Flanders and Swann Trivia

1. What was the description and age of our heroine?

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Have Some Madeira M'dear?"

Answer: Sweet seventeen

'She was young, she was pure, she was new, she was nice She was fair, she was sweet seventeen' No, she wasn't 'sweet sixteen and never been kissed', to use the cliche - neither was she prone to gallstones (female, fat, fair, forty, fertile and flatulent) - and I have no idea who on earth could be flippant and forty-seven.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Reluctant Cannibal"

Answer: At the tom-tom

'Seated one day at the tom-tom'. A tom-tom is a type of drum without a snare.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Hippopotamus Song"

Answer: On the banks of the cool Shalimar

'A bold Hippopotamus was standing one day On the banks of the cool Shalimar' Interestingly, I could find no River Shalimar while Googling, and the only places I could find were in places like the Himalayas and India, which are noticeably hippo-free! As indeed, are the Liffey in Dublin and the Clyde in Glasgow. 'The great, grey-green greasy Limpopo river, all set about with fever trees' is the setting for the wonderful Kipling story 'How the Elephant got his trunk'.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Gnu Song"

Answer: Baboons

'He was laying down the law about the habits of baboons'. I wonder if he mentioned that baboons live in groups of up to 50 animals, that the groups are known as troops and that they sleep in trees or cliffs? Or that the Arabian hamadryas female baboons pair for life with a single male (unlike the males!)

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Have Some Madeira M'dear?"

Answer: To view his collection of stamps

'He had slyly inveigled her up to his flat To view his collection of stamps' Asking someone if they want to see your stamps or etchings or choose a puppy are all time-honoured (dishonoured?) ways of enticing people into your place. Discussions on post-modernist art is a more intellectual ploy.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Reluctant Cannibal"

Answer: Come and get it!

'I heard a welcome shout from the kitchens: "Come and get it!"' I must admit, in my earlier life as a cook at a parachute centre, I did use this shout to get the diners in.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Hippopotamus Song"

Answer: Evening

'He gazed at the bottom as it peacefully lay By the light of the evening star' The evening star is in fact, the planet Venus. Venus is also, appropriately, the Roman Goddess of Love.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Gnu Song"

Answer: Porcupine

Porcupine spines (or quills) can be over 12 inches (30 cm) long, and they have backward facing barbs that make them very difficult to pull out. Porcupines can have over 30,000 of them as well!

From Quiz Flanders and Swann

Answer: They had the same record producer, George Martin.

George Martin recorded "At the Drop of a Hat" in 1959, several years before he started recording the Beatles.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Have Some Madeira M'dear?"

Answer: The fire

'And he said as he hastened to put out the cat The wine, his cigar and the lamps' This is an example of 'Zeugma' - a Greek expression meaning 'yoking' or 'bonding', which means using one verb to refer to two different objects, or using an adjective to refer to two different nouns, even though the adjective would normally only be appropriate for one of the two. If the resulting construction changes the verb's initial meaning, it is called a syllepsis.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Reluctant Cannibal"

Answer: Insurance salesman

Although I'm sure there are many fine, upstanding people in all these professions, you must admit their images are not good (and I, as a Civil Servant, should know!) My personal choice would be for politician, if I wasn't afraid of poisoning.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Hippopotamus Song"

Answer: Combing her hair

'Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair His fair Hippopotamine maid' Actually, hippos are almost hairless, but they do secrete a pink fluid, which may protect them from sunburn. She should really have been grazing, as hippos eat up to 40 kg of grass a night!

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Gnu Song"

Answer: A h'Elk

Some people (strangely enough, quite often the ones who drop their aitches from words like hotel and hospital) put unnecessary aitches on the front of words (like elk, eland and elephant). A Heffalump was what Pooh and Piglet found (or rather didn't!)

From Quiz Flanders and Swann

Answer: Mozart's fourth horn concerto

They used the rondo, including cadenzas. The song begins "I once had a whim, and I had to obey it, to buy a french horn in a second hand shop". It's on the "At the Drop of Another Hat" album.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Have Some Madeira M'dear?"

Answer: Beer

'Have some Madeira, m'dear It's really much nicer than beer' There's a tradition of selling yourself for Madeira - Falstaff was accused by Poins of exchanging his soul for a leg of chicken and a goblet of Madeira in Shakespeare's Henry IV (Part 1, Act 1, Scene 2).

