Revel Hound

Thursday 19th February 2015
Purley Arms, Croydon

Apologies for the almost unforgivably tardy appearance of this update...

The bare minimum of Hounds gathered last week for our first quiz in seven days, in stark contrast to the hectic goings on of the previous week.  The Green one had sent apologies, D2 was high in the skies bound for Kooba and Lord Peterkins of Fatherhood was once again fondly remembered.

Pre-match discussion was dominated, and I do mean dominated, by who'd killed Lucy Beale.  *jokes*

No, in actuality the discussion centred around Figo's bid for FIFA's Presidency and the number of sovereign nations that there are in the world and therefore could be in FIFA - we eventually established that there are 257 countries in the world, of which 195 are Sovereign States and FIFA has 209 affiliated members.  Riveting stuff.  We left the tedium behind us quickly though with a properly fascinating discussion on Revels and our respective favourites - the results of which are detailed here and, I think, make for essential reading...

Revel	Robson	G-Force	Kevster
Orange	1st	2nd
Coffee	2nd	3rd
Toffee		1st
Malteser			3rd
Peanut
Chocolate	3rd		1st
Raisin			2nd

 

Acknowledging that the evening's excitement had obviously peaked we moved onto the quiz itself in good heart.

Round 1 - a curious type of 'say what you see' picture round that actually required Band/Artists names to be given as the answers - some were obvious (an ear and Asia = Erasure), some less so (a strange pair of hands moulding a pot of some kind = T'Pau) but we came through with 11 out of 12

Round 2 - Current Affairs - Nutella, Teletubbies, Tacos, and a few other bits and bobs got us 7 out of 10

Round 3 - Eastenders - when this was announced I won the race to go to the bar - G-Force said he was off to the loo and Robson seriously contemplated cadging a fag off somebody and going outside to poke himself in the eye with it.  I returned from the bar having got in touch with my inner Danny Dyer and with Robson channelling Pat Wicks and G-Force all over Dot Cotton's little Willy we somewhat remarkably emerged with 9 out of the available 10.  Cor blimey guv'nor, a rare old result and no mistake eh, me ol' China - as none of us were to be heard amusingly muttering.

Round 4 - Connections - smashed it - think G-Force might have said it after the first one although it could've been Robson and it might've been after the second one - I was still reeling from the Eastenders tour-de-force to be honest... 

I Am The Walrus, The Big Easy, Mrs Doubtfire, Wild Thing, Great White Shark, Black Knight, El Nino, The King, Shrek - and the connection is they are all...*

Round 5 - Ten Pointers - Only current Premiership team not to have appeared in an FA Cup Final?  Only letter not to appear in the periodic table? And something about the Indian flag having a wheel of 'what' in its centre?**

Round 6 - all numbers in the 90s - Channel tunnel opened (94), Diana died (97), Atlanta Olympics (96), John Major wins General Election (92), Blur vs Oasis (95), Good Friday Agreement (98), Freddie Mercury and Robert Maxwell died (91), Britney Spears Hit Me Baby (99) and Mandela released (90).  Full house.

Round 7 - Jeopardy - we were confident with eight so submitted them and swerved two - as it turned out we got the very first question wrong so came away with nothing.

Round 8 - music - notes are a bit ragged but suggest we got them all

Bag of sweets - how many Mail Bags were stolen during the Great Train Robbery?
Now for some unknown reason we listened to Robson and he postulated that none had been stolen.  Suffice to say that was the worst answer in the entire pub.  Apparently 120 of the 128 Mail Bags on board were heisted - the closest and therefore chocolate winning answer was 60.

So we ended with 138 points and despite blowing the jeopardy and not covering ourselves in Ten Pointer glory either that was a good enough total to win.

One for the road, buses, trains and another epic warm chicken salad.

Woof.

* all golfer's nicknames
** Swansea, J (although we said, Q) and apparently it's a wheel of truth although my notes show suggestions of a wheel of righteous indignation so God knows what we actually answered for that...

5 in Five - The Post Script - Recollections, reflections and lessons learnt...

Robson Hound

Sunday – The Rail View 

What a soulless place! Back in the day I remember this being one of the nicer South Croydon establishments but it now looks ripe for turning into a Tesco Express or a block of flats with easy access to South Croydon station. Quiz wise – nothing stands out – we came in and did an effective job. Number one for bar snacks though – just have many bags of crisps can you actually get from one ox?

