Bit of This and That 10 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Aeronautics

George Cayley, in fact, was a very prolific engineer, and considered by those in the know as the father of aviation. It just seems a shame that his name is not more widely known today. Not only did he thoroughly grasp the principles of flight, of weight, lift, drag and thrust, of cambered wings, and of the need for an engine to be designed to make the principles of powered flight a reality, George Cayley constructed the first flying model of a plane and the first glider that successfully could carry a passenger. All this back in the early 1800s! But wait, there's more.

Other inventions and designs this remarkable man developed were lifeboats that could right themselves if overturned, "tension-spoke wheels...caterpillar tractors...automatic signals for railway crossings, seat belts, small scale helicopters..." an early model internal combustion engine, assorted engineering projects, plus many contributions in the fields of prosthetics, electricity, architecture, "ballistics, optics and land reclamation". This is truly astonishing. And yet today, apart from having a couple of British universities naming a dormitory, one lecture room and a bar after him, and a couple of other places in England doing likewise, this giant of a man seems to be fast gliding away into the forgotten realms of history. One more thing: Do you know the best thing about George Cayley of all? He stated that all his creations, discoveries and advancements should be made freely available to everyone. His memory should be far more honoured.

Answer: True

On 27th March, 1998, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom was indeed spotted in a pub. However, before you gasp in shock and vow to become a republican, this was an official visit to one of England's historic public houses, the Bridge Inn at Topsham in Devon. This building dates right back to at least 1086 where it is mentioned as a dwelling in England's famous Domesday Book. Constantly renovated over the centuries, Bridge Inn is built of cob, stone and brick, and has a slate roof. Of the many rooms it holds, three of them are what we know today as bars (but a little classier than that) that serve lagers, beers and other assorted drinks, and one of which used to contain its own brewery. Over the centuries, it has also contained a salt refinery, had its own quay, and held wrestling bouts and cattle sales.

In 1998, Queen Elizabeth, who had never been to a pub in her life, visited this historic building to mark its historical and architectural significance. While there, of all things, she was presented with a crate of commemorative ale as a gift. Never one to lose her composure in public, the queen smiled beautifully as she thanked the owners - and said that her husband, Prince Phillip, would very much enjoy the gift.

Answer: He swapped his boots for carpet slippers

Peter Cushing (1913-1994) was a prolific and magnetic English actor of over ninety films. Some of his famous roles, many of which were in horror movies, include that of Baron Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, the vampire hunter Van Helsing, and Grand Moff Tarkin in the 1977 "Star Wars" film. In real life though, Peter was the complete opposite of any of his silver screen roles. He loved bird watching, painting, writing (a children's book which he also illustrated) and creating vegetarian meals instead.

Because Peter's uniform boots were so very uncomfortable for his role as Grand Moff Tarkin (he said Grand Moff reminded him of a moth flying out of a cupboard), he was given permission by director and writer George Lucas to wear something more comfortable instead. So there you have that evil and villainous commander of the Death Star, feet unseen in all his scenes, comfortably ensconced in a pair of carpet slippers. In fact, Carrie Fisher, who played the lovely and feisty Princess Leia, commented in a later interview that she found her interrogation scene with the Grand Moff Tarkin extremely hard to do without bursting out laughing. Peter, she said, was such a lovely man in real life that it was really hard to act being intimidated by him - and the image of those old slippers kept popping into her head.

Answer: Anticlockwise

Apart from wondering why anyone would want to meet Old Nick in the first place, widdershins was an old British word that meant to go anticlockwise, or always keeping an object on your left side, or to go in the opposite direction of the sun's path in the Northern Hemisphere - something that would bring on bad luck. The earliest written record of this word, as recorded in the Oxford dictionary, dates back to 1513 and the expression "widdersyns start my hair", i.e. my hair stood on end.

Religion played a large part in many early beliefs and cultures, and still does in some countries today. In Scotland, where the word widdershins is believed to have originated, this belief was associated with walking around a kirk (church), but the same belief was also noted throughout all of the British Isles at various times. People from the moors of North Yorkshire, for example, once believed that dancing widdershins around a ring of toadstools would place you under the power of fairies. Perhaps then, it would be careful to avoid both churches and rings of toadstools if you're wandering home late at night and become disoriented.

(Thanks to player WaggaWagga2010 of Derbyshire in the UK for this interesting snippet of information)

Answer: Ship Ship Hooray

Harold Shipman was born in Nottingham, England in 1946, and committed suicide by hanging himself in Wakefield prison in 2004. He had been incarcerated there in the year 2000 after being found guilty of fifteen murders. It is believed that this man may have carried out many more murders than that, with this number paced as high as 218 victims.

