Thursday, August 24, 2006

Wow, I can use the "fix" and six" rhyme for BH96 ... wait a minute ... nah



Oh mein gott! It's a fricking huge purple upside down cow head! The exclamation marks are out of control!!!! !

Yes, I am trying to get rid of the Edinburgh cameraphone pics while I am taking in my London stopover. Well, at least it's better than words, words and more useless word. Except for "cuspidor". James Joyce's favourite bon mot, apparently. Maybe, he liked the irony of it being a spit bucket. I dunno. I've never got page 20 of Ulysses.

Warning: This was written two days ago. Actually, I'm not sure if that needed a warning, but what the hey hey.

I had a mountain of newspapers and magazines hugging the western wall of my LA bedroom. I vowed to go through them in such a meticulous manner that my eyes would pop out Cohaagen-style and cull any vaguely interesting original questions that appeared in their pages and guess what? I did! Now I am knackered like a farm horse and am watching some hard-bitten Aussie cop drama and am about to recycle the said publications, but thanks be to Time magazine, The Times, The Guardian, The Observer and The Sunday Times for yielding the following questions. Thanks be indeed. (Except for the last encyclopedia-derived five: I tacked them on for reasons I am unsure about, though one of them may be excess)

(Another warning: there are lots of Marco Polo-related questions, all due to one of those issue-swallowing concept thingys that Time magazine pride itself on ... it may be the most esteemed news periodical in the world, but the effects of such esteem and the resultant peacock strut does go to its head sometimes and therefore does my head in too. Even if they always contain quite a few factual goodies)