 

Monday – The Woolpack 

Where do you start? Pub-wise I thought this was ok actually, the food and beer ranges were both decent and there seemed a bit more “going on” than the average place of that nature. Could probably fill the whole piece though about “Duncan” and his irksome habits and ways. Baffling popular – I know Banstead doesn’t have much else to offer on a Monday but really.

 

Tuesday – The Windsor Castle 

By contrast, here was a quiz that definitely deserved more support than it got. Maybe music – with precious little before 1990 is a bit niche and self-indulgent – but no harm in that. Maybe it suffers with the Sun quiz on the same night in Carshalton. Quite probably the best beer of the week here – though I forget exactly what – and a rip-roaring charge through the field from the Hound. Marvellous stuff.

 

Wednesday – The Oval Tavern 

Now this is one of my favourite pubs in the vicinity. Don’t always agree with the music they have on, but seems to come with a laid back relaxed atmosphere to it. Wendy showed that a quiz doesn’t have to go on until 10.30 pm as well, I guess this is normally a slightly cynical move to keep the punters in but was more than happy to stay. Even got on ok with the love theme.

 

Thursday – The Purley Arms 

Back to the usual stamping ground. I guess we’ve arrived at the Purley Arms by way of comparing a number of factors. It definitely stands up by way of quiz but certainly isn’t the best pub and certainly doesn’t have the best beer. An ideal scenario – take the Oval Tavern, with beer from the Windsor Castle and the Purley Arms quiz and have it all on a Thursday. And move it all to the Ramblers Rest while we’re at it. As for the actual night, I was way too tired to care.

 

 

G-Force

 

Sunday: Low key describes this one best I think. I though we worked hard for the win. Would have been nice to actually see more of our fellow competitors.

 

Monday: Bingo was the best bit, felt a bit like we had nothing in common with any of our fellow competitors. Liked the Freak Show though.

 

Tuesday: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! We won the music quiz, coming up on the rails to finish strongly. The anagrams of sixties bands were right up my street, and I thought that the format was generally reasonably innovative. Low point was my piqued behaviour in respect of the Hull question, but the 2-0 win for the Mighty Whites cheered me up no end. Enjoyed sinking a few Guinness as well.

 

Wednesday: Had a real blast at this one. Possibly because the questions were condensed into a relatively short space of time. Girls, Wine, Quiz App and Darts, what’s not to like? Slightly surprised that somebody aced the jeopardy equivalent round, but pleased with our celebrity recall.

 

Thursday: Back on familiar territory. I really think this quiz is improving weekly, the more general knowledge based rounds replacing Top 10 etc. can only be a good thing. Total strategy breakdown on the KFC question, all the less excusable in my case given that I was sober. Rarely have I seen Robson so jaded as half way through this event, certainly not before closing time at any rate.

 

A stamina sapping success overall, but don’t mind if I never hear a Valentine themed question again. Would do the Windsor again, and possibly The Oval with a full complement of Hounds sometime.

 

Kevster

 

It is said that a week is a long time in politics but no-one ever says what it is in quizzing because no-one, in the history of the world*, has ever quizzed for a week.  Until now.  Kind of.  So, a long time?  Or not?  Well, by way of auto-interview, let's see...

So, Kevster, are you glad it's over?
Yes.  And no.  Hopefully that's clear enough...

What were your highlights?
Sunday's Roast Ox crisps, Wednesday's wine and darts, the battered onion rings that wouldn't have looked out of place around Saturn, three epic 'warm chicken salads', walking out of The View to the closing strains of Kirsty MacColl's wonderful 'New England' and the Oval's beautiful birthday brunette

Were there any low points?
Averaging over two hours a day on a bus for five days, forgoing two post-quiz epic 'warm chicken salads' and Monday's bizarre excursion to Middle Earth replete with an array of characters that Tolkien himself would've considered too outlandish

Favourite moment of the 5 in Five?
Early in Thursday's proceedings - D2 pulling 'bulldozer' out of the ether when the collective Hound's entire focus had been fruitlessly 'on it' for five full minutes

Would you do another 5 in Five?
Yes, as long as Middle Earth wasn't on the itinerary.

Can you summarise the 5 in Five in five words?
Two wins and three losses
More answers right than wrong
Pubs, buses, beer, quizzes, blogs
Yes that's actually fifteen words...

Thank you Kevster.

My pleasure.

