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Charabancs
lost to KFD
KFD get off to a solid start in their first match
of the season
 Kieran's
weekly eco-friendly rant ...
Here we are again for the thirty somethingth time
and what has changed over the summer? Well
after a temperate year or so The Griffin has taken
sides in the great conflict of our time and is
burning gas like a hot air balloonist on
...balloons. That 'sabotage' of the Nord
Stream pipeline was in fact the landlord mainlining
several million Btus straight to Heaton Mersey where
portraits of a maniacally cackling Vladimir Putin
now hang in place of the TV screens. The Griffin
are thoughtfully giving us a preview of what life
will be like in the arid deserts of The Heatons and
the unliveable climate of Stockport a couple of
years down the line.
Incey Wincey Hale
(R2/Q1)
Our hosts had disconcertingly taken the away team
bench despite this being their home fixture but we
could not be knocked off our stride by this and duly
lost the toss in time-honoured fashion.
Channelling Nasser at The Gabba, Damian inserted us
(!) and then channelled Nasser even more as Barry
despatched our first question of the season for a
two with minimal fuss.
David is half way through a six week penance walking
the Camino de Santiago - God only knows what he's
seeking absolution for - so Seat Three was occupied
by Thomas still basking in his Question of the Week
award from our paper for the season's first match.
Thomas got a long delayed reward for enduring
ball-achingly dull visits to Botanical Gardens
enjoying fun and informative trips to attractions
when on summer holiday as a child, nailing Ventnor
for a two and following that up with the Trussterf**k's
married name which, we assume, her improbable
husband is trying to disown quicker than he's trying
to disown the PM herself.
The runaway winner for the biggest howler in living
WithQuiz memory award fell to Barry who didn't in
the slightest behave in a 'Jordan Hendersonesque'
manner for the next two or three rounds (he told me
to write that) - and Barry doesn't even claim Irish
ancestry. I played up the (third generation) Old
Erin outrage instead, Thomas carpet-bagging at one
further remove. Being six years out on the release
date of Nights in White Satin was an
admirable attempt at a follow up.
A camera looks back on itself
(R2/Q4)
We're underway with a win against a side we failed
to beat last season and sit a so-so third in the
early league table. Next week the league's two
remaining 100% records clash at The Didsbury so
something has to give. I wasn't very impressed
with The Didsbury a few months' back though The
Albert were excellent hosts and good company as
ever. Let's see if things on Wilmslow Road
have improved in the intervening time. Chances
are it won't feel like a sauna but there are no
guarantees about the quality of the beer which,
incidentally, was hopeless in The Griffin tonight.
Maybe it's being kept at too high a temperature.
Un Immortel
(R5/Q3)
 Damian,
the Valiant, reports ...
Our
first derby match of the season, and Barry's warning
to us last week that his team were out for revenge
after a recent series of losses to us, came good.
We fought valiantly but KFD stayed ahead in every
round and were worthy winners. At least we had
a full team out tonight (with a possible spare to
boot) which helped make the scoreline a bit more
respectable for us than last week's. On the
plus side we all scored twos and conferred
reasonably well but KFD scored just a few more and
conferred a bit better which made the difference.
Electric
Pigs lost to Prodigals
The Pigs' brief spell at the top is rudely
upended by the Prods
The O'Learys
(R7/Q6)
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The Hunts
(R1/Q1)
Opsimaths
lost to Ethel Rodin
High-scoring all round but Greg's IoW honeymoon
tips the balance
 Mike
sums up from the QM chair...
Great
to be back in the hot seat observing two of the
league's heavyweight teams slug it out in the Club's
rear lounge. This is a very comfortable venue
these days with sofas and coffee tables replacing
the austerity of the old 'sit-up' chairs and trestle
tables.
Perhaps the home team lounged just a little too much
in the face of some determined opposition as Ethel
swanned home largely on account of their superior
knowledge of the Isle of Wight. It seems Greg
had his honeymoon on the Isle accompanied by a
charabanc full of OAPs - oh, and his wife. So
Ventnor, Jimi Hendrix and the River Medina all
chined with him. By contrast the Opsis huffed
and puffed about the iniquity of a whole round on an
island somewhat more boring than even Jersey.
Interesting debate at the end as to how
big/significant a sliver of the UK has to be to
merit a whole round. Wales? Yes,
certainly. Manchester? Of course!
Derbyshire? In the hands of the late Dave
Barras, indisputably. Isle of Wight?
Well, the jury's still out.
Perhaps the secret of Ethel's success, however, lay
in the subtle switch made this season by cerebral
skipper, Roddy, who has moved himself up to Chair
One and slid Geoff down to Chair Two. Such
tactical nous can define a whole season. We
shall see! With James in Chair Three scoring 6
twos and Greg following up the rear (I beg your
pardon, Greg) with an impressive 7 twos Ethel still
look a formidable bunch ready to challenge for the
title.
A word
of consolation for Nick, Brian, Emma and Howell who
scored a mighty 41 points and would have won the
contest had it not been for a disastrous 9-1
reversal on the infamous IoW round.
The Byrnes
(R1/Q4)
Bards beat
History Men
Bards go top with a 2-point win at the Parrswood
 Arch-blurter
Ivor owns up ...
A week
is a long time in quizzing. After our unexpected
win last week against the Prodigals in our new home
venue, the Parrswood, we returned there for our
first away game of the season against old rivals the
Bards. Of course the Bards are no longer an
'old team' as their youth development programme is
the best developed in the league and has even
skipped a generation with the regular appearance of
Tony’s grandson Tom. In contrast the
Historymen recruits (if any) are already more than
half way to that nice card that King Charles sends
out occasionally.
