Extremely difficult quiz questions

First topic message reminder :

This extremely difficult quiz question is possible to answer using the internet, lets see who gets the correct answer first.

What is the name of the cottage next door to The Crown & Anchor pub, near Kilnsea, East Yorkshire. ?

Looks like India's victory over England at the Oval in August 1971.

Having Wisden Almanacs can assist on these occasions...unless they are Fawlty...

I thought my teaser was tricky but not difficult if one latched on to the fact that there is a sequence of ten figures :

What are the missing numbers (?) in this sequence - and why?

3... ? ...5...4...?...3...5...?...4...3

The first figure shown is 3 -  it is number one in the sequence of ten . If you spell that number it has three letters . ie ONE. The second figure would also be 3 as  2 is spelt TWO...3 is spelt THREE ( five letters)...and so on...

Accordingly, the missing letters were 3 , 4 and 5 because that is the number of letters in the spelt version of the position of those numbers in the sequence of ten.

A very good question, not difficult once you've got your head round it, but impenetrable up to that moment. As teachers usually say before an exam, make sure you've understood the question before you try to answer it.

It was indeed India’s first-ever victory in a Test Match in England at the Oval in August 1971. It ended an England run of 26 Tests without defeat (the 1970 series against the Rest of the World didn’t count as Test Matches). England were unlucky to lose the series 1-0; the weather had deprived them of victories in the first two Tests.

unless they are Fawlty...

Right, no clues with the next question, at least not unless someone asks for one!

Where on earth is this?

A constant pleasure to see.

It looks a bit Alpineish, so on the back of OW's clue, as I hope is was, Lake Constance?.

No credit due if correct.

Oh, dear!

Lake Constance

Not Lake Constance (or Bodensee, as they say in Germany). At least I've managed to ask a 'difficult' question which hasn't been answered in about ten minutes.  

There is a connection with Hemingway, and it would be great if you could name the towns on either side of the river which feeds into this lake.

There's a place rather like that in Alaska:

My picture is of two towns in Europe, on a lake which straddles two countries.

Was the Pieter Bruegel painting significant? I recognised the style, but I can't name the painting.

Is this Lake Maggiore?

The painting is 'Parable of the Blind' - or something like that, isn't it?

The Hemingway clue brought to mind A Farewell to Arms which was set in Northern Italy and the hero rowed across Lake Geneva and ended up in Montreaux.  The Rhone feeds Lake Geneva and is bordered by France and Switzerland but I have no idea of the towns.

Phil. Well done, sage 2. The photo is of part of Lake Maggiore, which means 'great lake' (hence the 'great' clue). Can you name the towns?

I can now name the source of the photo without giving anything away - one Roberto Buzzini.  

As to Lake Geneva, the northern side of it is in Switzerland, the southern side is in France. But 'A Farewell To Arms' was the correct answer.

The towns : no real idea, but what about Pino and Brissago?

or what about Luino and Germignaga, if we're throwing out ideas?

I know Luino, which is on the Italian part of the lake. It has a massive market every Wednesday, but when you've seen about six stalls you've seen the lot. The stallholders must operate as a cartel, because the prices are all the same and they don't respond to haggling.

Brissago, which is on the Swiss part, is famous for having had a tobacco and cigar factory since 1847. Not really what you associate with a beautiful lake.

The towns in my photo are both in the same country. One of them is quite large, and schoolchildren studying history sometimes think - mistakenly - that it has a connection with corn flakes.....  

Ivan wrote:I know Luino, which is on the Italian part of the lake. It has a massive market every Wednesday, but when you've seen about six stalls you've seen the lot. The stallholders must operate as a cartel, because the prices are all the same and they don't respond to haggling.

The towns in my photo are both in the same country. One of them is quite large, and schoolchildren studying history sometimes think - mistakenly - that it has a connection with corn flakes.....  

The twin towns of the picture are presumably Ascona and Locarno.  The latter name will be familiar to Sarff-Lundners of a certain age as the name of a very popular 1930s Palais de Danse in Streatham.

Ivan's reference to a fixed-price market reminds me of a similar encounter in the centre of Turkey, just south of Ürgüp where we found a co-operative of doll-makers that had been set up by the Imam of their village.  Their exquisite creations were accurately clothed in the various regional national dress traditions complete with beads and necklaces.  About fifteen ladies sat in a semi-circle with their offerings, all at about £8 each with none of that "lookee-lookee, I make you special prize" tediously familiar in North Africa.

Ah, the Dave Clarke Five - and that rotating mirror-ball!

Those Lambretta and Vespa days! What fun to be punched in the head and spat at by those Rockers !

My father gave me a seven year-old Lambretta for my 16th birthday. A week before I left school I should have been killed as I hit the back of a stationary Nash Metropolitan in a sudden rain storm and flew  (helmetless ) over the top of it. the car lost its rear wing, but I had barely a scratch and only mild concussion - the luck of the Hornbys...

My 'difficult question' that night was ' How do I tell Dad that my motor-scooter is now nine inches shorter than when I left home on it...?'

Brains should have had time to recover by now, so here's another opportunity to shine:

Which 37-year old man went to Australia in 1834 and returned to Britain three years later a great deal more famous internationally than he had been when he left?  

Could this be to do with the Tolpuddle Martyrs and George Loveless...?

You'm prezackly c'rect there, Phil.  Backalong, folks had to stand up for theyselves - an' they still does!

 ©londonsocialisthistorian

I do love some local dialect !

My mother ( a Mancunian) used to say about me ( born in Derby) : 'Derbyshire born and Derbyshire bred - strong in th' arm and thick in th' ead..'.

Mother was usually right...

