Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 02/11/16

Next Wednesday the league takes a break and we'll be playing the first of the season's WIST Champions/A-Trophy matches.

Please note that ALL WithQuiz teams taking part in these matches (whether playing at home or away) need to collect their question paper envelopes from the Red Lion.

I'll be away in Mull next week swotting up questions on Scottish islands and mountains for some future paper. Please send your match scores and reports in by text and email as usual. I'll have my laptop and phone with me so I'll get the results up on the website by early Thursday morning - but it might be another day or so before the full reports are published. MIKE

The Shrimps and The Dunkers march on unbeaten whilst (like Barcelona) The Opsimaths prove themselves 'vincible'

The Results

The Electric Pigs beat Albert by a mere two points in a dreadfully low-scoring Fletcher Moss derby. When neither of two accomplished quizzing outfits manage to score thirty points or more it usually signals a pretty dour evening.

At the Ladybarn Club Ethel Rodin did get into the thirties, beating The Men They Couldn't Hang who couldn't get out of their teens. James sends this report....

"Ethel roared to a 12-point lead after Round One - something of a rarity - and we thought this promised a high scoring quiz. Alas, no! The aggregate scores per round diminished progressively, 9, 8, 5, 6, 5, followed by a painful 3 and then an excruciating 2 in the final round. It would be fair to say that our general interest in this quiz diminished in proportion to the decline in scoring. There were 21 unanswered questions - in fact Ethel's 'reward' for their 12-point first round lead was to suffer 7/8 unanswereds in the last 2 rounds.

However a special mention for some of Graham's brilliantly inventive wrong answers which kept us all awake. His 'Pig and Whistle' tale was deliciously unprintable!"

....and 'unprintable' Graham offers this....

"Another defeat for the Hangers in an entertaining evening only marred by the departure of Il Capitano, Dave Barras, at half-time (well substituted by Richard, I may add). We tried all evening to overcome a stonking first round 12-0 thrashing. Pairs, pairs and hidden themes. Il Capitano left happy after the 'Guns' round - but in the two rounds following his departure we scored no points which would have left him slightly dismayed.

Many thanks to the Ethels for an enjoyable evening. A lady can now wear stilettos in the Ladybarn Social Club without offending the lino!"

The History Men lost to The Prodigals at the Red. Ivor opines....

"A most convivial evening, which became even more convivial as the evening wore on. The quiz itself ended quite early leaving lots of time for debate, chat… and drinking. We fell behind quite early on and were 8 points adrift at half time, but managed to be only 3 behind going into the last round. Sadly despite its quirky nature this last round proved far too difficult and 6/8 questions failed to produce a correct answer - or even an answer at all. The general feeling was that such rounds should be earlier in a quiz (if at all) and the final round should always afford the opportunity for a team behind to make up ground with tip of the tongue/confounder questions."

Age met youth in the clash of the unbeaten Titans at the Albert Club and something had to give; it was age. The Opsimaths fell to Compulsory Mantis Shrimp in a lengthy but very good-natured contest. The Shrimps comprised Tom, James, Liz and Richard (Rachael and and Adam are away on a cruise, and David was present but on the bench) and they were brilliant, winning by a clear 10 points from an Opsimath line-up of Hilary, Brian, Howell and Clare (Nick's away quizzing with Paddy in Greece at the Quiz Olympics and I was in the QM chair). One might have been forgiven for thinking the Club was a Media City backroom with 6 University Challenge folk involved - 3 current behind-the-cameras hands (Clare, Tom and Richard) and 3 recent Manchester University competitors (David, Liz and James).

I know it's still early in the season but if they keep up this standard the Shrimps are fast becoming the bookies' favourites for the WithQuiz crown. To parody what they say in the gorgeously unbusiness-like Apprentice; the winners will visit an Eistedffod where they can enjoy further Bardic offerings whilst the losing team will be back in the boardroom tomorrow for further interrogation and one of their number WILL be fired. All together now...."Yes, Lord Bath". Actually, come to think of it, I'd prefer the jeopardy of facing a possible firing - at least there'd be a taxi ride home.

