6th May 2010 - Screaming Lord Hound

Five Hounds gathered to quiz as the rest of the nation went to the Polls - Lord Peterkins Hound of Intercompanyshire returned from Brum for his first outing in a while and, as if that were not enough to bouy the spirit of the Hound regulars, he bought with him Mrs Peterkins.

Given what was going on in the country at large we opted for title that reflected our collective ideology 'Screaming Lord Hound'. We then ran through the pre-match ceremony of a couple of crosswords and a quick skip through some tabloid quizes. Pre match meals were a mixed affair - one went gammon and egg, two had sarnies - chicken and salmon & egg respectively, and two resisted the urge altogether. Regular readers may wish to match the meals to the Hounds and maybe like to guess the three Hounds that voted and the two that didn't?

We were confident that the addition of Mrs Peterkins to our ranks would boost our chances of being competitive, given our recent run of poor showings. And so it proved. Joint leaders at the end of the first round with 27 from 30. Joint top still, with two others, after the music round on 60. Interestingly there was one team behind us on 59, three tied on 58, one on 57 and three tied on 56.

I say 'interestingly' because by the time we'd finished the final round, yes - you guessed it, the entire pub was tied on the same score of 101 - meaning that the three teams who'd had the best opening two rounds had the worst third round and the teams that had been a relative mile behind after two rounds outscored all others such that we all finished equal.

Quite remarkable.

The tie breaker question was, 'How many households in China have a TV set?'

Answers submitted ranged from 6.85million to 800m. We went 147 million. The answer was 380 million and there were six teams closer to to that than us.

And we didn't win the raffle - which, on a night when the country drifted slowly towards coalition, was probably the most predictable event of the night.