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Opsimaths
beat Ethel Rodin
A nail-biting finish with the home team winning
by a single point
 'Stentor'
Mike reports from the QM's chair...
There was a real party atmosphere at the Club as
Ethel (Roddy, Greg, John and Geoff) called by to
challenge the locals (Nick, Brian, Hilary and
Howell) last night. The reason for the party?
The table-topping setters had turned up in force to
watch on - and not surprisingly they were in a great
mood having been for an early evening celebratory
meal together at the nearby Katmandu restaurant.
They were keen to see how their handiwork was
tackled by this mid-table brace of teams.
It turned into a very tense contest with never more
than a few points in it. It was not surprising
therefore that, as the last question fell to Greg,
he had the challenge of winning the match for his
team with a two, or conferring with his team mates
for a tied result. As it happened Britannia
Unchained remained unanswered by either team and
the bloody Tories had done for Ethel. Their
absent colleague, James (on his hols with a local
politician), would not have liked that.
The Rest is History
(R4/Q4)
KFD beat
Electric Pigs
A sizeable victory for the season's runners up
 Kieran's
regular football column makes passing reference to
last night's quiz...
"We've got to get ourselves someone who knows this
classical bollocks"
Thus
spake Pig Guy channelling Hunter S. Thompson at the
end of an evening in which Martin had hoovered up
all the classical bollocks on offer. Guy was
vocalising the thoughts of eight quiz teams as we
look up at the Prodigals, a seemingly insurmountable
distance away at the top.
"I'll get the flowers myself"
(R1/Q1)
Nietzschean despair apart this was a splendid way to
end the league season. A points fest from our
feet up, cigar-smoking champions and only two
unanswereds, pleasingly falling one to each team.
Even younger Thomas recovered from his bruising
experience at the club last week by potting a couple
of twos and racking up several assists as we
conferred.
Going
back to Guy's cri de coeur, we're quite proud that
we've never imported anybody who knew about "this
classical bollocks", or indeed bollocks of any sort.
All the balls that we have served up as answers over
the years have been home grown. But during the
evening I was reminded that, quite unbelievably,
almost twelve years ago we made the best import that
we or any other team could ever have made. I
speak of course of 'Bogota' Bob Ganley who first
performed the QM role for us in October 2010.
We thanked him by immediately becoming useless and
surrendering a twelve year title winning streak.
Despite this Bob wasn't as dismayed with us as
'Wreck it' Ralf seems to be with his charges at the
swamp, and he has never questioned our boll...
readiness for the fight. I'd rather have Bob
by my side than 'Super' Franky in any situation.
Father Ted's hairy milko
(R5/Q2)
So,
recent events have been very unsettling for the
doyen of quiz masters. We haven't seen Bob for
five weeks and it seems he's been using the time to
sequester certain 'assets' beyond the reach of the
most zealous of international law enforcers.
He says that the yacht was a bugger to hide.
Even more worryingly, should we manage to raise a
team for any round of the Plate (see Mike's note in
the 'and also...' section below) Bob won't be
around. Well, yachts don't sail themselves
though I wouldn't be surprised if his did. And
so he's off somewhere, maybe Spain, even now camping
out at the airport for a (legal) flight in a couple
of weeks' time. His bid to acquire Chelsea
didn't make the shortlist so what's to stick around
for? A broken-down quiz team many years past
its best? Especially with the internal revenue
services of at least six countries closing in by the
hour.
Who
knows what the summer will bring? We have no
reliable means of staying in touch and no idea if
Bob will be able to sneak back into the country, if,
and when, things calm down a bit. The yacht might
help with that if it wasn't so damn conspicuous.
Bonne chance El Presidente, just stay one step ahead
of those pesky police types and with a fair wind and
a few prayers we'll see you - and everyone else - in
the autumn.
Reasons to be cheerful - for Gary at least
(R7/Q3)
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Cooking up a full English Brexit
(R8/Q8)
Bards beat
History Men
The home team end their league season on a high
 In
a new seat Ivor is in retreat...
Our season concludes with a good trouncing at the
hands of the Bards. Over the last 20 years our
matches have been much closer, and not infrequently
the decider has been a shoot-out on the last two
questions between Tony and me. Now we have
Anne in Seat 4 ("the seat that gets the easy
questions”) but the damage was done long before the
final round. This was mostly due not to the
stalwarts, Tony and Jim, but rather the 7 twos
achieved by more recent recruit Robin, augmented by
the Bards' impressive haul of 6 'steals' (we got
none).
Of course our usual timidity and the loss of
confidence that is a seemingly natural consequence
of a blurt (and the associated tongue-lashing from
the team member responsible for discipline and
vituperation) does not help. In my defence my
“Maine Coot” blurt was either a misspoken, or a
crossed, neuronal connection. Or perhaps I was
pre-empting the inevitable bird question I never get
right anyway. Or worse, perhaps I have been
affected by the wokery disease and unconsciously
bowdlerise any word that might cause offence in
other usage.
A clue as to what goes on behind the net curtains
in Barcelona
(R3/Q5)
The quiz paper was indeed hard for the Historymen
(though not for the Bards) but the combined score of
77 is a pretty good tally. Nine unanswered
questions which included the financial acronyms and
the famous (?) German artist, and the famous (?)
French physicist/engineer. Likewise the
podcasters proved elusive but it did allow a little
sledging at Tony’s expense:
“A podcast is like a talk on the wireless, m’lord”,
and later, “Reddit is something from the Internet,
m’lord”.
