It was such a pleasant surprise to arrive at the Robin Hood – the car park was full, inside all the tables were full with people dining,
drinking, talking etc. There were three hand-pumps with a good selection of wines, draft cider and a comprehensive menu. It is so pleasing to see how the pub has been turned around – and a great relief that tables had been reserved for the quiz.The team are old friends and adversaries and it is always a pleasure to play against them. Unfortunately the Lemmings were without Bob who had suffered a loss in the family; of the two usual substitutes Sunil was giving a talk to a gathering of web designers and Tony was sick but Wendy’s husband Ken kindly cancelled a previous arrangement and made up the team.
The questions were out of the ordinary and this seems to be a recurring theme recently – a very welcome turn away from quiz books etc. and some proper thought put into the questions. Unfortunately
this did not work to the Lemmings’ advantage and they were trailing by 11 points at the end of the Specialist with 63 to 74; they did much better in the General Knowledge but still lost by 1 point (60 to 61) with a final score of 135 to 123 to the Robin Hood. There was just one question that both teams thought was wrong and a substitute was used.Individual scores were Wendy 18/12, Ken 9/3, Nick 15/3 and Tomo 12/15; conferred points were 8/21 with 1/6 pass-overs while the Robin took 3/6 pass-overs.
A very tasty selection of sandwiches (including excellent roast beef with horseradish!!) rounded off a very pleasant evening – many thanks to the Robin Hood, to the team and the question master who sometimes plays for the Robin and who covered for the Rams who were unable to provide one,
19 comments:
A friendly game and, for the Robin, a vital win. However, rumours that the Royal Oak have pulled off the shock of the season is bad news for both sides. As noted, although the final score looked pretty close, we had run up an early lead so tension never really mounted. Ken had a good specialist round, but the presence of Mr Langstaff might have made for a tighter battle overall. Best wishes to Bob and family.
As for the questions, speaking in a poor position to hand out criticism, it is probably safe to refer to "a game of two halves" (for anyone who thinks 8/20 is a half, at least). The Park Timers set a very different round of specialists to last week and I'm sure that the vast majority would argue that this was a step in the right direction and the 3s rolled in. An honourable mention for a Sport round that was answerable needs to be made.
After 8 rounds, one was probably not alone in thinking of a career pb, possibly like a non-local careering down the hill into Prestbury, 5 miles into the Macc Half Marathon. However, the Church House Bolly adopted the Hare Hill role and the points dried up, to the extent that both teams scored fewer in the GK than the specialists, despite four extra rounds. There wasn't too much to draw irritation, although none of us had ever heard of a Panenka, (nor had two dedicated football fans at the bar - this was real anorak stuff Alan L), and Lord Flame's Bollington gastronomy correspondent has clearly been getting around (geographically and temporally), Horchata was a mystery and the old-school blancmange quickly superseded chitterlings as the most repulsive offering of the season (to this pescetarian wuss, at least). The CHB had a knack of creation of annoyance with self - they had clearly used the vetting system as intended and this had left a mini-nearly-current-affairs round behind and the names of Sian Blake and Peter Dilley had, by now, escaped us all. Camilla Batman-etc.etc. had stuck in the mind, but caused some pronunciation anxiety. Not one for the next spelling-bee. A liberal smattering of friendly questions allowed some of us to make headway in the second half and there was no quibbling on the balance - hard but fair.
One suspects that a league ruling on Kardashian questions looms....
Whoever set the last 6 rounds of the GK section ruined what was proving to be a decent quiz with a stream of really ridiculously tough questions. The specialist round had been fine with good scores all round. Perhaps the Science round was a bit too easy - a reasonably bright Year 6 would have got most of them, but all round very good. The first half of the GK was much more difficult, but balanced and most questions were answered by someone. However the last 6 rounds were incredibly obscure and difficult. In our game, which was between the current 2nd and 3rd in the A league and 4 of the top 10 in the individuals, only 7 questions were answered for a 3 and 5 of those went to the same person. No one scored higher than 15 on the GK and 3 really decent quizzers got 9, 6 and 0. I can't see the top 4 in any League changing much after last night
Whilst the science was answered for 3 by everyone, even at the full height of the Michael Gove revolution Year 6s were protected from fluid ounces and, indeed, Gatling Guns. Kleptomania and CO2 were distinctly friendly fire.
However, I do think myself (aged 13) would have had a better hit rate on the specialists than I would now on the GKs.
Alan, by any chance was the player who kept scoring in the GKs First-First Player 1?
If ever there was a case of Passover, whilst plagues of locusts, boils, thunder etc. rained down on the other 7, this seemed to be it.
Yes. He was on the Weaver team
We had a very entertaining evening at the Dolphin playing against the Dragons. We went "first first" which, in respect of the few games I've heard about so far, might have been an advantage, although neither team thought so at the time in our game. It will be interesting to see how / if that is reflected across all the matches.
I would entirely agree with Alan L that the second half of the GK were tougher than the first. The scoring dropped off markedly in our game too after a break half-way through.
The Specialist questions went down well and the scores looked very healthy at that point. The “picture” round was anticipated with some trepidation but all concerned were very happy with 7 “threes” and 1 “conferred”.
