Throw A Blanket Over Them Hound

Graham and myself this week, first up faced up with 10 pictures of Nicks. Very seasonal and we managed nine of them. I'd like to say this was a sign of things to come but it really wasn't.

Current Affairs, well there only seems to be one subject in the news and obviously we weren't covering that so it was tricky. But Kenya is replacing the images of presidents on coins with the likes of lions, elephants, giraffes etc. Maybe the animals could do their jobs as well. And Goodyear are paying off ex employers in Venezuela with tyres and these little fellas are the fastest moving animals around.

The next round was "bells". So we had the likes of Portobello Road, venue of Mr Gruber's shop, The Bell Jar and Tubular Bells. Nice.


Onto what year, so Rage Against The Machine were number one at Christmas and Giggsy was SPOTY. So back in the days when someone gave a damn. But apparently the Icelandic banking system imploded after the credit crunch, not before and we were unsuccessfully looking for 2009.


Ten pointer and I'd say knowing the nickname of Warren Weber in Happy Days was specialist knowledge. Even with google it took a while to find it. But we bagged the other two to maybe give ourselves a puncher's chance later on.


Or that's what we thought. Estee Lauder's first fragrance anyone? Or the Italian herb that has notes of celery and parsley? Youth-Dew and help me out here because, other than it ending in "E", I really don't know. So we kind of lost the trail and frankly didn't really get it back.


Onto jeopardy and it didn't really improve. So lets have a picture.

That, is apparently a Stinking Bishop.

We did a lot better on music but surely too little too late. But, rather than being the first team read out, we were the 2nd last, only two points behind LATT, with an almost Theo-like spread of 6 points between all of the teams. Naturally with so many wrong answers we probably did leave a few out there, but good to get back into the quizzing saddle for me after a three week break.


Last one of the year next week. Maybe an Inbetweener though? I'll toss that one out.

Which one are you?

Who is she? Hound.

Just me and D2 this week. Touch and go whether or not there would be a quiz for a while. 4th team only arrived circa 8.30.

We made a poor fist of these pictures, all actresses.

To be fair, Daren suggested that the first one was Viven Leigh but I wasn’t having it. Halle Berry still doesn’t look like Halle Berry to me.

Current Affairs a bit better, D2 knew about a Dutch King piloting a charter flight and that Leigh-on-Sea is the happiest place in England. Cue joke about my in-laws who live there.

Geography in song lyrics next. Saw you last night in Glasgow, Standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona, Caught between the moon and New York City, that sort of thing. A pattern was developing here with D2 getting more right than me. Frankly baffling Tom Petty lyric included, where the hell is Reseda anyway? Not an easy round.

Year was 1974. This woman was famously kidnapped...

Patty Hearst, an heiress to something or other. We should have got it from Bagpuss to be fair, but went 1972. 

Managed the ten pointers with Harry Redknapp being the last Englishman to manage an FA Cup winning team, answered correctly by guess who? D2 again.

2 errors in the chain letters round. This lot are called the Na’vi..

... and Mansell not Piquet won the F1 title in 1992.

Unfortunately 2 errors, in the Jeopardy round as well, ending our chances of first place. 

We mixed this fellas boxing record up with that of Henry Cooper...

Brian London. Also confused gelatin and pectin.

King Kong Balls first again, well ahead of us.

Big shout for the teachers, ‘Consistently Last’ dubbed ‘Optimistically First’ for the day, managed 3rd place ahead of LATT.

G-Force.

Beer Sloshed Hound

Well for once I have a valid excuse for a blog light on content. No need to rely on "left my notes on the bus" or "memory failed yet again", this time around half way through notes, pictures, quiz answers, trousers got a good dousing and were rendered virtually useless, slight exaggeration on the trousers there.

