Questions for May 2013

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for May 2013 – please give your answers to this quiz by posting a comment. But as I already know the answers, I prefer to see witty or sarcastic comments! I have to moderate the postings to avoid spam (and abuse), but I will try to do that quickly. The real answers will appear in early June. Go for it!

1. Samuel Beckett and the wrestler Andre the Giant were friends. Yes really! What did they talk about most?
2. What was the British weather like on Saturday, 24 August 1867?
3. King Mithridates VI (120-63 BC) had the brilliant idea of ingesting small doses of every known poison, to build up immunity. Why did he come to regret doing this?
4. How do you catch a Kakapo (NZ bird)?
5. Amazon can delete books from all Kindles, without asking permission from the people who paid for the books and thought they were the owners. In 2009 whose books were so removed?

Questions for April 2013

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for April 2013 – please give your answers to this quiz by posting a comment. But as I already know the answers, I prefer to see witty or sarcastic comments! I will moderate the postings to avoid spam (and abuse), but I will try to do that quickly. The real answers will appear in May.

1. When the poet Dante Gabriel Rosetti ran out of fresh poetic inspiration (and hence, of money) what unusual action did he take?
2. How many coughs are described in the Bible?
3. James Joyce, being quite ill when writing Finnegan’s Wake, designated his friend James Stephens to finish it, should it have tragically needed completion. What qualified Stephens for this role?
4. In North Korea, what musical instrument must all schoolteachers be able to play?
5. Poor old King Martin of Aragon – all his children died, and he was busy trying to arrange who would be his successor; what went wrong?

Questions for March 2013

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for March 2013 – please give your answers to this quiz by posting a comment. But as I already know the answers, I prefer to see witty or sarcastic comments! I will moderate the postings to avoid spam (and abuse), but I will try to do that quickly. The real answers will appear in April.

1. Some homeopaths sell homeopathic fluoride at 6X potency. Is there an alternative source for this?
2. Bananas contain potassium. What is the relevance of this when they are exported from the USA?
3. What Beatles song was originally titled “Scrambled Eggs”?
4. What is the well-known quote from the political speech “Normalcy, Never Again”?
5. Japan’s Okayama Castle has three gates – Ote Mon, Akazu No Mon, and Rokujuu-ichi Gangi Ue Mon. What is the origin of the name of the third gate?

Questions for February 2013

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for February 2013 – please give your answers to this quiz by posting a comment. But as I already know the answers, I prefer to see witty or sarcastic comments! I will moderate the postings to avoid spam (and abuse), but I will get on with that quickly. The real answers will appear in March.

1. These useful household things powered by electricity were invented in this order, between 1889 and 1910. What is the missing item? Sewing machine, fan, teakettle, toaster, ??, vacuum cleaner, flatiron, frying pan.
2. What is the origin of the word “cretin”?
3. How many sneezes are reported in the Bible?
4. The “False Dmitry” claimed to be Dmitry Ivanovich, son of Ivan the Terrible and actually made it to become Tsar for a few months. After his death another False Dmitry – False Dmitry II – turned up – who did he claim to be?
5. Why did the contemporary folk singer Attila the Stockbroker – change from playing a mandolin to playing a mandola?

Questions for January 2013

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for January 2013 – please give your answers to this quiz by posting a comment. But as I already know the answers, I prefer to see witty or sarcastic comments! I will moderate the postings to avoid spam (and abuse), but I will get on with that quickly. The real answers will appear in February.

1. A cat is kept at 10 Downing St, to catch mice (and rats). A new cat was adopted in 2011 but what happened to him in 2012?
2. In 1953, who was the first to reach the top of Mount Everest?  
3. What colour would Coca-Cola be, if they did not add black stuff to it?
4. The Tour de France is a notoriously difficult bike race – although Dr Bob himself has won it just as many times as Lance Armstrong – but what other French “Tour” is said to be much harder?
5. How tall was the last Viking who died in Greenland?

Questions for December 2012

I got my motorbike back … well, what is left of it.  Maybe I can get going again with life now … This is Dr Bob’s quiz for December 2012 – please send me your answers to this quiz, either by clicking this link for an email template, or by sending a freely formatted email to quiz1@skeptics.com.au – or, NEW FEATURE – by posting a comment.  Comments will be moderated, but they will appear here a hell of a lot sooner than when I get around to looking at the e-mails.

