wiki-illiam #107: q14&15

[dubdobdee]

14:

i: What is viscivorus?
The mistlethrush aka the STORMCOCK (AT and SBP via google)
ii: Who was the victim of Bowman Passer?
The sparrow (= passeridae) shot COCK ROBIN with his bow and arrow (JA)
iii: What name was given to 9903 and 2001?
Two locomotives (LNER 2001 and NBR 903) were named COCK O' THE NORTH
iv: What imposter combines engraulids with scrambled egg?
Engraulids are anchovies: anchovies and scrambled eggs is SCOTCH WOODCOCK (JA and AT via google)
v: What alludes to two losses and uncertainty about the way forward?
vi: Whose wife was likened by his friend to a white antelope from Snowdonia?
Shelley described Thomas Love PEACOCK's wife Jane Gryffydh as the "milk-white Snowdonian Antelope" (JW via google)
vii: Who directed the disappearance of a spinster in Mandrika?
HITCHCOCK directed The Lady Vanishes (JW)
viii: What operation cleared a Limburg geometrical feature?
OPERATION BLACKCOCK cleared the Roer Triangle during the allied invasion of the Rhineland (AT via google)
ix: Who got 4 in 4, 5 in 6, 6 in 9 and 7 in 11?
The bowler Pat POCOCK (JW, via google)
x: What characterises Jock Scott's cheeks?
The cheeks of the Jock Scott salmon fly should be the JUNGLE COCK feather, veiled by Blue Chatterer substitute, tied short (though some websites seen to dispute this) (MM/JW, via google)

(two today because you've been good this must end i've been away)

Which character rhymed:

i: tussle and muscle?
ii: knowledge, he and apology?
JOHN WELLINGTON WELLS in The Sorceror (KP)
iii: Chamberlain and moral stain?
iv: kindred soul and sausage-roll?
v: everybody earns and income-tax returns?
vi: wrote of Queen Anne and Sodor and Man?
vii: Parliamentary hive and or Conservative?
The FAIRY QUEEN in Iolanthe (KP
viii: been acuter and simple pewter?
DON ALHAMBRA in The Gondoliers: "There lived a king" (AT)
ix: lot o' news and hypotenuse?
MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY from The Pirates of Penzance (KP)
x: Horace and Morris's
ROBIN OAKAPPLE in Ruddigore (KP & AT)

Comments

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

15.iv must be Rev Awdry

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Sodor being the invented setting for Thomas The Tank Engine.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

But Sodor was named for the Diocese of Sodor and Man - it's a church nerd joke by Mr Awdry. I rather think the rhyme given predates the railway stories.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

15.ix obv Major-General Stanley, that's a gimme

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I feel like 15.vii is from Iolanthe but they probably wouldn't have done two G&S in one quiz...

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Mm and 15.ii sounds a lot like "Oh, my name is John Wellington Wells". But that is THREE Gilberts! That would be madness!

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

There was a whole set of Buchan-novel disguises/imposters just a few days ago, so poss. this is the theme?

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I think that kerrypolka has hit on the theme for 15. They're all Gilbert and Sullivan characters.

viii is from "There lived a king" in The Gondoliers - is it Don Alhambra that sings that one?

I can't remember the opera or the character for x, but the lyric is "From Ovid and Horace / To Swinburne and Morris / They all of them take a back place."

vii sounds like Sergeant Willis (sp?) in Iolanthe (fa la la la).

Isn't v King Gama in Princess Ida, explaining why he's so irritating (although he can't see it)?

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I thought "either a little Liberal or else a little Conservative" too, at first, but I actually think vii is the Fairy Queen, "Into parliament you shall go", etc.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, you know.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Ooh and x is Robin Oakbottom (or whatever) from Ruddigore! Good catch!

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

Oakapple! I can't for the life of me remember why he sings that, but I'm sure you're right.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

v confirmed: it's Gama's song "If you give me your attention" - the second verse ends thus:

I know ev'rybody's income and what ev'rybody earns;
And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns;
But to benefit humanity however much I plan,
Yet ev'rybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!
And I can't think why!

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

As for 14:

iii sounds like asteroids, although I have no idea which ones.

viii sounds like a military operation - was there a Maastricht Triangle in WW2?

[sbp.livejournal.com]

14 iii is madder than that.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

So it is! Do you want to give it away?

