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The Stockport Quiz league have written to me as follows:

"We now have a confirmed time and venue for our end-of-season table quiz: 

• 8.30 pm on Thursday 3 May (sorry to fans of Espanyol/Osasuna/Sevilla/Werder Bremen for the fixture clash!)

•  Venue: The Heatons Sports Club (a no smoking venue).

It would be great to see a 'guest' team or two from the Withington League.  If you are coming please remember to bring a raffle prize (bottle of wine or similar)."

This provides a chance to get to know each other.  The actual engagement will follow in September when we have agreed to hold our first inter-league challenge match.

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As a result of various comments received - and with our own end-of-season event a few weeks away - let me put forward some suggestions for how we might adjust our modus operandi next year:

1. We organise things so that when teams play each other in the second half of the league season, the question setters are different from the those who set in the equivalent match in the first half of the season

2. The Plate competition is exclusively composed of teams who lose in the first round of the Val Draper Cup - no Cup losers in the Plate after the second week of the knockout tournaments

3. Where we need to resort to Highest Scoring Losers, Lowest Scoring Losers, Highest Scoring Winners, etc., we should separate teams that score the same number of points by giving precedence to the team with the most 2 point scores, and then, if this does not separate teams with equal scores, look for the team that lost/won by the highest margin

4. Drawn Cup/Plate matches should be settled by using the Spares to each team in turn with each spare conferred - and then by a "nearest the Bull's Eye" question such as "How many people were killed in the Napier earthquake of the 1930s?" - nearest to the correct answer wins (setters please note and supply such a question for each Cup/Plate paper hereon)

Other suggestions welcome.  Please post your comments on the above on the message board.  We can discuss at the end-of-season evening.

The Results

Cup (Semi Final)

History Men lost to the all-conquering Napier Girls

Snoopy's Friends lost at home to the Electric Pigs who now find themselves in the Cup Final for the second year on the trot

Plate (Round 2)

Opsimaths ground out a home win to despatch Ethel Rodin and earn themselves a Plate semi-final place - and Ethel earn themselves the right to set next week by virtue of the fact that they lost by a greater margin than Albert

2 FCEKs recovered from last week's Cup exit by beating Albert

The Paper

Albert Park set the paper.  At the Albert Club it took a while to get through but overall was a pretty enjoyable ride (by the way, Tony, we managed to quieten the pot-bellied tennis players).

(Updated 20/04/07)

Having now got round to entering the questions onto the website and thus having an opportunity to reread them, I'd up my assessment.  This was one of the best papers of the season in my book - and all the more admirable given the short space of time available to produce it.  I think Clive shouldered most of the burden so many thanks to him - and to underline this assessment, at the Griffin Kieran commented that they felt it "an excellent paper".

The themes were well executed (unlike last week!!) so that it was relatively easy to establish the theme after the first pair of the round - and the pictures were very well produced and just the right level of difficulty.  I particularly liked the chance to marvel yet again at the new French Tarn bridge - just stunning!!

Question of the Week

The vote this week from the Pigs goes to Round 8 Question 1 (not a lot of people know this):

Only two male actors have been nominated for acting Oscars in every decade since the 1960s.  Jack Nicholson is one, who is the other?

Click here to see the answers to this and the rest of the week's questions and answers.