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Albert
tied with Opsimaths
The tie specialists slug it out
 Ashton
gets his own back against an absent MOBO ...
With the O'Brien house reclassified as a sick bay, Albert were shorn
of both Mike and Stephen last night. Our occasional call-upons
were all unavailable so we were a three-handed team, and we would
have struggled to muster up even that many had Jeremy's wife Deborah
not been available to step into Mike's QM shoes thanks to a rare
night off for her choir. What a change to have requests for a
question re-read met with an even-tempered smile rather than a
curmudgeonly growl.
I'm coming to get you, mate!
(R4/Q7)
The
contest was always close. Opsimaths took each of the first
three rounds by a point before we cut the gap in the middle section.
A four point lead going into the last round looked as if it might be
enough for our opponents but we hauled them in and with both sides
pinching the other's education secretary in the final pair. A
draw was the outcome.
Twos were at a premium, at least in the first half of the quiz, and
it became clear early on that there would be no 50-plus scores
tonight. Jeremy is fast losing his reputation as our go-to
classical music maven. His sniffy argument that being asked to
name Jacqueline du Pré's sister was more of a celebrity gossip
question failed to convince the rest of the team. I do think
he may be going a little soft. I came back from the bar at the
end of the quiz to find him magnanimously telling all who would
listen that a draw was the right and just result for such an
enjoyable and close contest. I could only give silent thanks
that our stricken captain was not present to hear such a calm,
dishonourable, vile submission. There's no place in Mike's
'win-at-all costs' Albert team for such namby-pamby nonsense.
Du Pr é
wind
(R5/Q6)
...while Howell supervises a load of dripping Opsimtahs ...
Some rough weather around at the start of the quiz last night!
Having collected the questions, Brian got soaked by a number 142 bus
walking along Wilmslow Road; on the way to the Didsbury, Jeremy's
wife (our QM for the evening) rang him to ask if he could bring her
a spare pair of trousers to replace her soaked jeans; and Zuki (the
dog she was walking) came in soaking and was still dripping half way
through the quiz.
Albert were 3-handed due to illness
and, for the start, so were the Opsis since Emma who had been bang
on time at the Albert Club for a home match had to hotfoot it over
to The Didsbury and didn't turn up until part way through Round 1.
On a somewhat wordy paper Deborah (Jeremy's
missus) did a sterling job. She was friendly and competent,
which was lucky as she needed to expend a good deal of patience
waiting as the teams struggled towards and, then often away from,
the right answers.
The quiz was tight. The Opsis were 25-26
down after 6 rounds with no more than 3 points between the teams up
to that point. Round 7 went 7-2 to the Opsimaths before the
final round went 6-2 to the Albert leaving the teams level for the
only time in the evening.
I had a bit of brain freeze in the final round
giving 'Disraeli' as an answer to the PM question when I should have
been thinking of a PM from a very different era.
The match was 33-33 with 2 questions to go.
The final 2 questions both ended up as steals - which was unusual
but felt par for the course at the end of this quiz.
The Naughty Chair
(R2/Sp)
Bards tied
with the Prodigals
Another tie at the Parrswood as the Prods forfeit their top spot
Drenched and dripping Michael shares his notebook ...
In the vast and empty badlands of the Parrswood Inn, we sheltered
from the storm. Or rather, most of us did; Richard and I got
drenched on the way.
The Prodigals raced into a 14-9 lead after two rounds but, as the
scoring slackened, the Bards (and especially palaeontologist Robin)
reeled us in, demonstrating some impressive knowledge of Chinese
utensils and theoretical physics. As for the Prodigals, some
uncharacteristic blurting and a few poor choices on 50:50 answers
saw us squander that early lead, while the Bards conferred well to
rescue James Cleverly from obscurity and secure a share of the
points. It was a fair result between two teams that, as QM Tony
observed, were very evenly matched.
Bratby: The epitome of mid-50s British Art
(R6/Q4)
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"My Dear Old Thing"
(R2/Q4)
Charabancs
lost to History Men
History Men edge a close match
 Ivor
claims to have "No idea" ...
Back to the Griffin to play our old (and ageing) friends the
Charabancs whom we have known since they were the little acorns in
the mighty Brains of Oak team that used to vie with us for second
place in the league in that golden era when Kieran’s boys ruled the
roost. But empires decline and fall (well perhaps not Kieran’s just
yet) but Damian and I now feel like (and maybe even look like)
Shelley’s Ozymandias. We have our annual needle matches to
determine who will be bottom and who second bottom in the league -
and at times we mutter a silent prayer that there is no such thing
as relegation and everyone else is too polite to insist on
re-election criteria.
