BH116: Back to Business of Sorts
Escape to LA
I went home - down LA way - to do some work (work you may very well appreciate in the future) in a smoky, well-fed environment where the internet was but a dream and I had my much-missed double bed on which I created imaginary snow angels, whilst regularly checking in on my dad and helping him out by keeping a constant supply of cups of tea, Dairy Milk and Richmond Super Kings piped into his room.
Monday Mong-Out
I seem to have accidentally watched The Swarm. It just materialised before me and there was nothing I could do. The last time I saw it was in 1986. Being a wee laddie, it terrified me and thus imbued every lovely little honey-maker with an aura of homicidal menace. Yeah, this time round I expected it to be absolutely pants and yes, it was as past-it pants as that acquitted judge's black Calvin Klein Y-fronts. One very amusing thing was seeing and hearing people die in screaming agony over the radio and other audio communication devices: "Oh my god! There are loads of bees! AAARRGHHH! OORRHH!" That so funny. It really was.
I must admit, however: Michael Caine is a top ho diamond geezer for being so horrendously dismal but still somehow keeping himself rigid with admirable sincerity and throwing up the illusion of unnerving self-belief in the utter cack that kept shooting from his mouth. Shrieking lines about how the bees, oh so ironically, are turning from fluffy friends making good on a thriving, thousands of years old cottage industry into an airborne army of inescapable killing machines, (when the General guy played by Richard Widmark, who had the first name "Thalius" for some odd reason ... maybe he was named after an ancient prophylactic or something, kept on calling the apiarimenace "Africans" all the time, I have to say it did sound like some sort of racist code). All absolutely hilarious. And then Mr Micklewhite piling po-faced declarations upon poo-filled exclamation s: e.g. "Who would have thought that bees would form the first alien force to invade America?" , thus making him sound as if he had found a realm of divine idiocy beyond the place marked highly retarded. Hey. Wait a sec. Didn't the Japanese invade the Aleutian Islands during World War Two? Call yourself an entomologist.
For the love of Zeus, THEY ARE BEES. Flamethrower them or something ... oh wait they just did. Hide in a garbage can. Go scuba diving. Turn a boat upside down and lie in the shallow bit of a lake or similar water source. They're freaking bees. Bees. BEES! Perhaps, wasps and hornets, despite their being considerably harder, larger and kick-ass, were considered too obscure a presence in the insect world to warrant a starring role for US audiences. You realised that the morons who put this filmic disaster on the screen were constantly trying to turn benevolent and beautiful and familiar bees, a giant family of good neighbours we love so much, into marauding invaders hellbent on destroying the American way of life, or simply, every American's life, with giant, blown-up close-ups; the disconnect and heinous change in behaviour hopefully making them it that bit more scarier. No surprise the film goons failed. The fools. But, at least, they failed with an ineptitude that has made The Swarm a real rubbish classic.
Skip to the end: then there was the diabolical ending. It quite literally ends with the pathetic puff of a white smoky fart. Why didn't they all explode a la Jaws for some inexplicable reason? It might have looked cool.
Another flashback line: "The bees have broken inside" What cunning little bastards. You can't trust indie bands from the Isle of Wight.
Finally, that illustrious cast list. Caine, starting out on his super-whore phase which would culminate in the dreadlocked disastro that was Jaws IV: The Revenge; Richard Widmark, the guy who played Tommy Udo and Madigan falling hard on his face in every scene, and dear Henry Fonda, who should have died of shame from just reading the first few pages of script, let alone actually agree to act in the thing. Hank, don't you remember playing Frank, the blue-eyed child killer from Once Upon a Time in the West a few years before? You tragic, giant whore. If I didn't love My Darling Clementine with an uncommon kind of adoration, I would burn an effigy of you crafted from Tetra pak cartons, cigarette boxes and plughole hair rings right now.
And relax.
Why do they cancel the best TV shows so young?
Because they're idiots. No vision, zero ... zero absolutely bloody everything. Thank the sky gods then that the shows they cut down in the prime of their lives, or at least when the programme displays promise of delivering slices of TV heaven in the future, are so easy to view on the internet. Devious and deviant uploaders of such heavyweights as Lost and The Sopranos play a kind of cat and mouse game with the copyright sentinels, and so the chances of watching them are scanty and unpredictable. But shows that notched up viewing figures that didn't so much go through the roof as crash through the floor into the abyss of cancellation are practically untouched because those pathetic TV people think the chance to make even one red cent out of such flops has long since been pissed in the wind.
One fine example is the completely bloody goddamn brilliant college sitcom Undeclared. Laughter being the perfect tonic for that thing what happened the other week, I steamed through every episode of this freshmen arrive on campus and do comedic things in a naturalistic manner in no time at all, and found that I loved it even more than creator Judd Apatow's previous serio-comedy, the now cult-in-extremis Freaks and Geeks.
