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Opsimaths lost to Albert
Albert coast to victory - and to second place in the table
 Ashton
welcomes back Sunny Mike
The
Albert team were pleased to welcome back our skipper last night,
albeit in a spectating role, even if his sunny demeanour left us
rather discomfited. What had he been up to in his weeks away
to give rise to such a sea-change in mood? Mike seems to be
spending much of his time at the University these days - if he's not
invigilating for those students who require comfort animals and
sensory rooms to do exams, he's being poked and prodded by budding
optometrists. It all seems to be doing him plenty of good,
even if catching a 6am bus this morning to play guinea pig at Junior
Specsavers wouldn't be everyone's idea of fun.
Our
occasional new player Ian was on form again last night, but I took
most pleasure in the fact that there were a number of instances
where Eveline knew the answer to one of Jeremy's questions. Such
occasions are one of the highlights of playing in the Albert team,
as her gleeful hand waggles nearly taking his eye out. If only
we knew where to access free eyecare ...
Unfinished business in NY City
(R1/Q2)
 Mike
reflects on the dawn of a new Opsimaths
The visitors were worthy winners by 17 points in our convivial (©
Rachael) encounter in the back lounge at the Club. Ian,
Jeremy, Eveline and Ashton tripped through the points overseen by
their own Amorim - he of the 'Paddle' (for which there was no call
this time round).
In the other corner the home team had - for the most part - an
agreeably social but relatively pointless evening. After the
match as we discussed one of the questions we got wrong one of our
visitors gently mocked us with a "well the way you're playing this
season, it wouldn't have made much difference if you had got it
right!". Palpably true but, nevertheless, it did hurt.
Half our usual weekly points tally went with our lost Nick, and
quite a proportion of the rest has been enjoying sunny holidays not
to mention frequent Goodison outings as Howell makes the most of his
retirement (not to mention his Who Wants To Be A Millionnaire
winnings).
Last night I was due to QM, and Brian due to play, but Brian had a
funeral earlier in the day and was a tad over-imbibed, so he asked
me to swap with him. Despite my receding memory, hearing and
judgement I did manage to rack up over a third of our points.
Charlotte earned a good deal of the rest. Paul clearly fills
some of our knowledge area gaps and was hot on the TV picture round.
He is definitely going to be an asset once he has got used to the
WithQuiz process ("not like a regular pub quiz, is it?" was an
observation he made during the evening).
Just not Good Enough
(R4/Q2)
A couple of weeks ago I had a chat with Martin (KFD) who's also
suffering from receding hearing. We were both finding a major
problem is the tendency to snatch upon any key word in the question
text we could get and assume we knew what the answer was going to
be. So, last night I knew we were looking for Cathedral
cities, heard the names of some WW2 planes in the question and
darted to "Lancaster" without stopping to make sure I'd heard ALL
the question and had had a good think about the facts. Wrong!
Charlotte had bounced into the Club at the start of the evening on a
palpable high. She and her two mates have passed the Only
Connect audition and are due to film in the summer. They
might call themselves 'The Mancunians' but have yet to decide.
In the quizzing breaks we helped Charlotte by reviewing the
memorable weird facts about herself which all Connecters are obliged
to spill at the start of the show. Something about the late
Queen's corgis was in there but you'll have to wait and see.
Anyway, the Opsis are still alive and kicking. There's only
one direction of travel and we're on the journey.
The Idiot Bird
(R6/Q5)
Charabancs beat Bards
The Charas get use to winning, moving level on points with last
season's champs
 42a
or 42b? Damian has a choice of buses for once
These days victories are rather like buses for the Charas. You
wait ages for one and then two turn up in short order but, hey,
we're not complaining. With our usual quiz room out of bounds
due to some damage to one of the walls caused apparently by a
colliding vehicle in the week since we last played there, we
repaired to the pool room formerly known to us as our Quiet Room;
'Quiet' since it enabled us to avoid the seemingly endless
progression of Man City fixtures. At least that was the case
until somebody decided it would look so much nicer with a great big
pool table hogging most of the space but we managed to arrange
ourselves around it whilst QM Jane duly raised her voice so it would
reach each of our respective corners.
The
last time we played the Bards we enjoyed a slight lead most of the
way until we got wiped out in the final round. On this
occasion we established a bigger lead in the first half so that by
the time the Bards inevitably began to narrow the gap in the second
half, the dreaded last round in which we scored just two points
couldn't deny us our victory.
