Saturday, August 9, 2014

A Dusty Springfield Moment

 

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Trivia Bits 09 August

 

 

Novel - The Memory Game

Nicci French is the pseudonym for two London journalists, husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together including their debut novel in 1997 The Memory Game (cover pictured).

Nykøbing Castle, demolished in 1767, was the traditional residence of Denmark's queen dowagers.

Pringle Stokes, captain of HMS Beagle on its first voyage (1826-1830), and Robert Fitzroy, captain on the second voyage (1831-1836), both committed suicide.

The 2013 movie Blue Jasmine was directed by Woody Allen and starred Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin and Peter Sarsgaard.

Experiences with girls on the street led philosopher Bertrand Russell's "stern and gloomy" Aunt Maude (Stanley) to write Clubs for Working Girls in 1890.

The tree species Malus Domestica produces Apples.

The Viceroyalty of La Plata—covering Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay—was the last viceroyalty created by Spain was established in 1776 and ceased to exist in 1814 as a result of revolution.

The first Australian state to legalise cremation was South Australia in 1891.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a 1967 novel by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez that tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia.

On the ill-fated liner RMS Titanic, there were only 20 lifeboats fitted.

Quotables 09 August

 

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Friday, August 8, 2014

A Dusty Anderson Moment

 

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Trivia Bits 08 August

 

 

Antoine de Bosc de la Calmette

In south-eastern Denmark, Antoine de Bosc de la Calmette (pictured) excavated Møn's Neolithic burial mound, Klekkende Høj, in 1797 while he was governor.

Hidden Cave, an archaeological cave site located in the Great Basin near Fallon, Nevada, got its name because its entrance was difficult to find.

Hulk Hogan and Mr T fought Roddy Piper and Paul Ormdorff in tag teams when The World Wrestling Federation staged the first WrestleMania on March 31, 1985 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

First broadcast in 1975 and 1979, Fawlty Towers is a BBC television sitcom that was written by John Cleese and his then-wife Connie Booth, both of whom also starred in the show and is set in Fawlty Towers, a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay, on the "English Riviera".

The Sisserou parrot is the national bird of Commonwealth of Dominica, an island nation in the Caribbean Sea.

In 1624, Jasper Vinall became the first man to be killed in the sport of Cricket in a match at Horsted Keynes, East Sussex. The fatality occurred when Vinall, a fielder, was struck on the head by the batsman who was trying to hit the ball a second time to avoid being caught.

The National Rhododendron Gardens are near the township of Olinda in the scenic Dandenong Ranges, Victoria, Australia.

On Dagen H, or H Day, Sunday September 3, 1967 at 5:00 am, Swedes switched from driving on the left to the right.

Following the death of Pope John Paul II in April 2005, some 40,000 Catholics gathered in front of the Bishop's Palace in Kraków for a night vigil and prayer.

Paraguay has on its 1842 adopted flag the national coats of arms on one side with the seal of its treasury on the reverse side.

Too Much Time On Their Hands

 

Someone out there
is deadly at Scrabble.
Wait till you see the last one!

DORMITORY:
When you rearrange the letters:
DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN:
When you rearrange the letters:
BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER:
When you rearrange the letters:
MOON STARER

DESPERATION:  

When you rearrange the letters:

A ROPE ENDS IT


THE EYES: 
When you rearrange the letters:
THEY SEE


GEORGE BUSH:
When you rearrange the letters:
HE BUGS GORE


THE MORSE CODE:
When you rearrange the letters:
HERE COME DOTS

 
SLOT MACHINES:
When you rearrange the letters:
CASH LOST IN ME

 
ANIMOSITY:
When you rearrange the letters:
IS NO AMITY

 
ELECTION RESULTS:
When you rearrange the letters:
LIES - LET'S RECOUNT


SNOOZE ALARMS:
When you rearrange the letters:
ALAS! NO MORE Z 'S

 
A DECIMAL POINT:
When you rearrange the letters:
I'M A DOT IN PLACE


THE EARTHQUAKES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THAT QUEER SHAKE


ELEVEN PLUS TWO:
When you rearrange the letters:
TWELVE PLUS ONE


AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE: 
MOTHER-IN-LAW:
When you rearrange the letters:
WOMAN HITLER


Yep! Someone with waaaaaaaaaaay
too much time on their hands!
 

Author Unknown

Source Email

Quotables 08 August

 

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Thursday, August 7, 2014

A Dustin Hoffman Moment

 

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Trivia Bits 07 August

 

Greenskeeper Willie

A Scottish immigrant, head groundskeeper at Springfield Elementary School, Groundskeeper Willie, voiced by Dan Castellaneta, a character on The Simpsons, coined the phrase cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

The Ten Years' War, which began in 1868, was the first attempt by Cuba to secure its independence from Spain as sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers proclaimed Cuba's independence from Spain.

