Wonk Hound

Thursday 28th May
Purley Arms, Croydon

Only three of us this week - G-Force était en vacances en France avec sa femme et ses Forces petites, no-one was entirely sure what D2 was up to and the Right Honourable Lord Peterkins, shadow minister for small daughters and member for Crystal Palace was fondly remembered.

Early evening chatter revolved largely around the festering contagion that is corporate HR policy and, in particular, its tediously unsurprising, inconsistent and woeful application to some of our number.  By the end of the third beer though we'd put the corporate HR wonks to bed and moved on to mildly less important but equally infuriating matters.

Now if there's one thing that Hounds dislike as much corporate HR wonks, it is the wonks who see fit to take a previously slender, attractive and fit-for-purpose mobile app and bloat it out with faux social-networking pretensions and steaming piles of 'forum update' related horse manure, to the point where the thing that was once a joy to use becomes an experience akin to having a porcupine taking out one's contact lenses.  Or a close encounter with any corporate HR wonk lasting longer than two minutes.  Stand up the wonks responsible for the recent update to the 'Quiz Up' app...  *raises high-powered rifle to shoulder and scans horizon for app wonks through cross-hairs of telescopic sight*

And thus with the important things in the Hound world set firmly to rights the quiz started.

Round 1 - 12 pictures of Italy from which ten would count - Pisa, Spanish Steps, Colosseum, Lake Garda, Amalfi coast, Pompeii, Etna, etc     10/10

Round 2 - Current Affairs - we didn't know that Bolivian soldiers have been called in to make bread whilst a baking strike rages (presumably caused by some tetchy Bolivian baking wonks), and when pressed for the Greek island now hosting 3000 more Libyans than it had the week before we went with Zante when, of course, it's Kos.   8/10

Round 3 - Captains - the fact we enjoyed an identically themed round some months ago was little help to us here as we got four wrong, most humiliatingly (!) not knowing the name of Captain Mainwaring's wife from Dad's Army - not having a clue we went with Deidre and it turned out to be Elizabeth.   6/10

Round 4 - Connections - despite us not knowing Tom Cruise's first wife, or the name of the French designer famous for glass art and bonnet jewellery, OR the Beatles song that won the 1967 Best Song Grammy we still got the connection - indeed Robson had it by question 7 - all 'Allo Allo' related answers...    7/10

3 x 10 Pointers - we got them all *
- what's the largest planet?
- what's the capital of Saudi Arabia?
- what's a Flemish Giant?

Half time break - time to recharge the glasses and rant about anything/everything...

Round 5 - Famous addresses - Tony Hancock, CHEERS, The Railway Children, Miss Marple, Worzel Gummidge, Sweeney Todd, Harry Potter, The Adams Family and Rab C Nesbitt were all easy but we failed to get who lived at, 'Whitehaven Mansions, Sandhurst Square, London'  **     9/10

Round 6 - Jeopardy - we went into this with an open mind as to strategy and tactics but as it unfolded we were perfectly happy with all ten so went all in on it.  We got one wrong...  (What 1995 film did Tom Hanks get an Oscar for?) ***  0/10

Round 7 - Music - we answered nine of the ten but humiliatingly got one of those nine wrong - in fact it's one of the more shameful mistakes the collective Hound has ever made, and by 'the collective Hound' I largely mean me - incorrectly attributing the England 1970 World Cup song, 'Back Home' to the Scotland 1978 World Cup Squad.   17/20

Round 8 - the chocolates - How many scripted movies did Elvis Presley make?  ****

And thus it was concluded.  Seven teams took part, scores ranged from 73 to 172 and we came fourth on 131.

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

*  Jupiter, Riyadh and a rabbit
**  Hercule Poirot
***  We said 'Philadelphia' - it was 'Forrest Wonk'
****  We said 29 - the answer was 31 but somewhat remarkably two other teams had said 30 and 32 respectively - grrrrr

The Hounds of Summer

What threatened to be an understrength Hound in terms of numbers became a full classroom ultimately albeit Pete arrived slightly after the register had already been taken. No doubt he will be serving a detention at some stage.

PICTURE ROUND

A particularly easy bunch of celebs this week, even I got 8. Others easily identified Tim Woodcock and Forrest Whitaker for a unblemished start.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

I had been swotting up this week, anticipating Daren's potential absence, but still never knew half of them.  My notes are slightly unclear as to how many we actually got wrong, e.g. was the answer to Q6 76? However, for the record there were 7 countries automatically qualifying for Eurovision this year; Austria (Holders/Hosts), France, Italy, UK, Spain, Germany (paying for it, and ultimately 4 of them filling the last 4 places), and Australia (Special guests). We got no credit for Australia, a badly worded question at best.

