26th October – Cup/Plate Questions

 

The Phoenix had a bye for the first round of the knock-out competitions earned by setting half of the questions, expertly drawn together by Wendy – the first half of the questions were set by the Sutton Church House who clearly had some difficulties but rose to the occasion and all questions were ready by Monday night.

There were some issues raised during the game at the Waters Green Tavern where Nick was acting as question master but it must be said that several questions where the answer was challenged were in fact correct: the River Bollin flows into the Mersey not the Weaver as was generally thought, and the three towers at the Palace of Westminster are correctly identified.

However it will be seen in the questions that Q33 was omitted and there were two Q100’s – the questions have been left as presented to the question masters.

Comments on the experiences of others are welcome below.

19th October Home to The Nag’s Head

Another toughie!! We have played this team under several different guises as they have had to move several times over the past few years, having now settled at the Nag’s – they have rejoined us from the A League and after two games were running top of the League.

All the questions had been set by The British Flag and probed some hitherto untouched areas one being of particular interest (A&E Q7 see picture above). This has an odd background revealed by Simon Schama in his own inimitable style: “… the androgynous idol of English pop, Cliff Richard, on whose floppy pompadour Hockney desperately doted. The title of “We Two Boys Clinging Together was both an allusion to his literary hero Walt Whitman and a giggly reference to a newspaper headline about stranded hikers that proclaimed “TWO BOYS CLING TO CLIFF ALL NIGHT” (in Hang-Ups). Other questions were less oblique and very enjoyable.

Nick is allowed to make one complete cock-up per season and unfortunately it has come early this year – he forced Venetian citizenship onto Vasco Da Gama and added a couple of centuries to his age when trying to guess the name of Venice’s airport.

Notwithstanding it was a very close contest with the Phoenix trailing at the half-way stage with 42 points to the Nag’s 44. Playing safely the Phoenix managed to close the gap but the lead kept shifting from one to the other in the General Knowledge with the Phoenix eventually scraping home with 81 to 77.

Individual scores were Bob 6/9, Wendy 6/15, Nick 0/18 and Tomo 9/15; conferred points were 13/16 with 8/8 passovers. The Nag’s picked up 6/7. Final score 123 to 121.

It was great to have a question master who was firm on timing and the evening ended with a generous plate of sandwiches and pork pie – thank you Brian and Tracey.l

Home to The Castle 12 October 2010

The Castle is a popular pub in the centre of town with a lot of activities: there are two quiz teams and it is known as a venue for folk music on a regular basis.
Sadly The Castle has not fared well in the economic crisis and has been up for sale for some time now; the popular landlord left the premises on Monday and the future of the pub looks uncertain.
The Castle quiz team has also had problems – this was only the second game of the season and already they have used seven (yes seven!) players. We very much hope that all difficulties will soon be sorted out.
This proved to be a very closely fought game and at the end of the specialist rounds the Phoenix had a slender lead of 7 but The Castle hit their stride with the General Knowledge and began to catch up.
Again Nick had trouble with the Specialist questions (no complaints – just not his kind of question) erring perhaps on the side of caution. There was some imbalance in the questions (frequent cries from the Phoenix of “”Wish we’d had that one!!”)  but by and large they were pretty good.
Neither team threw away points with wild guesses and the Phoenix worked together well scoring 18 points with conferrals – an odd statistic being that it is the same amount that the Castle got in passovers which is surprising since the Phoenix did their best to keep the questions on the table.
Individual scores were Bob 15/6, Wendy 9/18 (maintaining her high scoring rate), Nick 0/15 and Tomo 9/12; conferrals were 6/12 and passovers 5/5 showing much discipline by The Castle.
And the surprise of the night was a draw with 112 each!!
Questions were handled deftly by Ed from the Church House Bollington and a most enjoyable evening finished with a generous selection of sandwiches – thank you Brian and Tracey.

5th October – A Double Celebration!!!

  Not only was this the first night of the Macclesfield Pub Quiz League starting at an earlier date than usual, but it also celebrated the long-awaited publication of Bob’s history of the Macclesfield workhouses – a fine work of scholarship – well done Bob!! And contrary to expectations the main workhouse was not as anticipated the old West Park hospital but coincidentally on the Waters Green the home of the quiz team!!

The season started with the loss of two teams to the A League – The Knot, a fine bunch of quizzers who rocketed through the C and B Leagues to the A League where we expect they will stay; and the British Flag who seem to have achieved the Phoenix’ ambition of bobbing up and down between the A and B Leagues.

The first game was away to The Albion, a venue previously not renowned for hospitality, but what a change!! Under new management the beer was in good condition, the staff were efficient and friendly (and attractive!!!) and we got butties. A good setting for a good quiz.

The question master for the night was from The Lamb and since he had not had this onerous task before, he was getting a crash course in the finer points in the Waters Green Tavern before the game;  fortunately the redoubtable Matt Eagles (a quizzer of considerable experience!) had turned up as his former team had dissipated over the summer and he thought he might be able to make himself useful. He very kindly agreed to work with the question master for the evening.

The game against the Albion had been viewed with some trepidation as they had done extremely well in the last season so it was with some mixed emotions that we learned that they only had three players for the night .

Both teams eased themselves slowly into the game with a set of questions that were thought to be very good indeed – even with two picture rounds!! All questions can be viewed here.

The Phoenix played a very steady game giving away very little as can be seen in the individual results:

Bob 18/18 (leading from the front). Wendy 18/15 (a very strong start to the season), Nick 3/15 (a weak start despite his whingeing that he knew all the other answers except his own) and Tomo 15/12 (another strong start); conferred points were 8/8 (mainly from Nick) whilst passed over points came to 6/9. Good team work is indicated by giving away only 4/6 passovers to the Albion. Final score was 155 to 114 to the Phoenix.

But there was more to come!! Matt ended the evening agreeing to join the Albion team making them a real test for the future, and there was a generous selection of butties to finish.

A most enjoyable evening with lots of laughter and fun and a great start to the season – and a very special thank you to the new management of The Albion.