Answers for February 2000

Here are the answers to my first quiz of the new millennium (the third millennium after the one that began on 13th Feb, 1000BC, and which only I care about). Yet another prolific field and again our WINNER is

Sam Ross

Who – does not come from Canberra – isn’t really called “Sam Ross” at all – and isn’t even a bloke. How we all love a mystery. I see they are going to dismantle the historic old radio telescope at Canberra. Now what will they do on Sundays?

Question 1

When Edison invented the phonograph what did he think its main use would be?

Answer

Essentially, to transmit speech (by sending recordings of speech)

Also:

  • A source of income for himself.
  • Ever practical and visionary, Edison offered the following possible future uses for the phonograph in North American Review in June 1878: 1. Letter writing and all kinds of dictation without the aid of a stenographer. 2. Phonographic books, which will speak to blind people without effort on their part. 3. The teaching of elocution. 4. Reproduction of music. 5. The “Family Record”–a registry of sayings, reminiscences, etc., by members of a family in their own voices, and of the last words of dying persons. [That might be quite hard to arrange – suppose they make the recording then they don’t die?]6. Music-boxes and toys. 7. Clocks that should announce in articulate speech the time for going home, going to meals, etc. 8. The preservation of languages by exact reproduction of the manner of pronouncing. 9. Educational purposes; such as preserving the explanations made by a teacher, so that the pupil can refer to them at any moment, and spelling or other lessons placed upon the phonograph for convenience in committing to memory. 10. Connection with the telephone, so as to make that instrument an auxiliary in the transmission of permanent and invaluable records, instead of being the recipient of momentary and fleeting communication. (From http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edcyldr.html – a good source for further information on Edison’s and other early phonographs)
  • When Edison first developed the phonograph, he was not really trying to produce a sound recording device, but was looking for a way to improve the design of A.G. Bell’s telephone diaphragm design, to use in a ‘speaking telegraph’. His discovery that a prototype instrument could record spoken words (the famous ‘Mary had a little lamb’ recording) was more or less an accident of experiment. He certainly didn’t envisage it leading to the recording of music.
  • Initially, the foil-wrapped cylinder could only ‘record’ about 30 seconds’ worth of sound (later improvements to design extended the playing time to a couple of minutes). Given this very short playing time, Edison came to believe that his machine would be most suited to recording Alexander Downer Fan Club membership lists, One Nation policy statements or Ramones songs.
  • A handy home generator for cranking up power for his new fangled electric lights.
  • An opportunity to make some use out of those big plastic disks in the cupboard (the ones in the cardboard sleeves with pictures of Val Doonican and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on them)
  • As a dictating machine for letter writers. See: http://www.businessweek.com/1998/35/z3414007.htm
  • As a rival to the telephone. People would make a recording of their conversations and mail them to their cousins in Tennessee. The reply would be sent back as soon as the cousins stopped shooting the phonograph because “th’ dern thang made the voice o’ SATAN outa nuttin’!!”
