29 January Away to Rushton Diamonds

Or at least we should have been but the snow isolated Bob in Rainow and we had no means of making the journey.
But anyone who did play please feel free to make comments here.

22 January – Plate Quarter Final

Yes it’s winter and with the first flakes of snow comes disaster!

First Bob who lives in the hills, rang – roads are closed and he doesn’t think he can make it.

Then Sunil, in Coventry for a meeting, rang to say his taxi failed to arrive, and he has missed his train but the next one is due to arrive at 8 o’clock. He rang later to say the second train was running 20 minutes late.

Looks like we’d be a team of two but after a flurry of phone calls managed to get Becky to play.

Fortunately we were playing very good friends the Park Tavern who were happy to agree to a delayed start and the game started with Sunil’s arrival.

As always all questions were conferred (if individual scores had been taken Tomo would have shined) and the two teams fought a very close battle.

After the first 20 questions the Lemmings had slipped behind with 14 to the visitors’ 15 but both teams scored 18 in the next round. The Lemmings then fell further behind with 17 to the Park’s 19 – now a deficit of 3!

But then the Lemmings’ luck changed as they took the next round15 to 12 making the scores level before moving on to a strong finish in the next two rounds with 18 to 12 and 16 to 12 – a final score of 98 to 88.

As always with the visitors it was a very pleasant game and the question master Keith was a fair and flexible official.

The evening drew to a close with a fine selection of sandwiches – thank you Brian, the Park Taverners and to Keith.

Here’s hoping the weather improves.;

15th January – Away to the British Flag

It seemed ages since the Lemmings last visited  the Flag as the hosts had enjoyed something of a sabbatical in the A League before returning to the B League and giving the Lemmings a drubbing of nearly 30 points in the first game of the season.

The pub is a cosy local that despite being a free house is still selling Robinsons Unicorn and others from the former owner and a guest that for our visit was Marston’s Pedigree all well kept.

The evening started with black clouds on the horizon as Becky was not at the Waters Green Tavern the  customary gathering point (she had made her own way to the Flag setting the alarm bells ringing) and the question master was stuck in traffic following a serious accident between Hazel Grove and Macclesfield. Sighs of relief when both Becky and the question master arrived but the Lemmings were obviously a bit jumpy.

The Specialist rounds set by the Nags Head were interesting and clearly a lot of thought had gone into them – one round on trains in film and another on various aspects of magic were different and enjoyable. It was a keenly matched game and at the end of the Specialist the Lemmings were trailing by just 8 points with 47 to the Flag’s 55. We’ve made up bigger deficits in the past.

The General Knowledge questions had been set by the Robin Hood and were rather patchy with too much effort on pairing the questions. They did however manage to score this season’s first nomination for the coveted Nine Banded Armadillo trophy for which the answer was kenning described in Wikipedia as “a type of circumlocution, in the form of a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse and later Icelandic and Old English poetry.” No-one in the room had ever heard of this!

Again these rounds were closely fought but the Lemmings could not break the Flag’s lead and the teams ended with equal points, 77 each with the Flag victorious with 132 to the Lemmings 124.

Individual scores were Bob 6/15, Becky 3/12, Nick 6/15 and Tomo 15/12; conferred points were 12/10 with 5/12 pass-overs – the Flag picked up 5/18pass-overs.

It was a pleasant game rounded off with a selection of sandwiches – many thanks to the landlord, to the question master and the home team.

8th January Home to the Nags Head

This was the half-way point in the League and now all the games played so far will have the venue changed (home/away). It was almost a local derby as the Nags is only around the corner from the Tavern, and the quiz team are old friends and adversaries.

The Specialist questions had been set by the Park Taverners and were very well received – they covered a wide range of subjects with a round on islands and clearly a lot of thought had gone into the setting. The scores at the ne of the Specialist were equal with 72 each.

The General Knowledge rounds set by the Rushton Diamonds were less kind to the Lemmings who saw the Nag’s Head slipping ahead, until they had built a substantial lead of 98 to 70 finishing the game with 169 to142 (Nick’s scoring may have lost a point there).

Individual scores were Bob 15/15, Sunil 18/9, Nick 12/12 and Tomo 18/12 – Conferred points were 6/13 with 3/9 pass-overs whilst the visitors gathered 3/12 pass-overs.

It is interesting to look at the conferred points as usually the Lemmings get a very high score here but only two questions were conferred in the Specialist which reflects the excellent balance and difficulty of the rounds.

Special thanks are due to Brian the question master who kept the game flowing with a light and humorous touch, to the visitors for a pleasant and jocular game and finally to Brian for an excellent selection of sandwiches.