1. Why did someone claim that the houses of Formosa have bends in their chimneys?
2. What is the highest integer number to be mentioned in the Bible?
3. OK, this is much harder – what is the lowest integer not mentioned in the Bible?
4. What drug did Benjamin Franklin recommend that scientists search for, which if discovered “would do more for the common good than Descartes, Newton and Aristotle together”?
5. The protagonists of O.Henry’s short story “The Magi” had “only $1.87, and 60c of that was in one-cent coins” – really?

Answers for September 2012

Sorry, late again!!  Only one entry anyway!!  Pity, I was proud of these questions.

Q1: Where does the name “derrick” for a small crane originate?
A1:  Derek is the English language short form of Dederik, the Low German form of the name Theoderic. Theoderic is an old Germanic name with an original meaning of “people-ruler”.  Common variants include Derrick, so it seems that cranes are called derricks because they are taller than people & are imposing & could therefore be said by the intellectually challenged to “rule” over people. (It’s a crap answer, Dr Bob, but you’re stuck with it…)
Real answer: Thomas Derrick, English executioner, invented a device for hanging his clients.

Q2. How have the rules of the traditional game of “conkers” been recently modified in Britain?
A2:  Actually, the rules stayed the same but the name recently changed to “bonkers”, reflecting the intellect of those who believe that bashing one’s nuts together is a fun pastime.
Real answer: Conkers was made illegal in 2012

Q3.  Dr Bob’s mother was once at a posh British Xmas Dinner, hosted by a wealthy family with servants. A magnificent Roast Turkey had been prepared, which the maid brought in on a silver tray; very elegantly to begin with but she tripped and dumped the barbecued bird on the carpet, right in front of the horrified guests. What did the hostess immediately say?
A3:  “Well, I say, we won’t gobble THAT gobbler, will we now, ha ha, snort, chortle!  Oh, by the way, while I have the floor, you are sacked, Hortense, effective now, this minute.”
Real answer: “Take it out, Susan, and bring in the OTHER ONE”

Q4. Norway kept threatening to boycott the 1936 whaling congress. If they had indeed left, what countries would have remained?
A4:  Australia, which was at the wrong conference anyway.  One of the Australians earlier had overheard a Norwegian say in relation to the regular appearance of the large cetaceans, “You can bank on the whales” and immediately thought it was a conference of bankers.  (It is no coincidence that, in Australia, “bankers” and “wankers” are synonyms.)
Real answer: Just Britain

Q5. A traditional folk song about Ned Kelly contains the lines “You know the country well, Ned, so take your comrades there / And profit by your knowledge of the Wombat and the Bear” – what does this mean?
A5:  Easy – a wombat eats roots and leaves; as did Mr Kelly.  And the (Bundy) bear is all about rum, Mr Kelly’s favourite tipple.
Real answer: These are rivers, in northern Victoria

Comments:
Can one be skeptical of skepticism?  Or should one be certain about it?

Questions for November 2012

I am still having difficulty in rebuilding my life after the 104-day motorbike trip, see THIS LINK!

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for November 2012 – please send me your answers to this quiz by clicking this link. An email template will open that will allow you to send the answers using your own email software. Or, you can send a freely formatted email to quiz1@skeptics.com.au.

1. What unique status is possessed by Ms Karin Vogel, of Rostock, Germany?
2. Alcohol sales at rival outlets owned by Coles and Woolworths – both agressively claim that they cannot be beaten on price. Is this claim true?
3. Can cows climb stairs?
4. How many Americans are injured annually by Toilets?
5. What road vehicles in Russia have no licence plates?

Questions for October 2012

October 2012 quiz

Quiz for October – I am home again, but the travel blog continues (4 weeks behind) at THIS LINK!

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for October 2012 – please send me your answers to this quiz by clicking this link. An email template will open that will allow you to send the answers using your own email software. Or, you can send a freely formatted email to quiz1@skeptics.com.au.

1. There is an area of the continental USA where anyone can commit any crime and get clean away with it – where?
2. Thomas Derrick filled the very unpopular job as executioner at Tyburn, as part of a deal, arranged by the Earl of Essex, that pardoned Derrick from the death sentence for a conviction of rape. Did Derrick ever meet Essex again?
3. O.Henry spent a lot of time reading Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, and loaned it to a rather slow-witted friend who read the first few pages, what did the friend say about it?
4. Modern Russian bookshops commonly have large sections of books about law, and economics – what other topic is always well represented?
5. On what book should a sticker be placed that says “Important if true”?

