Withington Pub Quiz League - Quizbiz 20/10/21

A clean sweep for the home teams with Ethel just edging KFD to the top of the table on goal difference

Prodigals beat Opsimaths

History Men beat Bards

Ethel Rodin beat Charabancs

KFD beat Albert

KFD beat Albert

Confident win for the Champion of Champions

Kieran waxes...

The chief reason for our victory was Martin scoring his first clean sweep of 8 twos in many seasons. Modesty clearly doesn't forbid me from mentioning the last time I remember a full house for anyone; it was two and a half years ago in the Griffin against Ethel.

We were three-handed tonight, young Liam®, and even younger Thomas, being otherwise engaged but with Martin in that sort of form it scarcely seemed to matter. The three of us worked well together, never better than in the royal stepmother question. I reasoned that one of the five stepmothers of Henry VIII's children was the percentage bet and, given that the paired question had been Marr, then Katherine Parr was the most likely answer. At which point Barry twigged that the theme for the round was relatives and we were away.

Having said being three worked well. Conferred in seat one was the first to strike out with the useless George poser and his place in next week's starting line up is under serious threat. David is in the Orkneys for another week, hoping to see the Northern Lights but more likely enjoying or enduring two weeks of the northern dreich - so for our game against the Charas we're hoping that 16 (sixteen) time WithQuiz champion Michael will be making his first appearance in more than a decade.

At the end of the quiz President Bob said he'd been impressed with our street fighting performance. Those are the moments we live for, the moments that make it all worthwhile. It must be how Raheem Sterling feels when Pep doesn't slap him senseless after yet another headless chicken outing.

A Ruud achievement

(R1/Q8)

Also at the end of the quiz I had the pleasure, for the first time in a long time, of buying a round for the Albert including of course Eveline's vodka and tonic. "Could I have a slice of lemon in that please?" I asked the barmaid. "I haven't got any" she replied, moving to the side of the pump just enough to allow me to see the glass jar on the shelf behind her bursting with the plump fruit. "I'd have to slice one, but if you're prepared to wait..." was her final word on the subject. Ah the UK hospitality industry, it's so good to have it back.

Next week it's the Charas, again in the Griffin but disconcertingly it's our away game so Bob the Hat will not be overseeing proceedings. Damian and co. seem to have parked their tanks on our manor without so much as a 'by your leave'. That's fine, maybe, but if they pull a Prodigals and nick our front room bench I'll go full Christopher Plummer and pull their f***ing colours down with my bare hands (© Roberto Mancini).

We all went home happy - well except for the Albert presumably. We won a tough game against a feared opponent three-handed. Barry's team also won a tough game against a difficult opponent and also seemingly three-handed.

"Ole's at the wheel, tell me how, how does that feel?"

Go on tell me. Honestly.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a good loaf.”

(R4/Q8)

...and Ashton puts the Albert case...

Our Bolton correspondent Dave played again as Mike is still crook - and thank goodness he did, as the margin of our defeat would have been much greater without his knowledge of Greater Manchester commercial organisations. KFD were back to something close to their best last night; I can't remember us getting more than a bite or two at any of their questions, and none that we could take advantage of. With so few bonuses on offer, this game was probably decided by which team had the confidence to go for their 'twos', with our craven cowardice costing us in the final reckoning.

Ethel Rodin beat Charabancs

A thumping home win for the League Champions keeping them on top

London's leaning tower of Cheddar

(R1/Q7)

Bird Lady maquettes

(R1/Q1)

History Men beat Bards

History catches up with the Bards

Ivor gives his victory address...

We retirees need excitement to pepper our quotidian existence and tonight’s excitement started even before the quiz. David phoned at 8.00 to say he was outside the Red Lion which was closed for a private function for the first time in his living memory (which for Young David is still over 30 years). Not only was that our venue scuppered tonight but there was a large bouncer at the door and David had not ventured inside to see if there were any papers left behind the bar. Fortunately by the time the rest of us had arrived we found that Tony and Jim had been successful in retrieving the paper and we relocated to the Parrswood.

Unfortunately last minute illness had reduced the Bards to just Tony and Jim and those other team members Confer 1 and Confer 2. Sometimes the latter two prove to be good team colleagues - they never blurt and uncomplainingly never override the team’s conferred answer. They may appear to be mere ciphers but on occasions can score more points than a reckless player with a tendency to 'have a go'. Their only failing is they never buy their round of drinks.

Nevertheless when two Bards face four Historymen the odds must have been on us to achieve a first win of the season. But it was hard going. The first round ended 8 points for the Bards and zero points for us. This is the kind of thing that usually happens in our last round when brains are dulled and players tired and emotional. We were still two points behind at half time. Round 6 saw the reversal of fortune when we scored 10 points to the Bard’s 2 and victory followed. Jim was on great form tonight for the Bards notching up 7 twos to take the MVP award. On our side Vanessa outdid her Auntie Anne with 5 twos to Anne’s 4.

