Withington Pub Quiz League - Quizbiz 09/10/24

Great starts for Ethel, Albert and the Prods whilst the Opsis scrape past KFD at the Griffin

Electric Pigs lost to Ethel Rodin

Prodigals beat Charabancs

KFD lost to Opsimaths

Albert beat Bards

That barking French-born Hollywood star question did us yet again

(R3/Q3)

Electric Pigs lost to Ethel Rodin

The biggest victory margin of the evening (19 points) goes to Ethel

James comments ...

A lot of the subject matter played heavily to Ethel’s strengths. It was a good toss to lose and the Pigs choosing to go first did get a slightly tougher set than we did with unanswereds breaking 4-1 to the Pigs. However, the steals went 7-4 to Ethel so that evened out. Then it boiled down to the twos, which is what made the difference.

A couple of blurts (Galapagos for Cayman, and California for Florida) but these days Ethel are (is?) in the Bazball zone; if you’re going to flash, flash hard; and that has proved a far more successful formula than uncertain hesitancy.

Dame Jean Brodie in her Prime

(R1/Q1)

Prodigals beat Charabancs

A steady start to the season for the red-hot Prods

Damian reports on a new look Charas

We kicked off the new season with a new line-up of Charabancs (Chara Bill being promoted from the subs bench to full member of the squad to replace the departed Graham) and, despite the lop-sided score in favour of our opponents, we thought we performed fairly well with each of us scoring twos and conferring successfully on a lot of questions but just not enough compared to our opponents who opened up the season on red hot form steadily increasing their lead after each round.

Nonetheless it was an enjoyable evening as always in the company of Anne-Marie and her crew.

... meanwhile back at the Garricka

(R7/Q1)

Albert beat Bards

Albert top score on their first outing

Mike looks happy for once

This contest was closer than the final score suggests. At half tine it was 21 all and it wasn't until Round 6 that we established a decisive lead, winning it by 9 points to 2.

We started the evening minus the 2 'J's: Jeremy and Jullien, both busy sunning themselves in various parts of the world. Ashton brought along his friend Ian who turned out to be the star performer of the evening. In fact Ian is soon to feature on Mastermind so look out for him.

Scilly Shovell

(R5/Sp2)

KFD lost to Opsimaths

A good start to 2024/25 for the Opsis - sadly now Nickless

O, No! It's Kieran ...

"Here we are again, happy as can be........." well up to a point Lord Copper. The point being half time when we were all reasonably happy with the fare on offer so far. Four rounds despatched briskly, plenty of points scored by both teams and all overseen by a fully hatted Bob in fine form on his return to his manor. Yes there was Ivor's inexplicable fondness for all sorts of tedious royals living, dead, assassinated and desiccated. I mean Fag Ash Lil (known as Camilla Parker Bowles when she's not performing) merits being the basis of a (badly positioned) quiz question? Really? I suppose the Coronation was sort of a thing if that's what you're into. I remember having the TV on while I was doing the ironing and then turning it off half way through and going out to the City game. Ho hum.

WA's setonix

(R6/Q7)

And then in the second half the questions got longer, the time taken to confer even longer and the scoring slowed and slowed some more. 'The Beatles' Wives' round was OK but the clever, clever trap laid in the last pair, into which I careered headlong, left me feeling suckered. Fair play to the Opsis for knowing the original surname of the second Mrs. Harrison (actually they knew the name of the Aussie gongs) but the fair pair would then have concerned the current Mrs. McCartney. OK, I can't think of a question where Shevell could be part of the answer but such is the lot of the setter who embarks on a themed round. Alternatively Yoko could have been pushed higher up the order, it's somehow not as galling when the opposition gets a gimme on question 2 or 4 rather than right at the end of the round. Anyway the Japanese muse made the difference between the two sides come the end of the evening, one more thing to blame her for.

Anything else? The 'Lowesoft Ben Duckett' despatched his first question of the season for a maximum in no time at all, a tradition almost as old as our team. Never, ever change Barry, you're just too good at this quiz lark, though not tonight obviously.