Four contenders, Daren, Kevin, Graham and myself, and we faced by a bunch, of mainly A list actors. That would certainly apply to the likes of Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reaves. But if number 7 has a claim to fame other than looking a bit like Gary Barlow, none of us knew about it. The geezer with the Phil Oakey haircut escaped us as well.

Onto current affairs and such newsworthy items as a portrait of Charles Dickens has surfaced in South Africa. Apparently the owners have great expectations for the auction price.


Ok, lets move onto Round 3 and could it be magic? Actually it could with a magically themed round which managed to avoid all of the Harry Potter Universe. So we had the Magic Flute, Magic Johnson, the Magical Mystery Tour and the Magic Roundabout.


Name the year took us back a bit further than recently and events such as the closing of US relations with Cuba, Alcatraz ceasing to be in use and the 35th academy awards stretched all our memories. The Great Train Robbery was the event to anchor it all in 1963 though.


Ten pointers and well done on G Force for bagging the Globe theatre resurfaced on the South Bank in 1997 after a 353 year absence and we were in the mix. Ok the link-up notes did got soaked so onto jeopardy and fairly smooth sailing for most of the way until our progress was hijacked by the er hijacking of this vessel.

Prudence prevailed and nine answers were submitted. Can't remember much of the music but I'm sure there was some Olly Murs in there and the first telephone directory had 50 names in it, well done Kevster. Curiously no numbers though, it merely listed the people and businesses who had telephones. Right. Ok the important thing, Hound win!

And plans for the Christmas Hound do, something like this.

Definitely gets me out of my comfort zone. One that would get me back into it was Kevster's suggestion of an A25 crawl, maybe out to Shalford and back by bus, train or taxi or walk to Dorking. All options possible.


I'm away for the next two weeks but have every confidence in our youth system to pick things up while I'm off.

Hound and The Farmer

Well there wasn't a quiz at the PA this week. 3 fairly scrawny looking teams weren't enough, although it would have left the pub looking mighty quiet afterwards. So a quick think and not wanting to be denied a Thursday quiz, it was off to the Farmers.

Well, we missed the first round but joined for music and round 2. Now from memory, Theo used to like his girl bands, Pussycat Dolls, Girls Aloud and the like. You know what, none of those. In fact very similar fare to the PA really, not a great deal before around 1986, which is the way we seem to like it. KC and the Sunshine Band featured a lot.

Anyway, we must have done fantastically well, because you know what. we'd caught up after the music and were just around 1 point behind the leaders! Next up was the general assorted mixed bag that comprises round 3, nothing changes here folks.


Notes are pretty shabby here but who founded the Royal Navy? Well I'd always thought it was around Henry VIII kind of time but Alfred The Great apparently. Whereas in the PA there's a disproportionate reliance on the answers to the ten pointers and the Jeopardy, here none of the answers really matter so you just shrug and move on. So which John was in The Muppet Caper?

Nope, can't see him in there. Cleese apparently, think we went Denver. And when was New Year's Day, in 1752 and earlier? 25th March apparently, 1st January was the Feast of the Circumcision. Ouch!


The things you learn eh? And this film featured somewhere.

Okay, we didn't win, but we didn't expect to and we did miss the first thirty questions. Must be doing something right though, ten teams I think.


Laters.

Skull & Crossmoans Hound

Team of 3 this week, myself, Daren and Steve.

Pictures are fictional detectives, still not sure about 6, something to do with Monk maybe?

6 correct for Current Affairs round, a bellringer is suing after breaking both ankles when he quite literally got carried away.

This beautiful beast won GB’s first Melbourne Cup, horse isn’t bad either. Cross Counter.

British TV comedy and the year 1992 rounds followed, we were a year out. We got the tens, good call by Steve, pastry used for Cornish pasties is Shortcrust. This chap, Percy Blakeney, was also worth ten.

Clean sweep on chain letters, so in decent shape going into Jeopardy round.