[sbp.livejournal.com]

14 iii) is COCK O' THE NORTH - two locomotives with that name had those numbers

Cock o' the North LNER 2001 Doncaster 1789 9/1944 4-6-2 Rn 501 in 1946; became BR 60501; involved in an accident at Doncaster in 3/1951; wd 2/1960; scr 4/1960 at Doncaster.
Cock o' the North NBR 903 R Stephenson 3430 8/1911 4-4-2 Became LNER 9903 in 1921; rb as C11 class in 9/1924; rn Aberdonian; wd 5/1937; scr 1937.

http://riptrack.net/britishlocos-c

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

I googled 14.x, and the answer is here and FASCINATING.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

presumably, "jungle c0ck" is what they want here - hang on, wasn't that a hit by Hank Mizell? ;)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

boyofbadgers should be all over 14 ix.

I think I have the theme for 14; it is almost but not quite a load of bull.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

when we saw hitchcock and got another that i've forgotten we were going down the 'the theme is COCK' route

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

Knowing this enabled me to solve viii by using Wikipedia. Wikipedia also offered an answer to iv which fits the theme. I'll post them both if no-one gets them by tomorrow.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

oh and i guessed ii from the cock theme, and WON

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

BOWMAN
COCK
SOMEONE/THING KILLED
HMMM

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

I, said the sparrow,
with my bow and arrow
I killed cock robin?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

bowman passer is the sparrow (= passeridae)

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i also like the way the setter has claimed that the questions are set to be initially hard to google - and in this case, the theme does seem to have been chosen to thwart such methods :-D

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

slightly guilty now, the 2nd answer we got that led us to COCK (I SAID LED US TO COCK), we got by looking up engraulids, and from that my mum got that answer right away

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Is it wickets?

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

It's an alarming amount of
wickets, if so. Awesome cricketers called COCK?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes. Pat Pocock to be precise.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

14. vii. is I assume a reference to Miss Froy in The Lady Vanishes

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

So directed by; either Alfred Hitchcock or whoever directed the remake. The remake was mid-80s?

[sbp.livejournal.com]

I googled 14.i

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

Some updates on 14:

i. I don't know what cock is viscivorous, but the word means 'mistletoe-eater', and is the source of the name of the mistle thrush, turdus viscivorus.

iv. Engraulids are anchovies, and anchovies and scrambled eggs is apparently Scotch Woodcock, which is an imposter because it's not a woodcock at all.

vii. It's not the Maastrict triangle. Google delivers much about the Aachen-Li&eagrave;ge-Maastricht triangle, but not specifically in a military context, as well as the name 'Maastricht triangle theory' given to the idea that you can choose any two of good grades, a social life, and enough sleep. But armed with the cock connection, I discovered (on Wikipedia) that Operation Blackcock cleared the Roer Triangle, preparing the way for the allied invasion of the Rhineland.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

PS: jauntyalan deserves the credit for iv, as noted above.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

i is indeed about the mistlethrush, as its older name is the STORMCOCK

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I've found 14.(vi) with the aid of Google.

Refers to Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 – 23 January 1866), an English satirist, author and close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In 1820, Peacock married Jane Griffith or Gryffydh. In his "Letter to Maria Gisborne", Shelley referred to Jane as "the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope."

—and there
Is English Peacock, with his mountain Fair,
Turned into a Flamingo;—that shy bird
That gleams i’ the Indian air—have you not heard
When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,
His best friends hear no more of him?—but you
Will see him, and will like him too, I hope,
With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope
Matched with this cameleopard—his fine wit
Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

A cameleopard is OLDE for a giraffe.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

i) is WILFRED in Yeoman of the Guard

Wilfred: After mighty tug and tussle —
Point: It resembled more a struggle —
Wilfred: He, by dint of stronger muscle —
Point: Or by some infernal juggle —

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/yeomen/web_opera/yeomen_18.html

iii) is ZARA in Utopia Limited OR The Flowers Of Progress

Zara: (Presenting Lord Dramaleigh and County Councillor)
What these may be, Utopians all,
Perhaps you'll hardly guess--
They're types of England's physical
And moral cleanliness.
This is a Lord High Chamberlain,
Of purity the gauge--
He'll cleanse our court from moral stain
And purify our Stage.

http://diamond.boisestate.edu/gas/utopia/libretto.txt


iv) LUDWIG in The Grand Duke:
"By the mystic regulation/Of our dark Association/Ere you open conversation/With another kindred soul/You must eat a sausage-roll!"

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/EarWorm/GilbertAndSullivan


vi: is the COLONEL in Patience:

The science of Jullien, the eminent musico -
Wit of Macaulay, who wrote of Queen Anne -
The pathos of Paddy, as rendered by Boucicault -
Style of the Bishop of Sodor and Man -

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

Some of those are, may I say, bloody obscure! But I should have remembered the formula for a Heavy Dragoon, in patience. Doctor Sacheverell sticks with me, but I forgot Macaulay and the Bishop.