Dib, dib, dib - flop, flop, flop...

Saturday 1st November 2014
The same Scout Hut as six months ago - South Croydon

Almost exactly six months since The Hound victoriously disgraced itself for charity in a Scout Hall in Croydon we were, incredulously, welcomed back for a second punt.

All in all the evening in question was considerably lower key than it's forerunner had been - and rightly, properly and thankfully so.

G-Force, Robson and I gathered briefly in the Purley Arms and left in good time to, this time, go directly to the Scout Hut - pausing only to purchase alcohol and savoury snacks from an off license en route.  We arrived in advance of kick-off and settled in to self-serve booze and fake Wotsits and Frazzles...

In a strange turn of events we were quite possibly the youngest participating team and certainly not the most inebriated - that mantle belonging to one of the only other two regular teams in attendance from the Purley Arms - specifically the one with 'what's-her-name' in it - she was proper trollied...

Anyway, Siobahn (?) eventually got her wiring sorted out and we were off and underway with the questions...

There was a round of 'Dingbats' that served just as a warm-up and not towards the final scores, a joker to play on any round as seen fit and answer sheets sufficient for the first four rounds - Art & Literature, Geography, History & Sport.

We decided against our joker on any/all of these and blundered through as best we could - which wasn't brilliant to be honest (see scoreboard below).  Half time arrived and time for Cub food - we were promised chicken & ham pie with new potatoes, vegetables and gravy - no surprise then that the queue formed rapidly and boisterously...

... see how boisterous that queue is...  The pie/spuds/veg/gravy were followed by spotted dick and custard - not for me though - my body is a temple...


Second half of the quiz was, Food & Drink, TV & Film, General Knowledge and then Music.  Can't remember any of the specifics other than we reserved our Joker for the Gen. Knowl. - the scoreboard below tells the story of our progress much better than I ever could.  We 'jokered' on the General Knowledge round but to no avail.  Salt was then rubbed in Hound wounds with a more or less complete failure to win anything on any of the billions of purchased raffle tickets - hey-ho...

Third place - a thoroughly pleasant evening and most importantly a goodly amount contributed from The Hound towards a worthy cause.  (We were collectively and effusively thanked earlier in the evening for our donation of £50 from the previous week's pub quiz winnings - which was nice.)

We congratulated the winners, supped up our literal beers, collected our metaphorical fags and headed off for our individual 'rows near Slough'.

Adi Dazzling Hound

Thursday 13th November 2014
Purley Arms

Towards the end of your average football season you'll struggle to keep count of the number of times a commentator or pundit ponders aloud as to whether the point(s) from the late snatched draw or win will prove crucial in avoiding relegation and you'll hear almost continual speculation as to whether the goal just scored/conceded could be the goal that wins/loses the Title.  All of which superficial hyperbole is generally taken with suitable amounts of pinched salt and precious little consideration - generally people realise that the equalising goal that earned the point in the third game of the season is just as significant in the season's overall outcome as the penalty save that ensured the win that avoids relegation in the season's last game.

But is it?!  Logically, yes, of course it is.  But can there ever exist circumstances in which the scoring of a specific goal, the achievement of a specific point, are such that its importance becomes of greater significance than logic alone allows?  Hmmmmm...

Towards the end of, what most who were present reported as, another generic week, The Hound gathered to be about its business with sore wounds from last week's most drawn out of sudden death defeats still being collectively nursed.  The Green One's presence was missed and Lord Peterkins was fondly recalled whilst the normal pre match routines were observed.  Regular readers will be aroused to note that pre-quiz conversation topics included;
- D2 being generally out of control on London's tube network and on the floor of a specific tube train, as he wended his sotted way home from Manchester,
- G-Force's young lad being enrolled into The Eagles group within his local Cub Pack (Eagles being deemed preferable to Wolves I think - although I might have remembered that 100% incorrectly...),
- unseemly ablutions being performed decades ago in the back garden of Windsor Davies' house...
- potential songs for inclusion on Robson Hound's latest musical project - a high-tempo, not in anyway 'camp' at all, oh-no-Siree-Bob, Spotify playlist suitable for accompanying him during sweat-soaked, lung-busting, muscle-shredding, gym work-outs...
- the arrival of The Hamsters, foes of old, and ensuing discussions based on Thailand travel
- the brief appearance, as spotted from afar, of a toxic-blue looking drink on the bar *ahem*, AND
- some esoterically fascinating discussion about word oddities - more of which later...***

And then the quiz kicked off.

Round 1 - Dingbats - becoming irritating frankly but nonetheless seen off for a ten out of ten...

Round 2 - Current Affairs - usual frothy tosh - came out of it with 7.5 out of ten which is just about par...

Round 3 - Science & Nature - massively irritating one this - 'the London structure designed as an observancy for the heavens' - at least three of us pondered whether it was the Monument but, having stood at the foot of the Monument only 72 hours earlier - reading the full inscription at its base - I confidently ventured that it was NOT the Monument.  It was.  Of course.  Nine out of ten.

