Ten Questions: 111-120

Ten Questions to which we have neither the answer nor the question.  Tony was always of enquiring mind.  It was this impish curiosity that led him to blog in the first place, along with a desire to test others' curiosity, hence these Ten Questions posts.  I think he would be well satisfied with this as a last post – enquiring yet, vitally, completely and utterly without point or purpose.  One might almost call it Vintage OMF.  If one had nothing better to do.

Another quality of Tony was a keenness to avoid the overstaying of a welcome – his, certainly, but also yours.  He always made this very clear – sometimes, indeed, as you were stepping over his threshold ready to down one of his famously tonic-lite G&Ts ("You'll be wanting to make an early start back, I shouldn't wonder.  We shan't be hurt").   So he would not want any blog of his to overstay its welcome either.  Five years, five posts feels like about the very longest coda he would tolerate, so we shall leave it there.  Hopefully his words will not suffer too much bitrot in the years to come and ardent and (especially) lazy readers of the future alike will stumble across some choice OMF posts as a result of searching for some esoteric yet trivial items of interest.  Other Men's Flowers: wasting your time until the end of time.  That is the hope.

Family of Tony, 2017.

Ten Questions: 101-110

101   The Andean and California are two species of what?

102   What links Louis Armstrong, Oliver Tambo, John Lennon, George Best?

103   What's the lowest prime number consisting of consecutive digits?

104   What is the English title of the old song known to the French as "Les adieux du soldat"?

105   "The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small..." Translated from what language, and by whom?

106   Which country is the fastest-growing exporter of kosher products on earth?

107   How many silloths in an ephah?

108   What is conjunctivitis.com?

109   Who is this? Clue: This photo was taken in 1965 when he was in disguise, aged 37. Two years later he died.


110   "The best things in life are free”. Why might chiropodists interpret this as a piece of professional advice?

ANSWERS

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Ten Questions: 91-100

91    Who was said to have been lovely as Peer Gynt?

92    How do you say "Hamlet, I am thy father's ghost" in Afrikaans?

93    When did Lancelot first appear?

94    What four words mean (roughly) "tiredness" and all begin with the same letter?

95    What flew before the girl could go into the garden?

96    In 1961 Rous, then Havelange, and since 1998, who?

97    Clint Reno, Vince Everett, Danny Fisher, Chad Gates, Lucky Jackson. Who were they?

98    Who is the only divorced US President?

99    Which Antipodean town is named after the wife of Sir Charles Todd?

100  Why, according to the French Foreign Legion, is there no black pudding for the Belgians?

ANSWERS ARE HERE



Earlier questions are HERE

Twenty Questions More

This batch is intended to provide a refuge for those who find festivities and the current news equally depressing: not one of the questions is either seasonal or topical.

61   What would I rather do than join the army?

62   What ends "Shantih, shantih, shantih"?

63   The 1814 Treaty of Ghent ended a war between which states?

64   What links: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Pasha, German invasion of the USSR?

65   Which wireless technology is named after a Viking king of Denmark?

66   Robert Hubert was hanged for supposedly starting what?

67   What became England's 10th National Park last year?

68   Which global issue was resolved by the Washington conference of 1884?

69   Which Wimbledon finalist in 1983 became a nun?

70   Who was it said, in 1932, that "the bomber will always get through"?

71   Variations And Fugue On A Theme of Purcell is better known as what?

72   Which country has world's largest proven oil reserves, according to OPEC?

73  In 1996 the Austrian Robert Kalina won a competition to design what?

74   Which chain now has more food outlets worldwide than McDonald's?

75   The "adulterous" Bible of 1631 omitted which word from the seventh commandment?

76   Which film star became US ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia?

77   The Starlight Barking was a sequel to which novel?

78   "Yes, the surface is fine and powdery" - whose words?

79   What links Liliom, Green Grow the Lilacs, Sweet Thursday?

80   Who said "Twa piggles dinna mek a thrup", on what occasion, what was he prevented from saying, and by whom?

ANSWERS ARE HERE

[Questions 41 to 60 are HERE] 


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Again Twenty Questions

Either the questions are getting easier or standards of erudition and culture are rising; those who say they got ten right are not necessarily lying; the mendacity threshold is raised to fifteen.

