Wonderful Hound

Ok, another economical three ball, Daren, Graham and myself. Pre quiz focussed on:
- We would be no pussies in the Jeopardy round, would this make us or break us?
- You can get all the prescription drugs you need for £29.10 a quarter. Wonder what Elvis would have made of this, not that he needed the discount.

The actual quiz kicked off with dingbats. One better than the usual seven I think.

On current affairs I was personally disappointed that a story about Sammy the seal falling asleep in a ladies toilet in Tasmania didn't make the cut, being the only thing I'd really taken an interest in all week. What did vex us was the two countries moaning about their traditional Olympic costumes. One was Georgia.

Ok, not that flattering I guess.

Next, sport and leisure. Now can someone explain to me how you play hockey left handed? I get polo as a definite but surely hockey is always played right handed? Pokemon Go anyone?

The connections, well. Another of those we got nearly all of the answers but the link baffled us. Also we showed our collective ability to confuse Bruno and Olly wasn't linked to the music round. Frankly they should do the decent thing and merge. One was rear of the year, I'm sure that gives it away.

Ten pointers were hit out of the park, as were the cheesy snacks and on we went. The Link ups round is probably our favourite now and didn't disappoint. Onto Jeopardy and would we be true to our word?

Answer, no. But there were mitigating circumstances. Who knows what the 5th event in a heptathlon is as well as the plane that unloaded over Nagasaki? There were differing opinions on the Shakespeare play starting with a shipwreck as well. Maybe we left a couple out there.

Music, no notes here, no doubt we struggled with something Britpop and that infernal debate on Bruno etc. But guess what? Hound win! About 7 out on our guess of the score, but just as well.

Windmills & Dragons

Not an official Hound event. Just myself with Andrea & Brendan over from Sydney and visiting old haunts. Not that the Green Dragon is one of those, it was a bank or something back when they knew all of the Croydon pubs. A's presence did at least make the team two-thirds ex Umbrella Towers inmates.

£1.50 per person entry fee with £45 first prize and a raffle/pick a playing card at the end for a chance of a rollover jackpot. In  an interesting twist each team plays a joker for double points on one of Rounds 1,2,3 or 5, but which round is chosen by the quizmaster separately for each team.

Round 1 was our joker round, Geography & History. A good choice for us, but we could have done even better than 2x8 points if we knew the first British PM born in the 20th century. We mixed up the PLO and Hamas for the other wrong answer.

Round 2 was Business & Money, 8 points gained. A lot of mental anguish over the company named after a Bing Crosby & Fred Astaire film, with B eventually having a Eureka moment during a fag break (phone left on table). We missed the company named after the male founders secretary, and who knew that the purple Euro note is the 500 euros one.

Round 3 was People, and thankfully rightfully famous people rather than fluffy celebrities. We steamed in for 10 points, shame that it wasn't our random joker round.

Break at this stage, with Round 4 being a word based round to be completed during the 20 minute break. A whopping 30 points at stake. 15 cryptic clues are solved  giving two words each, with the second word being spelt the same as the first except for one additional letter. Their example was...

"Eat this at breakfast then light a fire on a hilltop." BACON/BEACON. I will bring the sheet along tonight if anyone wants to have a go.

We needed all of the time given getting about 9 or 10 without too much difficulty and then the rest only after much consternation. A came into her own getting a few of the stubborn ones. (This somewhat replicated her performance in the previous day's Crazy Golf major on Brighton seafront. 4 consecutive aces on the back 9 gave her a winning 18-hole score of 37, to my 39 and no-one else breaking 45). Looked like a full 30 points at this stage, however reduced to 29 as one of our answers differed slightly from the official one. Could probably have argued that our answer was equally acceptable if we needed the extra point.