Of course, it was killed after 17 episodes because the American prime time viewer cannot relate to the collegiate experience (or can't be bothered to), even when it is funny, subtle, genius, touching and a whole load of other thoroughly deserved superlatives. You can blame the Fox network too. They simply didn't know what to do with it and treated it like an spray of unsightly pigeon turd spatters on their Perry Ellis suits.
Apatow is now making it big in the real cinema world with R-rated movies about aging virgins and accidental pregnancies, but you can see the same embryonic signs of edgy, honest humour take shape before their blooming in a torrent of joyous Anglo-Saxon swearing and high-lariously lewd high-jinx in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up (also starring Undeclared cast members Seth Rogen and Jason Segel). Apatow's acting ensembles always say things you say, or want to, if you had a decent scriptwriter controlling your dialogue.
If I wrote student sitcoms Undeclared is what it would sound and look like. More or less. Only in Britain we wouldn't have to tone down the naughtiness factor, thereby ensuring flashes of actual humping, stuffing the protagonists with drug cocktails and substituting such phrases as "cock block" for "crotch block" if anyone deigned to do a university sitcom here (fat chance, if truth be told).
The whole show is pitched so perfectly that even if you went to university on the lump of rainy rock we call the land of Britain rather than across the ocean you will recognise, with no little horror or shame, the same icky and sticky situations that kids suddenly finding themselves far from home for the first time get into. In my most pertinent case, it was the Freshman fifteen". I have only just recovered.
Want more encouragement? It even has cameo-ing Ben Stiller donning a mullet-and-moustache combo that makes his White Goodman hairdo look like the epitome of respectable sobriety, and dispensing comforting advice along the lines of: "Nothing feels better than the love of someone ... like your mother. Except ecstasy. Do you want to do some ecstasy?" And there's a fantastic turn from Will Ferrell that frankly chilled me to the bone with its suggestions of a future already foretold.
Now I order you to watch it. It's on tv-links. Go!
(Don't worry, I will revisit the subject of quiz in good time. Once the aching pain has faded and the scar tissue finally smothered the deep, deep psychological wounds ... I'm joking! Natch)
Let me hit you with some knowledge: QUIZZZZZZZ
1 Who became the last person to defeat Rocky Marciano in a boxing ring when he defeated him as an amateur in March 1948?
2 Which Lumiere brothers single 50-second shot of a train coming into a station famously caused early cinemagoers to flee in fear of being crushed by the "incoming" vehicle?
3 Described as "Bosnia's Billie Holiday", which singer with the surname Medunjanin revived the sevdah, the ancient lyric ballad of Bosnia and recently released her debut album, Rosa?
4 The fourth brightest in the night sky, Arcturus is the brightest star in which constellation?
5 Which architect and avant-garde artist is carrying out a modern design makeover of the Swiss resort of Zermatt, with the Vernissage (a cinema/gallery/nightclub), the View House (a four-apartment building) and a hotel named the Omnia, while he is also planning to build a 117m steel-and-glass pyramid on top of 3883m-tall Klein Matterhorn?
6 Who became the first Chinese champion at a major marathon when she won in London in 2007?
7 Which French author wrote the original screenplay for the 1961 Alain Resnais film Last Year in Marienbad/L'Annee derniere a Marienbad?
8 Usually displayed in temples or carried in processions, what name is given to the painted banners seen in Tibetan art?
9 What sport was first played in England in 1895 at Madame Osterburg's College?
10 Which Swedish athlete won the men's high jump at the 2004 Olympics?
11 Each fitted with a reed made from reed/arundo donax, bamboo or elder, which bagpipes from the Balkans has stocks into which the chanters and blowpipe and drone fit are called "glavini" in Bulgaria and can be made out of Cornel wood or animal horn, while the melody chanter is called the gaidunitza?
12 Also called Zante, what is the southernmost of the core Ionian islands?
13 What did the MotoGP class replace in 2002?
14 Teodoro Obiang Nguema is the dictator/leader of which country?
15 Don Francisco de Cordoba founded Nicaragua's second city. What is it called?
16 The Grand Ole Opry show started broadcasting from which Nashville venue after 1943?
17 In geology, what does the K-T in the K-T boundary stand for?
18 Which colours give their name to the two species of the fish mullet?
19 Which New Zealand speedway star won the world individual title a record six times between 1968 and 1979?
20 Which German (1870-1938) sculpted the Moeller-Jarke Tomb (1901) and Have Pity! (1919)?
21 What term describes the beating or stamping of a foot during fencing?
22 Who was the first of tennis's "Four Musketeers" to win the Wimbledon Men's singles title?
23 The name Lyceum, as in the garden at Athens in which Aristotle taught, is derived from the word Lukeios, meaning "wolfslayer", which is an epithet of which god?
24 Which Russian skater won six world championships (1973-8) and Olympic golds in 1976 and 1980 with her partner Aleksandr Zaitsev, whom she married in 1975?
