BH115: Rough as Shanty Town Houses

Fulfilling Jesse's expectations of my dissolute blogging self
I feel rough. I am living in a world of perpetual twilight pockmarked by thousands of quiz questions, mostly to do with Arabic mathematicians, African empires and Russian painters. Yes, it's revision time for the Worlds. Hooray ... not. I do wonder if I am learning anything, or if my brain is too Swiss cheesed to be of any use. It's mostly to do with my irregular periods of shut-eye. These sleep problems stemmed from a timely internet failure and a pertinent work deadline early Tuesday morning, which forced me to decamp to a KX cyber-cafe, having waited bloomin' hours for my connection to come back (it didn't by 5.30am; I paid £6.50 ... grrrr). Ever since I have been catching up (Xmas ATP 2005 being one very bad, sleep deprived example). I feel like my mind is coated with some kind of nasty fur. Fan-bloody-tastic.

Buy it! I order you!
Part of my revision has been to put my finishing touches to the next 505-question e-mail quiz. It has been sent out to and returned by Pat Gibson and Ken Jennings, and now I am waiting on one other party, assuming he's actually got it. The putting together of a new World knowledge based quiz has been long in the making and pernickety proof-reading and swapping (token African recording artist! Check! Roman battle! Check! And so on!). I believe only about 150 questions have survived from the original. I also believe that it is a darn sight harder than the last, which is good since you'll be getting original questions you might be glad to learn for the first time, and very bad, because it might put off future participants. Oh well. All I can say is: love the questions you have never seen before. Please love them.

And it now has a predictable name: Tis The Behemoth.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. (Or you could always just answer the questions. Up to you, really).

TeeVee
And that People's Quiz thing; it's a bit of an afterthought at the moment. I did look at the 21st century UK number ones on Everyhit, but after about five minutes realised I was actually, positively dying from extreme boredom. Haven't done any buzzer practice either. Though I'm sure I will. Once I start sleeping at normal times and eating properly (I am subscribing rather too well to the chocolate, toast, pasta and Chinese takeaways diet ... the fresh fruit and vegetables are nothing to me at the moment). I also have to excuse any future rubbish quotes I will come out with, with regards to TPQ Grand Final show. Anything that paints me as the mega-favourite with enough arrogance perhaps to even vaguely overshadow Mark's utterances was forced out of my mouth by the TV people. I swear. I'm a nice, modest boy really, with no aspirations to world domination - either political or the trivia kind.

Still, whenever I do feel rough at the moment, which is permanently, I turn to this music video from The Format. It makes me smile, if only momentarily. Look at all those cute kids singing about adult dating rituals in a possibly subversive way ... awwww.