Is sledging allowed in quizzing? Anyway it did
not help our cause. Not even “Let’s kill all
the lawyers” as an answer put the Bards off their
progress to a well-deserved victory.
Self-publishist
(R8/Q1)
 and
Mike H adds a view from the QM's chair...
The Historymen won just one round (Round 5 as it
happens). I was QMing for Bards this time, and
was glad I was not playing for either team as almost
all the questions were beyond me. Once again
the Historymen varied their order and Anne did
better in Seat 4 than Ivor did in Seat 1.
However the star was Robin in Seat 1 for the Bards
with seven twos. As ever a very convivial
atmosphere.
Putting the Berk into Birkdale
(R2/Q4)
Albert
beat
Charabancs
A comfortable win for the season's third placed
team
 Mike
relishes the prospect of litigation against the
setters...
A very enjoyable quiz which has surely opened the
door for more abusive and possibly legally
actionable questions. With this League's
capacity for imaginative invective I look forward to
reading it. Actually. Mark Francois comes off
worst - the others can laugh it off as cheery
banter. Oh, the irony of being the MP for an
academic hothouse like Cambridge. As usual the
Run-ons were well received. The only quibble
was the status of potassium in the missing link
round.
As usual my attempts to liven up the proceedings
went unappreciated. Why, in the Burgundy
question I even sang the opening lines from the song
in The Vagabond King:
"Men of fire and danger / Will you serve a
stranger / And bow down to Burgundy."
Sometimes I feel that the Albert don't deserve me as
a QM.
MikeO Brien sends above strip
(Round 5)
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Quiz paper set by...
...The Prodigals
Average Aggregate score 78.0
A
paper full of interest and erudition (with a few
pictures thrown in for good measure) which
registered an average score slightly higher than
that for the season to-date.
There
were enough unanswerable questions to prove that the
paper was a proper challenge but not so many to
raise any 'who knows, who cares' complaints.
As for controversy, well, the Round 4 question about
the constituent parts of the pre-1947 German Empire
raised a few eyebrows - and the Round 1 question
about the wanton slaughter of lawyers had to be
carefully tackled as Prodigal lawyer Kate was in
attendance. Not to worry, we assured
her, Shakespeare was surely referring to elderly
retired judges not their younger practising
colleagues.
As a
QM what I enjoyed most about the paper was the
variety offered by the subject-matter and the
ingenuity displayed in the format of each round.
Chatting to Prodigal Michael after the contest I
made the point that in the early days of our League
question-setting was regarded as a necessary chore
where an imaginative approach to wording was frowned
upon. These days we have setters who relish
the challenge of making even the most mundane piece
of trivia dance in front of the eyes of the
quizzers. In which regard the late Dave Barras
and, of course, Gerry Collins come to mind.
Prodigal Richard was in attendance last night and
even he might admit that question-setting for
University Challenge has gained from some of the
ideas developed by WithQuiz setters. And by
the way I know Michael does set the occasional
question for University Challenge and I
believe he had a major part to play in drawing up
last night's paper.
but what did Mike H think...
One slight criticism: only three of the pictures
were numbered, and the answers to the spares in the
Picture Round weren't given.
and Ivor's feedback...
This quiz was well-crafted with many questions
offering two ways into the answer (if only we had
listened correctly) - the Wordle round and the
Pictures round were excellent examples of this.
Who would have known there were so many 5 letter
films? And Rupert Murdoch as a picture too!
Sadly the demise of the News of the World means we
will never have the double-page spread inside story
exclusive of how the multi-divorced magnate ends up
married to the multi-talented Jerry Hall.
Magnate attraction...
(R3/Q2)
Question of the Week
This week I've chosen the Shakespeare quote in Round
1 Question 7...
According to Henry VI Part 2 what is "the first
thing we do"?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
...but only disdain from the setter's moggy
(R3/Q2)
...and also
The
Red Lion is getting close to reopening some time
later this month.
It
occurred to me (and after discussing with Anne-Marie
earlier this evening she heartily agreed) it would
be highly fitting if the re-launched Red carried
some remembrance of our lost friend Dave Rainford.
This
week I sent the following message to both the
brewery and the landlord...
"I've
been a local resident for nearly 50 years and a
regular Red Lion visitor.
One of the best loved Red Lion regulars was the TV
Quiz star Dave Rainford - sadly no longer with us.
Dave won £250,000 on Who Wants To Be a
Millionaire, was an Egghead on the TV show of
the same name and was a regular quiz
setter/presenter at the Red, as well as being a star
of the local Withington Quiz League which started at
the Red back in the 1970s.
With the refurb almost complete it may well be a bit
late to rename the whole pub 'The Dave Rainford' but
might one of the bar areas be named after him? It
would be hugely popular with locals and ensure that
Dave's name lives on in the place he loved best."
I
have offered to provide any material (e.g. pictures
and text) which might be of help.
If
you agree with me it would greatly strengthen our
cause if you could also message the brewery/landlord
via the Red's website. Let's make it happen!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sadly
KFD have had to scratch from their Round 1 Val
Draper Cup match next Wednesday against Ethel.
As a result Ethel will go through to Round 2 leaving
KFD with setting duties for the Round 2 matches on
April 27th. KFD slip into the Plate semis
which are scheduled for May 4th. Apologies to
the History Men who were due to set next week's
paper and may have already concocted a few rounds -
no doubt they can be reused at some later date.
So
just to be clear there is no match next week or the
week after, and the next set of matches (Val Draper
Cup Round 2) will be on Wednesday April 27th with
KFD as setters.
Have
a good Easter!
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