Tuesday, September 01, 2015

BH164: These Questions Needed a Place to Go

Yo Neckbeards and Nerdlingers and Novitiates. These be questions in my huge question distribution file (320 pages and counting, with mostly one or two line Qs). They be wasting anyway in there, because I don't see them going anywhere suitable like the televisions or the print media. They could go in a quiz book, but you know what I'm like when it comes to publishing quiz books (that may take decades).

So here they are (unverified, so prepare yourself for disheartening spelling mistakes and the like). For your befuddlement. Smell you later.

Questions

1 In 1999, which British chess player and Old Eastbournian broke the record for youngest player to defeat a grandmaster in an official game? 
2 Which late Sahrawi singer dedicated El Chouhada, a song on her 2005 debut solo LP Deseos, to her three brothers, who were killed fighting in the Western Sahara War? 
3 Famed for his backboard-shattering dunks, which NBA star was given the nickname "Chocolate Thunder" by Stevie Wonder? 
4 Which Italian director first made an international splash with La Terra Trema, a chronicle of life in a Sicilian fishing village? 
5 In 1939, John H. Lawrence, the "father of nuclear medicine", was aboard which ship when it became the first ship to be sunk during the Second World War and the first British ship to be sunk by U-boats? 
6 Which US TV drama is named after a computer command that causes a processor to overload, shutting down the machine? 
7 The largest private garden in central London after that of Buckingham Palace features which mansion, and since 1955, has been the US Ambassador's official residence? 
8 Created by Nakayama Miki in the 19th century, which Shinto-based religions's central tenet is "kashimono-karimono" - 'a thing lent, a thing borrowed'?
9 Running between Skien and Dalen, the 65 mile-long Bandak Canal is which country's longest canal?
10 Who became the first Africa-American author to win the Best Play Tony Award for The River Niger (1972)? 
11 Born Peter Rene Cipiriano Baumann, which Swiss music star has sold 14 million records and had hits with Somebody Dance with Me, Take Control and Chihuahua, winning 10 World Music Awards for being Switzerland's best selling artist? 
12 Which German bobsledder retired in 2010 as the most successful bob pilot of all time? 
13 Which naturalist gives his name to the mountain range that is the most important range of Alberto de Agostini National Park on Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego? 
14 Which Shinto storm god, who ruled over the sea, was born from the kami Izanagi wiping his nose?
15 Which holiday is began when Shiva the Destroyer's wife Uma covered his eyes with her hands, so he grew a third eye and returned light to the world?
16 Which German student of Hugo Grotius authored On the Duty of Man and Citizen
17 The cover of Dino Buzzati's novel The Tartar Steppe featured The Red Tower by which painter? 
18 Cyclic ethers that are often used as adhesives, which compounds are synthesized in the Sharpless reaction?
19 Which Irish-born economist wrote the notoriously difficult to read Mathematical Physics: An Essay on the Application of Mathematics to Moral Sciences (1881)? 
20 Identified by a US ecologist, which effect describes the positive correlation between population density and individual fitness of a population or species? 
21 What links Leonidas in 1938 , Ademir in 1950, Garrincha and Vava in 1962 and Ronaldo in 2002? 
22 Which 2015 book by journalist Stephen Witt is subtitled The End of an Industry, The Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy
23 Named after Stalin's close ally Semyon Budyonny, what is a Budenovka? 
24 In 1961, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC bought A Young Girl Reading or La Liseuse (c.1770) by which French painter? 
25 In 2012, which Irish singer became the first artist to have a different album in the British charts every year for 25 consecutive years? 
26 Co-founder of the poetry magazine Zunai, which Brazilian author, outsider artist and schizophrenic wrote the autobiographical novel All Dogs are Blue and died in a Rio psychiatric clinic in 2008? 
27 The Peruvian football club Deportivo Wanka is based in which city?
28 Standing 278ft wide and 309ft high, what is the world's largest natural-rock span? 
29 Forming the first response to inflammation, what is the most abundant type of white blood cells?
30 Which river god found Romulus and Remus and gave them to the she-wolf Lupa to suckle, and later rescued and married Rhea Silvia, the twins' mother a Vestal Virgin who had been sentenced to death?
31 Which four-word title links albums by Badfinger, Pink Floyd and The Kingsmen, and songs by Incubus, Avril Lavigne, Delta Goodrem? 
32 A child actress in Field of Dreams and Uncle Buck, who has gone on to receive Emmy nominations for supporting and guest acting in Transparent and Girls
33 Which term, derived from a Latin word meaning bluish-grey or green, describes the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, and features in the name of a _____ gull, ____-winged gull, _____ macaw and ______ tanager?
34 Housing the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica, which palace in Turin with a facade designed by Filippo Juvarra was the first Senate of the Italian Kingdom? 
35 Co-writer of Why Nations Fail with James Robinson, which rock star of developmental economics is best known as the author of Colonial Origins of Comparative Development
36 The Democratic Republic of the Congo claims 45 per cent of which longest freshwater lake in the world, with its only outlet the Lukuga which empties into the Congo River? 
37 Who is said to have created modern Brazilian poetry with the publication of Paulicéia Desvairada aka Hallucinated City in 1922? 
38 Who wrote a series of stories about the hack screenwriter Pat Hobby, including ones about his "college days"? 
39 In 1898, who performed the first social psychology experiment and found that cyclists pedal faster in groups than when it is done alone? 
40 Which dictator was overthrown and forced to flee to Ivory Coast after the French-run Operation Barracuda? 
41 In 364, which Roman emperor may have died of carbon monoxide poisoning due to the fumes from the brazier in his tent, thus ending the line of Constantine?
42 In 1785, a Mexican government inspector chanced upon the Pyramid of the Niches on which site in southern Mexico, a city of Classic Veracruz Culture that flourished from 600 to its fall in 1230 and known for its 20 ballcourts? Since the 1970s, it has been the most important archaeological site in Veracruz, attracting 650,000 visitors a year. 
43 Featuring an insurgent force of Abbasids under as-Saffah, the 750 battle at the Zab River, a tributary of the Tigris, ended which caliphate? 
44 A.W. Tillinghast (1876-1942) was one of the most prolific architects of which sporting venues?
45 Who did Chinua Achebe call a "bloody racist" in his essay An Image of Africa
46 Displayed in the Naples National Archaeological Museum, what is the oldest extant depiction of Atlas from Greek myth? 
47 Always Was, Is and Always Shall Be is the 1980 debut studio album by which highly controversial American punk rock musician, known for his public displays of defecation? 
48 An influence on the Cartoon Network show Steven Universe, which 1978 anime series featured the directorial debut of Hayao Miyazaki? 
49 Born Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo, which soprano, known as "The Peruvian Songbird", released her first studio LP, Voice of the Xtabay, in 1950?   
50 The lance of Gabriel Montgomery, captain of the French King's Scottish Guard, caused whose accidental death? 