'C'
for Cheers from 'D' for Damian!
Fountain of Youth (1)
(R2/Q4)
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From Anglican to Catholic Saint
(R1/Q4)
History Men beat Elecric Pigs
The History Men consolidate their 5th place with a win at The
Parrswood
 Ivor
mulls over a close encounter
Tonight we faced the challenge from our old friends the Electric
Pigs. We first encountered them not in the League, but in the
Gerry Hennessey/Barry Whitehead Monday night table-top quiz at the
Red Lion in the late 1980s. That is 35 years ago - half a
lifetime according to the Good Book. I am sure we have changed
a bit since then but our competitive spirit remains and our appetite
for challenging questions and modest amounts of liquor is
undiminished.
Youthful Peace
(R2/Q8)
The match was nip and tuck for most of the way and our win was due
to a superior steal rate (7-4). As last week we had the luxury of a
lead going into the last round but unlike last week there was no
inexplicable brain failures on 'easy' questions ('easy' = the ones
we know the answers to). Anne had decided (possibly after last
week’s horror) that Seat 4 was not for her so she took up Seat 2
which, as all our quizzers know, gets such easy questions that KFD
Martin regularly gets 6 or more twos without having to break sweat.
Unfortunately only one two-pointer was achieved alongside two
blurts. Though to be fair (aren’t I always?) one of those was
"Wayne Rooney" as the youngest England player, which he once was.
Anne was also peerless on identifying airplane manufacturers, for
which Airfix modelling and family interests in the 60s and 70s had
left an indelible impression. Andrew Pig, also in Seat 2, was
tonight’s MVP with 4 twos, and has nominated his cathedral question
(R7 Q4) as the QotW.
Where the Girls used to play - Nice!
(R1/Q7)
Ethel Rodin beat Prodigals
A memorable run comes to an end as Ethel win by a sizeable margin
 James
celebrates a famous win - but wonders about handicaps
What a topsy-turvy season it’s been for Ethel Rodin! Several
teams that we have consistently beaten over several years have done
the double over us this year and the law of averages has certainly
been against us of late. But tonight, against nearly all the
odds, we managed to beat the new league champions who had gone
unbeaten all season so far. And not only did we beat them, but
we beat them by 11 points, with the highest score of the night.
To top this we left half a dozen points on the table due to blurts
and team conferences that took us away from the right answers.
Fashion in the Park
(R1/Q1)
So, our first win for ages. Even if we win all the rest, I
doubt we’ll rise any further up the table.
I do have an observation about the current Cup handicap calculation
system ...
With a current league situation of 'Played 14, W4, D1, L9: 9 points'
we have a Cup handicap of -1, whereas The Bards ('Played 14, W8, L6:
16 points') have a Cup handicap of, errm, 0.
I appreciate that it’s based on points scored etc., but the system
does seem to be heading towards a very odd outcome here!
 Anne-Marie
is philosophical but has a warning for the rest of us
Our luck
finally ran out!
We had to get
Mark Bassett out of retirement as Richard was away filming UC.
However it wouldn't have made a difference; we were beaten by the
better team tonight - and Mark played beautifully. At least we
didn't need to buy the drinks for once!
Good news
though: Michael Taylor is coming back to Manchester!
Bisset by Anson
(R7/Q8)
 Jimmy
is his usual magnanimous self
No
complaints. The best team won hands down. With Richard
stuck in the studio helping produce the next series of University
Challenge, it was great to welcome back Mark Bassett after a
nine year hiatus in the quizzing wilderness. The prodigal has
returned and enjoyed his free pint along with the rest of us - for
once (it's been an expensive season being a Prodigal in other weeks!).
Onwards and upwards.
Fountain of Youth (2)
(R2/Q3)
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Quiz paper set by...
...
KFD
Average Aggregate score
78.8
A most enjoyable
paper with good scores all round. A nice blend of themes and
ideas.
Particular praise
from the Opsis for the Picture Round which hit just the right spot
and should have been accessible to all our quizzers. Also
plaudits for Round 4 ('A Night at the Opera') which sounded
complicated when introduced by the QM but was easy to follow and had
the advantage of being accessible even to those with limited
knowledge of opera. Just right.