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Reluctant Cannibal"

Answer: Junior

'A chorus of yums ran round the table. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.... Except for Junior, who pushed away his shell, got up from his log, and said, "I don't want any part of it."' Junior is the reluctant cannibal of the song, and the singer's son.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Gnu Song"

Answer: The animal in question

'I might have gone on thinking that was true If the animal in question hadn't put that chap to shame' and of course, identified himself as a Gnu. If you haven't heard this song, a lot of the comedy comes from the way the animal pronounces words - with every silent 'g' sounded 'I'm a Guh-nu', and adds 'Guh' on to all the other words that start with 'n'. He also sounds out the silent 'k' and 'w' on 'know' and 'who' - as in 'You really ought to kuh-now wuh-ho's wuh-ho'.

From Quiz Flanders and Swann

Answer: The Gnu

"I'm a gnu, spelled g n u. The (g)nicest work of (g)nature in the zoo." From "At the Drop of a Hat".

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Have Some Madeira M'dear?"

Answer: Chacun a son gout

'And port is a wine I can well do without It's simply a case of chacun a son gout' Port is supposed to give you gout (a very painful complaint) so he pronounces 'gout' (which should have an 'oo' sound) as the disease (with an 'out' sound). I told you this was a clever song. 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' is the motto of the order of the Garter and means 'Shame upon him who thinks evil of it' in Old French, 'Repondez s'il vous plait' is the RSVP at the bottom of an invitation and 'Je suis un petit champignon avec un mitrailleuse' means 'I am a little mushroom with a machine gun' which I made up to amuse myself during O-Level French (and yes, I did pass, with a B).

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Hippopotamus Song"

Answer: Her garter

'His inamorata adjusted her garter And lifted her voice in duet' The hussy! She was probably wearing lipstick too - see what happens when mother isn't around.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Gnu Song"

Answer: The guh-nicest work of guh-nature in the zoo

He has decided he is the guh-nicest. Gnu is actually another name for the wildebeest (an antelope of the genus Connochaetes).

From Quiz Flanders and Swann

Answer: A tennis umpire

"The British Umpire, on whom the sun never sets."

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Have Some Madeira M'dear?"

Answer: Her standards

'She lowered her standards by raising her glass Her courage, her eyes and his hopes' Another zeugma or syllepsis here. The sheer lechery Michael Flanders delivers this song with has to be heard to be believed.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Reluctant Cannibal"

Answer: The juju

'But people have always eaten people, what else is there to eat? If the juju had meant us not to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of meat.' Not an advocate of vegetarianism, then..

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Hippopotamus Song"

Answer: Mud

'Mud! Mud! Glorious mud! Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood' Though, I must admit, a chilled vodka and tonic does it for me everytime...

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Gnu Song"

Answer: Man or moose

'I'm guh-not a Camel or a Kangaroo So let me introduce I'm guh-neither man or moose Oh guh-no guh-no guh-no I'm a Gnu'. In the Terry Pratchett book "Truckers", the Nomes consider hijacking a lorry (truck) by pointing a loaded gnu at the driver.

From Quiz Flanders and Swann

Answer: Playing on the status symbols

"The object is to Gunga-Din your neighbor. 'I'm a better man than you's the acid test. So man the good ship one-up Let's do a social ton-up And bang our status symbols with the best." From "At the Drop of Another Hat"

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "Have Some Madeira M'dear?"

Answer: The butt of his gold-handled cane

'And he said as he secretly carved one more notch On the butt of his gold-handled cane' The cad! Some people are said to keep notches on their bedstead, and gunfighters purportedly carved notches on their revolvers, to indicate people they'd shot. The small totem pole I made up - that's just silly.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Reluctant Cannibal"

Answer: Chief assistant to the assistant chief

'To think that a son of mine should grow up to be a sissy... Me, chief assistant to the assistant chief'. I don't think there were many CEOs around at that time - or blackboards for that matter.

From Quiz Anatomy of a Song: "The Hippopotamus Song"

Answer: The hollow

'So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow, And there let us wallow in glorious mud' Hippos live in the water by day, and come out to eat at night. They also congregate in wallows between these two places. Never get between a hippo and the water - they are very dangerous. The male spreads his dung around by twirling his tail.

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