We set next week. Hard act to follow but we will do our best.

and QM Mike H reports in...

Rather an odd evening. Ivor first of all thought we had no quiz paper until you solved that for us (the Red Lion though shut for boozing was open for dispensing quiz papers). Tony had only a 2-person team (himself and Jim) but even so, with two real people and two confers, the Bards won the first round 8-0! Gradually the Historians came back though they were not in the lead until the second half. After the quiz, there was much excellent chat (aprez-quiz, rather than apres-ski), subjects ranging from jurism, to killers, to miners strikes.

Challenge star in the making

(R3/Q5)

Prodigals beat Opsimaths

The Prods win the first Orkney Dark derby of the season

A4/A36/A46 Mike was on hand...

Like a hand in a well-worn glove that's just turned up after some time lost, the Albert Club rivals slipped into a warm and comfy evening of conviviality (pace Rachael). Chat and laughs a-plenty with Anne-Marie in the QM seat. The quiz finished in good time but the staff still had to urge us to leave at well past 11pm so much were we enjoying each other's company.

Michael., Jimmy, John and Danny were on excellent form on a paper that suited them well (and we thought suited the team that went first pretty well).

Nick, Howell, Brian and myself fought to the end but in truth the gap in points between the two teams just kept steadily growing throughout the evening.

The only point of controversy was when Howell answered "Paterson Zochonis" to the Manchester-based toiletries company question in Round 5. After some debate the Prods honourably agreed that Howell should be given the point since it was Paterson Zochonis that had bought out Cussons in 1975 to form the new company P Z Cussons (which was the answer given in the paper).

"Just hop off and check where the canal bank has gone"

(R2/Q3)

Quiz paper set by...

...Electric Pigs

Average Aggregate score 83.3

An excellent paper from the Pigs with a hefty average score. Plenty of variety in both the subject matter and the format of the rounds. The RSPB and Preston North End content signalled Andrew's contribution although I was sad to see nothing on classical music given Dave's known expertise on Tosca. How about a rule that for every pop music question there should be a classical music question?

Seems fair to me.

so what did Kieran think...

What a difference a couple of years makes. The last Pigs paper did not find much favour amongst any of the competing teams but tonight, at the temperate Griffin, there was a bumper 88 point aggregate and only two unanswered questions the first of which concerned useless George Eustice appropriately enough.

Knight of the Kop

(R8/Sp2)

and Ivor...

A pleasing paper from the Pigs and plenty to entertain with the variety we crave. Of course impossible to please everyone (which is why a mixed interest team is what you need) and Anne’s condemnation of 'Road Map of Britain' questions was not shared by Tony who seems to have travelled these routes in pre-motorway times. Themes were gettable usually by halfway through a round and most questions were well crafted to give us a fighting chance of a correct answer. Only four questions stumped everyone.

My favourite question was the missing poet from the 'Auden group'. This exemplifies the skill of the setter. I only got the answer because of the theme in the round. However had it been question 1 or 2 rather than question 7 we would not have cracked the theme and it would have been a very difficult question. I did not actually know the poet named in the answer was in the group but the theme made it an 'educated guess' (as contestants say on The Chase and Eggheads even when they are spouting rubbish).

and Ashton...

The paper itself was a good one with a variety of topics, although Eveline was put out by receiving two football posers for her first two questions. Sadly she was sat in the wrong half of seat 4; Zinedine Zidane she would have got but Didier Drogba is stretching her knowledge of the beautiful game well past its breaking point.

There was some grumbling from our science correspondent about the 'elbow' and 'entropy' questions but at least one of those proved to be correct after a quick google. In the spirit of Father Jack's "that would be an ecumenical matter", I tried to teach the same individual that his stock response to any question which starts "Which Canadian rapper..." should be Drake. Unless of course it's The Weeknd, but let's not confuse him. Baby steps and all that.

and finally from Greg...

On the bird themed round, I got the run-on question 7 after a struggle.

I knew the answer to the second part (Martin Compston) but initially I misunderstood the first part of the question. I spent a few minutes racking my brain wondering who the residents of the Duke of Wellington pub might have been!

A $50 million back catalogue

(R2/Q2)

Question of the Week

This week Ivor opts for Round 5 (the round with members of the family as the theme)Question 8...

Who is missing in this list of names of the four poets who constituted 'The Auden Group': W H Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis?

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

Auden? Sure!

(R5/Q8)

...and also

I forgot to mention in last week's QuizBiz that Nick, Greg and James Haughton had represented WithQuiz in the Merseyside Quiz League buzzer tournament on October 9th and finished a very creditable fifth despite only having 3 players. Well done, and thanks from all of us for flying the WithQuiz flag so ably.