Withington Pub Quiz League

QUIZBIZ - 16th December 2009

Chunky's invincibilty is smashed as the Bards, SPW and the Opsimaths get through to the WIST semis - the Charas just lose out on a tie break

The Results: This week the usual round of league matches made way for the Quarter Finals of the WIST Champions Cup in which last season's top 4 from Stockport took on our own top quartet - and surprises were there aplenty..... In the biggest upset to the form book since Foinavon won the 1967 National, or Labour won the 2010 General Election, or........(substitute your own most unlikely event) Chunky succumbed to the Bards of Didsbury by the significant margin of 8 points Traveller’s Call, also hotly fancied, found the Opsimaths too hot to handle down in Great Moor SPW clawed back some credibility for the form book easing their way past Tame Valley, Stockport's fourth placed team from last season - Kieran reports: "An unsatisfactory start to the evening and not the hospitality we had wanted to extend to our visitors from Tame Valley. Forced to leave the Griffin due to the installation of a TV screen in our room attracting a horde of deluded and ultimately disillusioned Blues we repaired up the road to the almost deserted Dog and Partridge. Things didn't improve from our point of view as we were trounced, about as badly as City, 19 - 13, in the first round. The second round format suited us more and we won several twos with Tame Valley failing to answer correctly. At half time the scores were level at 23 each. The individual style of the second half was more our speed and we eventually won out 43 to 37, although the result was in doubt up to the last two pairs. David would like it pointed out that he outscored Martin 3 to 2, in twos won in the second half of the quiz. I, on the other hand, was about as accurate as Adebayor. All in all a good night for us - and for the other WithQuiz teams, I understand. Our apologies to Tame Valley for having to change venue. For anyone else who is worried by football-related developments at the Griffin I can only say that on tonight's evidence City aren't going to be playing on too many Wednesday nights in the foreseeable future. In fact Thursday evening glamour ties in Bratislava or Bergen are looking pretty much beyond reach as well!" Charabancs of Fire fought a nail-bitingly close match at the Swan just losing out 8-4 to the Alexandra on the Spares round after finishing 43 points all - Ivor writes in: "A real thriller in the Stadium of Murk. Like Tom Watson in the Open, the Charas led all the way (albeit by a small margin) only to see a dramatic swing with the last two questions. Two points ahead, they scored nil for failing to name Erebus leaving Alexandra’s Mike the chance to tie if he held his nerve and came up with St Helen’s for a solo effort (which he did). Rather than the sudden death of a Masters play-off the teams elected to go a whole round like the US Open (that’s enough golfing metaphors). As it was 11pm by this time the teams decided to play the Spares in the Stockport written style. A few minutes later the Alexandra had emerged winners. General impression from the QM seat was that everyone enjoyed the challenge even though it was a long hard evening."

		The Paper: This week the paper was set jointly by the History Men and TMTCH on behalf of the whole WithQuiz league. The format used was: first half à la Stockport (set by the History Men) and second half à la WithQuiz (set by TMTCH). It was a most enjoyable paper which, I think, showed off the standard of our league's question-setting most favourably. The variety of the question styles with pairs, pictures, themes and the Stockport written test kept us on our toes all evening. I thought TMTCH's 4 themed rounds were absolute corkers with my favourite being Round 3 (the theme being those Northern things that follow the rivers and precede the TV soap programmes). TMTCH Dave joined us at half time and was clearly pleased his contribution had gone down well. In fairness to the Traveller's Call team (who were most hospitable opponents) the second half blitz of pictures, themes and individual questions (as opposed to everything being conferred) was quite a lot to quickly digest - whereas to us it was staple fare. The Travellers kept up with us until the halfway mark but then our facility with the WithQuiz style rounds got us a clear lead which we maintained to the end. Finally Damian chips in: "The Historians and the Hangmen did us all proud with their well-thought out and subtle themes - an eclectic mixture of the familiar and the arcane. We were okay with the familiar but tended to fall short on the arcane. Damn this 'spread of knowledge' concept everyone's so fond of us these days! But bravo to the setters!!" Many thanks to Ivor, Dave and their teams for their efforts tonight. A really good way to go into the Christmas break!
The Question of the Week: The Opsimath vote this week goes to the themed Round 4 Question 5: In Henry Reed's iconic anti-war poem The Naming of the Parts what should only be released with "an easy flick of the thumb"? For the answer to this and all the week's questions click here.
		Chatterbox: We have decided to postpone January 6th's round of matches until April 7th thus leaving us all clear to watch City and United battle it out in the first leg of the Carling Cup semis. So, we have a longer Christmas break than usual - the WithQuiz battle will recommence on Wednesday January 13th. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. MIKE