Electric Pigs lost to Ethel Rodin

Ethel keep on flying at the top

James looks over his shoulder at a quizzing rival near to home

An eleven point winning margin doesn’t give the right impression of tonight’s quiz.  Scores were level at the end of R6, and it had been nip and tuck up until then, with Guy, in particular, keeping the Pigs right in the game.

Ethel only opened up that margin with scores of 7-3 and 7-0 in the final two rounds when the questions did seem to become more straightforward - at least for us. We probably had the rub of the green with the questions in those two rounds, but did also pick up 5 bonuses.  It was slow progress though until then with what seemed like several rounds of ‘guess the poet’.

Brave to ask the 'France/Brazil border question' without any caveats.  It is a bit of a quizzer’s old chestnut, but a little harsh if you took the question literally.  I immediately wrote down 'Canada' for the Norway question, and we then talked ourselves out of it for 2 minutes before saying "Sweden".  If the answer to the 'France' question was 'Brazil' it was obviously going to be something unlikely.

Roddy was very disappointed in himself for accidentally combining two seminal Miles Davis albums as "Birth of the Blue".

... and away from this week's quiz fray you might all like to know about Ethel's Geoff Hammond ...

After his stroke last year, Geoff had another collapse over Christmas, and is currently still an in-patient in MRI.  Roddy assured us that Geoff has retained his mischievous sense of humour and could still answer any question about Notts County you might care to fire at him.  I’m sure all WithQuizzers would want to wish him the best for a speedy recovery.

... and finally in other quiz news ...

I suspect a few might have noticed Mrs W making the brave decision to appear on Alumni University Challenge over Christmas (for various reasons, I hesitate to describe it as Celebrity University Challenge).

On balance, it’s fair to say that she did very well, and her team from Kings College, London, won their match comfortably, albeit a few points short of the score needed to qualify for the next round.

If only she’d paid attention to my WithQuiz question on the birds and animals on the new coins a week earlier ...  That said, it was an entertaining show, and they retired unbeaten and so were able effectively to navigate the careful path between looking a bit stupid, and appearing cockily over-clever.  Happily, I don’t think there are plans for her to muscle into Ethel's WithQuiz team any time soon!

Hans off our island

(R1/Q6)

History Men beat KFD

The History Men move into top gear with a famous victory over the champs

Ivor enjoys his moment in the sun

Our victory in the Lowly Grail quarter final in November (after six consecutive league losses) has proved to be the turning point in our fortunes.  Tonight was our third league victory in a row and against opposition that over the last two decades usually dispatches us with ease.  Our 11 point margin of victory was not quite as good as the 15 point margin some years ago (we still dine out on that story) but wins against KFD have been so uncommon that I hope readers will forgive us our 'celebration in the sun'.  It is possible victory was due to us getting into our lucky seats, or the right questions falling to the right quizzers, or (for once) zigging instead of zagging better than KFD (who plumped for the wrong answer of both the Marx/Engels and Macbeth/Lady Macbeth pairs).  It also helped that every Historyman (and woman) were on top form with 3 twos each, no blurts and great rescues for ones and steals (KFD conceded 9 steals to our 3).  Martin, of course, was the match MVP (some things NEVER change…).

We had Albert’s Jeremy in the QM seat and thus were able to indulge in the side quiz of 'Who set THAT round?'.  As mentioned before the Albert have a very democratic and enjoyable setting moderation lunch where each setter's work is marked and either accepted, or condemned to be a spare question, or not used at all.  Thus the expected round on proper music waits in the shadows but Jeremy thinks it will eventually see the light of day. How different from the Historymen setting routine where the only requirement is: “Is it a question with only one answer” and it falls to the editor to turn the motley collection of porcine sense organs into Chanel handbags.