* probably

D2

There's more to life than quizzing but not much more.

When a man is tired of quizzing he is tired of life.

I think that sums it up neatly if not obliquely.

 

My highlights? In no particular order;

1) Graham's onion rings

2) Graham's pork scratchings

3) Graham's lift home on Thursday 
4) the Alan Partridge quote session brought on by Duncan

5) ignoring government advice with regards to units and probably having a whole week's allowance by 8 o clock on a nightly basis

The lowlights?

1)2)&3) Duncan, Duncan's voice, everything Duncan has ever said or done. A plague on the house of Duncan.

4) missing the 127 to Coulsdon by such a small margin that I was then forced to chase it across Purley whilst there remained a glimmer of a hope that I could still catch it

5) Robson's unhelpful text messages after said incident with bus.

All in all a memorable week and congratulations are in order for my fellow team members.

Here's to the next one! 

5 in Five - Chapter Five - Let Sleeping Hounds Lie...

Thursday 12th February 2015
The Purley Arms, Croydon
(written by Steve and posted on his behalf)

As a preamble to the main event, having had a long and arduous week of quizzing the majority of the Hound were, to use a word “jaded”, 60% of us had been in for the 5 day long haul with D2 and myself only managing 3 of 5 due to other commitments.

We all assembled at the usual Thursday night haunt of the Purley Arms with an enthusiasm that can only be described as functional. However the usual pre-match libations perked most, if not all, into game mode.

Round 1

Rather than the usual picture round it was a Dingbats type round, of which 9 out of the possible 12 were dispatched with ease. Two more were added with lateral thinking from both G-Force and Daren. Down to the last, which pictured a bull, and the words “Rip Van Winkle”. After numerous shouts of Bull ….. (write your own answer) and an almost conceding Bull Sh#t!, Daren piped up with Bulldozer, RVW being a very tired man!

Round aced and onto..

Round 2 – British Isles

An eclectic mix of longest river, longest motorway, railway station in Bristol and various Island based questions, the only stumper was the prison upon which the Old Bailey is now sited. Various shouts of “I know it’s not right but Highgate”, “Aldgate” led us to the path of Newgate. Again, another clean sweep of points.

Round 3 – Valentines

Oh valentines, what a week to choose to do a 5 in 5. If we collectively hear another question with the word love in it, it will be too soon.

Various love based questions, which to be fair, were far more diverse than the previous offerings this week. The only one which didn’t have full support from the team was the question: who wrote the poem with the line “My love is like a red, red rose” Daren touted Robert Burns and was overruled by majority rule to Shakespeare. Of course he was correct and 9 out of 10 in that round.

Round 4 – Connections

This round started with the name of the world’s highest waterfall, which is Angel Falls. The Hound as usual tried to pre-empt the connection after one and various answers including footballers ensued. Second question was who wrote Trainspotting, being Irvine Welsh (I knew I was right with the spelling of his first name!) the penny started to drop. Confirmation was achieved with the third question which was the alternative name of the flying fox (fruit bat) which affirmed our belief that they were all cakes. Dundee, Sponge(bob) Squarepants, Marble just added fuel to our own personal fire. The only answer missed was the Northumbrian dish layered with chees potatoes and onion which, apparently is a Pan Haggerty!? 9 out of 10 again then.

3 pointers

The questions were: What vehicle made it’s first channel crossing in 1959, the largest castle in Britain, and who played Philo Beddoe in two films.

The first was easy enough, however debate ensued around the castle whilst I slipped into archive mode for the third.

Caernarvon was put with Windsor being the right answer and my caveat of a very famous actor but the best I have is Robert De Niro, was incorrect as I’m sure Clyde the orang-utan would vouch as not his co-star.

So 20 points dropped with half the quiz to play, which maybe started to make some of the Hound twitchy.

A half time conversation as to why Koreans etc shouldn’t farm and eat cats and dogs ensued which pulled in the Japanese and their predilection of hunted most sea born fish / mammals. We swiftly moved round to thoughts of the week and the over-riding memory was Monday and Duncan. Oh Duncan! His north Norfolk radio style self-promoting pre-recorded messages and his effing desk bell will live long in the memory.

Round 6 – Who’s backing group

A fairly abstract 10 questions to which Graham had all the answers. A couple even predicted in advance by the remaining Hounds. 10 out of 10

Round 7 – Jeopardy

And now to the contentious round;

The first 9 questions were answered with 100% surety and Daren even remarked that “I’d forgotten it was the jeopardy round” so sure were we of all the answers. And then came the final bombshell question: The first name of Colonel Sanders.

