The All New All New Groundspeak UK Pub Quiz

[+maxkim]

Ok. If you're a similar age as me, where might you have used a strigil?

Roman baths... used to scrape off the oil and dirt.... Cheers MaxKim.

[+Simply Paul]

Ok. If you're a similar age as me, where might you have used a strigil?

Roman baths... used to scrape off the oil and dirt.... Cheers MaxKim.

A speedy DING to MaxKim. I'm older than I look

[+maxkim]

Thanks SP, straight forward question.....what is a zoetrope?

[+MartyBartfast]

Thanks SP, straight forward question.....what is a zoetrope?

 

I think It's an old fashioned device for making apparently moving images from a series of still pictures by having the pictures inside a revolving drum, and viewing them through slits cut in the drum as it revolves.

[Pajaholic]

A "magic lantern". IIRC this comes from Victorian times (or perhaps earlier). It's essentially a rotating cylinder with slits alternating with images on the inside. As you look through the slits, the images appear one after another to give the illusion of movement. Early ones showed horses and circus acts and a more contemporary one is the BBC2 ident.

 

Edited to add: Darn! pipped at the post!

Edited January 4, 2010 by Pajaholic

[+maxkim]

Thanks SP, straight forward question.....what is a zoetrope?

 

I think It's an old fashioned device for making apparently moving images from a series of still pictures by having the pictures inside a revolving drum, and viewing them through slits cut in the drum as it revolves.

 

Big Ding there.... Sorry for the delay... working away in this weather takes it's toll... Cheers MaxKim

[+MartyBartfast]

A quickie, inspired by todays weather:

 

When was the last official White Christmas in the UK?

[+chizu]

A quickie, inspired by todays weather:

 

When was the last official White Christmas in the UK?

 

2009?

[+MartyBartfast]

A quickie, inspired by todays weather:

 

When was the last official White Christmas in the UK?

 

2009?

 

Not according to the Met Office.

[+Madam Cholet]

2004?

[+maxkim]

A quickie, inspired by todays weather:

 

When was the last official White Christmas in the UK?

 

2009?

 

Not according to the Met Office.

In Leeds it was according to yhrir web site as were several places around the UK.... Which place do you mean... is it London?,,,,,

[+MartyBartfast]

2004?

 

DING

[+Madam Cholet]

Staying weather related, what is the coldest temperature recorded in the UK and when?

[+Birdman-of-liskatraz]

Staying weather related, what is the coldest temperature recorded in the UK and when?

 

Would it be almost 0 Degrees Kelvin and at the Rutherford Laboratory?

[+Madam Cholet]

I'm sure that's right and forgive me for not being more specific but I was looking just for the coldest weather related outdoor temp.

[+purple_pineapple]

I'm sure that's right and forgive me for not being more specific but I was looking just for the coldest weather related outdoor temp.

 

i'm trying to recall what i read yesterday! is it -28 at Blaerar (or some similar kind of spelling!)

[Pajaholic]

I'm sure that's right and forgive me for not being more specific but I was looking just for the coldest weather related outdoor temp.

 

i'm trying to recall what i read yesterday! is it -28 at Blaerar (or some similar kind of spelling!)

Thanks for the mental jog. There was a news item yesterday wondering whether Braemar would break it's record of -27.something °C that it equalled during a cold snap in the 1980s. However, I suspect it was substantially colder during the Little Ice Age (15th to 17th centuries) and they must have had thermometers to be able to record it at some point during that time!

 

Geoff

[+Pharisee]

I'm sure that's right and forgive me for not being more specific but I was looking just for the coldest weather related outdoor temp.

According to the BBC weather forecast I've just seen it was -27.2 but they didn't say where that was recorded.

[+chizu]

They just said on the Scotland weather forecast it's -27 in Braemar!

[Pajaholic]

To add to my previous post, on last night's news they said that it had got to -20° in parts of Somerset - equalling their previous low from 1982. January is normally the coldest month, so I'll put that with Pharisee's info to give -27.2°C in Braemar in January 1982.

[+Madam Cholet]

DING to Pajaholic for getting all the info in there. We're not far off beating it though, are we.

[Pajaholic]

DING to Pajaholic for getting all the info in there. We're not far off beating it though, are we.

I dare say we're not, and the Met Office say we've got another week to ten days of it

 

TBH, I feel that question was a bit of a team effort - coz there's no way I'd have got the temperature to one DP without Pharisee. So hopefully an easy question:

 

IIRC, Spike Milligan (or was it Peter Sellers?) once uttered the following poem (which is best recited in the style of the Goons):

 

Once there lived a Cassowary

To the North of Timbuktu

There he ate a missionary

Bible, Prayer book, Hymn book too!

 

But who or what is a Cassowary?

[+The Forester]

A Cassowary is an ostrich or an emu which lost its passport in a tattoo parlour.

Edited January 8, 2010 by The Forester

[+The Forester]

They just said on the Scotland weather forecast it's -27 in Braemar!

 

Yes, but we're Scottish. We can take it.

 

The only small problem is that you need to put a quarter pint of gin into a glass of orange juice to stop it from freezing.

[Pajaholic]

A Cassowary is an ostrich or an emu which lost its passport in a tattoo parlour.

LOL! That's got to be the description of the month, and well worthy of the DING.

 

Piccy:

[+The Forester]

Recently the world's tallest building was renamed from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa in recognition of the fact that Dubai is skint and the sheikh's uncle Khalifa in neighboring Abu Dhabi has had to bail out the prodigal child.

 

That's in the Eastern hemisphere.

 

What is the name of the tallest building in the Western hemisphere?