There were some excellent questions in the GK as well, but also some very tricky ones, especially later on, as above. The night’s top-scoring Dragon, Dave Cooper, got the “Panenka” for a conferred – most impressive as no one else had a clue! He did the same with “heels” and “faces” later on.
Horchata had us all wondering if the recipe starts with the phrase “Take a handful of tiger nuts…”, and I may never go near a blancmange ever again, just in case. We did get the “Ed Stone” question though, which sadly, is more than most of the UK did…
The end of the game also saw a very nice “sweet and sour” provided by the Dolphin – most impressive cuisine, as always!
I had the misfortune to go first in the GK, and from looking at a PB following an amiable (and fair) set of specialists was shell shocked by the end. When I took our sheets in, I did have a quick look at results from elsewhere and noted the Weaver / Dolphin scores. After that I didn't feel as bad. I did note that AAD scored better than anyone else I saw in that seat - Respect! There was more than one player scoring zero, and as Alan Levitt pointed out, some very strong quizzers with remarkably low scores
We are vetting questions from the Dolphin in a couple of week's time, and Peter McBride asked me to make sure that the questions are evenly balanced between each position - so if there are any horrific imbalances, it will be my fault.
The trouble is that they are easy when you know them. I reckon to be our team's gastronomy correspondent but got the Horchata question and had never heard of it. I knew the blancmange which was conferred. The panenka question fell to our sport guru who expanded the answer with "as scored by Ross Barclay at the weekend"
A couple of years ago, guidance was sent out to suggest that the Dilley and Blake type of questions should be turned round to "Why was **** in the news in January?" Maybe this needs re iterating
I was in the same place as Lord Flame and managed to answer four questions in the GK, including a wild guess about a river I had never heard of. I speak Spanish, have been to Spain loads of times and like you one of my specialist subjects is food and drink, but I too have never heard of horchata.
Another little tip for setters and vetters: if you set (just as an example) two James Bond questions, give one an odd number and the other an even number. That way, even if you can't be bothered to check the balance for individual players, they will not go to the same person. Not rocket science!
I have never watched a James Bond film - however, there was a phase of my marriage when I would join the other half in front of Sex and the City. It was, not so coincidentally, just after our honeymoon in Bangkok - all very helpful. Then the Rake's Progress began - end result Tuesday nights at the quiz...
Good point by Alice. That certainly works if the "same subject questions" both sit in the either the Specialist or the GK.
I had the two "Led Zeppelin" questions on Tuesday - which was great as I knew the answers - but the questions were split, one in the Specialist and one in the GK. One was Q3 in the Specialist Round and the other was an even-numbered question in the GK, but both went to me, so watch out for those too, where such questions straddle both sets.
I guessed the Chao Phraya question on the basis of it being a Thai restaurant in Manchester
I'm interested that Alan Levitt and others think the first half of the generals was not too bad. After three rounds the Weaver had scored 35 and the Dolphin 9, with one 3. We can put up with losing to the Weaver (we frequently do) but this was absurd. When you go into the break with 21 in the Specs. you rather expect to end with a pretty good score, not your worst of the season! A further stat from this game is that 18 Qs went unanswered in the generals. I seem to have been in the same seat as Alice, but only managed two, something I've never experienced before.
Alice's point about balance as between subject matter is well made, but it's a pity that it has to be made; that kind of thing ought to be elementary.
PeterMcB
Yes, Peter, I was only saying that the first half of the GK was not too bad in comparison with what came after. They were still tough and unbalanced. As I alluded to in my earlier comment for you, Alan and Stuart to get such low GK scores was ridiculous. Like you, I had a very good Specialist section with all 8 correct. I was expecting a season's high but got only 12 in the GK, which was very disappointing. Balance was non-existent!
I didn't see much variation in the GKs (across the board) except for a brief hint at easier questions between Q71-80. It took about 3 questions to see that the GKs were going to be a tough bunch.
At risk of being inflammatory, when I looked at the marks in the bag the other night, the GKs were generally scoring in the 3-6 zone. Teams were almost universally drawing many blanks - as pointed out by representatives of each of the big 4. We didn't feel the imbalance (except re: one position), as a team who won against the apparent grain, largely helped by the absence of a strong opposition player - however, for the Weaver to run up a margin of 40odd against the Dolphin and the Oak to turn over the Ox-fford C is, let us say, interesting.
There were many faults with the specialist questions last week, but they were surely no more sadistic than this lot and, so it seems, the punishment was handed out more evenly. Am at a bit of a loss to why this week's GK seem to be worth 2/3 marks more. (On other hand, can totally accept why this week's Spec's got the 6-9 marks that were generally given). Is it just that 8 overly-difficult q's on the same theme has the capacity to distress more than a wide variety of less predictable unanswerable questions?
In my opinion the faults in last week's specialist questions were largely due to inexperience whereas this week's GK questions were just meant to be very difficult, for whatever reason.
I'm sure the League awaits the Weavers' questions this year with genuine interest...
It's tempting to try and follow the example set by most other teams this season
In fairness to the last two comments:
a) the questions set by The Weaver last year were considered to be well above average by both ourselves and our opponents in that match.
b) With the exception of the last three weeks (with reference to the non-setting of qs 3 weeks ago, not the set that turned up instead), one set of GKs well-discussed about 6 games ago and a single provocative question about Guernica, I don't see much of a reason not to want to emulate the standards set this season.
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