Not having the foggiest, Daren and myself were keen to swerve this one and hopefully take the 18 points from the answers we had put on which we were confident. Perhaps blasé after a war of attrition with various quizmasters and the feeling that we had to play catch up given the 20 points dropped earlier, our views were overruled and Franklyn was put. In my own mind on count-back, I thought we could survive with just the 18 but as we always do, majority rules.

Sure enough we got 9 but Harland David Sanders can go do one!

Round 8 and the music round.

Traditionally and as far as I can pretty much remember, the Hound normally get 85% from this round, however again we nailed every answer.

The chocolate question? I haven’t the foggiest as I was seeing a man about a dog! Ladies and the Tramp were victorious though.

So to the scores, the winning score was 153, we scored 148 and were third. On revisiting we only actually got 5 questions wrong in the whole quiz, but the winning or losing is around the relative position tipping point.

The week's prize money from all quizzes, £9 from Sunday and £19.50 from Tuesday, was donated to the local Scouts.  Sorry we couldn't have treble that pot.  Like Rip Van Winkel I think that the collective Hound will be sleeping for a very lengthy period.
 

5 in Five - Chapter Four - When Love Takes Over...

Wednesday 11th February 2015

The Oval Tavern, Croydon

  

And so, the end is near. The Hound has travelled the length and breadth of the Surrey/South London border, taking on all comers. We’ve faced joy and elation and tasted glorious victories and also plumbed the depths of despair and that Duncan idiot. In years to come, men will talk of the journey made by the Hound in 2015 in hushed tones and wonderment.

 

Chapter IV took us to the Oval Tavern and East Croydon where no doubt new challenges would be faced by the Hounds in attendance being Graham, Kevster and myself. Our opposition included a team who ejected Kevster from his seat claiming it was “their regular table and couldn’t win otherwise”, a young staffie accompanying one team and three foxy types on the table next to us, the least attractive of whom was a vast improvement on anyone else we’ve seen all week.

 

Kevster – a picture here would work well.

 

 The Oval Tavern dartboard... 

 

The quiz mistress would be Wendy, known by us from when she was out of her tree once at the Farmers and running the Green Dragon quiz. The theme for the night, factoring in the date would be love and Valentines. More love frankly than we would ever need. Would this play to our strengths? Right.

 

The first round was tenuously valentine themed, who designed Liz Hurley’s safety pin dress*, what was Kate Winslet’s character name in Titanic etc*. Curiously we got both of those, though I was required to undertake an exercise in self-flagellation for knowing the latter. Next up connections, not a desperately opaque connection (flowers, ah!) but it meant lots of head scratching on which writer was both played by Dame Judy and Kate Winslet (Winslet again!) in a film*. Finally for the first half, Valentines trivia. My main memory from this and indeed the whole quiz was it featured lots of Greeks – Aphrodite, Eros, Adonis, Narcissus, Stavros, Aristotle. Fortunately Graham had some distant memory of a classical education and frankly having had some of it in Cyprus, he ought to and helped steer us through.

 

Wendy was fair rattling through the quiz and the half time round was loads of celebrity couples. We did ok here, failing to distinguish Abbey Clancy from Patsy Kensit and not getting Bieber’s and Affleck’s other halves being failures*. Kevster came up with a cracking comment of “Adrian Chiles is punching above his weight there” which did make me think what that would mean for those two characters in the Woolpack.

 

Love themed Wipeout would follow, we hesitated on two more Greek fellas before our failure to have a clue on who played Spiderman’s love interest* put the entire kibosh on the round. Still picked up eight though, including a bonus for who had the hit with the title song of the blog, including featured vocals*.

 

Last up – love based music and love was truly all around – although that wasn’t included. Why Can’t This Be Love, Easy Lover, When I Fall In Love certainly were. How much love can a man take in one night? Results – well, it won’t surprise anyone that love didn’t really do it and we limped in third. Annoyingly though, it was the team who ejected Kevster that won, the advantage clearly being in the table.

 

Wendy clearly doesn’t get paid by the hour and we were all done by about 9.30 so naturally an early night and recover our strength for the last night? Er no, Kevster suggested getting into the love thing by sharing a bottle of wine and one led to another and another. A game of darts was a slightly more macho pursuit, won by me naturally, plus a fair bit of Quiz Up and exacting our revenge on various unsuspecting souls around the world.

