Withington Pub Quiz League - Quizbiz 16/02/22

The Prods are flying at the top; Albert & KFD win to keep up the chase; the History Men gain a much needed home victory

History Men beat Opsimaths

Prodigals beat Charabancs

Albert beat Ethel Rodin

KFD beat Bards

History Men beat Opsimaths

History Men's win moves them level on points with their visitors

Ivor rejoices...

“It was a dark and stormy night…” so much so that high winds confined Mike H to barracks. Luckily Andrew was available for QM activities - an excellent example of a councillor responding to the needs of his constituents! I imagine keeping us in order for two hours tests the skill of chairmanship so might even be useful for future debates with resident associations or action groups. Not that our team (nor the Opsimaths) are totally outrageous but we did have the return of Anne so anything was possible.

Tonight was also our first home game in our new venue the Parrswood (home until such time as the Red Lion reopens). We played in the rear snug. Someone commented that the curtain drapes resembled those from a crematorium and the Parrswood was of funereal quietness tonight. Was Anne quiet however? Unfortunately I referred to her and Vanessa as “the girls”. This caused some irritation as not only is it non-PC but factually incorrect as their combined age is nigh on 110. (Ed: God you're pushing your luck there, Ivor!). Ageism is of course to be decried, but as a young adult of the 1970s I still cannot get used to having to refer to nursery children as “students” when the term was once only begrudgingly used for Polytechnic attenders.

We won tonight by a small margin but we were never behind. This despite the Opsimaths scoring 13 twos to our 7. The difference was our superior steal rate (5-9). The unanswereds broke 3-3 and the combined score of 78 was just the right difficulty level.

Tractor Boy in the sky

(R1/Q7)

Happy to be face-to-face again...

We gathered in the Parrswood (the History Men's temporary home whilst the Red is being transformed). The Opsimaths (Nick, Howell, Brian and myself) had enjoyed a winter break a week longer than any other team and maybe it showed in our slight rustiness. Nick had been away from quizzing in his beloved ancient Egypt, Howell enjoying the latest resurrection at Goodison, Brian catching a cold and me just wallowing in Manchester ... and 'Wallowing in Manchester' wouldn't have been a bad title for the evening's quiz paper from the Pigs. Corrie, early City heroes, brutalist city centre architecture from the '70s - it was all there, curated and delivered by the impeccable Andrew Simcock, our QM for the evening.

Just as the paper turned out to be a timely Valentine's card to Manchester, so is the Parrswood with its array of neatly mounted photos of Manchester's past. Before the kick off and again at half time I took the opportunity to browse the walls which included that iconic picture of Ena Sharples on the jutting metal balcony high above the smoke-stained warehouses and back-to-backs. Little did I know that a few minutes later in Round 8....

And as if to remind me that my life hadn't just been devoted to Manchester, boyhood memories were burnished by the question about cricket's early one-day competition when Sussex's trophy-less past had been eradicated in two glorious days at Lords in the early autumn sunshine of 1963 (against Worcestershire) and again in 1964 (against Warwickshire). Cricket-mad Brighton schoolboy that I was, I was there with half of Sussex. Oh my Dexter, and my Parks, long ago!

But long ago isn't everything and Anne, Vanessa, David and (of course) Ivor made for perfect 2022 hosts in our latest quizzing encounter. Erudite, funny, foul-mouthed and somewhat bewildered to roll out eventual victors by a couple of measly points.

Funniest moment had to be Brian musing over Manchester's architecture and coming up with the 'Sheena Easton College' - and most inspired was Nick plucking Stevie Smith's "Not waving but drowning" out of thin air when the rest of us were utterly stumped.

Bond and Petachi

(R3/Q6)

Prodigals beat Charabancs

The Prods power on with a massive 53 points scoreline

Anne-Marie acknowledges Jimmy's contribution...

Great playing by Jimmy with 7 twos - and he shouldn't have conferred on the other question; he knew the answer and isn't going to let us forget it!

Bond and Frost

(R3/Q5)

"Oh my Dexter and my Parks, long ago"

(R3/Q4)

Albert beat Ethel Rodin

Albert repeat their WIST triumph over last year's Champs

Mike caresses his team with gentle prose...

Whilst many of the questions were fair enough some were weighed down with an excess of detail; also at times it seemed unfair to ask for two answers to a question without having a similarly structured question for the other team. Such imbalance is probably fair enough when dealing with normal human beings but not with the primitive life forms that turn out for the Albert. They get distracted and shout and roll on the floor bawling for more grog. I chose to QM myself last night and having witnessed their monkeyshines I am drawing up a new code of practice with severe penalties for future infractions.

The feeling is that this was a good toss to win and Ethel suffered from the imbalances more than The Albert.

and James weighs in to his skipper...

We were doing really well tonight until Roddy lost the toss. I suspect we’d have probably still lost with the set of questions the Albert had but it would have been a much more enjoyable evening.

Six of the best

(R6/Q2)

KFD beat Bards

KFD cling on to second spot with a comfortable win

Kieran reports on manoeuvres across the border in Stockport...

