|
No change in the table as the
Prods, the History Men, the Charas and Ethel all notch up victories
WithQuiz WhatsApp Group set up
; see
...and also
below |
Bards lost to Prodigals
KFD lost to History Men
Ethel Rodin beat Electric Pigs
Opsimaths lost to Charabancs
Latest WithQuiz League Table |
|
KFD lost to History Men
The ever-improving History Men steal a win at the Griffin
 Ivor
dreams of fourth place and next season in Europe
The Griffin is usually a hothouse at all times of the year but
fortunately the thermostat seems to have been reset in a southerly
direction. Whether this reflects the price of gas (blame Putin,
Trump or Reeves) or environmental concerns (blame Milliband,
Attenborough or the Swedish Doom Goblin) it was nonetheless
appreciated, especially by those Historymen who are not actually
men. This also prevented our brains from overheating and
generating bizarre answers or blurts, which is a relative rarity for
us.
Wins against KFD are uncommon, though we did our best to lose,
squandering a six point half time lead and going into the last round
33-33. Luckily the questions broke in our favour when KFD’s
Young Thomas was dealt one about 1970s TV whereas Historyman Anne
seems well informed about actresses whose genre does not seem to
feature at the Oscar’s ceremony.
Survived a 'Squeaky' moment
(R1/Q1)
Our victory also makes the last game of the season rather exciting
for the chasing pack as well. Were we to beat the Albert next
week we would get up to third place which would be our best finish
since the Noughties. If we lose, we remain fifth and the Bards
stay fourth for the last Champion’s League place.
Tonight was also notable as it was the last time we played Barry in
a league contest (though it is possible we will meet him in the Cup
depending on results). Since we joined the league in 2002 we
must have done battle over 50 times with Barry, always in Seat 1,
and almost always getting KFD off to a flying start. Of course
he is only going to Norfolk and it has been observed that the
Norwich-Liverpool train with advance booking makes it well in reach
for surprise appearances. But we are all guaranteed at least
one further appearance as Barry (spoiler alert) will be setting the
questions and acting as QM for our end-of-term celebration at the
Albert Club. We hope it will be a Festschrift celebrating
Barry as quizzer and setter of some renown.
MP and beacon begetter
(R6/Q5)
 Kieran
tells how things perked up after half time
The
evening did not begin in a promising way. The Griffin was
making a bid to be considered the new Stadium of Murk when we were
served pints which would have required a knife and fork to consume.
Barrel changed and drinks replaced we settled ourselves on our bench
in the Living Room, eagerly awaiting the coming entertainment.
Embar-rassing couple
(R7/Q1)
Since my De Profundis on the subject of bingo rounds we've
won every one of them and we continued that run. The seemingly
unpromising material of interesting things about Somerset yielded
the highest scoring round of the quiz and a different, more engaging
mind appeared to have taken over the editor's chair following the
dire first 4 rounds.
The
second half fairly ripped along with a total of 42 points scored and
only 2 unanswered (both falling the way of the History Men).
It ended up being a great contest with the outcome not decided until
Ivor exorcised his demons from our first meeting, joyfully slotting
home the winning two on the penultimate question. Ivor was
also the night's Jonah so he had the complete WithQuiz experience.
His only failing was a total blind spot regarding Graham Greene.
Greene converted to Catholicism as an adult so maybe it's not a
surprise that he's been cancelled by the History Men's leading
history man.
When we last won the league two seasons back, we had four one point
victories, one by three points and one by a ridiculously comfortable
four; 12 league points gained by a combined margin of just 11 points
over 6 games. This season our five defeats have a combined
deficit of yes 11 points. What goes around.....
One
more game next week to try to secure another runners up place and
probably our man in the Griffin's last league match after 32
seasons. The fixture gods have done their stuff and the game will
be in the Griffin with Bogota Bob in the chair. It really couldn't
end any other way could it?
"The man from the CIA said it was fine - just the sort you like"
(R1/Sp1)
|
... and, hey presto, you're king
(R8/Sp2)
Opsimaths lost to Charabancs
Another great win for the Charas keeps them safely in mid-table
 Damian
praises the virtues of a successful Chara squad
Our
antipodean correspondent, Chara John, texted me today to warn that
all these victories could play havoc with our handicap for the Cup
rounds but it's a risk we feel we can probably tolerate given our
run of good fortune lately.
We
started off by losing the toss which, for once, worked out well for
us as we stormed into a commanding lead in the first half and,
again, the big lead we built up earlier served us well as inevitably
the Opsis began to bridge the gap in the second half. We seem
to be really functioning efficiently as a team these days and the
results are paying off. For the first time in ages we have
built up a small pool of extra players to fill in for the absentees
with Alan and Jane kindly filling in for John and Bill in the last
few weeks to keep us quorate.
 Mike
tells of historic mirth at the Albert Club
Oh
dear! Howell back alongside Brian, Tehmeena and myself but
still no cigar. The Charas deserved their win and indeed ended
up the highest scoring team of the evening (along with Ethel).
We weren't the lowest scoring which is some encouragement, and if
our first half had been as good as our second half we might well
have won - but we floundered on the literature questions which our
opponents hoovered up with some delight.
