Despicable Hound

For the first time in what seems like months, my blogging notes haven't been left on the train, eaten by the dog or other such flimsy excuse. So here we go for a blow by blow account.

In a curious twist of fate, both quizzers arrived from a hard day at work, eager for a foaming pint to slake the thirst created by a hard day's graft. Yes, Graham and myself have both started on the actuarial marking, so maybe taking some liberties with "hard day" there but work nonetheless. Given both of our complete ignorance in the subject, we thoroughly expected the pictures to be Disney films of the like. So

came as quite a pleasant surprise. Four vexed us for a while, both of us convinced that it was somewhere in London, nope. Of all the buildings I've been inside one of them, any takers?

Should also point out that Hound Towers is now equipped with a fully functioning "all-in-one" computer now so may be experimenting along the way. A slightly disappointing turn out to the quiz with just the four core teams, but on we went with current affairs. Comments like "Steve/Kevster/Daren would have known this" were banned from the start so on we struggled, getting that Olly Murs pulled out of the Olympics parade, not before dallying with Bruno mind, but failing to estimate the size of this baby.

9 stone 10lbs on a good day. The mushroom was nearly two stones though.

Next round was the 00's. One of those that makes you think about how long ago things actually were. Wierdly when thinking about which MP claimed for adult entertainment for her husband, this lady came to mind for both of us.

Wrong though. Am I overdoing the photos? We also mistook Slobodan Milosevic for Radavan Karadzic. Doubt if we'll be the first or the last there. Neither played for Villa though.

Onto connections and though I say it myself, I'm on a bit of a hot streak here. Failing to be distracted by Graham's insistence that he had invented the telephone, I dragged out that the likes of Holly Willoughby, Tom Cruise, Lewis Carroll and Steven Spielberg were/are all dyslexic. Ten pointers and despite getting Jack L, we couldn't dredge up Jack Lord playing Steve McGarrett. Siobhan gave us some credit though.

Link ups and the only one that really stumped us was the connection between Kerch, Georgia and Messina. This may help.

Yep, all straits.

Jeopardy and which is the longest bone in the forearm. We had radius and ulna and maybe 60/40 ulna?

Ok, so which Formula One racing driver was the first one to be twice been Sports Personality of the Year. Now there's been some undeserving winners of this over the years, but taking the cake.

Just looking at him prompts a yawn. If we'd had an idea we might have plumped for ulna but frankly we were guessing between 3 or 4. Damon Hill won it twice for God's sake.

Music and we were only undone by Toni Braxton, Graham steaming in with Toxic from Britney.

Ok, wrong video but working from home has to have its advantages.

How old was QEII when Charlie popped out, 22 and the Minstrels were ours! Sadly though, the £50 wasn't, the Anoraks had nailed the jeopardy. If only....

Sound As A Hound

Just Graham and myself this week. Southampton were playing Hapoel Bethsheba or the like with Man U vs someone unprounounceable to follow. Early observations:

- A gift of wedding cake, baked by Siobhan from Debbie of TLATT for us before we started. Absolutely no soggy bottoms, until later in the evening in any case.

- Siobhan would be making Graham a bottle of sloe gin, maybe to be shared between the team, who knows?

Pictures this week were of an insurance theme, ADMIRAL Nelson, Winston CHURCHILL, that sort of thing. Right out of our comfort zone obviously but all the clues in the world wouldn't help us get Abbie Clancey, though £60,000 a week from Stoke City might have a good chance. I took a picture but its on another "device" so you'll just have to imagine them.

Current Affairs would be mainly in Graham's court this week. I'd spent the previous week in Cornwall where the words "current" and "affairs" have very different meanings to the ones we're used to. So do most things actually. We muddled through, failing to identify that it was an upwardly directed thumb on the 4th plinth at Trafalgar Square.

Some Cornish Folk

Next Up Ding Dong, generally bell-flavoured answers, Martyn Bell, Ian Bell, Tubular Bells, that sort of thing. We did ok.

Connections was one of those where I think we actually got all 9 answers but for the life of us couldn't link them up. What connects Rebecca Adlington, Glenda Jackson, Hamlet? Oscars apparently, they've all won one, well not Mansfield's finest but she ain't too old to start an acting career.

Ten pointers were fairly easily dispatched. We didn't think it would be the Busters' night when Julie revealed they'd gone for The Coors as the Irish band the Lynch sisters were in. While we're there:

B*Witched - like you didn't know

Link Ups round and Gerry is really starting to express himself with this round. So we had Topaz linking to Zager and Evans and Gravadlax joining up with Xenophobia. An educated punt from Graham filled in two of our missing answers but we couldn't quite square the circle and make it ten.

