Withington Pub Quiz League - Quizbiz 08/03/23

Seesaw at the top as the Prods lose and KFD win and go top;

Charas claim their second victory of the season;

Bards creep up above Albert;

Val Draper cup draw is made (see fixture page)

Charabancs beat Opsimaths

History Men lost to KFD

Ethel Rodin beat Albert

Prodigals lost to Bards

History Men lost to KFD

KFD cruise home to take advantage of the Prods' slip

Kieran comes across some ordinary pub-going lads...

The perfect symmetry to complete the round robin mini tournament between KFD, the Historymen and the Prodigals. We beat the Historymen twice, they beat the Prodigals twice and the Prodigals beat us twice - let's call the whole thing off.

The Parrs Wood lived up to our experience of a few weeks ago, particularly in respect of noises off. Evicted from the normal quiz room by a meeting of a creative writing group (no, really) we moved to the annexe which is separated from the main bar by yet more curtains. Tonight the interference was provided by a group of a dozen or so lads who had the bearing and banter of a victorious post-match football team, laughing, joking, telling tall tales, generally using a pub for its prime purpose and behaving as you're supposed to on the premises. How inconsiderate when a bunch of quiz nerds are trying to wrack their ageing brains for half remembered 1930s screwball comedies or Welsh micro breweries.

Quite a few years ago when Raquel was a tad more mobile

(R3-4/Q1)

The Historymen were their normal hospitable and generous selves allowing us a somewhat dodgy point for Hygena rather than Hygieia. Fortunately that made no difference to the result and hasn't impacted the Prodigals' title chances. 'Pied Piper' Ivor tootled his flute, or whatever, and in wandered even younger Thomas, at a loose end for the evening, who ended up taking over as QM at half time. Our victory margin of five points is a bit misleading since the draw was still on the table for our hosts as we reached the last pair of questions. Of course I conferred to be absolutely certain that 'The Grand Union Canal' was the required answer, and then we picked up a bonus from the final question of the night.

The quiz was done by 10.10 which was only a couple of minutes after Spurs had been similarly despatched. I do enjoy evenings such as this. A very accessible Pigs paper including the mandatory 'Coventry' question (for which yours truly scored a two) and another huge haul of maximums - this week fifteen following last time's seventeen in a losing cause.

Motty in a blizzard

(R3-4/Q2)

...and then home to learn the surprising news from the club. Truthfully we're in a position we never expected to be in after last week's defeat at the hands of the Prodigals. We're certainly not making any assumptions; the Pigs definitely have the smarts to beat us, or any team on their day, and the Prodigals will give everything against Ethel in defence of their title. Our only regret is that Bob The Hat is ......somewhere else next week, so we will be unable to end the season in the company of the great man. David will QM and newish boy Thomas will take his place in seat three. Whatever happens it's been another great season for harmless obsessives and our harmless pastime. As we all move further into semi-retirement it helps to keep what used to be our brains working, and spending winter Wednesday evenings with old friends of thirty years or more is something to be treasured.

Still it's all but impossible not to think about what could happen next week.

"Not Nineteen Forever"?

"Pull yourselves together"!

"So what if you could paint - you never won the Eurovision Song Contest!"

(R6/Q6)

Gilbert or Sullivan? Ivor reflects on a Topsy Turvy season - ...

It has been noted that we have had a topsy-turvy season. We lost twice to our fellow strugglers the Electric Pigs but beat the current champions the Prodigals twice. Tonight we faced KFD who remain the only challengers to the Prodigals in their pursuit of title glory despite the fact that KFD have been beaten twice already by the Prodigals. KFD have defeated us once already and past form would suggest we had little chance of causing an upset. Of course we did not cause an upset; though as we were a point ahead after three rounds and only a point behind going into Round 7 we perhaps caused a frisson of unease, albeit for a short time.

The venue was somewhat acoustically challenging for us older folk (that is to say all of us) and Mrs C was more than happy to vacate the QM seat in favour of Young Thomas at half time. 'Young' is a relative term but as Young Thomas is only half the age of our Young David the epithet is probably appropriate. Despite the importance of the game this was no Battle of Towton and on what may well be close to the 50th match between our teams decorum, generosity and good humour prevailed.

