Monday night pub quiz at The Arc

I've been kicked off of my regular team for the evening, so will be looking for some folks to team up with. Are you there GDSM? It's me, Margaret.

This is an out of office autoreply.

GDSM is out of the office for an unspecified period. If your query is urgent please contact someone.

you haven't been kicked off, as such
your regular team is not even showing up

The rumour is GDSM split up due to artistic differences after substance abuse had taken its toll.

If substance abuse would break up a quiz team, regular polyhedron would've disbanded ages ago.

I shall have to turn up just to find out what GDSM stands for

GDSM:
God Does Strange Miracles
Girls Don't Say Maybe
Gonna Do Some Meth

Sadly, a personal emergency means that I won't be able to make it.

GDSM stands when we can't find chairs.

Me and Jayhay are looking for two other people to join our team. I will be there at 7:45 in a blue hooded jumper. Just ask and we will add you to our team

I am glad that The Devil Himself and Roots know how to identify India on a map.
Perhaps if they had gotten that question correct, we could have been closer to winning the strawberry limes.
sigh.

Thanks to the Daisy table stealers for the free shot at the end of the night. Sorry that I couldn't participate otherwise. You'll all be pleased to know that the personal emergency has been resolved. For now.

GDSM: Go Down Some More
GDSM: Green Doughnuts Smell Marvelous

Yeah Daisy and we were dumb enough to trust them

Great Danes Snooze More?

At least we got Hamburg, Jeeves. That is all that really matters.

You helped us earn those shots Upquark!!! A dubious distinction indeed. I was just upset that there were two, count them, two sports sections. My worst area.

yeah, and Dr Matt was really strict with question 6 on the footie round
he gave out points for saying Birgit Fischer won medals for rowing (instead of kayaking), but he wouldn't give a point for saying the scudetta was the Italian league (you had to say Serie A) - seemed a bit harsh to me.
not that it would have made any difference, like, but I just feel like having a bit of a whinge

So why didn't you then
I thought a round of questions only on (association) football was great but a bit hard on teams made up mostly of "transatlantics"

True, Topsy, Dr. Mark (much as I like him) sometimes has an erratic scoring system. And just to pick some sour grapes, we couldn't have won yesterday anyway as there were 5 on our team

I would say that this particular example it was right for him to exclude it, as our team wrote down Italian League only because the word sounded Italian.

Well, I would have got Serie A if I'd known that he was going to be so strict about it...
I guess he probably said so, but it's not like exam conditions or anything, is it? We were just too busy trying to have a good time as well as trying to do OK in the quiz.

Damn those colour schemes !! !! I atleast got it right the second time though, with roots still looking horribly confused !!! ... And remember, we were playing for the win, hence the 'all or nothing' approach. So if you really want to aim for just the strawberry limes, we will just have a much more cautious approach next time !!

Dr. Matt giveth and he taketh away. I know our team has sometimes been miffed when he gave points for vaguely right answers when we were spot on. But at others times this has worked in our favour.

like when he gave out points for "Roger from Cameroon" the other week

I'd rather he was strict the whole time, personally.
But that's just a minor gripe. In the overall scheme of things Dr Matt is fab, and I love the pub quiz at The Arc.

Well it was only my second quiz night at The Arc but I also thought that having a good time was at least as important as getting the answers bang on. Easy to say when we came last though
I did feel that Dr Matt was a bit generous allowing "to make more money" as an answer to "why did all 22 first division clubs resign from the football league in 1992". On that one I agree with a miffed Exile.

Sadly, I gave up on the win after current events. Seeing as we only got one point in that category.
(The one point earned by me on the Jessica and Nick question.)

Nick who?

Nick who !!!

I bet you aced the hollywood gossip round last week

He gave you a point for saying "to make more money"??
And we didn't get a point for saying the winners of the Scudetta were playing in Italy?
Hmmmmmm

No he didn't give US a point for that because WE got it exactly right (hence the tinge of miffedness)

Unfortunately I did not. I think I only knew one or two answers at most. I am not on the up and up with Hollywood gossip these days as I haven't seen an Access Hollywood in about 5 months.
I just used to watch the show Newlyweds (with Jessica and Nick) so that is how I knew that.

