The Hound Who Stole Christmas

Festive greetings from what proves to be the last quiz of the year at the PA of which more later. Making up tonights's team were a Namibian and a Romanian, as defined by drinking nationalities in a BBC thing. Personally, I'm not sure its actually possible to be anything else. By way of clue, here's one of the team:

Christmas justifies a lot of things but....

Once the interlopers in the pub were dispatched we could take up positions and the quiz began. Now, Siobhan gave us a heads up on the theme of Round 1, its not cheating, its taking advantage of available information. So with a quick google and photographic memory these were dispatched:

To be fair, we knew most anyway.

Current Affairs was trickier, the most attended Sporting Event of 2016? Answer given was the Wimbledon Championships, 494,000 over 14 days. Well if we're counting "a championship" why not the Premier League, approx. 300,000 * 38 or single event, London Marathon? Hurrumph.

Food and Drink was Christmas themed but not 100% so. Which type of cheese comes solely from La Mancha? That struck me as very much a filler of a question. Carp for Christmas dinner though? No wonder all those Poles come over here.

On the connections, we were on for the first letter of all the answers spelling "CHRISTMAS" but Kenny Everett swung it back to Xmas birthdays, the way he always seems to. So those crucial 10 pointers, we'd located the labyrinth and who sang "It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid.." Who did Sue Nicholls play in Corrie though? Anyone?

Refreshed by a combination of Siobhan's poppy sord shortbread, hot nuts and beer, the second half. The alternate name of the Moluccas Islands detained it for far longer than it really should, otherwise we made relatively short work of them all.

Onto jeopardy and a few vexed us. Was it Curry or Cousins at Lake Placid and who played Lofty Holloway in Arsenders? We were almost resigned to taking an eight when out of somewhere, Tom Watt appeared. A couple of other measured risks and we were going for it! Music, more Christmas themed stuff, we failed to get Cruz Beckham, oh well. So how did we do? Well chicken Marengo proved our undoing, concocted to celebrate a victory in the Napoleonic wars. Tell you what though, it looks good! As was the pub, at its festive best.

Ok, so we didn't win and were third. Those items of business

Next week - The Sun at 12.30 - bring pieces des resistances, plus Steve, please bring some cash
The PA will have a buffet for Thursday regulars, an option?
Or maybe a quiz around Carshalton/Sutton? Kevster, any thoughts

To follow maybe an Inbetweener somewhere, bring ideas and knowledge of suitable days. Sayonara.

Hydroponic Hound

There are those amongst you who probably wouldn't put it past me to claim that we only lost because I forgot my specs. Not so. I never forgot them, they were in my coat pocket all of the time. Anyway, my assistance wasn't really required for the pictures, manually altered film posters. 

A near maximum in the current affairs round, just missing John Key as the new NZ PM. Similarly on the British sitcoms round, we missed only Tyler as Boycey and Marlene's kid in Only Fools and Horses. As expected, Mrs O got one this before I had even finished asking the question.

Connections were airports as follows;

James Stewart - Indiana County, Pennysylvania
Yuri Gagarin - Namibe, Angola.
John Wayne - Santa Ana, California
Cristiano Ronaldo - Santa Cruz, Madeira
Pope John Paul II - Krakow-Belice
Louis Armstrong - New Orleans
Ronald Reagan - Washington
Alexander the Great - Skopje, Macedonia
Frederic Chopin - Warsaw

How did we not get that connection? First 8 answers correct anyway. No further drama with the ten-pointers.

Half-time report: Cameo from Kevster around the mid-quiz break. Daren is keeping himself busy, mostly baking cakes to help pass the time. Our sloe gin has become slow gin and won't be ready until well into the New Year. Steve mysteriously disappeared for quite a while, could it be love? I still bemoaned my "missing" spectacles. Someone hilariously hid D's phone in a Quavers packet, and one of the opposition looked like a house-elf in seasonal knitwear.

                  

Quite a lot of backfilling in the chain letters round but we got there. Hearts, Eclipse, Offenbach and High Chaparral proving to be the trickier ones.

Busters "did" the Jeopardy round to win. We left two out but got the other eight correct, including Joe 90 as the Gerry Anderson creation that worked for WIN, which put paid to the Anoraks hopes (they went for Captain Scarlett). We didn't know that Suzuki make the Gran Vitara, and myositis is also known as 'forget-me-not'. Missed two in the music round, a score of 154 out of 170 (excluding Jeopardy bonus) represents a good night's work, but not good enough. I leave you with an artist's impression of what Daren's cakes might look like;

 

   
The Hound gathering on the 22nd will now be closer to home than originally anticipated, Carshalton seems popular. Apparently Christmas jumpers are suggested for next week's quiz. Up to the individual I guess.

G-Force