Bit of an unusual start this week. Pete stipulated a 5.30 meet to "get things going", then overlooked that the pre quiz meet was in the Rectory to catch some cricket at then didn't get there until 7pm. No matter, we were in situ at the usual table in good time for the start. After a brief flirtation with "Hounds On The Rampage" to achieve topicality, we settled on the slightly less controversial name above.
With last year's cash to be handed out it wasn't a normal week. It turned into a bit of a love-in with the pub's gaffer getting on the mike and thanking Theo, Theo thanking us etc. We just wanted the cash.
Given the not entirely scientific nature of the scoring, I was expecting a fairly even distribution of funds, in actual fact the Usual Suspects took £500 and, on our behalf, Daren accepted an envelope with 5 £20 notes inside. I've been reassured it's a sufficient budget for the end of season Hound-do.
Onto the quiz and a middling first round. USA is the largest exporter of wheat (don't they eat it all themselves?) and Usain Bolt only holds two world records, the 4x100m clearly not counting. We were, as usual, in the pack.
Onto music and Theo caught the mood with unleashing all his favourites. So we had Girls Aloud, The Saturdays and Britney. We took all those in our stride but found the Detroit Spinners and Ne-yo less recognisable. Food had also been provided for the quiz teams and, despite my pre-quiz curry, it was very welcome.
Onto the 3rd round and was it John Travolta or Bruce Willis who appeared in both Pulp Fiction and Three Men and a Baby? Daren and myself were divided, Pete had the casting vote and incorrectly went Willis. He made up for it though with the anagram of RANTED. Onto scoring and the, now inevitable co-third ensued. So a low-key start to the new season but something to build on.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Boom-bang-a-hound!
We arrived at 7pm for, alas, the last night of the quiz league. We found our usual seats and discussed Robson's trip to Seville. Robson was looking somewhat jaded - complaining that Spain was too hot and he struggled to sleep. Bless! A Eurovision reference seemed appropriate after we had gone through the newspaper and found nothing inspiring in the headlines. There were no discussions about food; but the Young's, Kronenbourg and wine wine and soda were flowing at the usual rate! There were also different bar maids again this week - I think they must rotate between Tescos, the Farmers and Munch!
The team composed of Robson, Kevster, El Barnetto and, Mrs B arrived to provide further strength. She arrived a little later at 7.40pm demanding a large glass of white wine and soda. It turned out that we would need all the help we could get; half way through the first round, Kevster's mobile was ringing furiously. The bad news arrived and poor Kevster's house had been burgled. His father (Mr Hamster) took him home immediately to survey the wreckage.
This event was suitably reflected by the state of the notes, which show 3 different people's handwriting; Kevster's sudden departure left us all in a state of shock. We hounded our way through the first round as best we could.
After Kevster had queried the scoring with Theo last week, I thought that we might be in for a rough ride. Funnily enough, Theo got it spot on this week as we scored 28 out of 30, which agreed with our count. On this occasion, we were outdone by the Pickled Eggheads, who gained the maximum 30 points. Stilton is made in Leicester, but English is the main language in Belize rather than Spanish. Robson started to count the number of bones in the body and of course was accurate with the answer of 206.
We bought some raffle tickets and then proceeded with the music section and this is where we dropped a few marks, however, we did get full marks in the name that tune round. Either Theo was up to his old tricks again or, everyone else struggled a bit. We were only 3 points off the pace and the Pickled Eggheads marched on!
From our final round, we only dropped 3 points and got 3 out of 5 in the true or false, but this wasn't enough and we ended up with 105 points - 4 points off the Pickled Eggheads, who romped home.
The raffle was not won again, which was nice and the team can collect the dosh next week at the final presentation. The quiz will continue as normal next week along with the presentation.
The team composed of Robson, Kevster, El Barnetto and, Mrs B arrived to provide further strength. She arrived a little later at 7.40pm demanding a large glass of white wine and soda. It turned out that we would need all the help we could get; half way through the first round, Kevster's mobile was ringing furiously. The bad news arrived and poor Kevster's house had been burgled. His father (Mr Hamster) took him home immediately to survey the wreckage.
This event was suitably reflected by the state of the notes, which show 3 different people's handwriting; Kevster's sudden departure left us all in a state of shock. We hounded our way through the first round as best we could.
After Kevster had queried the scoring with Theo last week, I thought that we might be in for a rough ride. Funnily enough, Theo got it spot on this week as we scored 28 out of 30, which agreed with our count. On this occasion, we were outdone by the Pickled Eggheads, who gained the maximum 30 points. Stilton is made in Leicester, but English is the main language in Belize rather than Spanish. Robson started to count the number of bones in the body and of course was accurate with the answer of 206.
We bought some raffle tickets and then proceeded with the music section and this is where we dropped a few marks, however, we did get full marks in the name that tune round. Either Theo was up to his old tricks again or, everyone else struggled a bit. We were only 3 points off the pace and the Pickled Eggheads marched on!
