The Year of the Hound

Another Thursday and in the tradition of Cream, Nirvana, The Police, A-ha, ZZ Top and Bros, we were once again a tight threesome. On drums we had Graham, holding things together while Daren took lead vocals and guitar. I just played the bass and did my best not to get noticed.

Straight in there and we had two handfuls of Alans.

The names written down give a clue to how well we did. Very much a name of its time in Alan, already out of fashion by the time we were born, I suspect you won't find many under 60, what possessed the parents of #2 I don't know and as for #4? Similar to Gary in a way, couldn't move for Garys when I was a youngster but for some reason you just don't get them any more. Maybe it's Neville, no doubt Alans and Garys will rise again.

Current Affairs next, I sometimes wonder what role this round actually has, doesn't really reflect the mainstream news, e.g. in the scheme of things, how significant is it that Asda are going to start selling wonky vegetables at reduced prices? What we did learn though is that Zalec (apologies for lack of accents) is to introduce a public beer fountain. Bravo! Surely a Hound destination if we could find it.

Next up and sporting firsts and some debate was created. We incorrectly over-ruled Graham on Gavaskar being the first to 10,000 test runs going for Tendulkar but correctly went for Nigel Martyn over Chris Woods being the first £1m goalkeeper. A good round.

Next up and my answer of Snake Plisken was all Daren needed to plump confidently for Chinese years and subsequent answers of Rooster Cogburn and Tony the Tiger weren't going to send us anywhere else. With the ten pointers bagged, it was a strong finish to the first half after an unconvincing start.

Second half and time to re-engage.

Alternatively, try and work out what the Anoraks had written. First up was one of those linking the answers, last letter of one being first of the next etc. The format saved us from two wrong answers and with two questions on African capitals, we just loved it.

Onto jeopardy and quite a toughy this week, looking through the answers, we could only claim 100% certainty on four of them. What was interesting though was our collective abilities to lead each other up blind alleys. I give you the last British Monarch not to have a regnal number. Now Graham postulated Queen Anne but she was succeeded by George I, while we know him as that, wouldn't he actually have been just King George? So we all missed Victoria, at least we swerved that one. Bit of finger crossing, we needed to take something from this round.

Music, can't remember any but we bagged them all and yet again, we didn't get to open the chocolates. Usual post match analysis, we'd blown the jeopardy but so had the Anoraks. WD was water dispersent not displacing and our debate on 633 Squadron vs 636 Squadron was another red herring as the Dambusters was 617, the power of film eh? I'll take the rap for that one.

Maybe we'd done enough? Er, we could have aced the jeopardy and not done enough, it was one of those weeks the Busters call on an extra team member with a wealth of knowledge. Until next time then.