(messy) Answers for August 2012

I’ll get these up i n haste to let you see the answers ASAP … will tidy up later

Q1 Why are flamingoes pink?

REAL ANSWER: Pink stuff in what they eat.

• Because they can’t be bothered separating their whites from their colours when they do the laundry.
• Because they’re embarrassed or because they’re gay or because they’re girls. Pick your own answer, Dr Bob.
• Dr Bob, I know the answer to this one isn’t because they eat shrimps because I’ve watched QI and they asked the exact same question. It’s something to do with the algae in the water. Although I still like to think eating shrimps can make you pink.
• Gay marriage protest
• It was something they ate, much like when I last went green after eating a rather suspicious looking sausage I purchased near Flemington race course. In retrospect I am pretty sure a sausage that resembled a gorses thingy wasn’t a celebration of horse racing the vendor touted at the time.
• Like everything else alive…you are what you eat. And flamingos apparently enjoy carotenoids!
• Much more interesting than why they are pink (they absorb carotene, so in places where it’s important that they are very pink – like Las Vegas – they are fed extra carotene extract) is their mating habits. They won’t mate unless there are a lot of them (which reminds me of University days, but that’s another story). But they are easily fooled, and all you need to do is to put a lot of mirrors around them so they THINK there’s a lot of them, and hey presto, you’ve got a breeding colony.
• Not surprisingly, and on a serious note, the flamingos at Taronga Park Zoo are sponsored by O’Brien Glass.

Q2 Truck drivers dislike the tachometer that monitors speed and distance; it used to be powered from the truck’s lighting circuit, so to disable it they would take the lighting fuse out. So the unpopular device was instead connected into the circuit that powered the brakes; how did the drivers overcome it then?

REAL ANSWER: Removed the fuse from the brake circuit!

• According to the book I’m reading at the moment (‘American Journeys’, by Don Watson), paid some weasely guy with a laptop $500 to reprogram them.
• By banging it with a really really big wrench.
• By planting their right foot, accelerating to 180km/h and crashing spectacularly, thus smashing the tachometer into a thousand pieces upon which the triumphant driver could say with feeling to the boss, “Gotcha, you bastard!” just before dying.
• Hang on, Dr Bob, you aren’t suggesting that truckies would deliberately tamper with equipment that they’re legally required to have? Shame on you! (Yes, by casting nasturtiums on your good self, I am cleverly directing you away from the fact that I don’t know the answer.)
• Me being more of a pedant that you, Dr Bob, I point out with great delight that the device about which you speak is not a TACHOMETER but a TACHOGRAPH. And is this not a trick question????? Most truck brakes are powered by compressed air, not electricity.
• The same way. Brakes is a semi are more of a luxury than a necessity anyway.

Q3 What would you find in a Nerparium?

REAL ANSWER: Dr Bob, admiring the Nerpas (seals found only in Lake Baikal). Well, that’s what you would have found if Dr Bob had been able to find the bloody Nerparium. There is only one in the world, or, possibly there aren’t any Nerparia now, but if there is one, I couldn’t find it.

• According to Wikipedia there is a chance it is a Russian Submarine the K-152 Akula class submarine. Now this plain got weird given that they might also be seals which is still weird given the Akula I believe means shark. So in all I am pretty sure it isn’t a tank where Russian submarines cavort and play merrily. So I am going to go with the seals. Unless of course it has something to do with Nepal and in that case I give up.
• I suppose everyone will say “Nerps” without knowing what a nerp is, even though a quick google says something about fat Baikal seals in Irkutsk. I’ll go part way with the expected crowd and say “A nerpa” (which, incidentally, is a word close to “sherpa” so one imagines that the difference is that sherpas climb to the top of the planet’s highest mountain while nerpas – more correctly ‘nerpy’ – descend to the bottom of the planet’s largest fresh water lake. Or something.)
• I’ve been reading the blog of a world traveler who is currently circumnavigating the globe on a motorcycle. He said in his blog that Nerpariums are where Nerpas are kept, of course.
• Nerps, natch! Or bored seals in a lap pool.
• Nerps???
• Tourists. Desperate ones. Well, what else can one do in Irkutsk?

Q4 Ivan the Terrible liked to play chess, but he modified the rules – how?

REAL ANSWER: Removed the King from the board, so as to make it impossible to capture the King (which would have been a career-limiting move anyway). Without the King on the board, there is not much point to playing chess … but complaining about that to I.t.T. would have been another career-limiting move. He played badly anyway, that’s why he was called “the Terrible”, by chess players, at least (if out of earshot).