Jeopardy round easier than normal, perhaps a reaction to everybody going bust last time out. We got first nine, with only California as US state with largest population being much less than 100%. That was right, but what part of the body is the Occipital bone in? We ruled out hands/feet/limbs, not many other parts have multiple bones but went for ear without considering skull...

It’s the green bit at the back. We were right to go for it as King Kong Balls lived up to their name and boldly got them all. Despite a lacklustre music round we would have prevailed by a single point had we guessed right. 

Both of my fellow quizzers had to leave early for differing reasons, so I arrived home (relatively) sober for the first time in a while.

G-Force

Commando Hound

Quick mention of quiz on 25 October. I was supposedy to be blogging but neglected to do so. Only sure of 1 thing, we didn’t win. Great effort by Lady and the Tramp in the Jeopardy round if I remember correctly. This may have been the Picture Round rotated by 90 degrees.

Onto this week’s quiz. This was the Picture Round, normal orientation.

Character names required. Didn’t do awfully well, maybe should of got Annie Wilks for the last one.

My notes don’t allow much more elaboration. At least not until the ten pointers. Gerry correctly named Sputnik as Earth’s first artificial satellite, but was voted down in favour of Telstar by myself and D2. Robin arrived on the scene, hot from playing Bridge in Coulsdon, and would have sided with Gerry so who knows what might have been.

Anyway, fast forward to the Jeopardy round and everybody but the Anoraks is going for it. A good effort but we didn’t know that Sachet Torte has a layer of Apricot jam in it.

Seems like even the Anoraks blew this round, although we managed double jeopardy by also getting another question wrong. Apparently as well as an overfilled sandwich a Sloppy Joe is also a sweater which was the garment of choice for US women during the war, or that bit of it that they bothered turning up for anyway.

A good turnout this week and all scores bunched in the 110 - 130 region. No Robson again next week, so extra manpower welcome.

No curry this time, instead pizza and red wine from the bottle in Purley’s only 2am food joint. 

And finally this week’s title is a nod to a gym/swimming baths mix-up which led to one of our number apparently going sans boxers/briefs. The same person slipped off to the loos at one point with a little pot contains Charlie in some form or other. Just another Thursday evening In the PA that has seen Irish waltzing and a punter circumnavigating the inside of the pub on a bicycle recently. 

G-Force

Curried Hound

Quick one again this week while it rains. Don't actually remember the pictures much so onto current affairs. And it seems 9/10 takeaway ham and pineapple pizzas in Manchester don't contain ham. But who orders ham and pineapple anyway? And law students in Kolkata are studying Harry Potter. And it's Rome hit by storms, as evidenced.

Round 3 was for the London Boys. So well done to Kevster for getting HA9 0WS being the postcode for Wembley Stadium. But frankly he needed to. And for some reason I've got 47 Fleet Street written down which just seems to be some old wine bar?


Round 4 was guess the year and right in the memory vaults. So Gorbachev introduced perestroika, much of Montana burned and Colin Pitchfork will never be quite so famous again.

1988 of course.


Released just after was the movie Tango and Cash. I'd like to say a classic but really not. Just one of the ten pointers we bagged though.


The link-ups featured no clever link of the last letters spelling something so really not up to scratch. In jeopardy, one of those where actually best guesses would have got all ten but some justified uncertainty left us settling for the certain ones. In 1985 this caused quite a stir.

Must really have had too much time on our hands back then.


Musical Youth, Erasure and Outkast were just some of the musical acts and 5050 made it a domestic double n(n+1)/2 where n = 100. So by way of celebration it was next door to Gurkha Spice! Go Hound.


Right, I've had a reply back from Only Connect. I'll cover this on Whats App.


Ciao.

Daren's Mighty Hound Quiz

With Siobhan off again, this time to Vegas baby, it was Daren's turn to take the role of quizmaster. Numbers were looking thin on the ground to start with but D2 managed to persuade some Purley language school students to take part and we were off. This would test their language skills like never before.