From our final round, we only dropped 3 points and got 3 out of 5 in the true or false, but this wasn't enough and we ended up with 105 points - 4 points off the Pickled Eggheads, who romped home.
The raffle was not won again, which was nice and the team can collect the dosh next week at the final presentation. The quiz will continue as normal next week along with the presentation.
Thursday, 27 May 2010
20th May 2010 - Wenlock, Mandevill & Hound
Three Hounds gathered early - Robson Hound was hounding his way around Spain and sent his apologies.
We settled on a name that reflected what we thought was missing from the newly named London Olympic mascots and cracked straight into a disastrous first round. We didn't feel it was going well as we wrote our answers and our fears were confirmed as the answers were read out. Having kept a copy of our first round answers it was depressingly easy to go down putting cross after cross through them. We got 10 wrong for 20 out of 30 - comfortably our worst round for a long time, if not ever.
Theo called for silence and started reading out the scores. There were ten teams competing. He gave out score after score and hadn't mentioned ours - had we done SO badly he'd disqualified us?! Imagine therefore our suprise, indeed our absolute astonishment when ours was the penultimate score read out and we were tied for the lead on 28 out of 30! *
Extraordinary stuff...
A frustrating music round followed - we dropped to joint third on behind the lead. The final round was something of a triumph - we got 5 out of 5 on the True/False and we got the anagram (MISSHAPE) and felt very confident - although accepting of the fact that after the farce of the first round almost literally any score could be given.
We ended up clear second, three points behind the winners (who cannot have got a single last round question wrong given that we were only one behind after round two and only got two wrong ourselves in the final round - although that doesn't factor in The Theo Element!)
So - we were about to content ourselves with the runners' up bottle of wine when all hell broke loose as one of the bar staff only went and blummin' pulled out one of our three raffle tickets! After a rather loud roar, a quick jig and another roar, Daren was up to the bar to try and choose the only envelope containing the key to the safe with the money in from the eight envelopes laying on the bar. Suffice to say he picked the wrong one - but got irritatingly close - going for envelope number one when the key was in number two.
Imagine the drama of it all...
Then Mrs Bear turned up and we all regaled her with various tales of the evening and she had a go at Daren for losing the money!!
Next week sees the return of Robson, the absence of Daren and the very final quiz in the 2009/2010 league.
* As a footnote - when all the raffle furore had died down I did show Theo our marked Round One answer sheet and ask him how the hell he gave us 28 when we only got 20 correct. He mumbled some complete nonsense about there being a minimum score to keep everybody in contention and left extremely quickly. No doubt we'll be marked down next week - tune in to find out...
We settled on a name that reflected what we thought was missing from the newly named London Olympic mascots and cracked straight into a disastrous first round. We didn't feel it was going well as we wrote our answers and our fears were confirmed as the answers were read out. Having kept a copy of our first round answers it was depressingly easy to go down putting cross after cross through them. We got 10 wrong for 20 out of 30 - comfortably our worst round for a long time, if not ever.
Theo called for silence and started reading out the scores. There were ten teams competing. He gave out score after score and hadn't mentioned ours - had we done SO badly he'd disqualified us?! Imagine therefore our suprise, indeed our absolute astonishment when ours was the penultimate score read out and we were tied for the lead on 28 out of 30! *
Extraordinary stuff...
A frustrating music round followed - we dropped to joint third on behind the lead. The final round was something of a triumph - we got 5 out of 5 on the True/False and we got the anagram (MISSHAPE) and felt very confident - although accepting of the fact that after the farce of the first round almost literally any score could be given.
We ended up clear second, three points behind the winners (who cannot have got a single last round question wrong given that we were only one behind after round two and only got two wrong ourselves in the final round - although that doesn't factor in The Theo Element!)
So - we were about to content ourselves with the runners' up bottle of wine when all hell broke loose as one of the bar staff only went and blummin' pulled out one of our three raffle tickets! After a rather loud roar, a quick jig and another roar, Daren was up to the bar to try and choose the only envelope containing the key to the safe with the money in from the eight envelopes laying on the bar. Suffice to say he picked the wrong one - but got irritatingly close - going for envelope number one when the key was in number two.
Imagine the drama of it all...
Then Mrs Bear turned up and we all regaled her with various tales of the evening and she had a go at Daren for losing the money!!
Next week sees the return of Robson, the absence of Daren and the very final quiz in the 2009/2010 league.
* As a footnote - when all the raffle furore had died down I did show Theo our marked Round One answer sheet and ask him how the hell he gave us 28 when we only got 20 correct. He mumbled some complete nonsense about there being a minimum score to keep everybody in contention and left extremely quickly. No doubt we'll be marked down next week - tune in to find out...
Friday, 14 May 2010
13th May 2010 - A Pact Of Hounds
Last night, playing alongside Daren and Robson, ‘Dangerous’ Dave became the 11th person to earn a Hound quiz ‘cap’. Can you name the 10 others?
Sticking with topicality we entered under the name ‘A Pact of Hounds’. Going completely off plan was ‘Stephen Hawkings’ walking, talking Hamster’.
