One more weekly roundup to catch up on, though I've another week ending soon so will want to try and get that roundup finished more...on time. We shall see! On with the show for now.
Quiz #81 - Sunday 23rd April, Turf Tavern, Carlisle
My teammates from last week were absent this week, but my usual partner, M, returned. Our partnership is becoming pretty standardised, which is good to see. I like the idea of a consistent team at this tough quiz. Unfortunately we both tend to struggle a bit on pictures and current events, and neither did us any favours this week. 4 and 2 respectively left us already on the brink, though of course we didn't know the scores at this point.
The hunt for an improvement was already on, and we got it with the top 5 lists. We got all the main characters in The Big Bang Theory, and 3 of the 5 sports in the modern pentathlon. Though the latter was the source of a little controversy - more later. 8 is solid on that round though.
Alpha Links was even better, as I managed a second consecutive 10. The connections round again mimicked last week, as we got 4, but not the connection. Which was fonts, which looks a lot more obvious with hindsight than it did at the time. For the wipeout round, we played very safe. We went for 5 and got them - but could have had an extra 3 had we only gambled. No complaints though, as we've erred before.
Now the controversy. We were tied 2nd, one point below the score we thought we had - as were the other team, actually. For the pentathlon, we put "horseriding", when it was "showjumping/equestrian". The marking team gave us it. For the connections round, we gave the sister ship of the Titanic as the Britannia, not the Britannic. One letter out, but we didn't get the point. This was a quandry for the QM, as both were arguable for different reasons. It was decided to give us one but not the other, and retain the tiebreak situation. My own scores reflect the one that I think was fairest, and I've given us the connection point rather than the sports one. That's not the way around it was marked as, but personally, I think it's fairer.
In the end, we won the tiebreak, giving us second. Can't argue with that!
Result: 33/55 (60%), 2nd (after tiebreak)/4
Quiz #82 - Monday 24th April, Kings Arms, Dalbeattie (K)
K was back at the helm for the Kings Arms quiz, which I've also volunteered to host! That will happen in a couple of weeks time, so watch this space on that one. This week, I was with Big Tams, with just the usual couple in attendance. We're a strong team together, and we started well with 17/20 on GK.
The next rounds were...mixed. A sci-fi films round was practically written for me, though the others grabbed a couple. In typical fashion, I tried overthinking the identity of "Darth Vader's spaceship. Let's cut through the debate - it was the Death Star, and I'm proving my geekiness by naming things like the Executor. We had 14/15 in total. That was near twice our 8 on birds, which really rewarded the knowledge of a specialist.
Childrens TV and Advertising Slogans were both threatening sounding rounds that have done for us in the past, but we came out fighting, and bulldozed our way to 12 on each. The...experience...of my teammates helped here, as they've had kids, and are more familiar with the old slogans than I was, but I certainly helped with the TV as there were a few from my own childhood.
Unfortunately, none of the three of us tend to fare well on played music, and so it proved again. 7/15 wasn't good enough and we knew it. We still had the podium, however, winning the princely sum of £2 between us for our share of 3rd. Good enough!
Result: 70/95 (73.68%), joint 3rd/unknown
Quiz #83 - Tuesday 25th April, Ship Inn, Dumfries
Business as usual at the Ship Inn, with the usual pairing of S & A with me. It was a pretty typical night, with the specialist round, Disney at least looking promising for A & I. She's always loved that stuff, and I've been binge-watching Once Upon A Time.
That was a long way off though, and as per usual, the "general" part of the "general knowledge" round was suspect. High score: 4, low score: 0, with two others on 0.5. Our score: 3, for 2nd place. Food & drink followed, and this was met with typical facepalming as a strong player for the Newbridge Caravan Park's is a chef. Even he didn't get them all. We had 6, leaving us tied for the lead, but dropped back to second after a round on the human body. It was almost identical to the round a couple of weeks ago with the guest host. That didn't mean I remembered all the answers though, and S & A not being there the first time helped none. We got 7.
The picture round was dingbats, yet again, and it felt brutal, but we managed 10/12 thanks to some late steals, somewhat consolidating our 2nd place. The specialist round felt genuinely fair and good, and I really enjoyed it. A & I combined our knowledge effectively for 7, though we dropped to 3rd. The music rounds are so varied these days tha you really need a specialist on the team, which we're sadly lacking for now. 18/30 cost us the podium, though it was nice to see an unusual winning team - the daughter of one of the NCP and her friends, who got almost all the music ones right. A heavy margin of defeat for us - 11 points - but nothing we could do. Oh well!