1 The children of which former Fleetwood Mac member - Koa, Nat and their half-sister Tally or Talitha - have formed the rock band Jynxt?
2 Who wrote the huge study of depression, The Noonday Demon?
3 Which allegedly libelled baby-care expert and author of The Contented Little Baby is nicknamed "the Queen of Routine"?
4 Louis XIV took his nickname from a lavish golden costume he once wore while performing at court in what capacity?
5 Oscar-nominated for his portrayal of the coolie Po-han in 1966's The Sand Pebbles, which co-founder of the East West Players and so-called "godfather of the Asian-American theatre" died recently aged 72?
6 The wine Cheval Blanc comes from which wine region?
7 What is the official publication of China's ruling Communist Party?
8 Dictated while in jail in Genoa in 1298, what was the original name of Marco Polo's detailed and fanciful account - now known as The Travels of Marco Polo - of his journeys and years spent in the service of Mongol ruler Kublai Khan, said to be the first ever best-selling travelogue?
9 When imprisoned Marco Polo met and befriended which well-known writer and collector of Arthurian romances who collaborated on the above work?
10 Urumqi is the capital of which province in western China, which borders eight countries - Russia, Pakistan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, India, Afghanistan, - and is rumoured to be the remote testing ground for the nation's nuclear weapons and hosts the recently opened $700 million oil pipeline that has brought foreign oil into China (from Kazakhstan) for the first time directly?
11 On what slab in Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre is Jesus Christ supposed to have lain?
12 Ancestors of which family, still in charge of guarding the Holy Church of Sepuchre - officially "Custodian and Door-Keepers of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre" - were placed in charge of the holy shrine when the Caliph Omar captured Jerusalem in AD638?
13 In which Handel opera, with a libretto by Nicola Haym, is Cleopatra a major character?
14 As featured in the new book Rousseau's Dog: A Tale of Two Great Thinkers at War in the Age of Enlightenment, the French writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously quarrelled with which Scottish philosopher during the late 1760s?
15 Which future African king married the 23-year-old shipping company clerk Ruth Williams, whom he met when he was sent to London to study law by his uncle, the Regent of the Bangwato, in 1945?
16 Which Roman warned opium users in his work De medicina (30AD) that "dreams can be sweet; but the sweeter they are, the rougher tends to be the awakening"?
17 In 1853, against the advice of her physician, Queen Victoria used that "blessed chloroform" while giving birth to which of her sons?
18 In 1647 the parish church of St Mary the Virgin hosted what has been called "one of the greatest intellectual encounters in British constitutional history", and which were quashed by Oliver Cromwell. What area of London gave its name to these debates?
19 What is the Italian "tuber magnatum"?
20 Elphaba and Galinda are the two central characters in which musical, due to open in the West End in September?
21 What British literary award was established by Lucy Astor for the best second novel of the year; past recipients including Colm Toibin for The Heather Blazing (1993) and Amit Chaudhuri for Afternoon Raag (1994)?
23 The subject of a current Radio 1 remix competition, which US composer is known for such works as Music for 18 Musicians, which took two years to write, though it is structured around only 11 chords?
22 The composer Wolfgang Rihm began what work, meaning "cipher" in 1982 when aged 30, and which has since grown into a cycle composed of eight numbered pieces and two works - Bild and Nach-Schrift - that also bear the name as a generic title?
23 Known as "Hot Balls" among Catholic priests, which military dictator ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961 when he was assassinated in a military coup?
24 Which heroic governess, realising the heirs to the throne were being systematically killed by the royal physicians, barricaded herself and the two-year-old Duc d'Anjou in her apartments in order to save him from them, the Duc surviving to become Louis XV?
25 Which surgeon of Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn at "exactly 11.45pm" on June 29, 1966 attempted the first ever human heart transplant, but obviously failed to successfully carry operation?
26 First seen in the 2003 novel Dissolution and then in the follow-up books Dark Fire and Sovereign, the hunchbacked lawyer and Tudor-era detective Morgan Shardlake is the creation of which mystery writer?
27 Which Madrid institution, located at 17 Cuchilleros is according to the Guinness Book of Records the world's oldest restaurant?
28 Possibly originating as a Jewish Sabbath dish to which pork was later added by Jews seeking to avoid the Inquisition by showing they had become Christians, what celebrated Spanish stew and poor farmers' food combines chickpeas, potatoes and other vegetables with chicken, pork cuts and beef?
29 Gathering together 20,000 people from all over Britain, what major bird watching event took place for the 18th time at the end of August?
30 Born in Glasgow in 1929, which photographer moved to New York and was in the Hasselblad when Robert Kennedy was murdered and took the only portrait of Bobby Fischer in Rekjavik for the infamous Cold War match against Spassky and is most famous for his images of the Beatles, of the Fab Four having a pillow fight on hearing that I Wanna Hold Your Hand reached number one and of them being punched in a domino effect by Muhammad Ali?
31 Which American architect built Berlin's Holocaust memorial on top of Albert Speer's wartime bunker?
32 What was the name of the Czech monastery, the first new monastery built in eastern Europe for half a century, that was built by architect John Pawson in 2004?
33 In which German city did Zaha Hadid build her much-admired Science Centre in 2003?
34 Which pair of architects built the Prada shop in Tokyo that was completed in 2003?
35 Approved for a site at London Bridge, what nickname has been given to Renzo Piano's proposed tower that will be the tallest in Europe?
36 Made into a 1981 film starring Klaus Maria Brandauer by Hungarian director Istvan Szabo, what 1936 novel by Heinrich Mann indicted as a political and cultural traitor his one-time lover and brother-in-law, Gustaf Grundgens, one of the greatest figures of German theatre?
37 Who is the subject of The Pelican Portrait in which she wears a rose to represent her Englishness and a pelican pendant to symbolise her charity?
38 Found 102 years ago by sponge divers amid the wreckage of a cargo ship that sunk off the same-named tiny Greek island in 80BC, once-hidden inscriptions on which calcium-encrusted bronze contraption have shown it to be the world's oldest computer, once used to map the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets?
39 The Oscar-nominated Hubert Sauper documentary Darwin's Nightmare has been accused by the Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete of damaging his country's image and causing a slump in exports of the film's subject matter, a fast-growing and predatory fish that was introduced into Lake Victoria in the 1950s and has nearly wiped out several other fish species. What fish?
40 The true origins of which drug, first synthesised by the German pharmaceutical giant Merck in 1912 at Darmstadt and originally called methylsafrylamin, have recently been revealed? It was part of the company's efforts to develop a potentially life-saving medicine that would help blood to clot.
41 The son of Russian immigrants who arrived in New York without a word of English, which 78-year-old US photographer and husband of German film-maker and novelist Pia Frankenberg has just released his greatest hits collection Personal Best, among them his insider recording of the Camelot era and the 1959 "kitchen debate"picture of Nixon jabbing a finger into Khruschev's chest, and his 1974 dogs photo Felix, Gladys and Rover, while he also made the Texas cheerleaders documentary Beauty Knows No Pain for HBO during the 80s?
42 Which German-born leading artist of the Surrealist movement's most famous piece is a fur-covered sculpture of a cup and saucer now on display in New York's Museum of Modern Art?
43 Where does the government-backed militia known as the Kadyrovsty operate?
44 Inspired to take up his chosen instrument when he saw the Black Watch performing at JFK's funeral, which self-styled "world's first jazz bagpiper" and collaborator with Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane recently died?
45 What country mostly occupies the place known as the Kingdom of Pegu in the Middle Ages?
46 After a three-and-a-half year, 12,000 km journey, Marco Polo and his father and uncle finally reached the gilded, marble summer palace of Kublai Khan that was located where?
47 Singapore sits at the mouth of what piracy-stricken 900 km sea lane linking the Indian Ocean and the Pacific and flanked by Indonesia and Malaysia, through which some 50,000 ships pass every year, and which was designated a "war-risk zone" by Lloyd's of London last year?
48 The baju kebal was a magical vest that supposedly rendered which ruler - the last sultan of Siak - invulnerable to swords, bullets and other perils, who declared his loyalty to the newly independent Indonesia, but was distrusted and then rendered powerless due to his cooperation with the Dutch and the Japanese who occupied the country during WW2?
49 What name did the Romans give to China, from the Greek word for "silk"?
50 Called Kinsai by Marco Polo, what Chinese city calls itself "The Capital of Silk" and is known for its picturesque West Lake?
51 Which eastern city in the Ferghana Valley was the scene of a recent infamous massacre of up to 750 protesters by Uzbek security forces in its central square?
52 Bukhara is renowned for which magnificent 16th century blue-domed mosque?
53 Prosecuted under the now infamous Article 301 of the constitution for insulting Turkishness, which author's controversial novel The Bastard of Istanbul is to be released in English in January 2007?
54 By what name do we better know Sri Pada, which means "the Resplendent Foot"?
55 What in Hong Kong is a "daipaidong"?
56 Which travel writer wrote his first book, Xanadu: A Quest, after using a small grant from the Cambridge University history department to retrace Marco Polo's famous route?
57 Founded as a fortress in 1830, which city only became its country's capital in 1997 and is the site of The Oceanarium ("a seawater drop in the steppe"), the world's youngest opera company and the glass and concrete tower known as the "Baiterek" monument?
58 Which British architect has made modern additions to the newly opened Thermae Bath Spa?
59 Caol Ila and Laphroaig are two of the eight whisky distilleries on which island?
60 Located in the fishing town of Wick, what is mainland Scotland's northernmost distillery?
61 Who designed Milan's opera venue La Scala?
62 Into which two administrative districts is the Isle of Wight divided?
63 What nut is produced by the annual leguminous plant, Arachis hypogaea?
64 The German scientist Walther Flemming observed and described what biological process in 1882?
65 Which Dowager Empress became the sole ruler of China in 1884?