Jeopardy and one of the more straightforward, in a decision sense. Award yourself a metaphorical pat on the head if you know which country first introduced all plastic banknotes and where Phileas Fogg first sailed to after he left London, was it the Reform Club? We weren't really close but had 8 other decent ones.

Music and no good Hound music round is complete without a mix up and so "Troublemaker" by Olly became "Heart Attack" by Bruno. One day we'll crack this, but by then maybe they'll both become so hideously unfashionable, nobody will play their music in public. We can dream. Other than some Disney nonsense, I think we got the rest.

So onto the scores, no-one had aced the Jeopardy and with 3 ten pointers tucked away, Hound had to be in the running. And the final two read TLATT 143, Hound 144! We were outnumbered 3:1 but we've seen before, more bodies doesn't always mean clearer thinking, particularly in the Jeopardy. Disappointing after all the fun that when we got there, Ozzie's kebabs had closed for the night. Can't have it all.

SlaughteredHound Five

Rule 1 of quiz blogging, look after your notes and they will look after you. Unfortunately bits of paper were passed around when trying to get the last few anagrams and not all of them made their way back to me.

A strong line-up, boosted by an all too rare appearance from K. No S (apologies received) but debutant N deputising ably. Furious banterage pre match from memory covered Brad and Angelina's post nuptial shenanigans, D boarding a plane with high denomination currency notes secreted in various places about his person, sympathy for those whose academic futures may lie partially in the hands of G and R, and CJ from eggheads and Jeremy Corbyn may possibly have been in some way responsible for 1 death each.

Louis running the quiz this week, so the usual structure can't be wholly relied upon. A Disney round however can be relied upon, honestly how many more Disney villains are there? At least we got it out of the way up front.

5 max scored and only then if we got away with King John for Prince John. The ones we didn't get were;

1.  Jafar from Aladdin.
3.  Stromboli from Pinnochio
4.  Hercules from Hades.
9.  Ratigan from Basil the Great Mouse Detective
10.Ursula from The Little Mermaid (on reverse of sheet so not shown above).

Second round related to games. Sam is the name of the patient in Operation, think we got most of the rest covering Monopoly, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit, Twister etc.

Connections round brought forward to Round 3, full marks scored with R being the first to get the San/St connection. K's early suggestion that none of the people featured show even the most basic level of likeability also turned out to be uncannily close to the truth. Round 4 was nominally entitled General Knowledge, but turned out to be largely geography based, fine by us. 3 ten pointers bagged to complete a good first half comeback.

For the record sizes of European countries (sq mi) as follows;

Germany - 137,847
Ukraine - 223,013 (without Crimea)
France - 210,026

A bit confusing, can't remember the exact wording of Louis' question, but he gave France as the answer.

Louis likes to mark during the half time break so gave us the first second half round to work on. Twenty anagrams of famous male actors. We made 19 pretty evenly split between the five of us, not all easily. Only CEASING COAL defeated us.     

The Anoraks went gung-ho on the Jeopardy Round and got their reward as we had to settle for second place. We left three out, all of which we did guess correct, but not with enough confidence/back-up to write them down. Hit and Miss was the Juke Box Jury theme, Vodka, Galliano & Orange Juice is a Harvey Wallbanger, and there are 9 gallons in a Firkin. Personally, I have recently blamed my lack of sobriety for underperformance in this round, querying whether or not it could feature a bit earler. Not on this occasion though, I think that that point was reached during the Picture Round.



Music described as 'Eighties Rock'. Way too easy.

CEASING COAL - NICOLAS CAGE. It seemed to be the lack of an H in his Christian name that made this one so hard.

That's about it. An invite to Robson Towers is extended to all for the last day of the Ryder Cup on Sunday, 2 October. RSVP by email or text.

G-Force

  

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

The Curious Incident Of The Hound In The Night Time

Well that was a rum one. Started off with frankly sweltering temperatures, all were commenting on arms sticking to the table etc. By the time I got back on the train, raining cats and dogs as it were, with absolutely no protection from the elements, it was a dash from the station back to Hound Towers.

Now due to this, and not at all down to the previous drinking, blogging notes were lost. Frankly they'd have been ruined anyway. So:

Starting with a picture, bring back any memories for anyone, eh Kevster?