Round 4 - Connection - we knew the answers to the first nine questions - Rita Ora, Gazelle, Franz Beckenbauer, Tobacco, Superstars, Stan Smith, Dragon, Pharrell Williams & Tiger - but what was the connection...?

Round 5 - the three 10 Point questions - we knew who wrote 'The Railway Children' but we didn't know the name of Dustin Hoffman's character in Tootsie OR the country in which Ted Dexter was born...*****

Round 6 - Top Ten - polite words only barely exist to express our collective frustration with this most irritating of rounds.  This week's 'topic' was "Top Ten Car Models of 2014"?!?  As per usual we wrote down more than a dozen options, argued about almost all of them, crossed out at least two that would've eventually scored us points and settled for what we hoped/assumed would be our traditional seven out of ten...  The other frustrating element of this round is the rapidity with which the correct answers are eventually disclosed - they're rattled off and none of us are ever really sure what we got right and what we didn't.  I've Googled around it and it seems like the 'definitive' ten is; Fiesta, Focus, Corsa, Golf, Astra, Qashqui, Polo, (Audi) A3, (Fiat) 500 and (BMW) 3 series.  In D2's defence he had said A3 and 3 Series and, to be similarly fair to myself, I had said Polo and 'that Nissan with the daft name that looks like a small 4x4'...  Pfffff - whatever - we got something around six out of ten.

Round 7 - Jeopardy - we knew that one wrong answer would completely do for us but we also felt that we needed the extra points available for getting them all right - as the individual questions rolled by we were increasingly confident and, rightly or wrongly, we decided to submit answers for all ten...

Round 8 - Music - 'standard' but not quite 'textbook' - lack of familiarity with the works of Sam Smith and Tommy Edwards let us down specifically - things are a bit vague by now but something like 17 out of 20...

The evening's quotient of controversy was then added to with the always strangely important 'first-correct-answer-wins' question for the bag of sweets/chocolates.  This week's was for a bag of Minstrels and the question was 'St. Helier is the capital of which country?'  Robson Hound had positioned himself advantageously for speedy submission of our answer but then we fatally dithered - St Helier is the capital of Jersey but Jersey isn't a country - PANIC - submit the answer 'Jersey' anyway and find that whilst (allegedly) correct we got it in too late...  Pffffffff...

And so to the results...

After last week's dead-heat and subsequent tie-breaker disappointment The Hound was mighty relieved to have won it by one point - we got 148, the runners-up therefore 147.

And so back to my opening theme...

Last week was lost on a tie-breaker question - or was it actually lost on an incorrect answer to a much less superficially significant, earlier, question?  And this week was won by a single point - begging the question, were any of the single points we scored more important than the others?  I still say that logically, nope, none of our answers were more important than the other but, BUT, when the only person in the ENTIRE PUB who knows that the connection to all the answers of round 4 is that they're all Adidas Trainer brands and he (D2) is on your side then, given the absolute obscurity of that knowledge gem, I have to conclude that sometimes some answers/points are more significant than others.


*** - 'word oddities'; (answers to be given in the comments section)
- what are the longest words that can be played on a musical instrument?
- what is the longest word whose letters are arranged in reverse alphabetical order?
- what is the longest word whose letters are alternating consonants and vowels?
- what is the shortest word to feature all five vowels in alphabetical order?
- what is the longest word to feature only one vowel?
- what is the only English word with four consecutive pairs of double letters?
- which two words (18 letters long) are the longest examples of anagrams of each other?!

All the answers to the above, and plenty more, can be found here;
http://www.rinkworks.com/words/oddities.shtml



***** - Dustin Hoffman's character - Dorothy and Ted Dexter was born in Italy

postscript
As ever, the traditional, EPIC, kebab was procured en route home and enjoyed immediately upon arrival...

Tie-Break Hound

So it came down to this. The Anoraks 147, The Hound 147. An impasse had been reached after two hard hours of quizzing and it would be decided by one question. The pub had been offered the choice of whether the money should be split but they wanted a tie-break. One question would decide our destiny, one question to rule them all.

Earlier in the evening such an outcome had seemed so unlikely. Daren, Kevster, Graham and myself had assembled and as usual, the weighty topics of the day were under discussion. As such, had anyone actually seen George, the Purley Arms ghost? Why does asparagus make piss smell so bad and are McBusted really the ultimate supergroup? Why, even is there a name for a surely impossible 6 under par on a golf hole (a phoenix) when the far more common, in my experience, two over is a prosaic double-bogey?

We were pondering such imponderables when in walked Pete! Maybe it would be one of those nights?

So the key question was, which was the first band to make 50 TOTP appearances?. The Stones had their supporters but were maybe too global by 1967. Taking the Purley factor into account, we plumped for Status Quo. It was in Siobhan's hands now.

