Hound (Paddy) Power

St Patrick's Day and a 7.30 pm start. Just 5 minutes in and it is clear that I have already committed 2 schoolboy errors. Left my wallet at home (oldest trick in the book I know), and travelled by car not realising that Guinness was going to be £3 a pint all night. A single Peroni for me, and several pints of the black stuff for Robson and Steve, and it appears almost everybody else in the pub.

Pre-match discussion of the ludicrously high earning of various Umbrella Towers directors for the last year, but we're not bitter. Silly St Paddy's hats also abound, perhaps Steve could attach a comment with a Robson picture.

Picture Round as follows, all solo singers;

We missed 03, 04 and 10.  03 turned out to be LeAnn Rimes, a name that was at least mentioned in despatches along with many, many others. Googling multiple images of her shows that she only ever looked anything like this on 1 particular album cover. 04 was Usher, we guessed Pharrell, 10 is Jane MacDonald.

Probably an all-time low of only 4 out of 20 points on the Current Affairs round. I am currently finding this round exasperating as I try to swot up a bit but always end up missing stories  about e.g. ice cream vans being told to move on after 15 mins in Worcester, a Whale off the cost of New Zealand losing it's tail, Argentina sinking a Chinese fishing vessel, Royal Brunei airlines using an all female cockpit crew, Prince Andrew trying to ram the gates of his own house in Windsor, and the new England football shirt being made from 16 or 18 recycled plastic bottles yet still retailing at £101. Clearly I should get out less.

Back on track with the Irish themed third round. We only missed 'Drisheen' being an Irish version of black/blood pudding. Second hardest question was probably the one relating to the John Wayne film made in Ireland called 'The Quiet Man'.

Steve was in quick with 'Types of Tank' for the connections round. Colonel Abrams aroused his suspicion straight away and although it wavered a bit with answers like 'Tog' and 'Matilda', others put him back on track.  We only failed to remember that Oliver Cromwell asked that his portrait be painted 'Warts and all'. Sherman from M*A*S*H was probably the best backsolved answer.



'Dubris' was the Roman name for 'Dover', 'Anne Hathaway' is the actress that shares her name with Shakespeare's wife, and 'Deliverance' was the film that featured 'Duelling Banjos'. Thirty points right there.



Did I mention that I left my wallet at home? However, any pretensions I had that this would make me 'Wally of the Week' were very quickly crushed. A new team with a happy Irishman also had, shall we say,  a rather irritating teammate who wasn't funny at the start and never let up. It is entirely possible that had other Hounds been there they would have suffered him even less gladly that the 3 of us did.

insert picture of Robson in silly Irish hat here.

Who was to know at this stage that we would only drop 1 further point in the quiz. In the chain letter round (see my most recent blog for a more detailed explanation of how this works), we just failed to recall the surname of actor Nigel Pivaro who played Terry Duckworth in Corrie, Yeovil Town are the Glovers, and the rest troubled us not at all.

Despite some nervousness along the way, the team effort enabled us to shoot the moon on the Jeopardy Round. Steve takes the top honours with 'Captain Chaos' the superhero alter ego of Victor Prinzim played by Dom DeLuise in the film 'Cannonball Run'. Robson and I didn't have a clue, and Gerry confirmed afterwards that every other person doing the quiz was in the same boat apart from Steve. He never expected anyone to get it, and it did in fact deter The Anoraks from going big (wouldn't have been enough for them anyway). I offered Isle of Man as the area of Britain celebrating 'Tynwald day' and 'Potato' being the crop bedevilled by the 'Colorado beetle'. Robson took responsibility for Bolivia being the country of Che Guevara's death, and also had the best remembrance of confectionary ads (Milky Way). We went big despite some small reservations regarding 2 or 3 answers, and nothing really beats checking afterwards and finding that you are right on all counts.



20 out of 20 on the music, didn't even need Kevster to identify a George Benson number. Nothing too recent, to the evident disappointment of some teams.

163 points totalled, and The Anoraks a distant second with 131. How long is the film 'The Godfather Part 1'? won a bag of minstrels for someone. We speculated 188 mins, answer was 178 mins.

Hopefully Cheltenham Friday went well in the Smugglers, I watched the Gold Cup in a bookies in Leeds. Maundy Thursday is up next.

G-Force

Maundy Thursday - Oliver Hound...

Robson's suggested recently that we might pursue the Ollie Reed 'Wimbledon Run' pub crawl on Maundy Thursday so this post is merely to lay out my initial research and invite suggestions and feedback...

Before the details, a little background...

I started listening to the audio-book of 'What Fresh Lunacy Is This?' - Robert Sellers' authorised biography of the late Oliver Reed.  Very early on in the first chapter, in a bid to establish Reed's character and background, the author sets out a drinking challenge that Reed established in and around Wimbledon Village where Reed spent his formative years ...