Every game has something new and different. Tonight the novelty was
having two spectators checking out if pub-quizzing might be for
them. Our youth on the bench was Ben (though he is only a few
years younger than Young David who is 50). Ben is a classics
master. Most quizzers have "small Latin and less Greek” (as
Jonson condemned Shakespeare) so perhaps he will add to our
armamentarium. We are assuming he was not so horrified by our
team that he will never be seen again. The Charas had Young
Dennis on the bench who came on at half time last week but, perhaps
sensibly, stayed there this time round.
Greatest dancer of all time and her brother
(R5/Q5)
Tonight’s game was a game of eight halves with violent swings of
fortune. We won the first round 8-2 and lost the second 1-6.
But by the end of Round 6 we were 12 points ahead. That lead
was whittled away with a 3-8 Round 7 and then we had to hang on
losing the last round 2-4.
The game was also unusual in that there were 14 steals (8 for us and
6 for the Charas) but what this suggests about the questions or the
answerers is uncertain (actually I have no idea!).
Oversexed Metrosexual
(R1/Q5)
 Damian's
still waiting ...
Well, it wasn't as bad as last week's humiliation but it was still
another loss. We certainly failed better than last week but
only managed to equal our average score for the past 5 weeks of this
season. Not so much failing better as treading water. I
can see Sam B shaking his head wherever he hangs out these days.
I do hope we can manage to do him proud at some point.
Short in every department
(R8/Q5)
Electric
Pigs lost to KFD
KFD march to the top
 Kieran
weaves his football tales with the occasional quizzing reference ...
A
rather chewy offering from Ethel saw us go top of the table for the
first time since, oh I don't know when - but at least three Prime
Ministers ago.
Despite spending the last six weeks in northern Spain, David hadn't
had enough of Iberia and decided to take in City reserves vs
Sevilla's second string, an entertainment chiefly memorable for Bury
boy Rico Lewis auditioning for the latest remake of A Star Is
Born. This meant a fourth consecutive appearance for Thomas
(six on the bounce if you count the last two games of last season).
He's clearly no longer an occasional sub but now an important member
of what I can only describe as a squad. I have a week by week
selection decision to make - well unless Sick Boy throws another one
in on match day as he's been known to do.
Speaking of our man in the Bismarck Sea, it was good to have him
back fully recovered and in top form easing to the MVP accolade with
five twos. Barry's extraordinary breadth of knowing stuff was
displayed at its best tonight in questions on geography,
horticulture and crap TV from thirty years ago. Polymath
really isn't the right term for our veteran opener. While
Barry was shooting Ethel's sweated-over 'fish in a barrel', Thomas
morphed into an assist king, prodding and nudging here and there as
a vital part of KFD's famed confer huddle. Jeez kid what a
tough gig, going from Robot Boy to the Ginger Prince but we all have
evenings like this, don't let it get to you.
Less welcome was that the Fletcher Moss's card machines absolutely
refused to take Thomas's money (until he bought himself a 'hollow
legs' late on) so dad ended up springing for two rounds. Maybe
this making the team a family affair isn't all it's cracked up to
be.
At
the end of the quiz I texted Mike B the result as did Pig QM Andrew.
Mine read "Pigs 25 KFD 44" and Councillor Simcock's as you would
expect was similar. Except it stated "Pigs 44 KFD 25". Mike
actually asked which was correct! To give him his due Andrew
immediately apologised and corrected the error. A politician saying
sorry and putting the record straight? He's going to get that
profession a good name if he goes on like this though, thoroughly
good egg that he is, I fear that transformation is beyond even him.
Next week the Opsis are up at the Griffin. Ah, that clash
which I've written about at great length for many years.
Wonder how it will play out this time? No idea but it's late
and I shouldn't still be here. I've just got a few minutes to
watch videos of burning stands at the Partizan vs Red Star game,
happy days.
See
you next week Mike.
The not so grown-ups
(R8/Q6)
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Quiz paper
set by...
...Ethel Rodin
Average Aggregate score
70.0
I was away at the
Etihad last night so I'll refrain from comment on the paper other
than to note that the average aggregate slipped about 10 points from
the dizzying heights we've been experiencing over the past few
weeks. Not necessarily a bad thing!
Not just the Town Hall - Victorian Gothic Manchester
(R3/Q8)
...and this was
Ashton's take on the paper...