  • As a waffle maker it was a failure but he did think it would make a fairly decent office dictation machine.
  • Drawing pictures of people’s thought waves so he could start to get a glimpse of how his mother-in-law’s mind worked. However, the prototype short-circuited when he pointed it at her brain so the REAL phonograph never actually managed to get invented.
  • Edison was a keen investor whose fortunes fluctuated. The phonograph merely provided a means of offloading his old stocks of a hard black substance left over from an earlier failed experiment.
  • Either as a Speaking Telegraph or a novel way to speak with the dead…
  • For deaf people to somehow hear better. [And you can bang them over the head with the cylinders if they have not heard properly]
  • He initially intended it to be a device to enable secretaries to take dictation more easily. His first words into the new device were ‘Mary had a little lamb’. They were startled, if not overjoyed, to hear their recording played back to them. Unfortunately, [their joy did not take on a sexual form – woops, carry on…] on the second try they put the cylinder in backwards and the satanic message ‘bmal elttil a dah yram’ (which is ancient Celtish for ‘Go invent something useful like electricity first’) was heard and the true potential of the device was not realised until some years later.
  • If he had any sense, he would have realized it would be used for precisely the same things as all previous advancements in media – Pornography. I think he would have been shocked to find that it’s real purpose was to back-mask brainwashings by satanic worshiping aliens in the guise of scrap metal bands.
  • It is well documented that Thomas Edison was the first person to utter the immortal words “Watch me turn this baby up to eleven!”
  • For playing loud music to cult members during the course of stand-offs with the FBI. [When they played Achy Breaky Heart, the whole cult surrendered]
  • Listening to his daughter sending p-mails
  • Listening to the sound of his own voice, saying that he is such a genius for nicking other people’s ideas.
  • Listening to the Top 40 on FOX-FM
  • Making Barry Manilow rich!
  • Mr. Edison: Knock, knock. Mr. Bell: Who’s there? Mr. Edison: Dictaphone. Mr. Bell: Dictaphone who? Mr. Edison: Dictaphone where the sun don’t shine.
  • Phonography
  • Phonography of course. He was a very naughty boy.
  • Stenography. Just like when Samuel Johnson invented the dictionary, he had no idea its main use would be for primary school children to look up rude words.
  • As a stop gap measure before they invented CDs.
  • If he realised it would be responsible for getting Cliff Richard to number one, he would have destroyed it immediately.
  • Tom used it as a puzzle. His friends would come up with all sorts of answers and then he would say: “No. Only one!” To prove it, he would drag a nail along the groove. After this his invention was used mainly for evil.
  • Well, having called it a phonograph, he obviously intended it to be used to graph the occasional phono. The real question is, were they Cartesian or Polar co-ordinates? I’d have to say polar, but that’s just a guess…
  • With the recent invention of the telephone, Edison decided to invent the answering machine. His first recording was not “Mary had a little lamb” but “Your call is important to us…”. The only real problem he had was how to get the one machine to both give a message and then record a reply.
  • World’s first electric Lazy Susan, although the design wasn’t perfected until the cylinder was replaced with the turntable. Later refined to turn at 33 rpm. At 78 rpm, the sauce bottles kept falling off.

