The Results

Electric Pigs contested a thriller at the Fletcher Moss just missing out by a single point to title contenders Charabancs of Fire

X-Pats lost at home to the resurgent History Men

TMTCH crashed at the Parrswood to the Albert - Mary writes:

"The highlight came in Round 3 when, in response to the question asking which multi millionaire cosmetic industrialist said 'There are no ugly women, only lazy ones', a voice from TMTCH declared 'She's not been to Glossop, then!'"

Snoopy's Friends missed out at home to the mercurial Ethel Rodin

Opsimaths edged a high-scoring home match against hitherto unbeaten league leaders SPW - Howell sums up the evening at the Club:

"Quite possibly the most enjoyable paper I have experienced since joining the league.  The rounds on maps/foodstuffs, state capitals and football team suffixes were really well thought out – gettable but challenging – while the remaining paired rounds were very evenly balanced.  In our match scores were level at the end of rounds 4, 5 and 6 before Opsimaths sneaked across the line.

The excitement of a win against SPW almost led to a Health & Safety scare at the Albert Club, as the crowds struggled to get out of the building past the puffed-out chest of Lord Bath.

My question of the week was overruled though.  I thought the one about Lincoln biscuits was great … even when you had struggled to get the location it was still an uphill battle to remember the dimpled blighter…"

Question Paper - The Verdict

This week the paper was set by the Getaways.  My usual practice late on a Wednesday evening in this column is to search out and extol the better points of a paper whilst making scant reference to the dross (not to mention toning down some of the language used in the emails I receive).  This week is different.  There was no dross last night.  The paper was exceptional from beginning to end.  How could they get a whole round out of US State capitals used as first names?  Surely not!  Yet they pulled it off with no hint of asking a substandard question to fit the theme.

At the Albert Club we found it difficult to choose a QotW with the whole of Rounds 3 (US State capitals) and Round 6 (UK food map) damn near perfect.  Ethel and Snoopy's similarly gave their QotW vote to Round 3 en masse.  If I'm pushed to find a slight gripe (to convince you that my overall praise is genuine) then let it be Round 6 Question 7 which fell to me.  Eventually I got to Lincoln (after almost blurting Leicester Cheese) but then, in conference with my teammates, realised that Lincoln has given its name to a number of foodstuffs.  We went for sausages whilst SPW offered up rye bread.  Neither of us got any points.  A very slight blemish on what was pretty much a perfect paper.  At the end of the evening both the Opsimaths and SPW agreed that this was 'paper of the season' by some way.

From the Sun in September Ivor writes:

"The quiz paper was very well received though by our reckoning (fourteen unanswered) moderately difficult.  The unanswerables broke 5-9 so the scores would probably have been a lot closer had we been going second instead of the X-Pats.  

We do like novelty and the 'Food Map of Britain' Round got the thumbs up.  Having said that Lincoln biscuit did take the biscuit for not being quite as obvious as the other foodstuffs (though Anne did remind us if we had had Tea Time Selection in our youth the Lincoln biscuits were the ones left over with the Nice biscuits after all the Vienna Wafers, Gypsy Creams and Chocolate Fingers had been eaten)."

....and from the Fletcher Moss our correspondent Damian reports:

"We all thoroughly enjoyed the Getaways' paper which seemed to have something for everyone.  Nearly all the questions were answerable by one side or the other.

Piggie Andrew went so far as to nominate it as the best quiz of the season to date.  Well done to the Getaways for a thoroughly enjoyable and closely contested quiz!!

We were unanimous in nominating a round of the week rather than a mere question and voted for Round 6, the picture round with maps linked to various foodstuffs.

Chara John was so excited by this that he kept answering Melton Mowbray pies until he finally came good!  The only drawback was that the visually-challenged (i.e. Roisin and Yours Truly) had to strain to see the details and so we make a humble plea for clearer pictures for future offerings of this kind."

'Question of the Week'

This week the vote goes to Round 6 Question 2:

Name the place and the foodstuff......

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

Chatterbox

Nowt to chatter about this week - other than the spectacular result above which ended SPW's fantastic run!!

Megson's Pulpit

The Great Ladybarn Charabanc Crash

A Chairde,

The January window may be open but it remains Darkness at Noon at the troubled Stadium of Murk.

Last week's defeat at the hands of arch-villains - sorry, arch-rivals - SPW, may be the final nail in the coffin for a beleaguered and bewhiskered Fr. Megson.

Never one to take things lying down (apart from that embarrassing incident with the strippagram dressed as St Bridget in the Vespers club for gentleman priests last February), Fr Megson remains ashen faced but unbowed.

"This is WITHQUIZ and not the Premiership", he reminded a hastily convened press conference, "so we have to be realistic."

Sean, the convivial bar steward at the Stadium of Murk has made it clear that the January window will only be opened over his dead body.

"And not just MY dead body", he added, brandishing his crowbar in a playful fashion, "I'll take the fcekin' lot of youse with me.  It's perishin' brass monkeys in here already and if the winda is open I'll have the poxy beggars from environmental health down here askin' me to light the fire.....not to mention hordes of urchins from the Didsbury sink estates comin' through the open winda tryin' to steal my priceless plastic tables from the big room......now fcek off the lot of youse while I'm still in a good mood."

Sean's intransigence (my word, not his) may lead to yet another trophyless season for the Charabancs.  And yet things had looked so promising only a few short weeks ago.  So, is there any truth in the rumours that Fr Megson has lost the dressing room?

"What a load of bollix", he waxed lyrically, "though I admit I briefly lost the downstairs loo on New Year's Eve.  No, I think Christmas came too early this season, We were on a roll.  Second in the league and in the semi finals of the Transviaduct Cup.  Marvellous.  Then the festive season arrived and with it, a lack of discipline on the training ground. Suddenly nobody was interested in evenings of yomping around Fog Lane park with a sheep and a Thesaurus under each arm, chanting Bob Dylan lyrics.  The allure of late night shoplifting in Discount Booze proved too great.

"Then one of our recent signings crashed his brand new skateboard (thought to have cost in the region of £22.50) into the window of Axons the butchers.  Luckily he was wearing his crampons at the time and he landed on his head so no permanent damage was done to his quizzing faculties.  However, by the time the emergency services arrived to drag him him out he had become addicted to cold turkey. We are slowly but surely weaning him off this dependency and he is expected to be back to his erratic best well before Easter, though finding enough heroin for his medication is taxing our resources.  It is a sad reminder of how bad the credit crunch is for everybody (except Gordon Brown and Robert Peston, of course) when even the big players in the market such as The Stadium of Murk are unable to meet the client's needs."

So saying Fr Megson bade farewell to his pre-season hopes and resigned himself and his flock to mixing it in March with those hopeless History beggars down in the nether regions of the Withquiz table.