Blessed this week from a report writing viewpoint, Graham was off on hols in Malta so I picked up the role of question writer, a role I think akin to the bloke who sits to the right of the captain in University Challenge. Kevster played the part of the geeky fella who sits on his left, the one who they generally only ask when it's an astrophysics question and the rest of the team don't actually know his name, "nominate er, him". Daren played scribe and from that you'll gather no Steve, he was nursing cycling injuries having left around 40% of his skin on a road in Reigate. Anyway, blessed because as a consequence I have notes of questions etc. so none of the usual waffle.
So only three but numbers were generally down in the pub, someone mentioned the gap since last payday, don't people know there are companies who'll provide short term loans at very reasonable rates? If only I could remember what they're called. Pre match chit chat was on the gloomy side, mainly about dead women so absolutely no help for the current affairs round.
This week we expanded the popular game "guess the connection" to the rather similar, "guess the pictures" with predictions of "castles and stately homes", "footballers" and "Dereks". Well it proved to be London buildings and landmarks (another bleedin' London round) so I guess Dereks was closest.
On to current affairs and the most interesting question being about which politician would only trust a Muslim to do his shopping (see later 1). Next round, islands with the question that vexed us the most, well vexed Daren, Kevster and myself didn't have a clue, being the name of the inn in Treasure Island.
Connections and with predictions of TV detectives", "the World Cup" (someone isn't trying hard enough here) and "types of tomato" try these first five answers - King, Fiddler on the roof , Blue, Velvet and Oliver Stone? Clue, "types of tomato" was nearest. 10 pointers and some tricky ones, what sport is the Nino Bibbia cup played for and when was the Oscars first televised?
Top 10 was replaced by film tag lines which proved to be enjoyable. Steve would probably have known them all but we had fun trying to work them out. The most fun was with "The last man on earth is not alone". I had Will Smith and a German Shepherd (dog that is) from somewhere so you'd think the hard work was done but our collective memory failed us. Onto wipeout and we knew some half-assed answer like "the Vatican" wouldn't cut in on where popes are elected so we swerved that, Snow White in Latin and the first boxer to win world belts at 5 weights we just didn't know. Music and it reads like a story, Wouldn't it be nice, I can't help falling in love, Need you now, Viva la vida, Will you still love me tomorrow, Embarrassment. We knew most, Kevster agonised over something with Love in it.
The chocolates (Maltesers) round hung on when Walt Disney was born, quite pleased we didn't know that. All in all though it was a quiz where we left it all in the field as it were (not a pretty sight) and were rewarded with a barnstorming win. No reports of post match kebabs but Kevster was coming off a bout of gastroenteritis so maybe discretion prevailed.
Answers
Peter Robinson - Northern Ireland secretary or the like
Admiral Benbow
Crabs
Skeleton bob????
1953 - we got that!
I Am Legend
Sistine chapel
Nivia
Sugar Ray Leonard
1901 - he's younger than you think
Friday 30 May 2014
Saturday 24 May 2014
"Epic kebab" and a "bacon sarnie in the morning"
Dramatis Personae
Steve -a hound
Kevster - another Hound
Robson - a blonde hound (looking very pleased with himself)
Graham - a hound going on holiday to Malta
Daren - hound and scribe
Preface
An oik at the bar was nearly late for the quiz as he was unable to procure some Yorkshire puddings.
Act 1 Scene 1
Pictures- there were people in them, Bernie Taupin masquerading as David Furnish if you can believe it. There might even have been a sighting of Lord Lucan but he's an elusive cove so we'll probably never know.
Dear,dear Larry.
There was then a round on current affairs, but by the time you read this, they will no longer be either "current" or strictly speaking "affairs" so I shall move on.
Interval
Act 2 Scene 4
My notes suggest that there was some Moby Dick and a bit of Fanny Bryce in the next round but I suspect Kevster has been scrawling his inner thoughts whilst I was in the toilet..
The connections round was Blue Peter animals (don't be so blue Peter). We said tv animals and we didn't mean transvestite, but there's an idea for a future quiz.
