Botticelli - January 2013

My most sincere apologies - I erred on that DQ !!

revised list

Letter is R

  1. I am real.
  2. I am male.
  3. I am dead
  4. I am not American.
  5. I did not contribute to the “arts”.
  6. My first Name starts with R
  7. I am a political figure.
  8. I am British.
  9. I died before 1950
  10. I would be considered a “good guy”
  11. I did not die after 1800
  12. I am not a member of a Royal Family.
  13. I died a “natural” death.
  14. I served as a member of the House of Commons
  15. I did serve as Prime Minister
    2 DQ owed to SCAdian
    3 DQ owed to Elendil’s Heir

So the only change is that he was Prime Minister? Still drawing a blank.

DQ:

A liberal, under the partisan alignments of the day?

Correct on all three. (Drat - thought I’d get you with Rabbit!)
I’m at a loss here, too - anybody want to use one of my DQs?

Letter is R

  1. I am real.
  2. I am male.
  3. I am dead
  4. I am not American.
  5. I did not contribute to the “arts”.
  6. My first Name starts with R
  7. I am a political figure.
  8. I am British.
  9. I died before 1950
  10. I would be considered a “good guy”
  11. I did not die after 1800
  12. I am not a member of a Royal Family.
  13. I died a “natural” death.
  14. I served as a member of the House of Commons
  15. I did serve as Prime Minister
  16. I am not a liberal
    2 DQ owed to SCAdian
    2 DQ owed to Elendil’s Heir

IQ: Were you Queen Elizabeth the First’s chief ‘spy’?

DQ for spy

Dang - I thought I might have got lucky with that shot in the dark. Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salsbury, was Secretary of State to both Elizabeth I and James I of England. ‘Spymaster’ would be a good description of how he viewed his portfolio; I wasn’t sure if he had ever served as Prime Minister or not. Apparently not.

Hmm… I’ll be back with a DQ as soon as I can think of one.

IQ: Was your son born prematurely in a coatroom?

Walpole, who served IIRC George I, is usually considered the first Prime Minister, although he didn’t use the title - it was regarded almost as an insult at the time, since it implied either that the King couldn’t do his job without your help, or that you were usurping power. What was Walpole’s first name, though? Was it an “R”?

Let me try:

IQ:

Were you a Walpole who is generally considered to be the first Prime Minister?

Elendil’s Heir is correct!

Sir Robert Walpole was the answer.

Chosen because he’s the namesake of the town I grew up in (Massachusetts). Learned a lot about him in the past few days!

Did you know he holds the record for an overdue (and subsequently returned) library book? 288 YEARS !

When the PM question came up, I first replied no because he didn’t use it. I then realized he served in that position for over twenty years, and popular opinion was more relevant.

Well, I’ll be damned! That was a shot in the dark; I really had forgotten his first name: Robert Walpole - Wikipedia. Thanks, Labtrash, for a fun round.

Very busy here; I’ll start the next round in the next day or two.

Huh. I thought of Walpole, but I thought his name was Horace. Wiki shows that for some reason I’m thinking of Sir Robert’s son. Oh, well…

Let’s get back on the alphabetical track. The next letter is

G.

IQ1: Were you Austria’s top submarine captain in WW I?
IQ2: Did you play a purser on a cruise liner?
IQ3: Were you that purser?

IQ: Were you a monk who dabbled in genetics?

IQ1: Are you the title character of an Ibsen play?

IQ2: Are you the title character of a different Ibsen play?

IQ3: Are you the composer of famous incidental music to one of the two plays mentioned above?

Not Georg von Trapp, Fred Grandy or Gopher.

Not Gregor Mendel.

Not Peer Gynt, dunno another, or Edvard Grieg. One DQ.

Ministre, could I trouble you to single-space your questions henceforth? If you really prefer double-spacing, by all means, do so.

If that is how you prefer, that is fine with me. It is easier for my failing eyes to read on my enlarged font screen, is all.

You are, of course, quite right on Peer Gynt and Edvard Grieg. The missing Ibsen title character was Hedda Gabler.

DQ: Are you a fictional character?

IQ1: Are you an eccentric Canadian pianist?
IQ2: Are you the king of birds, for whom the Indonesian airline is named?
IQ3: Are you the author of the original ‘Phantom of the Opera’?