Wake Hound

Well and truly bear-trapped this week. Fair play to Gerry, we didn't see that one coming at all. This picture may help, of which more later.

The pub seemed largely taken over for a wake for someone I'd suggest was not that old and Irish. In case one of the team falls under a bus this week, here is where we'd rather not have our wakes:

Daren - Purley Arms
Graham - Kenley Hotel
Myself - Midday Sun
Peterkins - Foxley Hatch

Yes, Peterkins made a rare guest appearance, and very useful he proved to be as well. We generally got into the spirit of things and I think drank a bit more than usual. No excuses though.

Graham had fun with the first round which was Commonwealth flags and a rare improvement on our usual 8 or so. Onto current affairs and while we knew Greggs replaced Jesus (not the bloke who plays for Man City) with a sausage roll we didn't know that it was a horse arrested in Brazil for kicking a car. Police suspect foal play.

The suspect.

Was it Gordon Ramsay who had a go at being served up with bits of foam on a plate? Sounds like him but don't recall the answers and inevitably it was a packet of nuts that had to be withdrawn from sale because there was no "may contain nuts" warning. Also it was Bobby Mugabe placed under house arrest. Or should that be horse arrest?

The third round was unseen which rather plays havoc with my plan to include a picture with each round. But the usual suspects were there, 'Er Indoors from Minder, Maris Crane and Howard's mum from TBBT.

The connections round was proving a headscratcher. What connects Milan, Tiger Bay and Bordeaux? The poetry that is Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick. First two lines:

In the deserts of Sudan and the gardens of Japan
From Milan to Yucatan, ev'ry woman, ev'ry man

Great stuff and well played to Peterkins for picking it out.

Of the ten pointers, the question of who was Time Magazine's "Most Important Person of the Century" was the only one that really vexed us but we went correctly with Einstein for a decent first half.

Link-ups and I've just got some scruffy notes here which probably means it went well but Overlook led to Komodo Dragon which is surely worth a picture.

Grr.

Jeopardy. Well we kind of did a lot of the hard work. It was Des Lynam who followed Richard Whitely in Countdown and GCHQ is in Cheltenham and while Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde sound like 4 characters from Made in Chelsea, they are indeed the ghosts in Pac Man. But, so blind-sided were we that while Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile in 1954, rather bafflingly one of his pacemakers on the day, Chris Chataway won the SPOTY, for doing what looks like not very much. At least Nigel Mansell had a decent tache.

So that was us out of it, one of those occasions we hold up our collective hands and acknowledge we were bested. Think we won the chocolates again, down to me knowing when the structure of DNA was discovered. At least a university education is worth something.

D2 is on his hols next Thursday so we're going to try the quiz at the Wattenden Arms next Wednesday, up in darkest Kenley. Discuss via here or the Whats App group for details. Just called them and confirmed, quiz from 8.30pm.