Downward-Facing Hound

So the pressure was on. Could the Hound land the title for an unprecedented four weeks running? Early prospects were good, the Anoraks were nowhere to be seen so maybe an easier filed to conquer? Before we go any further though, salut et allez les bleus to our growing French readership. It seems the Russians have dipped out but our international presence remains.

Very Gallic-centred.

So onto the quiz. A more Hound-friendly picture round than some, with pictures of famous English landmarks. The only one we didn't get was this?

Kevster might know it? Quite a dramatic picture eh? It wasn't

That's for sure.

Round 2 was the usual stuff. At this point, there's one country in the world with all five vowels in its name only once. Anyone? Oddly Equatorial Guinea almost has them twice.

In walked a Staffie/Malamute cross at this point. Siobhan appeared rather nervous of it, but she was a delightful thing, something like:

Ignore the hippy with it.

Not sure what round 3 was. Who on earth has sugar on French toast though for Pete's sake? Probably an American thing but really?

Round 4, connections. One of those where we got most of the answers but wrestled with the actual connection. One we couldn't get was "Who was the original sweater girl?" And you know what, after extensive searches, this is the best I can do. Lana Turner.

Turns out they'd all had multiple marriages, Martin Scorsese, Kenny Rogers, Jerry Lee etc. Lana managed 8!

Ten Pointers, two from three here. Corn based snacks included Monster Munch, very under-rated.

For once link-ups foxed us. Who ruled Kent from 589 to 616 AD? What is Saint Cecilia patron saint of? Nope, me neither.

Jeopardy and it was a cautious ten. We weren't sure what oology was all about, but we went for it. And in a strange twist we actually bagged the minstrels, on the nose! But can't remember exactly what for?

So had we done enough? Well oology was indeed the study of eggs, or birds eggs anyway. But Charles and Di got married in St Pauls and not Westminster Abbey, so a resounding no on that one. On the subject, I was off school for that and Daren wasn't. Though it was on the 29th July so wouldn't we all be off school anyway? Maybe a local authority thing? Not that I watched much of it.

So onto important business, a landmark birthday for one of our number next week, drinks start at around 2pm in the Ramblers Rest, Chipstead. There you go.

Radio Hound

Coming to the airwaves soon, Radio Hound;

A typical days programming might look as follows....

10.30-12.00: Siobhan's quiz hour, 50% extra free.

12.00-16.00: G-Force presents 'Eclectica' where Nasenbluten and Thrash Metal get an airing next to Grime, New Orleans Bounce, Klaus Wunderlich and Jimmy Shand accordion favourites.

22.00: Kevster's sexual health phone-in.

Late til later: 'Hot Night with Robson'.

If Partridge's people play ball we could also resurrect the successful Radio Norfolk show 'Radio Quiet'. Gentle prog rock just doesn't get enough FM airtime.

I may have misplaced a bit of paper with Daren's programing? Might have been his suggestion to have Bake-off on the radio, a sure fire ratings winner after all. I think that Louis offered to make his famous chilli piccalilli for one such programme. Other Hounds are invited to suggest contributions that they can make to any free slots.

On more mundane topics (but not much more) Daren may have been sacked without anybody telling him, he's looking a lot better but has bad blood and possibly a faulty neck. Bad blood within Kevster's family may at long last be having a hatchet buried in it. A 28 stone Christmas diner had to rely on a £120 doggie bag from Silvermere Gold Club. Robson is Menton bound hanging out with the jet-set. Oh yes, and I completed my tax return for 2015-16, it doesn't get much more cutting edge than that.

There was a quiz somewhere amongst all of this chicanery, and Hound completed a first hat-trick for some time. 8 teams this week, and all of the others have yet to break their 2017 duck.

Can't upload the picture round as somebody scribbled on it. Supposedly random celebs seemed to have a definite bird theme, Jay Leno, Robin VP, Sheryl Crowe, Flo Nightingale etc...

The following summarises some of the key points pictorially, 3 ten-pointers and all Jeopardy round questions answered correctly.





 




 







Dan Quayle.
Temple of Hackney vegan chicken shop.
Giants Causeway, co. Antrim
Albus Dumbledore, Macarthur Park
Summer Pudding
Winken, Blynken & Nod.
Book of the Play.
Cornershop.

It only remains to add a thought for the day;

How DO I keep my eclairs hard?

Snow Bound Hound

Making our way through the snow this week, the team looked something like:

Or maybe not but an excuse to show cute dogs.

We were numerically disadvantaged against the other teams with just Graham and myself so we needed the questions to go our way. Instead we got this.

Now Graham's knowledge of car badges is almost as bad as mine and the amount of writing on the sheet gives a clue as to what we knew, and one of those was wrong. Eventually we struggled to a score just under what a ten year old might get on his own with Graham managing to get Pontiac from somewhere.

So back of the field after the first fence, we had some catching up to do. Well we bagged it was Norway turning off their FM signals and Japanese hackers were stealing fingerprints from social media sites but thought a camel and not a snake had grounded a plane from Oman and the Russians not the Chinese were introducing a cut-off year of birth for a legal ban on tobacco so still back of the field probably.

