Hounds Of Lust

Thursday 4th September 2014
Purley Arms

4 hounds gathered (packed?) from the off, more about our late arrivee later. Good to see Daren back and raring to go.

Ten pictures of book covers for Rd 1. 10 out of 10 scored with only The Mousetrap (which had a picture of a mousetrap on it)  and The Hobbit (which had a picture of a hobbit on it) stretching us much. 

A question about the elfin Kate Bush in the Current Affairs round led to the conjuring up of an enduring image of the bewitching songstress cavorting on a stage in Hammersmith clad only in white lycra some 25 years ago. Enough said. We then signally failed to know how much the first Range Rover might or might not sell for at some future date, A bit remiss of us in our divination skills. Get of the day went to Kev who knew that Bungay Town were offering punnets of mushrooms to anyone attending their next home fixture. Tangential to the questions was the surprising revelation that Tony Blair collects stamps and an unexpected picture of  a tank and a Harrier jump jet on the 18th fairway at Celtic Manor. I haven't mentioned Q1 which was something to do with Boris Johnson as Kev seemed to be the only person on the team who even understood the question. 

Near full marks on Rd 3. TV/Films, letting ourselves down on the age old conundrum of whether Indiana Jones was a teacher who dabbled in archaeology, or an archaeologist who taught in his spare time.

It's fair to say that we were slow on the uptake in the connections round, the penny finally dropping in Q7 somewhat fortuitously due to a feeble Jackie/Bobby Charlton jibe only made to pass the time. All of the other correct answers had famous siblings too. I personally own up to 2 wrong answers in this round. Not sure how I managed to name the wrong Laudrup brother ( a touch of irony, might have got the connection sooner if I had realised), and also not sure how anybody took my word for it on a film question. The slightest demurring of my Jessica Lange suggestion and I'm sure that I would have said that I actually meant Shirley McLaine (Oscar for Terms of Endearment, and sister of Warren Beatty).  

3 ten pointers successfully negotiated, with the hound himself arriving just in time to fetch Ethan Hunt's surname out of the ether where Steve was chasing it down to no avail.

Top Ten round was replaced by film quotes. We could have done better missing out on 3, dismissing the correct answer by a large majority in the case of Fatal Attraction. It seems that the Glenn Close character was a nascent puppy boiler as well as rabbits. Most obscure quote came from the Marathon Man, the bit where Dirk Bogarde (I think) finds himself in the dentist's chair, a singularly less pleasant experience than that portrayed at Wembley in 1996 by Gazza, Sheringham et al. Further proof if it was needed was also given to the fact that there is little funnier than grown up (are we middle aged?) men quoting classic python (or other cult comedy) lines. 

Didn't need to stick our necks out in the Jeopardy round and didn't do so crossing out 2 perfectly correct answers to be sure. The one we genuinely didn't know only appears in my scribbled notes as "W", answers on a postcard to the usual address. 

Completely missed Toni Braxton and got the wrong Carpenters song on our way to 17 out of 20 in the music round, despite the usual technical hitches that go hand in hand with this becoming rather tired round.

A win then by a margin considerably vaster than that by which MK Dons beat Man Utd. All that was left was a routine domestic double gained by answering a question that boiled down to calculating (n/2) x (n+1) x 4, where n =  10. Simples.

No open top bus rides to celebrate this one then, but for some of the participants on to Fontwell Sunday.....

Graham 

Thousand Pound Hound

Right, bit late arriving at the pub, delayed by that pesky thing called work. Still, when I got there Tottenham were thrashing some unpronounceable team on the telly and Steve was about to tuck into his third pint so all was well. Or so I thought, turned out Daren was detained in hospital for a follow up to his recent procedure. Wasn't sure of all the details but he muttered something about "Tuesday night" and "trauma". Didn't catch the rest but I assume all is well.

The counter bonus was we were joined by Pete who's been enjoying a week off. Mainly spent going to Littlehampton (don't bother it's sh!t) and tackling some of Chipstead's toughest climbs walking (I can vouch for those). Graham made up the foursome and was quickly into his stride with a map of Africa to dissect for the picture round. The only things that foxed him was the apparent remerger of Ethiopia and Eritrea (bucking recent trends) and which country Lake Victoria was. Incidental to the questions in hand and we were confidently away with 10.

Onto current affairs and missing our resident expert we were worried about our lack of prep but collectively delivered with answers like $3.2m and Sherlock, price of a Superman comic and winner of some Emmys respectively. The next round was "Brothers" and Graham continued to see it like a football with a stupendous answer about Terry Scott, maybe it's the Purley connection. Other fine answers on the brothers Dassler, Ferrari and Brenninkmeijer (my favourite) were also supplied though I made it 1-0 on the prediction stakes with Kemp.

