Demonstone

I know that Dickens is revered as an all-time great author, but I've never been able to get into his books. My current reading pile consists of a few of Bill Bryson's, a few of Titus O'Reily's and a couple of MFC related ones ("The Red Fox" and Neale Daniher's "When All Is Said And Done"). That's not to mention both of Supermercado's efforts which are on order and will hopefully arrive in the next few days.

Lovely quiz LDVC which demonstrates your thorough knowledge of Dickens' works.

OK, listen up you freaks and listen good. The past couple of brainteasers have obviously been too easy which has led to the totally unacceptable outcome of people solving them in short time. This clearly cannot continue to go on in the same manner, so I have attempted to make this week's teaser more challenging. Here is a team consisting of current AFL players, all of whom should be familiar to you. What is the connection? B: Nick Coffield Dylan Grimes Isaac Quaynor H/B: Kyle Langford Dan Houston Zac Williams C: Lachie Hunter Andrew Brayshaw Rory Sloane H/F: Michael Walters Mitch McGovern Nakia Cockatoo F: Taylor Walker Darcy Cameron Dayne Zorko R: Rory Thompson Jarrod Lyons Sam Walsh I/C: Eddie Betts Chad Wingard Dyson Heppell Mitch Duncan

The night of the 2014 draft, traffic was predictably busy when we drafted Petracca at #2 and Brayshaw at #3. There were still a multitude of posters online when we later took Neal-Bullen at #40 and Stretch (F/S) at #42. However, the site crashed such was the overwhelming excitement and anticipation when it was announced that our last pick at #53 was spent on .... Oscar McDonald!

I think Jack may have it with the Charles Dickens link and all those players' names presumably appear in his books. I'm not long home and coffee calls, but I'll put my own effort up fairly soon.

Can't see the resemblance, myself. All these years later, I can still recall in detail my stats from those glorious last few minutes of the Grand Final when I was belatedly given a run by a sympathetic coach: Kicks - zero. Handballs - zero. Tackles - zero. 1%ers - zero. Goal assists - zero. Squibs - three.

I put a bell on my cat's collar to warn birds that he was around, but he learned to hold it in his mouth so it wouldn't ring. For this clever feat he was nominated for The No Bell Prize. He later graduated to stalking chickens and was thus awarded The Pullet Surprise.

Perhaps it was tea and Scotch Finger biscuits.

Use your freedom of choice.

I remember the Sri Lankan fans saying that Murali had had a "bad Hair day". I also recall the crowd at Bellerive singing to him: "Throw, throw the ball, gently down the pitch. Murali, Murali, Murali, isn't life a b*itch". I'm with faulty on this one and have no doubt at all that Murali was a deadset chucker for whom the rules were changed to accommodate his cheating. Neither Hair's occupation nor his crime are of any relevance.

I was waiting for one of our WA posters to appear so I could go with "God Save McQueen".

One of my famous brainteasers, most likely. There'll be another tomorrow!

They competed for a cup, not a flag.

Mark Neeld might be a better match for "Pretty Vacant".

Now that I've upset Andy by picking on his spelling, I'm never going to be awarded that elusive Fuchsia badge. In the immortal words of Johnny Rotten, "No fuchsia, no fuchsia, no fuchsia for me".

I'd love to be a fuchsia but only if you spell it properly!

Spot on. That belongs in the same bin as "good sides don't miss easy shots at goal".

Disinterested (unbiased) or uninterested (don't care)? My money's on the latter.

You mean like those people who complain about how terrible the commentators are but keep listening to them anyway and continue to moan about how bad they are?

ACL confirmed for Eric Hipwood. Sad news for him and Brisbane.

There certainly haven't been a lot of players recruited from Portland over the years. The best known would probably be big Ian "Bluey" Hampshire who played for Geelong then played for and coached Footscray plus Peter Hogan who played around 40 games for Richmond in the 1960s. Doug Wade spent a year or two at Portland High School before his family moved to Horsham, from where he was recruited by Geelong after failing to impress in some practice games for Melbourne. Wade went on to kick over 1000 goals with Geelong and then North Melbourne. ? Of the current crop, St Kilda's Rowan Marshall grew up in Portland after being born in NZ and Jamaine Jones from up the road at Heywood was at Geelong and is now at West Coast. Nathan Lovett-Murray was also a Heywood local. I may have mentioned previously that my own football career was cruelly cut short by a tragic lack of talent and courage, despite doing a sterling job as 20th man in a West Portland Under 15s premiership (t.o.g. ten minutes).

I reckon he's a ringer for Donald Trump Jnr.

Spot on, dc. Although Stuie was from Digby (a one-horse town in the Western District) he played his early footy for Portland and won the B & F in 1949. Portland also produced Melbourne premiership great Clyde Laidlaw.

No, grew up in Portland where Lyon Snr. coached in 1972 and 73.