So to start with pictures. Pictures of pictures.

The trial of the boy in blue though if you google that you get some odd results.

Next up Current Affairs. Usual boxes ticked here, something about a storm somewhere check, name of a stray whale check. And Vietnam are going to host a grand prix. Not quite sure why but I'm sure they'll enjoy it.

But Daren is nothing but his own man and in a crazy twist, the link up round was round 3. Too much for some but with a connection in a connection, the first letters of the answers spelt out "PURLEY ARMS". Well actually I think they spelt SPURLEYARM but you can't make these things too easy.

So onto connections and I think the penny dropped for us around question 5 which was just as well as we had no idea what this fella was.

Well its obvious from the picture but a Giant Hairy what?


So the sting in the tail of the first half was the ten pointers. Jenny G wasn't good enough. Kind of dropped off the radar a bit but Baby would have been her career high point.

So all to do on the second half. TV kicked things off, a pretty much, "you know them or you don't" kind of round. Then Jeopardy. Well, a true curve ball for Q1, when was the first UK motorway opened?

I don't think it looks like that now. Well, I wouldn't have known the decade so after that it was salvage what you can. Onto music and as someone who has "Every UK Number 1 Single" as one of my spotify faves, ten October number ones wasn't going to hurt. But too much had been left to do so a gallant second for the remaining Hound team, G Force and myself resulted.


But a great quiz-mastering debut from Daren was agreed by all.

1B4D2 Hound Blog

Belated blog. Busy marking. Myself Robson and D2 quizzing instead of asking this week. However, next week Louie’s boy Joe is getting hitched in Vegas, Siobhan and Gerry are going, so another new Question Master could be on the cards. One from the other end of Kenley this time.

A page of Potter People to start, character names only required.

Current Affairs back to normal 7 out of 10 this week. Zoe Ball, Telford, Flog it! Usual sort of stuff.

Minimalist Round 3, all answers only 2 letters long. SP, GQ, EP ETC. Not the last one that has 3.

Guess the YEar round was 2005ish, none of the questions enabling us to be precise.

All 3 ten pointers got, though 5th Potter movie was hard to dredge up, Order of the Phoenix.

Chain letters good fun.

Great Jeopardy full house by the Anoraks. We were approx 4 short, don’t think we would have guessed right either. Couldn’t remember this lovely’s character name, even though it has come up before.

Reagan. Didn’t recognise Mukluks as footwear even though I have a rather natty pair, a gift from Turkmenistan which are not unlike these.

Well beaten despite Robson getting a Cliff corker in the music round. Already anticipating next week, a day at the golf, quiz in the evening. Superb stuff.

G-Force

The Full Six Pack of Hounds

Quite a rarity to have the whole team in place and congratulations for recent birthdays for Pete, Steve and Kevster. Here's the gang:

Maybe some of the team got cut off there, sure you get the idea anyway.

So scanning the picture you'll see that round 1 was airline logos, this sort of thing.

Quite tricky I thought, you can't see them from inside the plane and when in the air, they're generally too far away, I'll take the seven we got.

Ok confession, if I took blogging notes, I've lost them. But included in the current affairs was a question about Becks and his new thatch.

Looks like someone else to me?

More rounds followed. I remember debates about the German flag, who it is that sings the blues and the introduction of the road side breathalysers. By way of information, it was introduced on the 9th October 1967 which makes it nearly as old as Pete. Frankly, I think Pete's looking a lot better on it.


So cutting a short story even shorter, it was a Hound win. Go Hound!


So the Hound Xmas Do is pencilled in for the 23rd December, Steve if we could have a finance update sometime, that's handy. Back to the golf for me then, did I say this would be short?

“Didn’t they do well?” Hound

Oh what a circus, oh what a show.......
Just a brief blog to mark the seismic event that was Right bison and G-Force hosting the quiz.

I don’t have any notes so it will be mostly pictorial. The evening started with a strange turn when a bout of Irish jiggery  broke out....

