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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 28 December 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on mathematical definitions:
(1) The dictionary definition of 13 is “one more than
12”.
(2) "The distance travelled by a beam of light in a
vacuum in one 299 792 458th of a second" was the definition
adopted internationally in 1983 for one metre. (Reader's Digest
Book of Facts)
(3) The inch is one five hundred-millionth part of the earth’s
polar diameter.
(4) There was no Roman numeral for zero.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 21 December 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on 2007 highlights:
(1) In September 2007, several years late according to us,
Ethiopia celebrated the new millennium, or the arrival of
2000.
(2) The number of skips proven on video in 2007 for a world
record recognized by the Guinness Book of Records for skipping
stones on water was 61.
(3) The inflation rate achieved by Zimbabwe in 2007 was 3007
per cent, only one digit one out from matching the year number.
(4) In their 16 games in the 2007 season, the Wollondilly
White Waratahs rugby team had not scored a point, and had
had 1864 points scored against them. In the last five minutes
of their last match, they scored a penalty goal, which resulted
in a huge celebration even though they lost that final match
72-3. Their worst defeat was 237-0. (Telegraph)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 14 December 2007
Answers to last week’s questions about Christmas:
(1) Back in 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts banned
the observance of Christmas.
(2) Australia has had three “White Christmases”.
In 1935 snow fell in parts of Victoria and Tasmania, in 1962
in the Snowy Mountains and in three states in 2006.
(3) The date of the year when Jesus was born is not known,
although most historians suggest September or October. Shepherds
did not "watch their flocks" in the northern winter
(they had their flocks indoors, not in the fields, on winter
nights), so December 25 is not a possibility. Observance of
that day was adopted from the observance of the winter solstice.
(4) Police in Holbeck, Leeds, England, send their 1997 Christmas
cards to burglars who had offended in the past 12 months.
(Sunday Telegraph)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 7 December 2007
Answers to last week’s questions about former Australian
prime minister, John Howard:
(1) The middle name of his former deputy, Peter Costello,
is Howard.
(2) John Howard’s brother, Bob, supports Labor and
Peter Costello’s brother Tim, president from 1999 of
the Australian Baptist Union, supports the Democrats.
(3) When Mr Howard introduced a goods and services tax after
having promised not to do so, he explained that “it
was not a core promise.”
(4) John Howard lost his seat to a former ABC broadcaster
and interviewer of politicians
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 30 November 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on Australian federal
elections:
(1) Nigel Freemarijuana was banned from running in the 2001
Australian federal election but was eligible for following
elections following an amendment allowing names changed by
deed poll (Telegraph)
(2) Retired businessman Lynn Standfield was challenged by
his wife, Joan, for One Nation preselection for the seat of
Lyne in the 2004 federal election.
(3) The 1998 Australian federal election was contested by
86 parties.
(4) The Deadly Serious Party, Australian Recreation and Fishing
Party, Taxi Operators Political Service (Oceania) and Weekend
Trading Party all contested the 1998 Australian federal election.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 23 November 2007
Answers to last week’s psychology questions:
(1) What do polls show that Americans fear most? Speaking
before a group. (Book of Answers and Book of Lists)
(2) Keraunothnetophobia is the fear of satellites plunging
to earth.
(3) Of what do you think phronemophobia is a fear? It’s
the fear of thinking. (Signs of the Times)
(4) Pantophobia is the fear of everything.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 16 November 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on surnames worldwide:
(1) Captain C C Boycott, an Irish land agent who died in
1897, was subjected to the first boycott. (Sydney Morning
Herald)
(2) The most common surname worldwide is Chan. (Trivial Pursuit)
(3) Donald Death jnr, 60, of Locust Valley, New York, USA,
was charged in April 2005 with stealing $US300,000 from the
Locust Valley Cemetery (Sydney Morning Herald)
(4) You would most likely find Erica Morningstar in the swimming
pool. She is a Canadian world class swimmer.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 9 November 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on the Melbourne Cup:
(1) The other occupation of twice Melbourne Cup winner, jockey
Darren Beadman, has been preacher.
(2) Victoria’s Melbourne Cup Day holiday was originally
called Sunday School Picnic Day.
(3) The NSW Government released its controversial 30,000-page
contract with the builders of the Cross City Tunnel just after
3pm on 1 November 2005 when the Melbourne Cup was being run,
so that criticism of the government’s mess would be
swamped.