EUROVISION HOUND

On to the Eurovision with some good questions from Siobhan, and some very bad answers from us. In brief we;

- successfully negotiated the old Celine Dion/Switzerland & Mouskouri/Luxembourg chestnuts.
- managed to understate Ireland's total victories by two.
- mixed up Jedward with a singing/dancing turkey (perhaps slightly understandable this one)
- in what will become known as the 'Abba Question' we only had to choose between the numbers from 0-12 inclusive, and could not possibly have got it more wrong.
- in what will become known as the 'Beatles Question' we not only failed to acknowledge the fact that Lennon & McCartney couldn't even bear to be in the same room as each other by 1969, we also ignored the irreparable damage it would have done to their hard won street cred had they penned a Eurovision entry. Equally, anyone turning the song down had they done so would not have been making the best career decision for themselves.

CONNECTIONS ROUND

A good one this week, all people who have been featured on UK postage stamps. After the event I vividly recalled the Francis Chichester, Gandhi and Alec Guinness ones but not Samuel Johnson or Nicola Adams. Others were Gustav Holst, Freddie Mercury, Vivien Leigh and Prince Andrew.
An interesting assertion from one Hound that in order to be featured one has to be dead first!

TEN POINTERS

Another good round and 30 points here, didn't culminating in us winning last week, but pushes others towards needing to ace the Jeopdardy round to win.

POETRY

What a sensitive bunch Hound turned out to be, with the possible exclusion of whoever lamented the omission of the works of Pam Ayres and Spike Milligan. The one we didn't get was 'The Green Eye of The Little Yellow God' by John Milton Hayes, so here goes;

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.

He was known as "Mad Carew" by the subs at Khatmandu,
He was hotter than they felt inclined to tell;
But for all his foolish pranks, he was worshipped in the ranks,
And the Colonel's daughter smiled on him as well.

He had loved her all along, with a passion of the strong,
The fact that she loved him was plain to all.
She was nearly twenty-one and arrangements had begun
To celebrate her birthday with a ball.

He wrote to ask what present she would like from Mad Carew;
They met next day as he dismissed a squad;
And jestingly she told him then that nothing else would do
But the green eye of the little Yellow God.

On the night before the dance, Mad Carew seemed in a trance,
And they chaffed him as they puffed at their cigars:
But for once he failed to smile, and he sat alone awhile,
Then went out into the night beneath the stars.

He returned before the dawn, with his shirt and tunic torn,
And a gash across his temple dripping red;
He was patched up right away, and he slept through all the day,
And the Colonel's daughter watched beside his bed.

He woke at last and asked if they could send his tunic through;
She brought it, and he thanked her with a nod;
He bade her search the pocket saying "That's from Mad Carew,"
And she found the little green eye of the god.

She upbraided poor Carew in the way that women do,
Though both her eyes were strangely hot and wet;
But she wouldn't take the stone and Mad Carew was left alone
With the jewel that he'd chanced his life to get.

When the ball was at its height, on that still and tropic night,
She thought of him and hurried to his room;
As she crossed the barrack square she could hear the dreamy air
Of a waltz tune softly stealing thro' the gloom.

His door was open wide, with silver moonlight shining through;
The place was wet and slipp'ry where she trod;
An ugly knife lay buried in the heart of Mad Carew,
'Twas the "Vengeance of the Little Yellow God."

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu,
There's a little marble cross below the town;
There's a broken-hearted woman tends the grave of Mad Carew,
And the Yellow God forever gazes down.         

JEOPARDY ROUND

Some late Bear Traps avoided, including what instrument a specific member of the Corrs plays. This question took on a life of it's own, going from 4 people convinced it was the fiddle, to one and a half seeming certain that it was drums (which it was). First Oasis single also left some room for doubt since about 6 songs were mentioned, some of which weren't even on the first album.

MUSIC ROUND

Solid as ever, can't remember the ones that we couldn't remember.

A win over the Anoraks by a six point margin. Hoorah for the Hounds of Summer!     

Other topics of conversation on the night as follows...

- Avignon has a bridge, and a landmark known as the Palace of the Popes,
- Get of the roof quickly if you experience hailstones as large as big things.
- Don't do the quiz in the Spread Eagle, they don't let you cheat but relatives of the quizmaster can.
- Grimsby still smells of fish, as do their residents even if transported to Wembley. 
- No Old Whitgiftians present tonight, so far as we know.   
- Don't do the quiz in the Spread Eagle, they don't let you cheat but relatives of the quizmaster can (do you see what I did there?).. 
- Deckchair shirts may be acceptable in the Office, but Hound has a reputation to keep up. Never trust a man in stripy trousers, not even Justin Hawkins.  
- Always choose your kettle carefully.
- Don't even think about downloading QuizUp 2.0.

G-Hound


 

Hounding for Scouts. Again.

