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QUIZBIZ - 9th December 2009

The Results:

Charabancs of Fire won this season's first White Swan derby beating Ethel Rodin in convincing fashion - Damian writes in:

"Our first Derby match of the season resulted in yet another derailment for the Charas's cherished ambition of finishing second from the bottom.  At this rate, we may even finish in the top half of the league for goodness sake!  Although there were only 3 points between us at half-time, Madame Rodin decided they had scored enough points for the evening and unsportingly conceded the second half of the quiz to us."

SPW powered their way to a handsome win over their nearest challengers the Opsimaths - and in the process Martin notched up 7 '2s' to follow his 8 '2s' last week

Prodigals fought the Electric Pigs to a standstill registering their first points of the season in a thrilling tie at the Albert Club

Albert scored a comfortable win at the Fletcher Moss against TMTCH

The Paper:

This week it was the History Men's turn to set.

We thoroughly enjoyed our game at the Griffin.  Ivor QMed most entertainingly, embellishing his team's questions with loads of ancillary information (I'm getting close to being able to write a book about the Northern Irish education system in the 1960s and 1970s).  I think it fair to say that the Opsimaths learned a great deal from the encounter - not least how to take defeat graciously.  Bugger!!  The truth is the paper was well-crafted and right up the SPW street.  Martin excelled yet again and we fell further and further behind.

From the Fletcher Moss Mary comments:

"As TMTCH put it: '64 things TMTCH knew nowt about'.  They won the toss and went first and I don't think that did them any favours in the music round as they got the classical questions while we got I Feel Pretty.  Our QotW was a close call between the circumcision question and the Neil Kinnock question."

....and from the Swan Damian chucks in his twopennyworth:

"A mixture of the sacred and the profane.  Pictures of the sainted children of Fatima were juxtaposed with cherubic choir boys being corrupted by a squadron of naked women, or, possibly chaps posing as ladies.  Father M spent most of the second half of the quiz scrutinising the offending photo to decide which was which.  He will be taking the matter up with Ivor & co at the first available opportunity.

There were several possibilities for QotW.  We especially liked the one asking which was the only semitic language among the EU's 23 official languages.  In the end, we really couldn't resist the one that asked: 'Which Prime Minister said of his deputy, Herbert Samuels that when they circumcised him, they threw away the wrong bit.'"

The Question of the Week:

Despite SPW voting for the Catholic schoolboys picture question, I have gone for Round 8 Question 3 (which coincidentally deals with a similar part of the world):

Not counting Rome and the Vatican City which two capital cities of independent European counties are closest to each other in distance?

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

Chatterbox:

On my way to the Red Lion this evening to pick up the paper I bumped into Ethel's Lloyd Powell heading Ladybarnwards to the Swan  It seems Ethel gave birth to a baby girl a couple of days ago.  Mummy (Lucy) and Daddy (James) are faring well and will soon be training Ethelette to stuff leaflets through doors and answer questions on the Vienna Boy's Choir.  Apparently it wasn't just Lucy who suffered a confinement.  James had to be replaced by father-in-law Lloyd in tonight's White Swan derby.  Congratulations all round from the massed ranks of WithQuiz!!

Next week the majority of our teams will start their 3 week (or 4 week - see next para.) lay-off for Christmas.  SPW, the Charabancs, the Bards and the Opsimaths, however, will be engaged in mortal combat with our neighbours from Stockport in the Quarter Final of the WIST Champions Cup (see the Fixtures page for details).  The History Men and TMTCH have kindly agreed to set the paper using a mixture of the Stockport and the WithQuiz styles.  Matches will be played at The Pineapple (under Stockport viaduct), The Traveller's Call (on the A6 towards Hazel Grove), The White Swan and The Griffin.  Do please try and get along to support one of our teams.  Judging by last year's WIST results they'll need it!!

Andrew Simcock has written to me pointing out that the next round of league matches after Christmas fall on Wednesday January 6th which is the date of the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final when City play United at Eastlands and take their revenge for the 'Fergie-time' goal at Old Trafford earlier in the season.  Rather than try and compete Andrew suggests we postpone the January 6th round of WithQuiz matches until Wednesday April 7th thus ending the season on 2 Dummy papers in a row with all 10 teams playing for each of the last 2 rounds of games.  This seems to make sense to me.  What do you think?  Let me know as soon as you can so that I can adjust the fixtures page accordingly if required.   

After various contributions to the message board we found the answer to last week's Chatterbox picture teaser.  The pictures (in order) were of: Andrew Carnegie, Albert Einstein, Terry Christian, Edward Lear and Windsor Davies.  These were all linked by Prince Andrew whose full name is 'Andrew Albert Christian Edward Windsor'.

Fr Megson's Big Match Preview