... whilst it is fully 60+ years since Reed was carousing and wassailing around his now infamous 'Wimbledon Run' and almost 16 years since his untimely death, it is a remarkable tribute to the boozers of SW19 that most of the establishments of his 1960s pub-crawl are still open for business.

Oliver Reed's original 'Wimbledon Run';
Rose & Crown
Dog & Fox
Castle / Fire Stables
King Of Denmark - closed/redeveloped
The Swan
The Brewery Tap - closed/redeveloped
The Hand In Hand
The Crooked Billet


So, using that as a basis I've done a bit more research and can offer nine boozers - including the six remaining from Reed's original 'Run'...

01 The Crooked Billet - http://www.thecrookedbilletwimbledon.com/
02 The Dog & Fox - http://www.dogandfoxwimbledon.co.uk/
03 The Fire Stables - http://www.firestableswimbledon.co.uk/
04 The Hand In Hand - http://www.youngs.co.uk/pubs/hand-in-hand
05 The Swan - http://www.taylor-walker.co.uk/pub/swan-wimbledon/c6743/
06 The Rose & Crown - http://www.roseandcrownwimbledon.co.uk/
07 Fox & Grapes - http://www.foxandgrapeswimbledon.co.uk/
08 Hemingways - http://www.hemingwaysbar.co.uk/
09 The Alexandra - http://www.alexandrawimbledon.com/

... with the geography looking like this...

 

 

 

So, for the sake of kicking it off I'll propose a route of 9, 5, 4, 1, 6, 8, 3, 2, 9 !?!

 

Drop any/all thoughts and suggestions below...

 

The Hound and the Tramp

A fairly late convening this evening. Graham was keeping his powder dry for a weekend of hard boozing and football in Switzerland. Naturally jokes about Young Boys were kept to an absolute minimum, there really can't have been more than 10 or 12. Other than your correspondent that was it, to use previous analogies, this week we'd be in the style of The Carpenters, Peters and Lee, Erasure and Take That if they lose anyone else.

Well not quite, we hadn't been there long when Mike of The Lady and The Tramp announced he'd been deserted by his lady friends and offered to join forces, an offer we were not going to turn down. Onto the quiz, it had to start somewhere, so let's start it there:

Kind of, what is it if you like. Well we struggled.

Ok, confession time. I've lost all my blogging notes. What a Muppet! So apologies up front, this may be brief.

Current Affairs - tough! Be surprised if we got 6.

Next round - can't even remember what is was. But that wasn't easy either!

Connections - it was stamps. Think we got nearly all the answers but not the connection.

Ten pointers - we got all those. Who played Lukewarm in Porridge was the only one I can actually remember.

So halfway, a strong finish to a poor half. Not so different in fact to Man U's performance against Liverpool which had claimed Daren. Other than the finish.

Right, by way of filler, time for another name the thing type conundrum.

So on we go:

The last letter/first letter thing - Good. Think we got them all. The capital of Cambodia nearly sent us down a blind alley with its trappy spelling though.

- Jeopardy - In the Countdown vernacular we took the safe 5 over the risky 7. Though I give you, "In what year was Queen Victoria crowned"?

- Music - Maybe a 17. Though by now I'm guessing.

Another easy miss on the chocolates. I'll spare any false creation of suspense and confirm we didn't win. Maybe third. Those answers.

- Christopher Biggins

- A Spanish omelette and my, it tasted good.

- Phnom Penh - see what I mean?

- Well she became Queen in 1837 but was crowned in 1838. We briefly contemplated swerving it but were given correct with 1837. Sometimes you're looking for banana skins that aren't there.

So another miss. Maybe a Harry Redknapp style bleat about being down to the bare bones should come here but frankly I always enjoy the quiz regardless. No Daren next week, either Dominican Republic or Guatemala so a spike in the blog stats please and see whoever can make it, if not there, then at Cheltenham (sort of).

Knights of the Hound Table

In 1977 who was the first fashion designer to be knighted?  We opted for Terence Conran, but he didn't feel the queen's sword (not a double entendre or euphemism for anything, but probably should be) until 1983. Norman Hartnell would have been worth ten points and won the quiz for us, but sadly we didn't know it.

3 hounds this week, Daren was back from his adventures in Madchester, and an intervention on the way home. Steve waylaid by work we think this time, Spurs weren't even playing. Robson is all in a quandary about his lighting requirements at home. My anagram of the week is Dragon's Knob (think England '66 goalkeeper). Early kick-off at 6 pm, more of which later.

Round 1: Famous logos, or in many cases partial famous logos (and some partially famous I thought).

We didn't get 02 Converse, 05 Hot Wheels or 07 Nickelodoen (excuse the fingers, I'm learning all the time).

 

I preferred 'FOPP' for 07 which I think looks closer than Nickelodeon. However, rightly denied on the grounds of not being famous.