A cheer from Graham greeted the announcement that the next round was geography and a perfect 20 resulted, with last year's canoeing holiday reminding us that Hereford is the only city on the River Wye.

Onto connections and we moved even further onto home territory. Answers such as Alexander Armstrong, Eric Idle, Sir IanMcKellen were all a bit posh and a bit intellectual and we were on the right track quickly. It possibly is the first connection round that I could have been a part of so no excuses there.

Ten pointers and we picked up one over the Anoraks here by knowing Anna-Frid from Abba was Norwegian, think they went for Denmark and we finished the first in a lot healthier position than we started it. Cue sustaining cheese based snacks.

Onto link-ups and for once we didn't need too much back-solving to join up the chains, on question 10 we needed to link "Delphi" back to "Opaque". Graham had gone with Idaho and myself Indigo. 6th colour of the rainbow! Hurrah!

Now onto the Jeopardy, we'd obviously dropped marks on the car round but pulled back on the ten pointers. The consensus was an un-gettable jeopardy round would probably suit us today. "Who played the station master in the Railway Children" was indeed that question, at least for us. It did Graham a chance to mention Jenny Agutter's performance more times than is probably healthy so...

The girl on Jenny's left anyone? Other than that question, a relatively confident nine.

Onto music and Gerry excelled himself this week, nothing after about 1986 but that's when music stopped in reality. So the marks, King Kong Balls, Busters and LATT well off the pace, Anoraks 149, Hound 152! Back to back wins from a frankly dreadful start. One for the diaries, Scout quiz on the 11th March, probably the Saturday before Cheltenham. Lets finish with a picture from Hound Towers.

Perfect 2nd-half Hound.

The title probably indicates that we did ok, but to keep some suspense we did miss two ten-pointers.

1. What fruit grows on a banyan tree - our best guesses were bread fruit or pineapple both wrong.
2. What joint in the human body is known as the coxa - we said wrist with no conviction, we were right to have no conviction.

Only myself and Robson present, Happy New Years all around from the other 6 competing teams who all appeared as if by magic just when we were starting to think maybe there won't be a quiz.



Christmas pleasantries were also exchanged, Robson had a festive trip to the pub pictured above, which claims to be the oldest pub in England. He also raised the subject of Fancy Free walks which I think warrants further investigation. A quick game of my new favourite QuizUp topic called Buchstabensalat, and on with the quiz.

 

 

Trouble with my scanner, so just a hand-held photo with rotational issues. All died in 2016, we missed 1. which was the guy who played Grizzly Adams on TV. I didn't think that Kris Kristofferon had died but it was the best that I could offer. Didn't get 8. either, big up to anyone who can get it from this angle, or any other for that matter. Massive 18 points on the current affairs, with some pretty wild guesses coming in (e.g. Volkswagen topping 2016 auto sales figures in Sweden).

 

Respectable 16 on History, some confusion for me over which Ernie Shackleton Antarctic expedition ship was crushed by ice. Is it Endeavour or Endurance, on googling now I think we got it right so may have been 18 points again. Only out by 1 year on Nelson Mandella's release date from prison. Less than brilliant connections round for us, all were MENSA members which some teams got. CJ De Mooi and Carol Vorderman seem obvious with hindsight but who would have thought Brendan O'Carroll (of Mrs Browns boys fame), Major Charles Ingram and Stormin Norman? We got Brendan's surname wrong and also managed to confuse Thelma and Louise. Absolutely no clue as to the guy on which  Robin Williams' character in Good morning Vietnam was loosely based (Adrian Cronauer).

 

 

 

Answers to ten pointers mentioned above were fig and hip. Such small words for 10 points each.  

 

So, what about that 2nd-half! Chain letters answers were BerliN, NapleS, SaleM, MontreaL, LagoS, Southend-on-SeA, AnorexiA (hastily added once Siobhan realised she only had 9 answers), AppenineS, SueZ, ZagreB. Geography heaven.

 

Not the hardest Jeopardy round admittedly, only the greek goddess of love sounded anything like a potential bear trap until Question 10. Who had a number one hit in 1986 with 'Nothings Gonna Change My Love For You'?  Cue agonised expressions as I can't believe I can't get it, and worse still Robson can't. Right up his alley I thought. I'm pretty sure that it was my wrong offering of Nick Kamen that eventually prompted him to get Glenn Medeiros. A hard fought quiz was won there and then. Full marks on the Music round for a perfect 2nd-half 80 out of 80 points. One tune remained tantalisingly ungrasped after the first round of plays, and only by singing the rest in his head after the second play did Robson come up with 'Hold On' by Wilson Phillips.    

 

        

 

Winners with 19 points to spare from the Anoraks. Busters et al further behind.

 

Picture  8. above is apparently Burt Kwouk, from Pink Panther films and Last of the Summer Wine fame, amongst other things. 

 

Cryptic remark on Robson's note says 'Give My Head Peace', what is that all about? Multiple trains home cancelled, but we stay to closing regardless. It's been a while since a win.

 

G-Force