Recently in Memory Category

Couple of weeks ago I was on hols in Avignon with the whole extended Falby clan and we all wrote games for the evening's entertainment. Margaret, Nicki's mum came up with a devilishly difficult Balderdash (I knew only two of the ten words) and I did a pub-quiz.

Don't know if you've set a pub-quiz before but this was my first go and and was way more difficult than I had anticipated. It's not enough to find things people might not know--you need to try and prevent folk getting bored and you need to make the questions relevant to your audience. In my case I had an audience of three 70-year-olds, three 40-year-olds, two teenagers and Clemmie who is six now and was supposed to be in bed (she helped by numbering the questions and that's her below trying her first diabolo menthe).

Tricky stuff.

At the end of the evening Billy--who knows about these things--reassured me that I had got it about right as the two teams scored better than average but not so much as to make it seem easy.

I'm on the flight back from Chicago listening to Laura Cantrell's version of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald while flying over Lake Erie (which is kinda weird) and was going to do a little work (and write some stuff about Seed) when I found the quiz questions in my bag.

So I thought I'd share them before dropping the sheets in the bin:-)

1. In United States law, which branch of the government declares war. The supreme court, congress or the president?
   (for 1 point)
2. Who were the last captains of the RMS Lusitania and the Edmund Fitzgerald?
   (for 2 points)
3. What do Lorne from Angel, Raven from Teen Titans, Peter Petrelli from Heroes, Pru and Phoebe from Charmed have in common with Betazoïds and for a bonus point who the missing character in this list?
   (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
4. Where would you find your "minor arcana"?
   (for 1 point)
5. What connects Danish physicist Neils Böhr and Eels frontman Mark Everett?
   (for 1 point)
6. Name two grape varieties common in the "Côtes de Ventoux" appélation and for a bonus point what do Côtes de Ventoux winemakers call their terraces?
   (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
7. If you've just passed Governor's Bridge and The Cutting and are half-way to Creg-ny-baa what are you doing?
   (for 1 point)
8. How many goalposts are there on a regulation quidditch pitch?
   (for 1 point)
9. Which motion picture won "Best Picture" at the 1968 Oscars? Two bonus points available for naming one or both of the two "more worthy" runners up that year.
   (for 1 point with 2 bonus points)
10. In the 1994 San Marino Formula One Grand Prix Ayrton Senna carried a furled flag in his cockpit. Of what country was the flag?
    (for 1 point)
11. In French cooking, what do "nappé", "petit boulé" and "grand cassé" refer to?
    (for 1 point)
12. What is the waltz from Tchaïkovski's fairy-tale-inspired ballet of 1890 better known as?
    (for 1 point)
13. Who first invited Harry and Stein to the Bronx? For a bonus point, who took his place in the video when he was sick on the day of the shoot?
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
14. What did King of France Louis XIII create in 1622? For a bonus point, who succeeded Richelieu as Cardinal?
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
15. Excluding Rockall, what is the Northernmost point of Scotland?
    (for 1 point)
16. By German law, how must Weißbier be fermented? For a bonus point, what is "botrytis cinerea"
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
17. Who broke the production motorcycle land-speed record for the rolling kilometre at Nardo on 29 September 1985
    (for 1 point)
18. What was the first film Alfred Hitchcock directed (title and year)? What was the last film he directed. For a bonus point, which film did he direct in 1935?
    (for up to 4 points and bonus 1 point)
19. What problem did John Harrison solve to win £20,000? For a bonus point, what was his solution made out of?
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)
20. First Babakoto then Mojo Pin then Dear Eskimo. Who is this? For a bonus point, what is this person's current label?
    (for 1 point and bonus 1 point)

Well, of course with the interweb y'all have the answers to hand, but (as Barney the Purple Dinosaur would say) it's fun to try and guess them the hard way first...

Hey, Jed's on TV :-)

Helping Clem with her homework. The brief was "what would you do" and the required media was "any" which I felt was vague and demanding for a 5-year-old.

Undaunted, Clemmie wanted to make a film but I had to point out this was going to be a little challenging given the time we had. We ended up with a Keynote file. She made the time machine slide herself and did all the thinking. The words are all hers. My contribution was to suggest a structure and be her dtp operator:-)

The cool bit was watching her work out what was needed both to make her machine (lots of levers) and to actually get to Laura's place. It took a couple of minutes but she eventually worked out she needed to know both a place and a date (the date is spoken to the time machine using the on-board microphone and the map of Wisconsin is included above the catering tray).

Wow, John Hardy and David Coates aren't just medical doctors, they're voice-over artists:-)

John offered me this fantastic arthroscopy footage after my operation. The arthroscope is hooked up to a video encoder which captures live footage for post-operative review. When I first received the disk it was just raw footage. After hearing about the number of arthroscopies on YouTube, John (who is not only a world-leading Orthopaedic surgeon but a painter, internet guru, web marketer and now film editor and voice-over artist) decided to have a go at an edited version.

The result is a complete transformation, a view of the whole op from me on very powerful drugs to the final phases of the joint smoothing, the whole thing narrated by the two doctors.

Oh, and before I forget, John was mortified by my earlier "before and after" pictures. He wanted me to point out that the surgery is very non-invasive and the recovery is usually very speedy. The following shot of my knee was taken roughly two weeks after the operation, the stitches are out and you can barely see the entry wounds:

OK ma p'tite puce je te souhaite bon courage pour ton examen :-) Grosses bises et super-maxi-câlins de ton Papa!

1. 07:30 good catch-up meeting with Agathe near République
2. 11:30 continue reviewing backup screens with Thomas P near bastill3
3. a large chunk of the afternoon: walking from Bastille to Gare du Nord because the RATP strikers lied to me about there being a few rames left in service to take me home. Long walk carrying luggage punctuated with taunting temptings at each Vélib station (haleluya, there's a Vélib... argggg it has no chain/seat/tires...)