He was standing by a river. The city of the Merlion is Singapore. The film "Road to Singapore" (1940) was the first of the "Road to..." movies starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. In 1989 (49 years, not 50, as per your message in the forum!) Chris Rea released the album "Road to Hell", the title track of which includes the lyrics:

The pictures show a Canada goose, Eddie Jordan (Chief Executive of Jordan Grand Prix), and Rosa Luxemburg (a German revolutionary leader).

Following the instruction to "use capitals", I need to work out the area of the triangle with points at Ottawa (Canada) Amman (Jordan) Luxembourg City (Luxembourg)

According to WorldAtlas.com, the "as the crow flies" distances are as follows: Ottawa->Amman 5605 miles / 9020 km / 4871 nautical miles

Amman->Lux.City 1958 miles / 3151 km / 1702 nautical miles

Lux.City->Ottawa 3647 miles / 5870 km / 3170 nautical miles

If this was a flat triangle (on a plane surface, rather than on the surface of the earth), the area of the triangle would be easy to calculate using basic trigonometry, BUT because this triangle is on the Earth's surface which is not a flat plane, we also need to know the radius of the Earth which is approximately 6371km (that's the mean radius, anyway, bearing in mind the Earth is not a perfect sphere).

The area of a triangle with angles a, b, and c on a sphere with radius R is given by: R*R (a+b+c-pi).

To work out the angles a, b, and c we first have to convert the distances given above to radians, and then use the Law of Cosines for a Spherical Triangle to get the angles. The Law of Cosines for a triangle with lengths A, B, C and opposing internal angles a, b, c is: cos(A)=cos(B)cos(C) + sin(B)sin(C)cos(a),

so cos(a) = (cos(A) - cos(B)cos(C)) / sin(B)sin(C)

Usefully, 1 nautical mile = 1 arc minute = 0.0002909 radians, so

Ottawa->Amman 1.417 radians [cos = 0.1532, sin = 0.9882 ]

Amman->Lux.City 0.4951 radians [cos = 0.8799, sin = 0.4751 ]

Lux.City->Ottawa 0.9221 radians [cos = 0.6041, sin = 0.7969 ]

So, the angles are:

Ottawa 0.0192 radians

Amman 0.0288 radians

Lux.City 3.105 radians

Given these angles and plugging them into the formula R*R (a+b+c-pi) we get an area of 463020 square kilometers. Given that I rounded to four significant figures at each stage of the calculation, I would guess that 463000 sq km is probably about as accurate as I should really give it.

Phew. That was FAR too reminiscent of school maths!

Unfortunately I can't get the bonus point as I have no idea where that bird is. Presumably "on a pond" doesn't count? :-)

For the bonus: the bird is one of the large flock of Canada geese which inhabit the two small eyots in the middle of the River Avon just by the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford (or at least, they did when I was there last November, ref: http://snurl.com/1aus).

For the bonus, I guess you had a couple of shots in your camera that you wanted to finish off at the end of your trip to Stratford, so I'll take a stab and say the goose is on the Avon. Not far from the Memorial Theatre, probably.

Saint Etheldreda (Audrey for short). In the 16th Century St Etheldreda's Fair, or St Audrey's Fair, was famed for selling cheap tat and hence gave rise to the word "tawdry", which could certainly describe Dolly Parton's dress sense!

Apparently the record you are referring to is the highest number of different published variations of a tune, although I can't find explicit verification for that. But here's some convincing evidence: According to http://members.chello.nl/folia/html1.html:

"La Folia (pronounce as 'lah foh-LEE-ah', literally meaning mad or empty-headed) is one of the most remarkable phenomena in the history of music. This simple, but intriguing tune was first published in 1672. Its roots go back to the 16th century. ...

"The most striking feature of La Folia however is that the theme is not well-known to a larger public although more than 150 composers for over 330 years made lots of brilliant variations."

Jean Baptiste Lully, Air des hautbois - Les folies d'Espagne (LWV 48) for four winds (1672) [Ordered by the King in 1672.]

Marin Marais, Les Folies d'Espagne

Antonio Vivaldi, Trio Sonata in D minor (Variations on 'La Folia')

C. P. E. Bach, 12 Variationen uber die Folie d'Espagne

Antonio Salieri, XXVI Variazoni sull'aria La Follia di Spagna (1815)

Berlioz, Hector, La Folia (c. 1820)

Hans Werner Henze, Aria de la Folia española: for chamber orchestra (St. Paul (Minnesota), September 17, 1977) Commissioned by the Minnesota Chamber Orchestra

Tangerine Dream, Force Majeure (1979) The theme of la Folia is played twice towards the end of Force Majeure. The Tangerine Dream-theme consists of 4 lines of each 8 bars. The first line is similar to the first 8 bars of La Folia (in 2/4 meter) and the last 8 bars correspond with the final 8 bars of La Folia.

Vangelis, Conquest of paradise (1992) - "Only the first 8 bars of La Folia are being used in a repetitive style without introducing the folia melody."

Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy PM, was born Michael Yuhanna but changed his name to make himself more acceptable to the Muslim majority in Iraq. The name Tariq Aziz means "glorious past".

Between drug and earnest: drumstick dryad dubiety ducat dudgeon dulcet dum-dum dungarees dupe dwarf and, at my count (ho ho) three members of the nobility: duchess, duke and earl.