wiki-illiam #108: q16

[dubdobdee]

16:

1: To whom were all places alike?
2: Who was rescued by Reino and revived by Helvi?
3: Which curious character would claim a preference for grouse?
4: Who pilfered and pillaged, and snitched and stole all over town?
5: What thought experiment questioned the Copenhagen interpretation?
6: Who was revived with rum and milk after rescue from flotsam off the Dutch coast?
7: Who was an impudent fraud that never had any financial backing?
8: Who learned, terminally, that "one false step is ne'er retrieved"?
9: Who was Mrs Ribston's cousin (who did not give credit)?
10: Whose pupils were lunar responsive?

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

1: is that cat that walks by himself (and all places are alike to him), from Rudyard Kipling's Just-So Stories. Was wondering where the Kipling was at!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

oh oh and 9 is Tabitha Twitchett from (the best!) Beatrix Potter Ginger and Pickles. G&P ran a shop that failed because it gave (nothing but) credit (ie you didn't have to pay when you bought it, the amount went on a tab); TT ran a rival establishment that did NOT give credit.

So the theme is cats, presumably. So 4: may be from Eliot's Old Possum?

And 5: is Schrödinger's Cat!!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

6: the children in Arthur Ransome's We Didn't Mean to go to Sea rescue a kitten in exactly this fashion, but I forget its name. It is small and grey and Bridget takes charge of it.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

I got this far with Q6 at the party, and then later that evening, as I came down the stairs, it suddenly came to me - the cat's name was Sinbad.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

There had to be one from TS Eliot, and it turns out to be #3.

Rum Tum Tugger is a rebel cat who cannot help but be difficult. He is never satisfied with what you give him:

The Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat:
If you offer him pheasant he would rather have grouse.
If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,
If you put him in a flat then he'd rather have a house.
If you set him on a mouse then he only wants a rat,
If you set him on a rat then he'd rather chase a mouse.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

#4 is Slinky Malinki, rapscallion cat in the rhyming tale by Lynley Dodd

By day he innocently chases leaves and rolls in the sun, but at night Slinky Malinki indulges a larcenous streak.

All over town, / from basket and bowl, / he pilfered and pillaged, / he snitched and he stole. / Slippers and sausages, / biscuits, balloons, / brushes and bandages, / pencils and spoons."

The furry kleptomaniac hauls home an increasingly unlikely collection of stolen objects, until the whole heap collapses on his head, awakening his family and leaving him in disgrace.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

^I googled that one, obv.

and #8 is easily found too:
On the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a tub of Gold Fishes <-- emo* alert

*do these still exist?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

#2 is Tao the siamese cat in "The Incredible Journey" by Sheila Burnford which, although set in Canada, features a family of Finnish immigrants (Google again)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

#10 I think might be the Black Cat in Poe's tale of the same name (but will check!). It's the sort of story where the cat's eyes might well have changed colour or enlarged when the Moon is full. (This would presumably have been before the narrator gouges out one of them, erm...)

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Alas, it isn't The Black Cat. I still think the question suggests a macabre tale though.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Found it! It's the black cat Minnaloushe in the poem 'The Cat and the Moon' by WB Yeats.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

#7 is Orange Billy in 'The Slum Cat' by Ernest Thompson Seton, one of the stories in the anthology Animal Heroes, published in 1905 (easily googled)