25 Settled by Slavs from Poland, which European capital city has a name meaning "beloved"?
26 Cambodia was part of which Hindu-Buddhist kingdom during the 1st century AD that was centred on the Mekong delta region?
27 Okinawa is the largest in which chain of volcanic islands?
28 Commandant of Saragossa under Charles V, Juan de Padilla was a principal leader of which 1520 rebellion against intolerable taxation which saw him defeated at the Battle of Villalar in 1521 and resulted in his beheading?
29 Where did the Duke of Marlborough claim his third great victory in 1708?
30 Which Roman-born missionary converted the Northumbrians in 625 and became the first Archbishop of York?
31 Inhabited by the Bedouin, which desert region of Saudi Arabia includes Riyadh?
32 Which South African province has a name meaning "Place of Gold" in Sotho?
33 Puck, Cordelia and Ophelia are moons in orbit around which planet?
34 In which month is the Geminids meteor shower visible?
35 Derived from the Italian "to stop", what term refers to a continuation of a note or rest beyond its usual length?
36 Rameses II "the Great", the third king of the 19th dynasty claimed to have defeated which people at Kadesh (though he failed to capture it), then formed a peace with them and married a princess of theirs?
37 Who became the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa in 1910?
38 In which month are Giant Pandas born?
39 Featuring drummer Peter Panka and bassist Charly Maucher both on lead vocals, which progressive Krautrock band that bore the name of a girl was formed in Hanover in 1970 and released their debut album Together less than two years later?
40 In 1849, who became US president for a single day, although he spent most of it sleeping?
41 With which 1699 treaty did the Austrians expel the Turks from Hungary, which was reunified under Hapsburg rule?
42 Known for its small greenish-yellow flower-heads and red leaf-like bracts, which shrub derives its name from the first minister to Mexico (1779-1851), where he is said to have found the shrub in 1828?
43 Who designed the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur?
44 Which ancient city on the Tigris, 20 miles south-east of Baghdad, is famous for the remains of the great vaulted hall of the Sassanian palace (after 2nd century)?
45 Where would you climb to the top of a cliff, bless yourself at the shrine of the Virgen de Guadalupe, and then jump off?
46 Which American city is home of the beer Coors?
47 The four original Canadian provinces were New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. What names did the latter two assume?
48 Which central mountain range on the Czech-Polish frontier has Gerlachovka (2663m) for its highest point?
49 Mongooses belong to which family of the order Carnivora?
50 How many beads are there in a rosary?
51 Which town in Jinan province was the birthplace of Confucius, although his grave has not yet been excavated, and is home to the Great Temple of Confucius?
52 Which South American capital city was founded in 1567 by Diego de Losada?
53 Who wrote the script for the films Accidental Hero, Blade Runner and Unforgiven?
54 Whose teachings, as recorded in various sacred books, form the basis of the religion Jainism?
55 The word macropine is used to describe which animals?
56 St Hippolytus was the first and Felix V the last to hold which title?
57 In which city is the Temple of Saint Sava, the largest Orthodox church currently in use?
58 Which architect designed the Arch at Hyde Park Corner in 1825?
59 Which mythical hero gives his name to the largest moth in the world?
60 Hawaiian native Duke Kahanamoku formed the first club devoted to what activity in 1920?
61 What is the French equivalent of the British military academy Sandhurst?
62 OBB is the state railway of which European country?
63 What is the longest psalm in the Bible?
64 Including Rowan Williams, how many people have been Archbishop of Canterbury?
65 What term for a self-contained city or other environment was coined by the architect Paolo Salieri from the words architectural and ecology?
66 Which singer-songwriter, who had breast cancer surgery last year, recently adopted a two-week-old baby boy called Wyatt Steven?
67 Who won the 1994 Turner Prize for Field?
68 Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom have launched what early version of internet TV?
69 Which 34-year-old Australian and seven-time women's world surfing champion was the 2004 Laureus World Alternative Sports Person of the Year?
70 In which field was Edward Quinn a famous name during the 1950s?
71 Celestino Campos, Ernesto Cavour and Mauro Nunez are considered to be masters of which Bolivian musical genre?
72 Belonging to the mackerel shark family, what four-letter name is given to the ferocious shark known scientifically as Isurus oxyrhyncus?
73 Which US state joined the Union on December 11, 1816, has the cardinal for its state bird, the peony for its flower, the Tulip tree for its tree and has the motto "Crossroads of America"?
74 Where in Switzerland, which shares its name with a generic body part, are the headquarters of the Worldwife Fund for Nature?
75 Who became England's youngest ever monarch when he acceded to the throne on the death of his father, whilst aged only eight months?
76 Which Italian composer, who died in 2003, was known for his friendship and collaborations with pianist Andrea Lucchesini, who was renowned for his playing of the concerto Echoing Curves, while such experimental work as his 1968 composition Sinfonia for orchestra and eight amplified voices are now seen as classics of their kind?