One to go.
 

 

Some wine, spotted earlier...

 

 

*  Gianni Versace, Rose Dawson, Iris Murdoch, Kirsten Dunst, Selena Gomez and Jennifer Garner, David Guetta and Kelly Rowland

5 in Five - Chapter Three (aka Wave Goodbye Say Hello. Hound.)

Tuesday 10th February 2015
The Windsor Castle, Carshalton

It's Tuesday so it must be Carshalton. The music quiz at the Windsor Castle. I've never liked those lists "1001 things you must do before you die", but if forced under gunpoint to make my own list then winning the music quiz at the Windsor Castle would feature in the top few hundred. For quite a while it didn't seem very likely..... tbc  

It was at this point having already made inroads on a packet of chocolate chip Maryland cookies that I broke off to watch the full splendour of Gael Whatshisname's from Breaking Bad's version of Major Tom (the Peter Schilling hit). Glorious, watch to the very end (Kevin, being far more technically competent than myself you could probably add a link to the youtube video here)... 

... if not, then a picture of Robson's 'Windsor Chicken' would suffice with a caption along the lines of 'a typical Windsor Chicken seen last night'.

"... a typical Windsor chicken seen last night..."

The newspapers that were being slagged off along with any politicians that have the temerity to stand for any office and I think the amount of money paid for football rights would probably break up their coverage with just such a picture and caption.

  

At this point of the evening Canned Heat were playing for the first time, a totally innocent occurrence you might think. Far from it. Two elderly hippies setting the quiz already had their eyes on sarcastic ribaldry if at all possible. Areolas, perineums and Alan Partridge then merged into one as the quiz itself finally got under way.  

7 (Seven) seemed like a pretty poor return out of 15 (Fifteen) on the general music trivia round, good questions though. Yours truly nearly turned this into 6 by being so pretentious as to answer Kingston-Upon-Hull when just Hull would have sufficed. Guiness' profits had already shown an upturn by this stage.   

Pictures next I think, 'TALTS' was the knee jerk reaction based on receipt of the question sheet. Tired and Lame Torch Singers indeed, but 9 out of 15 again seemed like a poor return. 2 points off last place at this stage, way adrift of the lead. Meanwhile, rumblings of an upset at the Madjeski were beginning to surface (0-0 at half time).   

A music quiz must surely get to the point where songs are played, only 1 set, no need to cross half of your answers out. A very respectable 12 out of  15 achieved, but not good enough to avoid the ridicule of the old couple who actually played Canned Heat again to point out it's obvious differences from Del Amitri. I know where they live and exactly when they come and go. A very impressive 14.5 for the quiz leaders and that seemed to be that. (Am I building any tension at all?).  

A round called the 'Crackpot' round duly emerged, worth 15 points. Meanwhile, Luke Murphy again, and Sam Byram belatedly completed the Madjeski miracle as it will surely become known. 5 impossible anagrams of sixties bands, a perplexing melee of U2 no 1 hits and misses, and a guess the year set of 5 clues. A televised maximum (insert selfie of Hound with Robson looking uninterested). 

Robson looking uninterested

Hitting the front at exactly right time, the others are now playing catch up.   

A numerical last round in which Robson's mathematical awareness maximised our odds led to a unlikely 6 point victory only outdone by a Royal defeat for Reading.    

Winnings were mainly in coins rather than notes, and apparently already promised to a good cause. No luck in the raffle. I prefer Bingo.  

Thanks to all for indulging me and doing the all Music Quiz. Snackwise I enjoyed the pork scratchings, though respect to Kevin who clearly had a traumatic memory of a particularly hairy example of said snack holding him back.   

East Croydon bound, Oval here we come.  

G-Hound.

5 in Five - Chapter Two (aka Professional Hound)

Monday 9th February
The Woolpack, Banstead

Monday night so this must be Banstead. 5 Hounds gathered around the ‘Reserved’ table and settled down to see what would transpire.

 

Food: There were 3 burgers ordered. I can't state with any authority if they were any good as I didn’t personally partake but Graham’s one took a tooth out and his onion rings were ‘the size of a steering wheel’ albeit slightly tastier.  Kevster proffered up the notion of a 5 ‘Epic’ Kebabs in 5 nights challenge. I’ll leave him to update.*

 

 

 

Graham's almighty rings of battered onion

   

Characters: The Seating area soon filled up and the main preoccupation of the other participants (when they weren’t sipping their non-alcoholic deinks) seemed to be an on going game of changing tables. This was ably abetted by the bar staff who at random moments would come in and change the seating configuration.

