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WITHQUIZ The Withington Pub Quiz League QUIZBIZ 23rd March 2016 |
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| WQ Archive | Comments | Question papers | |||
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WITHQUIZ The Withington Pub Quiz League QUIZBIZ 23rd March 2016 |
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| WQ Archive | Comments | Question papers | |||
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An Albert/Bards tied result means the destination of the League trophy will not be decided until the final round of matches on April 6th; elsewhere another tied result in the Ethel/Pigs match and wins for the Opsimaths, CMS and the Dunkers |
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Results & Match Reports |
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"A splendid, old style Withquiz evening with eight players who have been doing this sort of thing since before most of us have had hot dinners. Jokes, banter, cross talk and attempts to wind up the opposition all there in abundance. All presided over, generously and humorously, by Anne- Marie, Bob being currently occupied by dealing with his Spanish interests. I know, you're all stunned by the news that he's not in England at the moment aren't you? One oddity of the evening was that the unanswereds broke exactly evenly for Player One on each side (2 each), and for Player Two (1 each) and for Player Four (one each) - but for the Player Three going second in the first half (Dunker David in this case) there were no unanswereds, whereas the other Player Three (History Woman Anne) copped 5 of the buggers. And Anne it
was who brought back fond memories of Jitka in the Withquiz
salad days. When Ivor, after struggling for aeons with
the deceased opera singer whose name was a US city finally
said 'I can't remember the surname but I think it's
Monsterrat'. 'You f***ing idiot' was Anne's immediate
response without drawing breath (to clarify this was the
last question of the evening and the History Men were 12
behind at that point). All of which evoked the scene
when Jitka, as QM, responded to Brionski mis-remembering the
lyrics of All You Need Is Love with the immortal 'You
twat' before offering the pass over to us.
Happy days.
Maybe the fact that our match scarcely mattered one jot as to league placings added to the enjoyment and fun of the evening. But whatever the reason it was one of the best nights of the season and there was even time to chat to our guests from the Red at the end. As I say, old style and fun. If I'd been able to say that about every Wednesday this season I really wouldn't care where we finished in the league table." ....secondly a fearful Louis van Cartmill.... "Astute readers will recall that we beat the Dunkers by 15 points at home earlier in the season but natural order was restored as the best Withquiz team of all time defeated the second best team of all time by 13 points. We can claim a moral victory for the season based on our aggregate scores against the Dunkers - not that that will do much good as there is now a strong chance we will end up the season as the second worst team in the league. It is no consolation that the Dunkers themselves are heading for their worst ever finish and might even miss the top four places for the Champions league. How are the mighty fallen! Nevertheless a friendly match ably QM’d by Anne-Marie with Dunker Bob off on his travels again. As per usual we had our own internal battles and recriminations. Anne reluctantly took seat 3 and (the History Men going first having won the toss) she got four unanswereds in the first half and another in the second half to become the 'Jonah' by some margin. Once again 'seat 4 got all the easy questions' and I was castigated for blurting out a wrong answer on the very last question of the evening on the 'easiest opera question ever' (a woman I had never heard of). I wonder if it will be me or Father Megson who will be the first player/manager to get the heave ho in the close season?"
"After a very pleasant evening at The Turnpike the Shrimps ended the match ahead. We took an early lead and, unusually for us, managed to maintain it throughout the quiz, though TMTCH did put up an excellent fight and were delightful opponents as always."
Albert tied with The Bards of Didsbury in the Match of the Day. A win for the Bards this week would have secured the title; a win for Albert would have placed them in pole position going into the last round of matches. As it was a tie means that on April 6th, if the Bards lose to the Dunkers whilst Albert beat the Opsimaths (both plausible outcomes), then Albert nip up on the rails and swipe the league title from the Bards' grasp. Any other combination of results on April 6th means that the Bards win it. What a great finish to our season with two very worthy teams in contention! Mike O'B tells the tale of the match from Albert's perspective....
"This was a tough quiz but it produced an excellent contest
with never more than 3 points between the 2 teams.
Mind you our 'England T20 over' came in the round about
Manchester pubs when we scored just one point. There
was some controversy over the Portland question. The
Bards came up with 'Portland Bill' which our QM rejected.