(4) The name of Melbourne Cup winner Phar Lap is Thai for
lightning.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 2 November 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on first (given) names:
(1) Since 2005, the most common first name for baby boys
in Brussels, Belgium has been Mohammed (or spelling variants)
(2) Zambian boxer Makina’s first name is Precious.
(3) The given names of Madam Tusaud, Frankenstein, Clouseau,
Rambo, Jekyll and Liberace were Marie, Victor, Jacques, John,
Henry and Wladziu. (Sydney Morning Herald)
(4) How would you explain this finding after only two questions
by a detective in an area of Bali with tens of thousands of
people? Detective: “Was the offender a tourist or born
here?” Witness: “Born here.” Detective:
“How many brothers and sisters has he?” Witness:
“He has no brothers or sisters.” Detective: “It
must have been Wayan then.” The detective knew that
every first-born in Bali is called Wayan. (Sunday Telegraph)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 26 October 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on geometry:
(1) A grain of salt is shaped like a cube.
(2) The shortest route for an ant to take from a top corner
of a cube to the opposite bottom corner is a straight line
to the mid-point of an opposite edge, then straight to the
destination corner. This is best seen by opening the cube
so its faces lie flat, then drawing a straight line.
(3) So you wanted a simple method for drawing an egg-shaped
object? Sure, nothing to it. Draw a straight line AB of x
units. Draw another straight line OC of 2x units perpendicular
from the midpoint, O, of the first line. Place a loop of string
of 5.6 times x units around three tacks at A, B and C. Run
a pencil around the inside confines of the loop.
(4) The distance the eye can see to the horizon is the square
root of the product of the elevation of the eye and the diameter
of the Earth. So, if the elevation of the eye is 1.75 metres
and the diameter of the Earth is 12,714,000 metres, you can
see 4717 metres or 4.7 kilometres. (Sydney Morning Herald)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 19 October 2007
(1) The most commonly-used password on computer systems is
“password”.
(2) The internet activity that has been Nigeria’s biggest
foreign currency earner is scam emails.
(3) The first email message was qwertyuiop. (Sunday Telegraph)
(4) The “http” before web addresses stands for
hypertext transfer protocol.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 12 October 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on chemistry:
(1) The chemical symbol for ice is H2O.
(2) To make sand invisible, fuse it with soda or potash to
make glass.
(3) A dose of anthrax smaller than a speck of dust can kill
you.
(4) “Zymurgy”, a branch of applied chemistry,
is the last word in the Oxford Dictionary, if you discount
“zzz”, meaning “sleep”.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 5 October 2007
Answers to last week’s elementary logic questions:
(1) Which of the leopard, bat and owl sees most clearly in
total darkness? None of them. It is impossible to see in total
darkness.
(2) How was Sheriff Tom Jones able to ride into town on Friday,
stay three nights and leave early Sunday morning? The name
of his horse was Friday. (More Mind-Bending Lateral Thinking
Puzzles)
(3) How was a prisoner able to survive 10 weeks in a cell
without water, and with a 20cm thick steel door between him
and a fresh water well in the next cell? The door wasn’t
locked. (More Mind-Bending Lateral Thinking Puzzles)
(4) Aron Ralston, who had climbed 49 of Colorado’s
4200m peaks, was trapped for six days in Canyonlands National
Park in Utah when he was pinned by a 400kg boulder that shifted
on to his right arm. Clearly he could not move the boulder
and no-one else could come to help him. His only equipment
was ropes, anchors and a pocket knife and his water was almost
exhausted. How did he free himself? He used the pocket knife
to amputate his right arm just below the elbow, applied a
tourniquet, administered first aid, abseiled to the canyon
floor then walked 10 kilometres for help. (Sunday Telegraph)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 28 September 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on cricket:
(1) Kenya’s team in the ICC Twenty20 match in Durban
on 12 September 2007 were three down for 0; their first four
batsmen scored 0; six batsmen scored 0; seven batsmen had
surnames starting with O (M. A. Ouma, D.O. Obuya, C.O Obuya,
T.M. Odoyo, N. Odhiambo, A. Obanda and P.J. Ongondo) and their
first three bowlers had surnames starting and ending with
O (Odoyo, Ongondo and Odhiambo). (Sydney Morning Herald)
(2) Cricket NSW’s inaugural Steve Waugh Medal for the
outstanding player of the 2002-2003 season was won by Steve
Waugh.