Cars- Toyota, BMW, vw, Nissan, ford etc. Good job we weren't Reliant on Robin for this round!
Act 5
If music be the food of love we got most of it. M.O.T.W.Y.W.
The rest of the quiz is just incidental so we may as well get to the denouement now. We came second, largely due to mixing up Tootsie with Kramer versus Kramer. And so the curtain fell on the final act.
Epilogue
A light rain falls and shadows chase themselves towards the gathering dusk. Against a tumbledown wall a hunched figure in a raincoat lurks. A Hound!
Steve -a hound
Kevster - another Hound
Robson - a blonde hound (looking very pleased with himself)
Graham - a hound going on holiday to Malta
Daren - hound and scribe
Preface
An oik at the bar was nearly late for the quiz as he was unable to procure some Yorkshire puddings.
Act 1 Scene 1
Pictures- there were people in them, Bernie Taupin masquerading as David Furnish if you can believe it. There might even have been a sighting of Lord Lucan but he's an elusive cove so we'll probably never know.
Dear,dear Larry.
There was then a round on current affairs, but by the time you read this, they will no longer be either "current" or strictly speaking "affairs" so I shall move on.
Interval
Act 2 Scene 4
My notes suggest that there was some Moby Dick and a bit of Fanny Bryce in the next round but I suspect Kevster has been scrawling his inner thoughts whilst I was in the toilet..
The connections round was Blue Peter animals (don't be so blue Peter). We said tv animals and we didn't mean transvestite, but there's an idea for a future quiz.
Cars- Toyota, BMW, vw, Nissan, ford etc. Good job we weren't Reliant on Robin for this round!
Act 5
If music be the food of love we got most of it. M.O.T.W.Y.W.
The rest of the quiz is just incidental so we may as well get to the denouement now. We came second, largely due to mixing up Tootsie with Kramer versus Kramer. And so the curtain fell on the final act.
Epilogue
A light rain falls and shadows chase themselves towards the gathering dusk. Against a tumbledown wall a hunched figure in a raincoat lurks. A Hound!
Sunday 18 May 2014
The Hound does Wembley, Wenger, wandering, woggles, Wotsits, wazzocks, wine, women, winning and warbling...
Saturday 17th May
South Croydon
Merely 42 hours after having been asked to leave, The Hound was back in the Purley Arms - bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and in no way whatsoever prepared for the events that were to follow. D2 and the Green Hound had made their apologies earlier and Lord Peterkins of Fatherhood was fondly remembered and muchly missed. But three Hounds is enough to form a quorum and thus Robson, G-Force and liddle ol' me werequorus quorate quorsome ready for action.
Initially it was all about the recovering from the shock of Arsenal being two down to Hull inside the first ten minutes of the FA Cup Final - but recover we damn well did and as the ever wily and wiry Wenger tinkered with his tactics to eventually overhaul their early deficit, so we blew away any lingering cobwebs with a pint or three in the somewhat busier than we're used to pub.
With extra-time a fading memory, and Wenger's Arsenal career saved for another 400 years, The Hound left the pub and set off on the 300 metre walk to our next destination - Bynes Road and the HQ of the 6th Croydon Scout Group. We had been advised to go via an offy so as to equip ourselves with booze for the quiz but this required detour can in no way explain why we walked three quarters of a mile towards Croydon before turning around and, via the gift of GPS, heading back exactly the way we'd come. So long did we spend wandering that by the time we finally arrived we had entirely missed the pre-amble and the whole of the first round of questions.
No matter - our hosts were endlessly accommodating and, having slunk down the entire length of the scout hut to occupy the spare table furthest from the door The Hound blended quietly into the background, cracked open the Wotsits and got on with the business of playing catch up. However once G-Force was thoroughly woggled up and halfway through the bottle of wine he'd brought along to entertain himself, our quiet background blending was interrupted as he bellowed a sexual swear-word at the question master during round four. Hey-ho, no real harm done and, to be fair, the question master was an absolute, 100%, prime-cut wazzock of a man.
