History Men beat Charabancs

The History Men continue their late season surge against the Charas

Ivor has a Funny Valentine

No doubt we have all had memorable Valentine’s Days.  The first time I sent a card? (1969); the time in Don Camillo’s when we got a table but Michael Atherton didn’t (early 90s)?; receiving a card from the same girl for 33 years (that’s Mrs C)?  Whether a quiz night qualifies as memorable is somewhat unlikely but at least we had the satisfaction of not only a win, but like 'The Head Waiter', of 'coming from behind'.

Tonight our match was against our old friends the Charabancs.  My first blurt (or faux pas) was even before the quiz started when I noticed an extensive resolving bruise on Damian’s forehead and enquired “had he been in the wars?” (I used to be a doctor, you know).  His reply of “Don’t you know what day it is?” left me no wiser and I replied: "It’s Valentine’s Day; did you forget to buy a card?”  Such drollery with references to domestic violence would probably get me cancelled these days.  However the explanation was that it was Ash Wednesday and Damian’s priest was a great believer in rather more substantial smudges of ash in the rite.  We Protestants do not usually have such visible markers of faith, though the Pentecostal Church's full immersion baptism must run it close. 

Anne’s husband Guy was in the QM seat and, as before, was only marginally successful in reducing the overall tenor of the Historymen from raucous to feisty.  Mike B was in attendance and found himself defending the Opsimath paper from an early stage of the proceedings.  Indeed he had to defend himself from Anne before we even started as he had made the unforgivable error of spelling her name “Ann” in previous on-line reports when every quizzer knows “Anne” is a four letter word (this is my last attempt at drollery in the style of Frankie Howerd).

The quiz was certainly challenging with 19 unanswereds and only 11 twos.  Anne and Gerry (good to see him back for a guest appearance for the Charas) were joint 'Jonahs' getting four unanswereds each. Graeme was MVP with 3 twos but still ended up on the losing side.

Damian's day goes from ashes to ashes

Another close one; another near miss for us Charas.  I sat with the mark of Cain on my forehead planning to do murder to our opponents (purely metaphorically of course) but alas, they were just too nice, which completely distracted me from my evil intentions.  Even trying dirty tricks like attempting to persuade Ivor that he couldn't remember whatever it was that he was trying to remember backfired on us in the end.  Nevertheless it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening with plenty of good humour which is only typical of a night's quizzing against our favourite opponents.  

With new boy Bill eventually realising that sitting in the Gateway IN Parrswood was not quite what I meant when I told him we were playing AT The Parrswood, the History Men introducing their new QM, Opsi Mike observing proceedings and our former Captain Gerry making a rare comeback appearance for us, we did find the paper a bit of a toughie with perhaps a tad too much 'modern' content for a bunch of old farts like us.  Nonetheless we kept pace with our rivals with the lead changing hands several times.  We went into the final round two points ahead and were cautiously optimistic but, as so often happens with us, the questions in the final round did not suit us at all and we scored just 2 points (courtesy of Gerry) to our opponents' 6 including two steals from us.  Sorry Sam, we'll keep on trying to fail better! 

(R6/Q1)

Manc Alumni MPs all

(Round 5)