Feeling Nasty. London Infected Me...

... So Regretfully

I will have to pass on the Burton-upon-Trent Quizzing GP. And I really wanted to go to it. Bah. Annoyed.

You know it's funny. When I choose these it goes like a one-armed bandit. Dunno if that made sense.

Science & Technology
1. In physics, current theory suggests that 1 of these units is the smallest distance or size about which anything can be known. Named for a scientist, which unit of length is equal to about 1.616252 x 10-35 metres?
2. Derived from the work of a British mathematician and Presbyterian minister (c.1702-61), evidence or observations are used to update or to newly infer probability that a hypothesis may be true in which statistical inference?
3. Funded by Prince Leopoldo and Grand Duke Ferdinando II de’ Medici, which early scientific study organisation was founded in Florence in 1657 by students of Galileo, Torricelli and Vincenzo Viviani?
4. He developed the idea that organic compounds could be derived from inorganic ones, directly or indirectly, by substitution processes. In the 1840s, which German chemist (1818-84) converted carbon disulphide into acetic acid, thus further disproving the doctrine of vitalism?
5. Coined by the US physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon, what term is typically used to refer to a living organism and describes the property of a system, either open or closed, that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition?
6. Now a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen, its HQ is in Martorell. Which carmaker was founded by the Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI) in 1950, with initial Fiat assistance?
7. What term for the study of ants was coined by William Morton Wheeler (1865-1937)?
8. This French naturalist and zoologist was instrumental in establishing the fields of anatomy and palaeontology by comparing living animals with fossils, as well as establishing that extinction was a fact. Who wrote Règne animal distribué d'après son organisation (1817)?
9. Astrophysicists studying the universe confirmed it to be what age in 2008?
10. Manufactured by iRobot, which robotic disc-shaped vacuum cleaner has sold more than 2.5 million units since its introduction in 2002 and is the most successful domestic robot in North America?

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Answerstotheabove
1. Planck length. It is the base unit in the system of Planck units. It can be defined from three fundamental physical constants: the speed of light in a vacuum, Planck’s constant and the gravitational constant.
2. Bayesian inference (so-called due to the the frequent use of Bayes’ theorem – a law relating the conditional and marginal probabilities of two random events – in the inference process)
3. Accademia del Cimento (‘Academy of Experiment’) Giovanni Borelli and Nicolaus Steno were members. Tenets of the society included “Experimentation” and “Avoidance of speculation”.
4. Hermann Kolbe. He was the first person to use the word synthesis in its present meaning.
5. Homeostasis (Greek: ‘similar-standing still’) The concept came from that of milieu interieur that was created by Claude Bernard and published in 1865.
6. SEAT (Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo). Many SEAT cars were based on FIAT models. The SEAT Panda (later Marbella) was based on the Fiat Panda. Likewise, the Fiat 600 and the SEAT 600, the latter being the first car of many Spanish families.
7. Myrmecology. The Swiss psychologist Auguste Forel (1848-1931) was an early pioneer in the field.
8. Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Brother of zoologist Frederic and opponent of early evolutionary theories, his book was translated into English under the title The Animal Kingdom.
9. 13.7 billion years. They also concluded that only 4% of the contents are ordinary matter and discovered that it will most likely expand forever without limit)
10. The Roomba. It is 13.4in/34cm in diameter and less than 3.5in/9cm high. A large contact-sensing bumper is mounted on the front, with an infrared sensor at its top front centre.

So Long Borders Oxford Street

Hello Lots of Books I Probably Won't Read

(Don't worry, there's a QB preview quiz down below. Just scroll down past the free-wheeling tat. It's Kerouac's Big Sur all over again)

Not being a London denizen at this moment in time, I was completely unaware that that Big Book Shop in the middle of filthy touristy makey me really angry Oxford Street was shutting shop ('tis the rent/recession/downsizing/Amazon - blame them all). So when I was chaperoning someone to the capital today I popped in and found MASSIVE discounts.