Question 2

When A.G.Bell invented the telephone what did he think its main use would be?

Answer

Broadcasts of music (from a concert hall to the public)

Also:

  • Alexander Graham Bell taught speech to deaf children, and was interested in the physical processes that occurred in the generation of sound and speech. During his research into these phenomena (doo doooo de doo doo), he built an instrument that electrically reproduced the sound of a human voice (speech patterns changed the intensity of an electric current). My guess would be that he originally intended to develop this as a teaching aid in his work with deaf children. He made the first “phone call” in 1875. Twelve months after that he was tragically beaten to death by an angry mob sick of being pestered by telemarketers at meal times.
  • A plot device for Sherlock Holmes stories.
  • A refined man, Bell needed a means of summoning Mr Watson from the next room by a means more civilised than a crass shout.
  • A tool for spreading false rumours about a religion, so that it would be portrayed as a cult of greed and power. He invented this device because he needed a way to communicate worldwide with his partners, all key figures in a huge conspiracy, it was his first step towards world domination. He is the one to be held responsible for the entrapment of the supreme being in our bodies. But we have passed the point of no return, the only way to clear the planet now is to fight fire with fire, we will use the telephone to tell you the truth about your last trillion years on earth; call 1800-4TRUTH now!
  • As a phonogram dictating machine. No! Sorry, I mean playing music.
  • As a rival to the phonograph. People could hear recorded music by simply dialling up an American department store and asking for products that they knew they weren’t in stock. The assistant who answered the phone would then go off into the black hole of “Aisle 3 – breakfast cereals and bread products” – for some hours, while the phonee could then listen to the first primitive muzak for their entertainment.
  • At the time, he thought it would be used for downloading pornography via dial-up Internet access. This is the main reason he invented it. But since the Internet hadn’t been invented yet…….
  • Bell did not invent the telephone, he merely made the 2nd one
  • Call me now. Me and my sexy friends are waiting to fulfil your every … Anyway, the original aim was to invent the multiple orgasm, I mean telegraph. That is, so you can moan while she does. This technology developed into the ‘long distance’ telephone.
  • Calling Edison’s daughter when her p-mail failed
  • Due to the often inclement weather where Mr Bell lived, he would get quite wet whilst going to place his pizza order. He came up with the idea of the phone so that he could phone up the pizza shop, place the order and get them to deliver it – all without stepping out into the blizzard.
  • Graham liked to spend all of his time in his laboratory and was rather put off by having to go to the next room to ask his wife for food, drink, sex etc. So he simultaneously invented the telephone, dial-a pizza, sex-chat….
  • He didn’t invent it it was invented by an Italian American named Meucci a year earlier. At least that’s what they said in the Godfather Part III. [So I had better go back and change the question – I don’t want to find the detached head of my favourite pet gerbil in my bed]
  • How else does one order the amazing vegetable slicer from Demtel?
  • In the movie, getting help for himself when the acid he was using burned his leg. I always wondered about that.
  • It was originally supposed to be something similar to the cochlear implant but there were insurmountable miniaturisation issues – it wouldn’t fit in anyone’s head. [Until the invention of the sledgehammer]
  • It would allow the telegraph operators to talk to each other. See: http://www.webillustrated.com/sections/history/bell.htm
  • Making ABBA rich (you know…”Ring, Ring” etc…)
  • None of: annoying concert-, cinema- and movie-goers when an inconsiderate twerp ‘forgets’ to turn off his/her mobile phone before the performance begins; endangering the lives of others and delaying the movement of others at traffic lights when thoughtless idiots happily chat away on their mobile phone whilst driving; causing angst when the phone rings in the house when you’ve just got to the front door with two big bags of shopping, and the uncertainty and dread you feel when the phone rings at 3AM, and you have a sick or absent loved one.
  • Ordering CDs from amazon.com (this is NOT a paid announcement – believe me, I’m a politician).
  • Ordering pizzas, and downloading gay porn. [I hope he didn’t get them confused – supposing he had said “I like deliveries at the back door….”]
  • Owning lots and lots of Telstra shares. He also wanted girls to say to him “Here’s my number, give me a Bell sometime”. [Bonggg]
  • Talkback radio.
  • To officially complain about Thomas Edison turning his phonograph up to eleven.
  • To prevent masturbation in young boys. [How? The mind boggles]
  • To provide employment for those clowns who think subscribers have nothing better to do with their time than to provide answers for market surveys.
  • To reduce the number of prattling females who visited his wife and ruined his afternoons in front of the telly watching cricket. Jane Austen had a lot to answer for. Part of his patent meant that all telephones had to be hardwired to the microwave so the wives would have to stay in the kitchen while they gossiped.
  • Waking people up at ungodly hours at night asking them the stupid question, “Would you like to buy a telephone?” [Stupid answer: Yes, I’ll buy yours]
  • Well he sure as hell didn’t invent it for the heavy-breathing bundersnatch who’s called me three times already tonight, asking me what color my toe nails are painted. FYI, it’s Huntress-of-the-Amazon Purple. [Really, Jim?]
  • Well, having called it a telephone, he obviously intended it to be used to phone the occasional tele. Hey, what do you expect with 2 questions so similarly worded?
  • When he got tired of playing with strings and tin cans, Al decided to invent a really sophisticated doorbell. [So that Americans who saw it would say “Gee!”, and then it would be known as A G Bell …. Oh never mind]

Question 3

What proportion of traditional Chinese medicines sold are believed to be forgeries?

Intended Answer

Well, about 90% are not what they claim to be.

