On the Casablanca Choo-choo

WORLD BOOK NIGHT 2012 UPDATE

On Saturday, Julie and myself repaired to the Central Eating cafe in Eastbourne, in order to hand out the majority of my copies of Good Omens. Unfortunately, the weather was against us, being rather wet and certainly blustery. As a result, not many people turned up, nor were they interested in stopping. Fortunately, I wasn't verbally abused, as was one of my WBN compatriots. Amazing - you try to give stuff away and get an earful for your troubles. Fortunately, the cafe is a somewhat bohemian place - I LOVE the people it can list among its regulars - and were at the very least politely interested when I had the temerity to approach them at their tables. In the end, I returned with only two of the books, and I'm sure I can find a home for them...
In the meantime, don't forget that the free draw ends this Sunday, so get those entries rolling in to juliesgemsuk@hotmail.co.uk

We now return you to our normal fare of baffling blogs, wherein we reveal the fact that Julie and myself partook of a certain boardgame of questions and of answers. And yes, alcohol was consumed, as proved when Julie tried reading a question....

"... oops - did I get it wrong?"
Uh-huh.

Mount Improbable, meet Mount Incoherent

Happy Friday folks. I don't know if you have much planned this weekend, but I'm hoping we can fit another game of Trivial Pursuit in. Or maybe a few chats about literature. Why literature? Well, I'm trying to get some short, snazzy quotes from Julie so I can get some bookmarks made up. Not many, just a few. You know, to give away to a few lucky folks, perhaps..

Anyway, back to the Gem and, indeed, back to Trivial Pursuit.

In case you didn't know what Julie did or didn't know, it's that she had a possible answer on the tip of her tongue. Unfortunately, the correct answer must have been hiding on another part of her tongue...

Trivial Pursuit Week (3 of 3); Orifices and dual-nationality playwrights

You know you've got a belter of a Gem when it qualifies on several levels...

See? Not only is it the wrong answer, but even the answer is a 'fail' in its own right. I was so busy trying to reboot my brain I nearly forgot to facepalm it...

The final Gem of the week is of a certain medical bent. No more to be said, just enjoy.

An inspired answer, but it does rather beg the question why did Julie not manage to come up with 'eyes', since they generally are found in the same part of the body as the others... Ah well.

Hope you have a nice, long Easter weekend; see you Monday!

Trivial Pursuit Week (1 of 3); Talking Italian & lots of wind.

On Saturday, we decided to have a night of playing Trivial Pursuit. In the normal course of things, this is always going to be a rich source of Gems. On this occasion, Julie decided to to partake of the grape. To put it another way, she drank a bottle of wine (some fizzy, cherry flavoured muck). The result? Enough Gems to gift you with a double dose each day - and a bonus Gem on Wednesday ONLY for people who follow the Gems Facebook page. (click HERE to visit the page and become a fan!)

So, without further ado, here's the first of today's little crackers.

I'll be fair to Julie here; as soon as I'd facepalmed that comment, she realised what she'd said...

Today's second Gem seems to have an interesting story itself. First, let's have Julie's take on it.

What?? Was the bugger land-surfing through a hurricane or something?

The name Webb was ringing a bell for me. I know that a certain Matthew Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel (or, if you happen to be French, La Manche), so I was wondering if Jonathan was some kind of relative and a-Googling did I go. 

The result? Distinctly unclear, if not downright opaque. I could barely find a trace of our hero and the little I did manage to find had been thoroughly trolled. It seems Jonathan had indeed been the Grandson of the swimmer Matthew, but some correspondent had obviously been having a little fun at the expense of the forum posters by indulging in a little troll science. Take a look at the relevant part HERE - but scroll down to the larger, blue-type section about half way down the page.

COMING UP NEXT TIME:

Slow food during war and the reason for Liberty's enigmatic expression.

My lucky number's wrong...

(admit it, you were singing the helium squeak that follows that little pop reference...)

Playing Trivial Pursuit one time, Julie was asking me a question from the 'sport and leisure' category. Not my strongest point, it has to be said. Helpfully, Julie decided to indicate just how much of a chance I would have in guessing this one...

OK, admittedly, Julie did correct herself almost immediately, but it was of course far too late. Out came my pen...

By the way - I nearly titled this one 'Bridge over the River Wha...?'

There's something in the air...

As I've said before, a game of Trivial Pursuit is always going to be a rich seam of Gems. When you take into account that Julie's grasp of Geography, her knowledge of names and places and her her own specialised brand of logic comes to the fore, you know it's going to be a good time.

Go, on Julie - get a blue question!
Blast - it's a green... mind you science is often just as good...

In the ensuing discussion, Julie explained her thinking to me; apparently, the troposphere is so called because it's closer to the tropics. I didn't have the nerve to ask how she 'knew' what the relative temperatures were...

BONUS GEM!

Following Julie's little explanation, there was this short exchange...

Sort of makes you think she's doing it on purpose, but trust me, it's all completely accidental...

Up, up and away in my beautiful... athletics event??

The general knowledge board game Trivial Pursuit (here's a link for those unfamiliar with it) is usually a fun way to while away the time. In our case, it has the added bonus of Julie's random little comments.
Just to make things clear, my wife's grasp of geography is only slightly poorer than her knowledge of particle physics as is applied to the chaos theory. Obviously then, any guesses are likely to be somewhat awry of the truth.

However, I must be fair here. Most of us, when faced with a question to which the answer is a mystery, most of us will say something like, "pffff - I dunno." Such a mundane response is not for Julie. No, she'll take a stab in the dark - with a corkscrew, usually.

Finished reeling from the bizarre logic of Julie's suggestion? I don't know about you, but if I was to make a silly guess, I would have said, "fly the Enterprise?"* Well, for those of you that may be interested, Piccard and Jones were the first to fly around the world by hot-air balloon.

*and yes, I'm fully aware that Jean-Luc still would have been wildly inaccurate.