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Albert
beat Ethel Rodin
A strong October start for Albert at The Sun in
September
 St
Francis O'Brien reports from the QM's chair
The quiz performance became secondary last night
as we were in competition with a gang of elderly
drunks for much of the evening. This probably
affected the Albert less than Ethel since our
intra-team dealings are usually conducted in a
similar atmosphere. At one point Ethel's Michael, perceiving my irritation, asked if I enjoyed QMing. I had to reassure him that among
WithQuizzers I enjoy the reputation of being
the
veritable St Francis of Assisi of QMs. If my sunny
mask should occasionally slip to reveal a barely
controlled psychopathic rage this is all within the
Corinthian spirit of quizzing.
I was particularly happy with the opportunity
provided by the final question of the evening since for several
years I have entertained my granddaughter through
my prowess in puppeteering. (see photo
below).
Izzy, wizzy let's get
WithQuizzy
(R8/Q8)
Bards beat CKC
The Bards enjoy an early win against new guise
CKC
 Kieran
tells how the Bards won the battle of Self Esteem
Well not quite the start to the New Order era
(sorry my inner Jenrick is trying to invade
Poland escape) we had hoped for.
The Parrs Wood was as cold and unwelcoming as ever
and the Bards were the total opposite. Has a
quiz team ever been less in tune with its home turf?
Big beast Tony had been benched, which seems
appropriate enough, and he spent the evening
kibbitzing and kvetching every now and then - so
much the same as if he had been playing. This was
unfortunate for us dogs since it meant that the
Bards fielded two scientists in their line up and
the science round did for us. Up to then we
held a two point lead but that became a three point
deficit and from then on they ran away with the
game. The science round was fine though, unlike its
rail predecessor which made a strong early bid for
most nerdy and pointless (almost literally) round of
the season.
And
what's for afters?
(R4/Q4)
David is in the Outer Hebrides (in October - that's
optimistic / mad) so young Liam® - still not thirty
- took his place and even younger Thomas had the all
but impossible task of replacing the Lowestoft Ben
Duckett at the top of the order. They both
performed well with twos and assists in good
measure. Liam is a musician and music teacher so
the 'Self Esteem' question landed perfectly for him.
Perhaps more surprisingly, given that his degree is
in English, he also knew the missing taxonomic rank.
He explained that he had been taught a mnemonic and
it was plainly a good one since it has stayed with
him. The only mnemonic I remember is 'Richard Of
York Gave Battle In Vain'. Liam's somewhat edgier
one was 'Keep Penis Clean Or Forget Good Sex'.
Clearly things have changed in the fifty years since
I was at school - you'd rather hope they would have
wouldn't you? You can quite see how 'KPCOFGS',
taught the right way, would imprint itself on a
bunch of bored teenagers.
The Bards collapsed like a class of sniggering Year Nines
when the excellent QM uttered the word "sexual" at
the start of 'The Song of Solomon' question.
God knows how they would have turned out had they
had Liam's teacher.
On to early leaders the Charas next week. A return
to the Griffin, Bogota Bob back where he should be
with stories to tell no doubt. Fag end of hurricanes
and malfunctioning car ferries permitting, David
will also be back in the side.
Started by Bronze age man -
finished off by the Real Countryside Alliance
(R2/Sp2)
Electric Pigs beat Prodigals
Last season's champs unseated at the off
 Jimmy
welcomes the return of a Prodigal
A disappointing start to the season for the Prods as
we lost (again) to the Pigs who are rapidly becoming
our bogey team. To be honest, we never really
got going. We played it cagey conferring on
some which we should have slotted away for twos,
waiting for a round or two which would play to our
strengths. Unfortunately, like a bunch of bedraggled
day trippers at an end of the line station on a long
closed branch line, we were waiting for a train that
never came.
Fair play to the Pigs, once they got their noses in
front they stayed there and were deserved winners.
Couple of positives out of the night for us: one,
the return of Mike from his London sojourn, who rose
Lazarus-like from his sickbed to join us, and two,
the debut of my son Joe who did pick up a couple of
two pointers, which was a lot better than his old
man’s paltry effort. Me and the lad have spent
Thursday nights this summer doing reasonably well on
smartphone quizzes in various Sale and Stretford
boozers so the more sedate environs of WithQuiz were
a bit of an eye-opener for him.
