Withington Pub Quiz League

The Prods stay top even though Albert remain the only team with a 100% record; the Opsis creep off the bottom with their first win of the season

Electric Pigs lost to Ethel Rodin

Bards lost to Prodigals

Opsimaths beat Charabancs

Albert beat CKC

Latest WithQuiz League Table

Electric Pigs lost to Ethel Rodin

Ethel get their first win of the season on their visit to the Fletcher Moss

James votes C Thomas Howell a stinker ...

Our collective view was that Ivor was a tad optimistic about the aggregate score. The level of scoring was restricted by the fact that there only 14 twos overall and 13 unanswered!

We wonder whether in addition to QotW there should be a balancing vote for a 'Stinker of the Week'. We liked 'Bendigo/ Wendigo' as QotW even though we didn’t get it. Stinker was C Thomas Howell - a stinker on several levels. A close second to that was the pair with the gimme two-pointer 'God Save the Monarch' question that preceded the Dutch National Anthem question. It probably needed an extra clue.

PM, CH, OM & Knight of the Garter

(R2/Q5)

Bards lost to Prodigals

Another good win for the Prods against a close rival see them stay top of the table

Michael has a quarrel with homophony

A convivial evening in the Parrs Wood with the Bards. We nurtured a narrow lead in the first half, then the Bards came roaring back, and it was only a string of twos in Round 7 that got us over the line. The final score very much flatters us.

Ivor was on hand to inspect the reception of his quiz, which was largely well received, although there were a couple of unbalanced pairs towards the end and I'm still spitting feathers over the alleged homophony of Oisin and Ocean. We did, however, learn that Young David of The History Men is currently making a tour of rural Japan, where the culinary delights that he has sampled apparently includes 'bukake'.

Stirling design in Rome & Brixton

(R5/Q4)

Nice one, Tony!

It is a surprising quirk of the human mind that it can persuade one to ignore what it actually knows because it sounds impossible. Thus Nice, which has been my favourite holiday destination for years cannot possibly host the Winter Olympics even though it is the capital of Alpes-Maritimes. So, therefore, Nice cannot be the capital of Alpes-Maritimes after all, thus the reasoning went and it was null pointes all round.

Great question Ivor, you devious son of an Irish quiz setter. The lead shifted around but in the end the Prodigals prevailed. I think we missed Robin who has considerable knowledge of matters other than ancient reptiles - in particular knowledge of the Antipodes, about which there were a few unanswered questions. If answered by us, these could have tipped the balance in our favour.

James' Black and White Stinker

(R6/Q7)

Ivor waxes lyrical on W B Yeats

The game was actually very close for most of the match with the lead oscillating in the first six rounds, and going into Round 7 the Bards were two points ahead. Sadly (for the Bards) the last two rounds were won comfortably by the Prodigals. With one of the setters in attendance (me) both teams were too polite to condemn any perceived injustices. The stats from this game suggest the team going second first (the Bards) had more unanswereds (2-6) and fewer twos (9-6) with the number of steals being equal (4-4).

Amongst comments received on the night: Tony said the additional facts we threw into some questions were not always helpful in that he would definitely have known the capital of Alpes-Maritimes but he could not conceive that Nice would host a Winter Olympics (it will just be the ice events there); John noted that not all 100 year old actresses are equally remembered - but it was the one who died three weeks ago who had been forgotten by both teams.

I was surprised that the 'Irish passport lyric' question was unanswered. Both teams decided it was Yeats but the Bards went for The Wild Swans at Coole and the Prodigals The Song of the Wandering Aengus, so both were close but no cigar. All three of these poems (especially Innisfree) do best capture the mysticism and timelessness of Irishness, and the contentment with nature that the Irish exhibit. They might well be the greatest poems written in English. Well just my opinion anyway.

John & Paul's Dreamboat

(R1/Q7)

Best Actress nomination x 3 plus mate

(R1/Q6)

Opsimaths beat Charabancs

The Opsis earn their first win - just

QM Mike went home with a broad grin

Although in the impartial QM chair at this quiz I could not disguise my delight at my colleagues - at last - notching up a victory (just).

Bernard, Bill, John and Damian had the slightly rougher end of the stick having lost the toss and been relegated to the 'second first, first second' role. This meant they had more toughies than did the Opsis. Although having said that they did pretty much lead all the way to the last round. The Opsis persevered, however, and ever-dependable skipper, Howell, slotted home a two on the final 'Guess the year' question to get the home team their first victory of this season. I was worried that life-long Everton fan, Howell, might not have got this one since Liverpool's 3-1 defeat of his team at Wembley was one of the defining facts given. He might well have erased this from his memory but happily he knew the year from the 'Big Bang' event never mind the FA Cup final.

Howell and Brian played well, but it was especially encouraging to see relative newbies, Tehmeena and Paul, fully engaged earning points. Sadly Tehmeena has to return to Alberta just before Christmas for family reasons. I do hope she gets back to Manchester in due course.

Stuck between Clegg & Davey

(R3/Sp)

Damian mourns a third defeat in a row and resorts to Beckett

Our second visit to the Albert Club this season proved no more successful than the first albeit the margin of defeat was a lot more respectable. It all went down to the wire and pretty much hinged on the last question in the last round with a 'Guess The Year' question. Guessing the year is actually one of my strong points and I quickly slotted home our answer for a two (thus scoring our only points in that round). What's more I was able to work out the Opsis' answer. While Opsi Howell mulled the question for some while I had already written the correct answer down and anxiously hoped for a steal that would have saved our bacon, but, alas for us, Howell dredged up the correct year which meant we had recorded our third loss in a row after such a commanding start to the season. So our decline continues with the only consolation being that it seems to be slowing down and, to paraphrase Mr Beckett, we are failing better. On the bright side, it meant our delightful opponents finally managed to vacate the bottom rung of the seasonal ladder.