Result: 51/82 (62.2%), 4th/9
Quiz #84 - Wedesday 26th April, Granary, Dumfries
Another quiz that was back to normal was the Granary, which had far fewer than the 25 teams of the previous week. 16 teams is still standard for the quiz however, so it was hardly quiet. It was a very well constructed quiz, with rounds 1 and 5 being GK, 2 and 4 being the settings of TV shows, and a true or false round in the middle. Our team was the usual combination of myself & L.
The first of the GKs was relatively gentle, allowing for a high 8. TV isn't a particularly strong subject for either of us, but we salvaged a 6 thanks to my remembering Walmington-on-Sea for Dad's Army at the death. We did the same on the other such round, and I'll always take 12/20 on TV. Unfortunately, we got Hollyoaks wrong, putting Hollyoaks itself instead of Chester. I'd correctly predicted it would come up in round 4 after round 2, and looked it up. The internet semed to tell me that Hollyoaks Village was the correct answer, and given that Erinsborough and not Melbourne was wanted for Neighbours, it seemed reasonable to go for the village. Still, it's understandable that they wouldn't simply have the name of the show as an answer.
The true or false round was begun with the explicit indication that there were both true and false answers. That wasn't to say there was no pattern, however, and I thought I'd seen one: Q1 false, 2-5 true, 6-9 false, 10 true. I was almost right, but 5 and 6 were the other way around (I think it was those ones, though I've also a memory of getting the first one wrong). To be fair, we were basing this on actual answers where possible, it wasn't pure guesswork. Treating these rounds like extremely difficult GK certainly helps, and we still got 8.
This looked like being a high scoring quiz, but the second GK was rather a "wheat from the chaff" round, being a lot harder. For comparison, if the first round was comparable to the Alpha Links at Redtooth quizzes like my Sunday one, this round was the Wipeout round. L was a little lost, but I managed to give some decent answers - like East and West Falkland as the main Falkland Islands. Our 4 was enough to put us on the podium, and that's always an achievement here. Our scores at this quiz are improving, we've both noticed, and we're both delighted.
Result: 32/50 (62%), joint 3rd/16
Quiz #85 - Thursday 27th April, Anchor Hotel, Kippford
Once more into the breech, for the last time at the Anchor until the autumn. I'll probably benefit from the extra day off per week, if I'm honest. Lord knows I have enough else to do, especially since I'm in the process of moving house. The quiz brought with it the Motley Crew for this final rodeo, though I think the Disciples may have been absent actually. Shame. For the joker, I tried to refrain from participating much in the discussion, though I did make clear I did not support GK. We went for round 2, food & drink. We would have gone for "Pets" as we had a vet, but apparently the round had nothing to do with animals. That meant it didn't seem worth the risk.
We started in average fashion with 5 on GK, and unfortunately only managed the same score on food & drink. More frustratingly than that was that the "pets" round turned out to be answers beginning with those 3 letters. We all agreed it would have been a no-brainer for the joker. I don't know why they were so cryptic about it, and it's a little disappointijng. We had 7 on it, which included a couple of great answers from me, such as petard for a fom of explosive.
Geography followed, and I felt awful after a question asking Australia's smallest state. I was pretty sure it was Tasmania, but the guy I'd had friction with a couple of weeks ago insisted with almost violent aggression that it was actually the Australian Capital Territory. Which he also insisted was actually called Canberra, which is of course the capital itself. I can certainly see the argument for both, as the ACT isn't really considered a state as such (much as Washington DC isn't one of the 50 US States) but it was given as Tasmania and checked afterwards on complaints from the guy. We gave ACT as the answer, as I backed down quite easily. Against that kind of aggression, what else could I do? Anyway, we had 5 in total.
Dingbats and entertainment ended the season, and we got 7 of each for a strong finish. Credit where it's due, the guy mentioned in the above paragraph got a great last minute dingbat answer. Our choice of joker round ended up costing us the day, yet again. Among the competing teams, we were 2nd, but 3rd overall because the wives of the QMs were joint winners, I believe.
Ultimately, it was a decent end to a strong season. A win would have been great, of course, but that's okay. I've quizzed here with some great people and shown myself off pretty well. I'll miss the quiz, but it will be back in the autumn, and I with it.
Result: 41/56 (73.21%), 3rd/9
Week in Summation
This was a pretty uneventful week, to be honest. If anything, it was as normal a week as I could have. The teams were typical, the hosts normal, the difficulty pretty standard, etc. The results weren't as I'd have liked, of course, but 4 podiums out of 5 is certainly acceptable - really, a win was all that was missing, and I can't expect that every week. The overall score was just a shade over par, too, so there's that. Not a lot else to say, really!
Total Result: 227/338 (67.16%)
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