• “You beat me, I kill you.”
• He allowed the King to eliminate all the knights and bishops – and a few pawns and queens and whatnot – before they could do any damage.
• He had a stroke while playing chess which led to the instigation of what is now common chess commentary. Russian A; “I think he’s finished the game by dying” Russian B, “better check mate”
• He made a rule that said the person who sets the board up has to have a stroke before completing the job. In hindsight, he probably should have asked someone else to set the board up for him after putting that rule into effect…
• I am not going to look this up, but use my incomplete knowledge of ItT. So, he either introduced the colour scheme, or he just chopped opponents heads off if he didn’t win.
• If you were Ivan the Terrible you could do what you bloodywell liked, so who cares!
• I’m guessing it was “I win – you go home, you win – you get free holiday in Siberia”. Not much has changed since then. [Oh yes it has - I had to PAY for my holiday in Siberia]

Q5 Tsar Nicholas II celebrated his accession by providing a party with free beer in special coronation mugs. What happened that spoiled the party?

REAL ANSWER: Rumour spread that the beer was about to run out – many were killed in the resulting stampede towards the beer troughs.

• A little issue with the caterers where a rumour that the beer would run out caused a mass panic leading to a keg load of people being crushed to death trying to grab a drink
• Aussie bogans turned up en masse and drank all the beer, stole all the souvenir mugs and caused a stampede which wasn’t covered by the Australian media because of the 1400-odd people who died and the 1300-odd people who were injured, none were Australian/Western/English speaking. It takes at least 10,000 Russians killed before Western media is interested.
• I suppose you mean the Khodynka tragedy but because the victims were mostly mere peasants, who didn’t count for much in Nick’s Russia (still don’t in Putin’s Russia, for that matter), their deaths really didn’t spoil the coronation. No, the real party-pooping spoiler was the fact that Nick’s coronation cake tasted like crap so he had the cake cook castrated immediately and then, to the chagrin of the refined Russian aristocrats present, decorated the remains of the cake with tasty crushed nuts.
• It was a heck of a party. The Foreign Minister dropped dead during the coronation procession, people were trampled to death in a field, a storm raged through and wiped out everything with lightning and hail, and Nick got caught double dipping a celery stalk in the onion dip. Superstitious people might have thought all of that bad luck to be an ill omen, but they were proven wrong. (Unless, of course, you believe that being shot in a cellar and having your body destroyed with Sulphuric acid to be bad luck)
• Someone beat him at chess?
• The Tsarina abseiled off with James Bond and the Spice Girls decided to sing. [Well, that would have been a novelty]

COMMENTS:

• Dr Bob, what do you think Ivan the Terrible would think of Australia’s asylum seeker policy if he was around today?
• Hope you are not rushin’ through your trip, Dr Bob. [No, I'm Rumanian at the back of the pack]

(messy) Answers for July 2012

Sorry, it’s another messy half-baked update, and it’s more than a month late … but at least I have time to write this much, I’m now in Khabarovsk with internet in the hotel room (at last) and I completed the Road of Bones motorbike trip successfully, well, if you call 3 different broken bones in separate spills “successful”.

Q1 Descartes said that the only thing that is certain is the existence of doubt. How could he be so sure?

REAL ANSWER: He wasn’t – that’s why he was.

• Cogito ergo sure.
• Don’t know much about Descartes or his work, but without the existence of doubt there would be no skeptics, and with no skeptics I wouldn’t be doing this quiz. QED, at least for me, but I still don’t know Descartes reached his conclusions. The modern equivalent would seem to be US philosopher Donald Rumsfeld’s known unknowns.
• He tried everything he could think of to doubt the existance of doubt without…y’know…doubt, but he just couldn’t make it work. Like all great minds, he figured that if he couldn’t manage it, it had to be impossible.
• I’m in no doubt he was so sure. Let’s face it, he studied all des cartes so carefully that he would have mapped out every eventuality. And he never put des cartes before des horses. (And other tired recycled Descartes one liners…)

Q2 The freeway speed limit in France is 130 kph. What happens if it rains?

