wiki-illiam #105: q3

[dubdobdee]

In which city:
i: did Dizzy Mabel get drunk on gin?
ii: did George confuse the words for cushion and kiss?
iii: did Peregrinus bring Christmas presents to the poor bookbinder's family?
iv: did the enormous Olga address her guest, inappropriately, as her little turtle-dove?
v: was the Cardinal encouraged to forsake celibacy in favour of a Lutheran union to solve a financial crisis?
vi: did the dinner guests of the extended family include poet, physician, broker, wine-merchant, lumber-merchant and pastor?
vii: did the disguised head groom cause a fire to reduce 42 houses to rubble and ashes?
viii: was the annual subscription for the Blue Diamond 175 (in pre-euro money)?
ix: was the bearer of a pound of Raven mixture expected at 9.34pm?
x: did the people proclaim their Mayor a noddy?

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

not a bean from this quarter -- i assume the citynames have something in common once we get a couple

re x: was Noddy ever mayor of Toytown? This can't be right, though, bcz it would mean the only reason for having no cap letter on "noddy" would be malicious misdirection...

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

These sound like fiction!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

They do.

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

Is i the lesbian from Stamboul Train? In which case 0 clue about the city. Koln? There is always a G Greene question.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Mabel Warren does indeed get drunk on gin in Cologne in Stamboul Train. So that's one.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

aaargh iv) rings such a bell - I'm sure I've actually READ this. Nabokov or Bulgakov, maybe?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

iii) basic googling brings up the source - the answer to the question is a lot trickier to find - I have found it and I am pretty sure the question is actually a little bit wrong!

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

ii: German for cushion is "Kissen", while kiss is "Kuss" (noun) or "küssen" (verb).

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're all German cities then?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

answer that I found for iii) isn't German but the source is.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i surely the answer must be London? No one else drank gin like londoners ;) I'm also thinking about Mabel's Tavern off euston road and Gin Lane by Hogarth...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

If it wasn't for "pastor" - which could be a cheeky anachronism - I'd have guessed a dinner with trimalchio for vi, ergo Rome. Are they all European cities I wonder? (viii must be, i is)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

A "pastor" is actually a shepherd, though?

[(Anonymous)]

あのお家、買いましょうね。

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

ix. is easily googleable, is from literature and the city is German. The preciseness of the expected arrival time is because the narrator goes there by train.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Filling this one in - it's from the opening chapters of 'The Riddle of the Sands' by Erskine Childers.

Carruthers of the F.O. is invited by an old acquaintance, Davies, to join him in Flensburg on the Baltic coast for some "yachting" and "duck shooting". In addition to rifles, artist's paints and the aforesaid pound of Raven mixture, Davies instructs Carruthers to bring oilskins (the 11 shilling sort, not the 'yachting' kind), a prismatic compass and a "No. 3 Rippingille stove". Ominous?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

I don't know how this suddenly popped into my head but x is HAMELIN: from browning's "the pied piper of hamelin"

(i think the "pound of raven" made me think of poe and poitry)

actual line checked and retrieved via google, though i could have got up and looked in a book, and typed it out by hand:
At last the people in a body
To the Town Hall came flocking:
"'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy;
And as for our Corporation—shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I was drawing a blank when I looked at these earlier, but isn't the family that Frankenstein's monster spies on a bookbinder's family? I really ought to know that since I used to have that as my safe 'favourite novel' choice. Off to check...

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Um, no is the answer. But googling Mary Shelley brings up a list of books she had read reconstructed on the U Penn website and a great sounding book featuring the name Peregrinus - Wieland's Private History of Peregrinus Proteus the Philosopher. Although this looks awesome and I will try and read it to find out, I suspect that this is nothing to do with the real answer. This I suspect is actually in ETA Hoffmann's 'The Master Flea: A Fairy Tale' since google reveals rather rapidly that this story features both a Peregrinus and a bookbinder and appears to be set in Frankfurt. Anyway, I offer you a roundabout tale of error and adventure to disguise the fact that simply googling P & bookbinder would have solved this :-(

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming it's late enough in the day for interweb reveals.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Hmm I couldn't find any reference to Frankfurt - found this page, which appears to be the whole story (translated), and all it says re: location is that it's set in "the fairy-tale land of Famagusta" - Famagusta also being the name of a real city in Cyprus.

Though given the German theme, you're probably right, but I couldn't find it anywhere!

v

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Again I have no clue w/o googling, but I just wanted to bring up the excellent ecclesiastical venue WORMS as in 'diet of':



(not fictional nor financial as far as I am aware but definitely Lutheran)

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

vi: Ah! "Extended family" plus Germany made me think of Buddenbrooks, and checking the book I found that yes, at the dinner party at the start there is a poet, a doctor and a pastor, at least.

Had to wiki the city though, leaving it open for a while in case anyone knows where the book is set.