Who or what is this?
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The fully clothed skeletal remains with wax head, and the mummified head between the feet, of the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) in a glass case at University College, London. "His actual head was mummified and stood on the Auto-Icon until [1989-90, when]...hooligan students from UCL's historical cross-London rival, King College (the Strand), now KCL, stole the head and played football with it! The head is now safe in a vault." |
Demar
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Which “Dutch” was a lifeguard?
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Ronald Reagan From : http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/ref/rrbio.htm "Beginning in 1926, Reagan was employed as a lifeguard at Lowell Park in Dixon. He was credited with saving 77 lives during the 7 summers he worked there." From : http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/handout/Rrfacts.htm The nickname "Dutch" was first applied to Ronald Reagan, in childhood, by his father. According to Reagan's autobiographies, he received the nickname soon after his birth, from his father's remark that he looked like "a fat little Dutchman." Reagan has also stated, however, that his father gave him the nickname because of the "Dutch boy haircut," once popular for little boys, that his mother gave him when he was a toddler. When asked to reconcile the two stories of the nickname's origin, Reagan stated that the haircut strengthened the use of the nickname. |
Neil |
Demar
Who painted this?
Modigliani. Most of his nudes are reclining, and rather better nourished than this specimen, but I keep those images in my private collection.
What is this?
A Lancia Stratos, a mid-engined supercar designed to win rallies. It won the world Rally Championship in 1974, 75 and 76.
A mere 492 cars were built, just sufficient to allow it to compete as a "production car".
Who could complete this list, and why?
Neil Sedaka
Frank Abelson
Pete Wingfield
????
George Benson
Paul Hardcastle.
Neil Sedaka charted at no 3 in Dec 1961 with "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen"
Frank Abelson (Frankie Vaughan) charted at no 18 in Dec 1955 with "Seventeen"
Pete Wingfield charted at no 7 in June 1975 with "Eighteen with a bullet"
Paul Hardcastle reached no 1 in May 1985 with "19"
George Benson got to no 29 in Jan 1985 with "20/20" (so good they named it twice?)
Neil
What is this?
The Nositel N1/L-3, the vehicle for the USSR moon landing atempts. The design was powerful enough, but too complicated, there were four expensive failed launches.
Mostly in two chunks, to the north, you will find three monarchs, to the south some traps. Where?
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New Zealand. Three Kings Island is located off the northern tip of New Zealand and Snares Island is off the southern coast of the south island. |
Demar
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3iff
Starting with any single letter create a six letter word by adding one letter at a time, to the end of the word, creating a new English word at each stage (two letter, three letter, four letter, five letter, six letter) without creating any plurals.
Only the two letter words are difficult.
Here are a few possibilities:
TOOTHY Demar
METERS (Meters as a verb) Demar
MARSHY (Ma, colloquial: mother) Dan
PATENT (Pa, colloquial: father) Alan
BATHER (Ba, in ancient Egyptian religion, the soul, represented as a bird with a human head) Neil
PEARLY (Pe, 17th letter of the Hebrew alphabet) Venky
Dan
Who are these girls?
The Olsen Twins, Mary-Kate and Ashley. (Nobody ventured which was which.)
Two great writers are recorded as having died on the same date in the same year, more than a week apart. Who were they?
William Shakespeare was reported as dying on 23rd April 1616, the same date as Miguel Cervantes. However as Spain had adopted the Gregorian calendar and England had not there was a discrepancy. By the Gregorian calendar Shakespeare died on May 3rd.
Spain adopted the Gregorian calndar in 1582, England did not follow until 1752.
Alan
An old school dictionary falls open. Across a two page spread I can find a Malay word for rice, a kind of Buddhist temple, a Portuguese word for useless talk, an elementary Greek goddess and an Italian clown. I didn't find the feathery pattern I was looking for, where might I find it?
(Apart from in a bigger dictionary!)
Malay word for rice is paddy.
A pagoda is Buddhist temple in the form of a tapering tower.
Palaver n. & v. n.
1 fuss and bother, esp. prolonged.
2 profuse or idle talk.
3 cajolery.
4 colloq. a prolonged or tiresome affair or business.
5 hist. a parley between African or other natives and traders.
v.
1 intr. talk profusely.
2 tr. flatter, wheedle.
[Portuguese palavra 'word' from Latin (as parable)]
The use of the word palaver comes from the annoyance of Portuguese coastal traders with meaningless ritual when dealing with West African tribal chiefs, they wanted to cut through all the palaver and get down to business.
Pallas is a Greek Goddess and a palladium metallic element. Palladium is the name of a statue of pallas (as well as being an element), sorry, I misread the entry and led people astray.
Pantaloon is a pantomime character derived from an Italian clown. (Pagliaccio isn't in my little dictionary, but is an Italian clown, and does fit in the alphabetical sequence)
The missing feathery pattern was paisley, which my regular and more detailled dictionary defines as
Paisley n. (often attrib.)
1 a distinctive intricate pattern of curved feather-shaped figures.
2 a soft woollen garment having this pattern.
[Paisley in Scotland, the original place of manufacture]
Paisley is also Neil's home town, which is not a mere coincidence.
Who is this?
Mario Gabriele Andretti sitting in a 1969 STP Lotus-Ford 64.
