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