More pointless trivia I need answers for...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A few questions from a research quiz I take part in each month: can anyone help?

1: In a choice between TCOC AG PSS CK P TC and NA in early September 2002,
which London-born Englishman with a decidedly foreign first name took fourth place?

2: Why was Thursday 25 February 1988 an embarrassing day for the Daily Telegraph management?

3: Which English two-seater car manufactured about 100 years ago had a name which was inspired by a quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid?

The last, I think, could be from either of the following quotes by Virgil:
*Fortune favours the brave. * or O tyrant love, to what do you not drive the hearts of men

Can anyone confirm if there was ever a car named for either of these?

I won’t be able to verify any answers for at least a few weeks so please don’t torture yourself with looking for answers if you are in any way impatient.

Thanks for any help.

2

::BUMP::

Think I’m entitled to one little bump-a-rama to let the evening crowd ignore this as well. Thank you.

3

I don’t know either, but heck, here’s the whole quiz!

And holy jeez, is it difficult.

4

Yep, that’s it. I do it every month. He has only just started putting it up on-line.

I can usually pick off about 60 to 70 questions immediately (due to an extensive library of random, pointless reference books), but the last 20 or so are real killers.

I think he walks into a library, lifts a random book of a shelf, reads a page and leaves it up to the participant to attempt to find the same obscure fact gleaned from it, which may or may not appear anywhere other than that page in that specific book.

Yep, it’s damn hard. Those are the last three I am really struggling with this month.

5

My god, you got all the others? :eek:

6

Well, I only do the first 80. (the Friendly 50 + Tantilising 30, from here)

It’s a different entry criteria to the full 100 questions, which I can never manage to get. Saying that, I rarely have all 80 correct either. :wink:

7

I see.

Well, being American puts me at a disadvantage anyway; I noticed at least one cricket question, and one about the royal family.

8

Actually, you’re not. Rather frowned upon.

But, since I’m here, could the 'British car be an Achilles? If that one doesn’t fit the bill, then scan the list at http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:0o_8FcUbufgC:www.autogallery.org.ru/m/ppreuk.htm+cars+english+1906&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

As to why the Daily Telegraph would be embarrassed in 1988, I suggest that they should be embarrassed almost all the time. :rolleyes:

9

Not true:

From the SDMB FAQ.

10

Q.E.D. I stand corrected. I was going on memory about policy quite some time ago.

11

Well, you’re not entirely wrong. It does say they strongly discourage the practice of bumping, but they’ll tolerate one bump with the above conditions.

12

I don’t make a habit of bumping the threads I start, this was an exception which I thought would be ok, since it’s a trivia thing. And it was only once.

For anyone who remotely cares, I (think I) have answers to two of the questions:

Number 1 was about the Hugo Prize for Science Fiction, and the answer is CHINA MIEVILLE.

In number three the car with the name inspired by Virgil was called the **CARPEVIAM. **

13

The question 2 answer is: (for anyone still following this thread)

On Wednesday 24 February 1988 the front page of the Final edition of the Daily Telegraph was dated Thursday 25 and 300,000 issues were printed carrying the wrong date. On Thursday 25 they had to print a front page apology “A newspaper ahead of it’s time” because a number of readers took the date at face value and rushed to the Post Office to collect pensions etc… a day too early!

Embarrassing or what?

14

Well, thanks for clearing that up!

Where, BTW, did you find that info?

15

The answers have been posted.

I’m not doing this a second time. Who the hell would have gotten #38? Or #91? And being a thick American, there was no way I would have gotten all those sports questions.

16

But if anyone else does want to try again, here are the questions for the next quiz (#112).

17

But if anyone else does want to try again, here are the questions for the next quiz (#112).

18

For those who are /were following this thread, I missed out on winning this month by getting No. 65 (golf question ) wrong. Bummer…:wink:

This month though, for the mathmaticians / puzzlers out there, can anyone help… (question 92)

You see the following distances on a signpost
COPENHAGEN 44. HELSINKI 24. MADRID 266. OSLO 350. PARIS 30. ROME 225. STOCKHOLM 266. How far is it to VIENNA?

Thanks.

19

You don’t need a mathematician. A big map (pref. a globe?) and a pair of compasses should do the trick :slight_smile:

20

No Shade, those distances don’t make any sense. The numbers are something else other than miles or kilometres. Intriguing.