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Answers to BH96
1 Jeremy Spencer 2 Andrew Solomon 3 Gina Ford 4 The Sun King 5 Mako or Makoto Iwamatsu 6 Bordeaux 7 People's Daily 8 Description of the World 9 Rustichello of Pisa 10 Xinjiang 11 The Stone of Unction 12 The Nuseibehs 13 Giulio Cesare 14 David Hume 15 Seretse Khama, king of Bechuanaland, later Botswana 16 Aurelius Cornelius Celsus 17 Prince Leopold 18 Putney as in the Putney debates 19 Type of expensive truffle 20 Wicked 21 The Encore 22 Steve Reich 22 Chiffre 23 Rafael Trujillo 24 Duchesse de Ventadour 25 Adrian Kantrowitz 26 CJ Sansom 27 Sabrino de Botin 28 Cocido Madrileno 29 British Birdwatching Fair in Rutland 30 Harry Benson 31 Peter Eisenman 32 Novy Dvur 33 Wolfsburg 34 Herzog and de Meuron 35 Shard of Glass 36 Mephisto 37 Elizabeth I 38 The Antikythera mechanism 39 Nile perch 40 MDMA or Ecstasy 41 Elliott Erwitt 42 Meret Oppenheim 43 Chechyna 44 Rufus Harley 45 Myanmar 46 Shangdu 47 Malacca Strait 48 Syarif Kasim II 49 Seres 50 Hangzhou 51 Andijan 52 Kalyan 53 Elif Shafak 54 Adam's Peak 55 Fast food stall 56 William Dalrymple 57 Astana (Kazakhstan) 58 Sir Nicholas Grimshaw 59 Islay 60 Old Pulteney 61 Giuseppe Piermarini 62 South Wight/Medina 63 Peanut 64 Cell division 65 Cixi

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