TMTCH are off and running with a  victory over the Pigs at the Club - elsewhere business as usual with the Opsimaths completing the double over the History Men

The Results

Albert Park came second to the Charabancs of Fire in the highest scoring match of the evening

Electric Pigs tripped over at the Albert Club against bottom team (but for how much longer?), The Men TCH

History Men were without Ivor (apparently his wife is an Everton fan so he had to be at Goodison) - but even so (they told me to say) managed to lose against the Opsimaths

Snoopy's Friends lost at the Didsbury to the steady Eddies from Albert

X-Pats continued their losing run at home to top dogs, the Napier Girls

The Paper

Ethel Rodin set this week.  A pretty tough and eclectic paper was the view from the Red.  Round 4, in particular, came in for some stick.

Andrew (from the Pigs)....

"Round 1 - Great; Round 2 - Very difficult; Round 3 - Suspect pairing; Round 4 - Ludicrously difficult; Round 5 - Better; Round 6 - Obscure; Round 7 - OK; Round 8 - Difficult"  

.....big Girl's blouse Kieran was equally challenged....

"...and as for how you signal distress in the Alps - well if it had been paired with how difficulty is indicated in the Pyrenees then maybe....

By the way how on earth did the one armed Wittgenstein get on with his skiing holidays?  Presumably when he was desperately trying to attract the attention of a passing helicopter they thought him perfectly fine."

.....and 'not quite Mastermind' Damian from the Charabancs writes....

"As if it wasn't bad enough being shown to be 'The Weakest Link' on Monday's edition of Mastermind, yours truly was blind-sided by the 'Old Monarch' question: 'Which monarch was succeeded by HIS brother-in-law'.  So much was packed into one question with that little word 'HIS'.  As royalty anoraks like me are only too well aware, in addition to Harold II succeeding brother-in-law Edward the Confessor in 1066, Queen Anne (of tables and draws fame) succeeded HER brother-in-law William III in 1702.  Dear Madame Rodin, couldn't you have phrased it so that the question read which 'KING succeeded his brother-in-law' rather than which 'MONARCH' thus giving confused, drink-addled old amateur historians like me the further clue that QUEENS were not involved???  BLOODY KINGS & QUEENS... x?*%  'EM I SAY!!!!

 Madame R's pairings occasionally left a little bit to be desired.  Richard from the Park was quite adamant that he had never heard of a dolphin-fish being referred to in the plural and he should know as he has it with a generous serving of chips every Friday night.  The Charabancs had never even heard of a dolphin-fish.  A dolphin yes; a fish yes; a dolphin-fish?  Never!!! 

 

Disregarding the tripartite Lenten fasting question which all us good Christian folk are supposed to know (Father M doesn't do much in the way of fasting and abstinence - so he was no help!!), my personal candidate for QotW was the one about which Oscar winner was the child of two other Oscar winners."

At the Red the Opsimaths quite liked the paper (they would, wouldn't they?).  Although unlikely to be answered correctly, the one about the alpine 'waving not drowning' signal was great fun.  Colin refused to act out the signal to everyone's relief since he had opted for lying on your back and waving your feet in the air.  All in all, I'd say, a typical Ethel-like paper.

Question of the Week

The vote this week (from an otherwise miffed set of Napier Girls) goes to Round 8 Question 4:

Which Chinese expression meaning 'work together' is used in English to denote mindless enthusiasm?

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