A doctor by trade, most of Shipman's victims were elderly women - patients who had come to trust him and feel safe in his care. He murdered most with lethal doses of Diamorphine, signed their death certificates and then calmly falsified their health records to show ongoing deterioration in their health.

Other newspaper rejoiced similarly in Shipman's death following its announcement. He was a monster, that cannot be doubted, and he brought grief to many families - but yet, but yet - isn't there something equally terrible about such a public gloating about his suicide?

Answer: Llamas and alpacas

When male llamas and alpacas are aroused and ready to mate, they begin to orgle. Orgles sound a little like a human gargling fluid but louder and with a kind of buzzing echoing through it as well. These animals continue making this sound from the time of arousal until they've finished the mating process - and that can take anything from fifteen minutes to over an hour. One wonders if female llamas and alpacas ever sometimes bleat "Not tonight, dear, I've got a headache in advance".

Answer: Christopher Columbus

The 21st crime-fighting Phantom of the 21st century is one who was introduced to us in 1936 from the mind of Lee Falk. He is a generational hero of many centuries, with his long ago ancestor, the first Christopher, first washing up on the shores of Bengalla, Africa, in 1536, after an attack by pirates who killed his father. Christopher had been a cabin boy on his father's ship since the age of ten and, on what was to be his last voyage with his father, was then aged twenty. Originally the fictional shores on which he was found were in India, but had shifted to Africa by the 1960s. Rescued by pygmies and taken to the Skull Cave, that first Phantom swore an oath to fight all criminals from that time onwards.

Christopher's murdered father, also a Christopher, had also been a cabin boy when a young lad. He worked on the "Santa Maria", the famous ship on which Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas. All these Christophers are so confusing. Christopher, who survived the pirate attack, would go on to marry Christina, the daughter of another sea captain, and their son, the second generation Phantom, eventually married Marabella who was the granddaughter of Christopher Columbus. Mind you, the dates are all a bit dubious, but that was Lee Falk's original premise for the current Phantom's distant ancestors.

Answer: A fish

A ballyhoo, also known as a ballyhoo halfbeak, is a small fish that looks a little like a swordfish with a longish rapier thin attachment jutting out from its lower jaw. It is usually found in shallows waters around reefs in the Atlantic. These fish only grow on average to about 35 cm (13 inches) and it is not advisable for humans to consume them, as they can cause ciguatera poisoning.

Instead, they are used by ocean going "sportsmen" as either bait or trolling purpose in order to attract larger fish.

In an attempt to escape from predators, ballyhoos have the ability to actually leap up and skim along the surface of the water, in a fashion that has been likened to skipping stones.

Answer: A food

The loincloth lap-lap is worn by some indigenous people of Papua New Guinea and the islands on the South Pacific. It comes with a flap at the front, another at the back, and a thread to connect both around the waist. Laplap, the food, comes to us from Vanuatu and is that country's national dish.

It is made by pounding up breadfruits or yams, and mixing the result with coconut cream. To this dough, either pork, beef, chicken or flying fox (bats, of all things) is added. The entire mix is then wrapped in leaves and cooked in an underground oven. Just don't get your lapslap and your lap-lap mixed up in Vanuatu.

Answer: They cut off the tail of his horse

Thomas Becket, also known as Thomas a Becket, lived from c. 1119 until 1170. He was the famous Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered by a group of knights eager to please their king, Henry II, with whom Becket had fallen out over the authority and rights of the church. Centuries later, he is venerated as a saint and martyr, not only by the Catholic Church, but by the Anglican Communion as well. The famous shrine at Canterbury that sprang up after his death no longer exists, as that monastery-destroying later King, Henry VIII, had it torn down and Becket's bones destroyed in 1538.

After his canonisation by Pope Alexander III in 1173, many legends sprang up about Thomas Becket. One of these relates to the inhabitants of the town of Strood in Kent. The men of that town had sided with King Henry II in his long ongoing struggles with the Archbishop, and one of the ways they showed their support for the king, most peculiarly, occurred when Thomas Becket passed through their town one day. They cut off the tail of his poor unfortunate horse. Such a gross indignity could not go unpunished so the legend goes, and, as a result of making his equine's bottom a lot colder, Becket is said to have declared that the inhabitants of Strood, and all their descendants, would be henceforth born with tails.