Here: Quiz one off
1 Who was inspired to compose The Cat's Fugue by his pet Pulcinella?
2 The man who scored One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, who composed the track The Last Race for Quentin Tarantino's latest film Death Proof?
3 An article in the right-wing Polish magazine Ozon by historian Bogdan Musial has alleged that which eminent Polish sociologist, author of almost 50 books including Modernity and the Holocaust (1989) and the soon to be published Consuming Life, was for a while in the pay of the Polish secret service and participated in the political cleansing of the incumbent regime's opponents?
4 Which 25-year-old won the 1836 architectural competition to design Liverpool's St George's Hall, its Great Hall being modelled on the Baths of Caracalla in Rome?
5 The "micro-rover" on NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission was named after which US abolitionist (1797-1883)?
6 Since 1981, which Foundation has handed out "Fellowships" or individual prizes of $500,000 to between 20-40 US residents working in any field and doing innovative work, something that has led to them being labelled "genius grants"; the youngest winner being 21-year-old British mathematician Stephen Wolfram?
7 According to legend, the mythical ancestor of the Premyslid dynasty, Libuse, founded which city during the 8th century?
8 Based on episodes of Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata/Jerusalem Delivered and first performed in Her Majesty's Theatre in Haymarket on February 24, 1711, which opera about a Christian knight was the first opera Handel produced for London and the first Italian opera composed specifically for the London stage?
9 Originating in West Africa, what sort of musical instrument is a "Djembe"?
10 The lysergic acid from which LSD is synthesised is itself derived from which grain fungus in the genus Claviceps that typically grows on rye?
11 On May 1, 1956, a doctor in Japan reported an "epidemic of an unknown disease of the central nervous system" marking the official discovery of which neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning?
12 Which UNESCO World Heritage site - the first ever natural site to be given that status in Russia on its recognition in 1995 - is located in the Northern Ural mountains is at 32,800km2, the largest virgin forest in Europe?
13 With a libretto by Rudolf Schanzer and Ernst Welisch, which Austrian composed the music to the three-act operetta Madame Pompadour that opened at the Berliner Theatre in Berlin on September 9, 1922?
14 Bogota is officially named Bogota DC. What do the letters DC stand for when translated into English?
15 Which low-paid "wool carders" revolted against the rule of the Guelphs in Florence in 1378?
16 On which river is the Spanish city of Valencia situated?
17 Mujos and Pazari are the two oldest neighbourhoods, located between the geographical centre and Elbanasi Street on either side of the Lana River, in which capital city?
18 What two-word term describes the longest phase in a star's lifetime?
19 From the Persian for "chief", what is the hereditary ruler of the Marathas called?
20 Often drunk and disillusioned, Lieutenant Mario Conde is the hero of Havana Blue, the recently published third instalment (in the UK) in whose Havana Quartet?
21 Named from their idealized scenes of an eponymous river valley, which American art movement dedicated to landscape painting arose in c.1825 and included among its group Thomas Cole, Frederick E. Church and Asher B. Durand?
22 Park Dong-jin is seen as the leading voice of which traditional Korean method of storytelling through music, performed by one kwangdae (singer) and one gosu (drummer), and deriving its name from the words for "a place where many people gather" and "sound"?
23 Which Augsburg-born composer, music teacher and violinist published A Treatise on the Fundamental Principles of Violin Playing/Versuch einer grundlichen Violinschule, in 1756?
24 Which pontiff commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel in 1534?
25 Whose fourth place in the Indy 500 two years ago is considered the best result by a women in all forms of motor racing?
26 What is the sci-fi-sounding name of Norewegian R&B pop producer duo, Mikkel S. Erikesen and Tor Erik Hermansen, who have had a hand in such hits as Beyonce's Irreplaceable, Rihanna's Unfaithful and Ne-Yo's So Sick?
27 The artist and founder of Die Brucke, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, lived in which Swiss town from 1917-38, now home to a museum which holds the world's largest collection of his work and is designed by Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer from Zurich?
28 Which Austrian supermarket chain, which claims to be "the seriously sexy supermarket", has had each of its 130 stores designed by up and coming architects and are each fast becoming tourist attractions?
29 Born in Mendrisio in Switzerland in 1943, who rebuilt the 17th century chapel - Church of St John the Baptist - in the Swiss village of Mogno after it was destroyed by an avalanche, and has also designed Tour de Moron in the Jura and Santa Maria degli Angeli on Mount Tamaro, near Lugano, as well as Evry Cathedral in France, the Cymbalista Synagogue in Tel Aviv and the Santo Volta Church in Turin?
30 Which Canadian publisher has agreed to buy Reuters for £8.7 billion, thus creating the world's biggest financial news and data group?
31 Which country won the 2007 IIHF World Championship after a 4-2 win over Finland in the gold medal game in Moscow?
32 Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta has won which country's presidential election after defeating Francisco Guterres of Fretilin by 69 per cent to 31 per cent?
33 Which French Elle editor wrote using the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly/Le scaphandre et le papillon using his left eyelid about his suffering a massive stroke and subsequent "locked-in" syndrome?
34 The chickens of which eastern area of France, located in the Rhone-Alpes region between Bourgogne and Jura, (formerly ranging free), were the first animals to have an Appellation d'Origine Controlee, the are being noted for the 1.2 million chickens per year it raises primarily outdoors by 330 stockbreeders with a minimum of 10 square metres per bird?
35 Affiliated since last year to al-Qaeda, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat is based in which country?
36 Which small town in the French department of Haute-Vienne was destroyed by soldiers of the Der Fuhrer Regiment of the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich, who killed a total of 642 men, women and children, on June 10, 1944?
37 Named after a Danish ecologist, the Raunkier System is used to classify what?
38 During which conflict was Archimedes killed during the sack of Syracuse in 212 BC?
39 Vinson Massif, the highest mountain of Antarctica, stands in the Sentinel Range of which mountains?
40 Who directed the 1946 Rita Hayworth film Gilda?
41 Home to the hill El Panecillo and the Parque Metropolitano (the largest urban park in the continent), which capital could lay claim to be the oldest in South America and was officially founded by 204 settlers led by Sebastian de Benalcazar, who captured the Inca war general Ruminahui and effectively ended any organised resistance?
42 Which printmaking method was invented by the German professional soldier Ludwig van Siegen (1609-c.1680), the earliest print dating back to 1642 and portraying Elizabeth, Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel?
43 Bought by Robert P McCulloch for $2.46 million, what is said to be the largest antique ever sold?
44 Founded as Hatsudoki Seizo Co. Ltd. in 1907, which Japanese car company takes its name from the first kanji for Osaka and the first word of "engine manufacture"?
45 Which deceased cartoon character has the real name Jerome McElroy Jr.?
46 Founded in 1876 and having its HQ at Indianapolis, which global pharmaceutical company invented Prozac?
47 Which Pole won the gold in the women's 100m at the 1932 Summer Olympics, and the silver medal in the event four years later, though it was discovered after her death in 1980 that she was intersex and therefore ineligible to participate?
48 Starring Norah Jones and Natalie Portman, My Blueberry Nights is a road movie directed by which Asian filmmaker?
49 One of the Three Jewels to which Buddhists give themselves and, in return look toward for guidance in a process known as "taking refuge", what term describes "The Community" of those great people who have attained enlightenment?
50 In office since 1998 (though he was acting commissioner from 1992 to 1998), who is Commissioner of Baseball for Major League Baseball?

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Answers to BH115
1 Domenico Scarlatti 2 Jack Nitzsche 3 Zygmunt Bauman 4 Harvey Lonsdale Elmes 5 Sojourner Truth 6 MacArthur Foundation 7 Prague 8 Rinaldo 9 Drum 10 Ergot 11 Minamata disease (also called Chisso-Minamata disease) 12 Virgin Komi Forests 13 Leo Fall 14 Distrito Capital 15 Ciompi 16 River Turia 17 Tirana 18 Main sequence 19 Peshwa 20 Leonardo Padura 21 Hudson River School 22 Pansori 23 Leopold Mozart 24 Clement VII 25 Danica Patrick 26 Stargate 27 Davos 28 Mpreis Supermarket 29 Mario Botta 30 The Thomson Corporation 31 Team Canada 32 East Timor 33 Jean-Dominique Bauby 34 Bresse 35 Algeria 36 Oradour-sur-Glane 37 Plants 38 Second Punic War 39 Ellsworth Mountains 40 Charles Vidor 41 Quito 42 Mezzotint 43 London Bridge 44 Daihatsu 45 Chef from South Park 46 Eli Lilly and Company 47 Stanislawa Walasiewicz 48 Wong Kar Wai 49 Sangha 50 Bud Selig