did connect four kill the titbox?

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:34 am

It's an injoke. Ask Cool

Matt Vinyl · Post by **Matt Vinyl** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:44 am

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 4:08 pm

Interesting when you see newspaper reports and realise you know more about the people and events described than the reporter clearly did. That article from the Independent fails to mention, for instance, that the Hoofentry pub where Gerry could regularly be found was also the first place I saw an Every Second Counts. Or that only one person ever took serious money out of it, and it certainly wasn't him...

Does this mean I was one of the mysterious Nine Wise Men of the West Midlands? I think I should be told. Or should have been, back in 1993.

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 5:02 pm

Judging by your picture, I'd have thought you were from the East Midlands.

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 5:25 pm

QuizMaster wrote:Judging by your picture, I'd have thought you were from the East Midlands.

Was Barquest an especially East Midlands-centric machine, then? Or is this a Sherlock Holmes type deduction which will amaze with its simplicity? Or (most likely) am I missing something obvious? As it happens, I was Hoofentry-based all the time I was a full-time player, which was back in the 90s, and came across Gerry quite a lot.

(As for the machine in the picture, it came from a man in South London via eBay and now sits in my conservatory; its provenance before that is a bit sketchy. I think it might have been a bit of a mid-life crisis thing to have bought it, but hey, it's safer than a motorbike, and cheaper than a divorce).

QuizMaster · Post by **QuizMaster** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 5:38 pm

No it wasn't an East Midlands machine, but the best Barquest player I knew was from the East Mids. Presumably you must have come across John (rip I heard) and Matthew a fair bit then?

QM

Topical2009 · Post by **Topical2009** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 5:58 pm

Ah, I see. Yes, I knew John and Matthew, who were a funny old double act. IIRC they normally used to play as a pair, but I'd occasionally catch one of them playing a well-hidden machine on their own in some backstreet boozer in Nuneaton or Rugby, and have to promise not to tell the other one their guilty secret.

Sorry to hear John might be dead, but not entirely surprised - I seem to remember his lifestyle was unhealthy even by the low standards I set myself in those days. He appeared to live entirely on Woodbines and Brew XI, which doesn't suggest you're going to be the last of the gang to die.

BigEd · Post by **BigEd** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 8:30 pm

Matt Vinyl wrote:What is all this tea-bag debate on here recently?

In a WaterGate "style" comment (no offence meant to WaterGate)

Tea bagging or bully ramming? That is the spoiler question.

cool · Post by **cool** » Fri Aug 13, 2010 10:07 pm

I dont want to bring up the teabag debate again! It was leaked to a 3rd party from a friend who shouldnt have said anything and straight after it came up on the site apologised.I no longer carry a tea bag(s) with me.

There was a top barquest player from Bournemouth called Gareth who was a friend of Paddy Spooner and got caught up in the Spooner cash for phone calls/questions 'scandal'