The end of round four marked the halfway point in the quiz (kind of...) and was the cue for a thoroughly disconcerting series of events... Firstly The Wazzock joined us up close and personal and ran us through the ten questions we'd missed in the first round whilst wandering around Croydon. Simultaneously a small army of incredibly elderly women appeared more or less from thin air fully armed with large trays of sausage meat pie, pots of vegetables, potatoes and jugs of the thickest gravy I have ever encountered. With The Wazzock having departed, our table naturally then became the option of choice for the crones to gather and eat their fill. Heaven alone knows what they made of The Hound as Robson and I did our best to remain aloof whilst G-Force kept bellowing sexual swear words at regular intervals. Seconds of the main course were followed by trifle, more aloofness, more bellowing, a few apologies and being laid siege to by a small army of raffle-ticket and 'lucky-box' sellers.
Rounds five through eight were ab.so.lute.ly right up The Hound's alley - we got three wrong out of 40 and successfully played our Joker on our ten out of ten General Knowledge final round. I say 'final round' quite wrongly because The Wazzock then dropped in a twenty question musical round. Which we got 95% right. From memory. Because by this stage almost all the offy-sourced alcohol had been consumed and the edges of everything had gone a bit fuzzy. Thus it was huge bonus that we had a winning raffle ticket that enabled us to choose a bottle of red wine to crack into whilst The Wazzock tallied the final scores.
So we won. Natch. Glossing over the margin of victory The Hound sat and bathed in bottles of red prizes whilst all manner of volunteer types tidied up all around us. Eventually we had to give up our table and were thus forced to abruptly end our sojourn into Scoutland and head south back to the welcoming Arms of Purley. Wherein we found karaoke in the fullest of full swings and, plomping ourselves front and centre, were serenaded by Elvis Presley, Belinda Carlisle, some dodgy looking old-boy who could actually croon and two Dorises who absolutely plumbed new depths.
G-Force and I were cruelly plucked from this cosy scene by the heartless strictures of the 407 timetable. I hope he had more luck catching his than I did as I stood there, arm outstretched, whilst the bus driver chatted away on his phone and drove straight past me. I eventually got home around 0130hrs - for all I know Robson is still clutched in the Arms...
South Croydon
Merely 42 hours after having been asked to leave, The Hound was back in the Purley Arms - bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and in no way whatsoever prepared for the events that were to follow. D2 and the Green Hound had made their apologies earlier and Lord Peterkins of Fatherhood was fondly remembered and muchly missed. But three Hounds is enough to form a quorum and thus Robson, G-Force and liddle ol' me were
Initially it was all about the recovering from the shock of Arsenal being two down to Hull inside the first ten minutes of the FA Cup Final - but recover we damn well did and as the ever wily and wiry Wenger tinkered with his tactics to eventually overhaul their early deficit, so we blew away any lingering cobwebs with a pint or three in the somewhat busier than we're used to pub.
With extra-time a fading memory, and Wenger's Arsenal career saved for another 400 years, The Hound left the pub and set off on the 300 metre walk to our next destination - Bynes Road and the HQ of the 6th Croydon Scout Group. We had been advised to go via an offy so as to equip ourselves with booze for the quiz but this required detour can in no way explain why we walked three quarters of a mile towards Croydon before turning around and, via the gift of GPS, heading back exactly the way we'd come. So long did we spend wandering that by the time we finally arrived we had entirely missed the pre-amble and the whole of the first round of questions.
No matter - our hosts were endlessly accommodating and, having slunk down the entire length of the scout hut to occupy the spare table furthest from the door The Hound blended quietly into the background, cracked open the Wotsits and got on with the business of playing catch up. However once G-Force was thoroughly woggled up and halfway through the bottle of wine he'd brought along to entertain himself, our quiet background blending was interrupted as he bellowed a sexual swear-word at the question master during round four. Hey-ho, no real harm done and, to be fair, the question master was an absolute, 100%, prime-cut wazzock of a man.