Saturday 16th May
6th Croydon Scout Hut, South Croydon

If it's 6pm on the Saturday of the middle weekend in May then tradition dictates that The Hound can be found watching football in the Purley Arms and limbering up for the 6th Croydon Scouts fundraising quiz.

Once again The Hound was represented by Robson, G-Force and yours truly, the Notorious Kevster Smalls...

We gathered in the pub for the Anfield denouement of 'Stevie-La' - hilariously, and magnificently, their opponents on the day, Crystal Palace, hadn't read the script and instead of rolling over and allowing 40,000 grief stricken bin-dippers to spend 2 hours wallowing in relentless worship to their departing Deity the damn Eagles went and won it.  The roars of appreciation emanating from Sky powered living rooms the length and breadth of England were only amplified by the fact that one of Palace's goals should've been flagged offside and their penalty was granted for a foul outside the box.  Shame.  Or hilarious...

Nevertheless, The Hound wasn't on manoeuvres for the purposes of gratuitous Gerrard gloating - we had serious quizzing business to attend to.  And if that's going to be taking place in a Scout Hut - and it was - then we also have to impressively raid an off-license en-route.  G-Force sorted some beers and the Frazzles.  Robson went with some Guinness, a couple of canned spirit/mixers and the Doritos.  I covered off some strong Polish lager, a bottle of Merlot to split three ways and the Wotsits.

Once again following tradition we eschewed the chance to get to the venue in advance of the start time and slightly delayed proceedings with our tardy arrival.  No matter.  A table was found, seats were taken, wallets were emptied, cans were cracked open, small bowls from Ikea were filled with savoury snacks and before you could say, 'Robson do you fancy a Tyskie?' the quiz was off and running...

Nine rounds - ten questions per round - 2 points per answer - one Joker card to be played on the round of our choosing.

Keeping the specifics of the quiz itself brief...

Round 1 - Science & Nature - 14/20
Round 2 - History - 14/20
Round 3 - Geography - JOKER played - 18/20 x 2 = 36
Round 4 - Art & Literature - 20/20

At this point a temporary halt to proceedings was called and a queue formed for the generously provided chilli, jacket potatoes, baked-beans and cheese followed by some sort of fruit tart and custard.  It was during the dispersal of these treats that the quote of the evening was recorded as one of the more elderly attendants shuffled away from the serving area having missed one of ingredients - 'Denise has forgot her cheese', echoed around the Scout Hut but fret not worried blog readers, it transpired that Denise had not so much forgotten the cheese as was allergic to it and had therefore not taken any deliberately.  Relief all round...

 

 

Denise in the act of 'forgetting' her cheese...

Seconds were polished off, the decks were cleared, wine glasses were recharged and the news that we were second out of ten was absorbed.  We cracked on...

 

Round 5 - Sport - 20/20

Round 6 - General Knowledge - 16/20

Round 7 - Food & Drink - 13/20

Round 8 - TV, Films & Entertainment - 12/20

Round 9 - Music - 36/40

 

All of that tallied up to 163 of your English points and was good enough for third place on the night - losing out by 14 points to the winners ('Quizzical').

 

No time for mourning though - we were swiftly into the raffle and, having bought nine strips of 5 tickets, we were hopeful of some consolation.  Things were off to a bad start however when the preliminary draw was made for the £1-a-square, 49 squares, lottery draw - having arrived late we'd only been left with a choice of four un-chosen squares - we took three of them - the draw was made - 42 was the number, much to collective frustration and, in particular, G-Force's loud indignation - "we were 41 and 43 and that grey-haired bint's won it with 42...?!?".  Oh, how we chuckled.

 

But we did come good on the raffle with a bottle of wine and, somewhat bizarrely, a box of After Eights.

 

Thereafter we were done and dusted - Robson was particularly keen that we should play no part whatsoever in the clean-up operation so we grabbed our stuff, bade our farewells and fled.

 

All the preceding however is beside the point - money was raised, the organisers were happy and the Hound played its part.

 

 

Surround Hound

A full house this week, the Umbrella contingent definitely needed a break from all the goings on. Topics for the week:

Quizup timeline - Recommended to all and sundry.

The adventures of Stevie G - Seemed like the TV was stuck on the Gerrard channel, fine player and all that but really worth all the coverage?

Graham was unavoidably detained - We naturally assumed at her Majesty's pleasure. Would he make bail in time?

Emma - Enough said already.

Onto the business of the night and we kicked off with 10 foreheads to identify. Can't actually remember how successful we were, we mistook Jose Mourinho for George Clooney, he'd like that, think Cilla Black was also mistaken for David Bowie, maybe less so.

Next up was Current Affairs. The $150m Women of Algiers were there as was "Have a fumble and felch". Not quite sure of the context here but suggest Emma may well have featured large. Around about now Graham turned up, slightly breathless with Julie from the Lady and the Tramp. Maybe it wasn't Her Majesty? Hopefully here follows a picture of Peterkins.