REAL ANSWER: The speed limit officially drops to 110kph

• Although it’s supposed to be 110 kph, the cheap sign-paint runs, a la Pepe le Pew, et zut alors, 180 mph!
• If they maintain their speed, motorists can risk getting booked for breaking the limit by 20kph. Of course they’re French so I guess it’s a risk they accept. If it hasn’t rained for a while, the motorist in France is confronted with the same possibility of a slippery surface as on freeways elsewhere in the world.
• The cars get wet. So do the freeways.
• The French fry themselves on their roads at an even higher rate than normal, which is saying something. (Well, it’s not saying “something” but it’s certainly saying something.)
• The obvious answer being, “Everything gets wet.” Fortunately, the French are much deeper thinkers than that. They realize that when water pools on the road,it creates the conditions needed for hydroplaning, so for safety’s sake they reduce the speed limit to 110 kph. Of course if they thought just a little deeper, they would realize that most cars begin hydroplaining at 70 to 75 kph…

Q3 You normally ride a motorbike sitting on the seat, with feet on the pegs. What happens to the handling and centre of gravity if you stand up on the pegs?

REAL ANSWER: Motorcyclists insist that it lowers the centre of gravity, which it can’t really but by separating the rider’s boidy from the motorbike it lowers the COG oif the bit on the road, and improves handling, except if you want to put your feet on the road (which you shouldn’t). And except when, as happened to me on a muddy day in Mongolia, one of your feet slips off its peg – how on earth I balanced the bike and regained control I’ll never know.

• I don’t normally ride a motorbike at all, Dr Bob. I’m not that silly. How dare you be so presumptuous! Only Hells Angels, drug dealers and morons ride motorbikes (oh, er, delete that last bit, you’re riding one across Asia, oh shit, now I’ve blown my chance to win this month, damn…)
• If -I- do it? Since I have never learned to ride a motorcycle, you can flip a coin: Heads, the handling is reduced to near zero and the center of gravity shifts so far to the right that the bike crashes. Tails, same thing but to the left. If the coin lands perfectly on it’s edge, the handling of the bike is reduced and the center of gravity is moved up and forward (assuming the pegs are closer to the front of the bike than my butt would be in the seat). A popular myth states that standing increases handling, but anyone who has tried to manuever a series of tight curves knows it’s much more difficult and must be done slower when standing.
• Nothing, presuming you can still hold onto the handlebars.
• Very little. The pegs are already close to the CoG, so standing up on them has minimal effect unless you are trying to corner, when the CoG changes laterally and vertically

Q4 What problem did the Beefeaters, who live at the Tower of London, recently have with their house insurance?

REAL ANSWER: Premiums were increased because that area of London (“Tower Hamlets”) is considered insecure.

• Like anyone who lives in a crime filled neighborhood, they were repeatedly rejected for insurance. It’s the same problem they have getting medical insurance, since people who eat enough beef to be labelled “Beefeaters” is no doubt at much higher risk for colon cancer.
• The companies won’t cover them, being in a high-crime postcode area, what with all the carrion birds and a long history of murders by decapitation ON THEIR VERY DOORSTEPS. Plus, the vegans are revolting!
• They couldn’t get any because of the risk profile of the local area. I suppose the risk is worked out on an average for an area and not on the specifics of a particular building. Reminds me of my university days when our one of our stats lecturers at Melbourne Uni (they included Mr Smith, Mrs Smith and Mr Jones, the sort of names you’d expect for the average stats lecturer) said that a statistician was the sort of person who observed someone with feet in the fridge and head in the oven, and concluded that on average they were quite comfortable. He later added that an economist when confronted with the same scenario assumed they were comfortable.
• They discovered they needed a separate life policy for their incarcerated princes – little buggers weren’t covered by either the house OR contents insurance. Poor deluded Beefeaters thought the princes had been there so long they were part of the furniture & therefore covered but the evil insurance company said not so.

Q5 How did the 16th-century mystic and spy, John Dee, sign his letters to Queen Elizabeth I?

REAL ANSWER: 007

• “Loudermilk”. He was a star signer.
• Because of the Latin printing, the ‘j’ became an ‘i,’ which with his cipher became: ‘I spy, 007′
• In lemon juice. But seriously, it was apparently 007, and this revelation has destroyed my lifetime belief that novelists are original thinkers.
• When they were kids, he signed them, “Your Dearest Friend Who Eats Dinner with Two Plates and a Bent Knife.” (Don’t ask why, it’s a terribly long story with no punch line to speak of.) When they were older, he shortened it to “OO7″

C O M M E N T S:

• Enjoy your ride, Dr Bob.
• I’m following your adventures with interest. I particularly envy your freedom to snore. I’m also desperately looking for the link by which I can (attempt to) answer the July questions. If you get a moment between visits from painted ladies, perhaps you can put me into my misery.
• Thanks for having me back, Doc!
• Hi, Dr. Bob: Thanks for the quiz in the midst of your peripateticosity. I too had been in the USSR when tourist photography invited camera confiscation, so I really appreciate pix of Sochi and Moscow. And, Happy Canada D’eh!