If you have chiroptophobia you have a fear of Bats.

The Pascha greeting is an Easter custom amongst Orthodox Christians where one is to greet another person with "Christ is Risen!", and the response is "Truly, He is Risen".

The island city of Nojpetén was the capital of the last surviving Maya kingdom when the Spanish stormed it in 1697.

Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. Legends recount that Kupe discovered and explored the district in about the 10th century. European settlement began with the arrival of an advance party of the New Zealand Company on the ship Tory, on 20 September 1839, followed by 150 settlers on the Aurora on 22 January 1840. Wellington takes its name after Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), the first Duke of Wellington and victor of the Battle of Waterloo (1815).

Imperial Bedrooms is the sequel to Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis an American novelist, screenwriter, and short story writer.

Antananarivo is the capital of the island republic of Madagascar.

Amanita nivalis, a species of basidomycote fungus, is found growing in sub-Arctic and Alpine conditions in Europe, Greenland and the Rocky Mountains.

The expression in the family way simply means a pregnancy.

Quotables 07 August

 

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Wednesday, August 6, 2014

A Duke Ellington Moment

 

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Trivia Bits 06 August

 

 

Wrinkled Hornbills

Found in forests in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo, the female Wrinkled Hornbills build nests in tree-holes, plaster over the holes, trapping themselves inside for months.

The flying island called Laputa is featured in Jonathan Swift’s 1726 book Gulliver’s Travels.

Bordering Sudan to the west and Ethiopia to the south is the African country of Eritrea.

South Australia’s first commercial radio was 5CL a privately-owned radio station commenced on the airwaves of Adelaide on 14 January 1925. It was later bought and became part of the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) now known as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Mr Bad Guy and Barcelona are the two solo albums from British musician, singer, and songwriter Freddie Mercury.

Ivo Puhonny, a German graphic artist and puppeteer, created the Baden-Baden puppet theatre in 1911 in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and many of his marionettes are preserved in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.

The novel Rich Man, Poor Man was written by Irwin Shaw in 1969. The title is taken from the nursery rhyme "Tinker, Tailor".

English stage and screen actor and singer Edward Woodward from 1967 had the title role in the British television spy drama Callan, earning him the 1970 British Academy Television Award for Best Actor and later from 1985 Woodward starred as British ex-secret agent and vigilante Robert McCall in the American television series The Equalizer (1985-1989), earning him the 1986 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Drama Actor.

Brigadier Geoffrey Peren, the commanding officer of New Zealand Army's 4th Division for part of 1942 and 1943, was also the professor of agriculture at Massey University, New Zealand.

Many countries celebrate Arbor Day which is day when individuals and groups are encouraged to plant and care for trees.

Quotables 06 August

 

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Tuesday, August 5, 2014

A Drew Barrymore Moment

 

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Trivia Bits 05 August

 

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The two vertical stripes on the Portuguese flag are red and green and was adopted on June 30, 1911 with the colours representing the hope of the nation (green) and the blood (red) of those who died defending it

Australia’s highest peak is Mt McClintock being the highest mountain (3,492 m / 11,456 ft) in the Britannia Range in Australian Antarctic Territory, surmounting the south end of Forbes Ridge.

The liver of the monkfish is used to make Japanese ankimo with this food being on Seafood Watch's list of foods to avoid, due to unsustainable fishing practices.

Blue Heelers is an Australian police drama series which depicted the lives of police officers stationed at the fictional Mount Thomas police station in a small town in Victoria with Australian actors John Wood and Julie Nihill staying with the series for the entire total of 13 seasons with 510 episodes that started airing on 18 January 1994.

Australian author Norman Lindsay wrote the enchanting children’s book The Magic Pudding in 1918. He was also an artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeller, and an accomplished amateur boxer.

Charles Darwin called The Naturalist on the River Amazons, an 1863 book by the British naturalist Henry Walter Bates about his expedition to the Amazon Basin, "the best book of Natural History Travels ever published in England".

Climbing routes on Gibraltar Rock include Crime of Passion, Illusions of Grandeur, and Rooster Carnage.

It is true that chameleons can see light in the ultraviolet spectrum.

The Duchy of the Archipelago was an alliance of islands in the Aegean Sea organized after the Fourth Crusade in April 1204, the Crusaders of Western Europe invaded and sacked the Christian (Eastern Orthodox) city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire.

Although Australian engineer Norman Selfe's steel cantilever bridge design won the 1903 competition for a Sydney Harbour Bridge, it was never built.

Quotables 05 August

 

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Monday, August 4, 2014

A Douglas Fairbanks Jnr Moment

 

 

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Trivia Bits 04 August

 

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US jazz singer Billie Holiday was nicknamed Lady Day.