Not much to say about the current affairs round, which is pretty much all I had on the night. Peter Rabbit is to appear in colour on a new 50p coin, Nicole Scherzinger is to appear in a remake of Dirty Dancing, potential indian military recruits had to appear in their underwear to sit a written examination, and it appears that we didn't even know what won the best picture Oscar. Schoolboy quizzing error, it was 'Spotlight' not 'The Revenant'.

Food & Drink was better but we failed to identify certain Spanish fruit varieties, and Kimchi is Korean not Japanese.

Biscuits was the connection today, Empire were my favourites of the ones on offer. Lincoln, Ginger, Bourbon, Nice etc. also featured.




Got the other two ten pointers, but Sir Norman Hartnell was to prove one of our undoings as alluded to above.



Good teamwork to get Ruth & Esther as the two old testament books named after females. Robson also recognised Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny.

The 'First letter of each answer corresponds to the final letter of the previous answer' round as I am snappingly titling it is now a regular 2nd half opener. Sounds more like a Two Ronnies sketch I know. Answers as follows, for some we needed the first/last letter thing to get them correct.

wizard of wishaW
Who let the dogs ouT
Tony BlaiR
Rainbow warrioR
RabaT
Timothy spalL
LaszlO
OxymoroN
Never say diE
Equatorial guinea.

2 more African geography related questions, candy from a baby.

Good News is that we never blew the Jeopardy round, this having a lot to do with the fact that we only answered 3 questions. This at least is more than the Anoraks managed, placing as they did Catalan Dragons in Spain. On sober reflection, I have a theory that this had something to with the early start, drunkenness is the best excuse I can come up with for not getting Harlem as the Dutch related area of New York, not getting Graham Chapman as Brian in 'The Life of...', and not getting France as the correct home of Catalan Dragons. Siobhan had us second by 3 points, I made it even closer, so it wouldn't have needed much. I suspect that Steve would have been familiar with Oswald Cobblepot (The Penguin in Batman), and quite possibly a few others. Hey-ho.

Aced the music, all correct on the first listen, but not quite enough. The team of 6 blokes behind us won, can't even remember their team name. Steve Jefferies and Alan Thingy are amongst their six.

As an aside, we got full marks on The Anorak's quiz from the previous night, maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time! 5 UK racecourses starting with S anyone?

G-Force

Confessions of a Teenage Hound

Thursday night and the Europa league claimed its share of victims. Daren was up in Manchester to see if Man U could turn it around and Steve was observing maybe a tougher task for Tottenham. Maybe next year West Ham are going to join the party and there'll be a whole team out. Little danger of Leeds Utd or Mansfield Town getting there any time soon so Graham and myself should keep a free diary.

Left to ourselves, there was naturally a bit of Quiz Up to be done and we pondered my current moniker "Prepose a la rubriques des chiens ecrases" - plus a few accents I can't type on this. The best we could do on Google translator was "Worker crushed under dogs"? Right in more ways than you could imagine. Daren, this tally with your French knowledge?

Now also Julie of TLATT confirmed the Scout Saturday Quiz will be 14th May so how about launching the 6 in 6 then? Graham had it blocked out in his diary for the Eurovision Song Contest but maybe could be persuaded to watch on catch-up. We're also recommended the Railway in Carshalton for a Monday venue, now we know what happened last time but at least Duncan can't be in two pubs in one night.

OK, the quiz.

We were pleased to bag Bob Beamon without a clue of what he actually looked like. Number 7 eluded us though.

Current affairs and the usual nonsense. Who's adopting the Bitcoin? We thought Norway but actually Japan and which flamboyant singer will get a blue plaque at his house in Feltham? A toss up as it were between John and Mercury; think we actually bagged that one.

Next round and two answers required per question. We did OK, mindful of previous comments, we didn't query the ambiguity in "name England's two longest rivers" and were rewarded with the points.

Connections and about half way in we recognised WW II aircraft, or at least planes. Two out of three on the ten pointers, not a clue on the name of the patient in the game Operation. Anyone?

Refreshed and another round of connections. With a bit of back solving, we got them all but we're foxed by a Japanese gangster, Y.....A. Sadly Yakuza and not Yokazuna proved to be right, I guess wrestlers can be gangsters?.

So the jeopardy. With a team of two, we knew that we were outnumbered so we probably couldn't be too conservative.

We did swerve
- London statue built by Sir Alfred Gilbert
- Ardal O'Hanlan's superhero in My Hero

We should have swerved
- country, other than England with London on the River Thames.

So zero. Answers to follow.

Music, think we got 17.

Hopes weren't high and justifiably so. Even an optimal jeopardy strategy wouldn't have done it. Evidence, if it were needed, that numbers do matter. Still, despondency was short-lived and the red wine end to an evening was resurrected with a lot more success.

Those jeopardy answers:

- Eros
- Thermo Man
- Canada

To next week.