Pity it was the equivalent of literary vapours lurking round the store, as it had been going on for near on two weeks and I had missed the real scrummaging for the most tasty stuff.

Which is lucky, cos you know me. I can find really good wispy vapours. And loads of them, if I look hard enough.

I just buy buy buy books, because I want to build a suffocating fort of literature inside my bedroom (it's coming on really well, though I think I need more hardbacks) and we need good fire-fodder for the coming Mayan Apocalypse. Remember I am the kind of guy who has 389 books in his Amazon "Save for Later" Shopping Basket section.

Therefore my final tally was 21 books for £32. I mean, that's crazy, as in crazily good value. It made me think of hyenas stripping an elephant carcass, or that scene in Lord of War with the cargo plane.

In my case, I managed to find just a few books I might have bought had I already bought a load of books I wanted to buy first. Like the Schott's Almanac 2007, 2008 and 2009: £1 each (I knew they would go rock bottom cheap one day, and I was so right). Or the slightly disappointing despite the mucho media attention 2009 novels from (twatty young art scamp) Richard Milward and (I'm Not Just Mr. Zadie Smith) Nick Laird. Disappointing not in terms of my critical verdict (I mean, I just bought them today), but disappointing in that they turned out to be too insular to translate into really good sales. The numerous interviews went out and within a matter of months I find their £14.99 books being flogged for a quid. You could feel slightly sorry for them. Though, inevitably, I don't.

I read the Laird's plot off the hardback just to remind me what his new book was about, despite the fact I had read it in at least three reviews, and my eyes suddenly slid down like rusty shutters as my brain went into a kind of stultified trance. Apparently posh English people in London, a bit of sex, art, something really quite unexciting when you think about it, etc. I certainly wouldn't buy it were it not offered for 100 cupro-nickel pennies.

It's the London literary circle jerk innit? In the old days, writers could get away with a lack of ambition or real adventure and earn a decent living. Nowadays, don't we want something more from our novelists, though I shy away from using the dread word "concept"? Even if that's indicative of how jaded and pathetic we are; exhausted by multimedia bombardment; turned into freaks with the constant need to be judgemental and justify ourselves at the cost of any sense of true perspective.

And look, let's remind myself that I haven't actually read a single bloody word of Crispin's Glover?? (honestly, if I look up the title of Laird's novel it would really kill this buzz man), so I'll like, um, read it.

Then there was Mordecai Richler on Snooker, a Patricia Highsmith biog, an encyclopedia of "Focal Photography" (far better than the "Focal" makes it sound), another John Berger book I will never read (I own four, and only managed to get through 30 pages of Ways of Seeing, before it disappeared into the ether; the ether being the goddamned hellish mess in my room that's even irritating me to high heaven) .... and this could take all night, so I'll just say that when I paid 1/2 price for the only non-£1 books I bought - The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing and Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (no, not that Elizabeth Taylor, this Elizabeth Taylor) - I felt somehow conned. But that's the nature of goal adjustment, or whatever it's called, something to do with Amazon and Wired editor Chris Anderson's new sodding zeitgusty book, and free stuff and why we're just not appreciative enough of increased customer convenience. We merely think that we deserved the shopping breaks all along (because we bloody do).

Still, I was very annoyed they didn't have a copy of Wolf Hall left. I like Hilary Mantel's novels (Beyond Black was superb and I've always had a soft spot for the Tudors, no, not Those Tudors, even though James Frain's decent portrayal of TC may have helped me in my enthusiasm) and I am not ready to be violated with the £10.25 Amazon hardback price just yet. Of course, there was no chance there would be any left, but still a little harumph goes through me when I think about. I was also pissed off by tweenagers and their lack of book flicking etiquette. I mean, that was MY row. You don't go messing with MY row while I'm still going it with the fingers back and forth you know. Ooh it gets me all riled up, it does.

But come to think of it; it's not like I bought many books from that particular branch. I was far more likely to go in there when I wanted to save money on magazines and take a bunch (Blender, the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Sight & Sound, even FHM, anything in fact I didn't feel like paying for) then go to a secluded corner of the shop (there were so many) and just read read away, with a nice neat psycho-pile.

