Saturday, September 5, 2015

Trivia Bits 05 September

 

Effie M.Morrissey 

Newfoundland navigator and Arctic explorer Capt. Robert Bartlett skippered the schooner Effie M. Morrissey (pictured with Bartlett and crew) to the Arctic 20 times between 1925 to 1945 in the name of science and research.

Pam Ahern started the animal sanctuary Edgar’s Mission in 2003 and is set on 60 acres in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range at Willowmavin, Kilmore, in the state of Victoria, Australia.

In the game of basketball, a field goal scores three points for the shooting team if the player shoots from behind the three-point line, and two points if shot from in front of the line.

Guy Fawkes attempted attack on the English Parliament and the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in what would be seen nowadays as a terrorist act is commemorated each year in England on the evening of 5th November.

The character Colonel Mustard, a great white hunter and colonial imperialist, is closely associated with the board game Cluedo which was not officially launched in 1949.

Connecting the Atlantic Ocean, via the Caribbean Sea, to the Pacific Ocean, the Panama Canal was opened on August 15, 1914.

Anna Gunn is best known for her role as Skyler White in the American crime drama television series Breaking Bad which ran from 2008 to 2013 with the title being from a Southern colloquialism meaning to raise hell.

In French, a billet-doux is a love letter, whether delivered by hand, mail, carrier pigeon, or romantically left in a secret location, a romantic way to express feelings of love in written form.

Based on the play written by Australian writer Louis Nowra, Radiance is a 1998 Australian independent film, the first feature film by Aboriginal director Rachel Perkins, about three indigenous sisters who reunite for their mother's funeral.

The world’s first subway system was built in London known as the London Underground, it was first opened as an underground railway in 1863 and its first electrified underground line opened in 1890.

Quotables 05 September

 

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Friday, September 4, 2015

Trivia Bits 04 September

 

Charlottes Web cover 1952

In the 1952 children's novel Charlotte’s Web (original cover pictured) by E B White, Wibur is a pig who is a rambunctious pig, the runt of his litter and is often strongly emotional.

Common through much of Europe and parts of North Africa, Saint Anthony's nut, popular with pigs as well as humans, is named for Anthony of Padua, patron saint of swineherds.

Playing Mrs Robinson in the 1967 American comedy-drama film The Graduate was Anne Brancroft who played opposite Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, a recent college graduate with no well-defined aim in life.

In 1997, United States Supreme Court case Clinton v. Jones established that a President of the United States was not exempt from being sued by private citizens in civil lawsuits for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the office.

After joining a troupe of strolling players in Cambridge in 1667, Joseph Haines became a well-known London song-and-dance man, comedian, and eccentric in the 17th century.

Turkey began to roast and grind the coffee bean in the 13th Century, and some 300 years later the country had become the chief distributor of coffee, with markets established in Egypt, Syria, Persia, and Venice, Italy.

St Mary of the Cross McKillop was born in the Australian city of Melbourne, was canonised on 17 October 2010, during a public ceremony in St Peter's Square at the Vatican and is the first Australian to be recognised by the Catholic Church as a saint.

The term Goofy foot or Goofy footer is given to a person who surfs or skateboards with their right foot forward and has no negative connotation as Professionals seem to be evenly distributed between the stances.

The call of the Red-necked Avocet, also known as the Australian avocet, has been likened to a dog barking.

Officially adopted on 17 January 1972, the flag of Bangladesh is green with a central red disc with the red disc representing the sun rising over Bengal, and also the blood of those who died for the independence of Bangladesh, with the green field standing for the lushness of the land of Bangladesh.

Quotables 04 September

 

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Thursday, September 3, 2015

Trivia Bits 03 September

 

Puyi 

The Last Emperor of China was Puyi (pictured) who ruled as the Xuantong Emperor from 1908 until his abdication on 12 February 1912, after the successful Xinhai Revolution and from 1 to 12 July 1917, he was briefly restored to the throne as a nominal emperor by the warlord Zhang Xun.

The Introit, from Latin - introitus, entrance, is part of the opening of the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations and in the Roman Catholic Mass in the Carmelite Rite is called the Officium.

Any ordeal or a soldier’s first battle is often referred to as baptism of fire with the military concept mentioned in the title song of the 1985 Dire Straits album Brothers in Arms, Through these fields of destruction, baptisms of fire.

American television and film producer, director and writer Chris Carter spent 13 years working for Surfing Magazine before creating The X-Files and Millennium.

The nape is at the back of the neck.

Yelverton Paperweight Centre, in Leg O'Mutton a small hamlet near Yelverton, in the English county of Devon, has over 1000 paperweights having its origins in the private collection of a Cornish postmaster, Bernard Broughton, the postmaster of St Tudy in Cornwall.

Tulaghi was the capital of the Pacific Island country of the Solomon Islands between 1896 and 1942 with the capital of what is now the state of Solomon Islands moving to Honiara, Guadalcanal after World War II.

The 1470 Korean Honil Gangni Yeokdae Gukdo Ji Do - Map of Integrated Lands and Regions of Historical Countries and Capitals - often abbreviated as the Kangnido map fully depicts the Old World, from Europe and Africa to Japan, long before European explorations.

In Swan Lake, a ballet by Tchaikovsky, the main character, Odette, a princess, is turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer’s curse and the ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on 4 March   1877 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

Ice cream is the main ingredient in the German spaghettieis which is a German ice cream made to look like a plate of spaghetti and was created by Dario Fontanella in the late 1960s in Mannheim, Germany.

Quotables 03 September

 

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Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Trivia Bits 02 September

 

Slim Dusty

The first musician to be named Senior Australian of the Year in 1999 was Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer Slim Dusty (pictured) who was also first Australian to have an international record hit with his 1957 song A Pub with No Beer.