(3) Greg Blewett unfortunately was out for 99 in a test match
against the West Indies in 1997. His highest score in the
tests against New Zealand the same year was also 99.
(4) New Zealand fast bowler Geoff Allott said he hoped for
a place in the record books, but was surprised when he entered
the books for batting. He batted for 101 minutes at Eden Park
on 2 March 1999 against South Africa. His score was 0, the
longest time taken to score a duck in first class cricket.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 21 September 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on multiple marriages:
(1) Marriage counsellor Glynn de Moss Wolfe's 29 marriages
made him the world-record holder for most-married man. His
last wife, Linda Essex-Wolfe, held the record for most-married
woman (Telegraph)
(2) Comedian Stan Laurel apparently got on quite well with
his second and third wives after he separated from them. He
married his second and third wives three times each. (2UE)
(3) Ukrainian Vanda Vorotova did not keep any contact with
seven of her eight husbands because she had murdered them.
(Sydney Morning Herald)
(4) Utah resident Tom Green had 33 children; his five wives
and 29 of his children lived at the same home. (Sydney Morning
Herald and Telegraph)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 14 September 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on quotes by country
leaders:
(1) When asked by an Australian reporter how he felt about
so many New Zealanders leaving his country to live in Australia,
New Zealand Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon replied “It’s
good. It’s improving the average IQ of both countries.”
(2) After being wounded by a would-be assassin’s bullet,
US President Ronald Reagan said to his wife “Sorry,
honey, I forgot to duck.”
(3) When President Reagan announced that he was going to
start bombing Moscow in five minutes, he was doing a microphone
test, not realising he was already live to air throughout
the US.
(4) When an interjector at a political rally called out,
"Tell us all you know, Bob, it will only take a minute",
Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies replied: “
I’ll tell you all we both know. It won’t take
any longer.”
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 7 September 2007
Answers to last week’s questions about the moon:
(1) The moon is receding from Earth at a rate of 2½cm
each year. (Trivial Pursuit)
(2) If you thought that the moon takes exactly the same time
to circle the Earth each year as it did the previous year,
you can be consoled by the fact that you weren’t wrong
by much. It takes an extra two-thousandths of a second (Book
of Facts)
(3) People’s imagination makes a blue moon look different
from other full moons. A blue moon is when a second full moon
occurs in the same month.
(4) The Apollo astronauts’ footprints will remain on
the moon for about 10 million years as there is no water or
wind on the moon. (Absolute Trivia)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 31 August 2007
(1) Six former US Open women’s singles champions entered
the 2007 title. They are Maria Sharapova, Venus Williams,
Serena Williams, Justine Henin, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Martina
Hingis.
(2) Renee Richards was barred from the 1977 US Open Women's
Singles because, until her sex change, she had been Richard
Raskind, and was deemed to have an unfair advantage.
(3) Jimmy Connors won the US singles on grass, clay and hardcourt
surfaces.
(4) No unseeded lady has won the US singles.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 24 August 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on the Sydney Boys’
High rugby team:
(1) St Joseph’s First XV rugby union team beat Sydney
Boys’ High School’s First XV by 114-0 on 10 August
2002. St Joseph’s beat Sydney High’s Second XV
on the same day by exactly the same score.
(2) Four days after their 114-0 loss to St Joseph’s,
only eight of their 34-player squad attended Sydney Boys’
High’s scheduled training session at Centennial Park.
The other 26 did not attend because they were injured.
(3) St Joseph’s, Hunters Hill, had 30 teams playing
each Saturday afternoon in 1998.
(4) Most people would agree that Sydney Boys’ High
has also been struggling a little this year. In its first
six matches of 2007, Sydney High lost 65-0 to Newington, 90-0
to Shore, 100-0 to St Ignatius, 81-0 to St Joseph's, 102-0
to Scots and 111-0 to King’s. That’s 549 against,
0 for. (Sun-Herald)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 17 August 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on bridges:
(1) The opening ceremony on the new suspension bridge at
Aucayacu in Peru was attended by local dignitaries who cheered
and popped champagne bottles. But the bridge never made it
into service. It collapsed under the weight of the dignitaries.
(Sydney Telegraph)
(2) The town Ironbridge in England is named after its bridge,
the oldest of its type in the world. Clever trivia contestants
worked out all by themselves that the bridge is made of iron.
(3) All of the 29 bridges spanning the Rhine were destroyed
in World War II.
