Well, here we are approaching the end of another year. And what a year it has been; I started it at the fag end of a month in hospital with complicated pneumonia and at the other end I’m bashing out this in a bit of a hurry because by the time the deadline comes around, I shall be recovering from heart surgery. Apologies, therefore, if any howlers creep in. No facetious comments this time accordingly.
Let’s kick off with some Brewery Anagrams:
- danger by toe
- rain van
- stoop grew doubt
- reuse mint
- few lower
- a broad inca
- salty ken
- normal G
- she arrived in pdf tune
- add sample H
And now it’s Consecutive Celebrities time. I’m beginning to get near the bottom of the pile and you may notice that all the pairs of initials have been used before – not surprising as there are only 25 pairs of consecutive letters in the alphabet and several of those do not render names of people that I can find in https land. Still, I have managed (so far) to avoid using any pair of letters twice in the same edition. Here are this month’s batch:
- GH: ‘Water’ and ‘Messiah’
- RS: Brother of Eden Kane (and Peter)
- JK: ‘Pirate’ singer
- CD: Scientist on the Beagle
- KL: Former Mayor
- OP: Film producer
- DE: ‘Guitar Man’
- ST: Piedmont blues man (partner of Brownie)
- EF: Son of Henry (from Detroit)
- LM: Actress with a Zee’
General knowledge.
- When the London tram system (not the Croydon system) was closed down in July 1952, where was the last tramcar placed on display for several years (I remember seeing it quite often as a small boy) where it was clearly visible to passing traffic?
- According to a BBC Home Service radio broadcast on 23 November 1954, where was another lost ‘last’ tram discovered and under what circumstances?
- How many tramway (or light railway) systems are currently operational in the United Kingdom (according to Wikipedia; don’t cheat)? For some reason this list does not include the DLR, nor the Isle of Man which isn’t part of the UK.
- And which was the first new tramway/light rail system to open in the UK, starting operations on 11 August 1980? This excludes the Blackpool system.
- To round things off, when did the Blackpool tramway system open for passenger service?
- Still on the Blackpool system, hoe many tramcars comprise the main operating fleet (excluding the illuminated specials), split approximately equally between the double decker ‘Balloon’ and articulated Bombardier Flexity 2 types?
Enough of trams for now, let’s start thinking about Christmas… - Who wrote the poem ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’? In January of what year was this poem first published in Scribner’s Monthly in the USA under the title A Christmas Carol?
- And who wrote the tune Cranham to which In the Bleak Midwinter is most commonly sung (published in 1906)?
- The first known collection of twenty five Caroles of Cristemas in English was produced by John Awdley, a Shropshire chaplain in which century? Would you like to take a guess at the year of publication?
- And to finish, a simple question: in what year was Charles Dickens’ novella, A Christmas Carol published? Of course simple doesn’t imply that you should know the answer; it just means that you should understand what the question is looking for.
So there we are for another year. I shall take my leave, wishing you a prosperous new one and a happy Christmas (beforehand).
Andy Pirson
As usual, here are the solutions to the puzzles set in the October/November Idle Moments column.
Brewery anagrams:
- LEO WHELP – HOPEWELL
- GREW VITALLY – GRAVITY WELL
- HAWKS TOUR – SOUTHWARK
- I RODE BUSH – BIRD HOUSE
- ALIGNS – SIGNAL
- NOTED LOANS – EAST LONDON
- WEST ORBIT – TWO TRIBES
- LONGSHIP WHO? – HOWLING HOPS
- HAY NECK – HACKNEY
- RUIN STAGE – SIGNATURE
Consecutive celebrities:
- OP: Bladerunner [Oscar Pistorius]
- MN: Female British Soul/R&B singer [Maxine Nightingale]
- JK: Actress and vocalist (Silly Games) [Janet Kay]
- VW: Tennis player (with a sister) [Venus Williams]
- BC: President from Arkansas [Bill Clinton]
- ST: Canadian folk singer (other half of Ian) [Sylvia Tyson]
- HI: Female sports presenter [Hazel Irvine]
- RS: American action man actor [Randolph Scott]
- KL: Fashion designer (in shades) [Karl Lagerfeld]
- AB: Father of the NHS [Aneurin (Nye) Bevan]
General knowledge:
- since the early 1960s, Mary and Tom O’Brien have been better known as Dusty and Tom Springfield (and Tim Field was the third Springfield).
- James Nowell Osterberg Jr. (one time vocalist for the Stooges) is usually known as Iggy Pop.
- Ian Fraser Kilmister used the stage name Lemmy and the two rock bands which he led were Hawkwind and Motörhead.
- On stage (and telly), Robert Norman Davis is commonly known as Jasper Carrott.
- Singer Arnold George Dorsey assumed the name of the German composer Engelbert Humperdinck. The original wrote the opera Hansel and Gretel.
- When he is not painting birds with his wife, Jim Moir sometimes uses the stage name Vic Reeves.
- The pop duo formed in 1962 by Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield is the Righteous Brothers (though Bobby was replaced by Jimmy Walker and subsequently Bucky Heard).
- The stage name of Francesco Stephen Castelluccio is Frankie Valli.
- The stage name (since 1957) of singer Reginald Leonard Smith is Marty Wilde and his daughter is Kim Wilde.
- And finally, the stage name of Brenda Mae Tarpley (b. 1944, active 1951 to present) is Brenda Lee. In 1957 she was given the nickname Little Miss Dynamite.