General Knowledge Quiz

[Gloster]

I will leave it to the others as I only just about got in range. I didn’t even get the ship’s name right: it is Szent Istvan (and there should be an accent on the a). Sankt is me reverting to thinking in Danish.

 

[Calthrop]

I will leave it to the others as I only just about got in range. I didn’t even get the ship’s name right: it is Szent Istvan (and there should be an accent on the a). Sankt is me reverting to thinking in Danish.

Indeed, Hungarian Szent = "Saint"; as in the towns of Szentendre and Szentgotthard. Sankt is "Saint" in German, as well -- I'd read your entry, as those responsible using "Sankt" in an attempt to keep both the German-Austrians, and the Hungarians, happy: this generally having been found, I gather -- in the days of that hapless Empire -- to be an impossible feat.

 

[xotGD]

I'm up for a tie-breaker...

 

[SuspectUsual]

I’ll pass thank you, I’m unlikely to have any spare time in the next couple of days

 

[Calthrop]

Thanks, all. Right -- it's between @Peterthegreat and @xotGD.

Please name the patron saint of Peru.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Thanks, all. Right -- it's between @Peterthegreat and @xotGD.

Please name the patron saint of Peru.

Sorry - a complete guess - Isabella

 

[Calthrop]

Sorry - a complete guess - Isabella

Regrets: not Isabella.

 

[Calthrop]

Twelve hours on: I'd tried to keep to national patron saints hopefully quite well-known to Britons; suspect that I thought the p.s. of Peru, more widely known than is in fact the case -- acknowledged random guess from one contestant, no response from the other.

Can we scrap Peru; and as tie-breaker, go for another patron saint: the patron saint of Orkney?

 

[Gloster]

I am not in this tiebreaker, so I will not give what I think is the answer to the Orkney question. It is at least more likely than my guess of Paddington’s Aunt Lucy for darkest Peru.

 

[Calthrop]

I am not in this tiebreaker, so I will not give what I think is the answer to the Orkney question. It is at least more likely than my guess of Paddington’s Aunt Lucy for darkest Peru.

Like it ! I wonder what the Peruvians think about their country's citizen best-known by the folk of Britain, being not a human one ? (Peru's patron saint is St. Rosa, or Rose, of Lima -- references to whom, I seem to keep seeing; perhaps I'm unusual there !)

 

[xotGD]

St Magnus?

 

[Peterthegreat]

Would that be Magnus?

 

[Calthrop]

That's the chap -- Magnus Erlendsson, 1080 -- 1125. @xotGD -- you win here, by the narrowest of possible margins ! -- it's you to set the next question.

 

[geoffk]

It appears krus_aragon hasn't recovered from the shock of getting the last question right. To keep things turning over here's a quickie:

What is a "mondegreen"?

Until this week I'd never come across the word mondegreen and had to look it up. Apparently an American writer coined the term in 1954! You learn something (not necessarily useful) every day. My dad used to tell the one about the military command "going to advance, send reinforcements" coming out the other end as "going to a dance, send three and fourpence".

 

[Gloster]

A mondegreen is a misheard song lyric, or possibly a line from poetry. It comes from from somebody, I can’t remember her name, mishearing ‘They have killed the Earl of Moray/and laid him on the green,’ as ’They have killed the Earl of Moray/and Lady Mondegreen.’ I.e. the spouse of Lord Mondegreen has also been slaughtered.

 

[xotGD]

Here we go...

What do the following have in common:

Hexham
Hawley
Ely
Llanelli
Havant
Henley
Leek
Eltham
Newlyn

 

[D6130]

They're all weather reporting stations?

 

[xotGD]

They're all weather reporting stations?

They may well be, but that's not what I'm looking for.

 

[SuspectUsual]

In honour of the late Barry Cryer, may I be first to say I’m sorry I Havant a clue

 

[Gloster]

Fixed points for the measurement of height?

 

[xotGD]

Fixed points for the measurement of height?

Not the answer I'm after.

Time for a clue: think of the names, rather than the places...

 

[DaleCooper]

Not the answer I'm after.

Time for a clue: think of the names, rather than the places...

The names are derived from things watery, rivers, fish etc.

 

[xotGD]

The names are derived from things watery, rivers, fish etc.

Sorry, no.

Another clue:

HEXHAM
HAWLEY
ELY
LLANELLI
HAVANT
HENLEY
LEEK
ELTHAM
NEWLYN

 

[MotCO]

Style of text?

 

[xotGD]

Style of text?

I'll give you that - when written in block capitals, there are only straight lines, no curves.

Your floor...

 

[DaleCooper]

I'll give you that - when written in block capitals, there are only straight lines, no curves.

Your floor...

More questions like that please.

 

[MotCO]

Where is San Serif?

 

[Neo9320]

At the bottom of certain letters in fonts?

 

[MotCO]

I'm actually looking for a place.

 

[Gloster]

In the Guardian on 1 April sometime in the 1970s.