Withington Pub Quiz League - quizbiz 07/03/18

Results & Match Reports

Bards beat Dunkin' Dönitz

Ethel Rodin lost to Electric Pigs

Opsimaths beat History Men

Albert lost to Charabancs

The Bards of Didsbury beat Dunkin' Dönitz at the Cricket Club and thereby upset what was getting close to a procession behind the Dunkers in the race for the title. Both the Shrimps and the Dunkers have 3 games to play with almost identical score differences and the Dunkers just 2 league points ahead. There is a very real prospect that the final league game of the season at the Turnpike between the two of them will decide the title. Could this be the year of the crustacean after all?

Let's hear from the Bards' winning skipper, Tony....

"The evening did not start well since the Cricket Club was locked and shuttered. Hardly surprising as we haven't had a home game since human memory began, or almost. By universal agreement we decamped to the Parrswood. Kieran found a corner which was perfect for quizzing and a very convivial evening was had by all. I think both teams are considering a move to the Parrswood which should lead to a new lease of life for both of us.

For the Bards, at least, it proved an interesting paper and a successful evening. I was miffed to be outvoted on Dale Carnegie and Djibouti, but was very pleased with the individual performances of our players. Who else but Tom would have known that the current President of the IOC was a fencer? Not everyone had a good opinion of the question paper but we, at least found it to our liking.

We took a 7-1 lead in Round 1 and never lost it. By Round 3 our lead was 19-18. In Round 4 the Bards failed to trouble the scorer, thus demonstrating a collective preference for an early repose with a cup of cocoa to a night on the tiles in Manchester City Centre. At the end of Round 6, however, the scores were 23-20 in our favour, then the curse of Bingo struck. This time, to my personal amazement, it struck in our favour and the quiz finished with us 6 points to the good."

Ethel Rodin scuppered their outside title chances by losing at home to The Electric Pigs. Nevertheless all neutral attention will be focussed on the fact that the Pigs have broken their duck. Gary reflects on a barren spell that has at last come to an end....

"If the Pigs had lost tonight it would have added a most unwelcome record to their (sometimes) illustrious history: an entire year of unremitting losses. One week after another, after another, after another, after another, after another.... et cetera. No room on the website to string the barren weeks out 52 times - and, fortunately, no need. Illustrious, proud heritage unsullied (relatively speaking)!"

The Opsimaths beat The History Men to keep their ambitions for a place in the top four alive and kicking.

I arrived late from the borathon at the Etihad to find a lively bunch hard at it in the back lounge of the Albert Club. Ivor told me the first half had belonged to the History Men who went into the interval three points ahead. This usually means they lose, he said, and so it proved as the home team of Clare, Brian, Nick and Howell (freshly returned from what used to be called Indo-China in the years that most of the evening's questions specialised in) edged ahead in the second period. It seems the steals were the key for the Opsis since they shouldered 9 of the 12 unanswered questions (most of which went to Brian). Hilary was as ever authoritative yet amusing as QM. This was her last appearance before her knee op and we all wish her well. After Easter she should be springing around like that bunny on the fixtures page.

Meanwhile at the Fletcher Moss Albert slipped a little further from top four contention losing to The Charabancs of Fire.

Chara Damian has his say first....

"Despite the retreat of the Beast back to the East and a City match playing somewhere, the Fletcher Moss was eerily quiet tonight, the usual punters evidently deciding to leave it all to us Withquizzers - and naturally we weren't complaining.

The Charas continued their recent run of good form capping a narrow loss last week to the Shrimps with a comprehensive victory over Albert who have so often proved to be our bête noire in the past. Before proceedings got underway, our absent captain, having been mercifully allowed to depart Prague on ground level, texted us from Nuremberg (where he is apparently rallying the employees of a local pencil factory) to wish us 'Good Luck' and this galvanised us all into action. Despite losing the toss and going second, we led right from the start and, for once, never relinquished a fairly commanding lead right through to the end. Honours were split evenly tonight with each member of the team scoring 2 twos.

Going second in the first half definitely seemed to benefit us as we quickly racked up points at the expense of the Albert and finished 10 in front by half time. In the second half, honours were evenly split with 16 points each, so 10 points was the final margin."

....whilst Mike O'B adds this from the losing benches....

"We were never at the races tonight. We won the toss and made what turned out to be a disastrous decision to go first. In the first half we scored a mere 10 points and although the second half was even we left ourselves with too much to do. Mantis Tom generously offered to QM which allowed us to put out a full team - but when we had to wait until Round 5 to score a two you just know its going to be that kind of night."

Quiz Paper Verdict

This week the paper was set by The Prodigals

The average aggregate was 62.8

With the average aggregate for the evening being a full 10 points below the season's overall average aggregate this was clearly on the hard side.

Although I didn't play this evening I was able to get to the Albert Club for the last 2 rounds of the Opsimaths v History Men match. Hilary and Jitka (QM and Scorekeeper) were very taken with Round 6 which managed to squeeze references to all of the WithQuiz team names into the questions. Significantly Clare suggested that with a whole two rounds on 1977 it was probably a good week for the Shrimps to be resting (a bit like Yaya at the Etihad come to think of it).

Here are a few views on this week's paper from around the grounds....

First Damian....

"Although on the whole enjoying the paper (it did seem to play to our strengths - something that doesn't happen too often for us these days) there were some tricky moments and I counted 16 unanswered questions which split 9-7 to the Albert. They didn't spoil our evening - although the Albert might possibly take a different view."

....and then Tony....

"The paper was a curate's egg of a quiz. Some delightful questions and some needing a nose peg. We all felt sure that someone had reported on the rings round Saturn before the Kuiper Observatory did in 1977; like the Ancient Greeks, or Gallileo, or Herschell, perhaps. And as for the Ritz Brothers they seemed to have disappeared from our collective memory before they ever entered it!"

....and the Dave Barras Question of the Week award this week goes to Round 2 Spare Question 1:

Which 1977 Oscar winning film had the working titles It Had to be Jew and Anhedonia before the final name was arrived at?

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