(4) The 113-metre Aberfeldy Golf Club bridge in the UK is
the longest bridge of its type in the world. It is made of
plastic. (Guinness Book of Records)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 10 August 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on the Tour de France:
(1) This year’s Tour de France began in London.
(2) Approximately half of the 1998 Tour de France cyclists
were disqualified for failing drug tests.
(3) After what was believed to be terminal cancer, Lance
Armstrong won seven consecutive Tours de France.
(4) An Australian won second place in the 2007 Tour de France.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 3 August 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on travel by air:
(1) Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph was able to offer readers
the chance to win a trip to Mars because it was to Mars, a
town of 2000 people near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
(2) Pioneer aviator Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith set the record
of fastest journey between Sydney and Melbourne by road.
(3) Sao Paulo set the record for the city with the most people
travelling to work by helicopter. Wealthy people did that
because of the frequency of kidnappings of rich people for
ransom.
(4) The shortest intercontinental commercial flight is between
Gibraltar (Europe) and Tangier (Africa), a flight of 55 kilometres
and 20 minutes (jayp.net)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 27 July 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on flags:
(1) The Libyan flag is one colour only - green.
(2) There are 13 stripes on the US flag, representing the
original 13 states.
(3) The Red Cross symbol’s origin is the neutral Swiss
flag with the colours reversed
(4) The flags of Indonesia and Monaco are identical (a horizontal
red band on white).
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 20 July 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on the America’s
Cup
(1) The longest winning streak in major sport is the New
York Yacht Club's 132 years in the America's Cup.
(2) The world’s oldest sporting trophy is the America's
Cup.
(3) Switzerland won the America’s Cup in 2003 and retained
it this month even though it is a land-locked country.
(4) Henry Beard and Roy McKie defined sailing as “the
fine art of getting wet and becoming ill while slowly going
nowhere at great expense.” (Put Downs)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 13 July 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on carnivores:
(1) The American animal of the genus “mephitis”
is the skunk, so using smell is its non-contact defensive
weapon.
(2) A fox uses its tail to keep itself warm.
(3) Most herbivores rise rear feet first, but carnivores
rise front feet first.
(4) The world’s smallest fox, the fennec, can hear
a cockroach running on sand.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 6 July 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on world finance:
(1) Sri Muda Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah DK, PSPNB,
PSNB, PSLJ, SPBM, PA, the Sultan of Brunei, was the world's
richest man until surpassed by Bill Gates.
(2) The company owned by the brother of the Sultan of Brunei
lost up to 27 billion dollars. He was Minister for Finance
in the Brunei Ministry.
(3) The combined GDP of 48 of the world’s poorest countries
is exceeded by the assets of the world’s three richest
people (Sydney Morning Herald)
(4) Not surprisingly, the number of triplets that Gail Kelly,
chief executive of Australia’s St George Bank, has,
is three.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 29 June 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on golf:
(1) About one per cent of golf majors are won by left-handers—Bob
Charles, Mike Weir and Phil Mickelson are the only ones.
(2) Scott Draper has been both a professional golfer and
tennis player. On 28 January 2005 he teed-off in the Victorian
Open golf tournament at 7.33am and had a semi-final of the
Australian Open tennis mixed doubles in the afternoon.
(3) Birdie Kim shot a birdie on her final hole to win the
2005 US Open.
(4) Alexis Thompson qualified for this year’s US Women’s
Open at age 12, the youngest ever for a major.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 22 June 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on molluscs:
(1) A snail moves at a speed of 0.00058kmh
(2) An octopus has three hearts.
(3) The shape of the pupil of an octopus’ eye is rectangular.
(4) The defence tactic of a frightened octopus is to release
a black liquid.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 15 June 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on Australian industry:
(1) The world’s smallest gas cylinders were made in
Australia exactly 10 years ago. Could 25,500 of them fit into
two garbage trucks? Yes, they could fit on one pinhead. (Sydney
Morning Herald)
(2) “Made in Australia” tells you nothing about
the country of origin of the product’s ingredients.
All the ingredients could have been imported. The requirement
for carrying that label is only that at least half the production
costs must have been incurred in Australia. (Sydney Morning
Herald)
(3) Stationery store W. C. Penfold’s was delivering
orders to customers in the centre of Sydney city by horse
and cart as late as 2004.
(4) Does Lindsay Fox own a truck? Yes, 6000 trucks, plus
Essendon and Avalon airports and Melbourne’s Luna Park.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 8 June 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on walking:
(1) The material "Eco Fleece" (survival clothing
for cold weather bushwalking) is 80 per cent made from PET
soft drink bottles.
