Saturday, November 28, 2015

Trivia Bits 28 November

 

Are you Being Served

The retail ladies' and gentlemen's clothing floor departments of a fictional London department store called Grace Brothers is the setting for the British television 1972 sitcom Are You Being Served? With original actors Frank Thornton, Mollie Sugden, John Inman, Wendy Richard and Nicholas Smith appearing in all 69 episodes of the programme's 13-year run (cast pictured).

The ABC Islands is the colloquial name for the Alaskan islands of Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof in the northern part of the Alexander Archipelago, which are all part of the Tongass National Forest.

African-American slave, freedman, and minister of religion, Samuel Green was jailed in 1857 for possessing a copy of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

In cricket, an over is the name given to six balls consecutively delivered by a single bowler from one end of the pitch, to the batsman at the other end.

English poet George Gordon Byron better known as Lord Byron, a writer of the Romantic Movement, published in 1819 the poem Don Juan which was based on the legend of Don Juan which Byron reverses, portraying Juan not as a womaniser but as someone easily seduced by women.

In 1990, Czech and Slovak politicians "fought" the Hyphen War, a political battle over whether "Czechoslovakia" should be spelled with a hyphen.

It took Stan and Jan Berenstain two years to revise 1962 children’s book The Big Honey Hunt, the first Berenstain Bears book, to Dr. Seuss's satisfaction.

An Omnibus is a book comprising previously published, related works by the same author is often called an omnibus edition of those works, or simply an omnibus.

The independent bookstore Politics and Prose located in Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C., on Connecticut Avenue, has had Barack Obama, J. K. Rowling, and Bill Clinton as readers at its author events.

Granite Island Recreation Park is just off the coast of Victor Harbor in South Australia connected to the mainland by a causeway, is 120 kilometres (75 mi) south of Adelaide and reported as being the most visited park in South Australia.

Quotables 28 November

 

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Friday, November 27, 2015

Trivia Bits 27 November

 

Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I

The 1907 Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I  (pictured) is one of the best known works of Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt using the mediums of oil, silver, and gold on canvas and is now located in the Neue Galerie, New York.

Not regarded as a clinical condition, Empty nest syndrome is a form of depression that affects parents when a child leaves home.

Swedish is officially the main language of Sweden as enacted by the Riksdag, the Swedish national legislature, and entered into effect on 1 July 2009.

The popular dip taramasalata roughly translates to fish roe salad and is traditionally made from taramas, the salted and cured roe of the cod or the carp, though blends based on other forms of fish roe have become more common and the roe is mixed with either bread crumbs or mashed potato, and lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil.

In 1995, former Olympic, World, Commonwealth and European champion British athlete Jonathan Edwards set the world record for the triple jump with a jump of 18.29 m set on 7 August 1995 and still stands as at July 2015.

The pungent chemical smell of formic acid, the simplest carboxylic acid, is associated with crushed ants.

Manchega cheese is made in the La Mancha region of Spain from the milk of sheep of the manchega breed and is aged for a minimum of 60 days (30 days for cheeses weighing up to 1.5 kg) and a maximum of two years.

The 1960 comedy-drama movie La Dolce Vita was written and directed by Federico Fellini and won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes.

American writer Alex Haley told in his 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his alleged descendants in the U.S. down to Haley.

Three years after Anders Uppström had published his 1854 edition of the 6th-century Codex Argenteus, a dying library janitor presented him with ten leaves that had been missing from the manuscript for over two decades.

Quotables 27 November

 

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Thursday, November 26, 2015

Trivia Bits 26 November

 

Andre Agassi

American retired professional tennis player and former World No. 1, Andre Agassi (pictured) won the Australian Open men’s singles title in 2000, 2001 and 2003.

Made up of 8,797 amino acids, enaptin has the second-longest chemical name to be written down, at 64,060 letters.

The trunk or boot of an automobile or car is the vehicle's main storage compartment with the term Trunk being used in North American English and Jamaican English, while boot is used elsewhere in the English-speaking world – except in South Asia, where it is usually called a dickie/dicky or slang diggy.

