Thursday, January 11, 2018

9th January - THE HALFWAY STAGE


Image result for waters green tavernThe halfway stage and the local derby between the Lemmings and the Rams on the home turf in the Waters Green Tavern. The Rams currently vying for first place with the Nags Head (who have set tonight’s GK questions) with a game in hand. Becky was playing to bring the team to full strength and soon made a name for herself as the team’s number one guesser.

The last blog mentioned Adum’s fall at the Harrington Arms and he turned out for the Rams thisImage result for leg in plaster cast time with his leg encased in plaster after having two plates screwed into his leg – it was a much more serious fall than had been realised – and testimony to Adum’s devotion to the quiz.

The Specialist rounds had been set by the Prince of Wales and whilst there was a lot of meat in the range of questions it was not felt that they were well presented, reflected in the generally low scores by the Lemmings. They started off well with questions about Cheshire celebrities but the standard was not held and there was a narrow escape for an armadillo question with one about how to score more than 147 in snooker – the answer took about 10 minutes to read out but as it was a supplementary we felt it did not qualify. Also one question was thrown out by both teams as it required the answer peat to a type of coal – a supplementary was used instead.

At the end of the Specialist rounds the Rams were a nose ahead with 47 to 42 – not too much to worry about.

General Knowledge were much better balanced and spread but the Lemmings failed to make up the deficit and in fact lost the rounds by 68 to 65 making a final total 115 to 107.

Special mention must be made of Andy Johnson who as question master controlled the game with humour spiced with anecdotes about the vetting process.

individual scores were Bob 12/6, Becky 3/0, Nick 0/18, Tomo 6/9 with conferred 13/20 and 8/12 pass-overs. The Rams collected 2/9 pass-overs.

The game ended with a generous spread on the cheeseboard with baguettes, biscuits and celery with two excellent chutneys and the spirits of the Lemmings had been held up by the superb Ossett beer Nelson Sauvin (New Zealand hop) with Becky opting for the slightly melon-flavoured offering from Mallisons. Thank you Brian for a wonderful spread, Andy for making defeat a pleasurable experience and the Rams for a lively and enjoyable evening.

10 comments:

AJ said...

In actual fact, the maximum break in snooker supplementary question was in the original supplementary questions sent for vetting but not in the supplementary questions on the night. Just in case anyone was wondering why they hadn't seen or heard that supplementary !!!

Nick said...

Thanks for clarifying that

John Stein said...

We're the POW questions vetted at all ?
In the Geography round we had the Fiji question giving the distances and directions from NZ and Honolulu!!
Then we had a sports question the answer being Toronto followed by a sports question in the GK with the same answer!

Nick said...

I shudder to think what they were like before vetting!! I know Andy tried hard ...

Anonymous said...

It's not the standard of questions submitted for vetting that's a problem, but the subsequent refusal to change anything to make them better, as if it's an insult to the setter's intellect or something.

AJ said...

Re the vetting of the specialist questions, we made a lot of comments about spelling mistakes, grammar errors, incorrect answers, badly worded questions and impossible obscure questions. Many suggestions, but not all, were acted upon, For instance, we said that in the Fictional Spacecraft round, the question about Icarus in The Planet of the Apes film needed clarifying. Ioarus is never mentioned in the film as it was dubbed that by a fan afterwards. This question was left unchanged.

Anonymous said...

I've seen that a few comments are now shown as having been posted on this week's questions, but the links don't seem to be working, e.g. http://maccql.com/questions/2017-18/week%2009%202018-01-09/comments%20carbon.htm

Nick said...

The links in the blog seem to be working OK to the top page of the questions and everything else - is that where you're having a problem or in navigating the maccpql site?

Anonymous said...

It’s just the comments and info links on the Week 9 questions page

Nick said...

Might be a browser problem - I couldn't replicate the problem