Equally Good Answers:

  • None. The people who buy Chinese medicines believe that they are genuine and effective. That’s why they buy them. I mean, you’d hardly walk into a Chinese medicine pharmacy and say, “Good morning, could I have some fake badger spleen please, and some non-genuine tiger penis, oh, and a little packet of those pretendy bear gallstones, I can never come in here without buying a packet of pretendy bear gallstones, it’s really sneaky of you to have them here just at the cash register, do you have any packets of just black ones?”, would you?
  • “Traditional” – of pertaining to, or handed down by tradition “Chinese” – a native of China or a descendant of the people of China “Medicine” – any drug or other substance used in treating disease, healing or relieving pain. Given that, I would hope all of them.
  • 0% of the stuff I smoke. (Well this looks like an all or nothing question).
  • 100%-“+0”. In this computation +0 is an infinitely small positive number.
  • 7/n (go on, prove me wrong)
  • 79.3%
  • 95%
  • According to the tiger who lost his testes and the rhino who had his horn crushed into a fine powder – all of them.
  • All of the ones whose labels lack the “Official Traditional Chinese Medicine Seal of Non-Forgery” – that is to say, all of them.
  • Almost one hundred percent, unless one takes into account the feng shui principle which allows that any Chinese medicine may be taken as an authentic curative for any ailment so long as a person is situated in the north sector of a room when ordering Moo Gu Gai Pan from the Golden Wong Gardens.
  • Approximately 100% are forgeries, if they are being sold as ‘medicines’. (‘Traditional remedies to which anecdotal evidence ascribes untested healing qualities’ would be a more correct description of the goods in question.)
  • Believed by whom ? By me ? I’d say none of them…
  • It’s a shame they’re not all forgeries as it would save a few animals from the indignity of having their private bits powdered
  • Depends who you ask; some people swear by chinese herbal remedies, others swear at them.
  • Er. Well gee, I can’t even think of a clever answer about that. Or any answer at all, come to think of it. [Except this one]
  • Forgery assumes that there are genuine ‘Chinese Medicines’. If you define ground up horse dung and a pile of weeds as medicine, then the answer is 0%.
  • I am shocked to hear this. I would not for one minute have believed that ANY traditional Chinese medicines sold would ever be forgeries. I am speechless… [Chew on a fermented panda spleen – it won’t taste nice, but it will cure you speechlessness]
  • I did extensive research on this. The vendor says,”0%”. The doctor next door, who is not getting much business, “100%”. The Chinese, “0%”. The non-Chinese, “100%”. On average, I would say, 50%.
  • I don’t know about you, but none of the ones I got worked. I thought that trying to insert a rhinoceros horn into a certain part of my anatomy was quite painful indeed and my wife and I quickly realised it was not going to produce the results we had hoped for that night. [But it’s not painful at all if you stick in a part of the wife’s anatomy]
  • In 1989 40,000 dried seal penises were discovered by customs officials in San Fransisco, all were genuine. [I’m so glad – those impostor officials can be a real nuisance]
  • In the time of the Ming dynasty, Wun Bung Lung estimated it at between 112% and 439% but this was considered inaccurate because his abacus wasn’t V.34 compliant.
  • Inside China, almost none are believed to be forgery since it is forbidden to think so, and the pandas are mating quite well. Outside China, except for Los Angeles, the vast majority is believed to be forgery. Most of these medicines consist of floor sweepings from fertiliser and mulch factories combined with discarded zoo-animal droppings and abattoir blood products. The Los Angelinos would contend that since plants grow well in this stuff, so should people. Yep.
  • My electric monk has a firm belief on this matter, which is good because I don’t!
  • None of them, they are all genuine cons.
  • None, since if someone believed it was a forgery, they wouldn’t buy it.
  • None. All of the traditional ones are “real”. It’s the less traditional forgeries that are forged. [No, if a forgery is forged it must be the real thing so it’s not a forgery…]
  • None. All traditional Chinese medicines are traditional Chinese medicines, and are not in fact copies of any kind. Many recipes are forgeries, however, and the efficacy of both types is a different story.
  • None. You can’t fake stuff that’s already fake. Anyway, Dr. Bob, if you couldn’t pick a real tiger’s penis from a forged one then there’s little hope for you. [I tried, I went to the zoo … they all laughed at me, and said you are supposed to cut the penis off the tiger first. But actually, despite the risk, the tiger was quite pleased. We are going out to dinner tonight]
  • Of what? Impressionist paintings, stamps?
  • Only the ones with a high iron content.
  • Proof denies faith, so whatever proportion you believe are forgeries are (by the framework of the question).
  • The answers to questions of this ilk generally exceed my most insane guesses (my specialty) so let’s take a stab at 95%
  • Tigers and rhinos wish they ALL were.

