Hound Of The Year

Different format this week, no current affairs, no jeopardy, link-ups or connections. Just a round of sleb 2018 deaths, 50 questions about the events of 2018 and some music. Would this play to our strengths or would the distraction of Man City v Liverpool be too much?

Think we got 11/12 on the deaths, only the actress who played Alice in the Vicar Of Dibley escaping us. Then working through the year, mainly with some cunningly recycled questions from months gone by.

So these were the mascots but where were the Olympics? And which was that retailer who announced it would be axing 100 stores by 2022. And what was Jurassic Park V called? And who on earth remembers what film won the Best Picture

These questions and many, many more. All the while a long overdue successful in play bet of 2-1 to Man City was starting to unfold. Answers - Emma Chambers, PyongChang, M&S, Fallen Kingdom and the Shape of Water. Has anyone actually watched that by the way.

Music scanned the spectrum from Tho Who to Lady Gaga and don't you know? Hound Win? Only 4 teams so not life-changing winnings but hopefully a beer to kick off next week.

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.