Pauls Quiz 121
1.Theoretically, two rabbits could produce how many offspring in three years
a: 3 million
b: 33 million
c: 333 million?
2. What are the three ingredients in mead (added spices excluded)?
3. What do Richard Burton, Orson Welles, Tom Cruise, Justin Hayward and Jeff Wayne all have in common?
4. Which Arnold Schwarzenegger film is an oxymoron?
5. Which game did the French mathamatician Blaise Pascal invent?
6. The Vatican excluded, name the two European countries with the highest population density.
7. What kind of people are not allowed on mount Athos in Greece?
a: women
b: men
c: barbarians
8. Din Eidyn is the old name for which European capital city?
9. The word "honeymoon" stems from a very common, old custom that was practiced in many parts of Europe. What was the custom?
10. The belief in which monster or fabled creature may stem from people who suffered from porphyria?
ANSWERS
1. b: 33 million
2. Honey, water and yeast. Mead is a fermented alcoholic beverage made of honey, water, and yeast. Meadhing is the practice of brewing honey. Mead is also colloquially known as "honey wine". A brewery that deals specifically in Mead is called either a meadery or a mazery. A mead that also contains spices (like cloves, cinnamon or nutmeg) or herbs (such as oregano or even lavender or chamomile) is called metheglin. English usage is derived from the Old English medu, from Proto-Germanic meduz. Slavic miod / med, which means "honey" and Baltic *midus, which means "mead", derive from the same Proto-Indo-European root (cf Welsh medd, Old Irish mid). The first known description of mead is in the hymns of the Rigveda, one of the sacred books of the historical Vedic religion and (later) Hinduism dated around 17001100 BC. During the "Golden Age" of Ancient Greece, mead was said to be the preferred drink. Aristotle (384322 BC) discussed mead in his Meteorologica and elsewhere, while Pliny the Elder (AD 2379) called mead militites in his Naturalis Historia and differentiated wine sweetened with honey or "honey-wine" from mead.
3. They have all had a role in a production of War of the worlds.
Orson Welles radio scare,
Tom Cruise in film,
Richard Burton narrated the musical album "War of the worlds" from Jeff Wayne (with Justin Hayward)
4. True Lies True Lies is a 1994 action/comedy remake of the 1991 French film La Totale!. It was directed by James Cameron, and stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, Charlton Heston and Art Malik. Eliza Dushku makes an early career appearance.
5. Roulette Roulette is a casino and gambling game named after the French word meaning "small wheel". The first form of roulette was devised in 18th century France. game has been played in its current form since as early as 1796 in Paris. The earliest description of the roulette game in its current form is found in a French novel "La Roulette, ou le Jour" by Jaques Lablee, which describes a roulette wheel in the Palais Royal in Paris in 1796. The book was published in 1801. Blaise Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators, the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote powerfully in defense of the scientific method.
6. Monaco and Malta
7. a: women In order to reduce sexual temptation, women are completely barred from the peninsula, a fact which has earned a certain amount of fame; even female domestic animals (with the exception, some say, of cats, as well as chickens, which lay eggs that provide the fresh egg yolk needed for the paint used in iconography) are forbidden. The interdiction is punished by imprisonment from one to two years. The European parliament has urged Greece twice to change this rule, but the demand was rejected. Athos did shelter refugees including women and girls twice in its history, during the aftermath of the failed 1770 Orlov Revolt and during the Greek War of Independence in 1821. There was an incident in the 1930s regarding Aliki Diplarakou, the first Greek beauty pageant contestant to win the Miss Europe title, who shocked the world when she dressed up as a man and sneaked into Mount Athos. Her escapade was discussed in the July 13, 1953 Time magazine article entitled The Climax of Sin.
8. Edinburgh, "The Athens of the north" The origin of the city's name in English is understood to come from the Brythonic Din Eidyn (Fort of Eidyn) from the time when it was a Gododdin hillfort. In the 1st century the Romans recorded the Votadini as a Brythonic tribe in the area, and about 600 A.D. the poem Y Gododdin, using the Brythonic form of that name, describes warriors feasting "in Eidin's great hall". It came to be known to the English, the Bernician Angles, as Edin-burh, which some people once believed derived from the Old English for "Edwin's fort", with a reference to the 7th century king Edwin of Northumbria. However, since the name apparently predates King Edwin, this is highly unlikely. The burgh element means "fortress" or "walled group of buildings", i.e. a town or city and is akin to the German burg, Latin parcus, Greek pyrgos etc. Burh is simply a translation of Brythonic Din; Edin is untranslated.
9. Newlyweds were supplied with enough mead (honey wine) for a month (moon). A honeymoon is the traditional trip taken by newlyweds to celebrate their marriage. The origins of this word date back to the times of Babylon. In order to increase the virility and fertility of the newly-weds, the father of the bride would provide his son in law with all the mead (a honey-based drink) he could drink during the first month of the marriage. In many parts of Europe it was traditional to supply a newly married couple with enough mead for a month, ensuring happiness and fertility. From this practice we get honeymoon or, as the French say, lune de miel.
10. Werewolf. People with porphyria are very hairy.Porphyrias are a group of inherited or acquired disorders of certain enzymes in the heme biosynthetic pathway. The erythropoietic porphyrias primarily affect the skin, causing photosensitivity (photodermatitis), blisters, necrosis of the skin and gums, itching, and swelling, and increased hair growth on areas such as the forehead. Often there is no abdominal pain which distinguishes it from other porphyrias. In some forms of porphyria, accumulated heme precursors excreted in the urine may cause various changes in color, after exposure to sunlight, to a dark reddish or dark brown color. Even a purple hue or pink urine may be seen. Heme precursors may also accumulate in the teeth and fingernails, giving them a reddish appearance.