Charlotte was a very capable QM ensuring deafies like me and Damian
could hear the questions clearly. However her pièce de
resistance definitely came in Round 7 Question 6 with the historic
anagram. Funny all the women in the room seemed to enjoy this
one.
Swedish sacrifice
(R1/Q8)
Bards lost to Prodigals
Prodigals return to winning ways with a nail-biting victory at
the Parrswood
 Jimmy's
missing The Wurzels
A
tough fought quiz at the Parrswood between two evenly-matched teams.
The first round contained four unanswered questions but after that
things settled down as both sides found their groove. It
seemed a hard quiz, certainly one that required much conferring by
both sets of players. The pivotal round was the much-maligned
Bingo format which the setters had combined with one of their
speciality English county rounds.
Mayor of Chicago's unwitting assassin
(R1/Q5)
This proved to be much to the Prods’ liking as we hoovered up four
two-pointers and a crucial steal to grab a slender lead. There
was slight disappointment on both sides that there was no mention of
the popular beat combo The Wurzels though...
Another steal on the anagram round by Richard, the overpriced
rubbish website poser (that was the question not Richard), proved
critical and we finally edged home by a single point in a very tight
encounter. I think both teams enjoyed the quiz equally as much
and there was certainly plenty to ponder upon. Tony was his
usual effusive self, QMing with authority, panache and wisdom.
Harvard's Elemental Professor
(R8/Q1)
Ethel Rodin beat Electric Pigs
Ethel's topsy-turvy season continues with a top score win
|
Quiz paper set by...
...
Albert
Average Aggregate score 74.3
Down at the Albert
Club both teams enjoyed this paper and the aggregate score proves it
was bang on target across the whole evening. Breaking things
down a bit we did find the excess quantity of literature questions
early on a bit stifling but things certainly picked up with the
Somerset Bingo in Round 5. I was all geared up for Acker Bilk
when I chose the music question but, alas it was some unknown
guitarist.
Full marks too from
me for the clarity of the layout which made it an easy read for our
QM and similarly helpful for transferring to the website.
Thank you Jeremy (I think).
... meanwhile
Ivor had this feedback ...
The quiz tonight is likely to have divided opinions and appealed to
those of a literary and historical bent (that is most of the
Histoymen). However even I, as our team’s supposed royal
expert, was surprised that so many European crowned heads have
bitten the dust due to unnatural causes and not even been remembered
by any quizzer. Even more poignantly the assassination of a
Swedish politician in our own century had made no impact at all.
The 'Author Round' must have taken an age to compile but raises the
setting from craft to art (on a game show the question might have
been “Brave New World is derived from which Shakespeare
play?").
The anagram round should have been easy especially for devotees of
cryptic crosswords. Of course it does not help when you have
decided the emperor was Caligula and you then spend five minutes
trying to anagram an obscure Hindu or Jewish feast day. Even
the short anagrams were hard. Had Hordeolum gone to Young
David a two would have been a formality (his car registration is
DB02EYE), but the wrong seat syndrome prevailed yet again. I
am sure there will be a comment at the perceived lack of balance of
hardness between the diacritic marks in Czech v Spanish but "C’est
la vie" as we say in Ireland.
Blandings' Empress and her subjects
(R4/Q3)
... but Kieran's
view was not great ...
Ah... the Albert clearly had not enjoyed last week's Prodigals paper
as much as, for example, we had, so they decided to bring us all
down to earth with a paper which, for the first half at least,
wasn't in a postcode even adjacent to fun. A miserable 32
questions, 6 unanswered; heavy on literature light on interest.
A half time aggregate of 34 and on the whole we'd all rather have
been in Philadelphia.
... finally a joyful
Damian sums up ...
Needless to say we enjoyed the Albert's paper very much and
especially the anagram and run-on rounds. We wondered who the
Somerset correspondent is on the Albert's team in the Somerset Bingo
round but the questions proved generally accessible even to those of
us with a lack of deep familiarity with that county. The
combined score of 76 was just above the season's average which
showed that this was a good paper with plenty to offer for
everyone.
Question of
the Week
This week the vote goes to Round 7 Question 6 which caused much
merriment, and a fair bit of head-scratching (yes, head) at the Club
before it was sorted. The format of the round was to provide 2
one-word answers to a two-part question, each answer being an
anagram if the other ...
Inflammation of the testis;
adjective meaning of great or lasting importance
For the answer to this and all the week's other questions click
here.
An old Somerset Jumper
(R5/Q8)
... and also
After this week's match at the Club we talked about the website and
agreed it was fine, but pretty 'top-down' and it would be good to
have a more spontaneous way of talking to one another about stuff of
mutual interest such as the week's paper, the website home page, the
best route to the Alexandra pub in Stockport, or
whatever. The 'Comment' facility on the website is rarely used
and pretty clunky.
So, I've set up a WithQuiz WhatsApp group. Here's the
logo ...
If you wish to be in the group just text me:
The name by which
you would like to be known (which I suggest has your team name
as the last part of it), and your mobile phone number.
I can then admit you
to the group.
If it gets going then the group chat may provide me with a bit more
fodder for this weekly page. However please remember to be kind to setters (and me for that matter) when
you use it!
"Last night I dreamt I went to The
White Swan again"
(R4/Q2)
|