Then, of course, a few times I actually did read entire graphic novels (300 can be done in about 20 minutes) and various non-fiction works, like whichever memoir Stuart Maconie brought out that week (surprisingly easy and quick to read when the afternoon stretches into a seeming infinity).

I know, I am a parasite riven with corruption. However, those magazines asked too much of my income, so I did the sensible thing. Anyway, that sensibility is now driving me on to the Charing Cross branch magazine rock with my bad, but entirely reasonable in this economic climate and the cutting in pagination and the general decline in quality magazine journalism, habit. When I get the chance.

So some books questions. It appears an appropriate time to conjure them up.

Literature
1. Which Bangladeshi writer was the Best First Book winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for her debut novel A Golden Age?
2. Which “newspaper” was “First published in September 1843 to take part” in “a serene contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress”?
3. Created by Dale Messick, which glamorous, intrepid reporter debuted in a June 30, 1940 comic strip?
4. Which Italian poet, philosopher and philologist wrote the anti-Caesarean manifesto Pompeo in Egitto (‘Pompey in Egypt’; 1812) at the age of 14? His collection of notes, observations and aphorisms, the Zibaldone di pensieri, was published posthumously in seven volumes in 1898.
5. Who wrote the first published Australian Aboriginal novel, Wild Cat Feeling (1965), and its sequel, Wild Cat Screaming (1992), which chart the misfortunes of a part-Aborigine at the hands of the racist white establishment?
6. Controlled by Fininvest, Silvio Berlusconi’s family holding company, it was founded by an 18-year-old in 1907 in order to publish a magazine called Luce!. What is Italy’s biggest publishing company?
7. Who is said to have found his true vocation when he wrote the world’s first kiss-and-tell memoir, the 12-volume Histoire de ma vie, which he began in earnest by 1789?
8. The author Chyngyz Aitmatov died aged 79 on June 10, 2008, in Nuremberg, Germany. He is the best known figure in the literature of which country?
9. Sid James made an early appearance as a barman in the 1949 British gangster film No Orchids for Miss Blandish. It was based on whose 1939 debut novel of the same title?
10. Which 1797 poem ends: “He went like one that hath been stunned / And is of sense forlorn / A sadder and a wiser man, / He rose the morrow morn.”?

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Answers to the Above
1. Tahmima Anam (b.1975). Her father, Mahfuz, is the editor of The Daily Star, Bangladesh’s most prominent English-language newspaper. Both her parents, who were freedom fighters, inspired the novel.
2. The Economist. Founded by James Wilson, it calls itself (and is registered in the UK as) a newspaper. Even though everyone can see it is a magazine.
3. Brenda Starr. Created for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, she married the mysterious, eye patch-wearing Basil St. John and was played in a truly terrible 1989 film by Brooke Shields.
4. Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837). Afflicted by deformity and spinal disease, the self-taught prodigy and self-described patriot commonly known as just "Leopardi" became infused with pessimism. In 1824, the confirmed classicist wrote the brief dialogue essays Le operette morali, and Canzoni and Versi collections.
5. Mudrooroo (aka Colin Johnson and Mudrooroo Narogin Nyoongah; b.1938)
6. Mondadori (Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A). Marina Berlusconi, Silvio’s first daughter, is its chairman. Founded in Ostiglia, Mantua, it is headquartered is in Segrate, Milan. Magazines in its portfolio include Grazia, Chi and Jack.
7. Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-98). He did it as “the only remedy to keep from going mad or dying of grief”. Casanova died a librarian – writing the story of his life also relieved the high boredom of the job - in Duchcov, while working for Count Waldstein of Bohemia.
8. Kyrgyzstan. The name Chingiz has the same meaning as Genghis. His debut work published in Kyrgyz was White Rain (1954). His novel, Jamilya, appeared in 1958, while The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years was originally published in Russian in the literary magazine Novy Mir in 1980.
9. James Hadley Chase (1906-85). Chase was the pen-name of Rene Brabazon Raymond, who also used James L. Docherty, Ambrose Grant and Raymond Marshall. No Orchids was written in just six weeks after he was inspired by reading James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice.
10. ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Here 'Ave Some Art...