The whole thing is marked at the end, but with hindsight based on the final scores, 64 out of 70 at this stage must have put us first or second of about 14 teams. Unfortunately Round 5 was Current Affairs (last two months). With 2 contestants who spent most of those two months on the other side of the world, and myself with a short term memory like one of those things with holes in it that is kept in the kitchen, can't remember it's name, we scored a feeble 3 points. Amongst the things that I couldn't remember were the lowly ranked British tennis player who had 15 minutes of fame at Wimbledon, the losing candidate in the London Mayoral election, the new Home Secretary and what fruit caused a crisis in New Zealand  (we had this the other way around at the PA).

A disappointing 12 out of 20 in the music intros round. We confused Whitney Houston with someone else equally awful, I confused a Donna Summer song with a Rod Stewart one, and we didn't get Fontella Bass/Rescue Me, a Northern Soul classic. Just as well I didn't mention that the last time that I had heard the latter was relatively recently in a bar in Brighton, where someone played it 4 times in a row on the jukebox.

78 points, 3rd equal. Second was only 79.5, but winners got 88. All completed within a couple of hours. A decent quiz, perhaps overweight in politics and people (though the round headings change each week I think). Perhaps underweight in Sport, and certainly not enough Films for B. Refreshingly bereft of meaningless celebrity titbits (though Noel Edmonds and Victoria Beckham did sneak through). Worth consideration for Hound if we ever need a Monday date.

The raffle winners missed the jackpot, but won I think two starters of their choice from the regular menu.

Answers where not given for questions mentioned in the above were...

Alec Douglas-Home
Holiday Inn
Ann Summers
Marcus Willis
Zac Goldsmith
Amber Rudd
Avocado

Graham

  

Ich bin ein hund

Brief one this week, my overseas visitors will be arriving any time soon. Early hopes of 5 hounds were ultimately dashed by a margin of two. Daren turned up already refreshed, and the call of the kebab and his own 4 walls was too tempting. Only 3 teams but still another defeat by two points.

We were pussies leaving out 4 correct answers in the jeopardy round, as well as 1 wrong one and 1 that still required further debate. Lots of missed opportunities, I failed to notice that all of the countries in the connections round had had coups even though I was present during the Cyprus one in 1974. Dandy Warhols were missed in the music round, and there was a Stevie Wonder/Bob Marley mix-up. Put that one down to the beer. A TV/film round was included, we forgot that Smurfs were 3 apples high.

See picture round below. We only got 5 correct. Didn't get 3,4,5,7 or 10. Can't remember who 3 and 4 were now but not messrs Spears and Drogba. We had 5 down as a butch politician, turned out to be Paula Radcliffe. 7 and 10 are Cher and Tarrant. Great to see Kevster back in the saddle, but otherwise a bit of a lame one this week.

G-Hound



 

 

 

 

A Hound For All Seasons

Another Thursday. Double handed again, Kevster at a funeral, Daren on Greece's largest and southernmost island, a fact that would come in useful later on, and Steve foiled by Southern Rail.

First up would be game show pictures.

From the outset it looked like a 7, in fact it was an 8, with three and five foiling us.

On the current affairs it was pleasing to know that it was Kieran Fallon who retired, Nigel Farage's resignation words and that Serena Williams is the serial towel thief. Incidentally my tablet auto corrects Nigel's surname to "Garbage". Make of that what you will.

Around now France got a pen that looked harsh on Germany but given Schweinsteiger was responsible, probably wasn't. The tablet gave up trying to correct Bastian's name.

Next, history. We flip-flopped between options for US president in 1945 and came out wrong. A sub-par round actually on what should have been a good subject, failing even to know the Berlin wall was erected in the 1960s. Is it just me, but I can't even read that without visions of poodle-haired Germans belting out "Wind Of Change"? Just me then.

Connections and I think we got every answer but failed utterly on the connection. Bob De Niro, Piers Morgan, Heather Mills, Benny from Abba to name but four. Knowing one of them was a twin, we extrapolated this to nine. Even five minutes half time googling was unsuccessful.