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Answers to BH164
1 David Howell - who defeated Dr. John Nunn in a blitz game at the Mind Sports Olympiad 2 Mariem Hassan 3 Darryl Dawkins 4 Luchino Visconti 5 SS Athenia  - it was en route from Glasgow to Montreal 6 Halt and Catch Fire 7 Winfield House 8 Tenrikyo 9 Norway 10 Joseph A. Walker 11 DJ BoBo 12 Andre Lange 13 Charles Darwin - the mountain range is called the Cordillera Darwin 14 Susanoo 15 Holi 16 Samuel von Pufendorf 17 Giorgio de Chirico 18 Epoxides 19 Francis Ysidro Edgeworth 20 Allee effect - named after Warder Clyde Allee 21 Brazilian footballers who won the Golden Boot at the World Cup 22 How Music Got Free 23 A type of hat or "broadcloth helmet" worn as part of the early Red Army uniform 24 Jean-Honore Fragonard 25 Daniel O'Donnell 26 Rodrigo de Souza Leao 27 Huancayo 28 Rainbow Bridge, Utah 29 Neutrophil 30 Tiberinus 31 Wish You Were Here 32 Gaby Hoffman 33 Glaucous 34 Palazzo Madama 35 Kamer Daron Acemoglu 36 Lake Tanganyika 37 Mário de Andrade 38 F. Scott Fitzgerald 39 Norman Triplett 40 Jean-Bedel Bokassa of Central African Republic 41 Jovian 42 El Tajin 43 Umayyad Caliphate or dynasty 44 Golf 45 Joseph Conrad 46 The Farnese Atlas 47 G.G. Allin 48 Future Boy Conan 49 Yma Sumac 50 Henry II, King of France - a lance fragment inflicted a mortal head wound during a jousting tournament 