... It's Good for Ya!!!

My, I almost forgot. Already. (I must admit it is rather heavy on the Renaissance stuff and even does a bit of recycling (as it comes very early in the QB), unlike many of its other A&C brethren)

Art & Crafts
1. Which 1455-60 panel by Piero della Francesca, depicting Jesus Christ during a part of his Passion and on display at Urbino’s Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, is much admired for its use of linear perspective and air of stillness, which earned it the epithet "the Greatest Small Painting in the World" from Kenneth Clark (dad of diarist MP Alan)?
2. Sinclair Lewis applauded which 1942 painting as "dullness made God"?
3. Which London gallery was opened in 1856 and moved to its current location in 1896, where further two extensions were built in 1933 and 2000 that were funded by Lord Duveen and Dr Christopher Ondaatje respectively?
4. An assistant to Perugino, Bernardino di Betto (c.1454-1513) painted the frescoes in the Borgia Apartments in The Vatican and Siena Cathedral’s Piccolomini Library illustrating the history of Pope Pius II, as well as The Return of Odysseus. He used which pseudonym?
5. Co-founder of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement, which German-born Expressionist and Dadaist was labelled "Cultural Bolshevist Number One" for his graphic depictions of the depravity of war and was also known for such paintings as Kristallnacht and To Oskar Panizza?
6. Which American took the award-winning photograph of a policeman covering a hairy streaker's private parts at Twickenham in 1974 (the offender is alleged to have said: "Give us a kiss")?
7. Which Dutch painter’s large group portrait of 1648, Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard in Celebration of the Peace of Münster, was said by Joshua Reynolds to be "perhaps, the first picture of portraits in the world, comprehending more of those qualities which make a perfect portrait than any other I have ever seen"?
8. In July 2009, Mesh II was raked into a California beach. Designed to be glimpsed and lost to the next tide, it is one of more than ephemeral 100 sand works by which San Franciscan?
9. In Japanese art, what are Shunga?
10. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666), whose painting Et in Arcadia ego is in Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, was nicknamed “Il Guercino”. What did it mean?

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The Answers to the Above
1. Flagellation of Christ
2. Nighthawks (by Edward Hopper). The scene was inspired by since demolished diner in Greenwich Village. The now vacant lot is known as Mulry Square.
3. National Portrait Gallery. The 5th Earl of Stanhope, Thomas Babington Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle are mainly credited with its founding, with Stanhope first proposing it as an MP in 1846. They are each commemorated with busts over the main entrance.
4. Pinturicchio (meaning ‘little painter’). It is also a nickname given to Juventus footballer Alessandro Del Piero by Gianni Agnelli.
5. George Grosz. Born Georg Ehrenfried Groß, he changed his name in 1916 out a romantic enthusiasm for America, which he gained from reading James Fenimore Cooper and Karl May.
6. Ian Bradshaw. The streaker was Michael O’Brien and England and France were playing that day. War photographer Don McCullin said it was the one image he wished he’d taken in 2006.
7. Bartholomeus van der Helst (the Peace of Münster was also called the Treaty of Westphalia)
8. Andres Amador. His work comes under the banner “Earthscape Art” and “Light Sculpture”. 9. Erotic pictures (it means ‘picture of spring’, spring being a common euphemism for sex). It might also be termed "old Japanese porn".
10. ‘The squinty-eyed one’ (his other works include Susanna and the Elders (1617), Aurora (1621) and Semiramis Receives the News of Insurrection at Babylon (1645)

Back to Blog (Kinda)

Yes, it's true...

... it appears I am writing the Ulysses of quiz books (that's not the title by the way). I've already zoomed so far past the 200,000 word-mark, it looks like an Omar Sharif-y dot on the sun-emblazoned scrotumtightening horizon. Obviously I'll save the Finnegans Wake of quiz books for the next one, which I will be writing while long-haired, wild-eyed and living in a twig-thatched shack on an obscure Scottish island. Obviously.