The match stats reveal that (going first) we got 4 of the 5 unanswereds of which three fell to me in unlucky seat 3 which gets me the 'Jonah' award. KFD got 15 twos to our 9 with Martin being MVP (no change there!) with five twos.

Edward II's resting place

(R7/Q8)

Prodigals lost to Bards

Just like Devon Loch the Prods stumble on the home straight

Anne-Marie takes it on the chin...

We were ahead until the last round when blurts and bad guesses let our opponents back in. Well played Bards!

Eleven nominations

(R7/Q6)

Coldest village

(R2/Q8)

Ethel Rodin beat Albert

Comfortable win for Ethel keeps them in third place

James finds a fresh taste for Pigs...

Of all the teams in the league I’ve always thought that Ethel and The Pigs probably have the smallest 'Venn diagram intersection' of general knowledge. This has meant that we have previously fared well below our average with their sets of questions. However, tonight’s questions seemed to largely home in on that intersection, so we did much better than we expected.

I feel as if the usually very solid Albert will provide some perspective as to the impact of their various blurts. Mysteriously it appeared that Mike’s 'Paddle of Rebuke' was nowhere to be found when the mirror side was required.

On the whole, but for the blurts, the scores were close throughout - and it could have been a much closer result.

It was fantastic to see and share in the banter and badinage that ensued the match.

Hottest city

(R2/Q7)

Blurty Mike's lost his paddle...

A record breaking night for The Albert: 5 blurts - and I managed 3 of them. This is certainly a record for The Albert - could it be a league record? I feel like the central character in Stath Lets Flats who scores 5 goals in a 5-a-side match but they are all own goals. He does, however, get applauded off the pitch by the other teams as the leading scorer in the tournament. These were not ordinary blurts they contained a seed of truth with a key detail missing, clearly superior to the blurts of the rest of the team which were plain wrong (but to which I knew the correct answer). In fact had our blurts been better handled we would have won.

I bet other teams can't wait to play us in our present form. I feel like Bruno Fernandes waving my arms ineffectually as the team is overrun, and then being outed as a rotten little coward by Roy Keane.

"Remember Preston?"

(R1/Q2)

Charabancs beat Opsimaths

A well-organised Chara team chalk up their second victory

Damian welcomes Chara victory number two: "We're now into double figures"...

What could be better than to finish the season with a victory especially as it's only our second victory this season (not counting WISTquiz stuff)? To top it all, we finally hit and surpassed the 40 score limit for the first and only time this season. We had come close a few times before but tonight we finally did it, and that it proved to be a winning score is all the sweeter for it. Both our victories this season occurred at home in The Griffin - although the venue was in some doubt for a while this week as the pub had to close after some trouble with Travellers camping in the car park yesterday.

"I'm about to shaft you, Matt"

(R2/Sp)

Thankfully things were back to normal by the time we got round to the quizzing and, though I say so myself, we put in an excellent performance tonight with all team members scoring twos, conferring well and even, for once, getting the better of the steals by 5 to 2. I promised Mike not to crow too much about it, but after bumping into each other at the doctors' surgery the other day he couldn't help but joke that nothing the surgery had to offer could alleviate our quiz woes. Oooh, karma can be a b***ch can't it Mike?

For once we had a set of questions that managed to play to our strengths. Ably QMed by Andrew from The Pigs (who kindly agreed to do the honours for us as I needed our regular QM, Jane, to play on the team) we got though proceedings in fine style and finished with plenty of time for a post-quiz heads up and convivial banter with that most convivial of opponents, the Opsimaths.

Finally, in response to the attacks I received from my fellow quizzers, I stubbornly maintain that 2 (the number of our WithQuiz triumphs this season - being the double of 1) makes it a double number and I'm not in the mood for any nitpicking, quibbling, mathematical boffins who want to prove me wrong. So there!!!

Drought uncovers Mardale Green

(R5/Q6)

Mike sees the Opsimaths' top 5 hopes perish...

Well done Charas! You were a well-organised outfit and your resulting score proves what we've all known this season and that is that when you get a soupcon of luck and become a little less blurty you're a match for any team. Of course saying that is bigging up the Opsis a fair bit - and in truth we weren't too bad this week - just a few unfortunate choices (I knew 'panacea' so why on earth did I confer? - and getting Thirlmere and Haweswater the wrong way round).