Unfortunately neither team was able to bag the usual
quiet area as there seemed to be a rather serious
committee meeting (or writing group) there in such
numbers that it was not worth trying Tony’s
magisterial diplomacy, or even Anne’s more direct
version, to try and persuade them to swap rooms so
we ended up in the other snug. This was not a
bad alternative. The chairs surely rivalled what
Tony would have had on the Bench, and, with a bit of
light fittings adjustment, there was sufficient
illumination to welcome Mike H as QM. Mike has
a foot in both team squads so he is probably the
most disinterested QM in the league.
Jimi at Freshwater
(R4/Q4)
We lost, but only by 2 points. The Bards won
on steals (3-0) which made up for their inferior two
rate (9-13). We were in the lead by the time
Round 6 came to a close. Then forsaking our
customary practice of imploding in Round 8 we
decided to blow up in Round 7 instead. Perhaps
we were doomed by the blurt we managed in the first
round - and an unusual one at that. I was the
blurter and in 20 years of quizzing I have not had
one like it. It was a 'wrong person answered'
incident as I was sitting in Seat 4 and answered
Seat 3’s question. As the person in Seat 3 was
Anne, and the question was the easiest two of the
evening, regular readers can imagine the scorn,
contempt and fury that this generated as we had to
accept just a single point as if it were a conferred
answer. Putin was probably less annoyed by
that Crimean bridge explosion. No doubt I will
be reminded of this just as frequently as I am
reminded of my infamous 'Mancunian/Manchurian'
blurt. Just as well we lost by more than a
single point.
All aquiver - like father, like son
(R6/Q6)
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Quiz paper
set by...
...Albert
Average Aggregate score 80.5
No
low-scoring here, as Ethel and the Opsis racked up a
massive 88 point aggregate. Plenty of variety
in the style of round on offer too: Run-ons, Hidden
themes, a full tester on the most populous
constituency in the UK (the IoW if you didn't know),
a couple of 'spot the connection' rounds and some
pot luck/pot pourri fare in between.
By
the way is there a difference between 'pot luck' and
'pot pourri'? They seem to have become
interchangeable terms for describing rounds made up
of the ragbag of leftover questions?
Finally as a QM this week a shout out for the
elegant way the paper was laid out. A pleasure
to read! Many thanks, Albert.
I oW
royal playhouse
(R4/Q2)
James adds his thoughts on the 'IoW
round' debate...
Some
discussion in The Albert Club as to the validity of
a round totally based on the Isle of Wight.
And, by extrapolation, any round based on one
county/city/ mountain/holiday (notwithstanding that
there was a well received round based on the Peak
District last week).
Ethel
were put at an advantage here, as both Roddy and I
had visited the IoW, and best of all, Greg had spent
his honeymoon there many moons ago (it won’t have
changed much since then). We won that round
8-1 (or maybe even 9-1, I'm not sure) which was
essentially the difference that ensured Ethel won on
the night.
To be
fair, two questions weren’t really about the IoW at
all; Lymington is in Hampshire and 'Swiss Cottage'
was essentially a lateral thinking question about
London. The 'Carisbrooke Castle' one was
surely just a general knowledge question, and has to
be in the list of the top three facts most quizzers
should know about the IoW.
I’ve
often been frustrated about whole rounds on Scottish
Islands or Lake District hills where the setter
clearly knows the area well but in order to know the
obscure answer, you need to have visited the same
places.
Personally I think so long as a round on a specific
location isn’t just focused on esoteric detail, then
it’s fair game. If the score in the round had
been 0-0 then it would clearly have been poor.
But in fact every answer in the round was known by
someone, or in most cases 2 or 3 in the room.
It’s just that by chance those 2 or 3 were all in
the same team. That’s the way quizzes go
sometimes.
What was
Kieran's take on the paper...
Albert's Jeremy QM'd and despite the odd blooper it
was an excellent paper. Five unanswereds each,
twelve twos for us against ten for our hosts and
nothing that evoked a "meh" on either side.
More boring than even Jersey?
(Round 4)
...and Damian's...
With Albert's Jeremy kindly QMing for us I think we
all enjoyed his team's paper. It played to our
strengths here and there and also exposed our
weaknesses here and there, but, by and large, was
mostly well balanced.
The question about
the Bechdel test for filmmakers seemed to garner
approval as the candidate for Question of the Week.
Funniest answer of the week definitely fell to KFD
captain Kieran who racked his brains for agonising
minutes to try and find the right answer to which
language had a written form called 'Bokmal'.
When, probably more in hope than expectation, he
desperately offered up "Klingon?" we all felt he
should have got a point for the laughs. That
was definitely one of those wrong answers that
should have been so right!
and
finally Ivor comments...
The quiz itself generated a good combined score.
My favourite questions were the well-balanced
'Tennis sex/gender battles' pair. Some tricky
questions too: how quickly we forget Royal Funeral
code names (or maybe never knew them in the first
place). The theme rounds were easily cracked
but sadly the number of areas in Greater Manchester
and the potential number of 'AZ' answers still made
these rounds challenging. I was amazed that a
whole round on the Isle of Wight was even possible,
but as the IoW is allegedly stuck in the 1970s
perhaps the Historymen should have done better.
Wait for our up and coming round on Tasmania!
Question of the Week
This week KFD and the Chara both felt that Round
5 Question 6 was a cracker...
What criterion must a film satisfy in order to pass
the Bechdel test (for sexism)?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
Taking the piss out of London
(R8/Q5)
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