It all started in the Pear Tree. Someone mentioned maybe an early start today, Man U were on the box at 6 so it all made sense. Steve had some good news about his immediate employment prospects, frankly good news for all of us as workers are getting thin on the ground in our collective, while Graham and I discussed ST8, all within the terms of the Confidentiality Agreement naturally. Bar snacks were had, then Kevster turned up to transport us to the PA.

More inane chit chat followed. Trips to Germany, a £1,200 balancing payment, Bilbao and Hermione Granger all got a well deserved mention. The Anoraks asked us to road test a quiz they were running at a school in Sutton. Probably harder than the one we did on the night. Who's up for dressing up in school uniform and crashing it?

By now Man U had lost, Kevster was on his way to Heathrow and Southampton were playing. Teams gathered, the quiz:

Round 1 - One of those linky things, SLANT, SLANG, SLING etc. Easy enough

Round 2 - Current Affairs - Which retailer had its Market Cap slashed? Primark apparently.

Round 3 - Science type stuff. Hurrah!

Round 4 - Connections. Not only England rugby but the 2003 World Cup winning side, Johnson, Dallaglio etc.

Round 5 - Linkups. Included a very clever link back to something beginning with J with Nicky Minaj. Kudos.

Round 6 - Jeopardy. Went all in. The Anoraks did the same. Tension mounts.

Round 7 - Music. Less this week than our usual 17 or 18.

Result, I'm on a deadline so no suspense, Hound win, both us and the Anoraks landed the Jeopardy but we got one more pointer. Way to go and roll on Plumpton.

In other news I was nearly run over today as a driver chose to go the wrong side of the road, speed over a zebra crossing and jump a red light in Coulsdon. At least here to tell the tale.

Gotta hop!

HoundsLow

 

 

 

Pre match banter was no more enlightened than usual. 3 Hounds, let's call them D,R & G, attested to differing degrees of fondness for those parts of an animal usually described as offal (which doubles as awful if you are aware of the frequently quoted Scottish joke). Marginally more enthusiasm was expressed for various pea-derived products. The least well-known, to me at any rate, being a Black Country dish called Grey Peas (pronounced something loike grey pays) often eaten with bacon. 











Poor on the Film Studios (see above) and Current Affairs, and not sure we ever really made it up on Lady & The Tramp, though they also scored more heavily than us on the Jeopardy round. Normal service resumed for the rest of the first half. Couldn't remember who plays The Penguin in the sixties Batman TV series, but got most of the rest. Pretty sure Steve would have known Burgess Meredith. R's turn to have a eureka moment in the connections round, recognising Christian names of prime ministers' spouses. This was despite my garden path pointing to Coronation Street legends (well we had a Liz, an Audrey and a possible Jack). Redeemed myself by being the first to remember Beats International for a ten pointer.





Yes, that is Norman Cook/Fatboy Slim!

Chain letters round successfully negotiated. None of us knew that Jane Lynch played Sue Silvester in "Glee", but we backfilled successfully. A poor Jeopardy round with only 5 answered, all correctly at least. Could have got more, even turning down a World Cup Finals question. Could have played and got the Greenpeace question wrong as well (originated in Canada not New Zealand), but didn't.

The Music round can be best described by the single word irony. Despite having exhausted the many ways that peas can be made delicious earlier on, we failed to spot a Black-eyed peas number. And having also discussed the 'Mandella effect' where things are collectively remembered wrong, and frankly poo-pooing it slightly, R & G both managed to remember Jean-Michel Jarre's Oxygene IV as Space's Magic Fly, D's protestations being repelled by a firmly parked bus with the handbrake on.

Winning margin for L&T was convincing, second place for Hound. Quick reminder that Plumpton is on Sunday 18th September.   

G-Force

Forgotten Hound

Before the quiz and rather unusually, we were scanning the skies. Not literally but via an app. Kevster was waiting on his arrival to take somewhere and we were considering whether G-Force would make it back to the quiz in time. For one crazy moment, we thought they may be one and the same and had visions of Kevster and Graham settling down for the quiz while the remaining O'Neills were lugging suitcases back to Purley.

Sadly though, Kevster's arrival was from Edinburgh and Graham was still over France so it would be Daren, Steve and myself forming the quiz team.

Even sadder, I can't find any of the copious notes I made so the rest of the blog will be brief. I couldn't remember the precise piece of tack a martingale is, thinking it was a bit rather than a strap. That cost us. We were second. That's all folks.