Connections followed and with the first answer of Will Carling, "blokes who've shagged Princess Diana" was virtually written in. Actually, looking at all the answers, maybe Siobhan missed that connection as most are plausible (James Blunt, Keith Floyd, Colonel Gaddafi etc?) Turns out though they've all been in the army or more precisely, as Graham again picked out, trained at Sandhurst. 10 pointers, I haven't written those down but we bagged them, largest landlocked country and catching a crab ring bells.

Half time was reached with confidence until being deflated by the top 10 of "girls names in 2013" - Siobhan admitted later it was a bit of an easy option. Well we've had this before but frankly, who cares? Naturally we turned to Pete with the most recent knowledge and the usual Amy, Amelia, Emily, Jessica etc were reeled out. Don't know how many we got, probably the usual 7 or so.

Jeopardy and we made a fine start with answers on the colour of Dennis the Menace's jumper, author of Canterbury Tales and contents of Pandora's box. The banana skins duly arrived though with actress who played Private Benjamin on TV and occupation of a velologogist (Lorna Patterson and collectors of tax discs apparently, who'd have thought it?) We played it safe from there.

Music and I think we got 19/20 failing only to discern the Lighthouse Family track (they all sound the same, they're all shite and I've already forgotten what it was and what we put). Rantette over, the last task for the chocolates to date the Dartford Bridge, a nice meal, a few drinks, that sort of thing. Tsk, you know, well we failed anyway plumping for 1985, think it was actually 1991.

It seemed like a long wait until the results so a few quotes from the night to fill the time, "sausage in batter with chips", "Kevster in Africa" and "If Daren were here, he'd be trying". Yes, he often is. Did we win? I suspect you already know that.

The Three MuskaHounds (no Dogtanian)

Thursday 21st August 2014 (Posted on behalf of the Green Hound) 2 Hounds (Daren and Steve) lead the charge by arriving at the Purley Arms at the alloted hour of 7pm. A number of conversations involving football, Grand Prix and holidays ensued, only interrupted by the quiz master arriving. Due to unforeseen (sadly) circumstances the usual quiz master team was deputised to a local and not unfamiliar, team who had stepped in before to run the quiz. Glasses raised to the last minute stand in. Approaching 8:30pm, Robson arrived to finalise the trio for tonight's Hound representation, following his earlier cricket endeavours.

So to the quiz: First round, as usual, the picture round. A set of Lord of the Rings characters was thrust under our noses, it took a little chiveying of the quiz masters to determine whether character or actor was required. Needless to say given the breadth of film and Tv knowledge within the team it mattered not. Actors it was and a clean sweep ensued. Round 2: Current affairs The "news" questions as has been the case recently was like football transfer news on deadline day through Harry Redknapp's car window. That is to say it was nothing any person who reads the broadsheets cares to have heard of. That said I think we did OK with a bizarre question regarding Post-Its correctly answered. Round 3: IHGAC (request what this means) A well answered round with questions on Who took an arrow in the eye in 1066, who lead elephants across the alps and Guinevere's lover. Only fail was which SP did Walter Hunt invent in 1847. Safety pin being the answer!? So on to the connections round (round 4) A bizarre round this with our connection being determined after Q2. 1st question - What is the stone representing 55 years of married bliss (Good luck) - Emerald 2nd question - Which detective TV series featured Kate Jackson and Bruce Boxleitner as the main protagonists (Note: the quiz masters probably dont even know that word but let's not be elitist). Answers on a postcard please. We got it right but why should we help you?

Obviously, we derived the connection being the Wizard of Oz, but failed to answer the pirate born in Wales. Dialogue around this threw out Blackbeard (Edward Teach from Bristol) but it was Henry Morgan. 10 pointers What does Regis mean. After some discussion and insistence by Daren that it meant King we put Royal. It was King. My notes are shite for Q2 but we got that. Q3 Who sang Ebeneezer Good which was obv. the Shamen. 2 from 3 then and very ambivalent considering the previous hat-trick of wins it went to the break. Following a number of interval drinks and, even referring to my notes, this is where I will start to be brief. Round 5: Top 10 boys names Again an annoyingly arbitrary round where it depends on when the survery was taken. Did ok with 7 or 8 I fail to remember, James and Charles were in there somewhere. Round 6: Jeopardy Although we dropped 10 in the 10 pointers, decided to play only those we were confident on. Answered 7 comfortably. One for Az, where do the words "Kiosk", "Tulip" and "Caviar" originate. Round 7/8: Music A reasonable show, with 85% answered, no real WTF tunes so just down to misguided answering, Result: Hound finished 3rd by 1 pt with 127 pts from 2nd with 128 pts. 1st were worthy winners with 139 pts. Gloves are off next time as, it would have been bad form to win 4 on the trot, but that sequence has now been broken.