(2) In the 1950s, the fine for jaywalking in New York City
was $2. It was still $2 50 years later. (Sydney Morning Herald)
(3) Many elderly people in Asia walk backwards to help cure
a spinal problem.
(4) Thousands who participated in a 2.7km walk between the
Sydney suburbs Arncliffe and Mascot in 1999 were not at all
interested in the weather forecast for the period of their
walk because it was all underground. It was through the rail
tunnel from Wolli Creek Interchange, Arncliffe, to Domestic
Terminal Station, Mascot, just before the line opened.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 1 June 2007
Answers to last week’s questions about the French Open
tennis championships:
(1) The winner of the French men’s singles has never
been beaten in the first round of the following year.
(2) 30 May 2000 was the only day in the history of the French
Open when no matches could be played because of rain, although
the first day this year went close.
(3) Two left-handers met in the 2005 men’s singles
final. The previous occasion was in 1946.
(4) In the lead-up to the 2007 French championships, Nadal
was beaten by Federer to end his 81 consecutive wins on clay.
If your opponents were of the same standard as you, your chances
of winning 81 consecutive times would be about 1 in 1 followed
by 24 zeros.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 25 May 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on world rivers:
(1) Alaska has 3000 rivers.
(2) All 10 of Europe’s longest rivers are in the former
USSR.
(3) The Colorado River, which formed and now flows through
the Grand Canyon, is only a trickle at best (or dry at worst)
by the time it reaches the sea. (Reader's Digest Book of Facts)
(4) 45 rivers flow into Lake Nicaragua (Lonely Planet’s
Central America)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 18 May 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on animal food:
(1) Elephants eat for about 18 hours a day.
(2) To help them stay alive during bad weather periods when
their normal food sources are unavailable, rabbits eat their
excrement.
(3) The animal kingdom’s fussiest eater is the koala.
It eats almost exclusively eucalyptus leaves, and from only
half a dozen of the 500 species. It can sift through 9kg of
leaves each day to find the 0.5kg it eats.
(4) Koalas and meerkats do not drink, although koalas will
sip on rare occasions.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 11 May 2007
Answers to last week’s questions about British royalty:
(1) Henry VI, the youngest king of England, became king at
eight months.
(2) King George I’s first name was Albert. He respected
the wish of Queen Victoria that no future king should be called
Albert.
(3) King George, who was German-born, could speak no English
and his prime minister, Robert Walpole spoke no German, so
they conversed in Latin.
(4) At age 94 the Queen Mother had a hip replaced by a male
surgeon. In 1997, at age 97, she had another hip replacement
operation, this time by a female surgeon. The surgeon was
the same person, and you can guess the reason. (Sunday Telegraph)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 4 May 2007
Answers to last week’s cricket questions:
(1) King’s College Choir School batted for five seconds,
without hitting a ball, to defeat Trophy Boys XI. Trophy Boys
won the toss, batted first and were all out for nought. Then
King's went in and Trophy's first ball was a no ball. This
gave the King's Choir school a score of one and victory.
(2) West Indies cricketer Wes Hall became a minister in a
Pentecostal church.
(3) If you knew the first names of Sri Lankan cricketer Amunugama,
you’re rather clever. We don’t know, but his initials
are A. R. R. A. P. W. R. R. K. B. followed by his surname.
(Sydney Morning Herald)
(4) The longest over in test cricket history is 15 (nine
no-balls) (Channel 9, Sydney)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 27 April 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on murder:
(1) Finland’s Department of Forensic Psychiatry’s
1995 study determined that the most likely category of people
to commit a murder is murderers.
(2) More Japanese are murdered by shooting outside of Japan
than within their country.
(3) The day after murderer David Herman was saved from a
suicide attempt, he was executed by lethal injection (Telegraph)
(4) English painted Richard Dadd murdered his Dad. (Mensa
Family Quiz Book)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 20 April 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on toilets:
(1) You should us the first toilet cubicle. Surveys show
most people avoid the first one, thinking that most people
will use it. Therefore it is usually the cleanest cubicle.
(2) According to a University of Arizona study, out of kitchen
chopping board, sink and toilet seat, food should be prepared
on the toilet seat to minimise bacteria contamination. This
is because the seat is drier. The survey found a million times
as many bacteria in dishcloths as on toilet seats (Sydney
Morning Herald)
(3) El Salvador toilets save you time because they are under
the shower. You shower and sit on the toilet simultaneously.