The Living Room wasn't super heated, the Opsis were good company (and an excellent quiz team), post match we nattered about Scotland, the 'Labour' government and Norwich. More of that later.... maybe.

And we lost, Same as it ever was.

Michael Thomas' 1989 moment

(R1/Q5)

Mike braved Fortress Griffin and came away unscathed ...

It was good to be back even though our peerless Nick is no longer leading off in Seat 1. Howell was on cracking form, Grandson Joe weighed in with some of his trademark geography certainties and Emma showed how useful a stay in Australia had been with her Quokkas and her Arias - not to mention her Tank Girl.

My main contribution seemed to be deafness which is an increasing concern even in quite secluded environments such as the Griffin. Whenever my colleagues tried to confer with me they had to whisper loud enough for the barmaid in the other room to hear. Oh dear!

Keeping the home fires burning

(R2/Q1)

I spent an age trying - unsuccessfully - to remember Woolton Pie (yum, yum - I'm an immediate post-war baby you see) but did slot in one or two useful answers during the evening. My finest moment, however, came with Yoko. I was in Seat 4 and the arrival of Ms Ono in Round 5 had been keenly anticipated for a good 10 minutes. Indeed KFD had thought she had arrived with the Arias (Emma put them right on that count). As soon as I heard Bob pronounce the words "What acronym ..." I pounced. Perhaps the easiest question I'm likely to get this side of St Peter inquiring whether I'd like to enter.

It was a very cheerful evening with some fine quizzers and an unexpected early season victory for the Opsis.

Quiz paper set by...

... The History Men

Average Aggregate score 75.5

Good in patches was our verdict at the Griffin - and, as Kieran says above, most of the patches were in the first half. The 'Ono' answer was so well signposted as to be virtually impossible to get wrong.

No matter we're off and running and thanks to Ivor and gang for getting us underway.

Mummy

(R7/Q5)

... so what did Mike O'B make of the paper...

The paper was interesting in that it featured a high proportion of questions relating to current events. If nothing else it served to show how quickly we forget about things which have happened recently. There were very few unanswered questions and the aggregate score suggests it was fair but then we won so we would say that wouldn't we?

... and Damian's verdict?

We used to do well on Historymen questions and things started off promisingly for us but, alas, became trickier as time went on. We enjoyed the themes and managed to guess the hidden ones correctly but got misled on the 'Beatles' Wives' round looking for a John Lennon song that came between his two posthumous chart hits and were left scratching our heads as to how There's No One Quite Like Grandma fitted the theme. We enjoyed the 'Round the World' questions but thought that the 'Oceania' ones might better have been described as 'Australasia' ones given that each answer seemed to be located there ignoring the much vaster area that comprises that region and thus rendering our search for more Pacific-wide solutions ultimately rather pointless. We also feel we should contact the Levellers and ask why they dedicated a song about the Chernobyl disaster to Belarus rather than the country most affected by it, i.e. Ukraine. Nonetheless it was still passed over for a correct guess by Prodigal Richard thus illustrating the expanding gap between what he and his team knew and we didn't.

... finally James sums up ...

Credit to the Historymen-and-women for a stimulating and interesting set of questions. Mind you I suppose they’ve had a while to set them, but they were all well constructed rounds and an aggregate of 75 was about right.

Can’t think of any controversial questions or unevenly matched pairs - except perhaps ONO/ARIA in Round 5. There was lots of interesting information and some well-worked themes. Nothing felt too contrived. Well curated Historypeeps.

Surf Olympique

(R8/Q3)

Question of the Week

This week at the Griffin Martin thought Round 8 (the Olympics) Question 5 hid a rather juicy fact so that's this week's choice ...

Which is the most populous country in the world never to have won an Olympic medal despite appearing in 11 summer games so far?

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

...and also

Peripatetic WithQuizzer Gerry Collins is on his travels again. He's been statue spotting in Trieste and sent this message ...

"You can always spot an Irishman in Trieste by the glib look of self satisfaction on his face...."

"Bejasus I've got the hay saved and I'm near enough gettin' that feckin' Finnegan's Wake finished and it's not even Halloween yet."