The new weekly game of knowledge, intuition, inductive reasoning, and willingness to risk public embarrassment in a friendly and moderately supportive environment!!
Answers come out Fridayish.
1. Living from 1561 to 1626, he was a "English statesman, essayist, and philosopher, one of the great precursors of the tradition of British empiricism and of belief in the importance of scientific method." Who is he?
2. What language is this?
3. If you enjoyed Death in Venice, perhaps you would enjoy Thomas Mann's sprawling 1901 novel chronicling the decline of a German merchant family over four generations!
4. Here's a map of the ______________.
5. A thinly-disguised New York, it was the home of aging oddball triplets in a 2003 animated feature film.
6. One of the states of the German federation, it is probably best known to English speakers by a gate in Berlin and some concertos by Bach.
7. What country's largest city, Yangon, sits on the Irriwady Delta? (The country you may know by a new and fairly bogus name; Yangon you may know by an old name.)
8. Wouldn't you think a hotel this big could find space for more than 202 rooms? Now only the second-tallest hotel in the world, it is perhaps more distinctive than it is efficient. Its name?
9. What actor could have been a contender, offered justice as a gift on his wedding day, and was driven mad by the horror?
10. His real name was Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, and his greatest hits were probably "Primavera," "Venus and Mars," and especially "The Birth of Venus." Who is this painter dude?
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The tie-breaker: There are a bunch of classical composers whose last names begin with this week's letter. List as many as you can think of.
Put your answers in the comments in the best tradition of British empiricism.
13 comments:
1. Sir Francis Bacon
2. Bulgarian
3. Buddenbrooks?
4. Dunno. Someplace deep.
5. Belleville!
6. Brandenburg
7. Burma
8. Big-ass Phallic-symbol Hotel
9. Brando, maaaaan.
10. Botticelli
1 Berkeley?
2 Bulgarian
3 ?
4 Baltic Sea?
5 Belleville
6 Brandenburg
7 Burma
8 ?
9 Brando
10 Botticelli
Bach (JS)
Bach (CPE)
Beethoven
Brahms
1. Bacon, mmmm bacon
2. Belarussian
3. Bastendorf
4. Barrier Reef
5. Belleville
6. Brandenburg
7. Burma
8. Bahraini
9. Brando
10. Bacchus
Bach, Beethoven, Bchopin, Bsmetana
1. Burke, because that's the only name that springs to mind.
2. Bulgarian?
3. Isn't it "Buddingbrooks" or something like that? Damn.
4. That has to be depth markings, so I'll say Bermuda Triangle.
5. Belleville.
6. Brandenburg.
7. Burma, nkia Myanmar.
8. Big hotel in Dubai?
9. Brando.
10. Botticelli.
Brahms, Beethoven, Bach (WF, JS, JC, CPE, PDQ), Berlioz, Busconi, Bernstein, Bloch, Bizet, Berg, Buxtehude, Berg, Britten, Boccherini
1 Francis "Thick-Cut" Bacon?
2 Bulgarian
3 Bummer in Bonn
4 Bermuda Trench
5 Belleville. Or Belleview, or something.
6 Brandenburg
7 Burma
8 Big Budget Inn
9 Marlon Brando
10 Botticelli
Bach, Bach, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Berlioz, Bartok. And Bach.
1. Bentham, Jeremy
2. Bulgarian? Is there such a language?
3. Budenbrooks
4. Baltic Sea
5. B______, The Triplets of(never saw it).
6. Brandenburg
7. Burma
8. Bahrain Hilton
9. Brando
10.Botticelli
Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, really who needs to add any after these three?
1. Banks? Sir Joseph Banks.
2. Greek? Looks more Cyrillic...B, huh? Bulgarian?
3. Beobachter... Bluecher...
4. hair follicle?
5. I don't even have a bad guess
6. Brandenburg
7. Burma? Borneo? Bahrain?
If one of those is right, please ignore the others.
8. B & B of DuBai
9. Brando
10. Botticelli
So, I think I got 3/10.
God, maybe in a tie for Last Place!!
Bach (not only JS, but some of his offspring belong here, Johann Christian being one of my favorites), Brahms, Beethoven are pretty obvious. Berlioz, Bizet, Bruch, Boccherini, Berg, and how about that Bix Biederbecke?
This is where I traditionally sniff that the quiz is too easy for an educated gentleman.
Also, I don't know four of them.
1.
2. Bosnian
3.
4.
