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WITHQUIZ The Withington Pub Quiz League QUIZBIZ 11th November 2015 |
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| WQ Archive | Comments | Question papers | |||
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WITHQUIZ The Withington Pub Quiz League QUIZBIZ 11th November 2015 |
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| WQ Archive | Comments | Question papers | |||
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A pretty good night for the WithQuiz teams with semi final slots for the The Opsimaths, The Bards and Dunkin' Donitz in the WIST Cup (The Alex keep the Stockport flag flying here); whilst The Prodigals, Albert, The History Men and The Charas make it a clean sweep for our teams in the A-Trophy |
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Results & Match Reports |
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WIST Champions Cup
The Opsimaths
beat
The Railway Tiviot Dale in the back lounge at the Albert Club.
Brian acted as a very able QM (probably because Jitka was sat at
his right hand side like an OFSTED Inspector checking his
'excellence in all areas'). Round 1 saw a
There were pretty few twos during the WithQuiz rounds (3-0 to the home team as it happens) and - of course - the Stockport rounds are both conferred rounds so I think the Opsimaths success was all down to fruitful bouts of conflabbing. We seem to be getting quite good at sparking unlikely answers off one another from standpoints of wide-eyed ignorance. From my long experience of pub quizzes a correct answer emerging from the dark due to the combination of brains is the most satisfying experience available!
"A close contest all
evening in The Printers, one of the very few south Manchester
pubs I had never before visited.
We thought it might be our evening when we answered 'rheostat' to the electrical diagram question and the QM first said no, and then 'Oh, hang on, yes it is - I'm an electrician'!"
The Bards of Didsbury beat The Traveller's Call in their Didsbury Cricket Club stronghold. Tony reports.... "Traveller's Call were delightful and challenging opponents. Dave Barras set a suitably taxing quiz although I felt he did not live up to his self-imposed standard of the previous week's quiz. Our visitors led by two points at the end of the first, Stockport-style, round and maintained that lead to the end of the second round. The Bards scored 4 twos and a bonus in Round 3 (WithQuiz-style) to take the lead - and took the next two rounds to lead 43-34 going into the last round. The Traveller's won the last round 6-3 but by then it was too late to claw back their position. We have had rounds on Diesel engines before, and, as ever, one of the clues was Jeremy Paxman. I had written down all the diesel engines the marine engineers in my unit during National Service had to train on (I suppose that gave me some sort of advantage) but I refused to accept that anyone could be called Mirlees National - as did Jim of The Traveller's, who had actually worked at Mirlees National in Stockport - so I talked us out of a point or two. Indeed both teams talked themselves out of more than one gettable answer. Although Steve thought Fulcrum was the Mig Fighter it did not quite fit the wording of the question (to my ears). As well he was very critical of my 'Foxbat' answer. I couldn't explain why I thought it might fit except I had heard of a Russian Fighter nicknamed Foxbat."
"As always when we do battle with a WithQuiz team
this was a thoroughly enjoyable evening. If memory serves
this is the first time we've come up against Ethel in Europe,
although we lost a league game to a team containing three of
them only a couple of weeks ago. We had an early
indication that it would be our night: our resident Cumbrian
Barrie has a less-than-glorious history of answering questions
involving his home county and he's probably even worse on
politics, so his 'Tim Fallon' answer left us double-gobsmacked
and convinced the quiz gods were looking kindly on us.
For once we actually performed better on the
Stockport half and it was this that got us over the line in a
very close quiz, which saw Greg left with the unenviable task of
needing a two on the last question to rescue a draw for Ethel.
Thankfully for us he was unable to come up with the name of 'the
horse that launched a leveraged buyout'. We built up a
decent half-time lead and, taking a leaf out of El Ingeniero's
book, we managed to rein in our attacking instincts in the
second half and scored enough ones to hold off (just) Ethel's
late charge."
while from the loser's enclosure James
reports....
"That the last question ended up being 2 points for a possible
tie is testament to a great comeback effort from Ethel - but
alas, just as in the same competition last year, the game was
lost on the initial toss, with The Alex running away to a 13-2
lead after the first 12 questions. That was a bit
disheartening to be honest - especially as I believe we would
have scored just as heavily as our hosts had we gone first."
BTW it's a double dose of questions in the
Williamson household this week. Following James'
appearance for Ms Rodin facing up to some of the toughest Dave
Barras could muster, wife Lucy is starring on BBC1's Question
Time this evening from Stoke-on-Trent. I wonder if
anyone in the audience will ask anything about World War 2
planes, obscure railway lines or lower league football?