Oh, and by the way, this was the first Opsimath match this season that has finished after 10.30pm - proving that the lower the score, the more the fruitless and lengthy the brain-racking, the later the finish.

The Charabancs of Fire lost to Dunkin' Dönitz who retain their 100% start to the season (they play the other 100%ers, the Shrimps, on December 14th). Kieran takes time out from celebrating victory over the best team in the world (no, Damian, Barcelona not the Charas) to send in these words....

"The evening started badly when, thanks to the city council's 'improvements' to Wilmslow Road, and the hugely popular and much used 35-yard cycle lane outside the Turnpike, Martin was forced to park more or less in Didsbury.

Barry texted just before we started the game to say he was dining with national hero (?) Ian Botham so if any tricky cricket questions arose we should surreptitiously text them to him. Barry is good on cricket. Botham, I imagine, would have been no help at all after the first couple of bottles. However, despite the potential for boorishness (from Both that is - not our much loved team mate), I think Barry would have enjoyed his evening rather more than we did. Two Michelin stars and presumably something approaching financial ruin!

Barry's absence meant that super sub Simon ('David Fairclough' as he is now known to us) got another run out for the Donuts though I think this paper reminded him rather too much of why he no longer wants to play every week. Simon has now covered for Martin, Barry and me - and in a couple of weeks he will complete the set (I hope) as David forsakes us to see the the seminal Joan As Police Woman for only the sixth time.

Barry's absence also meant that 'the miserable bastard who owns the place' couldn't tell him off for vaping. I hope Michelin restaurants treat their customers rather better than Withington pubs.

The Charas were their 'always genial, always funny' selves and the quiz started brightly enough with our hosts leading 9-8 after Round 2. However the somewhat tricky Ken Loach theme should have made us suspect that maybe this wasn't going to be an easy evening. By that point there had only been three unanswered questions (by the time we had battled to the end there were eighteen, falling 10 - 8 to the Chara's disadvantage).

When we got to Round 3 and collectively worked out the firearms theme, David confidently answered 'BRENdan Behan' (died Dublin 20th March, 1964) to the question about the huge funeral turnout. Rather surprised to be told no, we waited for the also surprised Charas who not very confidently went for Sean O'Casey (also died 1964, but in Torquay). Imagine our dropped jaws and puzzled expressions when we were told that the correct answer was 'Iron Horse'. We waited in vain for the rest of the evening for a question about the early colloquial name for North American railways, to which we could answer 'Brendan Behan', but it never came.

Obviously we gave the Charas the points for correctly naming the oh-so-non-political director of the FBI as Comey rather than 'Comer' as given in the question paper. Can that country's public life sink any lower in its standards? Watch any TV channel next Tuesday night to find out....and we're certain that Bliar took his bezzie mate, Chirac (and Bush, and Jospin), to the Dun Cow to chew the fat, decide to invade Iraq etc etc. but a mite less certain that he also dragged them to the Brewer's Droop.

All in all a bit of a sticky evening - and Botham was useless on the Ken Loach stuff."

....and from the same match Damian adds the loser's perspective....

"After last week's heady triumph, it was back to earth with a bump this week for the Charas in a low-scoring contest Chez Turnpike. At least we got to play in the nice, warm lounge again given the chilly conditions outside.

Tonight's paper was one of the hardest and quirkiest we've had so far this season. A real mixture of the fascinating and the obscure, with the obscure seeming to predominate with increasing frequency as the quiz wore on. This was reflected in the fact that there were no less than 18 unanswered questions, and that both teams scored less in the second half than they did in the first. After being neck and neck with the Dunkers in the first 5 rounds, we were rapidly undone by scoring a mere 3 points in the Round 6 and precisely zilch in the last 2 rounds. We still managed to conclude proceedings by 10.30 (rather interesting that it seems to have become the norm for most of us now after last season's discussion) and, to be honest, I think we were all rather relieved it was over."

The Paper

This week the paper was set by The Bards of Didsbury.