The headquarters of the NZX stock exchange is Wellington, New Zealand and began life as a number of regional stock exchanges during the gold rush of the 1870s.

Lyons was the Roman capital of Gaul with two Roman emperors born in the city, Claudius and Caracalla.

The cuckoo clock was thought to have been invented in Germany but it is unknown who invented it and where the first one was made although much of its development and evolution was made in the Black Forest in Germany.

With a beak the can puncture through a wet suit, the golf-ball size blue octopus found in the Great Barrier Reef, is deadly to humans with no known antidote for its venom.

The stratovolcano Mount Vesuvius is in the Gulf of Naples, Italy and is best known for its eruption in AD 79 that led to the burying and destruction of the Roman cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and several other settlements.

Lamb Chop is a fictional sheep that was created by comedienne and ventriloquist Shari Lewis and first appeared on American children's morning television show Captain Kangaroo in 1957.

The best known name of the common medical condition ecchymosis is a bruise and also applies to the subcutaneous discoloration resulting from seepage of blood within the contused tissue.

Quotables 26 November

 

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Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Trivia Bits 25 November

 

Yoda

Yoda (pictured) made his first appearance in the 1980 American epic space film The Empire Strikes Back directed by Irvin Kershner, and was the second to be released and the fifth in terms of The Star Wars chronology.

Usually formed less than 2000 feet, the nimbus cloud produces rain with nimbus being a Latin word meaning rain cloud or rain storm.

Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont are the main characters in the 1952 musical film and the 1983 stage adaptation of the film Singin’ in the Rain.

The Ever Victorious Army, consisting of Chinese imperial forces led by a European officer corps, was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion which was a massive civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864.

The leader of the African country of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, released a book entitled The Green Book in 1975 and was a short book setting out the political philosophy of the former Libyan leader.

The only breed of dag that can contract gout is the Dalmatian as their livers have trouble breaking down uric acid, which can build up in the blood serum (hyperuricemia) causing gout and can also be excreted in high concentration into the urine, causing kidney stones and bladder stones.

Red Leicester is a type of cheese which was originally made on farms in Leicestershire with milk that was surplus once all the Stilton desired was made and was originally coloured with carrot or Beet juice.

Launched by NASA and partners at 6:40 AM EST on April 1, 1960, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the United States, the world's first weather satellite, Tiros 1, sent back thousands of images during its short life span of only 79 days.

The Tibes Indigenous Ceremonial Center located in Ponce, Puerto Rico, is believed to be the oldest astronomical observatory in the Caribbean due to the orientation of the ceremonial plazas.

The super-ego, id and ego are parts of Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud’s model of the psyche discussed in the 1920 essay Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and fully elaborated in The Ego and the Id in 1923.

Quotables 25 November

 

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Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Trivia Bits 24 November

 

cuttie-stool

A cuttie-stool (pictured), or cutty-stool, is the Lowland Scots name for a three legged stool that was thrown by Jenny Geddes at the Dean of St Giles High Kirk, in protest at the introduction of Anglican style prayer books in 1637.

The terms dinosaur-dig, pepper and floater are used in the sport of Volleyball.

With headquarters in Washington, D.C., NASA is an acronym for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration established in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower with a distinctly civilian, rather than military orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science.

Frank Chee Willeto, a Navajo code talker with the U.S. Marine Corps during World War 2, became the Vice President of the Navajo Nation in 1998.

Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation, was chosen as the most beautiful of the gods by Paris, a Trojan prince.

The 2006 American romantic dance film Step Up starred Channing Tatum as Tyler Gage, a skilled but troubled dancer.

The three day music festival Woodstock, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music", took place from August 15 to 18, 1969 and held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre (240 ha; 0.94 sqmi) dairy farm near Bethel, New York.

At a traditional Chinese wedding, the bride wears red which is considered the symbol of love and prosperity; hence most of the dresses include red as their base colour with the candles, flowers, ribbons and fireworks, all used in red.

Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University with Google incorporated as a privately held company on September 4, 1998.

Someone who is born on May 11 has the star sign of Taurus with the characteristics of loving the rewards of the game, think physical pleasures and material goods, revel in delicious excess and are also a tactile lot, enjoying a tender, even sensual, touch.