Should be quite an Education! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A-Trophy Locomotiv
Stöckpört lost to their WithQuiz visitors, Albert.
Mike O'Brien sends this summary....
"This was a lot closer
than the scoreline indicates. Albert had a 13 point lead
after the first round and then saw it whittled away during a
poor written round.
The Prodigals beat The Bulls Head in the main lounge at the Albert Club with Cheryl QMing. With Snooker in full swing, a table tennis match and the Opsimaths quizzing in the back room it was fortunate that the Poker night had been cancelled else chaos would have ensued. It was good to see the lads from The Bull again - they had been The Opsimaths hosts last season when we visited Marple for our WIST quarter final match.
Heaton Moor Rugby Union Football Club lost to The History Men in the closest of finishes. Ivor sends in this account.... "Off to darkest Stockport for the first round of our European campaign - literally dark in the car park going home (it has been a while since I’ve seen Orion in Greater Manchester). Our hosts were delightful company in their well-appointed club. It is the first time we have drank and quizzed at tables with tablecloths! QMs from each league co-chaired to ensure good order with both the quiz formats. As will be obvious from the scores it was (as the Duke of Wellington might have said) 'a damned near thing'. HMRUFC won their quiz style rounds and we went into the WithQuiz-style questions 5 points in arrears - and were still 2 points behind with 2 questions to go. A 2-pointer with Monsters Inc and then a steal with the Rock of Gibraltar snatched victory for us at the death."
The Charabancs of Fire beat The Printers in a very close match at the Turnpike. Damian gives us the lowdown.... "With quiz-setter Dave Barras doing the honours as QM, a noisier than usual Turnpike lounge bar caused us to repair to the relative quiet of the vault next door (aren't vaults traditionally supposed to be the noisy bits?). In a tightly fought contest with our Stockport adversaries, the Charas actually managed to hang onto their lead for once winning by just 2 points." |
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Quiz Paper Verdict |
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This week the questions were set on behalf of WithQuiz by The Men They Couldn't Hang.
Tougher
by a way than last week's TMTCH offering with an even greater
focus on engines, lower league football clubs and accessories of
war. As a measure the average aggregate across our 8
matches was 79.4 points whereas the 3 WIST Cup evenings last
season netted average
Comments
from around the matches....
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James at the
Alex/Ethel contest....
"Note to Dave: There was something in your wife's delicately put
critique last week. Not everyone is an expert in tractors,
aircraft and steam engines. It was a pretty tough quiz -
but, to be fair, amongst the 'shite' there were some great
questions and themes."
Damian from the Turnpike match....
"Tonight's paper from Dave was well up to his
usual standards following the pattern of his previous week's
offering with plenty
Ivor
from the Heaton Moor RU Clubhouse nailbiter....
"Quiz was quite tough (19 unanswereds in total). For
HMRUFC it was probably the longest quiz they have ever done
(imagine what it might have been like if they had competed
against certain other teams in our league who make a ladies golf
four ball seem to move with the speed of a Ferrari in
comparison). However once again the inventiveness and interest
of TMTCH’s questions meant all was forgiven (well mostly....if
we get another question on football teams in leagues lower than
a snake’s navel I think I will scream)."
Mike Wagstaffe from the Alex/Ethel encounter....
"As for the paper: challenging and a bit of a curate's egg. The
Stockport questions were largely okay, but quite wordy.
Additional information to coax out/hint at an answer is fine in
WithQuiz, but doesn't work as well under the Stockport 30-second
time limit. We also enjoyed the novelty of pictures,
although a couple of them may have benefited from the addition
of 'this way up'!
In the WithQuiz half we liked the rivers and tennis rounds and
the gods were on our side again when we plumped for Raleigh
rather than our alternative of (Bunny/Tracey) Austin. Fine
margins. On the down side: diesel engines.
Seriously? A connection this obscure becomes more of a
distraction than a help; omission of the theme would have
improved the round as the questions were perfectly cromulent in
their own right."
and finally Kieran's feedback from The Printer's....
"A Dave Barras paper which didn't equal last week's heights, but
that would be too much to ask for just 7 days later. Still
some good ideas, the words going before 'well' was an OK round
and the Stockport format questions were perfectly well executed.
The diesel engine manufacturers however were, as Gill so
beautifully put it last week: 'The kind of shite that Dave is
full of.' Good to see the Barras signature combo of non-league
football and Derbyshire putting in a strong appearance as well.