77 In Italy, which fish are known as "coda di rospo" meaning toad's tail?
78 Which US president was known as The Red Fox of Kinderhook?
79 Which British general surrendered at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777?
80 So called as it flies in the evening, what sort of creature is a "serotine"?
81 The Spanish navigator Juan Diaz de Solis discovered which river in 1516?
82 In centimetres, what is the diameter of a basketball hoop?
83 The German biochemist Emil Fischer postulated which hypothesis to explain the specificity of enzyme action in 1899?
84 In 1672, which Italian scientist undertook the first studies in embryology by describing the development of a chicken egg?
85 Thought to be of meteoric origin, which small, dark, glassy stone derives its name from the Greek for "molten"?
86 The world's longest land tunnel (21 miles), through the Alps, opened on June 15 having taken eight years to build. What is it called?
87 Which Birmingham City player's thigh caused Bert Trautmann's broken neck during the 1956 FA Cup final?
88 The largest castle in Central Europe, which Slovakian castle was burnt to the ground in 1781 and never rebuilt, although its white ruins remain a spectacular site?
89 Deep inside the Arctic Circle, which Norwegian town claims the most northerly university, botanical garden, planetarium and brewery - the Macks brewery - and is the self-styled "Paris of the North"?
90 As of June 16, which Dane has won the Le Mans endurance race a record seven times, and only confirmed his participation this week having suffered a horrific crash in the opening round of the DTM at Hockenheim in April?
91 Adopted by Swedish parents when he was aged three, the 21-year-old Brazilian, Antonio Lindback, is a rising star in which sport?
92 Which course was the venue for the 2007 golf (men's) US Open?
93 Now the last survivor of the class Rhyncocephalia, which reptile is the largest in New Zealand and takes its name from the Maori for "on the back spine"?
94 The American athlete Walter Davis is the indoor and outdoor world champion in which field event?
95 Starring Rachel Griffiths, Calista Flockhart and Sally Field, which new Channel 4 import from the States centres on the travails of a billion dollar vegetable company run by the Walker family?
96 The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, whose latest show is titled Wild Cursive, comes from which island?
97 Which acclaimed US stand-up comedian played Dr Tobias Funke on axed sitcom Arrested Development?
98 John Simm is the latest actor to play which nemesis of Doctor Who?
99 Which ill-fated country rock star, who died in 1973, was born Cecil Ingram Connor III?
100 Designed by Norman Foster, the Technology Centre in Woking is used by which sports team?
W
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D
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D
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Answers to BH116
1 Coley Wallace 2 The Arrival of a Train at Le Ciotat Station 3 Amira 4 Bootes 5 Heinz Julen 6 Zhou Chunxiu 7 Alain Robbe-Grillet 8 Thangkas 9 Netball 10 Stefan Holm 11 Gaida or Gajda 12 Zakynthos 13 500cc class 14 Equatorial Guinea 15 Leon 16 Ryman Auditorium 17 Cretaceous-Tertiary 18 Red, Grey 19 Ivan Mauger 20 Ernst Barlach 21 Appel 22 Jean Borotra 23 Apollo 24 Irina Rodnina 25 Ljubljana (Laibach) 26 Funan 27 Ryukyu 28 Revolt of the Comuneros 29 Oudenarde 30 Paulinus 31 Nejd 32 Gauteng 33 Uranus 34 December 35 Fermata 36 Hittites 37 Louis Botha 38 January 39 Jane 40 David Atchison 41 Treaty of Karlowitz 42 Poinsettia 43 Cesar Pelli 44 Ctesiphon 45 Acapulco 46 Denver 47 Ontario, Quebec 48 Tatra mountains 49 Viverridae 50 165 51 Qufu 52 Caracas 53 David Webb Peoples 54 Mahavira 55 Kangaroo 56 Antipope 57 Belgrade 58 Decimus Burton 59 Hercules 60 Surfing 61 St Cyr 62 Austria 63 119th 64 104 65 Arcology 66 Sheryl Crow 67 Antony Gormley 68 Joost 69 Layne Beachley 70 Photography 71 Charango 72 Mako shark 73 Indiana 74 Gland 75 Henry VI (in 1422) 76 Luciano Berio 77 Monkfish 78 Martin van Buren 79 John Burgoyne 80 Bat 81 Rio de la Plata 82 45cm (1ft 6in) 83 "lock-and-key" hypothesis 84 Marcelle Malphigi 85 Tektite 86 Loetschberg tunnel 87 Peter Murphy 88 Spis Castle 89 Tromso 90 Tom Kristensen 91 Speedway 92 Oakmont (Pittsbugh, Pennsylvania) 93 Tuatara 94 Triple jump 95 Brothers & Sisters 96 Taiwan 97 David Cross 98 The Master 99 Gram Parsons 100 McLaren
I went home - down LA way - to do some work (work you may very well appreciate in the future) in a smoky, well-fed environment where the internet was but a dream and I had my much-missed double bed on which I created imaginary snow angels, whilst regularly checking in on my dad and helping him out by keeping a constant supply of cups of tea, Dairy Milk and Richmond Super Kings piped into his room.