Westward Ho! und

Round one was right up  Steve's street, being a collection of pictures featuring the movies of Streep and Roberts. Unfortunately Steve wasn't there so we muddled through as best as we could getting 8/10

The Current Affairs round was the usual eclectic mix ranging from Halfords new blazing hot Chopper for £250 to someone  taking 25 years to build a replica of the Titanic's dining room. I sometimes look at what I've just written and wonder if I'm making it all up. 6/10

The Geography round was just too easy 10/10

The connections round would have been right up Graham's street featuring answers such as Jackson pollock, Abraham Lincoln, Marco Pierre White, John Denver, Marshall Montgomery and Otto Van Bismark. Unfortunately Graham wasn't there so we had to find the connection on our own which was/is U.S. State capitals. 10/10

The big 10 pointers were who played Ma Larkin and what is Sting's  Christian name.. The one that caught us out was what county is Westward Ho! in? We plumped incorrectly for Dorset. 20/30

The top 10 question should have been right up our collective streets being: name the top 10 premier league scorers. Unfortunately we spent so much time arguing about Ian Wright not being on the list (he's actually number 16 having scored quite a few of his before the premier league started) that  we managed to miss off both Rooney and RVP. Got the rest though for a par score of 8/10

Wipeout round was safely navigated with us avoiding 1 question and getting the remainder correct. 9/10

Music was pretty much there or thereabouts and I made it that we got about 16/20

It was pleasing to come home 4 points ahead of the nearest challengers and with £950 in the kitty  this did lead to some conjecture as to how Steve has been funding his recent holidays.

The evening ended on a deep discussion as to whether Man truly is an Island  -we failed to answer this satisfactorily 0/1

Peter Hound

Straight in this week with subjects ncluding:

Kim Jong Il - No discussion of this fella is complete without mention of his golf prowess which included a low round of 33 on his golfing debut, even better than I've made as Natalie Gulbis on the Wii.

Pigs on the battlefield - a more disturbing one this, with one of the questions being whether the pigs were turned out there or collectively found their own ways. This prompted strange Animal Farm images to me of pigs, dressed in overcoats boarding trains, "return to the Somme please", copies of the Times clutched in trotters sitting peacefully before gorging themselves on human flesh. Really?

Hound Acca - we all had a punt at the big five tournaments this football season with potential returns varying from a paltry £7,000 for myself to a net-busting £45,000 for Graham. Kevster took the bets, hopefully if one of us wins he'll tell us but if he shows up at a quiz next May in a load of new clobber, I'm going to be suspicious.

Monty at -1 - nothing much to add other than well played Monty.

Not discussed included the escalation of violence in Gaza, outbreaks of Ebola and the refugee crisis in Northern Iraq. No GFC here.

The world having suitably been put to rights we entered the pub and flexed our cerebral muscles ready for the quiz. Unfortunately the regular quizmistress Siobhan was still away so the sub, I'll call him Tony, handed out the sheets. Sometime around that time, we witnessed a sight slightly rarer than a unicorn being pulled off by a mermaid, Pete showed up! Regular readers may wonder who this character is, and I don't think Daren was entirely sure, but good to have him back. Tony was similarly perplexed and scuttled off to rewrite the quiz.

The quiz, right. Round 1 - superheroes. I didn't even look at this, they all look the same to me anyway. Think Steve got them on his own.

Round 2 - current affairs. This seemed a random collection of obscure stories dragged out of low grade newspapers and websites. We did terribly, didn't really mind.

Round 3 - red or blue. The answers, or questions were red, or blue, or shades of either. Most were red.

Round 4 - connections. It was the England 66 team. Not a difficult connection but a decent round from Tony I thought.

10 pointers - can't remember any of them.

Half time and we took stock, or more accurately Wotsits.

The top 10 was the longest running shows since the war in London. Now taking in a show would hold as much appeal to me as a bout of diarrhoea but we had "King Of Musicals" in our ranks! As such a potentially tough round was comfortably dispatched.

The jeopardy round was too tough to contemplate going for, the music round was fun though. We pretty much smashed it out the park.

Result, Hound win. Possibly a slightly under strength field we were up against but you have to take it. Holiday season coming up for the Hound so could be a barren spell.