[+chizu]

Recently the world's tallest building was renamed from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa in recognition of the fact that Dubai is skint and the sheikh's uncle Khalifa in neighboring Abu Dhabi has had to bail out the prodigal child.

 

That's in the Eastern hemisphere.

 

What is the name of the tallest building in the Western hemisphere?

 

I'll go for Willis Tower, previously Seers Tower) in Chicago.

[+The Forester]

Yup. the Willis Tower.

 

It's renaming was a very low key affair, mostly to avoid the embrassment of the former owners.

[+chizu]

Yup. the Willis Tower.

 

It's renaming was a very low key affair, mostly to avoid the embrassment of the former owners.

 

Somehow the name The Willis Tower reminds me of Die Hard !!

 

Ok next question: In The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, what present does Father Christmas give to Mrs Beaver?

[+Munkeh]

sewing machine?

[+chizu]

sewing machine?

 

That's a quick DING to Munkeh!!

[+Munkeh]

during the depression in the 1930's the high sheriff of a county took interest in the plight of in the town of Jarrow with its high unemployment rates encouraging the county in question population provide financial and material assistance. What county was it?

[norsch]

If I remember Jarrow would have been in Northumberland in the 30's, then I think it was shoved into Tyne and Wear

Edited January 9, 2010 by norsch

[Pajaholic]

Wouldn't it have been in County Durham?

 

Although I'll give that as a guess, I suspect it'll be wrong since if Jarrow was in dire straits the surrounding area would probably be less likely to help than somewhere not connected with shipbuilding.

[+Munkeh]

If I remember Jarrow would have been in Northumberland in the 30's, then I think it was shoved into Tyne and Wear

 

Jarrow was in County Durham but another county gave assistance, and its that county I'm after

[Pajaholic]

I'm guessing it will be a reasonably affluent area through which the Jarrow marchers passed, with the northern home counties of the time at the top of my guess list.

 

So, stab in the dark No. 1: Middlesex

[+Munkeh]

wasn't middlesex

[+Pharisee]

Now I seem to remember doing a cache on the Isle of Wight which focused on an engraved stone that commemorated a march or something some blokes in Cornwall did... So I'm guessing it was Cornwall.

[Pajaholic]

It's the sort of thing the Cornish would do, but the Cornish had their own march which that engraved stone might have commemorated. I refer to the Cornish Rebellion of 1497, when the Cornish marched on London in a war against unjust and illegal (under Stannary Law) taxation that was levied to fund the war against Scotland.

 

So just in case Pharisee is wrong, my second stab in the dark is Hertfordshire.

[norsch]

Well the sherrif of Nottingham can't always have been bad so I'll go for Nottinghamshire

[+Munkeh]

no sorry

[norsch]

OK more seriously I think this is maybe something to do with scrapping ships, possibly the Olympic which was owned by an MP called Jarvis who I thought was from the Newcastle area. Anyway did he buy ships and take them to Jarrow for scrapping to provide employment for the locals?

[+MartyBartfast]

I seem to remember that they were provided with replacement boots by the shoe makers of Northampton, so I'll guess that it was the sheriff of Northants.

[+Munkeh]

OK more seriously I think this is maybe something to do with scrapping ships, possibly the Olympic which was owned by an MP called Jarvis who I thought was from the Newcastle area. Anyway did he buy ships and take them to Jarrow for scrapping to provide employment for the locals?

 

your on the right lines, the olympc was owned by white star, it was the sister ship to the titanic and bits of it can be found in houses and hotels here abouts, Jarvis is the person in question and was responsible for bring the Olympic to jarrow to be broken, this is just one of the things he did in order to create jobs and was mayor of jarrow but prior to being mayor of Jarrow, he was mp for a town located in the county in question and high sheriff of the county

[Pajaholic]

your on the right lines, the olympc was owned by white star, it was the sister ship to the titanic and bits of it can be found in houses and hotels here abouts, Jarvis is the person in question and was responsible for bring the Olympic to jarrow to be broken, this is just one of the things he did in order to create jobs and was mayor of jarrow but prior to being mayor of Jarrow, he was mp for a town located in the county in question and high sheriff of the county

FWIW, I stumbled on the answer earlier today while looking up something about a conspiracy theory (some say it wasn't the Titanic that was actually sunk by an iceberg) when I found some Hansard archives about this guy, who in 1935-38 at least was (as Munkeh wrote) also MP for a town in said county. Since I stumbled upon the answer while using an Internet search, I declare I'm ineligible for the ding. However, I have some links from the Hansard archives that show what a remarkable fellow Jarvis was that I can post after Munkeh's question has been "legally" answered. OT this thread is perhaps, but it just goes to show how you can learn from geocaching - even when off-topic!

 

Geoff

 

(edited to remove Freudian typo)

Edited January 10, 2010 by Pajaholic

[+goldpot]

My guess is Hampshire...Southampton...ships???

[+Munkeh]

nope!

[norsch]

Pajaholic got me very interested there, conspiracy, Titanic, etc. Yes we all know that it was the iceberg that sank, but that wouldn't have been a good film.

So sorry I had to look and I too now know the answer.

[+Munkeh]

ook answer was sir john jarvis and the county was surrey

 

 

next question

 

who introduced the current calender system to this country

[Pajaholic]

I'll go for the Romans since the current calendar is Christian (as indicated by AD and BC).

 

More importantly, I'll use this post to give that link I promised: From the Hansard Archives - take a look at DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS from 1935 in particular. IMO Sir John Jarvis really was a remarkable person.

 

Geoff

Edited January 23, 2010 by Pajaholic