Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 29/11/17

Results & Match Reports		Bards lost to Mantis Shrimp History Men beat Opsimaths Prodigals beat Electric Pigs Charabancs lost to Ethel Rodin
The Bards of Didsbury lost to a Compulsory Mantis Shrimp team who managed to get back to their magisterial best after last week's slip up at the Griffin - and in the process the Shrimps returned to the top of the table. Rachael sends this.... "After last week's disappointing performance we found ourselves back on form again tonight with a paper which played more to our strengths, although it did offer plenty of challenging questions that led to furious conferring, with the Shrimps pulling answers from seemingly nowhere! We had a very enjoyable evening with our excellent opponents, The Bards. We were one point ahead by the end of the first round and steadily extended this lead over the next few rounds, maintaining it throughout and ending 13 points in front." Rachael's report, however, deals with just this week's match and fails to mention the horrors that we all witnessed at the weekend.... Ever the ones for the TV studio the Shrimps took a rest from quiz programmes over the weekend to make an appearance on Blue Planet 2. According to David Attenborough "the Zebra Mantis Shrimp is the most deadly assassin in the green seas". The programme showed this 40cm long submarine brute hiding in a sandy burrow at the bottom of the ocean stretching out its claws to grab some poor unsuspecting passing fish. Apparently in the world of the Mantis Shrimp the female doesn't hunt herself but sits in the burrow producing eggs whilst the male collects the grub. Should the male wander off in search of a more attractive mate (as happened in this film) then the female goes unfed and has to put out distress signals in an attempt to attract another male. Bloody men! Totally untrustworthy. Rachael beware! The History Men just squeaked past The Opsimaths at the Red with Ivor going for a two on the last question to give the home team a one point victory. When I called in on my way back from another Sterling victory at the Etihad (gained in what's fast becoming known as 'Pep time') the tension had dissipated and Mike H was spraying the spares around the Snug. Clare had had to cry off late in the day for the Opsis so Joe Hanson a student from Manchester University who is reserve on this year's University Challenge team stepped into the breach. Joe is keen to play in WithQuiz and will be either raising a team from amongst his university colleagues or offering his services to play in one of the existing squads. I'm sure we would all be keen to welcome a new team if he can manage it. Mike H offers these observations from the QM's chair at the Red.... "A very enjoyable quiz this evening - very close with an equal number of unanswerable questions going to either side (4 each as it happens). Ivor had earned a few jeers from his own side for his Round 1 blurt (Bend It Like Beckham for Question 7 - 'Blurt It Like Ivor' was the chant heard from the terraces) but made up for this with his clinching two pointer on the final question of the evening (chants of 'the hills are alive to the sound of Ivor' could be heard)." The Prodigals beat The Electric Pigs at the Albert Club as Anne-Marie reports.... "Good first appearance this season for Kate playing for the Prodigals. Pity Jimmy took the night off to watch his beloved West Ham at Everton! It will be a long journey home to Salford for him!" The Charabancs of Fire came up against third-placed Ethel Rodin at The Turnpike. Having lagged behind throughout the contest the Charas just failed by 3 points to beat their visitors. Ethel are now sitting pretty behind the Dunkers and the Shrimps and are well placed to pounce if either of the table toppers flag. James joyously despatches these few words.... "Ethel were ahead from the start, and went into the last round 7 points ahead. The 'never say die' Charas, however, raced to a 5-0 lead in this round and so, in the end, we just managed to cling on with the winning points coming from Roddy’s knowledge of Grime - a sentence that will never be written, ever again." ....whilst Damian (returning to his reporting duties after a break last week) sends this.... "With Father M volunteering to share quizzing duties with new boy Graham (late of the Hangmen), the Charas fought a hard battle with one of our oldest and most steadfast rivals coming up short against them once again - but managing to keep the final score respectably close. We never led in any round and the gap between us drifted from 2 points to 7 points by Round 7. A Herculean effort in Round 8 enabled us to close the gap to a mere 3 points. Now if only there had been another round! Father M's policy of suspending any team member who fails to score at least one 'two' fell once more on deaf ears as each member of the team duly thwarted his carefully thought out plan. It's bordering on sacrilege!!!"
Quiz Paper Verdict		This week the paper was set by Dunkin' Dönitz. The average aggregate was 73.8.
An average aggregate score as near as damn it the same as the season's overall average aggregate. Most of you clearly liked the Dunker's challenge as the comments below show.... From Damian.... "Tonight's paper was, we thought, a bit of a curate's egg laced with a few nuggets of gold. Some themes seemed easy enough to grasp, others not so much. We were looking forward to this paper as we usually do quite well on the Dunker's offerings - not so tonight. Maybe being on the losing side colours your judgement a little. We couldn't come up with a consensus for QotW, but personally I liked the final question about the Austrian naval captain with a musical connection - I was the only one who got it! Call me biased, but there it is!!" ....and from Anne-Marie.... "Thought provoking and fun quiz from the Donuts." ....and from Rachael.... "All in all it was a very enjoyable paper with a lot of variety and some well thought out questions. We particularly enjoyed the Good Friday question." ....and from James.... "Enjoyed the quiz. Good questions and themes. I liked the 'different New Year's Days' question (although I may be biased since I had worked it out). By contrast the Charas were less enthused by that one." And as for me, reading the paper on Thursday morning, I was very impressed with Round 4. Last week Kieran claimed it would be hard to beat the standard of the 'Run On' round crafted by the Prods but I think the Dunkers have exceeded all expectations with their own offering this week. 'All's Well That Ends Welwyn Garden City' must now become the clarion call of all who wish to terminate the development of artificially created new towns - and as for 'Liam Fox on the Run' let's just hope.
....and the Dave Barras Question of the Week award this week has been nominated by The Shrimps and goes to the Round 3 Question 3: It came into being on April 10^th 1998 and has been extremely successful for nearly twenty years but it is now under serious threat. What is it? For the answer to this and all the week's other questions click here.