(Cor, I don't half fancy some fried kidneys for some mysterious reason)

Anyway, I thought I'd preview it by posting sample questions (I can spare them, since they are so profuse). It's 2 x 10 questions per page, each in a different category like Science & Technology, Art & Crafts, Sport etc, so I thought I'd do a ten-question-per-day, ten-day countdown each with a different subject. First, one of the 113 GK tenners...

General Knowledge
1. The Englishman Thomas Parr, or “Old Parr”, supposedly lived for 152 years. He died during which king’s reign, the ruler in question arranging to have him buried in Westminster Abbey?
2. Which inmate has or had the prison number: a) 46664 b) FF 8282 c) 18330-424 d) 6660 e) 24601 f) 37927 g) 61727-054 h) C.3.3 (for Building C, floor 3, cell 3)?
3. Published by Transparency International, the annual Corruption Perceptions Index analyses corruption in each nation’s public officials and politicians. Which country came last in 2008?
4. Which substitute ran out Ricky Ponting, much to the Australian's obvious chagrin, in the fourth Ashes Test at Trent Bridge in 2005?
5. The Canadian electro/progressive house producer Joel Zimmerman (b.1981) is renowned for performing sets while wearing a giant animal mask. What is his stage name?
6. Declared world champion in 1933, which Canadian badminton player designed a canvas and rubber sneaker for the B.F. Goodrich Company in 1935 that provided more protection and support on badminton courts? Converse bought trademark rights to them in the ‘70s.
7. Which 1569-1795 union was known as the Rzeczpospolita?
8. William Faulkner’s famous line “The past is never dead. It’s not even past” featured in which 1951 novel that has Temple Drake for its protagonist?
9. The most commonly prescribed psychostimulant, it was patented by CIBA in 1954 as a potential cure for Mohr’s disease. Methylphenidate is better known by what brand name?
10. In which island group are about 950 Long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melaena) slaughtered in an annual hunting ceremony known as the Grindadráp?

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General Knowledge Answers
1. King Charles II. “Old Tom Parr”, as he was also known, lived from c.1483 to November 1635.
2. a) Nelson Mandela b) Jeffrey Archer c) Conrad Black d) Charles Ponzi e) Jean Valjean (in Les Miserables) f) Andy Dufresne (in The Shawshank Redemption) g) Bernie Madoff h) Oscar Wilde
3. Somalia. It was placed 180/180 with a 1.0 rating. Myanmar and Iraq came 178= with 1.3, while Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden came top with 9.3 each. The UK was 16th with 7.7.
4. Gary Pratt (b.1981). He was released by Durham in 2006 and later joined Cumberland.
5. Deadmau5 (pronounced ‘dead mouse’). His albums include Random Album Title (2008).
6. Jack Purcell (1903-91). Converse still make and sell his eponymous trainers today, though they have proved popular due to their vintage fashion appeal rather than athletic use.
7. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Latin name: Res Publica Serenissima). Its unique political system, known as "Noble’s democracy" or "Golden Freedom", was characterised by the sovereign’s power being reduced by laws and the legislature (Sejm) controlled by the nobility (szlachta). Though the two states were formally equal, Poland was the dominant partner of the two.
8. Requiem for a Nun. It was adapted for the stage in 1956 by Albert Camus, as Requiem pour une nonne, and was Italy’s most popular theatre production of 1959, with 58,898 seats sold.
9. Ritalin. MPH has the chemical formula C14H19NO2 and is also sold under such lesser known brand names as Daytrana (patches), Attenta, Concerta, Equasym, Biphentin and Rubifen)
10. Faroe Islands. It is a community tradition dating back at least 1000 years that sees boats surround the whales and drive them slowly into a bay. In late 2008, the Faroese chief medical officers declared the whales unfit for human consumption due to the level of toxins in them.