We promptly moved seats to the more salubrious lounge area. Salubrious in this sense meaning ‘devoid of cavorting Irish jiggers’. 

After several more pints things seemed to settle down and the usual cast of Anoraks, Busters, Ladies, Tramps and quiz personnel arrived in drips and drabs. This was my cue to depart to to a seat at the bar and let Robin and Graham take centre stage.

The quiz flowed nicely with the usual rounds ;

Cunningly, the picture round had a connection that they were all foodstuffs and I was pleased to spot DarylStrawberry lurking amongst the Lemons, Cabdys and Berrys 

Current affairs etc flew by and then there was an interesting round where everything  was connected to baseball. I misheard and thought it was the chainletter round which lead to mass confusion until the scenario was explained to me and I was able to backtrack and fill in some answers.

Things became increasingly blurry from here on in, I can remember foolishly multiplying 49 x 49 for the answer to 7 cubedbut having struggled with the 10 pointers I had to go all out in the Jeapordy round which unsurprisingly didn’t go well. I ended up finishing last on 126 points I believe but at the end of the day t was quizzing that won.

Master Of Hound

Ok, Graham and I were bolstered by Gerry and Nigel adding their considerable knowledge to the team. And it was needed straight away. Or probably not, we could have coped with 10 pictures of breakfast cereal. Team favourite, Alpen/muesli, least favourite, all-bran. Yuk, if it scored have scored 11th it would have done.


Ok, onto Current Affairs, what we didn't know was the North African country to recently outlaw forced marriage, Morocco the rascals and the recent celeb Big Brother winner, Ryan Thomas! Yes, who indeed. Let's have a picture.

Ryan Thomas, hoping its the right one.


Next up, Tom Hanks films. And again, not so bad, failing only with the name of the character he played in Saving Private Ryan.

Captain Miller, at least we got the Captain part.

Round 4 was back to name the year. Now I think The Ariana Grande should really be the name of a ship but it was actually the Costa Concordia that sank off Tuscany. Along with Felix Baumgartner's sky dive and Lonesome George's death, what was the year? Flipping a coin between 2011 and 2012 we called wrong.


Onto 10 pointers and I didn't have a clue what show the Aidensfield Arms (real name the Goathland Hotel, available for bookings) features but thankfully at least one of us did.

Locals on the way to the chippie.

So half-time, in decent shape and looking forward to linkups. Not to much fuss but well done to Gerry for knowing the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland was Armagh, linking us back to the Cuban capital.

So it was down to Jeopardy to surely decide it. And which carol does end Hosanna in excelsis? Cue much carolling and many "tra la las" later, it was indeed Ding Dong Merrily On High. Ding dong indeed. But who was Archbishop of Canterbury when women priests were first ordained (and frankly, who cares?). But it was,

Think we'd cut it down to two. And how much is the TV license? Well, about £150 wasn't going to cut it so we settled for an eight. Music, well we did enough, Hound win!

Ok, the serious business of next week.

Provsional roles and responsibilities, I don't think we're giving too much away here.

Pictures - Robson
Current Affairs - Robson
Round 3 - G Force
Connections/Year - G Force
Ten pointers/last question - G Force
Link Ups - G Force
Jeopardy - Robson
Music - Robson

Promises to be a thrilling night.

SmurfHound

The Quiz takes place centre stage  at the PA these days. The pool table occupies the right hand side now. 5 teams with thirty pounds up for grabs should mean a decent competition. Including a new team of 6, pretty enthusiastic looking. Only 2 Hounds again this week.

September birthday pictures non too taxing.

Robson picked up the film stars, Keaton, Firth, Hardy. We didn’t get the middle one, Dahl apparently.

