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Bards beat History Men
The History Men drop their women - and their
points
 Ivor
goes all philosophical ...
Here we are, back for our 22nd season in the WQL.
Einstein once defined madness as doing the same
thing time and time again but expecting a different
outcome. He undeniably knew a lot about time
but perhaps he knew less about the strange ways of
quizzers. We have finished second in the
league on two occasions and thus think that with
just one more heave we might make it to the top.
Sadly our efforts are starting to resemble those of
Sisyphus and his boulder (now there's a Greek mythic
character who should be the patron of aspiring
quizzers). To improve our chances we decided
this week to follow the example of Agamemnon and 'do
an Iphigenia' so we sacrificed not only Anne but
also Vanessa. Sadly despite an all-male
Historymen team the result was still a terrible
trouncing by the Bards (btw fellow-quizzers should
not worry unduly as our Iphigenias have also been
rescued by Artemis and will be back). This
week saw the elevation of Steve and Rupert from our
(very small) subs bench.
A 19 point margin of defeat is quite something.
If we were to grumble (and we never do that) we
could lament that Young David lost the toss and we
ended up playing second. Although we might
grumble (and we never do) we copped it for the
unanswered questions (3-7 against us). But in
truth the Bards were just better in all departments:
more twos (9-4), more steals (7-2) and altogether a
sterling performance compared to the pathetic effort
I observed from the QM seat last week.
There was of course nothing wrong with the questions
at all. As Mike O’B mentioned last week it is
the current stuff that catches us out (does anyone
go to the cinema these days?). Even our
knowledge of myths was challenged (though Young
David saved us there). We were slow to spot
the themes (even the current cricketers despite - as
retirees - having the luxury of watching the tests
live). And my personal contribution to our score
would have not got off the ground without the 'gimme'
for seat four: the question that was as easy as
ABC. Kieran might complain about easy questions but
when you have been battered more times than a fish
in a Glasgow chippy in previous rounds it is balm to
the soul (or sole?).
Up in smoke for the last time
(R4/Q2)
Charabancs lost to KFD
KFD get back to winning ways
 Kieran
celebrates a nicely ticking over KFD machine ...
The assiduous reader of these late night witterings
will know that our man at one or the other end of
the Panama Canal often appears as the Lowestoft Ben
Duckett due to his habit of smiting his first
question for a maximum and then going off on one à
la Jos Buttler or indeed Ben Duckett. Also he
hails from Lowestoft as well as a clutch of other
so-so towns in the south east of England. Well
tonight Baz kept Bazball on a pretty short leash,
eschewing the fireworks, giving nothing away to the
opposition but laying the groundwork for the middle
order.
'Big' loss?
(R6/Q6)
Enter the Didsbury Joe Root. A statement
performance from even younger Thomas, nudging and
nurdling from the start with ones and a hefty input
in KFD's trademark conferring huddle (which was
working a treat), keeping our scoring ticking over
at an impressive rate and lighting up proceedings
with a perfectly placed two here and there.
This is Thomas's third full season with the KFD
first team squad and, along with being a reliable
points scorer off his own bat, he covers a lot of
gaps in knowledge for the rest of us: pretty much
anything that's happened in the last thirty years.
Speaking of KFD academy graduates it looks like
young Liam© may be ready to return
to the fray come the new year which is just as well
since David is buggering off to New Zealand for a
month or more and ... more of that later, maybe.
Just as the season has got going we now have the
'governing body mandated' two week break without
even the sideshow of ill-tempered trench warfare in
the courtroom to distract us as the (non existent)
league subscription fees get trousered by m'learned
friends. Unless, that is, Mike is about to
indict one of our number for smuggling an extra
packet of crisps into the losers' round or
surreptitiously supplying an on-form team member
with a 'hollow legs' - looking at you again Thomas.
If things get to that stage then HH J Hammond will
try to keep some sort of order, natch.
I might look friendly but my pen's awfully sharp
(R1/Q6)
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So good they named her twice
(R1/Q7)
Albert beat Opsimaths
A thumping win lifts Albert to the top of the
table
 The
Sun in October was just not shining for Howell ...
Something of a disaster for
the Opsimaths with a poor showing from across the
team. Just 5 two-pointers for us (while Albert
got 11) - and 3 of them were in the final 2 rounds.
Mike O'B kept good order
throughout and if the paddle of rebuke was in the
building it was securely confined to its bag. We
only managed to draw Round 7 and lost the
remainder.
Our new recruit Tehmeena
settled in well and seemed to enjoy the evening, but
it was just a night when names too frequently were
almost but not quite there.
'D' for Dreadful
(R6/Q5)
 ...
to which Albert's Grumpster-in-chief adds ...
Before
I proceed with the report I wish to take issue with
the foul slur printed by the editor of this newsheet
last week. He used the word 'happy' in
relation to me. This is a blatant attempt to
undermine the entire philosophical and ethical basis
of The Albert quiz team. Backstabbing,
conspiratorial, cowardly, divisive - yes.
'Happy' NEVER!
This was an entertaining quiz because despite some
overlong questions it did contain a lot of
entertaining information - on top of which the
'Connections' round was an innovative tweak.
The score indicates that the questions suited The
Albert more than The Opsis and, certainly they did
appear to get a good proportion of the more awkward
topics. Once again our star was our new
player, Ian. He has played an important part
in our excellent start to the season (ED: which
might make you just a little happy maybe?).
