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"...
* Round 5 - connection was they are all rides at Alton Towers - we said 'Theme Park rides' and were only granted half a point!
Chapter One of the 5 in Five is now posted for your delectation...
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