The Results

History Men furthered the cause of their long climb back with a convincing home win over Albert

Getaways kept in touch until the half way mark then slid to defeat at the hands of the Opsimaths

Good news for my Opsimath colleague, Howell.  It seems that his blurt (Round 2 Question 6) about Joerm Utzon may not have been so wrong after all.  Using the power of Google Earth to zoom in on Sydney Harbour I have uncovered evidence that tends to corroborate Howell's view that Joerm was indeed the originator of Denmark's most famous export.

.....and early on Friday morning another picture has reached me that just about clinches it.  Howell, your Opsimaths points tally has been formally increased by 2 points, and your name has been removed from the annual Opsimaths blurts tally chart.

Electric Pigs and X-Pats fought each other to a standstill in the season's second tied match - Andrew writes:

"Recognising my limitations in the classical literature department, I led the stampede for the Question Master’s seat when we realised it was a Snoopy’s quiz.  The only down side to this cunning plan was that I had to buy both sides a drink after this right-to-the-last-question draw. 

The X-Pats had turned up as a duo so, in a generous festive spirit, the remaining Pigs opted to even up the sides.  Guy got the black spot and was catapulted onto the opposition benches. 

When we reached the round eight question about the revolving spiked disc on s spur, one of the X-Pats murmured, sotto voce, that he didn’t know the answer ‘but he knew where he’d like to stick it!’. 

The unanimous view on both sides was that this was an obscure and difficult quiz.  The fact that in five rounds, one or other of the teams failed to score any points at all probably tells its own story."

TMTCH crashed at home to Charabancs of Fire

Ethel Rodin lost convincingly at the Swan to league leaders SPW

Question Paper - The Verdict

This week the paper was set by the Snoopy's Friends.

Down at the Gateway the paper heralded a most entertaining evening.  The heavy Christmas influence was to be expected.  Sometimes this led us joyously on (as in the Yuletide quotations of Round 5) - sometimes it hit the buffers (as in Round 4 which started with Rudolph's dad and went downhill from there).  As for nominating our favourite question of the evening both Round 2 Question 3 ("What's unique about Stott Hall Farm?") and Spares Question 7 ("How is Ellas Otha Bates better known"?) were fascinating and pitched at just about the right level - hard but guessable.

At the Swan SPW (returning form 'Europe' with their tails between their legs) ran up a comfortable victory - but found the paper below the high standards set by Snoopy's last year.  A massive 22 questions went unanswered.

At the Red Lion the History Men and Albert tended towards the SPW view of the paper.  Ivor reports:

"And we thought last week’s quiz was hard....…

In the corresponding Snoopy quiz last season Mike O’Brien and I got 8 2s.  Now, despite the festive Christmas themes and 'peace and goodwill to all mankind' etc., no one expected Tony to turn up as Santa Claus and hand out aftershave, but this paper reverted to the stern Snoopy standards of old (there were 20 unanswerables).  Luckily I was QM - and equally luckily Albert won the toss and batted first.  They copped for two rounds (2 and 5) with a total of 8 unanswerables.  The saving grace for Snoopy's, however, was that many of the questions were pretty interesting.  Our nomination for QotW is the one asking which of the reindeer was Rudolph's father (Ed: Ivor - You must be joking!!).

The Xmas peculiarities of other nations (Round 4) caused some bemusement.  Who would have thought Kwanzaa (a holiday period from 26th December to 1st January I’ve never heard of, that sounds like it was devised by British Leyland shop stewards) originated in Protestant work ethic America?

And our wrong answer of the week?  The present left by Swedes to please Santa (we thought it was a vibrator).  The correct answer was even more implausible.  If I was Santa I wouldn’t leave Swedish children any presents if all they left out was a bowl of rice pudding.  Surely aquavits and reindeer meat balls would be required to fortify for Santa's trek round the world (at a speed even greater than the Post Office's staggering 4 miles an hour)?"

From the TMTCH/Charabancs match Damian comments:

"We didn't find the paper quite as obscure as some of Snoopy's previous efforts.  The Christmas themes were fairly straightforward and the quotations were (nearly) always guessable.  It is true to say that none of us are that well acquainted with Swedish festive rituals,  but, on the whole, a good way to enter the Christmas quiz break."

Now all the results and comments are in it does seem that scoring-wise the Getaways/Opsimaths match was the exception.  Elsewhere the scores were very low dragging the evening's Average Aggregate down even further than last week to 56.4.  By some way this is the lowest for a league Wednesday this season.

'Question of the Week'

Opsimath Howell gets the vote this week and he plumps for Round 5 Question 2:

Who said: "Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas?  You know.....the birth of Santa."?

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

Chatterbox

Just to wish everybody a great Christmas - and if you're doing nothing on Monday December 29th then get on down to the Albert Club (8pm for an 8.30 start) where there's a special Christmas edition of the regular monthly quiz.  Extra prizes and no end of themes!!

Megson's Pulpit

Merry Christmas to everyone from The Charabancs of Fire

A Chairde,

Aficionadoes of our Blockbusters quiz will be able to identify this painting as Hunters in the Snow.  Maybe it didn't get the QotW award but nevertheless it's good enough to frame.

Fr Megson