Finally thanks to
this week's setters for a reminder in Round 8 of some of the
extraordinary Mancunian architecture to be found in the unassuming
suburb of Whalley Range: the outrageously ornate red Italian-style
terracotta facade of St Bede's College and the similar terracotta
features of nearby Hartley Hall, both on Alexandra Road are capped
just a short distance away by the Gothic revival masterpiece that is
now the British Islamic Heritage Centre.
The architectural richness of Whalley Range
(R8/Q6)
...
and what was Damian's verdict ...
We enjoyed tonight's paper by KFD which played to our respective
strengths again - like last week. I think going first seemed
to confer a slight advantage. In Round 1 we thought it a bit
odd to simply tell us that the round had a theme without either
announcing it or just saying it was hidden - but it didn't spoil the
fun in any way. Nice variety, nice themes - although it did
prompt me to try and recall the NATO phonetic alphabet better, as I
can never seem to remember all the letters no matter how hard I try.
There is one honourable exception to this since 'T' for Tango will
always be emblazoned on my mind; former Chara Graham (known to his
team mates from that point on as 'Tizer' Boy) managed to blurt the
wrong soft drink to a NATO alphabet related question.
...
and Ashton's thoughts ...
A strong set from KFD. We liked the fact that the hidden theme
rounds were not overly convoluted or obscure. The Scottish islands
round was our favourite. Speaking of UK geography, we are
setting in a couple of weeks' time and, fair warning, the round on
an English county will be a making a comeback. No clues as to
which though, so get mugging up on all forty-eight (minus the
handful we've already done).
Lebanese lipsmacker
(R6/Q7)
...
James was pretty complimentary ...
A very accessible quiz; we counted 2 unanswered questions in the
whole quiz (and in fact we had discussed and rejected the correct
answers to both of these as well).
The Scottish islands theme was perhaps a little too easy, maybe?
The answer to Question 1 'Mulligatawny was only ever going to be
related to a theme of either Scottish Islands or owls - and hiding
‘long-eared’ and ‘short-eared’ into a round would seem a bit of a
stretch, so islands it had to be.
The pictures were all very well known, although unbelievably, Greg
has never watched Band of Brothers. The mosaic artist
did a better job predicting how Derek Jacobi would age than the I
Claudius make up artists.
Only one slight moan: the 'Alpha Centauri' question. The
nearest solar system to the earth, is, as a statement of fact, the
solar system of our own sun - but we assumed that wasn’t what was
meant. When the Prodigals went for the answer 'Proxima
Centauri', and it wasn’t allowed, we talked ourselves out of
stealing it by giving the answer 'Alpha Centauri'. There’s
probably a bit too much ambiguity about what counts as a star and
what counts as a system when it comes to the three-star Centauri
system.
On the plus side, however, and bearing in mind the slight cathedral
controversy of a few months ago, KFD’s cathedrals were properly
defined!
...
finally Ivor has plenty of praise ...
KFD produced an excellent paper tonight. Plenty of variety and
novelty, and not a single Bingo or Pick Your Own (awful) question.
The unannounced themes were so well constructed that the two hardest
questions in R1 were gettable when the theme was cracked (who would
have thought a writer got the Croix de Guerre?).
The first questions in a round often confounded; in R5 we thought we
were looking at mythical creatures and had Saskatchewan as the
province to follow centaur. The opera questions that are often
considered too erudite for a general knowledge quiz were constructed
beautifully with the second route into an answer so that even we
Philistines had a fighting chance to shine.
The Picture Round was also well received though some of us have a
poor visual memory and others have watched so much rubbish that it
addles our brains. I suspect all of the shows appear in a 'Top
50 of All Time'; Anne’s blurt of Nurse Jackie probably
doesn't, and fortunately Young David recognised the wall in Game
of Thrones despite never watching an episode - unlike me who
binge-watched all 72 episodes last year without paying any attention
to the intro.
The questions also suited the more mature quizzer - but not always.
We should try to keep more up to date. There was a time when
Brian Close was the youngest England cricketer, but no longer.
Maybe in the future the national food and drink of Lebanon will be
McDonald’s and Coke - perhaps quite soon if the Orange Oracle has
his way
Ely cathedral with its famous octagonal lantern
(R7/Q4)
Question of
the Week
This week Andrew gets to choose and he rather liked Round 7 Question
4 ...
In Greek mythology,
what was the final resting place for Greek heroes? It gives
its name to a famous thoroughfare in Paris.
(either the English or the French name is
acceptable)
For the answer to
this and all the week's other questions click
here.
A Nobel & Cross old playwright
(R1/Q8)
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