wiki-illiam #109: q7

[dubdobdee]

7.

i: Who, in his delusion, discovered on a dateless day, that he was the King of Spain?
ii: Which narrator enjoyed oysters, cake, and cheese following the burial of his brother on 18 March?
iii: Which diarist described a new pastime on Wednesday 13 January, namely, filling packets with powdered gravy?
iv: In which travelogue were the erratic movements of a goat, chased by a dog, a boy and his parents, witnessed on Saturday 24th?
v: Which self-styled intellectual wrote of driving through Glasgow at 11am on 26 August and counting 27 drunks in one mile?
vi: In what journal does the author boast of eating a penny twelfth cake on Thursday 6 January at every suitable shop between St Paul's and the Exchange?
vii: Which diarist sorrowfully quoted from Pablo Neruda, following the death of the best man of the force, and one of its pillars, on 25 April?
viii: Which traveller, having earlier witnessed the hanging of two men, determined on 22 October to petition for the repeal of the law?
ix: Who pondered on 27 April on the peculiarity of Going's always coming and Cummings' always going?
x: Who recorded being shown the Onacratulus of Pliny at Rotterdam on 13 August?

Diarists real and fictional

i: Poprishchin in Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman, 43 April, 2000, googled by alextiefling
ii: is Samuel Pepys, known googled or guessed by flapwing
iii: Anne Frank, known by jauntyalan
v: Adrian Mole in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, by Sue Townsend, guessed and confirmed by katstevens
vi: Boswell, gutenberged by twitter-user petrajane
vii: Che Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries, guessed by dubdobdee, confirmed by kerrypolka
ix: Mr Pooter in The Diary of a Nobody by George & Weedon Grossmith, known by dubdobdee
x: John Evelyn was shown the relevant Onocratalas, as googled by twitter-user petrajane

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ix: is Mr Pooter, from The Diary of a Nobody
vii: could be Che Guevara, from The Motorcycle Diaries (which I haven't read)

I am proposing that the answers here are diarists! Pepys has already been an answer, otherwise I'd suggest him for vi

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

I think you're right on Che!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

v. Adrian Mole? I never read past the first two books...

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ooh good call (nor did i, but "self-styled intellectual")

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Aha, I had a look and it's from the first one! Where he goes on holiday to Scotland with his mum and Mr Lucas, while his dad goes to Skegness with Stick Insect and Maxwell House:

"Went to see Rob Roy's grave. Saw it. Came back."

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

John Evelyn was fond of outings to the Tyburn Tree. I wouldn't be surprised if viii is he.

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

Also, if someone doesn't try to recreate vi on Monday, I will be sorely disappointed. We tried a similar gambit in Eccles, but it turned out there was only one bakery that still sold Eccles cakes in the whole town. It was a sad day.

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

Aha! A bit of Project Gutenberg trawling reveals our cake-fiend diarist = Boswell.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

iii is Anne Frank!

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

Google is suggesting to me that i is Poprishchin in Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman.

[alextiefling.livejournal.com]

Ah, here we are: "The year 2000: April 43rd. — To-day is a day of splendid triumph. Spain has a king; he has been found, and I am he." (The year is presumably in fact late 1834 or early 1835; the dates get wackier from this point in the story onward.)

[petra jane (from livejournal.com)]

It turns out "Onacratulus" should be "Onocratalus", and it is John Evelyn who recounts being shown one while on vacation in the United Provinces.

[flapwing.livejournal.com]

ii - Pepys