Can't find the old WU thread, so I'll just make a new one

[K_Oranj]

Regarding ProperPro's conspicuous absence of signature, well spotted Cardinal. I wondered what your reply would be.

However, it is consistent with thread topic - he'd obviously fallen asleep.

Personally I quite like them, nice big flourishes.

[cool]

fotherz I agree being very intelligent makes you extremely good at learning trivia!

[Properpro]

Oh dear. I seem to have wandered into a thread where self-importance is already monopolised and moreover protected by rapier wit.

I am suitably admonished and will not return. ops:

[Mattb]

To be fair, putting a line of zeds with an eye-rolling smiley is an almost meat headed reply. Why not join in with some rapier level wit yourself rather than post a caveman styled response.

[Properpro]

To be fair, putting a line of zeds with an eye-rolling smiley is an almost meat headed reply. Why not join in with some rapier level wit yourself rather than post a caveman styled response.

Temper, temper it's only a game. I would have thought blatant and personal insults wouldn't have a place in your posts, but it just goes to show.
It seems that any attempt to inject humour into a WU thread meets with a pack mentality of 'protect the sacred cow'. Fair enough, and I apologize unreservedly to anybody whose sensibilities I have offended, but I repeat it's only a game.

[cool]

matt b's post was quality and in this instance not ernest w quality. I found it funny in the real sense not piss take sense. It beats the cleudo debate where cardinal or ernest posted a visual representation of Michael Barrymore doing it in the swimming pool with a dildo on cleudo cards. Almost peed myself laughing. I salute you Matt B for the best post ever. Unfortunately it will probably bypass most other fruitchatters sense of humour!

[grecian]

Now, now ladies.

Have to say I agree with those posters that thought PP and Quizard were being impolite on this thread. As a "quiz only" player in the style of Cool, I have little interest in WU but I (and they) always have the option of bypassing threads with WU-related titles such as this.

That said, I think Fotherz flatters himself if he thinks that being good at WU automatically makes him more intelligent than someone who is good at quiz games - they are very different skills testing different forms of intelligence and I don't see why one need be more valuable etc. than the other. Reaching excellence in either (and indeed in any endeavour) is to be applauded. I imagine the reason that I focus on quiz games is the same as the reason Fotherz focuses on word games - because we believe our talents lie in those areas and they are where we will have the biggest advantage over the average player.

[fotherz]

Self-congratulation was not my angle. What I meant was, the pro quizzers really should have been smart enough to jump on the Word Up bandwagon. My word skills are hardly outstanding, and I am not a walking-word-list (i.e. a scrabble player ), but I still earnt hundreds (thousands?) of pounds from Word Up over its life - and I am a part-timer! Any intelligent "pro" would have made an effort to get good at a game that was so long-lasting, prevalent, and clearly doable. To spend all day in the vicinity of quiz machines and not get good at a game that people were openly cleaning up on, was madness. Any of the anti Word Up brigade on here would have been smart enough to earn serious money if they had played it. Maybe what we see on fruitchat is sour grapes.

[Istenem]

it is also a skill to step back and have a giggle .

as you all know i'm a wordnerd more than a quizwhiz but i can acknowledge excellence in a field.
afaiac it is more classy to get exactly one in a shit pub quiz than come second to a blackberry. but if you can win it on brainpower then that is a phenomenal accomplishment. and kudos to those who have that level of GK.

His Eminence has the wit unbecoming of dour Scot. i agree with both Grecian and Fotherz to some degree, but i'm the only person who is ever right.

i have every respect for those amongst us who can ace any given Q&A game. i can't. my beer money comes from understanding words and having a smattering of certain foreign languages (but very little dutch which seems pertinent at the minute).

sue decided to play SWP properly this weekend. £32 up after drinks and food yesterday. after one shenanigan today i have £78 in my pocket largely because i trudged through scrabble a lot in otherwise barren hinterlands. it was hugely dull. the free money from japseye in kingston was a bonus. £78 is not a huge sum but it will do. personally i'd prefer to double my money on WU than 8x it on scrabble but free money is the golden tit.

ps i got QUINTESSENCES earlier on a WU which is so vulgar that i should hang my head in shame.

play nice children or i will change your posts to

i'm a gaylord

[Mattb]

I just appreciate a good slice of darker wittier humour like most of you esteemed SWP players on this forum. (probably too much monty python/blackadder/not the nine o clock news etc in my youth).
I'm too used to one line peanut brained replies elsewhere on here which probably triggered my Pavlovs dog salivary response to mr proper pro. I'm glad it amused at least one person though.

(By the way - my reply was neither personal nor insulting!)

[nw6]

I agree with fotherz. It makes no sense that the pros didn't bother to learn Word Up

It takes a week to learn how to clear, and that's often enough to get 6 or 7 quid, maybe a JP. There are probably only a dozen or so players who can clear regularly (most post in here) so if you travel about it is (was) easy profit.

[nw6]

That said, I think Fotherz flatters himself if he thinks that being good at WU automatically makes him more intelligent than someone who is good at quiz games - they are very different skills testing different forms of intelligence and I don't see why one need be more valuable etc. than the other. Reaching excellence in either (and indeed in any endeavour) is to be applauded. I imagine the reason that I focus on quiz games is the same as the reason Fotherz focuses on word games - because we believe our talents lie in those areas and they are where we will have the biggest advantage over the average player.

I am sure that retention of information is a sign of intelligence.

Learning lists of facts by rote just to do well in quizzes seems a bit intellectually dubious to me, but then it's no different to learning NU LI TI ZO etc. just so you can win at Literati or Scrabulous

[grecian]

Quizzing at the highest level becomes less and less about rote memorisation of facts and more about the interplay of factual retention and logical / lateral thinking.

Speaking personally about WU, I joined FC at about the time that WU-mania was reaching a peak - the thread was dominated by posts about it and it was clear that a number of posters were already playing it to a very high degree of skill. At that time, I played SWPs to a lower standard (and less often) than I did now, and simply didn't feel that there was any point in learning how to play the game when the areas in which I'd play it (basically central London) had already been so intensively visited by people with much higher natural levels of skill (Bob, UP etc.) than I would have. Having said that, I'm not sure I agree (in my case) with Fotherz' confidence that I could have got good at it - despite being *fairly* keen on wordgames, GGDR will tell you that I'm about as much use as a chocolate teapot at WU (although I did find a word t'other day which enabled him to clear a grid). I certainly have no sour grapes re. the success of anyone at the game; in fact I admire it, and particularly Bob et al's hard work in putting national highscores up on a site.

Re Scrabble, I'd kind of like to start playing it (it looks more approachable than WU to me) but again am aware there's fundamentally no easy cash left in it in central London so I'd be playing for points and pride only. Is it worth it?

[QuizMaster]

Anybody here ever bother learning how to play Barcrest's Crystal Maze? That was a good earner.

And there was also a game called Radio Times a few years ago by BFG that was good for dough.

If anybody wants to know how to play these or any other games which haven't existed for years, you can contact me at http://www.yeswerestillgoingonaboutwordup.com

QM

[grecian]

And there was also a game called Radio Times a few years ago by BFG that was good for dough.

That was a cracking game. £5 top prize though, wasn't it? Very enjoyable though. I seem to remember the Astoria nightclub on Charing Cross Road had one, incongruously.