WITHQUIZ

The Withington Pub Quiz League

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16th September 2019

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New league season starts October 2nd with Pre-season Friendly on September 25th

New season

We are about to kick off the 42nd WithQuiz season with opening league fixtures scheduled for Wednesday October 2nd using a paper set by the Bards.  The new season's fixtures are now up on the Fixtures page.

The same 10 teams with the same 10 names playing their home matches at the same venues; the best I can come up with in terms of change is that Rachael would henceforth like to be known as Rachael Neiman-Wiseman (her married name).  Who knows maybe the addition of a 'Wiseman' to  the Shrimp line up may be just enough to get them the league crown after two frustrating 'Runners Up' seasons.

As usual the curtain-raiser for the season will be the annual friendly match against the Stockport League at the Albert Club.  It will take place on Wednesday September 25th starting at 8.30pm.  There will be 6 players on each side so plenty of scope for WithQuizzers to get a match and warm up for the coming league competition.  Indeed if you can get along you are guaranteed at least half a match since we are able to make as many substitutions as we like at half time.

Mike Wagstaffe and myself have set the paper jointly (he the WithQuiz style rounds and me the Stockport rounds).  Last year WithQuiz won the trophy ('The WIST Cup') so the challenge is to retain it.  I'm pleased to say that the actual trophy turned up during the summer 'somewhere in Stockport' and is now sitting in my office at home; so this time round the winners should be able to actually get their hands on it.

Hope to see you at the Club in just over a week's time - and, if not, whenever you're down to play the Opsimaths.  Let's hope we have another great season's quizzing! 

Website

During the recess I have been immobile for quite a few weeks with a nerve problem that afflicted the left side of my back and my left leg.  Thankfully now it is on the mend and I can get out and about - but while I was confined to barracks the only activity I could get on with was the project I started a year ago to update the website and bring a consistency to the design.  As a result I have been able to crack on and have now updated over 90% of the 1100 or so pages.  The update work has been principally to convert the 493 QuizBiz and 512 Quiz paper pages from earlier seasons to the style adopted for these pages at the start of last season - in terms of layout, colours and navigation.

In the process of updating these pages I have been able to track down a lot of missing pictures from past paper picture rounds.  In the early days of the site I really didn't know what I was doing and consequently many of the pictures were not stored on the site but gathered via a hyperlink whenever the page was viewed.  When the picture owner chose to take it off the internet it simply disappeared from our site as well.

As I've gone about the update I have added a few of the Albert Club monthly quiz rounds (quite a different style to the WithQuiz papers) and you can find these by navigating from the 'Question papers' tab at the top of each page and following the links.  Over time I will add more of these past Club papers.

I am also checking out various providers for a more up-to-date message board facility (let's face it the current one is a bit naff) - and who knows I may get round to setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts for WithQuiz (long overdue I know).  Watch this space.

The main site update work should be complete well before Christmas.  I hope this exercise has made things easier to view and to use.  As ever do let me know your thoughts.

Countdown

Octochamp James 'Owarri' Haughton

A highlight of my immobile summer has been a brief addiction to the daytime Channel 4 Countdown programme during the latter part of July.  For 8 consecutive programmes the nation (not to mention Rory Bremner, Paul Sinha and Susie Dent) was stunned by the amazing performance of our own 'Super Shrimp' James Haughton.  He won 8 matches in a row and thus earned the right to return later in the year as an 'Octochamp' and battle it out with other 'Octochamps'.

It wasn't just the winning that stunned but the way he cruised past his opponents scoring over 100 points every time.  James clocked up plenty of 9-letter words along the way but my own favourite was the 6-letter 'OWARRI' (an alternative spelling of 'OWARE').  'Oware' is defined as:

'An abstract strategy game among the Mancala family of board games played worldwide with slight variations as to the layout of the game, number of players and strategy of play. Its origin is uncertain but it is widely believed to be of Ashanti origin.'

Outrageous!