The Poet William Barnes wrote in Dorset dialect.  (It's hard work.)

Where the bridge out at Woodley did stride, Wi' his wide arches' cool sheäded bow,Up above the clear brook that did slide By the poppies, befoam'd white as snow;As the gilcups did quiver among The white deäsies, a-spread in a sheet.There a quick-trippèn maïd come along,- Aye, a girl wi' her light-steppèn veet. -An' she cried "I do praÿ, is the road Out to Lincham on here, by the meäd?"An' "oh! ees," I meäde answer, an' show'd Her the way it would turn an' would leäd:"Goo along by the beech in the nook, Where the children do plaÿ in the cool,To the steppèn stwones over the brook,- Aye, the grey blocks o' rock at the pool." -"Then you don't seem a-born an' a-bred," I spoke up, "at a place here about;"And she answer'd wi' cheäks up so red As a pi'ny leäte a-come out,"No, I liv'd wi' my uncle that died Back in Eäpril, an' now I'm a-comeHere to Ham, to my mother, to bide,- Aye, to her house to vind a new hwome." -I'm asheämed that I wanted know Any more of her childhood or lifeBut then, why should so feäir a child grow Where no father did bide wi' his wife;Then wi' blushes of zunrisèn morn, She replied "that it midden be known,"Oh! they zent me awaÿ to be born, -* Aye, they hid me when some would be shown." -Oh! it meäde me a'most teary-ey'd, An' I vound I a'most could ha' groan'd-What! so winnèn, an' still cast azide- What! so lovely, an' not to be own'd;Oh! a God-gift a-treated wi' scorn Oh! a child that a squier should own;An' to zend her awaÿ to be born!- Aye, to hide her where others be shown!

William Barnes, Poems of Rural Life.

Can you make a connection between Margaret Thatcher, a media-shy actor born in 1963, and a town in West Sussex?

Please take care not to include any extraneous information when answering this question. Big Brother may be watching us, and we don't want to risk being held in contempt of court!  

Nothing extraneous ....

Can you make a connection between ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, a novel by American author Thomas Pynchon, and the fourth largest city in Germany?

Doctor Frank N Furter.

Pynchon novel V.

Interesting response, but you're off the scent. Frankfurt is the fifth largest city in Germany, not the fourth.

James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 in ‘Goldfinger' provides another clue......

Do I detect the smell of 4711...?

Well done.  

- Cologne is the fourth largest city in Germany.
- In ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, 4711 is tattooed on Frank's upper thigh.
- In his novel 'Bleeding Edge', Thomas Pynchon discusses the possibility of Adolf Hitler's usage of 4711.  
- 4711-EA-62 was one of the three registration plate options on James Bond's Aston Martin DB5 in ‘Goldfinger’.

Just in case anyone’s interested:-

- In 1794, Cologne council numbered all the houses in the city. The building where ‘Eau de Cologne’ was made was number 4711.
- During World War 2, the German navy issued vast amounts of 4711 to U-boat crews in an attempt to improve the odour aboard the vessels.
- Though not quite as famous as Handel's composition about the more usual 'eau', in 1958 electronic musician Vladimir Ussachevsky composed a work called ‘Improvisation on 4711’.

Who lost an 'r' but gained a 'w' in 1962 - and then gained an 'e' in 1971, but lost it in 1975 - and why did these events occur?

'i' before 'e' except after 'c', so I think it was Worthington "E".

(and incidentally, which are the UK's fourth and fifth largest cities?)

Ingenious - as usual. But not the answer on this occasion. This is a woman whose birth forename was Marie, although she never used the name professionally.

How about Sheffield and Bradford for those cities?

The clue "Marie" suggests Lulu, but that artiste does not appear to meet the other specified parameters. Research thereafter favoured Marie Cluck, Swindon schoolgirl friend of the legendary Diana Dors (neé Fluck). Marie (Cluck, not Fluck) gained notoriety as "The Spanish Fly" following an encounter with the lecherously inclined Marqués de Castille in which the poor girl was found stuck to an intricately-worked ornamental crystal light-fitting on the ballroom ceiling by paparazzi fortuitously nearby, whereupon her normally radiant ('r') visage was briefly replaced by a rather wan ('w') appearance. Ms. Cluck's autobiography was originally entitled simply "Memoire" (with an 'e') but reprinted allegedly without authority in Lisbon as "Memory". A long legal battle to suppress further publication resulted only in ridicule, and total disbelief on the part of everyone else ever since.

That right?

How that explanation deserves to be correct. But it isn't - alas!

It is a singer, however.

One more stab before I disclose the answer? Go on - you can do it!

How close ( or not) were the cities?

I think the cities are correct.

Could it be Marie Dionne Warrick, also known as Dionne Warwicke from 1971 to 1975?

Try this one:-

When Eric’s namesake was urging people to make an attempt, who was dispensing the cash and who provided the music for thirteen years? Can you make a connection between any of that and British television’s longest-running soap?

Nobody under retirement age will understand the answer :-

"Give 'er the mooney, Barney!"

Barney Colehan was the pianist. Violet Carson took over as pianist, but wasn't Mabel (at the table) that was the wife of Wilfred Pickles. The Radio programme was called 'have a go', and Ms Carson played Ena Sharples in Coronation Street for what seemed like a thousand years.

Do you want to know any more about Marie Cluck?

Only if you're talking about the Marie Cluck, who ran the sub-post office in Middle Wallop for 35 years until the excitement became too much for her.

The 'Have A Go' pianist for thirteen years was the third one, Harry Hudson. I believe it was Mabel at the table who "gave 'em the money" after the ritual humiliation of such programmes, which in this case included Wilfred asking contestants if they were "courting".