This was a very tough paper with an average aggregate of a mere 55.8 points in the face of what has been an overall trend this season of aggregate points scores in the low 70s. Reports also indicate matches where up to 20 questions in the paper went unanswered by either team which can lead to lengthy, fruitless conferences followed by a feeling of frustration on all sides. There was a bright enough start to the paper with a generally well-received Round 1, but then a descent into fewer and fewer points scored per round ending with virtually nothing scored by anybody in the strange 'pub name' finale in Round 8. There were editorial slips as well with 'Iron Horse' (????) appearing in place of what most feel should have been 'Brendan Behan' - and 'James Comer' as FBI supremo for 'James Comey'.

Generously Ivor offers these reflections....

"There were some satisfying questions along the way. As I have mentioned before a thorough grounding in Old Testament studies provided at every Northern Irish primary school in the 60’s meant there was no difficulty recalling Dinah (one suspects her household chores as the only girl in a house with 12 brothers must have been onerous). We still wonder why people in Dublin turned out in droves for the funeral of an Iron Horse (the Irish can be maudlin at times, but not that maudlin). My biggest annoyance, though, was the typo in the novel question where my colleagues overruled my '2001 Space Odyssey' thought on the grounds that there were no terrible wizards in the story - and presumably, after the long drought, no terrible blizzards either."

....and Damian these....

"We had no problem with the themes but found them to be no guide to finding the answers - especially when it came to the origins of pub names and nursery rhymes. While Yours Truly kicked himself for not thinking through the correct answer to the one about The Elephant and Castle (blurting out 'Catherine of Aragon' instead of the more logical and correct 'Eleanor of Castile'), who knew that the 'Cat and Fiddle' name was indeed inspired by the aforesaid Catherine, or that the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle was inspired by The Princes in the Tower, or that Oranges and Lemons described a condemned prisoner's route to execution? Fascinating!

Our 'Bizarre Answer Of The Week' has to be 'Iron Horse' for the mysterious individual who received a notable send-off in Dublin in 1964. Both teams were fairly confident the correct answer had to be 'Brendan Behan' since the first part of his name fitted the hidden theme of guns. Maybe 'Iron Horse' was some sort of nickname given as a tribute to his legendary drinking bouts. Who knows? Please put us out of our misery dear Bards!"

....and Prodigal Dave these....

"This was a tough test. Lots of interesting content which pushed our brains to the limit."

....and finally, and wistfully, these from Mike O'B....

"Oh how we miss you Iron Horse. I well remember when, after one of your witty observations, Oscar Wilde replied 'I wish I'd said that Horse', and you replied 'You will, Oscar. You will'. Or outside the Gresham Hotel on O'Connell Street, brawling with a young seminarian named Megson over the favours of some tawdry Jezebel of the night; rolling over and over in the gutter, knuckledusters flashing in the greasy gaslight. Or you being thrown out of James Joyce's house for being incomprehensible, although he later stole your ideas for Finnegan's Wake. Oh God Horse, how we miss you on Quiz Night."

Question of the Week

There was a groundswell in favour of the 'Iron Horse' boob question but since at the end of the season such a contender for Question of the Season will look a bit odd I have chosen more prosaically Round 7 Question 3:

With 2 albums in the last 12 months, who has now overtaken Madonna as the artist with the greatest number of UK number one albums?

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

....and also

Website development

Over the past few days I have been tidying up the appearance of this website and adding a few slight extras (like the introductory notes at the head of the week's question paper). I am also trying to find a way of including a button at the head of each round on the question paper which allows the user to show or hide the answers to the questions in that round (rather than the 'mouse over' method currently in use). This would make it possible for mobile phone users without the mouse functions to view answers on their phones. If anyone knows how to do this - or has a friend that can make this work, do let me know as I'm struggling with the software on this one.

The major developments to the website that I have been promising for a couple of years now are still somewhere in the future but you never know, I might just have a surge of energy as I career into my eighth decade. Meanwhile please let me know if there are any bits and pieces of improvements I can make to the existing design. MIKE