BH163: Three and a Half Years Later

(This was just hanging around in my unpublished posts - I have quite a few - so thought I might as well put it out there. Er, the following words make no sense to me...)

Bond was talking about Resurrection

Saw Skyfall. Was alright. Decent action. Better plotting. For once!


1 A devastating victory for France over England, which battle of June 18, 1429, has been described as being to the French what Agincourt was to the English?
BATTLE OF PATAY
2 The Saeima is the parliament of which former Soviet republic?
LATVIA
3 Arguably the highest city in the world, La Rinconada is in which country?
PERU
4 Discovered in 1861 by the man it is named after, which comet causes the Lyrids meteor shower?
THATCHER - as in A.E. Thatcher
5 In story-telling, 'analepsis' and 'prolepsis' are the respective technical terms for what? 
FLASHBACK & FLASH-FORWARD
6 The Maira is a right bank tributary of which river, known in ancient Ligurian as Bodincus or Bodencus?
PO
7 From the Greek word for 'long', which diacritic is placed above a vowel and marks a long vowel? The opposite is the breve, which marks a short or light syllable or a short vowel.
MACRON
8 Which 'Bat-Hound' was the canine companion of Batman and Robin in the 1950s and 1960s DC comics featuring the duo? 
ACE THE BAT-HOUND
9 The cooking paste known as kapi in Thai, belachan in Malay, terasi in Indonesian and haam ha or ha jeung in Cantonese is made from what ground and fermented sea creatures?
SHRIMPS
10 Which British author published his fourth novel, The Looking Glass War, in 1965?
JOHN LE CARRE
11 Avarcas are traditional sandals that originally developed, using recycled car tyres for the sole, on which Balearic island?
MINORCA
12 Known for having a cork wedge in the sole, Wörishofers are orthopaedic ladies' sandal that are named after Bad Wörishofer, a spa town in which country?
GERMANY
13 Both a successor and predecessor of Pitt the Younger, the Prime Minister Henry Addington was known as the 1st Viscount what?
SIDMOUTH
14 In 2012, the 27-year-old Ukrainian, Anna Ushenina, beat Antonaneta Stefanova of Bulgaria on a tie-break, to become the 14th women's world champion in which game?
CHESS
15 Founded in the Czech town of Zlin in 1894, which company achieved the Guinness World Record "Largest Shoe Retailer and Manufacturer" for selling 14 billion pairs of shoes? It took the surname of its founder Tomas and has an eponymous museum in Toronto, where the firm later moved its operations.
BATA
16 Who built Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ship, the SS Great Eastern, at Millwall on the River Thames?
J. SCOTT RUSSELL & CO.
17 In 1936, which magazine commissioned what became Walker Evans and James Agee's 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men as a report on Alabama tenant farmers, though it never published their work?
FORTUNE
18 Marni Nixon dubbed which actress's voice in the 1957 film An Affair to Remember?
DEBORAH KERR
19 The Turin Shroud is kept in a chapel of the Turin cathedral that is dedicated to which New Testament saint?
JOHN THE BAPTIST / SAN GIOVANNI BATTISTA
20 Discovered on February 20 of this year, the smallest exoplanet detected to date - Kepler-37b - is in which constellation?
LYRA