Thousand Pound Hound

Right, bit late arriving at the pub, delayed by that pesky thing called work. Still, when I got there Tottenham were thrashing some unpronounceable team on the telly and Steve was about to tuck into his third pint so all was well. Or so I thought, turned out Daren was detained in hospital for a follow up to his recent procedure. Wasn't sure of all the details but he muttered something about "Tuesday night" and "trauma". Didn't catch the rest but I assume all is well.

The counter bonus was we were joined by Pete who's been enjoying a week off. Mainly spent going to Littlehampton (don't bother it's sh!t) and tackling some of Chipstead's toughest climbs walking (I can vouch for those). Graham made up the foursome and was quickly into his stride with a map of Africa to dissect for the picture round. The only things that foxed him was the apparent remerger of Ethiopia and Eritrea (bucking recent trends) and which country Lake Victoria was. Incidental to the questions in hand and we were confidently away with 10.

Onto current affairs and missing our resident expert we were worried about our lack of prep but collectively delivered with answers like $3.2m and Sherlock, price of a Superman comic and winner of some Emmys respectively. The next round was "Brothers" and Graham continued to see it like a football with a stupendous answer about Terry Scott, maybe it's the Purley connection. Other fine answers on the brothers Dassler, Ferrari and Brenninkmeijer (my favourite) were also supplied though I made it 1-0 on the prediction stakes with Kemp.

Connections followed and with the first answer of Will Carling, "blokes who've shagged Princess Diana" was virtually written in. Actually, looking at all the answers, maybe Siobhan missed that connection as most are plausible (James Blunt, Keith Floyd, Colonel Gaddafi etc?) Turns out though they've all been in the army or more precisely, as Graham again picked out, trained at Sandhurst. 10 pointers, I haven't written those down but we bagged them, largest landlocked country and catching a crab ring bells.

Half time was reached with confidence until being deflated by the top 10 of "girls names in 2013" - Siobhan admitted later it was a bit of an easy option. Well we've had this before but frankly, who cares? Naturally we turned to Pete with the most recent knowledge and the usual Amy, Amelia, Emily, Jessica etc were reeled out. Don't know how many we got, probably the usual 7 or so.

Jeopardy and we made a fine start with answers on the colour of Dennis the Menace's jumper, author of Canterbury Tales and contents of Pandora's box. The banana skins duly arrived though with actress who played Private Benjamin on TV and occupation of a velologogist (Lorna Patterson and collectors of tax discs apparently, who'd have thought it?) We played it safe from there.

Music and I think we got 19/20 failing only to discern the Lighthouse Family track (they all sound the same, they're all shite and I've already forgotten what it was and what we put). Rantette over, the last task for the chocolates to date the Dartford Bridge, a nice meal, a few drinks, that sort of thing. Tsk, you know, well we failed anyway plumping for 1985, think it was actually 1991.

It seemed like a long wait until the results so a few quotes from the night to fill the time, "sausage in batter with chips", "Kevster in Africa" and "If Daren were here, he'd be trying". Yes, he often is. Did we win? I suspect you already know that.