Question 4

With which two integer numbers was Sigmund Freud obsessed?

Answer

23 and 28, from which all other (sufficiently large) numbers can be made. For example 615 is seventeen 23’s plus eight 28’s. He got this from his mate Fliess. If only Fliess had been a bit better at maths, he would have known that this is true for ANY two mutually prime numbers. And … so what?

Alternatives That Reveal the Subconscious:

  • No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong, he wasn’t obsessed with numbers, he was just another man obsessed with sex. If he was obsessed with a number, maybe he was obsessed with the number 69. Just another pitiful case of clitoris envy, I’m afraid <yawn> Don’t trust anything that can’t even get its chromosomes to match up properly, I always say – Oh, pass us that bloodless castrator, Germaine, I feel another bout of empowerment coming on…..
  • 0 and 1 – you know, round things and long pointy thingies.
  • 0 and 1. He was Binomial.
  • 0 and one, the shape of the anatomically appropriate parts to be obsessed with
  • -1 and +1, which when added together add up to the amount of respect he is now given in the scientific community.
  • 1 and 2, hence the popular expressions for fecal and urinary references.
  • 1 and 2. One, apparently, is the loneliest number that you ever heard. Badoom ba, badoom ba. Two can be as lonely as one, but one is still the loneliest number.
  • 10 and 69. Because of Freud’s obsession that anything longer than it is wide is a phallic symbol, and anything with a hole in it represents latent sexual desire for the mother figure, hence ’10’ with both elements. As for ’69’, …….
  • 23 and 28. In his biorhythmic period.
  • 3 because it looks like a bum or breasts (depending on how you look at a cigar) and 0 because that is precisely the amount of action he was getting – hence his obsession with sex.
  • 6 and 66. Few people know that old Siggy was a New Zealander.
  • 6 and 9 ? Whats an integer? [Come over to my place and I’ll show you 1]
  • 9 – some reference to clouds and dreams.
  • All the ones from 10 to 99
  • Both of them
  • Don’t know (and don’t really care, he was a wierdo anyway).
  • Fair dinkum, this is the most obscure question you’ve ever put up. [Certainly not the most obscure! But it does lack any reference to Hitler or the Titanic]
  • Freud wasn’t obsessed with integers – he was obsessed with DIGITS!
  • Hmmm, I’ll skip the smut and confidently guess: 7 and 13. I mean they are popular numbers. Maybe it’s 7 and 5 – the number of letters in his name. There’s also that cool trick where you ask someone to quickly think of a number between 5 and 12, and they almost always say 7! [But I have found that New Zealanders say 6. Siggy was right all along]
  • Hmmm… I wonder how many people will respond with “6” and “9”? I’ll decide on “0” and “1” for their obvious symbologies. Or their not-so-obvious ones– I haven’t decided yet.
  • 42- mentioned in his final work, where, in a rare moment of clarity, he realised he had solved everything.
  • I can think of a funny reason for each number, but I’ll go with 2 & 8, because they both can be linked to breasts. [Really – how come? I think of breasts when I hear the numbers 17 or 1099511627776. And at other times too … two … On the cover of “Two Virgins” John Lennon is saying to Yoko Ono – If your tits are correct it’s half past six]
  • I dunno, 69 and 96? Is a Freudian slip when you say one thing and mean your mother?
  • I dunno… Was one of them 42? And maybe that sexy number 9… Oh yeah. 9 baby. [As Hitler said to Eva Braun]
  • I’d guess 6 and 9.
  • I’d say that’s easy… 6 and 9.
  • I’ll go for the predictably juvenile: 6 & 9
  • I’m sure you’ll get a hundred people saying ‘6’ and ‘9’ ….
  • Listening to any New Zealander with an interest in Freud will lead you to the conclusion that Freud was obsessed with ‘six’, and in German-speaking circles, you would start to think he was obsessed with ‘nein’ (especially when it is the answer to the query: “Six?”).
  • Number ones and number twos.
  • pi and e. In fact mathematicians were so embarrassed by his irrational obsession that they removed these two numbers from the set of integers.
  • Sad to say, but Herr Doktor Freud had a life-long obsession with number 1 and number 2 because his mummy potty trained him way too soon (she started the process when he was at the tender age of two weeks). This premature conditioning caused him to experience deep-seated feelings of inadequacy, failure, and shame; and later in his adult life, occasioned in him the urge to inappropriately but lavishly wet and/or soil himself whenever he heard the phrase “mum’s the word.”
  • Sigmund Freud has never been observed in the state of being obsessed, not by numbers anyway.
  • Take your pick – wasn’t he obsessed by just about everything? He was a bit worried about dying at a certain age, I think 41 or 42. [On reaching 43 he felt much more confident.]
  • The man was obsessed not only by particular integer numbers but also by string, umbrellas, lemons, pictures of Abraham Lincoln, the occult, and his collection of those little plastic thingies you get on the top of plastic bread wrapping. I think there’s something in that for all of us, don’t you?
  • Well, if you raise the middle digit, you have the number one. If you raise the middle and index digits, you have the number eleven or, in Roman numerals, two or even five. Combining both hands produces three, four and six. Er…No, I don’t know the answer to this one!

