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