We responded with 'Isle of Portland' which was nearer to the
given answer. We were prepared to concede the point
because their answer included the word 'Portland' but the
Bards chose to concede the point to us.
...whilst Tony sums up for the Bards.... "We enjoyed an exciting evening of quizzing at the Sock and Sandal, although the noise from adjoining tables was at times more than distracting. The lead changed hands more than once during the contest and we entered the final round just one point ahead thanks to my feeling too intimidated in the Bruce Springsteen round to go for Jacob's Ladder to gain two points rather than play it safe. In the last round Ashley gave the Poet Laureate's name as Austin but could not recall his first name, so we gained the point. Unfortunately Jim thought Marie Stopes lived on Portland Bill, so the point went (harshly I thought - but the rest of our team thought differently) to the Albert. And so we came to the last question of the night - Albert could only manage one point with Vittoria de los Angeles so we ended 36 all. The Championship will turn on the last game of the season. We need only to tie the last match - I do hope City are playing at home in two weeks time (Ed: Sorry, Tony, they're not!)."
The Opsimaths beat The Charabancs of Fire in a friendly (conviviality has been banned) atmosphere at the Albert Club. Fr Megson was tanned (from his recent visit to Espana) and so was his team (sorry, couldn't resist it). Damian was more than a little upset at the high number of themed rounds (8, I believe!) and Roisin was disappointed she didn't do well on the Bruce Springsteen concoction. Brian QM'ed with Jitka by his side keeping a weather eye on protocol - not an 'FT' to be heard (ref: Kieran's report above). After the final whistle was blown (a little too late for my liking at about 10.45pm) we made the draw for the Round 1 and Round 2 Val Draper Cup matches by each pulling a name out of the Webmaster's flat cap. The results of this draw are on the Fixtures page for you to peruse, with the rules for this year's competition shown in the '....and also' section below on this page.
Ethel Rodin and The Electric Pigs finished all square in the second tied result of the evening. James reports.... "A good close game. Pigs ahead by 1 or 2 points most of the way through but with a very fair final result. As with the Historymen / Dunkers match Player Three suffered an 8-ball over of bouncers and grubbers, with poor Roddy on the receiving end of that. Otherwise both teams probably missed a few 2-point opportunities, opting for 'safe conferred' answers. Possibly we would have gone for a few more twos if we had been either far ahead or well behind. And when faced with Ivor's predicament, we managed to persuade Greg psychically not to say Montserrat Caballé (who is very much alive) so that De Los Angeles could get us the point we needed to tie." |
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Quiz Paper Verdict |
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This week the questions were set by The Prodigals. Tougher than their offering earlier in the season, this paper had an average aggregate of 66.0 points but it managed to notch up two tied matches - a unique feat, at least for this season. Perhaps somewhat controversially, all eight rounds were themed - two announced and the rest hidden though a number of the hidden themes were heavily hinted at by the round title. The danger with themed rounds is that, in order to honour the theme to the bitter end, the later questions in the round can be a bit forced - and thus either far too hard or far too easy to make for balance. Happily this did not seem the case last night and your reaction was almost totally positive. As the paper was played at the Albert Club the themed round that went down least well was Round 7. I for one have only ever heard of Born in the USA and this didn't come up. The references to other BS numbers just went flying well over my head though the questions themselves in this round were fair, and not without interest. I further disgraced myself by admitting I'd never heard of Nutbush in Round 6 and then proceeded to confuse Cher with Tina Turner believing them to be one and the same singer. Pop music just ain't my thing any more. Sadly too I was disappointingly useless on the 'Foot in both camps' Round (on which I bet David and Kieran both prospered). With Howell on the bench I was the only football savvy Opsimath on the team but could I remember Wyn Davies? In fact I spent the whole of this round waiting for the impossible question to which the answer was Reginald Tevez the pop diva who got to number 27 in the charts in 1994 - but it never came! So what did the rest of you think?