 

Kevster spotted someone who was ‘smaller than a hobbit but with longer arms’ and we all enjoyed the one man Demis Roussos tribute act.

 

Duncan: The quiz master managed to get our collective hackles up almost immediately by accusing us of being a Professional quiz team on the basis that we had our own pens. He went on to earn our collective disdain by using some weird DJ voiced sound track to the quiz which was all bells, whistles, hooters and horns accompanied by a Patridge-esque monologue.

 

Questions:

 

Round 1 was TV character Photos. Scored 30 out of 34 – Interestingly this was the only round marked by handing your paper to another team. Joint first place.

 

Round 2 – Pass out -  You had to answer 3 lots of 5 questions and then strike one of them out – Odd. Questions became gradually more difficult. One that tripped us up was ‘what 2 words appear in the vertical lines on a cheque’ & ‘who officiated in the Hare & Tortoise race? 17/24 & back to 4^th place but in the money paying positions

 

Half time and Time for Bingo with a House prize of £220. Kevster came within 1. Graham became so mad he ripped up his bingo card not once but three times!!!!

 

Irritatingly close...

 

 

Round 3 - A music round with 2 lots of 20 tracks and artists but you were only allowed to answer 1 set. We went for the 60’s 70’s & 80’s selection unsurprisingly. We scored a 17 and now our suspicions were raised by the Quiz Master claiming we were in 5^th on 61 points but 30 + 17 + 17 = 64. We queried this with him and he grudgingly corrected our score. I almost threatened him with naming and shaming him in a blog with a readership of literally 10’s

 

Round 4 – Wipe out – Answer 1 wrong and you lose all your points so we trod gingerly and stuck with 5 out of 8 that we were confident of. We should have known what was coming...

 

Results: Strangely 4 teams who had not troubled the scoring previously managed to get all 8 Wipe out questions right and in a no way engineered result Hound finished 1 point off the Money paying positions in 5^th.

 

Conclusion: I shall not be going back. It was a very odd quiz what with having to discard half your answers and the Quiz master and his sound effects were quite tedious. Worst of all – It’s on a Monday night – I mean, really?

* Kevster passed on the challenge of 5 (epic) Kebabs in five nights and says he was foolish to ever think it was even remotely on

(written by Daren and posted on his behalf)

5 in Five - Chapter One...

Sunday 8th February 2015
The View, Croydon

And so it was that the time for talking and planning was over and the time for getting on with it had arrived - all great journeys start with the first step and so on and so on...

I was the last of three hounds to arrive at The View and to say it was quiet when I walked in would be an understatement.  (Not quiet because I'd walked in please note.)  G-Force and Robson were already in situ, Barcelona were quietly beating Athletic Bilbao on the tele and that was the sum total of action the pub had to offer.  I wondered aloud if the 5 in Five might actually become a 4 in Four starting the following day - but my fellow hounds were quietly confident that others teams would arrive so I piped down and settled into a beer.

At this stage let the record show that the beers of choice for the evening were Doombar, Stella and bottles of Sol complete with citrus wedges.

Sure enough there was a brief flurry of arrivals after an hour or so and we were game on - the opening round being pictorial...       (click to expand the image)

Round 2 was basically a current affairs type of thing with particular angst being caused by the collective failure to remember the name of the Phoenix Nights actor who had unfortunately collapsed on stage (Ted Robbins) and not knowing that it was a special edition bottle of McDonalds Sauce that was selling for £20,000!

Round 3 consisted of two 'top fives' - firstly name five actresses nominated for Best Actress in this year's Oscars (of the five we came up with only Reese Witherspoon was correct) and secondly, just for Robson, name the five chemical elements that combine to make Insulin (of which we got them all!)

Round 4 was alphabetical links - each answer starting with the next alphabetical letter from the previous - we were confident with our ten answers and rightly so as it turned out.

Round 5 was the connection round - the four answers were Nemesis, Rita, Black Hole and Air - but had we got the connection...*

Round 6 was the wipeout round, get all ten right for 5 extra points but get one wrong and score nothing at all -  we tip-toed gingerly through the opening questions awaiting the inevitable banana skin and sure enough questions 8 and 9 had 'bear trap' written all over them so we swerved them and contented ourselves with eight points.