We arrived at the Griffin to find that Tony 'Vladimir' Hammond hadn't so much parked his tanks on our border as rolled all over Donbas, occupying OUR bench and OUR table, undisputed territory since the Prodigals tried the same trick a little over three years ago. On that occasion we backed down and paid the penalty as the invaders left with the points and Crimea. Tonight was different as Joe Biden offered supportive words and Liz Truss appeared for a photo op. Our resolve stiffened and persuasion and reason won the day. That and a targeted "Oi! WTF are you lot doing there?" and Vladimir graciously withdrew his troops across the DMZ so that battle could (counter-intuitively) commence.

During the pre-match faffing about, the Bards' quiz paraphernalia emerged from a biscuit tin celebrating the marriage of Harry Sussex and Meghan Thing - weren't we all so much happier then? Incidentally who knew that Tony harboured such royalist leanings? Though as he pointed out "HM did pay me for 26 years." Good thing he is no longer drawing that salary; she rather needs the cash for other reasons just now.

Mac starter

(R3/Q2)

Once the match got underway it was déjà vu all over again. Going first we took an early lead and then barely scored for two rounds as our opponents pulled away to be three up at half time. Next time we win the toss we're going to go second, let's see how that works out....hmmm maybe not. To be fair to the setting Pigs, this week it seemed that the uneven pairing evened itself out in the second half as the Bards could barely score in Rounds 5 and 6 while we retook the lead and held it until the end.

I think the turning point was my going for a two on the John Dalton picture question, with the John Dalton Mathematical Scholar of 1981 sat on my right with all five fingers extended (he still uses them to count). It still didn't make up for getting the question in the quotes round, about the poet no one had ever heard of who couldn't rhyme (which presumably is why no one had ever heard of him) paired with one of the most famous lines from Shakespeare.

Another thing that was different this week was that El Presidente was back in his rightful place as QM. He brings out the best of our street-fighting qualities, we so hate to disappoint him. He should certainly get a name check as a scrupulously fair and impartial fifth man. He did complain about having to stand up to distribute the pictures, though.

After last week's bruising Barry, Martin and David all played safe and conferred on questions when the answer they had come up with themselves was the correct one, so our victory margin could have been considerably greater.

We're hanging on in second and there's still a long way to go in the season, but the Prodigals seem awfully far ahead right now. The worst of it is that we really, really hate being like Liverpool. I think that's completely understandable.

Manchester long gone - thank you IRA

(R7/Q5)

Quiz paper set by...

...The Electric Pigs

Average Aggregate score 80.0

Loved it! High-scoring, Manc to the core, loads of tip-of-the-tonguery and very little pop trivia. The Electric Pigs lined up a classic quiz evening's entertainment.

As far as we could determine at the Parrswood there was no noticeable imbalance in the degree of hardness offered to the two sides - and the ability to score was constant with each round totalling a similar number of points scored. The (almost) traditional 'Roll On' round was given an evening off with a welcome picture round coming into its place (though a picture of the clock tower at the Town Hall wasn't much help in identifying the initials it bore - shouldn't studying the picture handed out play some part in providing the answer?).

I think my favourite round, however, was the round of quotes - all well-known and nicely, but obliquely, signposted by their preceding text. Both teams spent many happy minutes conferring in our efforts to crack these.

So many thanks to the Pigs.

"Bless me father for I have murdered"

(R7/Q1)

Unlike me, however, a few felt the paper had too many unbalanced pairs. Witness Mike O'B's comments above - and James picks on a particular pair...

I would be surprised if any team got a two for the ‘name the two counties of the New Forest’ question (unfairly paired with ‘name the Forest of Dean’ question).

Where you go to get your lead guitarist

(R3/Q1)

so what did Kieran think...

In total there were seven unanswereds, 4-3 against us so I can't criticise the Pigs paper. Well I can and I have but it's not really supported by the evidence. And an aggregate score of 77 is right on the money for a good paper but not a gimme.

Doctored in Somerset

(R1/Q2)

and how did Ivor see it?...

Another good quiz from the Electric Pigs. Andrew hinted at how the Pigs construct their paper with contributions from everyone analysed, re-assorted, pruned, and thrashed out at a group moderation meeting (presumably alcohol lubricated) to get the end product. Around 25 years of WithQuiz experience certainly shows.

Plenty of variety (are there any themes left to explore now?) and a Quotes round that went down very well. The Picture round was tricky especially for us Manchester newcomers (well 30 plus years but we are still outsiders). However I know well how tricky it is to get the pictures printed, cut up, put the right number on each and then sorted into envelopes - and not cock everything up. So a special well done to the poor sap who took the task on.

Albert team members react to one of Mike's answers

(R1/Q8)

Question of the Week

This week I've chosen an early example of UNI-TY (i.e. a player who has played for both City and United) from the Picture Round (Round 5 Question 1)...

He played for MCFC in 1904 FA Cup final and for MUFC in 1910 FA Cup – buried in Southern Cemetery. Who was he?

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

Weatherfield long gone

(R8/Q2)