The end of round four marked the halfway point in the quiz (kind of...) and was the cue for a thoroughly disconcerting series of events... Firstly The Wazzock joined us up close and personal and ran us through the ten questions we'd missed in the first round whilst wandering around Croydon. Simultaneously a small army of incredibly elderly women appeared more or less from thin air fully armed with large trays of sausage meat pie, pots of vegetables, potatoes and jugs of the thickest gravy I have ever encountered. With The Wazzock having departed, our table naturally then became the option of choice for the crones to gather and eat their fill. Heaven alone knows what they made of The Hound as Robson and I did our best to remain aloof whilst G-Force kept bellowing sexual swear words at regular intervals. Seconds of the main course were followed by trifle, more aloofness, more bellowing, a few apologies and being laid siege to by a small army of raffle-ticket and 'lucky-box' sellers.
Rounds five through eight were ab.so.lute.ly right up The Hound's alley - we got three wrong out of 40 and successfully played our Joker on our ten out of ten General Knowledge final round. I say 'final round' quite wrongly because The Wazzock then dropped in a twenty question musical round. Which we got 95% right. From memory. Because by this stage almost all the offy-sourced alcohol had been consumed and the edges of everything had gone a bit fuzzy. Thus it was huge bonus that we had a winning raffle ticket that enabled us to choose a bottle of red wine to crack into whilst The Wazzock tallied the final scores.
So we won. Natch. Glossing over the margin of victory The Hound sat and bathed in bottles of red prizes whilst all manner of volunteer types tidied up all around us. Eventually we had to give up our table and were thus forced to abruptly end our sojourn into Scoutland and head south back to the welcoming Arms of Purley. Wherein we found karaoke in the fullest of full swings and, plomping ourselves front and centre, were serenaded by Elvis Presley, Belinda Carlisle, some dodgy looking old-boy who could actually croon and two Dorises who absolutely plumbed new depths.
G-Force and I were cruelly plucked from this cosy scene by the heartless strictures of the 407 timetable. I hope he had more luck catching his than I did as I stood there, arm outstretched, whilst the bus driver chatted away on his phone and drove straight past me. I eventually got home around 0130hrs - for all I know Robson is still clutched in the Arms...
Saturday 17 May 2014
Scouting For Hounds
Another Thursday and with a full strength team and form figures reading 22211, the mood was good. We seemed to race through the drinks, which I had no problem with whatsoever. The usual business of the day was attended to first, not least how we were to spend our accumulated winnings. Now at some point, I don't quite know how, the conversation turned to the subject of "scouting". Actually, I do know how but more of that later.
Through the conversation it transpired that four of our number had been scouts in their time, that or beavers or badgers or whatever the associated age group "packs" are called. It probably won't surprise anyone that I was the odd one out in this. I put it down to the north south divide, I don't think scouting has ever made in north of Leighton Buzzard, and a good job too I'd say, Lord knows what they'd make of some of the practices in Mansfield.
All the same, I read and had some familiarity with the movement, Baden Powell and all that. However I'd always assumed that some of the more arcane stuff had either been abandoned round about the 30's or never even existed, effectively the product of satirisation by the likes of Comic Strip etc. That was what I thought anyway, some of the stuff our group freely admitted to included:
- sitting around campfires singing ging gang gooly and other such politically incorrect nonsense
- going round people's houses offering to perform services for money
- wearing woggles?!?
Well, maybe we didn't have jobs, fashionable clothing or more than 2 haircut options up north but at least we had our dignity. None of the others admitted to any actual abuse taking place, maybe the scars still run too deep.
Suitably traumatised it was onto the quiz and another round where I could scratch my nose or go to the bar as it was London bridges (they all look the same). The, frankly getting a bit samey, current affairs round was this week replaced by "odd one out", connections under another name but a fun opportunity to guess apple related themes, well done to Graham for bagging it first.
The actual connection round seemed to feature loads of people called John. Apparently the connection was they are all bald, I didn't think Eddie Jordan was bald but don't watch much F1 coverage, maybe it's a wig and I thought Homer Simpson has 3 hairs. I've missed out a round here but I've a note that says British Sh!t Coms so that must have been it. George & Mildred, Bread, Til Death Us Do Part and other such tripe. No Terry & June which was disappointing given our location.
