, I suppose that's what it did!

What did the rest of you think?

James:

"A good quiz with only 6 unanswered - 3 each.  Only one steal all night.  As usual a well constructed quiz from TMTCH offering plenty of thought-provoking questions.  We wondered how they would find questions about Dave Axa, Bob Direct Line or Alexander Compare the Market."

Tony:

"The quiz was predictable.  Well thought out themes and connections - no bingo, blockbusters or pick your own question rounds - clever and well structured questions which were capable of being worked out and, inevitably, a bit of Derbyshire.  The Hangmen did well and so did both teams at the Club formerly known as the Stadium of Murk."

Damian:

"We all enjoyed tonight's paper from the Hangmen with themes galore on offer, both announced and hidden (whoopee you don't hear me shout) but generally well-crafted and amusing as we have long since come to expect from their skilled quiz-setting hands.  Although we couldn't come up with a consensus for question of the week, Yours Truly could have kicked himself for failing to spot the cartoon character inspired by Frank Sinatra's famous hit song Strangers on the ......SHORE???  Maybe if the quiz setters hadn't confused Old Blue Eyes with Acker Bilk, I might have got there sooner.  Then again, maybe I'm just full of you-know-what!"

Ivor:

"As we have come to expect an excellent set of questions displaying all the inventiveness we crave.  Anne did note that given the number of engineering and football questions it was a boy’s quiz and once again there is the threat of a needlework round when we next set."

Kieran:

"Rounds on animal homes, police terms, tyres and words that can go before 'point' don't sound like the stuff quiz dreams are made of but in the hands of expert question wranglers they became something to hold the attention and tickle the brain for a couple of hours.  Only seven unanswereds (split 4-3) and twenty two 2s which went 50/50."

Anne-Marie:

"Great quiz from TMTCH and brilliantly QM'd by Dave Barras."

....and finally a snippet from Dave Barras himself:

"Dave Rainford told a story in the Albert Club that he had been asked a similar question to the one at Round 6 Question 1.  He whispered the answer to Egghead Kevin who promptly went and said 'No sorry we’ve got no answer'."

The Question of the Week

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

Chatterbox

1) Next week is WIST week with 8 of our 11 teams contesting Stockport opponents on a paper set by Dave Barras (hooray!).  Each WithQuiz team (whether drawn to play away or at home) have the responsibility of picking up the question paper at the Red Lion.  Please note!

2) The 'how long is a piece of quizzing?' controversy rages throughout our league - with wise old sages like Ivor basically saying in his preamble to last week's paper "Up yours! We'll make our questions as long as we want" - WithQuiz central has received a quote from Herodotus bastardised to suit the purposes of the US Postal Service.  It has been sent in by one of our correspondents who was clearly taught classics at school - so probably an Ulsterman.  It runs:

"Neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

Very apt!  Obviously Ancient Greek pub quizzes were a whole lot quicker than ours.

3) Finally another communication from the media asking if any of our flock wish to expose our knowledge/ignorance on the telly in the BBC4 show Hive Minds.  Hive Minds is presented by Fiona 'Jolly Hockeysticks' Bruce and is BBC4's attempt to replace Only Connect which unfortunately got popular and so had to go off to BBC2.  It's enjoyed one series already and, though not as compelling as Only Connect, was a good cut or two above the usual TV quiz fare.  Here's the message I received from Catherine at Saltbeef TV (who on earth thinks up these daft independent TV production company names?) and below is the flyer:

"I came across the Withington Pub Quiz website and wondered if you could help me. I'm currently working on a BBC Four quiz show called Hive Minds hosted by Fiona Bruce, and we're looking for contestants.  I've presumptuously attached a flyer of the show, in the hope that you might be able to circulate it to your members?  We're looking for clever and interesting individuals who love quizzes and crosswords.