Question 5

How was The Muppet Show altered for screening in Turkey?

Answer

No Miss Piggy, since the pig is unclean for Muslim audiences.

  • Episodes of ‘The Muppet Show’ were dubbed by a professional team of translators from SBS who were fluent in talking Turkey. Unfortunately, it lost a bit in the translation, because all the characters just said “Gobble gobble gobble” a lot, so the Swedish chef segment was dropped because it wasn’t really funny any more. Originally they were just going to subtitle it, until someone pointed out that it would be pointlessly stupid to do so, because poultry can’t read.
  • After uncovering some of Edison’s early research, they played the soundtrack backwards so they could understand what the Swedish chef was saying?
  • A teatowel over Miss Piggy’s head.
  • A useful improvement would be if they used the correct pronunciation for the last letter of the English alphabet. IT’S ZED YOU MONGRELS!!!! No correspondence will be entered into.
  • Any references to Gonzo’s chicken obsession was edited out.
  • Big Bird and the Cookie Monster are caught smoking hash and stoned to death.
  • Don’t tell me Miss Piggy had to wear a scarf over her snout?
  • Dubbing into Turkish and Kurdish would be a good start.
  • Err, Gonzo’s name was changed because it meant something which made the boys giggle and the girls blush?
  • Every time Gonzo hit the gong, a real gong noise sounded instead of having to suffer the wacky, zany pranks his fellow jokesters would play on him.
  • Fezzybear!
  • Gonzo came with fries & a small coke.
  • I’m not sure. Did it have anything to do with the subtitles that were shown when the Swedish Chef went ballistic, screaming “Stuff Turkey … Stuff Turkey”?
  • It was translated into Turkish, which caused quite a ruckus when they discovered much to their chagrin that “Gonzo” is a Turkish slang word for indecent activities involving pork products and frog’s legs…
  • Kermie wasn’t allowed to eat the pig? Can I say that on the internet? I don’t watch things involving felt gloves, I’m happy to say.
  • Kermit sold the patent of phonographs to afford to connect to the net, so he can buy traditional chinese medicine via e-commerce for Miss Piggy to have cosmetic surgery…
  • Miss Piggy became Miss Chick Pea and was dressed in a hijab.
  • Miss Piggy had a ruby inserted in her navel, and everyone else had drooping moustaches and sat around on carpets a lot, drinking little cups of coffee and telling stories of where they were when Alexander the Great stormed through.
  • Miss Piggy wore a headscarf, Kermit grew a beard, and Gonzo strapped 10 sticks of dynamite to his body and drove his motorcycle into the American Embassy.
  • Miss Piggy was required to refer to her green, web-footed suitor as Gorf the Timrek, and all the choke-pears were removed from the set.
  • They put more sex into it for those dirty minded Turks.
  • The chickens are always shown veiled. Miss Piggy is portrayed as a eunuch. (How do you turn a fox into a pig? Marry it!)
  • The Swedish chef kept slaughtering Turkey, so that segment was removed.
  • The Turkish reviewers saw Miss Piggy act, and thought she was too much of a ham to allow on Turkish television.
  • They changed the frog’s name to ‘Kurdmit.’
  • They substituted a talking bathmat for Grover, a talking Turkish delight for Kermit, and a camel named Jennifer for Miss Piggy. These changes didn’t successfully disguise the fact that it was still the product of a juvenile American mind, so they tried running the tapes through the video machine backwards instead. Strangely, almost no one could tell the difference, least of all the American distributors. So they showed Thunderbirds instead. Yaaaay!
  • I don’t know the answer but did you know that a few years ago they were making a version of Sesame Street for Israel and Palestine? The 2 crews had serious rows because the Palestinian puppets were said to look too poor and destitute, and the Jewish puppets were said to be too violent.
  • They made it funny.
  • What IS the Muppet Show?

