What is always referred to as black, but never is? ..... for example, the "Red Egg".
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Cockpit Voice Recorder & Flight Data Recorder, known as "black boxes" but are actually bright orange in colour so that they are easily identified in a crash situation. |
Venky
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Demar
What's the most exciting event to happen in New Helvetica?
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The discovery of Gold From: http://www.neh.fed.us/news/humanities/1998-01/alive.html JOHN SUTTER. An émigré from Switzerland who came to California to establish his "New Helvetica" in the land of opportunity. A man with vision and organization, Sutter built an economically thriving outpost of Anglo-American settlement in Mexican California based on livestock and lumber using Native American labor. The discovery of gold at a mill owned by Sutter launched the "rush" for gold that ultimately led to his undoing, ruining him financially as the mass of humanity tramped through his lands on their rush to the gold fields.. |
Neal
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Jim
Which is the odd one out and why?
Ronald Reagan
Louis Armstrong
John Wayne
Buddy Holly
John Lennon
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You could make a case for any: Reagan the only non-dead, Armstrong the only non-white, Wayne the only non-real surname, Lennon the only non-Yank. My favourite answer has Buddy Holly for the exception, because he's the only one not to have an airport named after him (DCA, MSY, SNA, LPL). |
Alan
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I was also offered Buddy Holly as the one not to feature in a film. Alan was right, the best answer is that all the others have airports named after them, which is the best answer because it is a rare honour, certainly rarer than being dead, not having changed your name, living in America or being in a movie. Other answers count as not wrong.
Which rodent would fit in this group?
From Roger's Profanisaurus, the world's leading authority on contemporary sexual euphemisms in all dialects of English:
beetle bonnet n. Female pubic mound as viewed through tight pants, or when shaven. From the design of the classic VW car. See also camel's foot.
mapatasi (ma-pa-ta-zee) n. Aus. Minge. As in: "Show us yer mapatasi, Sheila". abbr. Map of Tasmania. From the similarity in shape of said island to a muff.
Therefore the obvious answer is North America's largest and most photogenic rodent:
beaver n. 1. US Female pubic hair. 2. Fanny; blart; the female genitals and/or females in general.
On a day associated with a man with a white beard a town associated with a big bushy bearded man had a very unwelcome visitor. What was her name?
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On Christmas Day 1974 (Santa has a white beard) the Australian city of Darwin (Charles Darwin had a big bushy beard) was devastated by tropical cyclone "Tracy". |
Alan
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Tracy moved into Darwin on Christmas Eve, although the bulk of the damage happened in the early hours of Christmas Day.
What machine enabled a United States Postal Service employee in Cape Cod to resume his former career?
A De-Neuralyzer. From Men in Black II.
Alan
Phillip of Macedonia warned the citizens of this city that 'if he entered the city, he would raze it to the ground'. To which the citizens just replied 'If'. This characteristic brevity of words has given rise to what word in the English language?
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Laconic. The city was Sparta, sometimes called Lacedaemon, Lacedaemonia, or Laconia. |
Alan
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Venky
Sb, As, Al, Se... and 98 others. Where had the news come?
Harvard. From the song by Tom Lehrer:
There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.
There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.
There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and caesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.
There's sulphur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.
These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven't been discovered.
Vicky
An old school dictionary falls open, spread before me I find, between a tree associated with a luxury fibre and a fabulous history: obstinate, an interjection to silence, an actor, a valuable fur, a revolt and a perfume.
I also achieved some spiritual enlightenment from this page. How so?
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You found, between mulberry and myth: mulish, mum, mummer, muskrat (or musquash), mutiny and myrrh. You also encountered a Muslim mullah and must have mused on multiple mysteries. |
Alan
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Good effort, but I found something even more precious, I found myself.
What is this?
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Part of the aircraft deck of HMS Invincible, with a Royal Navy Sea Harrier FA2 in the foreground. |
Alan
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