Three alleged miracles drew pilgrims to Kippinge Church in north-western Falster, Denmark at the end of the 19th century - the first miracle was the bleeding Sacrament in 1492; the second was a miraculous altarpiece depicting the Virgin Mary and the healing properties of its holy spring.

The Great Train Robbery of Thursday 8 August 1963, from a Royal Mail train heading between Glasgow and London, is the best-known example of the type of mail fraud known as "theft from the mails”.

Hugh Lee Pattinson, an English industrial chemist, took the first-ever photo of Niagara Falls in 1840.

The so-called Loughall Martyrs were a group of eight men from the Provisional IRA's East Tyrone Brigade who were ambushed and killed on May 8 1987 by the British special forces, the SAS.

Veal is the meat traditionally used for a wiener schnitzel which is a very thin, breaded and deep fried Schnitzel and is the national dish of Austria.

The Konopiště château (castle) about 50 km (30 mi) southeast of Prague, was the last residence of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, houses a large collection of antlers and also a shooting hall with moving targets.

Long running BBC TV producer Barrie Edgar produced the first television broadcast from a submarine.

The shallowest ocean is considered to be the Arctic Ocean with the deepest point being Litke Deep in the Eurasian Basin, at 5,450 m (17,880 ft).

Bucharest is the capital of the European country of Romania.

The small African republic that lies opposite Yemen where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden is Djibouti which occupies a total area of just 23,200 km2 (8,958 sq mi).

Quotables 04 August

 

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Sunday, August 3, 2014

A Douglas Fairbanks Moment

 

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Trivia Bits 03 August

 

In 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh was executed in England by King James I as an appeasement to the Spanish as some of his men ransacked a Spanish outpost during an ill-fated search for El Dorado.

Feline is to cat as equine is to horse.

On some Celtic imitations of the Kingdom of Macedonia's gold philippeioi, the chariot on the reverse side was replaced by a single horse sporting a humanoid head.

Ambloplites species, a genus of freshwater fish in the sunfish family, are native to a region extending from the Hudson Bay basin in Canada to the lower Mississippi River basin in the United States

Warsaw is the capital of Poland with the first fortified settlements on the site of today's Warsaw being Bródno (9th/10th century) and Jazdów (12th/13th century).

The first helicopter flight was in 1907 in Lisieux France when two French brothers, Jacques and Louis Breguet who sometime between 14 August and 29 September 1907, their Gyroplane No. 1 lifted its pilot into the air about two feet (0.6 m) for a minute.

Potato is commonly used to make gnocchi which is eaten as a first course (primo piatto), as an alternative to soups (minestre) or pasta.

Gilbert and Sullivan were writing partners of many operettas including The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Their first names were William and Arthur respectively.

If you were at 0o latitude and 0o longitude, you would be in the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean, about 380 miles (611 kilometers) south of Ghana and 670 miles (1078 km) west of Gabon.

The peasant Masetto is a character in Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni and is based on the legends of Don Juan. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga (now called the Estates Theatre) on October 29, 1787.

Hank Azaria provides the voices for Moe Szyslak and Chief Wiggum in The Simpsons.

Cornwall's cliff castles may have served principally as prestigious sites for religious ceremonies, trade and administration, and that their defensive capacity may have been a secondary function.

The 1814 historical novel Waverley was written by Sir Walter Scott and is often regarded as the first historical novel. It became so popular that Scott's later novels were advertised as being "by the author of Waverley" with his series of works on similar themes written during the same period have become collectively known as the "Waverley Novels".

Wollemi National Park is the second largest national park in New South Wales, Australia and is part of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.

Kevin Gosper is a famous Australian athlete who mainly competed in the 400 metres and was formerly a Vice President of the International Olympic Committee.

Canadian crime drama series with elements of comedy Due South starred Paul Gross and David Marciano and ran for 68 episodes over four seasons, from 1994 to 1999 and the show follows the Chicago adventures of Constable Benton Fraser (Paul Gross), an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), who is attached to the Canadian consulate but works with Detective Raymond Vecchio of the Chicago Police Department to solve crimes, assisted by Fraser's companion Diefenbaker, a deaf white wolfdog.

Queen Victoria said that Viscountess Amberley, the mother of the philosopher Bertrand Russell, "ought to get a good whipping" for speaking publicly in favour of women's suffrage.

Jehovah’s Witnesses sometimes refer to their Bible students as Millennial Dawnists.

In 1961, Zarzaitine was considered to be the largest oil field of the eastern Sahara, with primary reserves of 80 million tons.

A chicken’s egg shell is primarily c composed of calcium carbonate.

Quotables 03 August

 

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