(4) The unusual service provided by people on tricycles introduced
in China’s northern provincial capital, Taiyuan, a decade
ago, was roving toilets, especially in crowded areas such
as railway stations and public squares. (Sunday Telegraph)
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 13 April 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on spiders:
(1) A spider’s blood has no colour - it is transparent.
(Absolute Trivia)
(2) Most spiders have eight eyes.
(3) After having sex, the female black widow spider sometimes
kills and eats its mate.
(4) Insects get stuck to a spider’s web, but the web
does not get stuck to the spider because its body has an oil
slick.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 6 April 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on elections:
(1) Mick Gallagher, former Hornsby mayor and independent
candidate for the 2007 New South Wales (Australia) election,
spent the morning of polling day in a police cell on a driving
while disqualified charge.
(2) All of these political parties contested the 1999 New
South Wales election: Gay and Lesbian Party, Make Billionaires
Pay More Tax!, No Nuclear Waste Dumps Party, Re-elect Ivan
Peich People’s Envoy, Animal Liberation Party, Four
Wheel Drive Party, Women's Party, Abolish State Governments,
Mick Gallagher for Australia, Outside Newcastle Sydney and
Wollongong Party, Stop The Banks Ripping Us Off, What's Doing?
Party, Sack Them All, Timbarra Clean Water Party, Give Criminals
Longer Sentences, Three Day Weekend Party, Marijuana Smokers
Rights Party
(3) In Iran, 15-year-olds have the right to vote.
(4) The first country to give women the right to vote was
New Zealand.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 30 March 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on alcohol around
the world:
(1) The average person in India drinks 1 per cent of 1 litre
of alcohol a week (or half of 1 litre a year, compared with
the Czech Republic’s 156 litres a year) (Sunday Telegraph)
(2) English people drink their beer warm.
(3) Germany’s Oktoberfest is mainly in September. It
is from mid-September to the first Sunday in October.
(4) The French town with which Cognac is associated is Cognac.
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Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 23 March 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on marriage around
the world:
(1) Ethnic minorities in Romania have not been allowed to
use their own language when they remarry.
(2) King Mswati III of Swaziland has 600 brothers and sisters.
(3) Britain’s Sean Stewart, a heavy smoker and drinker,
was 11 when his de facto was soon to have his child. (Sunday
Telegraph)
(4) When Iranian Yar-Mohammad divorced his bride, Shirin,
after only two months of marriage, the average age of the
two was five and a half. Yar-Mohammad was six and his bride
five. (Sunday Telegraph)
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Free
Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 16 March 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on Snail Mail:
(1) The most unusual shape for a stamp issued by Tonga was
banana-shaped.
(2) Singapore Airlines has the Sydney GPO Box 747.
(3) The first air mail was sent partly by air, but mostly
by train, after the pilot on the Washington to Philadelphia
flight in 1911 ended up near Waldorf, 30km SE of Washington
and 160km from Philadelphia. (From “Can Elephants Swim?”)
(4) There are 12 two-cent stamps in a dozen.
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Free
Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending 9 March 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on the internet:
(1) No-one owns the internet
(2) The US military invented the internet
(3) The guide to the world’s finest electricity pylons
scored highest on internet company Altodigital’s world
survey of the most boring web sites. It has links to the picture
library of Ukrainian bus shelters and the Traffic Cone Preservation
Society. (Sunday Telegraph 21-5-00)
(4) The site www.purple.com is just a page of that colour.
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Free Trivia
Answers to Questions for week ending 2 March 2007
Answers to last week’s questions about water:
(1) Poll results released in the second half of February
2007 showed that the major electoral concern of Australians
is water.
(2) Both of the boats in which Bass and Flinders explored
the Australian coastline were named “Tom Thumb”.
(3) “The World” with its 110 apartments priced
up to $US7.5 million (and everything else) is on water, somewhere
in the world. It is a ship designed for people to travel on
in a “home” they have purchased. (Sydney Morning
Herald 22-2-03)
(4) The basilisk lizard in Central America is known as the
"Jesus Christ lizard" because it walks on water.
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Free Trivia
Answers to Questions for week ending 23 February 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on the names of capital
cities:
(1) The capital of Singapore is Singapore.
(2) “Seoul” is the word for “capital city”
in Korean.