Questions for September 2012

September 2012 quiz

Quiz for September – I have reached Magadan safely, and should have more time now – crikey, I have not even put up the answers for July, sorry … but you can still follow my blog at www.stevethings.wordpress.com!

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for September 2012 – please send me your answers to this quiz by clicking this link. An email template will open that will allow you to send the answers using your own email software. Or, you can send a freely formatted email to quiz1@skeptics.com.au.

1. Where does the name “derrick” for a small crane originate?
2. How have the rules of the traditional game of “conkers” been recently modified in Britain?
3. Dr Bob’s mother was once at a posh British Xmas Dinner, hosted by a wealthy family with servants. A magnificent Roast Turkey had been prepared, which the maid brought in on a silver tray; very elegantly to begin with but she tripped and dumped the barbecued bird on the carpet, right in front of the horrified guests. What did the hostess immediately say?
4. Norway kept threatening to boycott the 1936 whaling congress. If they had indeed left, what countries would have remained?
5. A traditional folk song about Ned Kelly contains the lines “You know the country well, Ned, so take your comrades there / And profit by your knowledge of the Wombat and the Bear” – what does this mean?

Questions for August 2012

Quiz for August – I am still on the road towards Magadan and have reached Irkutsk; follow my blog at www.stevethings.wordpress.com but don’t read about Day 41.

This is Dr Bob’s quiz for August 2012 – please send me your answers to this quiz by clicking this link. An email template will open that will allow you to send the answers using your own email software. Or, you can send a freely formatted email to quiz1@skeptics.com.au.

1. Why are flamingoes pink?
2. Truck drivers dislike the tachometer that monitors speed and distance; it used to be powered from the truck’s lighting circuit, so to disable it they would take the lighting fuse out. So the unpopular device was instead connected into the circuit that powered the brakes; how did the drivers overcome it then?
3. What would you find in a Nerparium?
4. Ivan the Terrible liked to play chess, but he modified the rules – how?
5. Tsar Nicholas II celebrated his accession by providing a party with free beer in special coronation mugs. What happened that spoiled the party?

(messy) Answers for June2012

ANSWERS FOR JUNE 2012

Sorry, I have to post this blind, but will tidy it up and find a winner when I can, which will be in mid-September. I’m in Kyrgyzstan now, and Internet is very difficult also I can post blind to it, but I cannot see the blog!! Dr Bob

Q1. Safety Beach was called …?
A1: REAL ANSWER: SHARK BAY
A1: Danger Bay? Lol, pretty close! ‘Shark Bay’
A1: Before I looked up via Google I guessed Shark Bay, so I wasn’t really surprised when the answer was Shark Beach. Given the prevailing attitudes to predators in their natural environment, now it isn’t safe for sharks either.
A1: Shark Bay Beach. Did that mean the first person (or, to be more specific, their surviving family) to get nipped at by a shark after the name change got to sue the advertising company/tourism board for false advertising? A1: The beach…in aboriginal. So were all the others, presumably.
A1: The Melbourne Board of Tourism has been undergoing significant development. Over the years they have tried naming it, “Unexploded Ordinance Beach,” “Discarded Medical Waste Beach,” “Taliban Beach” and “Shark Beach.” The most recent name only narrowly beat out “Self Immolation Beach” by a vote of 5 to 4.
A1: The place was originally flooded by loud carpetbagger real estate developers. The were known locally as those “Baying Sharks”. Over time the place name got as corrupted as the developers.
A1: Turd Beach, after the blind mullet that used to congregate there before Bleak City got around to installing a decent sewerage system. The beach could then be approached by Victorian bathers in relative safety, hence the new name. Visiting Queensland bathers would, of course, still not go anywhere near the place. Tasmanians do not bathe, so the matter is to them irrelevant.

