Dang

Missed a day

Have a GK on me. I'll extend the preview period a little longer to make it up. If I can remember. TTFN...

General Knowledge
1. Which 1983 single was Rod Stewart’s last UK number one?
2. Derived from an Old French word meaning ‘a small boat’, what name is given to a cover housing - separate from the fuselage - that holds engines, fuel or equipment?
3. Which English businessman was born Robert John Hurst in Stoke-on-Trent in 1941?
4. Adam Kok III (1811-75) led which people of South Africa, who settled in 1861 and gave their name to an eponymous territory that is now part of KwaZulu-Natal province?
5. Which Leningrad-born Polish sprinter, who dominated women’s athletics for nearly 20 years, competed in five Olympic Games (1964-80) and won seven medals, three of them gold?
6. One of the first products to exploit the potential of injection moulding, the Polyprop (as in polypropylene) stacking chair was the work of which British furniture designer (b.1915)?
7. Who set fire to the Temple of Ephesus of Diana in 356BC and proudly claimed credit in order to immortalise his name in history, thus giving his name to a type of notorious “Fame”?
8. The creation of Émile Gaboriau, which detective in service of the French Sûreté appeared in five Gaboriau novels and one short story, including L’Affaire Lerouge (1866) and Le Crime Orcival (1867), and was mentored by the physically inactive, but always helpful, Tabaret?
9. Also called Tipton’s Weed and Klamath weed, the yellow-flowering perennial plant Hypericum perforatum is most widely known as an herbal treatment for major depression and is also a noxious weed poisonous to grazing livestock in large doses. Which herb’s common name comes from its traditional flowering and harvesting on June 24?
10. Stephen and Timothy are the first names of which American-born, London-based identical twins (b. 1947) and stop-motion animators? Their best known work, the 21-minute short Street of Crocodiles (1986), was based on a short story by the Polish author-artist Bruno Schulz and was selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the 10 best animated films of all time.

A

N

S

W

E

R

S

A-to-the-GK
1. ‘Baby Jane’ (his others: ‘Maggie May’ (’71), ‘You Wear It Well’ (’72), ‘Sailing’ (75), I Don’t Want to Talk About It’/ ‘First Cut is the Deepest’ (’77), and ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? (’78))
2. Nacelle. In the case of the WW2 P-38 lightning airplane, it housed the cockpit.
3. John Madejski. The Auto Trader founder and Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire changed his name when his stepfather, a WW2 Polish airman, returned to Britain to marry his mother.
4. Griqua people (as in Griqualand East, which was annexed by the Cape Colony in 1874)
5. Irena Szewińska or Kirszenstein (b.1946). She won the 4x100m (’64), 200m (’68) & 400m (’76) and was the first woman to hold world records at 100m, 200m and 400m at the same time.
6. Robin Day. Husband of textile designer Lucienne Day, he also designed the Forum II Chair.
7. Herostratus (as in “Herostratic fame”). The Ephesean authorities not only executed him, but also forbade mention of his name under penalty of death. However, the late 4th/early 3rd century BC historian Theopompus still recorded the event and its perpetrator in his history.
8. Monsieur Lecoq. A pioneering character of the crime genre, he was a major influence on Sherlock Holmes, who calls him “a miserable bungler” in A Study in Scarlet.
9. St. John’s Wort (St. John’s day being June 24). Hypericum (Greek ‘above-picture’) has been used by Native Americans internally as an abortifacient and externally as an anti-inflammatory and antiseptic. ‘Wort’ is derived from the Old English wyrt, meaning ‘root’ or ‘plant’.
10. The Quay Brothers. Their work is characterised by a lack of meaningful spoken dialogue and dolls, often partially disassembled, in a dark, moody atmosphere. They have made two feature-length live action films: Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995) and The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2006).