" The quiz itself was well constructed and with a good variety of themes. Good to see Kent Nagano make his annual appearance in a quiz - the price to pay for having been a Manchester-based conductor whose name fits well into numerous themed rounds."Kieran.... "A well-judged Prodigals paper, not too easy nor too difficult, just right in fact. Yes, there were a lot of themes and occasionally the answers became rather forced towards the end - I write as someone who always plays number four and therefore usually ends up with the dredged up rubbish questions stuffed in just to fit the theme - but tonight's were pretty much ok." Ivor.... "Good questions and good themes in the quiz. QotW was the cunningly hidden theta in the Greek letter round - though it did not elude Kieran." Rachael.... "I think we all found the paper interesting with a fair variety of questions, though it did seem to take a lot longer to complete than some recent quizzes." |
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The Question of the Week |
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This week Ivor and his team vote for Round 6 Question 7 (the Round in which there was an anglicised version of a Greek letter hidden somewhere in each answer):
For the answer to this and all the week's questions click here. |
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Chatterbox |
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The Val Draper Cup & WithQuiz Plate
As promised last week we have now made the draw for the Val Draper Cup
Competition which starts on Wednesday April 13th. After this week's The approach this year will be the same as last year. In each Cup or Plate match handicap points will be added or subtracted to a team's end of match score to determine the result. The handicap points will be based on their performance in the league (as per the end of season table published immediately after April 6th's round of league matches). Specifically....
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Over the past few weeks I have been exchanging views with a number of regular WithQuizzers about the way we do things. A major concern for some is the length of time we are taking on a Wednesday to get through the 8 rounds. In the old days a 10pm finish was pretty standard, leaving plenty of time for chat and drink. We are now way off this mark. Intermittently we've tried to address the problem but never with much success. A constant comment in your feedback late on Wednesdays is "great quiz paper but it did take ages to get through" (e.g. Rachael's comments above). Possible solutions could be to reduce the quiz papers to 7 (or even 6) rounds, to start matches earlier than 8.30pm, or to introduce - via the QMs - some effective time limit on each question - or at least each round. One idea put to me recently is a time limit on each round of 10 minutes with no more than one ten minute beer break in the middle making the whole affair just 90 minutes long (meaning a 10pm finish, if teams start promptly at 8.30pm, or at worst a 10.15pm finish if things start a little later). This seems good sense to me - after all we accept a time limit on the 30-question Stockport-style Round 1 in WIST matches and I've heard no grumbles about that. Ten minutes per round means, I guess, allowing the first team a maximum of 30 seconds per question and (if needed) the second team 15 seconds for a passed over question (and, of course, allowing for the time the QM will need to ask the question at the start and give the answer at the end). If we do go for this then everybody needs to sign up and we do need to help our QMs enforce it. What do you think? Might we try this in the upcoming Cup matches? Please use the message board to express views and I'll try and interpret the mood. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hive Minds As TV Quiz Shows go this BBC2 effort hosted by Fiona Bruce is certainly in the top rank alongside UC and Only Connect. We have a request for contestants - either 3 as a team or individuals to be welded with others into ad hoc teams. Please note that the deadline for applications for the new series is April 15th. Mike Muncer writes.... "We're looking for contestants / teams for the new series of the BBC Four Quiz show, Hive Minds. It's quite a tricky / high level quiz show so we're looking for top minds! I've attached a flyer. It'd be brilliant if you could circulate this around the quiz league and see if anyone is interested in applying."
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Dunkin' Dönitz beat The History Men
by a comfortable margin at the Griffin. First report
goes to a cheery Kieran....
Compulsory
Mantis Shrimp beat The Men They Couldn't Hang and
thereby hoisted themselves up to a very respectable 7th in
the table. Rachael reports....
This was a very gracious act on their part, given the state
of the scores. If they go on to win the league (which
I believe they will) they will be worthy champions."
Never
fear, the Opsis are aware of their grave responsibility to
the rest of the league in a fortnight's time and will push
Albert to the wire, fighting to the bitter end (note the
word 'bitter' Mike - every little drink helps).
James....
match at the Albert Club,
Fr Megson and the massed ranks of the Charas pulled the names out of the hat.
The resulting ties and other details are shown on the
Changing
how we do things?