Monday Mong-Out
I seem to have accidentally watched The Swarm. It just materialised before me and there was nothing I could do. The last time I saw it was in 1986. Being a wee laddie, it terrified me and thus imbued every lovely little honey-maker with an aura of homicidal menace. Yeah, this time round I expected it to be absolutely pants and yes, it was as past-it pants as that acquitted judge's black Calvin Klein Y-fronts. One very amusing thing was seeing and hearing people die in screaming agony over the radio and other audio communication devices: "Oh my god! There are loads of bees! AAARRGHHH! OORRHH!" That so funny. It really was.
I must admit, however: Michael Caine is a top ho diamond geezer for being so horrendously dismal but still somehow keeping himself rigid with admirable sincerity and throwing up the illusion of unnerving self-belief in the utter cack that kept shooting from his mouth. Shrieking lines about how the bees, oh so ironically, are turning from fluffy friends making good on a thriving, thousands of years old cottage industry into an airborne army of inescapable killing machines, (when the General guy played by Richard Widmark, who had the first name "Thalius" for some odd reason ... maybe he was named after an ancient prophylactic or something, kept on calling the apiarimenace "Africans" all the time, I have to say it did sound like some sort of racist code). All absolutely hilarious. And then Mr Micklewhite piling po-faced declarations upon poo-filled exclamation s: e.g. "Who would have thought that bees would form the first alien force to invade America?" , thus making him sound as if he had found a realm of divine idiocy beyond the place marked highly retarded. Hey. Wait a sec. Didn't the Japanese invade the Aleutian Islands during World War Two? Call yourself an entomologist.
For the love of Zeus, THEY ARE BEES. Flamethrower them or something ... oh wait they just did. Hide in a garbage can. Go scuba diving. Turn a boat upside down and lie in the shallow bit of a lake or similar water source. They're freaking bees. Bees. BEES! Perhaps, wasps and hornets, despite their being considerably harder, larger and kick-ass, were considered too obscure a presence in the insect world to warrant a starring role for US audiences. You realised that the morons who put this filmic disaster on the screen were constantly trying to turn benevolent and beautiful and familiar bees, a giant family of good neighbours we love so much, into marauding invaders hellbent on destroying the American way of life, or simply, every American's life, with giant, blown-up close-ups; the disconnect and heinous change in behaviour hopefully making them it that bit more scarier. No surprise the film goons failed. The fools. But, at least, they failed with an ineptitude that has made The Swarm a real rubbish classic.
Skip to the end: then there was the diabolical ending. It quite literally ends with the pathetic puff of a white smoky fart. Why didn't they all explode a la Jaws for some inexplicable reason? It might have looked cool.
Another flashback line: "The bees have broken inside" What cunning little bastards. You can't trust indie bands from the Isle of Wight.
Finally, that illustrious cast list. Caine, starting out on his super-whore phase which would culminate in the dreadlocked disastro that was Jaws IV: The Revenge; Richard Widmark, the guy who played Tommy Udo and Madigan falling hard on his face in every scene, and dear Henry Fonda, who should have died of shame from just reading the first few pages of script, let alone actually agree to act in the thing. Hank, don't you remember playing Frank, the blue-eyed child killer from Once Upon a Time in the West a few years before? You tragic, giant whore. If I didn't love My Darling Clementine with an uncommon kind of adoration, I would burn an effigy of you crafted from Tetra pak cartons, cigarette boxes and plughole hair rings right now.
And relax.
Why do they cancel the best TV shows so young?
Because they're idiots. No vision, zero ... zero absolutely bloody everything. Thank the sky gods then that the shows they cut down in the prime of their lives, or at least when the programme displays promise of delivering slices of TV heaven in the future, are so easy to view on the internet. Devious and deviant uploaders of such heavyweights as Lost and The Sopranos play a kind of cat and mouse game with the copyright sentinels, and so the chances of watching them are scanty and unpredictable. But shows that notched up viewing figures that didn't so much go through the roof as crash through the floor into the abyss of cancellation are practically untouched because those pathetic TV people think the chance to make even one red cent out of such flops has long since been pissed in the wind.
One fine example is the completely bloody goddamn brilliant college sitcom Undeclared. Laughter being the perfect tonic for that thing what happened the other week, I steamed through every episode of this freshmen arrive on campus and do comedic things in a naturalistic manner in no time at all, and found that I loved it even more than creator Judd Apatow's previous serio-comedy, the now cult-in-extremis Freaks and Geeks.
Of course, it was killed after 17 episodes because the American prime time viewer cannot relate to the collegiate experience (or can't be bothered to), even when it is funny, subtle, genius, touching and a whole load of other thoroughly deserved superlatives. You can blame the Fox network too. They simply didn't know what to do with it and treated it like an spray of unsightly pigeon turd spatters on their Perry Ellis suits.