Meanwhile Pig Tom is a cautious victor
Enjoyable evening but a study of the scores in the
WithQuiz table brings perspective.
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Slow Club Lucy
(R7/Q5)
Charabancs beat History Men
The Charas storm to the top of the table
 Damian's
a happy Bunny
Well, I guess we've had worse starts to the season.
In the comfort of the newly pool-table free 'quiet'
middle room of the Griffin (which I now propose as
our regular setting for whenever we are playing at
home), we won the toss and never looked back.
I say 'quiet' despite QM Jane having to battle
against a bunch of loud revellers just round the
corner in order to make herself heard. We
established a lead of 11 points by half time and
finished 12 points ahead. We were 5 in front
in five of the rounds with the Historymen drawing
level in Rounds 4 and 5 and ahead in Round 6, the
only round they won. We scored 16 twos to
11 for the Historymen. I counted 6 steals for
us against their 4. Across the whole paper
there were just 3 unanswered questions which split
2/1 to the Historymen. Summing up, it was our
greater number of twos that seems to have been
decisive.
It was a remarkable victory for us - I can't recall
the last time we beat the Historymen and that seems
to have been the reaction of Historymen Ivor and
Anne who hinted we should enjoy it while it lasts.
Whoever knew Ivor and Anne could be so competitive
or so tactful?
Carving up the world in 1945
(R8/Sp1)
 Ivor
presides over another slow start History Men season
The Historymen have had a restful summer. We are
all, to use that great Delphic phrase that covers
everything, “as well as can be expected”. We all
might be older (and hopefully wiser) as we turned up
for our 24th season ready to display the virtuosity
of our brains, filled with facts including Taylor
Swift lyrics and names of this week’s numpties in
the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet. Unfortunately the
captain’s instructions to attend the Cavendish
summer lab course on hard physics, watch re-runs of
Tony Robinson digging up ancient ancestors, and don
an anorak for a grand tour of the UK rail network
fell on deaf ears. Our hopes that this season
might see us make a challenge for league supremacy
were soon dashed. We were comprehensively put to the
sword by our old friends the Charabancs.
We knew we were in trouble when we were still in
single figures after three rounds, which included
zero points in the rail round despite the fact that
Vanessa worked in the rail transport industry for
six years. It was perhaps not good to have
lost the toss and gone second as we got more
unanswereds (2-5) but the Charas were very
impressive getting more 2s (16-11) and more steals
(6-4). As in football the first few games of a
season can turn up unexpected results (there were a
few tonight) and the Historymen well recall our
start of a season in 2023/4 when we lost six games
in a row.
Somerset uplands: from Frome to sea
(R8/Q6)
As always we Historymen like the old stuff. At
junior school we followed the exploits of all the
round the world sailors. Fortunately we had cracked
the theme in Round 1 to avoid the confounder of
Robin Knox-Johnston (first non-stop) or Chay Blyth
(first non-stop in the opposite direction). Actually
we are not good at very, very, very old stuff and
struggled with the British pre-history.
However it is always nice to learn new things and
reflect that though girls on hen-nights in
Scarborough might wear silly hats they are not as
silly as the hats on stag-dos in 9335BC. The
saddest fact was that people in Norfolk were still
making flint tools long after the rest of the world
had moved not only into the Bronze Age but the Iron
Age. Perhaps this is the origin of the phrase
'normal for Norfolk' - and might well account for
Liz Truss’s 26,000 majority in 2019.
As we had all but lost by the last round we were
able to spend some moments trying to decide what the
names in Happy Families might be. I do not
think I have played that for 55 years but I think
the Opsimaths must have got their hands on a set of
cards not even from the 1960s but the 1920s as many
of the occupations are long gone or at least not
likely to be family businesses now (cannot imagine
Master Sweep being allowed up a chimney these days,
nor Miss Dip allowed to mix carcinogenic chemicals
in a big cauldron in the kitchen). Are there
more modern versions of this game? Perhaps Mr
Useless, the backbench MP, or Master Blackhat, the
computer hacker, or Mrs Dodgy, the Only Fans
entrepreneur, or Miss Woke, how dare you misgender
me? In my youth the favourite card game was Donkey
where at its conclusion a child would be left
holding the unpaired Donkey card, humiliated and
crying as it was mocked by its siblings. I
imagine that is banned now.
