9th September 2010

I was drinking in the Farmers last Thursday night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For Mr Tony from his seat began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise

He did the Quiz
He did the farmers Quiz
The Farmers quiz
It was the Thursday Quiz
He did the quiz
It caught on in a whizz
He did the quiz
He did the farmers quiz

From my House in Cliff End east
To the Kevster’s bedroom where the vampires feast
The Hounds all came from their humble abodes
To get a jolt from Theo’s electrodes

They did the quiz
They did the Farmer’s quiz
The Thursday quiz
It was a Crazy quiz
They did the quiz
It caught on in a whizz
They did the quiz
They did the Farmer’s quiz

The Hounds were having fun
The party had just begun
The guests included Tony Brugnoli
and Daren Gray

The scene was rockin', all were digging the sounds
Peterkins on chains, backed by his baying hounds
The Pickled eggheads were about to arrive
And the Grayhound was placed in the top five"

They played the quiz
They played the farmer’s quiz
The farmer’s quiz
It was a strange quiz
They played the quiz
It caught on in a whizz
They played the quiz
They played the farmer’s quiz

back from his Running, Robson’s voice did ring
Seems he was troubled by just one thing
He drank his Young’s and shouted out loud
And said, "Whatever happened to the music round?"

It's now the quiz
It's now the farmer’s quiz
The Farmer’s quiz
And it's a Crazy quiz
It's now the quiz
It's caught on in a whizz
It's now the quiz
It's now the Farmer’s quiz

Now everything's cool, Danny's a part of the band
And my farmer’s quiz is the hit of the land
For you, the living, this quiz was meant too
When you get to the door, tell them Robson sent you

Then you can quiz
Then you can Farmer’s quiz
The Farmer’s quiz
And do my farmer’s quiz
Then you can quiz
You'll catch on in a flash
Then you can quiz
Then you can farmer’s quiz

Money for nothing, chips for free

A record turnout of hounds this week at the Greyhound with Pete joining Daren, Kevster and myself. Sadly this wasn't reflected in the opposition with only three teams in total participating.

The first round caused a fair bit of head scratching, questions like "Who is the chair of the Osteoporosis charity" and "what is the former profession of Sue Barker's and Penelope Keith's husbands" made us think whether we should get our coats. We stuck with it though and a decent joker round on music and respectability on films steadied the ship.

One of the features of recent quizzes has been the various games on Kevster's HTC or whatever it is. Last week we made elements, this time green pigs, Frogger and a clever little heart rate monitor all featured. Who knows what next?

Two bowls of halftime chips proved a real bonus and fortified us for another strong round for the hounds, The Royals. Bit miffed to not get "Which king's horse did Emily Davison throw herself under" but solid rounds on the Living World and Pot Luck pulled us round.

With there only being three teams we'd marked rounds from all our opposition at some point. Daren's prediction was 2nd place and so it proved. However that was good enough for a refund of the entry fee and a bottle of wine which we promptly guzzled.

All in all the Greyhound is a convivial venue and lets hope there remains enough interest in the quiz to keep it going. Thursday night does seem to be quiz night in Carshalton and maybe there's too much choice. Bit of a hangover the next day, always a good sign.

Answers:
Camilla Parker Bowles
Policemen
George V

7th October 2010- The 'Grey'Hound pt 2

Following last week's pleasant discovery, and straightforward enough win, of the Greyhound's weekly quiz in Carshalton Robson and Kevster gathered again, joined this time by a becasted and becrutched Daren.

With the £30 food voucher from last week's win burning a hole in the collective pocket the menu was quickly perused and food orders placed.

We were presented with the titles of the rounds, from which to choose which we would play our 'joker' on for double points. We spurned 'Great Britain, 'Invisible', 'Connections' and 'Pot Luck' and plumped, somewhat predictably, for 'Music'. There were also three 'picture rounds' to frustrate us...

The first two of these weren't really 'picture rounds' in the traditional sense, one being a list of 10 boxing weights needing to be placed into ascending order (over to Robson for this one and he duly obliged with 8/10) and the other being a series of 10 'dingbats'. These proved harder than we casually assumed and we only got 6/10 - the one's we missed out on being;
"PePPermint",
"Blu e",
"xmascara" and
"Dr. Cri__en" *

The final picture round was much more traditional and we were traditionally troubled by it. But by that stage we'd already scred heavily on Great Britain, got 9/10 (18/20 with our joker) on Music and an average 5/10 on the Invisible round. Further consistent scoring on 'Connections' and 'Pot Luck' saw us home in first place for the second week running and by a comparably comfortable margin of 9 points.