And so to the result - 4th place scored 27, 3rd place got 37.5, 2nd place scored 40.5 and Hound won the quiz with 41.5. Our prize was £9 and with one more round of drinks being desired but having each bought an equal number of rounds previously it seemed only sensible to throw the prize back over the bar.

There then followed a slightly strange incident when we, as the winning team, had to nominate one of ourselves to answer a one off random question to win the rolled-over Bonus Prize Fund.  We nominated G-Force and his question was, 'Who was the 5th Bee Gee?'  Suffice to say that the answer is, apparently, Vince McLooney and the Bonus Prize Fund has rolled over again.

All in all a decent enough quiz and a nice, low-key, winning start to what promises to be a hectic week's quizzing.

As a footnote it is worth saying that The View has an almighty range of savoury snackage and we made a good stab at reviewing some of the more exotic varieties.  G-Force and I were very pleasantly taken with the Roast Ox crisps which got a solid 8/10.  The very promising "Flame Grilled Spanish Chorizo with Roasted Onion" crisps were a universal disappointment garnering a pathetic 4/10.  The much more simply titled 'Jalapeno' crisps were much, MUCH, more like it and garnered 8.5/10 but the winning snack were the 'Hot Nuts' that Robson had had his eye on all evening and eventually bought - winning the snack league with an impressive 9/10.

 

Robson's "Hot Nuts"...

 

 

Just time to post this online now and then roll out the door on the way Chapter Two...

* Round 5 - connection was they are all rides at Alton Towers - we said 'Theme Park rides' and were only granted half a point!

The Highs And Lows Of The Hound

The Hounds gathered, as they do, sometime after 7pm. Fears of bus strikes proved unfounded and we were happily quorate. First thing to notice, Julie was quiz-mistress this week. No comment on the usual delivery but the change wasn't unpopular.

Pre quiz conversation covered the usual fluff; naturally more Quiz Up and we discovered Mrs Sullivan snr was a new kid on the block. Already top ten on "New Testament" and bubbling under on "Dogs", she'd be a formidable opponent on either subject. Kevster though had discovered his own speciality, namely "Jokes" where he effortlessly picked up a hat-trick of wins, handing out a particular beating to Keith from Wisconsin. For my own part, I was fronting up against top 10s from various States on The Big Bang Theory, with some success but mainly failures. Most noted though was a prestigious scalp on 70s music, i.e. Graham.

Onto the quiz and we were aware, with the 5 in 5 looming, this was a mere Prologue to the central feature, an amuse bouche before the main course. Have I played it down enough yet? Anyhow, with no Daren, Julie correctly decided to ditch current affairs, all depressing stuff anyway, in favour of general knowledge. Highlights? Well, Graham actually got the question before Julie once, related to Prometheous, what is the difference between a buffalo and bison? Also what does a Rocky Road consist of?

Just realised, forgot the pictures. Oh well, next up, connections and who starred in "A town like Alice" and "The Trials Of Oscar Wilde"? Subsequent answers, Clarice Starling, Robin Williams, Jack Sparrow etc. convinced us Gregory Peck was right. It wasn't but at least the fairly obvious connection was secured. Somewhere in there was a Food And Drink round. Champagne and Creme Cassis anyone? That'll be a .....

Ten pointers, well, we butchered those with Steve's absence felt on the film featuring " Discovery" and Carrie's surname. At least we weren't feeling too Moby with Harold Melvin coming through for us, though might have got that slightly wrong.

Half time featured Wotsits and Quavers and soon enough we were back on it. Julie made another popular move and abandoned the top ten for Literature. Graham loved this and authors for "Metamorphosis" and "The Life of Pi soon followed.

Rather, it would have been nice if they had have done and we hit Jeopardy very much behind the 8 ball. Any sniff and we were going to go for the max. And so we did, but sadly Blue Mountain coffee comes from Jamaica rather than Kenya, and somehow Warminster replaced Warmington (on Sea). So, on a rather strange evening, it all finished up with a verbal music round and Julie reading out the questions, rather than any actual audio. They were easy enough. So, on hearing the answers, boom followed boom as Hound answers bit the dust. Expectations were about as high as they deserved to be, i.e. lower than a snake's arse, and for once tonight, they were met in full. Had we nailed the jeopardy round, our defeat might have been respectable, as it was, well.