Statswise there were 9 unanswered questions and the lead changed hands 5 times during the course of the match. I didn't keep any individual scoring records but I have the impression that Chara Bernard was the MVP. He certainly answered some key questions. For example knowing that TV was a member of Television. That question had come to me in the first place and I had already said: "Oh! I chose that one because I thought the initials stood for the answer 'television'". When I twigged that 'TV' were the initials of the lately deceased band member I made up a name and handed the slamdunk to Bernard who kindly said to me: "You've already said the answer but didn't realise".

Mac and Double Mac

(R1/Q6)

Quiz paper set by...

...The Electric Pigs

Average Aggregate score 78.5

Another great paper with an average aggregate bang on the money.

Oh yes, I hear you say. He says that every week. Surely some papers are really crap but he doesn't want to upset the setters. It's true I do get the occasional barbed comment about the week's question paper from a correspondent to the website which I suppress (or edit down) for the sake of keeping the peace. Of course such comments invariably come from teams that lost their matches.

Paco's Fonda

(R3-4/Q17)

So what do I really think? I really think that this season we have been spoiled by, week after week, receiving the considered offering of some very expert quizzers who have dazzled us with both ingenuity and erudition. I can't think of a week when the paper set wouldn't fare favourably on a TV show of the calibre of University Challenge (say). It has confirmed my long-held view that answering is easy but the real skill lies in setting. Each week we get a new novel or at least 8 short stories packed into about 2 hours of friendly relaxation and banter. There isn't a week goes by when I don't learn something fresh with a smile on my face. What could be better? Setters - many thanks.

Desert survivors

(R3-4/Q13)

...and this was Mike O'B's view...

As for the quiz itself it was mostly OK with the usual caveat moans about imbalances etc. The Bingo rounds would have been better placed as Rounds 4 and 5 rather than 3 and 4.

Come on Eileen!

(R7/Q1)

...and Damian's...

Needless to say we thoroughly enjoyed tonight's paper from The Pigs. I think the Run-Ons and the two Bingo rounds were our favourites. For QotW I nominate the cricket one about the 'King of Spin' being misprinted for the 'King of Spain' despite the fact that I probably know less about cricket than what constitutes a double number.

Liberal leftie from Yorkshire's alternative town

(R3-4/Q6)

...and James's...

The paper this week was a really well constructed set of questions.

...finally Ivor's twopennyworth...

The Quiz was well-received on the night. We missed the 'Inventor' theme in Round 1 plumping for physicists; after all who can forget Fleming's Right Hand Rule for electromagnetism (or is it Fleming's Left Hand Rule?). Re-reading the paper this morning I can see that there were a good number of potential 'confounder' wrong answers to catch out the unwary, some of which did indeed catch us out. That is definitely a sign of cunning setting. Is Frankie a Pointer Sister hit or a Sister Sledge hit? Is this dead musician from Lynrd Skynrd or Television? Fats Domino or Little Richard? Minnie the Moocher or Little Child? The Selfish Giant or The Little Prince? The best wrong answer was in the Run-on round where Barry’s "His Girl Friday the 13th" was at least as plausible as “It Happened One Nightmare on Elm Street”.

Yarn spinner

(R6/Q7)

Question of the Week

This week Damian took a fancy to Round 6 (Highbrow/Lowbrow Run-ons) Question 7...

Final book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy

Nickname acquired by cricketer Ashley Giles after an infamous spelling mistake on his testimonial merchandise in 2000.

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

Bernie appears to be attached to the Balkans

(R3-4/Q9)

...and also

This week after the match at the Griffin had finished Jane helped me make the draw for the Val Draper Cup competition which starts on March 22nd. The resulting draw is up for all to see on the Fixtures page.

Highlights to note:

The Electric Pigs and the History Men are the 2 teams without a first round bye who must therefore slug it out on March 22nd in Round 1
Ethel Rodin (as the first home team out of the hat for Round 2) have the task of setting the paper for Round 1

Do remember that the cup handicaps as shown on the league table after the final round of league matches on March 15th come into force for all WithQuiz cup matches (Val Draper or The Plate).

...and finally just for you Gary

(R7/Q7)