Pre-match discussion of the ludicrously high earning of various Umbrella Towers directors for the last year, but we're not bitter. Silly St Paddy's hats also abound, perhaps Steve could attach a comment with a Robson picture.
Picture Round as follows, all solo singers;
We missed 03, 04 and 10. 03 turned out to be LeAnn Rimes, a name that was at least mentioned in despatches along with many, many others. Googling multiple images of her shows that she only ever looked anything like this on 1 particular album cover. 04 was Usher, we guessed Pharrell, 10 is Jane MacDonald.
Probably an all-time low of only 4 out of 20 points on the Current Affairs round. I am currently finding this round exasperating as I try to swot up a bit but always end up missing stories about e.g. ice cream vans being told to move on after 15 mins in Worcester, a Whale off the cost of New Zealand losing it's tail, Argentina sinking a Chinese fishing vessel, Royal Brunei airlines using an all female cockpit crew, Prince Andrew trying to ram the gates of his own house in Windsor, and the new England football shirt being made from 16 or 18 recycled plastic bottles yet still retailing at £101. Clearly I should get out less.
Back on track with the Irish themed third round. We only missed 'Drisheen' being an Irish version of black/blood pudding. Second hardest question was probably the one relating to the John Wayne film made in Ireland called 'The Quiet Man'.
Steve was in quick with 'Types of Tank' for the connections round. Colonel Abrams aroused his suspicion straight away and although it wavered a bit with answers like 'Tog' and 'Matilda', others put him back on track. We only failed to remember that Oliver Cromwell asked that his portrait be painted 'Warts and all'. Sherman from M*A*S*H was probably the best backsolved answer.
'Dubris' was the Roman name for 'Dover', 'Anne Hathaway' is the actress that shares her name with Shakespeare's wife, and 'Deliverance' was the film that featured 'Duelling Banjos'. Thirty points right there.
Did I mention that I left my wallet at home? However, any pretensions I had that this would make me 'Wally of the Week' were very quickly crushed. A new team with a happy Irishman also had, shall we say, a rather irritating teammate who wasn't funny at the start and never let up. It is entirely possible that had other Hounds been there they would have suffered him even less gladly that the 3 of us did.
insert picture of Robson in silly Irish hat here.
Who was to know at this stage that we would only drop 1 further point in the quiz. In the chain letter round (see my most recent blog for a more detailed explanation of how this works), we just failed to recall the surname of actor Nigel Pivaro who played Terry Duckworth in Corrie, Yeovil Town are the Glovers, and the rest troubled us not at all.
Despite some nervousness along the way, the team effort enabled us to shoot the moon on the Jeopardy Round. Steve takes the top honours with 'Captain Chaos' the superhero alter ego of Victor Prinzim played by Dom DeLuise in the film 'Cannonball Run'. Robson and I didn't have a clue, and Gerry confirmed afterwards that every other person doing the quiz was in the same boat apart from Steve. He never expected anyone to get it, and it did in fact deter The Anoraks from going big (wouldn't have been enough for them anyway). I offered Isle of Man as the area of Britain celebrating 'Tynwald day' and 'Potato' being the crop bedevilled by the 'Colorado beetle'. Robson took responsibility for Bolivia being the country of Che Guevara's death, and also had the best remembrance of confectionary ads (Milky Way). We went big despite some small reservations regarding 2 or 3 answers, and nothing really beats checking afterwards and finding that you are right on all counts.
20 out of 20 on the music, didn't even need Kevster to identify a George Benson number. Nothing too recent, to the evident disappointment of some teams.
163 points totalled, and The Anoraks a distant second with 131. How long is the film 'The Godfather Part 1'? won a bag of minstrels for someone. We speculated 188 mins, answer was 178 mins.
Hopefully Cheltenham Friday went well in the Smugglers, I watched the Gold Cup in a bookies in Leeds. Maundy Thursday is up next.
G-Force