The quiz itself had taken an unfamiliar start, we were initially presented with a sheet of company and organisational logos. Most were simple but we failed on a very odd thing, though we were told we'd probably get the marks anyway. How strange. Round 2, the usual current affairs, we'd done our homework and were only flummoxed by a seemingly extinct fruit found in South America. Round 3 was World War 1. I enjoyed this round and we performed well, failing only to pinpoint a monument in Belgium.

Round 4 and we'd all had a punt at the connection. Maybe lasting longest was Graham with Dickens characters but we got to the end and didn't have a darn clue. The fictional Marty McFly seemed the key but we weren't getting it. Turned out we got two wrong which didn't help at all, it was paper.

Ten pointers are where it can be won and lost and we acquitted ourselves well. Daren proffered "fear of one's self" for auto phobia and Pete confidently provided "Annie Get Your Gun" for the film featuring There's No Business Like Show Business. Always found Pete's encyclopaedic knowledge of musicals a bit odd frankly. The third was a simple question on Canadian provinces and we reached half time in good shape.

So, awaiting the answer and there was good news and bad news. The good news, it was the Quo! Bad, The Anoraks knew it as well and there would be another question, a nearest the pin. Hoping for a mathematical one, we had our wish with "how many sides has an enneadecagon"? Not so good, none of us knew it. Graham offered the only solution, 11 and we awaited our fate.

After the oranges and we were greeted with a top ten of the highest earning women in music. Now being mature quizzers we eschewed the obvious double entendres so comments like "we have to have Rihanna", "there's got to be room for Katy Perry" and "I fancy Nicole Scherzinger" were nowhere to be heard. There were different approaches to strategy though. Kevster favoured mature artists with substantial back catalogues, Madonna, Bush etc. while Graham went more for the teen options, Swift, Trainor and the like. My own preference was for the Latinos, J Lo, Shakira et al, Pete was strangely silent. It made no difference though and the usual 7 resulted.

Jeopardy and a confident start was derailed by which year premium bonds were introduced. All thoughts of going for the max were over but we still collected 8 swerving only the war including the Battle of Edge Hill. Probably English Civil and was English Civil.

Music, can't remember and we won the chocolates but I don't know how, lifts in the Empire State. It would surely take a good score to live with the Hound this week.

And so it proved, we had gone 7 rounds toe to toe with The Anoraks and the judges couldn't split us. The enneadecagon, it had 19 sides and the Anoraks had got it. The Hound had given everything but met it's match.

At this point the tiebreaker had meant we'd missed last orders so I was off.

Lilly livered liberal Hound...

Purley Arms
30th October 2014
*posted by 'me' but written by G Hound*

My cryptic note for the pre-quiz discussion simply says 'Race Debate'. I'm pretty sure this related to a race that Kevin never ran when he was a cub, but nevertheless received a badge for. That must be it, what else could it mean?

 

Best first round for some time. No pictures of reality TV favourites or kitchen implements. Instead, film anagrams. All well-known films, all gettable eventually but made us work hard.

No notes for a lacklustre current affairs round, all I remember is that we weren't asked about the tree of the year, but we were asked about a baseball match where Kansas City lost in the final.

Halloween round, fairly routine except note for future reference;

31 October - Halloween

1 November - All Saints day or All Hallows     

2 November - All Souls day.

Great shout by Steve on the Dennis Wheatley question as well.

Connections - We got there eventually, all people/bands who have their own brand of perfume/after shave. We only missed some French bloke who makes things out of car hoods. So what.

A certain amount of confusion between Mickey Mouse and the Pope led to only 20 from the ten-pointers. 

Top 10 largest cities in the USA by population. After starting with New York you only need to name any city that you know in California or Texas to do well.

Most successful Jeopardy round for some time, answered and got right 7 out of 10. We dodged ornithophobia which turned out to be a fear of the things that ornithologists study. A bear trap if ever there was one. Apparently Ingmar Bergman, Scarlet Johannsson and Niall from One Direction all are/were ornithophobes.. Also dodged and didn't have a clue about Tonto's horse (Scout) or smallest US state by population (Wyoming).

The Jeopardy round also threw up a highlight when the quizmaster had to attend a call of nature JoLu (as I am now calling her) took over and what a sexy delivery she hass. Long distance flirting ensued until normal order was regrettably restored. No offence intended to Siobhan.

Romped home in the music for a routine victory overall.

To round off, a few of my cryptic notes that I never used this week;

Aitch not Haitch

Tabloid Sh**e

Jack the Lad Swinging

Charlton

Dean Farley

Cr*p Larry's Band 

Teenage cr*p

Most of the asterisks seemed oi stem from Robson's pre-quiz snifters at the KA. None of it offensive though.

Onto Saturday night when it is hoped that a Hound quorum will attend and behave reasonably at a quiz in the Scout Hut..... 

G-Hound