On a side note, I also think quiz night is fabulous and good fun.
But sometimes Dr. Matt gives points for funny or creative answers. Can I assume that if all my answers were funny and creative that I would get a perfect score?

Yes I hope he gave a bonus point for the "customer service" answer

The team of 5 issue becomes pretty important when there's a lot of cash at stake though. The clarification of that rule has only been in the last month or so, and I think it's reasonable. 1 point seperating two teams, one of five and one of four when there's 100+ E for the winner carried serious potential for bad blood. Limiting the first position to teams of 4 is the best way to ensure such a problem doesn't occur.

There were less teams of 4 last night than teams with over the limit...or at least it seemd that way.

But surely that's the strength of it - a group of mates can have a fun night and not be limited by numbers if one extra comes along, but the top position is exactly fair for all. Works for me, anyway...

Yeah, but I still think teams should be broken down when there are a lot of people. Last nigh tthere was a team of seven. Would it not have been better for a team of four and one of three? Not that it would have made a difference, since we came in second to last, but what is the maximum team size? Is it seven?

What often happens is someone on a regular team invites a friend or two along. Obviously they want their firends in the same team as them.

BTW I like the way Anthony In Europe turns up half way through and then sits with a team with a good chance of winning

Didn't a team of two win last night?

I dont think Dr. Matt defined a maximum team size. He just said that anyone with more than 4 people in the team , cannot win the quiz.

Limiting the teams has always been a problem. At first Matt was fairly lax about numbers and tried only to discourage large teams from entering. However after a large team won a double money pot, Matt approached me and we tried to think of a solution.

The best we could come up with was to disqualify an oversize team from winning 1st place, and to absolutely limit the number of meal vouchers and bottles of wine to 4. That would discourage the formation of larger groups. The real problem is that people who are in groups of 4 already have a friend walk in late - do we tell them they can't sit with their mates until the quiz is over? Particularly as there are a number of teams who don't expect to win, don't take it too seriously and want to play merely for the fun of it. Those are the people I don't want to alienate because we're being too harsh. I remember early on when I filled in for Matt one week, I insisted that a late comer sit with a team who were short, instead of his friends and I haven't seen him for the quiz since.

If anyone can come up with a better solution, then please let me know. If we increase the team size to 6, then teams of 6 will have a 7th joining them, and the problem remains. If we abolish size limits on teams, then we risk having ridiculously high numbers of people on some teams...

It's fine as is I reckon - keep the teams at 4 but let a couple of extras in as long as they don't effect the money. As brokenm suggests, as soon as a team becomes 7 it is probably just as well to have a 4 and a 3 but you don't want to really upset people by chucking them out.

I really don't care as I enjoy the night and it is well worth the entertainment of the two euro. I think what you have set up is fine as making it too formal might change the feel of the game.

Exactly - remember, it's those people who don't care if they win or lose and play for fun who bolster the final pot for the people who are serious about winning!!

I wasn't confused. I was just shocked that we overlooked that little separate piece of land colored differently. Not making any excuses but I guess we were just too excited it was geography and missed the easiest one of all. Well at least I made it up with Tomb of Tutankamun

Yes Roots we'll have to rename you two "Tutankamun" and Rummenigge.

I'm a QN newbie but I agree with Brokenm's assessment of things on the group size issue.

One solution might be for the tieing teams (whatever number within reason) to offer up one contender each for a 'quiz off' - best of three answers takes the money. Just a thought. Haven't been yet. Perhaps next week if I can join a threesome.

Just had another thought. In a pub last week (Dubai) the quiz master asked: 'What NATO member does not have an officially recognised language?' The answer was 'German' although he didn't explain why. Maybe to do with reunification?

Any ideas?

my 2 cents...

teams over 4 cannot place 1st 2nd or 3rd. They can go for glory and also for shots/beer/crisps etc

German isn't a NATO member if you want to be really pedantic

Why is Germany listed here.

He was alluding to the exacting wording of the post, I think: "German" isn't a NATO member but "Germany" is. (No prizes for guessing whether I'm a pedant myself.)