Well, today at least, it looks like summer has arrived. Let’s hope it is still happening by the time this hits the pubs. I was trying to think of a nice little verse to invoke the season; I thought, I know, Addlestrop by Edward Thomas. That does it for me. Trouble is, it’s four verses, which is too long for here; I would have to omit the number puzzles. That won’t do (no, it won’t!) so I shall just suggest that if you don’t know it, look it up.
So, now for those indispensable (oh yes they are!) number puzzles:
- 9 is the L of a B
- 20 N in a D
- 8 L of an A
- 30 is the P of the FTPN
- 1 C of the RT in the LM
- 4 A of H in a M of M
- 9 P in a BT
- 20 H in a T
- 2 ME on a DHM
- 6 RQ in an IG
Now, let’s have 5BY4. Struggling to find a new subject, the thought entered my head (I know not how), ‘Let’s see how well London drinkers know London’. I thought I’d pick ten parliamentary constituencies in London and see if you can match them to their MPs. I’ve picked mostly well-known MPs; can you match them up?
1.Camberwell & Peckham A.Jeremy Corbyn
2.Chipping Barnet B.Emily Thornberry
3.Hackney North & Stoke Newington C.Sir Ed Davey
4.Hayes & Harlington D.Munira Wilson
5.Holborn & St Pancras E.Paul Scully
6.Islington North F.Diane Abbott
7.Islington South & Finsbury G.Harriet Harman
8.Kinston & Surbiton H.Sir Keir Starmer
9.Sutton & Cheam I.Theresa Villiers
10.Twickenham J.John McDonnell
Now we come (if you are still with me) to Trivial Knowledge. I was struggling a bit here; Question 1 had been floating around in my head for some time so that went in. Q2 was a bit of a struggle (sorry if you don’t know it). Then Q3 popped up and that made me think, ‘summertime, seaside; let’s look for some more seaside monuments’. So, here they are:
1.Of the almond, chestnut and peanut, only one is a nut; the others are a drupe and a legume. Which is which?
2.Hawker fighters, the Typhoon and Fury, unlike many of their contemporary fighters did not use the Merlin engine. Instead, they were designed around the H-24 (sleeve valved) Sabre engine. Which company produced this engine?
3.A mosaic and bronze installation replicating Jonathan Edwards’ world record triple jump at the 1995 World Championships (a record which still stands) is located in which seaside town?
4.In which seaside town will you find a bronze statue group of the Bee Gees on the promenade?
5.Apart from the Beatles, which 1960s rock star is commemorated by a statue on the Liverpool waterfront, near to Albert Dock?
6.Also in Liverpool, but away from the water, whose statue stands in Mathew Street?
7.Another seaside town: where will you find statues of characters from Alice in Wonderland (including Alice, the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter)?
8.Where will you find the Scallop (not actually a statue), Maggi Hambling’s monument to Benjamin Britten?
9.Where will you find Conversation Piece, a collection of 22 bronze figures, around 1.5 metres high with round bottoms, often called the Weebles (though I believe they don’t actually wobble), created by Juan Munoz in 1999?
10.And of course, we have to finish off with Anthony Gormley’s 100 cast iron men. What is this installation called and where is it located?
So there we are then. You can now move away from that blazing log fire in the saloon bar and wander off for some fresh or maybe just cooler (or maybe not) air. So have a good summer. I shall be back in the autumn. You have been warned!
Andy Pirson
As usual, here are the solutions to the puzzles set in the June/July Idle Moments column:
Number Puzzles:
1.224 Ounces in a Stone
2.32 Pieces in a Set of Chess Men
3.7 Racing Number on Barry Sheene’s Motor Bikes
4.3,097,600 Square Yards in a Square Mile
5.1819 Birth of Queen Victoria
6.2 Keys of St Peter (to Heaven and Hell)
7.77,500 Square Metres (Approximately) is the Area of the O-Two Arena
8.53 Saturdays in Twenty Twenty-Two
9.35,274 Ounces in a Tonne (or Metric Ton)
10.540 Degrees is the Sum of the Angles of a Pentagon
5BY4: British Lakes
1.Loch Maree7th (11.03 square mile)
2.Loch Shin10th (8.7 square mile)
3.Loch Awe6th (14.85 square mile)
4.Loch Ness4th (21.78 square mile)
5.Loch Lomond3rd (27.45 square mile)
6.Lower Lough Earne2nd (42.28 square mile)
7.Upper Lough Earne5th (13.3 square mile)
8.Loch Tay9th (10.19 square mile)
9.Loch Mora8th (10.3 square mile)
10.Lough Neagh1st (147.87 square mile)
By comparison, England’s biggest lake is Windermere at 5.69 square miles
General knowledge:
1.We all know that polar bears are white, but the colour of their skin under all that hair is Black.
2.Electrical current is measured in amps (actually amperes), but it is electromotive force (EMF) that is measured in volts.
3.The widely used household (or laboratory) object which was invented by Sir James Dewar in 1892 is the vacuum (or Thermos) flask.
4.The new Cunard ship, due to enter service in January 2024, is called Queen Anne.
5.Kings Henry II, Henry III, Edward I, Edward IV, and Henry VII all had queens consort named Elizabeth. And missing from this list is (of course) George VI.
6.The consort to the Nine Days Queen, Lady Jane Grey, was Lord Guildford Dudley.
7.The creature with the binomial name pulex irritans is the human flea (or house flea).
8.The technical device of which the first example was built in 1960 by Theodore H Maiman is the laser.
9.The world record set by Percy Lambert at Brooklands motor racing circuit on 15 February 1913 was the first person to cover 100 miles in an hour (in any kind of vehicle).
10.The speed target exceeded for the first time on 10 March 1956 by Peter Twiss was 1,000 miles per hour, in a Fairey Delta 2. His average speed over two runs was 1,132 mph.