Anyhow, congrats to the Opsis and. hopefully, we can fail even better next time and get back on that winning train again!

Arya Stark

(R1/Q1)

Albert beat CKC

Albert retain their 100% - CKC slump to the foot of the tableir

Safari, so good for MOBO's stars

Jeremy's time in the African sun had clearly fried his brains. In between the questions he spent most of the time raving about encounters with hungry hyenas and wrestling with a lion while stripped to waist. At times I feel like an 18th century sea captain with only the threat of the lash to control a mutinous crew.

Kieran tells how his CKC Midget Gems were iced

It seems this can go on for a while yet. No fresh hell just the same old, same old week after week. It's really not pleasant mirroring Liverpool every game but we're not about to go crying to the WithQuiz equivalent of PGMOL about having Iced Gem Archer unfairly chalked off because Midget Gems were the only things in MOBO's eyeline, when we had been comprehensively stuffed by our hosts. We still have some pride..... then again.....

Stan & Don

(R4/Q1)

The lovable Humphrey Smith has taken being 'the miserable bastard who owns the place' to new levels by banning the visually impaired from his premises; the numerous notices around the place offering no exemption for seeing-eye dogs from the strict prohibition on canines anywhere inside. No idea if the beer is still cheap; can't remember when I last had to buy a victor's round.

There was Ivor's usual sprinkling of inconsequential royals scattered across the paper - though, strangely, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was absent. As he would no doubt claim to have been even if he was the answer to every question.

On more than one occasion MOBO had to hush the Albert and instruct them in manners as their post-answer witterings grew too loud and prevented us from hearing our question - which we wouldn't have been able to answer - but it would have been nice to have a decent shot at it.

I see that yet again we would have beaten four other teams tonight, including one who actually won their game. We're outdoing the Pigs, the Bards, the Charas and the Opsis on average scores and we're within a point of Ethel and the History Men. And we can't get a win for love nor money. It's weird.

Anyway we lost. Again.

Quiz paper set by...

... History Men

Average Aggregate score 68.5

Ivor gave a hostage to fortune at the head of this week's paper by stating an aggregate of 75 points was the aim for their paper. It fell a bit short of that as you can see above, but, all in all, (as reflected by your comments below) it was a pretty satisfactory paper.

I was acting as QM this week and I have just one gripe, and indeed a plea to all setters: when you've compiled your paper do just check to see that all the facts listed in each question play a role in deriving the answer, or, at least. are so compellingly interesting that they would be welcomed as 'grace notes' by the quizzers. A few questions in this paper were lengthy and replete with, what seemed to me, irrelevant material.

Seems to do the trick

(R6/Q6)

... but what did Kieran make of it ...

The quiz wasn't bad. The aggregate pretty much hit the History Men's projected score. However there was another slew of awful pairs. "Ha, Aha, and Taha" paired with "Elan, Eland and Elland". Really? Unpleasant echoes of stick a letter in front of 'Alta' to make it sound Spanish. Then there was the very dirty and lazy setters' trick of Donald COGGAN (short, closed 'O') morphing into Alma COGAN (long open 'O') - that's just nasty. Pairing God Save The King with a Noddy anthem which starts off with the tune of O Little Town of Bethlehem and goes on to pledge allegiance to the king of another country (Spain) put the tin lid on it. Yes, I copped for all of those disgraces. In fairness the Albert got their share of stinkers; 'C Thomas Howell' and 'Sebastian Stan' were standouts.

... rather than a really good Transpennine line

(R5/Q3)

... and this was Damian's summary ...

This was perhaps the toughest quiz the Historymen have ever set with the total score tally of sixty-three well below the target of 75 (the season average) hoped for by the setters. Many of the questions seemed to have been sourced from the Bumper Book Of Obscure Facts provoking long head-scratching conferrals in both teams. We were slightly ahead on twos scored (9 vs 8) and on steals (5 vs 3) but some atrocious pairing (e.g. somebody called June Lockhart versus the great Glynis Johns) and, again, the high number of unanswereds were what did for us. I counted a total of 17 unanswereds of which no less than eleven fell to us! A lot of work seemed to have gone into preparing the questions but the effort didn't quite bear fruit by provoking correct answers. Wild, desperate guesses were often the order of the day for both sides. There were some good ideas for themes e.g. the 'Two Out Of Three' round and the 'Change One Letter To Give Both Answers' round. I was particularly proud of coming up with 'Bendigo-Wendigo' but nobody had heard of the Arabic word 'Taha' which apparently means peace.

Hidden verse

(R6/Q1)

... and Tony's view ...

Historymen set a good quiz last night which tested both teams.

... and finally Mike O'B's view ...

As usual with History Men quizzes this was carefully put together and came near to Ivor's anticipated target of 75. The triple Run-ons were innovative and challenging like the one letter replacements. Occasionally the odd question asked a little too much; after all how many experts on the Maryland Hunt Cup are there knocking around WithQuiz.

North American man-eater

(R4/Q3b)

Question of the Week

This week the victorious Ethel crew voted Round 4 Question 3 their favourite of the evening. In this round the single word answers to parts a) and b) differ by a single letter and you have to name both.

a) A city in the Australian state of Victoria which is the fourth largest inland city in Australia. It was the largest gold- producing area in Eastern Australia in the 19^th century and is also the name of one of the country's largest banks,

... and ...

b) A mythical North American creature supposedly with an insatiable hunger for human flesh and a heart made of ice.

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

You never know

(R8/Sp3)