Current Affairs always likely to be a bit of a comedown after the recent clean sweep, we missed 3. Swaziland is celebrating 50 years of Independence from the UK, so we raised a glass to Mswati III the current reigning monarch. Manchester is Britain’s bike stealing capital, though we think our answer of Liverpool must at least be as good. Tony Blair thinks there should be a further Brexit referendum.

Round 3 was Birds, the feathered variety apart from Pretty Flamingo. Others featured were Quetzal, Nightingale and Pelican. I’m currently reading Mythos, Stephen Fry’s take on Greek myths & legends. This paid immediate dividends due to the story of  Leda & the Swan, the latter being the form taken by Zeus in order to dupe said mortal into his wicked clutches, no rohypnol in those days.

We didn’t get Kingfisher as being the bird closely associated with Rome, don’t think anyone did.

This painting, of which I have a jigsaw, Nighthawks also featured.

Return for the connections round this week, instead of guess the year. Items of clothing. We were slow on the uptake before remembering Balaclava as being the Crimean setting for the Charge of the Light Brigade, and a tricky US state question was backfilled as New Jersey.

10 pointers negotiated calmly, only slightly tricky one being the background colour of the Isle of Man Flag, which is red.

Schipol, Leyton Hewitt, Sandra Bullock and kebabs all featured in the Chain Letters round.

In good stead then heading to the Jeopardy round and it only got better. 9 fairly bog standard questions. First Daniel Craig Bond film was Casino Royale, and Vietnam claimed independence from France being the trickier ones. Hoping for a nice easy 10th question then, but better still a hard one which only we know (the Royal we, Robson not particularly up on Smurfing). Who is this nemesis of The Smurfs?

Answer Gargamel.

A welcome (?) return for The Lighthouse Family in the music round, 19 out of 20 scored.

A comfortable win. Anoraks left cursing our little blue friends but reality is they would still have been just short.

G-Force

Pedigree Hound

Just G Force and myself this week. In a curious turn of events it looks like both of us will experience the joys of CT5 come September. Long way to go before that though and in the meantime, I was soon giving myself a metaphorical pat on the back for identifying this geezer.

Think it is the only picture of him on the internet so that may have helped. He was born in August, along with the other nine generally more recognisable pictures. Guess that makes him a Leo?

In terms of news, well it's Rodders who's issuing his first album of new material in 14 years and Jose Mourinho who may, or may not be sacked if his team lose on Sunday (this is news?). Oh, and this chap is contesting a speeding charge.

Does he not have people who can do that sort of thing for him?

Round 3 was a fun round, name the film from the year and description. Child's play for a film enthusiast but neither of our knowledges run deep on this subject. Good teamwork though and I think at the end it was only the story of Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini made in 2014 that defeated us.

Good film though, I've watched it quite recently which makes not knowing it unforgivable really. Available on Netflix.

Round 4 has become name the year so it was a case of linking up the shooting of Ronald Reagan, the launch of MTV and DeLorean cars starting to be produced in Belfast. 1981, a great year though possibly not for those reasons. Onto the ten pointers and a clean sweep mainly due to G Force getting the President featured on the two dollar bill.

So we arrived at half time in good shape. Quite a small field in the quiz this week after the last two bumper weeks so "steady as she goes" from now on.

After a bit of a breakdown somewhere between Wasabi and Eardrum, link-ups managed to do what they were supposed to so on to jeopardy.

Now in my experience, when you're aiming to play safe in Jeopardy, you very rarely do finish up going for it. So which London club did this fella join in 2005?

An obvious red herring there and I threw another one in with Barnet. Chelsea got a mention as well. Swerving it was the sensible thing to do, as we also did with holes in a palatte and the bull-fighting dance (I actually didn't want to own up to knowing this one). So we had a seven.


Now I think music was actually a clean sweep this week, none of those pesky Murs/Mars conundrums so the Hound parked itself on a very respectable 158. And that was enough! Drinking the winnings while the pub was still open was a challenge we were delighted to accept. To next week. And Davids played for Tottenham; of course.