(3) Nauru is the only country that doesn’t have a capital.
(4) The capital of Mongolia is Ulaanbaatar.
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Free Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending
16 February 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on world diseases
and illnesses:
(1) AIDS has overtaken mosquitoes as Africa’s number
one killer.
(2) The cold virus keeps changing, therefore the immune system
cannot recognize it or develop immunity from it. (Mensa Family
Quiz Book)
(3) It is considered rude in South Korea to blow your nose
in a public place. (Lonely Planet guide book)
(4) The only human disease ever officially declared eradicated
is smallpox. (National Geographic)
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Free Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending
9 February 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on lightning:
(1) The Jefferson, Louisiana, tomb of cowboy star Buck Taylor,
who was killed by lightning, was struck by lightning.
(2) More deaths are caused by kicks from donkeys than by
lightning strikes. (Sydney Morning Herald)
(3) Park ranger Roy Sullivan of Virginia, USA, who was struck
by lightning a record seven times, died by suicide. (Guinness
Book of Records)
(4) According to Professor Walter Connor, of the University
of Michigan, men are six times more likely than women to be
struck by lightning. (Absolute Trivia)
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Free Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending
2 February 2007
Answers to last week’s questions about telephones around
the world.
(1) To the nearest 50, the number phones per 1,000 people
in Niger is 0 (1,4).
(2) Entries in Iceland telephone directories are listed alphabetically
according to first names, not surnames.
(3) Entries in Norfolk Island telephone directories are often
by nicknames.
(4) Barry Maunder of Twickenham, UK, had a phone number one
digit different from that of an internationally-known company.
Worse still, phone books in Japan, USA, Colombia and the UK
mistakenly listed his number instead of the company. He received
11,000 wrong calls, a record considered for the Guinness Book
of Records. The company was the Guinness Book of Records.
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Free Trivia Answers
to Questions for week ending 26 January 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on the Australian
Tennis Championships:
(1) The shortest surnames in the Australian Open belonged
to Mellen Tu and Na Li, the latter having the distinction
of an equally short first name.
(2) Ken Rosewall became the youngest winner of the Australian
men’s singles at 18 in 1953. The oldest winner, at age
37 in 1972, was Ken Rosewall again. He is also the youngest
and oldest winner of the French and US titles, and the youngest
and oldest runner-up of Wimbledon.
(3) Both Mark Edmonson and Vita Gerulaitis were able to win
the Australian Open Men’s Singles in 1977 as the December
1976 championships were held in January 1977.
(4) Mark Edmonson was the last Australian to win the Australian
men’s singles. It was the 1976 title played in January
1997
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Free Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending
19 January 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on cricket:
(1) The day after it finished on 5 January 2007, Sydney’s
Daily Telegraph devoted 26 pages (plus two part-pages) to
the fifth test against England.
(2) The previous 5-0 result for Australia v England cricket
tests was 86 years earlier.
(3) India’s Ajit Agarkar was out first ball in four
consecutive innings when playing against Australia in 1999-2000.
Agarkar ruined everything in the next innings by surviving
the first ball and not getting out until he was caught second
ball.
(4) New Zealand didn’t win any of the 42 tests that
Bert Sutcliffe played in. (ABC radio)
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Free Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending
12 January 2007
Answers to last week’s questions about Turkmenistan
and its late president:
(1) In the decade before his death, President Niyazov’s
hair clour changed from grey to black.
(2) No recorded music is allowed in public places or on radio
and TV in Turkmenistan.
(3) The huge gilded statue of President Niyazov in Turkmenistan’s
capital faces the sun. It rotates.
(4) Turkmenistan has all of these: a holiday in honour of
melons, a month (January) named after President Niyazov, another
month (April) named after President Niyazov’s mother
and a ban on the wearing of make-up by newsreaders.
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Free Trivia Answers to Questions for week ending
5 January 2007
Answers to last week’s questions on world cities:
(1) The Falls Church is in Falls Church, a city in Virginia,
USA. (Question was: "The Falls Church voted last month
to break away from the US Episcopal Church. The Falls Church
is in what city?")
(2) “Nylon” is an abbreviation of New York and
London. (Question was: "Of what two cities is “nylon”
an abbreviation?")
(3) The founder of communism, Karl Marx, is buried in London.
(4) None of the 10 largest cities in population 100 years
ago are still in the top 10. Tokyo (11th) and New York (13th)
are the closest.
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