Comments:

  • I too was absolutely **thrilled** to win this quiz on my first entry, even if you did insult me by saying I was from Canberra. I’d like to thank my speech therapist, my orthotics specialist and my parole officer, and I greatly look forward to presenting the flowers, sash and tiara to next month’s winner…..
  • Ah Dr. Bob. Please pass on my profuse thanks to all your correspondents for their wonderful contributions to this site. I haven’t laughed this much since Grandpa caught his knackers in the mangle.
  • Another winner, Dr B. [Yes, we have one every month – but it’s not you!]
  • Any more sciency q’s? Like, if you have a long rope wrapped snug around the earth, and you add 3 odd metres of rope, how far can the rope be lifted away from the earth? (ans: pi metres of rope). [Real ans: 3/(2*pi) metres – that is, if you lift it the same everywhere and not just at one place. But it depends on how odd the 3 metres are.]
  • Can you owe me a beer too? I don’t drink, so you’ll never have to pay out.
  • Don’t run like a rabbit. Run like a drunken rabbit.
  • First go, starting at the bottom and working my way up. [Freud would be interested]
  • Freud, huh? I’ll bet his quiz was bigger than yours.
  • Help! I am being held captive in a trivial pursuit web page.
  • I like cornflakes because they’re like little pieces of golden sunshine, and they’re crunchy. And, if you lick them, and stick them on your knee, they look like scabs. [Sigmund, where are you?]
  • I love your quiz though my workmates wonder what I’m laughing about. [I bet you are laughing at me … Sigmund … heeelpp!]
  • I thought I had a full, productive, meaningful life. I now find myself writing empty, useless, and incohenrent* answers to improbable queries from someone called Dr. Bob, who may or may not exist despite the posting of his photo on the internet, which may or may not be illusory. How strange is that? [* There must be a witty pun to this spelling but I can’t think of it** now] [**the pun, that is]
  • I used to worry about not winning this, but now I know you’re jealous because the voices only talk to me.
  • If I bribed you with a pair of decent trousers so you could trash those dreadful shorts you wear in your photo, would you let me win? [They ARE my decent trousers – you should see the other pair. At my place, if possible]
  • I’m hot now, I want my beer.
  • Oh no, a Freudian slip!
  • On a recent road trip from Melbourne to Sydney, I noticed a lot of cars driving in daylight with their lights on, especially on the NSW side of the boader. At one stage, it was one in ten. No pattern with make or year of car, age and sex of the driver, or traffic hazards/speed traps. Why do they do this? [Because New South Welshmen think that cars with lights are easier to see in remote places, such as NSW. It’s probably true – motorbikes all do it, and it’s compulsory in Sweden, which is why Volvo lights are always on. Freud would have had a theory about this]
  • Q4 and 5 are interesting. [And so are Q1 Q2 and Q3]
  • So, will it be Easter questions next month, then? [Unlikely – Easter is in April]
  • Thank you for the unbelievably (after all, this is a skeptic’s site) stimulating intellectual exercise.
  • This is my first go but, with a little encouragement, I hope to improve.
  • What do you call 3 dogs and a blackbird? The Spice Girls!