2 out of 3, which ain't bad, on the ten pointers and the top 10 was back to countries, always a welcome theme, and the safest places in the world. These things tend to be a Scandinavian fest with a bit of SE Asia thrown in and so it proved. Canada made it too, never forget Canada plus a few central Europeans. The wipeout round was never truly in play but we collected 6 or 7 and the music was musical, by that time of the night the memory has pretty much gone.
Second to Lady And The Tramp resulted, not a bad show, a few points dropped here and there and maybe they beat us on the ten pointers. An embarrassing answer though on the chocolates round, I won't repeat it to spare blushes but maybe that was one we got our roles wrong.
Next event, Saturday in the scout hut and a chance for me to find out what its all about, if the woggles come out though, I'm making a run for it.
Through the conversation it transpired that four of our number had been scouts in their time, that or beavers or badgers or whatever the associated age group "packs" are called. It probably won't surprise anyone that I was the odd one out in this. I put it down to the north south divide, I don't think scouting has ever made in north of Leighton Buzzard, and a good job too I'd say, Lord knows what they'd make of some of the practices in Mansfield.
All the same, I read and had some familiarity with the movement, Baden Powell and all that. However I'd always assumed that some of the more arcane stuff had either been abandoned round about the 30's or never even existed, effectively the product of satirisation by the likes of Comic Strip etc. That was what I thought anyway, some of the stuff our group freely admitted to included:
- sitting around campfires singing ging gang gooly and other such politically incorrect nonsense
- going round people's houses offering to perform services for money
- wearing woggles?!?
Well, maybe we didn't have jobs, fashionable clothing or more than 2 haircut options up north but at least we had our dignity. None of the others admitted to any actual abuse taking place, maybe the scars still run too deep.
Suitably traumatised it was onto the quiz and another round where I could scratch my nose or go to the bar as it was London bridges (they all look the same). The, frankly getting a bit samey, current affairs round was this week replaced by "odd one out", connections under another name but a fun opportunity to guess apple related themes, well done to Graham for bagging it first.
The actual connection round seemed to feature loads of people called John. Apparently the connection was they are all bald, I didn't think Eddie Jordan was bald but don't watch much F1 coverage, maybe it's a wig and I thought Homer Simpson has 3 hairs. I've missed out a round here but I've a note that says British Sh!t Coms so that must have been it. George & Mildred, Bread, Til Death Us Do Part and other such tripe. No Terry & June which was disappointing given our location.
2 out of 3, which ain't bad, on the ten pointers and the top 10 was back to countries, always a welcome theme, and the safest places in the world. These things tend to be a Scandinavian fest with a bit of SE Asia thrown in and so it proved. Canada made it too, never forget Canada plus a few central Europeans. The wipeout round was never truly in play but we collected 6 or 7 and the music was musical, by that time of the night the memory has pretty much gone.
Second to Lady And The Tramp resulted, not a bad show, a few points dropped here and there and maybe they beat us on the ten pointers. An embarrassing answer though on the chocolates round, I won't repeat it to spare blushes but maybe that was one we got our roles wrong.
Next event, Saturday in the scout hut and a chance for me to find out what its all about, if the woggles come out though, I'm making a run for it.
Saturday 10 May 2014
Eurovision Hound
Thursday 8th May
Purley Arms
Five Hounds converged on the Purley Arms for this week's
sideshow of a shambles of an enigma wrapped in a horribly confused metaphor -
they came from all directions, via most of the available methods of transport,
and before you knew it the Hound was quorate.
We supped, we 'caught-up' and we discussed likely topical
question matters which we'd inevitably not get quizzed upon. Some present thought we'd be quizzed on the
upcoming Eurovision Song Contest evening - some others thought that would be
next week when it had finished and at least one of us *ahem* hoped we'd never
get quizzed on the ludicrous, damn thing at all... Ever.
No great surprise then when our quiz-mistress collected our
entry fees and in return dished out a sheet containing pictures of ten previous
UK Eurovision acts. Oh happy day. Oh happy, HAPPY, day...