At the end of round 1, Theo’s patented ‘Random Points Allocation Machine’ awarded us a score of 28, putting us in joint first place along with 5 other teams.
Round 2 was all about the music and pretty soon we were heading down a ‘Road to Nowhere’ to a ‘Destination Unknown’. You can imagine my surprise when Robson then suggested ‘Love in an Elevator’ followed by a ‘White Wedding’ and then for us to always be ‘Together (In Electric Dreams).
Moving swiftly along, we found ourselves in the quagmire of the final round. Getting a score of 2 out of 5 for the True or False was always going to leave us ‘up against it’ and despite a strong ‘Final 10’ and correctly solving the anagram we were allocated the position of joint 4th.
The only crumb of comfort was the fact that the Raffle wasn’t won and continues to roll over. Next week it’s down to 8 keys and there’s only 2 weeks left till the end of the season.
(scribed by Daren Hound)
Sticking with topicality we entered under the name ‘A Pact of Hounds’. Going completely off plan was ‘Stephen Hawkings’ walking, talking Hamster’.
At the end of round 1, Theo’s patented ‘Random Points Allocation Machine’ awarded us a score of 28, putting us in joint first place along with 5 other teams.
Round 2 was all about the music and pretty soon we were heading down a ‘Road to Nowhere’ to a ‘Destination Unknown’. You can imagine my surprise when Robson then suggested ‘Love in an Elevator’ followed by a ‘White Wedding’ and then for us to always be ‘Together (In Electric Dreams).
Moving swiftly along, we found ourselves in the quagmire of the final round. Getting a score of 2 out of 5 for the True or False was always going to leave us ‘up against it’ and despite a strong ‘Final 10’ and correctly solving the anagram we were allocated the position of joint 4th.
The only crumb of comfort was the fact that the Raffle wasn’t won and continues to roll over. Next week it’s down to 8 keys and there’s only 2 weeks left till the end of the season.
(scribed by Daren Hound)
Thursday, 13 May 2010
6th May 2010 - Screaming Lord Hound
Five Hounds gathered to quiz as the rest of the nation went to the Polls - Lord Peterkins Hound of Intercompanyshire returned from Brum for his first outing in a while and, as if that were not enough to bouy the spirit of the Hound regulars, he bought with him Mrs Peterkins.
Given what was going on in the country at large we opted for title that reflected our collective ideology 'Screaming Lord Hound'. We then ran through the pre-match ceremony of a couple of crosswords and a quick skip through some tabloid quizes. Pre match meals were a mixed affair - one went gammon and egg, two had sarnies - chicken and salmon & egg respectively, and two resisted the urge altogether. Regular readers may wish to match the meals to the Hounds and maybe like to guess the three Hounds that voted and the two that didn't?
We were confident that the addition of Mrs Peterkins to our ranks would boost our chances of being competitive, given our recent run of poor showings. And so it proved. Joint leaders at the end of the first round with 27 from 30. Joint top still, with two others, after the music round on 60. Interestingly there was one team behind us on 59, three tied on 58, one on 57 and three tied on 56.
I say 'interestingly' because by the time we'd finished the final round, yes - you guessed it, the entire pub was tied on the same score of 101 - meaning that the three teams who'd had the best opening two rounds had the worst third round and the teams that had been a relative mile behind after two rounds outscored all others such that we all finished equal.
Quite remarkable.
The tie breaker question was, 'How many households in China have a TV set?'
Answers submitted ranged from 6.85million to 800m. We went 147 million. The answer was 380 million and there were six teams closer to to that than us.
And we didn't win the raffle - which, on a night when the country drifted slowly towards coalition, was probably the most predictable event of the night.
Given what was going on in the country at large we opted for title that reflected our collective ideology 'Screaming Lord Hound'. We then ran through the pre-match ceremony of a couple of crosswords and a quick skip through some tabloid quizes. Pre match meals were a mixed affair - one went gammon and egg, two had sarnies - chicken and salmon & egg respectively, and two resisted the urge altogether. Regular readers may wish to match the meals to the Hounds and maybe like to guess the three Hounds that voted and the two that didn't?
We were confident that the addition of Mrs Peterkins to our ranks would boost our chances of being competitive, given our recent run of poor showings. And so it proved. Joint leaders at the end of the first round with 27 from 30. Joint top still, with two others, after the music round on 60. Interestingly there was one team behind us on 59, three tied on 58, one on 57 and three tied on 56.
I say 'interestingly' because by the time we'd finished the final round, yes - you guessed it, the entire pub was tied on the same score of 101 - meaning that the three teams who'd had the best opening two rounds had the worst third round and the teams that had been a relative mile behind after two rounds outscored all others such that we all finished equal.
Quite remarkable.
The tie breaker question was, 'How many households in China have a TV set?'
Answers submitted ranged from 6.85million to 800m. We went 147 million. The answer was 380 million and there were six teams closer to to that than us.
And we didn't win the raffle - which, on a night when the country drifted slowly towards coalition, was probably the most predictable event of the night.
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