Apatow is now making it big in the real cinema world with R-rated movies about aging virgins and accidental pregnancies, but you can see the same embryonic signs of edgy, honest humour take shape before their blooming in a torrent of joyous Anglo-Saxon swearing and high-lariously lewd high-jinx in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up (also starring Undeclared cast members Seth Rogen and Jason Segel). Apatow's acting ensembles always say things you say, or want to, if you had a decent scriptwriter controlling your dialogue.
If I wrote student sitcoms Undeclared is what it would sound and look like. More or less. Only in Britain we wouldn't have to tone down the naughtiness factor, thereby ensuring flashes of actual humping, stuffing the protagonists with drug cocktails and substituting such phrases as "cock block" for "crotch block" if anyone deigned to do a university sitcom here (fat chance, if truth be told).
The whole show is pitched so perfectly that even if you went to university on the lump of rainy rock we call the land of Britain rather than across the ocean you will recognise, with no little horror or shame, the same icky and sticky situations that kids suddenly finding themselves far from home for the first time get into. In my most pertinent case, it was the Freshman fifteen". I have only just recovered.
Want more encouragement? It even has cameo-ing Ben Stiller donning a mullet-and-moustache combo that makes his White Goodman hairdo look like the epitome of respectable sobriety, and dispensing comforting advice along the lines of: "Nothing feels better than the love of someone ... like your mother. Except ecstasy. Do you want to do some ecstasy?" And there's a fantastic turn from Will Ferrell that frankly chilled me to the bone with its suggestions of a future already foretold.
Now I order you to watch it. It's on tv-links. Go!
(Don't worry, I will revisit the subject of quiz in good time. Once the aching pain has faded and the scar tissue finally smothered the deep, deep psychological wounds ... I'm joking! Natch)
Let me hit you with some knowledge: QUIZZZZZZZ
1 Who became the last person to defeat Rocky Marciano in a boxing ring when he defeated him as an amateur in March 1948?
2 Which Lumiere brothers single 50-second shot of a train coming into a station famously caused early cinemagoers to flee in fear of being crushed by the "incoming" vehicle?
3 Described as "Bosnia's Billie Holiday", which singer with the surname Medunjanin revived the sevdah, the ancient lyric ballad of Bosnia and recently released her debut album, Rosa?
4 The fourth brightest in the night sky, Arcturus is the brightest star in which constellation?
5 Which architect and avant-garde artist is carrying out a modern design makeover of the Swiss resort of Zermatt, with the Vernissage (a cinema/gallery/nightclub), the View House (a four-apartment building) and a hotel named the Omnia, while he is also planning to build a 117m steel-and-glass pyramid on top of 3883m-tall Klein Matterhorn?
6 Who became the first Chinese champion at a major marathon when she won in London in 2007?
7 Which French author wrote the original screenplay for the 1961 Alain Resnais film Last Year in Marienbad/L'Annee derniere a Marienbad?
8 Usually displayed in temples or carried in processions, what name is given to the painted banners seen in Tibetan art?
9 What sport was first played in England in 1895 at Madame Osterburg's College?
10 Which Swedish athlete won the men's high jump at the 2004 Olympics?
11 Each fitted with a reed made from reed/arundo donax, bamboo or elder, which bagpipes from the Balkans has stocks into which the chanters and blowpipe and drone fit are called "glavini" in Bulgaria and can be made out of Cornel wood or animal horn, while the melody chanter is called the gaidunitza?
12 Also called Zante, what is the southernmost of the core Ionian islands?
13 What did the MotoGP class replace in 2002?
14 Teodoro Obiang Nguema is the dictator/leader of which country?
15 Don Francisco de Cordoba founded Nicaragua's second city. What is it called?
16 The Grand Ole Opry show started broadcasting from which Nashville venue after 1943?
17 In geology, what does the K-T in the K-T boundary stand for?
18 Which colours give their name to the two species of the fish mullet?
19 Which New Zealand speedway star won the world individual title a record six times between 1968 and 1979?
20 Which German (1870-1938) sculpted the Moeller-Jarke Tomb (1901) and Have Pity! (1919)?
21 What term describes the beating or stamping of a foot during fencing?
22 Who was the first of tennis's "Four Musketeers" to win the Wimbledon Men's singles title?
23 The name Lyceum, as in the garden at Athens in which Aristotle taught, is derived from the word Lukeios, meaning "wolfslayer", which is an epithet of which god?
24 Which Russian skater won six world championships (1973-8) and Olympic golds in 1976 and 1980 with her partner Aleksandr Zaitsev, whom she married in 1975?
25 Settled by Slavs from Poland, which European capital city has a name meaning "beloved"?
26 Cambodia was part of which Hindu-Buddhist kingdom during the 1st century AD that was centred on the Mekong delta region?
27 Okinawa is the largest in which chain of volcanic islands?
28 Commandant of Saragossa under Charles V, Juan de Padilla was a principal leader of which 1520 rebellion against intolerable taxation which saw him defeated at the Battle of Villalar in 1521 and resulted in his beheading?
