Hounds, Eagles and Devils

Another early start this week. Daren made it an early one with myself and special guest Lee at the White Hart in Chipstead. After some cab trouble we made it down to the PA. Daren was unimpressed with the decor, the pub laid out in red and blue ready for South London's number one taking on Man U. We were both going so various chat to be had on predictions, logistics etc.

The first joiner would be Kevster. He wouldn't be staying for the quiz, having spent much of the day ferrying plastic Scousers back on airport runs, a fun task if ever there was one. Next up would be Graham, reducing out the average pints per team member by about two.

Let's declared strengths were food and drink, not just consumption thereof and pictures, but not names. Another thing he also bought was an unprecedented level of spelling accuracy from the scribe, though possibly not subject to the usual forensic levels of scrutiny on position of apostrophes etc.

So the rounds, usual first two and then a Tom, Dick and Harry round. Connections ok then the ten pointers, smallest two Euro countries? Fairly clearly Vatican and Monaco, only number spelt with letters in order, bit of working yielded FORTY. Last all English FA Cup final team; well Graham had the last such winners as West Ham so that was our bet. Sadly as a plastic Eagle, I'd not read Gerry's clever link to the last time Palace made the final.

Still though, we felt in the game and before long, jeopardy would arrive. A couple of fine answers from Graham kept us in the hunt, but then "how many verses in the National Anthem" was less a bear trap than darn difficult. Even with the internet in front of you, it ain't easy to pin down and it was a justified swerve. Lee filled in the Mars/Murs/Bubble gap and the paper was in.

Some generous marking and another Hound win! Must be on quite a decent trot now, pretty strongly correlated to the number of team members. What's to come? Well the little matter of that Cup Final tomorrow and two of the next three quizzes missed for me. Good luck to all involved.