The Results

X-Pats slipped up again at home - this time to Ethel Rodin

TMTCH could only muster 3 players to avoid the gallows this week and were duly despatched by the judge and the legal might of table-topping Snoopy's Friends

SPW fought a tense and ultimately successful battle at home to the Opsimaths

Charabancs of Fire  romped to an emphatic victory over the Electric Pigs - Damian writes:

"The rather lopsided score in part reflects the fact that the Pigs were struggling with just 2 Piglets at the start only reaching full strength by about half past 9 as more of them drifted in from various points on the globe.

A good mixture of questions from the Historians, although a bingo sheet would have been nice to accompany the mini-Bingo rounds in the second half!.

Our nomination for QotW was Mini-Bingo Question 6: "What is the longest-living non-human primate currently 76 years of age?"

Other highlights from the evening:

• A mysterious object covered in green sitting in the Swan's usual quizzing corner which forced the teams to the opposite half of the room

• Gary's lucky escape when he asked the barlady for a tomato juice - "Do we have tomato juice?", she asked the barman - "Do we f**k!", came the reply

• Roisin's attempt to take a picture of the Swan for the website using her mobile - eventually even her flash admitted defeat to the all-pervading murk"

Albert just got edged out on the last question by their visitors the Getaways

History Men set this week.

Quite a tough start to the paper but then the answers became more gettable.  The aggregate scores were pretty good by our standards so the paper overall can't have been too hard (perhaps it was just me having an off-night).

A good spread of subjects with science featuring more than in most weeks.  Mini-Bingo question 17 (about 'Fat Man' and 'Bock's Car') was particularly well-worded (Kieran plumped for Hiroshima leaving us with Nagasaki as a shoo-in) and the picture round was interesting and eclectic (high quality photo paper, I noticed, raising the bar on question-paper production values yet another notch).

The Getaways commented favourably though like us had a quibble about Mini-Bingo Question 32.  Surely the San Marino Grand Prix is held each year in a foreign country - so nothing too remarkable about the Swiss Grand Prix being in Dijon one year?

Not sure the balancing was perfect (dead easy 'Augusta in Georgia' paired with relatively hard 'Valhalla in Kentucky' for example).  Nevertheless a good evening's entertainment from some expert setters.

'Question of the Week'

Snoopy's and SPW's vote for this week's award goes to Round 6/7/8 (Mini Bingo) Q24;

What is the most populous country never to have won an Olympic medal of any colour?

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

Chatterbox

Did any of you see Dave Rainford on TV this week?

Dave appeared on a new show (well new to me at least).  Aimed to pick up the OAPs after their Countdown diet but before Eggheads proper gets under way, this show (Are you an Egghead?) aims to find another TV Quiz great to join the Egghead quintet.  In this first round Dave was pitted against a woman who had an A1 pedigree in TV quiz shows - nevertheless Dave won by a country mile.  He was charming, witty (in a Dave sort of way) and, above all, right.  He seemed to me the equal to any of the current Eggheads in his ability to cover the normal quiz fodder and somewhat more telegenic than any of them.  He is through to the next round and, I understand, will feature in a number of future editions of this show.  Tune in if you can (or watch via the BBC iPlayer if you can't get to a set at 4.30pm each afternoon (it's on BBC2 by the way).

Good luck Dave!

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And whilst we're on about the media a mention for a WithQuiz appearance on BBC Radio Manchester's Becky Want Show early on Wednesday afternoon.  A BBC researcher phoned me on Tuesday asking if a team of WithQuizzers could turn up at The Didsbury pub the next day for a live broadcast - they were doing an 'out-and-about' programme about Didsbury (local vicars, conservationists, pub landlords, etc).  Of course most of you were at work (though many thanks to those of you I rang who tried to rustle up some support).  In the end Eric (from Snoopy's), Damian (from the Charabancs) and myself appeared.  Becky chatted to us for a few minutes about our quizzing and then staged a mini-quiz using questions I had provided from last year's archive (the themed round with the names of areas of Manchester in each answer).  Eric acted as QM with Damian, myself and another local acting as competitors.  Naturally I won since I had written the paper!!

If you want (no pun intended) you can listen again on the Radio Manchester website under The Becky Want Show for Wednesday 22nd.  The quiz bit is one hour into the show, with another small piece where she asked us about our favourite sporting memories and anything specific we could remember from 1963 and 2005, about 2 hours in.

Without a doubt the best bit was listening to Eric recount his fondest memory from 1963 - then when we went off air clutching his brow and saying "Oh shit!  I forgot. I got married in 1963."

Megson's Pulpit

Watch this space!!