At this point I'm going to temporarily shift focus and fly
off on a bit of a rantgent (a word which, by the way, easily qualifies for this
Millennium's Worst Portmanteau competition - a globally televised event
scheduled to be hosted in Germany on New Year's Eve 2999 after they won the
previous one in 1999 with their entry, 'Kofferwort', itself being both a
portmanteau and an synonym for portmanteau.
Having by that stage explored the furthest flung regions of space, the event
will involve campery on truly inter-galactic level with entries from every
known speck of the Universe and potentially beyond. For UK
(If at this stage you're still with me then carry on - if
you're not then probably best you skip down a few paragraphs...)
The Eurovision Song Contest.
The Eurovision flipping Song Contest.
Really? What the hell is it
actually all about? Putting aside around
98% of its nonsense and, for the sake of simplicity and minimising
controversy, concentrating merely on the UK UK
threw in its lot with America
The European country with an
arguably greater contribution to global popular culture over the last 50 years
than any other is now reduced to being annually, ritually, and absolutely humiliated
once a year as the collective might of sovereign nations, who didn't even exist
when Bucks Fizz cheekily whipped off their skirts and romped away with the
prize, gang up and *urgggghhhhhhhh...*
*takes a time out to enjoy some
bearded Romanian freak pretending to play a circular 'grand' piano... recovers composure*
... and when you add in a scoring system that over the years
has gone from the straightforward to the complicated to the downright complex
and now this year's which apparently contains 50% of marks which have already
been allocated by some random panel of judges based on rehearsals?! Seriously, you couldn't make this utter
piffle up...
*another time-out to allow the Polish performance to
'wash' over me...*
Before tonight's 'feast', the last one I sat through, to any
great extent, sticks in my mind for two specific examples of the 'wonder' of Eurovision. It was 2008.
First and foremost you, dear reader, should note that that was one of
several of the recent years in which the UK
*another time out for a skinny, bearded, Austrian Beyonce
impersonator to deliver a rightly rejected Bond theme*
OK, enough of the rantgent - back to the quiz...
Truth of the matter is that not only did we win it, we won
it with a huge, HUGE, score of 152. We
have scored 30 less than that in the past and won so either our genius is ever
expanding or this was not too difficult a quiz.
(Quick clue - it's the latter...)
The picture round, as above, was UK Eurovision acts - we got
8/10. Only fell foul of a couple in the
Current Affairs round (including not knowing that an American man has been
denied the right to marry his porn-filled MacBook...). Pretty much aced round three (themed on
'White'). Got the connection in the
connections round (England UK
*time out for Russian twin ladies who are bound together at
the ponytail and weilding large, suspicious looking, lengths of perspex...*
So, there you have it.
I started this report at the beginning of the Eurovision broadcast. The 16th country is now singing - only ten more to go and then four and a half hours of voting. Still, at least that Graham Norton fellow is terribly amusing eh...
* France 2008 Eurovision - Sebastiene Tellier
** Russian Eurovision 2008 winner - MASSIVE campery - made all the more extraordinary given Russia's recently strident anti-homosexual 'stance'...
*** 1929 (we were closest having said 1921)
** edit **
'Interesting' to note that the UK swerved the 2005, '50 Years of Eurovision Celebration' which basically comprised a vote-off of the 'best' Eurovision winners of all time - Cliff Richard was booted out at the semi-final stage and the Brotherhood of Man ended up coming last of the five that made it through to the eventual vote which us Britishers were rightly denied access to...
50 Years Of Eurovision - guess what, Abba wins...
x
**edit 2 **
An Austrian Beyoncé impersonator spotted earlier...
Saturday 3 May 2014
Wipeout Hound
Another Thursday and another quiz. The Hound had been laid low by a bout of seconditis recently and it was time for a change. We all arrived pretty much at seven or just after, Kevster had his drinking trousers on and feelings were high. It was going to be a good good night.