The next round was Frenchie stuff. Now apparently there are more Frenchies in London than, well, most of France. Think it was one Boris trotted out for the election, the sixth largest French city. Odds are one of us is French. Of the questions posed, my favourite was "What did the French give to the USA?" with multi choice options:

Onions on a piece of string
Syphilis
A false impression of courage

Of course it was the Statue of Liberty. Also in there was the 14th century home of popes, Avingnon apparently.

Connections followed and apparently someone is really uncomfortable with John Humphreys hosting Mastermind - it may have been Kevster's mum. Anyhow, that answer alone was enough to point me to "Are You Being Served" which subsequent answers of MASH, Mark Goldberg and Caroline Lucas subsequently confirmed, though I'm still not sure how.

Ten pointers and we came up trumps here; the decider was the McIlhenny's & Co product which Steve picked out as Tabasco sauce. We felt at half time it was ours to lose. Prophetic? Usually.

Next one up was one to ten, I can't remember of the questions but no "hard maths" was involved, more of questions featuring one, two etc. Maybe it's time for a picture.

Poppies. Didn't Kevster plant one or something?

Next up, the jeopardy. Now Siobhan hasn't tossed any banana skins in recently and so it continued. That Norman Tebbitt was the skinhead of Chingford was news to me, Turkey's invasion of Cyprus in 1973 less so to Graham. What Guru Nanak founded in around 1500 was news to all of us, maybe with more endeavour we could have worked it out, for some reason though, the endeavour wasn't quite there.

Music and some good stuff again including, and I'm going to queue it up "Push The Button". Also we had Subterranean
Homesick Blues, Reach, Blue Monday to name but four.

Slightly out of synch as I've just found the notes, I have some number answers, so 9 Muses, Three Sisters, 10 commandments written on two tablets of stone, that sort of thing. No idea on chocolate question and in the final analysis we were pipped by The Anoraks. No hardship though, we've been on a good trot lately.

As Daren subsequently commented, a slightly strange night but we're in strange times. The last three weeks have progressed at a snail's pace, let's hope for some clarity when we next convene.

Hound Week

Only one topic of pre-quiz conversation this week. Without going into too much detail, it may well be that before too long, Kevster may not be the only Hound of leisure. Some interesting decisions to be made over the next few weeks that is for sure and not necessarily by us. One thing is for sure, at the end of it all, there's going to be a Hound bash of some description. Three of our number have already preceded us through the out door though and look at them! Quite.

Onto the business of the night though and a bit of a disappointing turnout with only three teams; maybe they were all watching the snooker at home and topically enough, our first task was to put names to pictures of 10 of the fellas. Our break stood on 8 having polished off the easy balls when in walked Pete and in the manner of Judd Trump, potted a snorter down the rail by identifying Mike Hallett. Sadly though, Andy Hicks proved too difficult and there would be no opening maximum.

Onto current affairs and I felt sure the Hound of Hounslow must feature. Instead we contented ourselves with questions on the Venezuelan public sector, bottom-feeding muck rakers and the interminably dull Sandy Toksvig. There was also 70000 of something stolen from a van, the obvious answer was snails but it proved to be ballot papers. No idea what the thieves did with them.

The next round would be "B" themed so answers like Brian Boru, Betty Boothroyd and Baden Baden featured large. My favourite was Graham's comment after nailing the Bangladeshi flag that he's been putting in the work and it's paying off. Fun with flags indeed.

Connections followed and it would be a Mr men type thing. Possible to overthink these but we went with the strategy of going for the right answer and letting the connection take care of itself. Just as well really, I for one have never seen the point of Mr Men. Ten pointers and Daren came good here. The one that vexed us though was the first names of Starsky and Hutch. Ken came relatively easily but we circled round David, confusing ourselves with David Starkey. Eventually though, it was the best we could do and proved to be right.

Half time fun was mainly provided by balancing coins on phones, different. Sometime along the way Kevster commented that "compared to Daren's, Steve's was rock solid when he put it in my hand". Answers below please.

Not rock solid.

Back to the quiz, I think film quotes followed, I haven't really got too many notes here but The Deerhunter, Airplane and an ostrich appear somewhere. Jeopardy next and nine relatively comfortable answers flanked the occupation of Doc Holliday. The clue was in the Doc, we thought dentist but weren't 100% - with a small field today we went the cautious route, would it be good enough?

Music was music, we often get 17, think we got 18. Chocolates was on the number of Cliff number ones. There must be a good joke here but it's escaped me. Anyhow we tied with the Busters and shared the chocolates, as we do anyway.

Was our caution justified? I guess it was and it wasn't, dentist was right but we won in any event.

So hound funds into four figures. I feel there's another Hound bash around the corner but an interesting month of May first.

Robson and hound.