Our Question of the Week - unanimously voted by all the Donuts -
the picture of the Mosquito model. Suddenly all three of us
were in a far away reverie with the evening's business at hand
scarcely mattering at all." |
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The Question of the Week |
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For the answer to this and all the week's questions click here. |
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Chatterbox |
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Next week I'm taking a brief break in France and won't be around on Wednesday. I'll have my laptop with me so should be able to do the website as usual but the update may be a bit later than usual. Please send you scores and comments in as usual - and Mantis Shrimp please send an electronic version of the question paper as usual. Many thanks. |
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You know like when you are bathing the cat and Mourinho comes on the radio and his first sentence is the most profound thing you have ever heard and you drop everything and shove the cat under the water and listen, spellbound. Wow, you think, this is going to be the most profound thing I've ever heard on the wireless since Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart was dropped from Junior Choice. I won't ever be the same person again when this interview is finished. It will be like losing my virginity all over again. Only better... and longer. But then Jose starts running out of steam. You realise to your horror that his first sentence was so brilliant that it has left him emotionally and intellectually drained. Like a super-stud who has made the mistake of starting his performance off with a devastating earth-mover of a climax, he now finds himself dribbling flaccidly into his Beckham boxers. His clarity of thought gets stuck in the mud; his syntax panics and heads for the corner flag. His opening had the hard, bullish clarity of a Hemingway; he teeters on the brink and his conclusion, when it eventually limps over the line, has the impact of a Brecht quoting Nietzsche in Serbo-Croatian from the bottom of a bathtub.......and speaking of bathtubs.........sod it, the cat's dead. How the fcek did that happen?
Meanwhile, across the road in his bijou bungalow that stands hard by the
hallowed heap of The Hidden Ovarie, Fr Megson was snoring his way through the
same interview. "Filha da puta, a special bollox without so much as an
ounce of Christian humility, or self-discipline", Rekindling his pipe and tamping down his odious shag with a box of Swan Vestas, Fr Megson got to wondering what it was that made all managers mad. Not a difficult question to answer really, it was the team. Nobody knew that better than him. He had lost count of the number of kickings he had given the Charabancs recently but still they obstinately refused to be motivated. The number of points they had amassed so far this year, even when seasonally adjusted, was disappointing. 'Disappointing' was the technical term managers used when they meant 'fcekin disastrous'. The time had come when he would have to call a turf spade a turf spade. Though it pained him to mix his metaphors, he had nevertheless to admit that his team was now staring down the barrel of a wooden spoon. New blood. That was what was needed. A team of youth and vigour. A team of blood and thunder, and bollox to the thud and blunder he was getting from the present squad week after fcekin week. He needed a succession plan. He would see to it immediately once he got back from the pub this afternoon. He would put the necessary structures in place and draw up a youth policy by Friday afternoon. Then he would slip into a clean cassock and spend the weekend trawling the pubs and clubs of South Manchester and Stockport on the lookout for youthful talent. Sorted. What could possibly go wrong? |
considerable
swing of 8 points to the Opsimaths and thereafter The Railway
could never quite get back into the running. Round 5 went
7-0 to the Opsimaths and this sadly confirmed our visitor's
fate. As always our Stockport opponents were great company
and the soul of generosity in defeat. The boot hasn't
always been on the Opsimaths' foot however. I seem to
remember that it was the Tiviot Dale mob that swatted us aside a
few years back in our first taste of 'European' competition over
the other side of the Mersey.
A pub that looks on the inside nothing like the standard
Robinson's offering promised by the traditional exterior, but
still a perfectly decent place to spend a couple of hours
quizzing. Our hosts were very welcoming too and provided an
extraordinary spread at the end of the contest - maybe just a
little bit late in the evening for all those carbohydrates,
however. 
The Alexandra
kept Stockport's participation in the competition alive by
beating
Ethel Rodin. For the second year running the visitors
perished at their first hurdle in 'Europe' by a 3 point margin.
Winning Alex vice-captain Mike Wagstaffe gives his
thoughts....
of themes and picture questions. As usual with Dave's
papers it proved to be a real brain-teaser packed full of
references to people, places and achievements we had never
previously heard of - but with deducible answers which allowed
us plenty of enjoyment trying to fathom them out. It made
for a very relaxing and enjoyable evening!"
Despite
(as James put it) being about "yet another bloody train" Ethel and the Opsimaths
both liked the Round 2 Question 5 poser about the Manitoban railway system:
he averred, casting aside
his empty Bells bottle and reaching under the pillow for his meerschaum (Dr Ivor,
bad cess to him, had recently confiscated his carton of Sweet Afton).
Still and all though, the man was a good Catholic (Mourinho, not Dr Ivor) and
was deserving of our prayers. He would say one for him when he had nothing
better to do.