Week 7 in Quiz Nations Europe and with the top teams in the Elite leagues chasing four Champions League places, and two promotions spots up for grabs from the Civilian League, we don’t need Jermaine Jackson to remind us that it’s starting to get serious.

In Elite 1, Broken Warriors progress remains serene as they racked up a seventh straight victory, with a 53-39 win over Denmark Y. Looming into view, and threatening to interrupt the Warriors pleasure cruise though is Irish iceberg Ollie and Gracies Lonely Heartclub Band, who overcame fellow Champions League contenders Nerds of Steel 52-50 in the game of the day to maintain their 100% record. Next week’s clash of the top two is already looking like a ‘Titanic’ tussle, and will go a long way to determining the destination of the title. Elsewhere Viddr had a fine 46-33 win over Danish Pastry; Switzerland Quizzers overcame Chiltern Wanderers 45-31, and Social Quiztancers defeated Gallium 41-29.

Elite 2 lived up to its reputation as the most closely-contested division in the Euro zone, with 3 of the 5 matches settled by a single point. Unbeaten leaders North-South Divide were pushed all the way by bottom of the table Witless Protection Programme, before prevailing 47-46, confirming Al Pacino’s hypothesis that any team can beat any other on ‘Any Given Sunday’. The Pyromanians burned like fabulous Roman candles, as Jack Kerouac predicted, claiming a great victory by the slimmest possible margin (43-42) over Tiimi Nimi; and kudos to Northern Lights who pushed second-placed Paul Jam all the way, in another nail-biting encounter. In a week characterised by keratinous detritus, there were a couple of relatively comfortable victories – Champions League contenders The Motley Crew powered past Denmark X 55-30, and Team North East maintained their good form with a 50-37 win over Capercaillies. Next week’s Motley Crew v Paul Jam clash looks like it might prove decisive in the race for the Champions League.

In Civilian League, the race for promotion is heating up, with Pick and Mix and Quality of Mercians powering onwards with the Elite Leagues in their sights, registering victories over The North Remembers (52-28) and Manos Castro (46-38) respectively. ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ next week as the top two meet, so Scratch and The Dude Abides, who played out an exciting, high-scoring 43-43 draw this week, both remain in contention. In the other matches, Zbroing 747! picked up a hard-fought 37-34 win against the Mancunians, and Bulgarian Rational Society edged out Universally Challenged 32-29.

Onto the weekly roundup of the 2 point solos, and once again the Civilian League more than held its own against the Elites. Two of the four solo 2s this week came from Civi Street, so kudos to Anne Rech of The North Remembers for recalling that Gleinicke Bridge was the ‘Bridge of Spies’, and to Peter McGrath of The Dude Abides for landing Chaparral. It’s a fair bet that Mark Rae of Capercaillies works in IT, as he aced software, and he was the only solo player to remember that defunct social media site Bebo’s name inspired the backronym Blog Early, Blog Often, and Keith Nickless of Chiltern Warriors knew all about South Africa’s Garden Route. Well done all!

 Roll on week 8…