Andretti is a rare example of a great driver who has risen to the top of American motorsport and then won the Formula One Grand Prix world championship.
Which of the following is (linguistically) not an exceptional country:
Argentina
Botswana
Denmark
Finland
France
Iceland
Ireland
Poland
Spain
Sweden
United Kingdom
United States of America
The United States of America. As it is not an exceptional country, as the rest are because the correct English word to describe an inhabitant of that country cannot be used as a simple adjective refering to that country. Icelandic, Polish, Irish, Spanish and so on are not words that can be applied to refer to a single person. You cannot have an Icelandic or a Spaniard but you can have an American or an Equatorial Guinean. Most countries follow the rule in which the adjective can be used as the name of the inhabitants of that nation, such as Afghan, Albanian, Algerian, Andorran, Angolan, American, Antiguan, Armenian, Australian, Austrian, Azerbaijani, Bahamian, Bahraini, Bangladeshi, Barbadian, Belorussian, Belgian, Belizian, Beninese, Bhutanese, Bolivian and Bosnian. 22 regular forms in that alphabetical list with only two exceptions: Tswana for the person, and Botswanan for the country and Argentine being acceptable for the adjective but not the person.
Denmark, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, the Phillipines, Suriname and Vatican City are also in the short list of nations that buck the general trend of using the adjective to refer to the inhabitant.
OK, I admit it, not my best ever question, I'll refund your entry fee. ;-)
What was the contribution to English literature of the visitor from Porlock?
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The incomplete poem Kubla Khan (1797) written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poet awoke from an opium dream and started to write down his recollections of the experience, when somebody from Porlock interrupted him. This nameless person has gone down in history as the person who prevented the completion of a literary masterpiece. |
Demar
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Venky
Jim had a dream. A voice told him that the next lottery would yield six balls, all of which would be prime numbers higher than one. The lottery uses the numbers 1 to 49, how many tickets would Jim need to buy to cover all combinations of six such numbers?
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There are 15 primes between 2 and 49 inclusive (2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29,31,37,41,43,47), so Jim needs to choose any 6 from 15. Substituting: n_C_k = n!/(k!*(n-k)!) = 15!(6!9!) = 5005. |
Alan
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When I press the ! button on my calculator I just get a suffussion of yellow.
Who is this man, and why was he so popular with the ladies?
Oskar Schindler: playboy, bourgeois entrepreneur and hero. By finding work for 1,200 Jews he saved their lives.
Which sport was created to outflank a puritan inspired law?
Beer and skittles as always been a fair shorthand for working class pleasure. Skittles, the bowling of a ball at ninepins, was a popular game that involved drinking, gambling and (shudder) pleasure. It was banned several times by pleasure-hating Puritans, Ten Pin Bowling was invented by Americans to get around the law, being basically the same game but with one extra pin. Subsequently the games have evolved separate traditions and rules. Ten Pin Bowling has become a major leisure industry associated with youth culture and communal foot diseases while skittles is still an old fashioned form of pub entertainment.
Mike
Where might you find this?
Phthirus pubis is commonly known as the crab louse. Several players were keen to point out that it might be found among someone else's pubic hair.
Bill was playing Scrabble with me. He told me he had three tiles left and they were all the same vowel, no blanks. Then his eyes lit up, triumphantly he places all three letters down on the board surrounding one letter that was already in place. No special squares were covered, only one four letter word was created.
What was Bill's score?
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Purely for the word played, six. (The only four-letter word in the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary that contains three identical vowels is epee. P=3, E=1 each.) However, since Bill used all his tiles, his game score would also be increased by the total of your (and any other players') unplayed letters. |
Alan
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I have been reported to have drunk half a pint of shandy on the odd occasion. I was educated without ever going to school or university, which put me twenty five years ahead of my contemporaries. I earned my living in the service of a great empire. My most influential work was the second best book of the year, and perhaps of the millennium.
Who am I?
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John Stuart Mill Excerpt from Bruce's Philosophers Song a.k.a. Philosophers' Drinking Song, written and composed by Eric Idle (of Monty Python) "John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill" He was the eldest son of James Mill, and was taught Greek, Latin, mathematics, philosophy and economics from a very early age by his father. He was subjected to a rigid system of intellectual discipline, which according to Mill gave him an advantage of a quarter of a century over his contemporaries. John Stuart Mill's entire professional life spanning 35 years was spent in the service of the British East-India Company (EIC) from 1823 at the tender age of 17 to 1858 -- the year when the company was abolished. From a humble but upwardly mobile clerk under the Examiner of Indian Correspondence when he first joined the trading company, Mill was to rise to the rank of the Examiner in 1856. If you are referring to India as the great empire, technically you are wrong. Queen Victoria was crowned Empress of India only in 1876 long after Mill had left the services of the East India Company. There are differing opinions on what Mill's most influential work was. They vary from "Principles of Political Economy" published in 1848, "On Liberty" published in 1859 and "Utilitarianism" published in 1863. You are probably referring to "On Liberty", since 1859 was the same year Darwin published "The Origin of Species". |
Venky
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I was thinking of the British Empire, in India, which was de facto part of an empire whatever the history of formal titles. I consider that On Liberty was by far his most influential work, it continues to be the source of much liberal and libertarian thinking and is the most widely read of his works. Besides, it is the only one of his books that I have read, so far.