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Charabancs lost to Ethel Rodin
Ethel maintain their strong challenge for the top of
the table
The Hammer of all Apprentices
(R3&4/Q8)
Bards lost
to KFD
KFD leapfrog the Bards
 Kieran
is more cheerful this week...
Patient zero has finally made his way home from
Wuhan and settled into the opener's berth as if he'd
never been away, with two maximums from his first
two questions. Apologies to the Bards, Tony
was coughing and spluttering by the end but that may
have been the result of an ill-advised blurt or some
edgy ribbing from grandson Tom. In any case
collateral damage from an out of control killer
virus is all part of the fun of Wednesday evenings
in South Manchester quiz circles. However, the
Pigs, the Albert and the Prodigals might be advised
to wear face masks for their upcoming visits to the
Parrs Wood and maybe protective gloves as well.
Ivor can probably help out with that if he's not
already been overwhelmed by panicked calls from
School Lane and its surrounding area.
Typhoid Mary had been unable to play for eight
weeks, since we defeated the Bards in the Griffin
with the same line up but tonight he became part of
the first league double over our historic nemesis in
six seasons. This is inevitably pointing to his
being Aymeric Laporte which would leave Barry to
fill the Leroy Sané shaped hole in the team.
Not sure he'd be too taken with that.
The male equivalent
of Vera Lynn
(R3&4/Q18)
There
was some clever misdirection from the Prodigals in
the 'Chefs or is it Opening Batsmen' round.
Clever enough to cause miner's son and 'Road To
Wigan Pier' character Tony to answer Tyldesley
when we, still on the cricket theme, had Atherton
nailed down. Cue more bardic sotto voce
cursing.
We
misled Dhani in the last round, telling him his
answer would begin with 'couldn't' rather than
'don't' but he generously said he wouldn't have
known it anyway. We've also tempted him with
tales of the Albert, where we face the Charas next
week. Its belting juke box, its out of time
wiring, plumbing and decor, its unique toilet
facilities and its completely unfathomable drinks
pricing. He's excited by the prospect and I almost
hope Leroy still won't be match fit. Every
WithQuiz player has to take the field at our
equivalent of Prenton Park (or Old Trafford) at
least once in their career.
The
Parrs Wood was more or less empty when we arrived
and the large red cross David had thoughtfully
painted on himself to indicate plague quickly
dispersed the stragglers. Post-match we fell to
discussing, amongst other things, what on earth is
the business case for that barn of a place when a
Wednesday evening quiz can more than double the
number of customers? Also just how brilliant a
pop band The Lightning Seeds were (Pure was
on the juke box - it wasn't a totally random
thought). Also how come over the last fifteen
years or so one Manchester football club has had
something over £1bn invested in it by its owners
while the other one has had more than £1bn leeched
out of it, also by its owners. And yet the one
that seems to get up the nose of the authorities
is..... Well you know the story. Something
that Leroy and I agree on at least.
Apparently there was also a football match tonight.
Good one to miss as it turned out. One of
those 'nobody's going to be happy with this'
affairs. Unlike the quiz where maybe we have
turned a corner. We'll see next week.
From Bradford PA to
England
(R3&4/Q20)
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History
Men lost to Mantis Shrimp
A narrow victory for the Shrimps keeps them on
the heels of the Prodigals
 Ivor
reports...
A loss - but not quite as
bad as the 16 point defeat against the Shrimps just
before Christmas. Indeed we were ahead until the
start of Round 6 and were only one point behind at
the start of Round 8. Sadly the last round was on
'popular' music, albeit from differing genres.
When Tim got asked a question about an Indie Band we
knew the game was up. Mike H could barely
finish the question for his amusement at Tim’s blank
stare. Needless to say Tim did not select the '21st
Century album' question in the 'Pick Your Own' grid
round either.
 and
QM Mike adds this...
As ever a most
convivial evening and a close result. It was
31-30 going in to the last round but the History Men
had no chance of catching up on what proved to be
the best round of the evening for the Shrimps (they
scored 4 twos).
Overall it was a good
quiz paper, much more straightforward than last
week's even though it was quite a tough paper.
The pub was pretty noisy so lots of repeats were
needed.
In the bingo rounds,
the declared mini-theme to each pair of questions
was really a red herring (what's more some of the
headings on the QM's paper were not the same as
those on the grids handed out to the two teams).
Here Comes the Daughter
(R3&4/Q9)
 finally
from the Shrimps' side of the table James sees it
thus...
It was a raucous Red Lion last night. Alas,
the punters were there to watch not the latest round
of the quiz league, but Ole's second win at the
Etihad this season. We found space in the room
without a TV and got to work, though it took much
persuading to stop Rachael getting in the football
spirit by lighting flares and setting off smoke
bombs.
