All Around My Hound

Going to be a bit haphazard here. That's not, in any way due to by blogging notes being lost/misplaced/eaten by the dog. Categorically not.

Cheltenham Gold Cup day is the 13th March this year. Unlucky for some? Frankly when has it ever been lucky? As mentioned the Hills opposite the Smugglers is now shut, along with so many, Trevor Horn's fault apparently. Popping over to place a bet is very much part of it so I'm going to throw in The Purley Arms (known to some of you I believe) as a possible alternative. They'll be showing it all, lots of TVs and a Corals up the road. But open to other suggestions.

In similar vein Maundy Thursday falls on the 9th April. London already postulated as a venue, let's hope we're not all in lockdown by then.

Ok, seeing if my scanner is working....

Number 3 vexed us. Number 5 didn't but should have done (i.e. we got it wrong). Anyone?

Various questions followed. Corona really does seem to have taken over and not deemed too depressing

One other story that did creep through is that the Swiss village of Mitholz may be closed for up to 10 years while WWII munitions are cleared. What a lovely place!

Ten pointers were relatively easily dispatched and onto the 2nd half. Annabelle was the doll who joined it all up, jeopardy was going well until a key slip, somehow confusing Uncle Albert with one of the all time boxing greats brought it all crashing down. Well, we won last week, let's not get greedy.

The music was a good selection, somehow Mariah Carey was mistaken for Whitney and The Hues Corporation for Forrest. Probably not for the first time.

Enjoy leap Saturday!

51 Pound Hound

Very quiet around 8.15, but the usual late rush and suddenly there are 9 teams in the house!

5 fruit and 5 vegetables in the picture round.

I think we missed 2, 4, 6 and 10. Can't remember the actual answers. 

6 right in the current affairs round as well. Poor notes mean that I can only really report that Glasgow has had a spike in new HIV cases. Costa Rica and Hong Kong featured but not sure why.

A difficult start then turned harder with a round on tea. We got the first 4 right including identifying this as a Samovar...

Robson guessed Turkey as the country drinking the most tea 

per capita ahead of Ireland but was largely ignored. Mrs Doyle will be distraught. I don't think any teams guessed that the disgusting sounding concoction of black tea, honey, condensed milk and tapioca is Bubble Milk.

We made a better fist of the this week that year round missing only one, and got all 3 ten pointers after a long process of elimination to get that 10 March is Pisces. Lowish first half score of 80 but probably not as bad as it sounds.

We made the full chain after backsolving to get a description of porridge and that a US dentist invented the first electric chair in the 19th century.

Strong Jeopardy round with 8 near certain. Our best guess for the location of Whipsnade Zoo was Bucks, it is Beds but we didn't stick our necks out as we were clueless re a question concerning Ruta Bega and I can't remember or find via google what it was now. 

19 of 20 in music round, one song title missed.

Not sure if any other teams blew out but a comfortable 11 point margin meant that we had gone one better after 3 second places lately. A total of 34 contestants meant that we had won £51, possibly a new PB?

Maundy Thursday is now only a few weeks away and a return to Borough Market has been mooted. All thoughts and opinions are welcomed.

Hound Goes To Cambridge

Have checked trains and prices as follows:

Hoping this comes out ok but DIY otherwise.

The would seem the most cost efficient way of doing things.

Hence if everyone can tap their way to East Croydon ready to go by 9.31am next week, 31st July that sounds the way to go. We have approx. £135 of Hound funds so that can cover the train fares which I'll buy if everyone confirms. Probably going to be Platform 2 but these things can change. Activities for the day can be decided en route, the forecast looks decent.

I also have a CamCard which offers various discounts on the cultural stuff.

Any questions?

Summer Hound

Such a nice day last Thursday that Graham, Daren and myself took it out into the pub "garden" before the quiz. Well, yard the noise of the air conditioning unit and smell from next door's curry house. But still a mighty fine evening.


We're up to P in the list of celeb pictures and things. Good spot to pick out this geezer.

A considerably younger and with more hair version of Patrick Stewart. Plenty of them evaded us, think maybe we stretched it to about 6.

The story that caught my eye on the current affairs round was the Lewis chesspiece sold for £735,000! A single chess piece! Not much use without the other 31; if only they knew a reproduction set was available on Amazon for £145. Some people will just buy anything.

£735,000 please.

Round 3 was Wimbledon based, fairly standard stuff, think we only failed on the name of the ladies ingles trophy, the Venus rosewater dish. Round 4 was on this week in history and we marked the 91st anniversary of sliced bread first being marketed in Chillicothe Missouri. But what else could it be?

Ten pointers, ah here controversy reigned.

Ok, we didn't know the 2nd event in the decathlon, though thinking it through maybe I should have done as I saw some of the decathlon at the 2012 Olympics. But controversially, what was the sportswear firm set up by Herr Dassler in the 1930s?

https://fortune.com/2013/03/22/the-hatred-and-bitterness-behind-two-of-the-worlds-most-popular-brands/

Quite the story and while I can't remember the exact question wording, I think either of Adidas and Puma would have been correct answers. The given answer was Adidas though, we had Puma.

Onto the old chain letters round this has got decidedly more trixie recently; all good but we lost the thread somewhere around Endive and didn't get it back until Slash. The guitarist that is.

Jeopardy and we had 8 good answers. I figured Ellen de Generes' partner was Portia something but where will the 2022 Winter Olympics be? Japan was probably the best guess but we settled for 8, just as well as Beijing will host.

Well too much to do with the slightly controversial answer and it was third in a tight finish.

Right, I'm away next week and in 2 weeks, The Hound will host so get yourselves all down there. Until then...

4 becomes 3 Hound

No win for a while, early match tension dispelled by a clean sweep on the pictures. All starting with M....

Current Affairs all good too until last 2 Q’s. Muirfield finally accepting women as members and Spinach mooted to join nandrolone and co on the banned substances list for athletics etc.

Good to have Steve on board for the Films round but still let 2 go. Near miss on identity of actor playing Rooster Cogburn in the 2010 remake of True Grit. Jeff Bridges not Josh Brolin who was also in the film. Not sure how I didn’t manage to even consider the following as the country music legend who was the subject of the biopic I Saw The Light. Hank Williams of course.

Tough This Week in History round, we mixed all of the following...

Robert the Bruce/William Wallace

Roy Rogers/Hopalong Cassidy

Jamaica/Republic of Ireland

Martin Luther King/Malcolm the Tenth.

I know what you are thinking. How?

A stinker in the 10 pointers. Who immediately followed Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union in 1953.

Georgy Malenkov for a couple of hours. Ok nine days. Don ‘t think anyone got it.

One better in the Chain Letters round this week, it is becoming more challenging, which is good. We had first and last letters for both misses. Rhinestone is a synthetic diamond substitute, and persimmon is also known as the Sharon Fruit. After an area where it is prevalent in Israel, not an Essex Girl.

Looks good enough to eat doesn’t it.

Intelligence received indicates we are well behind Les Anoraks so Old School performance required in the Jeopardy round and we didn’t disappoint.

Steve Rogers is also known as Captain America in the Marvel world and more surprisingly Mark Spitz’ golden location were enough to stop the enemy and Robson’s recollection of  the following Shakespearean character’s occupation the toughest for us.

Bottom from MSND was a (basket) Weaver. Also took some debate to identify Churchill as QEII’s first PM.

Home and Dry. 19 on music round, not sure what we missed.

See elsewhere for a possible Hound outing to Cambridge, punting and all.