Despite the low scores, the quiz was very good and certainly kept
things close. For reasons we can't fathom, the Albert team
does seem to be quite good at keeping our 'points against' column
low, even if this doesn't translate to a higher tally in our 'points
for' total. God knows how you 'park the bus' in a quiz match,
but with a man down we had to try and do so last night. I
suppose the reason is that we tend to take the safe option of a
confer at the expense of racking up individual glory.
Last night's questions seemed to offer plenty of chance to confer as
the questions hit the sweet spot (from a setter's point of view) of
generally being known by one person in each team, but usually not
the person asked. I'd suggest that is the mark of a well-set
question: taxing, but not impossible. A quiz full of 2s can be
as unsatisfactory as one full of 0s. My only slight quibble
would be the preponderance of paired rounds, but then perhaps we
have been spoiled of late with new and interesting formats.
"Education, Education, Education"
(R8/Q7-8-Sp1)
...so what did
Damian think...
In
the company of Ivor and his merry crew, we found tonight's paper an
interesting assortment of themes and subject matter albeit a tad on
the tough side with much lengthy conferring taking place on many of
the questions. Inspiration (I managed to dredge up 'Bismarck
Sea' from somewhere) coupled with frustration (if only I'd
remembered that Roger Rabbit was framed and not shot) seemed to be
the order of the night. We barely finished in time for last
orders so we decided to take a rain-check on the round of drinks
that the Historymen were about to buy us at the end as some of us
had to leave due to the lateness of the hour. Don't worry Ivor,
we won't forget!
Aussie: underhand and underarm
(R3/Q7)
...Michael
adds these thoughts from the Parrswood...
This was a decent but difficult paper, we thought. Even though
the pace slowed dramatically in the second half, there was plenty of
variety in the subject matter and I'm not sure that anyone in any
seat felt especially unfavoured, which is always an encouraging
sign.
...
and this is what Howell had to say ...
To me, the quiz was hard-going. I'm not saying unfair as the
balance seemed perfectly OK - but more that there was a lot of
detail appearing in each question with a fair amount of "what was
the actual question" as people lost track of what they were being
asked for.
...
and Ivor has the last word ...
This was an interesting quiz with plenty of help in the themes and
phraseology as well as an unusually broad spectrum of knowledge
required: life, the universe and everything (quite literally given
questions on GUT and QCD).
It was a long match for us. The first round gave a jocular
start, but like the frog being slowly boiled in the pot the heat and
difficulty gradually, but inexorably, increased. All good fun
really. It is only after the quiz and looking at the paper
that we could discern some very clever touches: e.g. the rubric
introducing Round 7 as 'A Round of Hidden Pairs'; or the false trail
in Round 2 when we were searching for Shakespeare characters rather
than literary villains; or the cunningly hidden 'White'
phrases/words in Round 3.
Of course I am always sympathetic to setters - especially a week
before we have to set our own quiz and more so when we have to
follow a very good one. Many the time I have felt like the man
who was allocated Einstein’s office after the latter’s retirement
from Princeton. And if our quiz is condemned next week I will
feel like Arnold Sommerfeld (who appears to be the Jimmy White of
Physics) and who sadly tonight was one of the 9 unanswereds.
Question of the Week
No specific nominations from our correspondents this week so for the
second week running I've chosen the very first question of the
evening from the 'Punny Old World' round (could this type of
question catch on?) ...
The name of which breed of dog is the
Wade-Giles romanization of the Chinese characters for 'lion'?
You might find it in a poorly performing menagerie.
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
The Lion Dog
(R1/Q1)
...and also
Nice
little tale this week courtesy of Andrew Simcock....
Mike Casey, a
constituent of his (Andrew is the councillor for Didsbury East) got
in touch to remind Andrew of an incident a few years ago on quiz
night in the Fletcher Moss. Andrew had been QM in a match
between Albert and the Pigs and asked the question:
"According to recent suggestions what title might Prince Charles
adopt as king rather than Charles III?"
The answer given in the paper was:
"George VII".
Not surprisingly Mike gave WithQuiz (via Andrew) a mild ticking off
for peddling fake news all those years back.
Using the 'Search' facility at the head of this page I was able very
quickly to establish that the question (Round 6 Question 6) had been
set by the Opsimaths on 2nd March 2005 and that in the match in
question the Pigs had won 40-37.
In retrospect the Opsimaths offer HRH their utmost apologies and are
happy to offer up Brian (as our 'Setter in Residence') for a brief
spell in the Tower.
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