Well that lasted as far as the picture round. Nine characters, all apparently connected. The only connection we could find was we didn't have a f****** clue who most of them were. 3/10 to start with, not an auspicious start, possibly an all time low in fact. Things perked up though with current affairs and we started to hit some sort of stride. We've taken to doing "guess the connection" before Q1 and much excitement ensued when the first question related to the "comic" (I'm not a fan) strip Peanuts, which Daren had predicted as the link was the theme of the first question. It would have been a rather obvious connection though and the answer of Blanket was enough to point us towards Michael Jackson (how the heck did he come up with that name?). 10 pointers and we slipped up on a Hindu god - schoolboy stuff frankly, a quiz team should know their Hindu gods and we didn't. This left us around 65-3 chasing 160 at halfway, who would play the major innings?
The wipeout round followed and the scene was set. Now, what you should know of the wipeout round is that in there is going to lurk, like the Clarksonesqe nigger in the woodpile, a trappy rapscallion of a question. It looks simple but in there lies the danger as it lures you like a Siren to the rocky shores of quiz failure. If a question could relate to Ireland, that's a clue but the counter problem is though that you can see too much, dangers that aren't there and start to doubt everything. Well, we were going fine, entering answers for all the questions and then came "how many scoring areas in a dartboard?". 20 × 3 + 2 was the obvious math but Steve steered us towards the safety of 82, triples intersecting the singles. We had 10 answers, we've been there before but they all looked good, with no dissenting voices we went for it and for once were rewarded!
The music round was a virtual lap of honour as we scorched to a 20+ point win. The Hound was back! Naturally we celebrated long and hard, or at least might have done, long anyway but the pub kicked us out so we dispersed into the night, happy with our work. Good as well to have a bunch of hard-drinking Dorises on the next table, much better than that Johnny and the Moondogs pair.
Saturday Quiz
Two reports for the money this week; as Graham, Daren and myself plus 3 guests took the show onto the road at the Purrley Bury tennis club for the SHHIRT charity. A few cats whiskers, a cocktail don't you know, got us in the mood, Tina and Marie provided the insight into the celebrity fluff we're normally so bad at and we fancied our chances. The standard was high though and we couldn't complain at third place. A thoroughly enjoyable evening though.
Well that lasted as far as the picture round. Nine characters, all apparently connected. The only connection we could find was we didn't have a f****** clue who most of them were. 3/10 to start with, not an auspicious start, possibly an all time low in fact. Things perked up though with current affairs and we started to hit some sort of stride. We've taken to doing "guess the connection" before Q1 and much excitement ensued when the first question related to the "comic" (I'm not a fan) strip Peanuts, which Daren had predicted as the link was the theme of the first question. It would have been a rather obvious connection though and the answer of Blanket was enough to point us towards Michael Jackson (how the heck did he come up with that name?). 10 pointers and we slipped up on a Hindu god - schoolboy stuff frankly, a quiz team should know their Hindu gods and we didn't. This left us around 65-3 chasing 160 at halfway, who would play the major innings?
The wipeout round followed and the scene was set. Now, what you should know of the wipeout round is that in there is going to lurk, like the Clarksonesqe nigger in the woodpile, a trappy rapscallion of a question. It looks simple but in there lies the danger as it lures you like a Siren to the rocky shores of quiz failure. If a question could relate to Ireland, that's a clue but the counter problem is though that you can see too much, dangers that aren't there and start to doubt everything. Well, we were going fine, entering answers for all the questions and then came "how many scoring areas in a dartboard?". 20 × 3 + 2 was the obvious math but Steve steered us towards the safety of 82, triples intersecting the singles. We had 10 answers, we've been there before but they all looked good, with no dissenting voices we went for it and for once were rewarded!
The music round was a virtual lap of honour as we scorched to a 20+ point win. The Hound was back! Naturally we celebrated long and hard, or at least might have done, long anyway but the pub kicked us out so we dispersed into the night, happy with our work. Good as well to have a bunch of hard-drinking Dorises on the next table, much better than that Johnny and the Moondogs pair.
Saturday Quiz
Two reports for the money this week; as Graham, Daren and myself plus 3 guests took the show onto the road at the Purrley Bury tennis club for the SHHIRT charity. A few cats whiskers, a cocktail don't you know, got us in the mood, Tina and Marie provided the insight into the celebrity fluff we're normally so bad at and we fancied our chances. The standard was high though and we couldn't complain at third place. A thoroughly enjoyable evening though.
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