29 Where did the Duke of Marlborough claim his third great victory in 1708?
30 Which Roman-born missionary converted the Northumbrians in 625 and became the first Archbishop of York?
31 Inhabited by the Bedouin, which desert region of Saudi Arabia includes Riyadh?
32 Which South African province has a name meaning "Place of Gold" in Sotho?
33 Puck, Cordelia and Ophelia are moons in orbit around which planet?
34 In which month is the Geminids meteor shower visible?
35 Derived from the Italian "to stop", what term refers to a continuation of a note or rest beyond its usual length?
36 Rameses II "the Great", the third king of the 19th dynasty claimed to have defeated which people at Kadesh (though he failed to capture it), then formed a peace with them and married a princess of theirs?
37 Who became the first prime minister of the Union of South Africa in 1910?
38 In which month are Giant Pandas born?
39 Featuring drummer Peter Panka and bassist Charly Maucher both on lead vocals, which progressive Krautrock band that bore the name of a girl was formed in Hanover in 1970 and released their debut album Together less than two years later?
40 In 1849, who became US president for a single day, although he spent most of it sleeping?
41 With which 1699 treaty did the Austrians expel the Turks from Hungary, which was reunified under Hapsburg rule?
42 Known for its small greenish-yellow flower-heads and red leaf-like bracts, which shrub derives its name from the first minister to Mexico (1779-1851), where he is said to have found the shrub in 1828?
43 Who designed the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur?
44 Which ancient city on the Tigris, 20 miles south-east of Baghdad, is famous for the remains of the great vaulted hall of the Sassanian palace (after 2nd century)?
45 Where would you climb to the top of a cliff, bless yourself at the shrine of the Virgen de Guadalupe, and then jump off?
46 Which American city is home of the beer Coors?
47 The four original Canadian provinces were New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. What names did the latter two assume?
48 Which central mountain range on the Czech-Polish frontier has Gerlachovka (2663m) for its highest point?
49 Mongooses belong to which family of the order Carnivora?
50 How many beads are there in a rosary?
51 Which town in Jinan province was the birthplace of Confucius, although his grave has not yet been excavated, and is home to the Great Temple of Confucius?
52 Which South American capital city was founded in 1567 by Diego de Losada?
53 Who wrote the script for the films Accidental Hero, Blade Runner and Unforgiven?
54 Whose teachings, as recorded in various sacred books, form the basis of the religion Jainism?
55 The word macropine is used to describe which animals?
56 St Hippolytus was the first and Felix V the last to hold which title?
57 In which city is the Temple of Saint Sava, the largest Orthodox church currently in use?
58 Which architect designed the Arch at Hyde Park Corner in 1825?
59 Which mythical hero gives his name to the largest moth in the world?
60 Hawaiian native Duke Kahanamoku formed the first club devoted to what activity in 1920?
61 What is the French equivalent of the British military academy Sandhurst?
62 OBB is the state railway of which European country?
63 What is the longest psalm in the Bible?
64 Including Rowan Williams, how many people have been Archbishop of Canterbury?
65 What term for a self-contained city or other environment was coined by the architect Paolo Salieri from the words architectural and ecology?
66 Which singer-songwriter, who had breast cancer surgery last year, recently adopted a two-week-old baby boy called Wyatt Steven?
67 Who won the 1994 Turner Prize for Field?
68 Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom have launched what early version of internet TV?
69 Which 34-year-old Australian and seven-time women's world surfing champion was the 2004 Laureus World Alternative Sports Person of the Year?
70 In which field was Edward Quinn a famous name during the 1950s?
71 Celestino Campos, Ernesto Cavour and Mauro Nunez are considered to be masters of which Bolivian musical genre?
72 Belonging to the mackerel shark family, what four-letter name is given to the ferocious shark known scientifically as Isurus oxyrhyncus?
73 Which US state joined the Union on December 11, 1816, has the cardinal for its state bird, the peony for its flower, the Tulip tree for its tree and has the motto "Crossroads of America"?
74 Where in Switzerland, which shares its name with a generic body part, are the headquarters of the Worldwife Fund for Nature?
75 Who became England's youngest ever monarch when he acceded to the throne on the death of his father, whilst aged only eight months?
76 Which Italian composer, who died in 2003, was known for his friendship and collaborations with pianist Andrea Lucchesini, who was renowned for his playing of the concerto Echoing Curves, while such experimental work as his 1968 composition Sinfonia for orchestra and eight amplified voices are now seen as classics of their kind?
77 In Italy, which fish are known as "coda di rospo" meaning toad's tail?
78 Which US president was known as The Red Fox of Kinderhook?
79 Which British general surrendered at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777?
80 So called as it flies in the evening, what sort of creature is a "serotine"?
81 The Spanish navigator Juan Diaz de Solis discovered which river in 1516?
82 In centimetres, what is the diameter of a basketball hoop?
83 The German biochemist Emil Fischer postulated which hypothesis to explain the specificity of enzyme action in 1899?
84 In 1672, which Italian scientist undertook the first studies in embryology by describing the development of a chicken egg?
