Botticelli, March 2012 edition.

Thread Games
1

Welcome to the next round of Botticelli. For those unfamiliar with the game, here’s a very good summary - Botticelli. A couple of specific things to add -

  1. No research is allowed - this includes all search engines and internet encyclopediae. This is on the honour system, naturally.

  2. Please mark your questions clearly as to whether they are Indirect Questions (IQs) or Direct Questions (DQs)

  3. It does speed up the game to ask more than one question in the same post; however, we’ve found that it works best to adopt a limit of 3 questions at a time from each participant.

  4. Initials can be from first, last or middle names. (And which name the initial represents is a good DQ, by the way.)

So far, we have used all the letters of the alphabet at least once, except for Q, U, X, Y and Z.

So, as I backed into correctly guessing the identity of our last round of Botticelli, I have the honour to be the chooser for this round. My initial is

U

2

IQ1: Were you a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher that refused to teach any defense against dark arts?

IQ2: Are you a former pro basketball player that later served in Congress?

IQ3: Did you create (or co-create, depending on who is telling the story) a famous cartoon rodent?

3

IQ1: No, I’m not Delores Umbridge, she of the pink sweaters and cutesy cats.

IQ2: No, I’m not somebody or other Unger.

IQ3: No, I’m not Ub Iwerks.

If I’m wrong (or unacceptably incomplete :slight_smile: ) on any of these, take a DQ.

4

Correct on Umbridge and Ub Iwerks. #2 wasn’t who I was thinking of, so let me rephrase it to be more specific.

Did you play professional basketball before going on to represent Arizona in Congress?

5

I’m stumped; take a DQ.

6

You are not Mo Udall, who played one season with the Denver Nuggets before spending 30 or so years in Congress.

DQ: Real person?

IQ1: Are you a Charles Dickens character whose name was appropriated by a 1970s hard rock band?

IQ2: Are you considered one of the worst film makers currently working, especially by fans of video games?

IQ3: Is there no need to fear when you are here?

7

Yes, I am a real person.
Summary - U

  1. Real person.

I humbly submit that I am not Uriah Heep. Neither am I Underdog.

I suspect IQ2 is the fellow who did ‘The Last Airbender’, but I can only remember the last name, and it has nothing to do with the letter U.

Take a DQ.

8

IQ2 is Uwe Boll, infamous for many video game adaptations such as Alone In The Dark, House of the Dead, and BloodRayne. One of the more amusing stories about him is when he approached Blizzard about making a World of Warcraft movie, they responded “We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you”

DQ: Still alive?

9

No.
Summary - U

  1. Real person.
  2. Dead.
10

IQ1: Are you father of a legendary monarch?
IQ2: Are you interred in the largest mausoleum in North American, subject of a joking trivia question?
IQ3: Were you portrayed by Art Carney, Tony Randall and Jack Lemmon?

11

IQ1 - No, I am not Uther Pendragon.

IQ2 - No, I am not Ulysses S. Grant.

IQ3 - No, I am not Felix Unger.

12

IQ1: Were you known as a muckraking author?
IQ2: Did you co-write one of the first big famine relief singles?
IQ3: Are you the only author to win 2 Pulitzer Prizes for fiction where one work was a sequel to the other?

13

IQ1: I really don’t know who you mean; take a DQ.

IQ2: No, I’m not Björn Ulvaeus.

IQ3: No, I’m not John Updike.

And, of course, if either of those blatant guesses are wrong, take a DQ.

14

IQ1 is Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle and about 100 other books, none as famous.
IQ2: No, not the ABBA dude. You are not Midge Ure of Ultravox, who co-wrote Do They Know It’s Christmas? with Bob Geldof, and also worked with Geldof setting up Live Aid and Live 8.
IQ3: Correct.

DQ1: Male?
DQ2: Born after 1900?

Where is everybody? Over 300 views of this thread, but only 2 players. Jump in!!! It’s too early to be stumped.

15

Gah! I knew Bob Geldof had co-written ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ with somebody, and Ulvaeus was the only ‘U’ I could think of who was around at the time.
Anyway…

  1. Yes

  2. No.

Summary - U

  1. Real person.
  2. Dead.
  3. Male.
  4. Born before 1900.
16

IQ1: Were you an East German Grandmaster who was an expert in the French Defence?
IQ2: Are you a Swedish Grandmaster who played positionally and was an endgame expert?
IQ3: Were you Secretary-General of the United Nations?

17

Ouch! 1 and 2 are utter stumpers - my knowledge of chess Grandmasters is pretty much restricted to Spassky, Fisher and some of the folks actually mentioned in the musical ‘Chess’. (Tal, Alekine, Morphy…) Other than ‘Uwe somebody or other’ and ‘Ulf somebody or other else’, I got nothing.

IQ3: I am not U Thant.

So, that’s two DQs for glee.

18

Wolfgang Uhlmann was a top-class chess player in the 60’s (as an 11 year old, I actually had the pleasure of playing him in a simultaneous display and he let me off with a draw. :cool: That’s one reason I became a chess player!)

I haven’t met **Ulf **Andersson, but I like his style of play.

DQ1: Were you a soldier?

DQ2: Were you a politician?

19

  1. No.

  2. No.
    Summary - U

  3. Real person.

  4. Dead.

  5. Male.

  6. Born before 1900.

  7. Not a soldier.

  8. Not a politician.

20

IQ1: Were you the first Bond Girl?
IQ2: Did Paul McCartney have a cameo in the video for your last US hit single?
IQ3: Are you Springfield’s most famous foreign exchange student? (Yes, that’s a Simpsons question)