Still, we have bigger fish to fry and soon, it'll all be under way. Yet more features follow with March 7 and March 21 offering up the Shirrt and Anorak quizzes respectively. It really doesn't stop.

Record Breaking Hound

Thursday 29th January 2015
Purley Arms, Croydon

In the absence of The Hound, who was largeing it on a work/client jolly, four lower-case hounds converged from their various directions and settled in their traditional spot in the continually evolving environs of the Purley Arms. 

The pub's renovation continues apace and new flooring in the 'quiz area' was covered by a new, slightly cramped, seating configuration whilst the bar area was devoid of pretty much any type of flooring.  The walls remain a battleship grey hue with the sole exception of the dark and brooding 'Aubergine' feature wall. Given the arctic conditions outside there was much concern as to whether The Gents had been restored to functionality or whether, as last week, we would be required to ablute in a temporary, portable, facility outside in the rear garden - only one way to find out of course so we set to our task of bladder filling...

Pre-match discussion featured reasons for The Hound's absence, the travails of school parent's evenings and the soon-to-be-upon-us "5 in Five" - especially the realisation that far from being a "5 in Five" it's actually a "6 in Eight" - much to the chagrin of D2.

In the midst of all that the traditional sheet of pictures was delivered, pounds were fumbled for and exchanged and we were off and running with a dozen 'Catchphrase' type images - the word 'cod' next to a picture of a tank = fish tank, that type of thing - of which we were required to correctly identify at least ten.  We were confident we had eleven of them but we couldn't get the last one for figurative love or proverbial money (it was an image of string/rope tied around a pole next to a likeness of Michael Jackson...),* and it was whilst we were struggling for this elusive solution that D2's bladder won the race to become full and he despatched himself to investigate The Gents, returning with the grim news that we were indeed still required to seek out the dark, dank, and literally freezing portacabin khasi.

Round 2 was the traditional 'Current Affairs' - all female investitures, closing supermarkets, First Lady head-coverings, Blue Whales and deceased Greek kaftan wearing warblers.

Between rounds 2 & 3 Mr Green donned his coat and availed himself of the shivery outside facilities and, in his absence, D2 confided in those remaining that the proper Gents was actually fully functional but 'Shhhhhh, don't tell Steve' - a most hilarious jape which played out at least twice further during the evening and was only revealed after last orders - Mr Green taking it with very generous humour considering...

Round 3 was body themed - all incisors, freckles, eyes and thyroid glands (which tangentially prompted a fascinating debate about what the hell the pituitary gland does that's different...) **

Round 4 - connections - Cook, Scarlett, Hook, Scott, Morgan, Phillips, Nemo, Douglas - all Captains

Round 5 - the 10 pointers - August's birthstone?  The two Oscar winning sisters?  The author of the auto-biography 'Tall, Dark & Gruesome'? ***

Round 6 - this week a blessed relief from the traditional, awful, Top Ten round in the form of 'by what name were these people better known?' - Anna Mae Bullock, Nicolas Coppola etc, none of which proved too troubling except for choosing the wrong Charlie Sheen when it was actually Martin...

Round 7 - Jeopardy - there was complete individual and collective confidence on nine out of the ten - as far as the other question was concerned (Until recently which country's flag was plain green?) D2's immediate suggestion was the same as G-Force's but whilst G-Force became more convinced it was right, D2 became increasingly unsure and we found ourselves on the horns of a classic Hound dilemma.  In this instance valour eventually proved the better part of discretion and we went with our instinctive answer of 'Syria'...

Round 8 - music - only one we didn't have a clue on the artist or title, of the remaining nine we got 8.5, although for the life of me I can't think who it was singing 'Street Life' given that it apparently wasn't Randy Crawford...

We got nowhere near the 'bag-of-Minstrels' question so we recharged our glasses, chuckled once more as Mr Green ventured outside unnecessarily and awaited our fate.

122 points secured third place, 125 was good enough for second but there were audible gasps and much metaphorical back-slapping when our winning score of 175, yes one-hundred-and-seventy-five, was revealed.

Beer was supped up, vaping sticks were collected and hounds went in search of buses, trains and kebabs (epic, natch...)


* (k)not Bad

** 'research' suggests the pituitary gland to be the oldest, 'master' gland that effectively controls the other glands, thyroid, adrenal, etc

***  Peridot, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine, Christopher Lee