5. Bellevue or Belvedere or something like that.
6. Brandenburg
7. Burma
8. Bharain Arms
9. Brando
10. Boticelli
Beethoven
Brahms
Bach (are we stretching the definition of "Classical"?)
Bizet
Berg
Buxtehude
1. I wanted Isaac Newton, but now I need a B-guy. Why can't get we pro-science politicians anymore? Hmmm. Mmmm! Tasty, tasty, pro-science statesmen. Bacon.
2. Huh! Looks almost exactly like Russian, but it has a few non-Russian prepositions, the case endings are wrong for Russian, and it seems to be missing myadki znaks in a couple of places where I would expect them. Wrong vowels to be Ukrainian or Belorussian. Either it loves Serbian-style, word-beginning consonant clusters like "blg" "dlzh" "drzh" and "srp" or it uses what is in Russian the non-phonemic tvordy znak as a vowel. It's a brief article, probably from Wikipedia, about Bulgaria, suggesting it might be in Bulgarian, but (a) that would be too easy and (b) I recall more variation between Russian and Bulgarian Cyrillic than that. It could still be Bulgarian. My experience with a Yugoslavian roommate unsettled me about predicting which alphabet any given Slav is going to use to write their language today. Hang on while I mentally scan the Balkans for a more obscure B-language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet ... shoot, what alphabet did the Bosnians settle on? I'm sure they use the Latin alphabet, otherwise we couldn't have all those "vowels for Bosnia" jokes. Okay, I'm sticking with Bulgarian. But I won't be surprised if it turns out to be "Bad Russian."
3. Damn, I'm all out of early 20th century declining German merchant family novel ideas. Is it in English? Pay attention, Aviatrix! It doesn't get much more English than "Thomas Mann." Hey! It begins with a B and I know nothing about it: Bonfire of the Vanities. I believe it's even written by Thomas Mann. I thought of that while trying to brainstorm on number five. I'm so proud of myself.
4. What ranges from zero to -700? I can't think of anything that goes that negative. Is it sea depths in the Bolivar trench? A map of the brain, showing the number of wrong answers I retrieve from various areas? Pretty sure it has nothing to do with baseball. The scale is non-linear. Baikal! Lake Baikal. No, wait, that makes no sense. It's the wrong shape and the deepest parts aren't in the middle. I can't get out from under the idea that the numbers are depths. They're too low to be temperatures. Bristol Channel. Baltic Sea. The zeroes have to be islands. So wait, the white is land ... r e v e r s e b r a i n .... Bay of Fundy? I'll go with that.
5. This is getting wacky. An eight year old animated movie with aging triplets. Based on how I did with number three, perhaps I should think turn of the previous century. Bob, Boomtown, Brady Bunch, Being There, Brian, Breathing Room, Bristol Palin, Broca, Buddies .. wow, however my brain is organized, it sure isn't by the Dewey Decimal System. Who would bother disguising New York? Why? Brothers? Now wait, we want the name of New York, not the name of the movie. I'll go all Clark Kent and go with "Big City."
6. Brandenburg, or possibly Brandenberg, depending on whether it's named after a mountain or a city. (Sorry, German people, in my dialect -berg and -burg are both pretty much the same).
7. Burkina Faso, formerly Upper Volta. Wow I guessed that before I hit on the letter. I just named the most bogusly named country I knew. So now I have to stick with it, even though it occurs to me now that Burma is pretty bogusly named, and is not on the Mekong Delta.
8. I think it's in Dubai. Please tell me they didn't call it Beachview.
9. Brando - movie star, tough guy
10. Botticelli - yeah! he did that Venus on the half shell thing.
How sad is it that I guessed this week's letter from the tie-breaker and worked backwards from there? I guess not as sad as if I have guessed incorrectly.
Bach, Beethoven, Brahms
I can only think of three, but for ME, that's a BUNCH!
Oh, right.
1. Bacon!
2. Bulgarian!
3. Budenbrooks!
4. The Baltic Sea
5. Belleville
6. Brandenburg
7. Burma
8. Burj al Dubai (which I'm thinking is perhaps the first ever M5K Quiz question in, geez, three years or more, that no one got right. But I could be wrong.)
9. Brando
10. Botticelli!
So it was Bulgarian. Doesn't it seem kind of obvious to use a Bulgarian article on Bulgaria to illustrate the language? Was it supposed to be a hint or were you trying to psyche us out?
But doesn't 'B&B of Dubai' count for partial credit? I got the location, after all....
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