Prince Tuesday and Prince Wednesday are characters from the American-Canadian animated children's television series Daniel Tiger’s Neighbourhood which debuted on September 3, 2012 and was designed for preschool-aged children.

The closest Queensland city to the popular Australian tourist destination Magnetic Island is Townsville, is a haven for wildlife as 54% of the island is Magnetic Island National Park, which is mostly located on the steep hilly interior and rugged north-western side and is famous for its angling opportunities.

Launched on 16 May 1850, the French Navy's 90 gun ship Le Napoléon was the first steam battleship in history carrying 3 months supply of food and 9 days supply of coal if travelling at full-speed of 12.1 knots.

Devastating Vanuatu in March 2015 was Cyclone Pam with a total of 15 – 16 people losing their lives either directly or indirectly as a result of Pam with many others injured.

The Auschwitz concentration camp, now an UNESCO World Heritage Site, is in Poland with World War II prisoners remaining at the camp were liberated on January 27, 1945, a day now commemorated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Éamon de Valera was sentenced to imprisonment after the Easter Rising on 24 April 1916, was a leader of Ireland's struggle for independence from the United Kingdom in the War of Independence and of the anti-Treaty opposition in the ensuing Irish Civil War (1922–1923) began but went onto become Prime Minister and President of Ireland.

The coldest place on earth is Vostok Station in Antarctica where it reached minus 128.6F/minus 89.2C on 21 July 1983.

Leonarto, as the governor of Messina in Shakespeare’s play written about 1598 Much Ado About Nothing, offers hospitality to the powerful Don Pedro and his followers.

Cosby is an American situation comedy television series broadcast from September 1996 to April 2000, loosely based on the British sitcom One Foot in the Grave and stars Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashād.

Quotables 02 September

 

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Trivia Bits 01 September

 

 Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp

The autopsy depicted in Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (pictured) , an oil painting by Rembrandt, was a real event which took place on 16 January 1632.

Nihil, from Latin means nothing with Nihilism being a philosophical doctrine most commonly presented in the form of existential nihilism, which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value.

Situated at the Willkanuta River in the Sacred Valley, the Peruvian village Písac derives its name from a ruined Incan citadel which represents the wing of a partridge.

An immigrant from a strange foreign land, often speaking in his foreign tongue (actually composed of gibberish, often using invented phrases such as "ibi da" or "nik nik"), but when speaking English he speaks with a very heavy accent, working as a mechanic, fixing the taxis, Latka Gravas was played by Andy Kaufman on the sitcom Taxi, American sitcom that originally aired from 1978 to 1982 on ABC and from 1982 to 1983 on NBC.

Linguistically a hyponym is the semantic relation in which one word is the hypernym of another as in chair to furniture, cherry to red and apricot to fruit.

When referring to mining company BHP-Biliton, the acronym BHP stands for Broken Hill Proprietary which was incorporated in 1885, operating the silver and lead mine at Broken Hill in western New South Wales, Australia and in 2001, BHP merged with the Billiton mining company to form BHP Billiton.

In his poem Dushenka, the 18th-century Ukrainian-born poet Ippolit Bogdanovich changed the setting of Apuleius's story about Cupid and Psyche to a contemporary Russian village.

The famous mathematician and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the centre of the universe with the publication of this model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) just before his death in 1543.

Though human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than man.

The Sargasso Sea is a region in the gyre in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean and is the only sea on Earth which has no coastline with the ocean water in the Sargasso Sea is distinctive for its deep blue colour and exceptional clarity, with underwater visibility of up to 200 feet (61 m).

Quotables 01 September

 

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Movie Review ... The Transporter Refuelled

 

THE TRANSPORTER REFUELLED posterSeven years after its last cinematic outing, ‘The Transporter’ series returns to screens.  Initially a vehicle to show off the physical talents of star Jason Statham, it morphed into an enjoyably silly action trilogy.  ‘The Transporter Refuelled’ re-boots the franchise with new action and new stars.  Ed Skrein replaces Statham but still shows the same gift for battling wicked villains amidst glamorous surrounds.

After a lifetime of transporting shady packages for dodgy customers, former mercenary Frank (Ed Skrein) enjoys retirement. Spending time with his father, Frank Snr (Ray Stevenson), Frank revels in the quiet time.  Unfortunately his idyll is interrupted by the mysterious Anna (Loan Chabanol).  Anna is a lady of sinister disposition who employs Frank to join her in a daring bank heist.  Quickly discovering that the plan is more than it seems, Frank battles an armada of baddies and seeks vengeance as only he can.

‘The Transporter Refuelled’ is one of those movies you can’t take seriously.  A ridiculously outrageous romp, it delivers on its promise.  Slightly steering the franchise towards a more realistic sheen, director Camille Delamarre does an admirable job.  Aided by Skrein’s energetic performance, Frank is a street-wise hero determined to use his wits to untangle himself out of bad situations.  Bringing a dangerous edge to the fight scenes, you can feel Frank’s determination to overcome obstacles and the zeal he has in defeating his enemies.

The series isn’t known for its in-depth characterisation and ‘The Transporter Refuelled’ follows suit.   It isn’t a total hollow vessel with enough character moments to maintain interest in between explosions.  The action is what everyone wants and there are plenty.  From car, boat and plane chases, the vehicle destruction runs high.  All are expertly photographed with the vistas of the French Riviera used to maximum effect.  The locales add a glossy, James Bond-feel with the pacing never running out of steam.

Whilst not the most mind-blowing action movie made, ‘The Transporter Refuelled’ fulfils its purpose.  Re-starting the series with ease and full of the elements making for diverting viewing, it’s an agreeable entry in a furiously thunderous series.

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Movie Review Rating out of 10:  6

Movie Review by Patrick Moore

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