Big Ron - the ups and downs of football
(R5/Q3)
Prodigals beat Ethel Rodin
The Prods win this battle of the giants to go
second
 A
Doctor writes in
...
Ethel were apprehensive ahead of this match: a
combination of playing the Prodigals (on their day the
best team in the league and usually victorious
against us) and having a quiz set by The Electric Pigs
(a team where, as proven by last week’s scores, the
Venn diagram of common knowledge with Ethel's troops
suggests a quiz that wouldn’t play to our
strengths). And so it proved.
Annoyingly, the final deficit was pretty much
established by the middle of Round 2, so, despite
most of the rest of the quiz being fairly evenly
matched,
victory always seemed well out of reach.
What's more it was a bad toss to lose: all 3 unanswered questions
came to Ethel, we were sitting in the wrong seats
for the subjects that came up,
and (of course) we knew far more of their answers than our own.
The usual excuses I hear you say …. plus there was occasional uneven pairing.
We could have got close on a good day, but it
was a fair result in the end. The Prods are a good team
and
Richard’s mythology knowledge was particularly
helpful on this occasion.
The 'baker’s cyst' question fell to the wrong player. Greg said
"Bursitis", which I suppose wasn’t wrong anatomically
(just as our answer about the narrow gauge railways:
"Not linked to the main network", wasn’t right, but
wasn’t wrong either).
Perfectly formed City
Centre boozer between a Vine and a Waterhouse
(R4/Q6)
With a few medical questions, non-medical setters
don’t always know whether an answer is
mainstream or small-print (would
anyone other than a doctor know?). Having said
that the 'Sartorius' question was one of very few bonuses to come
over to us. The Sartorius is known as ‘the Tailor’s muscle’
(hence the word 'sartorial' from tailors
traditionally sitting cross-legged as they sew). This
anatomical knowledge has been of zero clinical
value to me professionally, whereas knowing about
‘the Honeymoon Muscle’ (a muscle that causes abduction and
lateral rotation at the hip joint, a critical
action for an altogether different activity) has
been quite useful!
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Quiz paper set by...
...
Electric Pigs
Average Aggregate score 72.8
I was
on the Opsi's voluminous bench this week (we have a
rotating squad of 8 at the moment) so I took myself
to the Albert Club where Stella promptly offered me
QM duties for the Prods v Ethel encounter.
As
MOBO says above, there were a few over-wordy
questions, but plenty of innovative material to
interest the brains. The evening started with
a long ponder by both teams on how far various
London-based football league teams were from St
Paul's. Not many points gained on this opening
Round 1 pair but loads of interesting conferring as
the competitors drew imaginary mental maps.
A
good evening's work from the Pigs and a very healthy
average aggregate score well into the 70s.
'Mr Church'
(R8/Q2)
a ...
so what did Howell make of the
paper...
I'm not sure that going first
with this paper made a huge difference. The 10
questions that were unanswered split 4-6 in favour
of the Opsis, but there seemed to be a few more
straightforward opportunities going to Albert than
us. The questions seemed pretty fair to me and
I thought the connections round with 3 consecutive
letters in each answer was nicely crafted.
I don't mind paired rounds but
I prefer the paired questions to be further away
from each other. For instance our team guessed
wrongly that 'Liechtenstein' was the one of the
answers for the first of the 'anthems without words'
and so it was a bit irritating to see that
'Liechtenstein' was the answer to the paired
question. In truth I never heard the
Litshensteiners (or whatever they are called)
singing on 11th October 2008 at the World Cup
qualifier before Wales swept them away 2-0 but, with
hindsight, perhaps the booing from an admittedly
sparse Welsh crowd may have drowned out the turgid
tune of their anthem, let alone their singing of it.
... and James' summary?
Relatively high aggregate score. Decent themes and
ideas.
Reasons to be thankful
(R1/Q3)
... and Kieran was pretty happy ...
A thoroughly entertaining evening supplied by the
Pigs who have delivered the best papers of the
season for a few years now. I might quibble
that something could not be described as unusual
when thirty five other instances are cited in the
question but that didn't put anyone off. Good to
see that the porkers have acted on Guy's urging and
embraced "this classical bollocks" in the form of
the mythology round. All the Piggie standards
were in the paper - nothing was more certain than
that we'd start with a lower league football club
and end (in the spares) in Coventry, stopping along
the way to take in Councillor Simcock's niche
interest in niche local transport.
Question of the Week
This week I've chosen the highly evocative Question
3 in Round 1 ...
Butterton, in the Staffordshire Moorlands part of the Peak
District, is one of only fourteen doubly thankful villages.
What does this mean?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
...and
also
If
any of you are at a loose end this coming Saturday
(October 19th - 7.30pm onwards) there's a
Quiz/Auction evening at the Albert Club in aid of
FOLLA (the Friends of Lapwing Lane Arcade).
It's
now ten years since the local community restored
this fine old shopping arcade opposite West Didsbury
tram stop - and turned it back from a rotting hulk
into the beautiful wrought iron structure that it
was back in the 1910s.
Electric Pig, Andrew Simcock, is acting as
auctioneer for the evening and I'll be setting the
quiz questions. Tickets at £5 a head are on
sale at the Lapwing Deli on the Arcade, but you
should be able to buy one on the door on the evening
as well.
Could I be 'FED' and return whence I came?
(R7/Q5)
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