Ten pointers and working out which Thunderbirds character was called Aloysius was the blind leading the blind, given we'd both watched it about once. Spewing out everything we knew about Thunderbirds got us there and with some teamwork we were still in the game at halftime, a bit like Germany.

The link ups was satisfying and Siobhan has taken on Graham's suggestion of completing the link at Q10. Fitting something between St Petersburg and Lancelot which was an anchor failed us though.

Jeopardy and Daren's location would be useful here. Who Helen Porter Mitchell was better known as would have been even more so. With no prospect of double points and scarred by previous blowouts we maybe went a bit cautious, failing even to confirm Bucks Fizz's Eurovision year as 1981. Still, a safe six as they say on Countdown.

We've rarely done as badly on music, there were two of those Britpop bands Daren and Kevster know more about than us, one blanked us completely. Maybe 13/20 overall?

Can't remember nearest the pin other than it was Maltesers. Results? Hound joint second, nine points behind the Busters and given they had half the pub, pound for pound I think we beat them.

In other news there is a Hound tent! Next event, the Hound camping trip?

Pug agility for you. One thing I've learned, pugs are not agile.

Outward Hound

 

An artist's impression of what a hound tent may look like. Probably a bit bigger though for £200+.

4 of us this week, so no excuses based on numbers (except maybe 1664). If you travelled back in time with the knowledge you have now, what would you look to 'invent' for earlier civilisations? I think that we decided we still wouldn't be much help except potentially in a consulting capacity. Blimey! Poland have scored already!

Pictures of mainly retired tennis players. Didn't get Bates or Rusedski, mildly disappointing and a bit sloppy. 6 correct in the current affairs round, reasonably good. We seemed to know that Coldplay had played at Kensington Palace but never gave it a an answer. Always hard to remember which ex soviet state is in the news (Belarus this time imposing some barmy law or other), and wrong side of the S Africa/Botswana border for the big diamond question. Tuesday is the night that the nation collectively sleeps the soundest.

We aced the London round, Mrs O got 7 out of 10 when quizzed later. Ralph McTell and The Clash don't seem to be on her playlists. Remember the iconic cover of the 'London Calling'  LP based on the iconic cover of Elvis' first release?

 

We got all 9 German born men/ladies but not the connection itself. On reflection I knew that Henry Kissinger, Karl Marx, Karl Lagerfeld all fit the (Kaiser) bill, should probably have known Anne of Cleves, Anne Frank, had no idea in the cases of Bruce Willis, Pam Ferris, Martin Lawrence & Levi Strauss.

Longest/Oldest of the 4 bridges crossing the Grand Canal in Venice is the Rialto Bridge. None of us have been there and we came up with The Bridge of Sighs and probably didn't question it enough, but we may not have got the Rialto in 3 minutes anyway. 10 points down for that one, but safe on the (red) Michelin Guide and Black Monday - 1987.

Siobhan narrowly avoided disaster in the Links round by having to google a tenth question. Also scuppered her intention to circularise it. Full marks again.

9 out of 10 on the Jeopardy round, stymied by a clear bear-trap question. Where was Guiseppe Garibaldi born? Not in Italy for sure, turned out to be Nice. Missed Adele and some soul song in the music, and more disappointingly got the wrong Abba title. Sloppy again and defeat by only 2 points. Well done Lady & T. Robson hit a near bullseye in wining the bag of Minstrels, and Man Utd (apparently) won the penalty shootout. Could Portugal become the first team to win a tournament without winning a single game in normal time? I think we should be told.

Bit of channel hopping when I got home brought up 'Women who shoot lions', which was the subject of some earlier discussion led by Daren who had seen it recently. The woman featured in what I saw never went anywhere near Africa, but took grotesque delight in hunting stags, feral goats, rare sheep breeds and a black bear. Had some seriously twisted reasons for doing and enjoying it that seemed to involve animal welfare, I kid you not.  Oh, and her young daughter gets upset when internet trolls threaten to hunt and viciously kill her mum.

G-Force