41  What has Himmler got?

42  How will I love you, always?

43   Sabrage is  a: a generic term for desert scrub  b: a yearling hawk  c: a rank of officer in the Indian army  d: the art of opening a champagne bottle with a sabre

44   What links: larynx, flight data recorder, St Stephen's Day?

45   Which Commonwealth country is on mainland South America?

46   What is detected by the Scott test?

47   Elizabeths I and II ascended the throne at what age?

48   Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger founded which reference source?

49   Sarah Woodruff is the title character of which novel?

50   "The Monster's Mate...?" is listed in the credits of which film?

51   Which baking aid was patented by Henry Jones in 1845?

52   Who had friends called Ginger and Merrylegs?

53   Which British fortifications are named after a Corsican original?

54   Which car is named after the French founder of Detroit?

55   "It was love at first sight" begins which 1961 novel?

56   YKK is the world's largest manufacturer of what?

57   What sort of delicacy is kopi luwak?

58   Which trophy did an American club successfully defend 24 times over 132 years?

59   What is made in a chessel?

60   What do lazy jellyfish do?

Answers are HERE

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Another Twenty Questions

The mixture as before: questions suited to people with ragbag minds. Some of the questions are dreary, some obscure and some merely silly.

Three correct answers is a good score, five is outstanding, ten is a lie.


21    What is love not?

22    What is Other Men's Flowers?

23    What did George Holliday videotape on 3rd March 1991 in LA?

24    What links: Lake Manzala, Lake Timsah, Great Bitter Lake, Little Bitter Lake?

25    Why must I wayle for Witherington?

26    What did she cry before she died, after lifting up her lovely head?

27    What are the trees where you sit going to do?

28    Whom should you not trust when you can't find your way home?

29    Which psychological condition was defined after a 1973 Swedish bank robbery?

30    Which astronomical event is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry?

31    The King, or Kitchener?

32    Why did the Earl of Oxford leave Elizabeth I's court for seven years?

33    Magnetite, hematite and goethite are ores of which metal?

34    Fingal O'Flahertie Wills were the middle names of which writer?

35    Whose mother and sister are cured of leprosy in a biblical epic?

36    What became the largest country in Africa this year?

37    The USS Phoenix at Pearl Harbour was sunk 40 years later under what name?

38    The Parsi people practise which religion?

39    What restriction was introduced on 8 January 1940?

40    What's it all about?

Answers are HERE

[Sources: Guardian Weekend, Ask a Silly Question (Goswell Frand), New Statesman, Wikipedia, The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, The Public School Hymn Book, The OED, The Washington Post, The Bible, etc.]

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Total drivel

Heartwarming compliments on my post of 30th September have poured in from all over the world: such perceptive observations as "fatuous entertainment", "very silly man" and "pointless rubbish", as well as some rather critical comments, have made me realise that there is a demand for more of this sort of thing, and I shall not fail to provide further helpings, starting with Another Twenty Questions, to be published on 30th October.

Several readers were kind enough to write and tell me which of the first twenty they were able to answer correctly without googling. Top Guns among them were Grumio (London), Froog (Beijing) and dandd (Oregon), though none of these mighty intellects got into double figures. Still, congratulations; if there had been any prizes I would have awarded one to each of them.

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Twenty Questions

These are suited to people with ragbag minds. Some of them are dreary, some obscure and some merely silly (I mean the questions, not the people who can answer them; well, I suppose both, really).

The first and last questions are very silly.

Three correct answers is a good score, five is outstanding, ten is a lie.

1    Who was in whose what and how many miles awhat?

2    The Watsons is an unfinished novel by which author?

3    Which feature started to appear in Mayfair streets in 1958?

4    What links David Bowie, Rod Steiger, Telly Savalas, Michael Palin?

5    Which monument lists 558 generals of the first French Empire?

6    Piedmont white and Perigord black are prized varieties of what?

7    Traditionally, who would wield an estoque?

8    Who were liberated on March 3rd 1861?

9    Where are we treading, brothers?

10  What, according to Noel Coward, are just around the corner?

11  37 in Europe, 38 in the US: what?

12  Methuselah plus Salmanazar equals what?

13  One hundred agorot make what?

14  Where was Ferran Adriá head chef?

15  What's a caret?

16  Pertussis is better known as what?

17  What afflicted London from 5-9 December 1952?

18  The dandy Eustace Tilley is the mascot of which magazine?

19  Capten, art tha sleeping there below?

20  Where, by whom and when was the game known as Ragamadolio or Tumble-cum-Trivy played?

Answers are HERE