Q2. Bulgarians say good DAY after …?
A2: REAL ANSWER: ABOUT 9am
A2: They don’t. It’s never a good day in Bulgaria.
A2: From 1878 ’til the mid-70′s, since that’s Russian? Timewise, anytime in bed, or before 10 am. A2: …killing a British spy with an umbrella.
A2: After they get out of bed. The phrase ‘Good Morning’, said quietly with the correct inflection to the right person, carries the overtones of the aftermath of a ‘Good Night’ to consenting adults in private.
A2: Bulgarians only say “good morning” until the hovercraft is full of eels, then they say “good day for eel pie, ??????? “.
A2: I seem to recall from my really mediocre attempts at German it was after 12 noon that they changed greetings, but I wouldn’t trust my German skills. I failed dismally and it only ever seems to come back to me when I am screamingly drunk and can’t be understood anyway. So I’m going to guess: there are no polite Bulgarians so no-one says it. It’s just a ruse to work out who the tourists are.
A2: They stop saying Good Morning at 10am. 10am to noon is nap time for the entire country (which explains why they will never be a super power, although they are remarkably well adjusted.

Q3. If you use the lift (elevator) in a fire …?
A3: REAL ANSWER: Nothing – the lift will go to the ground floor and stay open.
A3: If you don’t die, the NYPD or LAPD or whoever they are will arrest you when you get out at the ground floor before handing you to Homeland Security who will then render you to Abu Ghraib where out-of-control military police will attach electrodes to your genitals and hang you upside down until you cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die that next time you will take the wretched elevator all the way down to the basement.
A3: Large Nubians stare you down until you get out? As Douglas Adams knew, elevators are cowards, and at the first whiff of smoke, return you to the main floor, lock their doors open, and must be Freudianly re-set with a key. A3: Depends entirely on your star sign, could have some ups or downs. A3: Fires don’t have elevators. Buildings do. Trick question…?
A3: Unless the fire is on the ground floor, in the basement or in the lift well or associated machinery, you get out alive. Unless some idiot turns off the power to the lifts, in which case you probably suffocate.
A3: You can sue your workplace and the lift company for letting you get into a lift in a fire. Well, once again, I suggest it might be your surviving family who could do that. I think you’d bake like a Sunday roast.
A3: You get a hernia as they are way too heavy to use in the event of a fire. That’s why firefighters use water.

Q4. Narwhals rubbing tusks are …?
A4: REAL ANSWER: It just feels good. Oh, those naughty narwhals!!!
A4: Don’t ask, don’t tell (see ‘tusking’ below). We were taught digging up shellfish, but from ‘narwhal.org’ [!]: Myriad theories have been proposed: a weapon, a secondary sexual characteristic in males [males rubbing their tusks together is called 'tusking' (I bet!)], for breaking ice, a spear for hunting, a ritualistic appendage in establishing male hierarchy [eyeroll], a breathing organ [what, like a STRAW?!?], a thermoregulator, a swimming rudder, a tool for digging, and an acoustic organ or sound probe. A4: They’re gay, and want to have it off with each other.
A4: Attemting to achieve the Narwhal Sea Scouts Badge of Camp Fire Competency. A4: Juvenile delinquents wanking behind the bike sheds.
A4: Part of the inspiration for Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader’s combat scene from Star Wars. It was after seeing Narwhals perform this interesting ritual that George Lucas came up with the concept of the Light Sabre. However unlike Darth Vader, both narwhals live to fight another day. A4: That it probably just feels good.
A4: They are lobbying pollies for gay marriage rights, or just trying to freak Tony Abbott out when he’s in an ironman comp.

Q5. Mongolia’s second claim to cultural fame?
A5: REAL ANSWER: ATTILA THE HUN
A5: Other than Mr Khan, Mongolia can rightly claim world leadership in donations to charity. Mongolians will give ’til it yurts. A5: Yoghurt? Yaks? Yurts? Please don’t say ‘PingPong’.
A5: Kublai Khan!
A5: Portable housing. The yurt is the ideal form of residence for today’s contract worker. Why put down permanent roots when you can take your yurt almost anywhere provided suitable transport can be arranged? The yurt is also eco-friendly because when it is abandoned or overcome by natural disaster it is quickly absorbed back into the local ecosystem – it is made from 100% recyclable components. A5: They provided the basis of the modern language of Hungary.
A5: We also have Madeline Khan, star of the classic Blazing Mongolian Saddles and our reknowned philosopher Genghis Kant.
A5: Yurts. I’ve seen movies made in Mongolia (I loved the weeping camel one). They have yurts, camels, sand and satellite tv in the towns. Or perhaps the guide said ‘a movie industry’.

COMMENTS:

Dr Bob, did you know Plato was a mathematical totalitarianist? I didn’t either, so there you go. It is my aim to teach you something new every quiz. (It’s good to be back, but I’ve gone in early this month and so I haven’t seen whether it’s my name in lights this month. I do suspect it will be because I was incredibly funny last month!)