85 Thought to be of meteoric origin, which small, dark, glassy stone derives its name from the Greek for "molten"?
86 The world's longest land tunnel (21 miles), through the Alps, opened on June 15 having taken eight years to build. What is it called?
87 Which Birmingham City player's thigh caused Bert Trautmann's broken neck during the 1956 FA Cup final?
88 The largest castle in Central Europe, which Slovakian castle was burnt to the ground in 1781 and never rebuilt, although its white ruins remain a spectacular site?
89 Deep inside the Arctic Circle, which Norwegian town claims the most northerly university, botanical garden, planetarium and brewery - the Macks brewery - and is the self-styled "Paris of the North"?
90 As of June 16, which Dane has won the Le Mans endurance race a record seven times, and only confirmed his participation this week having suffered a horrific crash in the opening round of the DTM at Hockenheim in April?
91 Adopted by Swedish parents when he was aged three, the 21-year-old Brazilian, Antonio Lindback, is a rising star in which sport?
92 Which course was the venue for the 2007 golf (men's) US Open?
93 Now the last survivor of the class Rhyncocephalia, which reptile is the largest in New Zealand and takes its name from the Maori for "on the back spine"?
94 The American athlete Walter Davis is the indoor and outdoor world champion in which field event?
95 Starring Rachel Griffiths, Calista Flockhart and Sally Field, which new Channel 4 import from the States centres on the travails of a billion dollar vegetable company run by the Walker family?
96 The Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, whose latest show is titled Wild Cursive, comes from which island?
97 Which acclaimed US stand-up comedian played Dr Tobias Funke on axed sitcom Arrested Development?
98 John Simm is the latest actor to play which nemesis of Doctor Who?
99 Which ill-fated country rock star, who died in 1973, was born Cecil Ingram Connor III?
100 Designed by Norman Foster, the Technology Centre in Woking is used by which sports team?
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Answers to BH116
1 Coley Wallace 2 The Arrival of a Train at Le Ciotat Station 3 Amira 4 Bootes 5 Heinz Julen 6 Zhou Chunxiu 7 Alain Robbe-Grillet 8 Thangkas 9 Netball 10 Stefan Holm 11 Gaida or Gajda 12 Zakynthos 13 500cc class 14 Equatorial Guinea 15 Leon 16 Ryman Auditorium 17 Cretaceous-Tertiary 18 Red, Grey 19 Ivan Mauger 20 Ernst Barlach 21 Appel 22 Jean Borotra 23 Apollo 24 Irina Rodnina 25 Ljubljana (Laibach) 26 Funan 27 Ryukyu 28 Revolt of the Comuneros 29 Oudenarde 30 Paulinus 31 Nejd 32 Gauteng 33 Uranus 34 December 35 Fermata 36 Hittites 37 Louis Botha 38 January 39 Jane 40 David Atchison 41 Treaty of Karlowitz 42 Poinsettia 43 Cesar Pelli 44 Ctesiphon 45 Acapulco 46 Denver 47 Ontario, Quebec 48 Tatra mountains 49 Viverridae 50 165 51 Qufu 52 Caracas 53 David Webb Peoples 54 Mahavira 55 Kangaroo 56 Antipope 57 Belgrade 58 Decimus Burton 59 Hercules 60 Surfing 61 St Cyr 62 Austria 63 119th 64 104 65 Arcology 66 Sheryl Crow 67 Antony Gormley 68 Joost 69 Layne Beachley 70 Photography 71 Charango 72 Mako shark 73 Indiana 74 Gland 75 Henry VI (in 1422) 76 Luciano Berio 77 Monkfish 78 Martin van Buren 79 John Burgoyne 80 Bat 81 Rio de la Plata 82 45cm (1ft 6in) 83 "lock-and-key" hypothesis 84 Marcelle Malphigi 85 Tektite 86 Loetschberg tunnel 87 Peter Murphy 88 Spis Castle 89 Tromso 90 Tom Kristensen 91 Speedway 92 Oakmont (Pittsbugh, Pennsylvania) 93 Tuatara 94 Triple jump 95 Brothers & Sisters 96 Taiwan 97 David Cross 98 The Master 99 Gram Parsons 100 McLaren
posted by That Quiz Guy at 3:55 PM
2 Comments:
Hi! Thanks for 100 new challenging questions! Just a little commentary on question 48: Shouldn't it be "on the Slovak-Polish frontier" and not the "Czech-Polish"?
Greetings from Norway! And by the way, some of us Norwegians are wondering if there is any news on the Behemoth?
Bloody hell, I've not tried many of these before, and they're brutal. When I consider I'm doing well with 15, and I'm used to nasty stuff, you must be off the scale. Perhaps in honour of current events you should consider renaming these "hors categorie" quizzes?
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