The History Men were great hosts as ever, and on
great form throughout. Some fantastic answers
from them and a couple of blurts from us meant that
they took an early lead, which they kept all the way
to half time. They then regained the lead
after Round 5. However, Round 6 proved
decisive, as we gained a slight lead that we were
able to cling on to over the final couple of rounds.
Turing
Testers lost to Electric Pigs
After last week's success the Testers sadly tasted
defeat at the hands of last week's setters
Comedy Gold
from Nuts in May
to Gavin and Stacey
(R3&4/Q15)
Opsimaths
lost to Albert
Albert move up to 4th in the chasing pack
 After
a short sabbatical Mike O'Brien is back with this
incisive dispatch...
I know many of you have commented on my failure to
post in the last 2 weeks. I can now reveal I spent
the time in an exclusive Swiss Clinic having a butt
lift. Yes I yielded to the temptation!
It is a work of wonder; it reminds me of a
cantilever stand, supported on only one side and yet
miraculously seeming to hang in mid air. I
think I should be entered for some Danish
Architectural Prize. But now that I am out in
quiz society again I would ask you not to stand
behind me or alongside me attempting to
surreptitiously glance at this architectural marvel.
Garbo, Leigh and Knightley
-
the Three faces of Anna Karenina
(R1/Q4)
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Quiz
paper set by...
...The Prodigals
Average
Aggregate score 71.2
I was
elsewhere so wasn't able to judge the paper first
hand. I caught up with things at about 11pm at
the Albert Club where they had just got to reading
the spares - so it was a long evening. By and
large, however, folk seemed happy with what they'd
consumed.
My
only other thought from the subsequent task of
putting the paper up onto the website was about the
Run-on round. Discipline as to what
constitutes a reasonable overlap has varied quite a
lot recently. A whole distinct word overlap is
fine but 'Andersen/Sense' as in Question 1 seems a
bit unfair to me.
What
did others think?
"...you might as well
dance"
(R5/Q7)
These
were Ivor's sentiments...
"The
quiz paper was very much enjoyed by both sides.
Mike H, our QM, had no difficulty with the font or
layout except for, what were presumably last minute,
substitutions in some of the 'Pick Your Own'
rounds. This was not a paper rustled up at the last
minute (my fellow team members take note). The
'Namesake MPs' round and the 'Run-ons' round were
obviously labours of love (and not 'Love’s Labour's
Lost'). The 'Shakespeare' round and the 'Actors’
roles' rounds were spot on. Unfortunately we did
not spot the Orient Express stops. This luxury mode
of travel is now much shortened; in the old days of
the NHS, pharmaceutical companies used to take GPs
and hospital consultants on 'educational' trips
(there would be a mini lecture and a poster or two)
but alas such blatant advertising of their products
is now banned by regulators."
...and James from Ethel's squad had
this feedback...
"Another long one, (22:57pm finish!) but they
generally interesting questions. The best non-answer
of the night (and funniest moment) was when we were
going through types of antelope and trying to think
of whether there were any Thompson’s gazelles or
elands in parliament. Then I remembered about
the dik-dik and we all agreed there were definitely
plenty of dicks in parliament. Sadly it wasn’t the
correct answer."
...and Mike O'Brien's conclusions...
"This
was a good quiz with not too many unanswered.
It was, though, a quiz which produced a lot of
conferring and therefore the evening was longer than
in recent weeks. The paper was slightly unbalanced
in that both Bingo rounds were in the first half and
all the hidden themes came in the second half.
What really excited us about the Bingo was that a
couple of the topics on our handout sheets bore no
relation to the questions the QM had on the paper in
front of her. Surely this is the way to enliven
Bingo rounds: pick the topic of football and get a
question on Flemish painting. We did like the
clever tweak to the hidden theme in Round 8."
and
Shrimp James' thoughts...
"As
with last week, we found this quiz a bit of a
toughie. It took us a while to finish, doing
so around 22:50. However, that was certainly
not just the quiz's fault; the loudness of the pub
definitely played its part in the late finishing
time. The quiz was fairly balanced and covered
a good range of subjects. There were also some
great ideas throughout, R6 in particular."
Just another stop on
the journey East
(R6/Q2)
Question of the Week
This week the Bards rather liked Question 7 in Round
6 (that was the round with the hidden Hercule Poirot-related
theme) - so their vote goes to...
First prepared in 1336 for the table of Philip VI,
which foodstuff was popularised in the 1850s when
vinegar was replaced in its recipe by the juice of
unripe grapes?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
The other Miss Farrow
(R8/Q3)
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