Congrats on the rejuvenation of the Quiz, Dr. Bob, and Bon Voyage!

I’ve never been to Mongolia but I once visited Victoria. Is there any difference?

Enjoy your trip, Dr Bob. Sounds terrific.

Mail address!

Sorry, I am in Kyrgyzsytan and there is hardly any internet, and what there is, appears to be censored. Please send answers to

quiz1 @ skeptics.com.au

Any (more) problems, or to write to me direct, use

steve @ steveroberts.com.au

Dr Bob

Questions for July 2012

Q1 Descartes said that the only thing that is certain is the existence of doubt. How could he be so sure?

Q2 The freeway speed limit in France is 130 kph. What happens if it rains?

Q3 You normally ride a motorbike sitting on the seat, with feet on the pegs. What happens to the handling and centre of gravity if you stand up on the pegs?

Q4 What problem did the Beefeaters, who live at the Tower of London, recently have with their house insurance?

Q5 How did the 16th-century mystic and spy, John Dee, sign his letters to Queen Elizabeth I?

Quiz for June 2012

Welcome ALL YOU FANS who have returned to my time-wasting quiz! I wasd heartened, indeed overcome with gratitude, to see such a positive response from so many long-lost entrants! Welcome back, and I hope you continue to enjoy the quiz as it used to be.

This quiz is at drbobsquiz.wordpress.com – please bookmark the link.

Please send me your answers to this monthly quiz by emailing me at quiz1@skeptics.com.au – all submissions will be anonymous; names (except winners) and email details are never released. This quiz has been running at the Australian Skeptics website for over 15 years, but I don’t want to burden them with it any more!

Also FOLLOW MY BLOG at stevethings.wordpress.com – today I am in ISTANBUL and really I could find better things to do, but it’s not much trouble to put up new questions (that I have prepared offline). Answers for May will appear in a few days – please bear with me, I am pretty busy at all times on this trip!

1. What was the former name of Safety Beach (in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne)?
2. When do Bulgarians – polite ones, at least – stop saying “Good Morning” (/dobro utro/) to each other and start saying “good day” (/dob’r dyen/) instead?
3. What happens if you DO use the lift (US: elevator) in the event of a fire?
4. When two male Narwhals rub their tusks together, they were originally thought to be duelling over a female, but further observation has now shown – what?
5. Dr Bob once visited Mongolia (and is on his way to do so again); the tour guide went crapping on and on about Genghis Khan, for days on end, and when finally asked if Mongolia had any other culture at all said “oh yes, we also have ….” what?

The quiz is changed every first day of the month, and the results are published a few days later. The questions are meant to be difficult (Wikipedia keeps ruining my act) but they do have real answers – and as I already know and will reveal the answers, I prefer to get sarcastic or witty efforts. I will choose a Winner each month, using wholly mysterious criteria, but you should be skeptical about the existence of a prize!

Quiz for May 2012

Hello quiz fans! Welcome to the new home for my silly trivia quiz, here at drbobsquiz.wordpress.com – please bookmark the link.

Please send me your answers to this monthly quiz by emailing me at quiz1@skeptics.com.au – all submissions will be anonymous; names (except winners) and email details are never released.  This quiz has been running at the Australian Skeptics website for over 15 years, but I don’t want to burden them with it any more! 
Also FOLLOW MY BLOG at stevethings.wordpress.com especially from May 20th, when I start riding a motorbike from London to Magadan!

1. When the bodies of Tsar Nicholas and his family were recovered, their identity was confirmed by DNA testing. Where did they get the reference samples of DNA?
2. When you enter the historical bluestone chapel built by 19th-century German settlers at Westgarthtown (Melbourne), there are more hooks for hats on the right-hand side than on the left, why is that?
3. What was Sir John Betjeman’s only regret?
4. Salvador Dali gave a surrealist lecture, wearing a diving suit and a dagger, with two Russian wolfhounds on a leash in one hand and a billiard cue in his other hand – what went wrong?
5. Why did Merlyn Rees change his name to Merlyn Merlyn-Rees?

The quiz is changed every first day of the month, and the results are published a few days later.  The questions are meant to be difficult (Wikipedia keeps ruining my act) but they do have real answers – and as I already know and will reveal the answers, I prefer to get sarcastic or witty efforts. I will choose a Winner each month, using wholly mysterious criteria, but you should be skeptical about the existence of a prize!