In the midst of all that Robson enjoyed some Youngs Beer Bangers and Mash, I had a perfectly pleasant Venison burger and very nice relish and we split a somewhat random but nonethless delicious gammon terrine! After all that it was no suprise that the half-time bowl of complimentary chips went largely untroubled.

So, we won again - pocketing enough money to cover the return cab fare and another £30 food voucher. All that remained to be done was for Kevster to forcibly and repeatedly state his opposition to Jose Maria Olazabal's proposed Captaincy of the next European Ryder Cup Team. Obvious really. And then we went home.


*
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`,,ǝıʌoɯ ǝnlq,,
puɐ `,,dn ǝʞɐɯ puɐ ssıʞ,,
˙,,pǝʞɔıʍ ǝɥʇ ɹoɟ ǝɔɐǝd ou,,

16th September 2010 - The Hound @ Crown & Sceptre

All four Hounds gathered in a South Croydon side-street on the eve of my birthday for a first crack at the Crown & Sceptre's quiz.

Too much early fannying around meant we missed out on our table of choice and had to sit immediately opposite the kitchen entrance. Robson caved to the inevitable and ordered a burger and a bowl of chips swiftly followed.

As the quiz kicked off a group of late-comers were seated right next to us - as the evening progressed they transpired to be a group of ex-pat Brits returned here briefly from their now native Canada. Two splendid couples whom it was our pleasure to lord it over throughout the evening.

We started with a picture round - never the Hound's strength, and we returned 6 out of 10. But from then on we picked it right up, 9/10 for each of the second and third rounds and full marks in rounds 4 and 5. The final round was structured such that a full house of correct answers would win 5 bonus points but any incorrect answer given would mean no points for the entire round - better to leave an answer blank than get it wrong. Well the 5 bonus points were never an option as we failed to provide any answer for three questions and got one of our answers completely wrong - nil points.

Total score of 39 points was good enough for 4th place on the night - even with a good last round we'd've been hard pushed to catch the winners.

We supped up and headed out into the South Croydon Badlands in search of one more drink to celebrate that bad old Kevster's birthday. We found a bar, after a bit of a stroll, and ordered our round before realising the time, necking the lot and rushing for last buses.

Crown & Sceptre is a deeceent boozer - food looked nice enough from a fairly bog-standard menu. Bar staff were decent and atmosphere was pleasant enough. Quiz was prefessionally enough run (having been bought from www.redtoothquiz.co.uk) and a return is not out of the question.

The "Grey"Hound

The end of Q3 took us to Carshalton to continue our road theme. Our requirements were, a quiz that started and finished at a reasonable hour, a convivial atmosphere, acceptable beer and a chance to be competative. Whisper it, but we may have achieved those goals, read on.

We were depleted in number, Daren had bits of his leg removed and Pete was tired from entertaining tradesmen. So it fell to Kevster and myself to fly the flag; we'd warmed up with one in the Coach & Horses (pass on that quiz but good music!) and were ready.

The rather attractive quizlady took a businesslike approach to things, we named our joker round, sport naturally, and we were off! First up was a picture round of guest Simpson stars. Us and pictures don't mix but we muddled 7/10 and were away. Off to "Happy Families", I think we confused our answerers with Mercutio and Brugnoli as the Romeo and Juliet families but otherwise we were away. Literature and Kevster identified Charles and Gerald as Mills and Boon and I identified National Velvet as about Horse Racing and with 9/10 on the key sport round, we gathered ourselves at half time.

Along the way we had some help from the random bloke at the bar but otherwise accumululated steady 7s or 8s/10. Scoring up and excitement developed; we'd actually won by a clear 9 points! The prize was about £30 food token plus £12 cash. Well we'll be back for that, plus it was all very friendly and convivial.

The oddest thing about the whole evening was the rant from some bloke in the C&H about people bringing kids into pubs, I agreed but the delivery was strange. Definitely, definitely worth another visit.