The twenty sixth book of the Old Testament was written by Ezekiel who reveals prophecies regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, the restoration to the land of Israel and the Millennial Temple visions, or the Third Temple.

Quotables 24 November

 

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Monday, November 23, 2015

Trivia Bits 23 November

 

Are You There God Its Me Margaret

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret (first edition cover pictured) was a 1970 novel written by American author Judy Blume and is about a girl in sixth grade who grew up without a religious affiliation with Margaret's mother being Christian and her father Jewish, and the novel explores her quest for a single religion.

The Beazley Medal education award can be won by students in Western Australia to the year-twelve secondary student with the highest Curriculum Council award score and is named after former Federal Education Minister Kim Edward Beazley.

In the history of neurology, Ancient Egyptians described the effect that some bodily functions can be impaired by brain injuries or injuries to the cervical spine.

The poodle is believed to have originated in Germany where it was known as the Pudelhund, was standardized in France, where it was commonly used as a water retriever and due to the breed's popularity in France became established as its national breed

Baw Baw National Park is a 13,530-hectare (33,400-acre) national park located on the boundaries between the Central Highlands and Gippsland regions of Victoria, Australia and is situated approximately 120 kilometres (75 mi) east of Melbourne.

Actor Ashley Judd co-starred with Morgan Freeman in the 1997 movie Kiss the Girls an American thriller film directed by Gary Flede

The Madrid Codex, one of only three surviving pre-Columbian Maya books, contains almanacs and horoscopes that were used to assist Maya priests in their ceremonies and is made from a long strip of amate paper that was folded up accordion-style that was then coated with a thin layer of fine stucco, which was used as the painting surface. The complete document consists of 56 sheets painted on both sides to produce a total of 112 pages.

American journalist Shana Alexander was the first female columnist for Life magazine and was noted for "The Feminine Eye" column she wrote during the 1960s.

Alecia Beth Moore is better known by the stage name of Pink who ranked at number 10 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Women in Music in 2012, and was awarded the Billboard Woman of the Year in 2013.

American actress, comedian and television host noted for her often controversial comedic persona, Joan Rivers was born Joan Alexandra Molinsky in 1933 the New York borough of Brooklyn the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants.

Quotables 23 November

 

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Sunday, November 22, 2015

Trivia Bits 22 November

 

Carole Lombard starred as the rich girl in the 1936 American comedy-drama film My Man Godfrey (poster pictured) based on 1011 Fifth a short novel by Eric Hatch and concerns a socialite who hires a derelict to be her family's butler, only to fall in love with him, much to his dismay.

Colloquially, a mollydooker is a left-handed person and may have been derived from molly, fussy man who does women's work + dook, a variant of duke or fist.

The islands of Aruba, Bonair and Curacao are known as the ABC Islands are the three western-most islands of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean, north of Falcón State, Venezuela.

Represented by the Roman numerals MCMXCVII is 1997.

Australia is the smallest continent and sixth largest country (in area) on Earth, lying between the Pacific and Indian oceans with an area of 2,969,978 sq mi (7,692,208 sq km).

American blues, jazz and rock guitarist Robben Ford has collaborated with Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison and KISS and was named one of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of the 20th Century" by Musician magazine.

The Orkney Islands are an archipelago in northern Scotland, 16 kms/10 mi north of the coast of Caithness and comprise approximately 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited.

The world's highest railway is in Peru where the Central Railway climbs to 15,694 feet in the Galera tunnel, 108 miles from Lima and is used by tourists to travel to the ruins of Machu Picchu.

Nadezhda Durova, a woman who became a decorated soldier in the Russian cavalry during the Napoleonic wars, started as a private in 1807 and retired with the rank of stabs-rotmistr in 1816.

Born in Kazakhstan to Eduard and Irina Grigoryan, both professional violinists, Slava Grigoryan is an Australian classical guitarist and recording artist who, following his win at the Tokyo International Classical Guitar Competition where he was the youngest finalist in the history of that competition, was signed by Sony Music Entertainment in 1995 for whom he released four solo album.

Quotables 22 November

 

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