The only Labour-leading Nobel
laureate
(R1/Sp2)
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Quiz paper set by...
...
The Opsimaths
Average Aggregate score 79.5
A
pretty good average with which to start the new
season - something to please the setters' collective
hearts. As ever Brian was the main compiler
with Charlotte and myself chipping in a round each.
Charlotte's paired Round 7 passed muster it seems
(though CKC didn't care for the budget hotel pair),
however my celebration of 200 years of railway lines
gave rise to much derision from a pair of History
women at the Griffin
where (as Damian says above) I had my work cut out
to shield myself from the flying barbs. While
at the Parrswood Kieran described Round 3 as "a
nonsense round". A bit harsh perhaps, but my
Self Esteem was restored by the Prods who, via
Jimmy, chose one of my British Isles mountain
railway questions as Question of the Week.
A
Members of the Italian PM's party
(R8/Q4)
...
and what was Kieran's verdict ...
The
paper was mostly OK apart from the nonsense rail round. There were also a couple of
poor pairs in Round 7. 'Travelodge' following
'Premier Inn' is just too easy for the team going
second. As for Cabaret being the pair
for Self Esteem, surely asking of which band Jake
Sheres (sp) or even Jake Shears is a member would
have been a better and fairer question. Minor
gripes though; the Bards were very worthy winners.
...
and Mike O'B's ...
Somewhere amongst the mayhem this was a decent
effort by the Opsis. No gimmicks and plenty of
points on offer. Generally it was well balanced
apart from the Cabaret pair. There was a good
mixture of popular culture and challenging rounds on
Science and Prehistory.
A
Trundling to the top of the Isle of Man
(R3/Q4)
...
and Damian's ...
We looked forward to tonight's paper from the
Opsimaths because we have usually done well on
Brian's questions (the main compiler) and tonight
was certainly no exception. Opsimath Mike was
present to witness proceedings and provided much
light-hearted entertainment as he bravely, but
vainly, tried to shield himself from Anne's
withering scorn and ever accelerating fan when his
questions about railway lines and the London
Underground came up. He just about managed to
survive. Chara Alan (our newest recruit)
opted for the round on British pre-history as his
favourite of the evening. I think we all liked
the question about the guy who went out shopping for
some domestic items for his wife and came back with
Stonehenge. Apparently at £6,000 it was a snip.
I suspect we would all loved to be a fly on the wall
when he came home to inform his wife about his
remarkable bargain. At any rate, we chose that
as our QotW.
London to Paris 1930s de luxe style
(R3/Sp1)
...
and Jimmy's ...
Gripe: I think the Rebecca Lucy Taylor/Sally Bowles
questions are an early contender for most unbalanced
pairing of the season.
QotW: The mountain railway one caught both teams out
but inspired much pondering and debate.
...
and finally Ivor's ...
The
paper tonight was not without interest and our
combined score was very respectable. Mike Bath was
in attendance and available to take well measured
assessment of the Opsimath’s efforts. Perhaps some
of the pairing was a bit uneven (eg black hole v
supernova; Self Esteem v Cabaret) but that is
always a setter’s dilemma and everyone will always
take umbrage when an opponent gets the “easy”
question. In this league we have unhappy people
every week (maybe there will be some moaning from
others too) but part of our Thursday entertainment
is schadenfreude.
The Alice Springs commuter
special
(R3/Q1)
Question of the Week
This week table-toppers, the Charabancs, went for
the 'wrong bit of shopping' question at the start of
Round 2 ...
At the behest of his wife, Cecil Chubb went to an auction in
Salisbury in 1915. Instead of the set of dining chairs or a set
of curtains, which he was sent to purchase, what did he buy for
£6,600?
For the answer to this and all the week's other
questions click
here.
... and also
Thanks for getting your comments/articles to me by
11am on Thursday morning as requested. This
week I've been slower than expected publishing the
Home page due to other stuff overwhelming me but
I'll try to get the page up and running by lunch on
Thursday each week if I can.
Do
feel free to make your comments on Wednesday
evening's events on the WithQuiz What'sApp site as
Tom did this week. And if you're not a member
of this group already, and want to join, just let me
know your mobile number and I'll add you. on.
Orkney's oldest AirBNB
(R2/Q3)
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