Anything Goes Number Fourteen Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rabbit

Rabbit hair or fur comes from your common or garden variety of these little creatures. It is also known as cony, coney, comb, lapin fur or hair as well. It is a secondary benefit of rabbit meat, of which the English and French in particular eat huge amounts. The French "produce" seventy million rabbit pelts a year to make various products such as coats and hats, including the famous Australian Akubra hats - which can be seen on almost every farmer's head in this country. Americans also utilise rabbit fur as well, and this accounts for half their annual fur trade altogether.

Benefits of bunny fur are that it is warm, soft, relatively waterproof, and much cheaper than other fur. Surprisingly, it is included in dog treats - which aid in canine digestion and as a treatment for worms. Finally, did you know that rabbit manure is an excellent fertiliser - and that their milk is very rich in protein compounds? Miking a rabbit must be quite a challenge, one imagines - but no doubt any Aussie farmer in his Akubra could manage it with ease.

Answer: He looked like a sausage

George IV (1762-1830) has often been described as one of the worst monarchs to ever take the throne of Britain. Self indulgent to the extreme, he had grown enormously fat by the time the royal portrait of his 1822 visit to Scotland was to be painted, but, endeavouring to look his best to impress his subjects, he kept the painter waiting for hours while he had his assistants lace him up wherever possible to try to look thinner. He could hardly walk in fact by the time he entered the room for the first sitting, and the painter, Sir David Wilkie, remarked afterwards that the king looked like a sausage.

Wilkie did his best to disguise the king's weight in the later 1829 portrait of the king's visit to Scotland (the first by a British monarch since the 17th century) with careful shading to hide George's enormous girth, increasing the height of the collar to disguise his huge double chin, and painting him without the pink pantaloons he normally wore under the Scottish kilt to disguise his bloated legs. In reality, when the king paraded in public dressed as a Highlander, his waist was so wide that it pulled the kilt up too high - leading to several complaints from offended audience members that he was displaying far too much leg. Wilkie later greatly thinned those legs down in his portrait, and lowered the hem of the kilt. Way out of proportion to the rest of the painting, in fact.

Answer: In the field of battle

Held on the actual field of battle, a drumhead court-martial is a very quick trial, without benefit of judges or lawyers, for crimes such as cowardice, drunkenness, disobedience and rashness carried out by soldiers during battle. Hearings were brief, punishment immediate.

These included lashes or hanging. The name drumhead refers to the fact that, because there were no tables or desks available in such an environment upon which to record proceedings, drums were upended and used for this purpose instead.

Answer: Their peak mating season occurs in March in the north

Although hares can breed at any time of a year, the usual period is believed to range from January to September in the northern hemisphere. A "March" hare is no different from an ordinary hare at any month, however. The term "March" applies instead to the mating season of hares - which apparently reaches a peak in March each year. During this time, hares tend to go a little bit crazy, giving rise to that well known saying "as mad as a March hare".

Their behaviour includes the males frantically chasing the females all over the place in order to woo them.

Unfortunately, if the females aren't interested in romance, they may turn on the males, box them severely about the head, and pull out their hair. These feisty little females also, for no known reason, suddenly jump straight up in the air now and then as well. Celebrating women's lib?

Answer: A morgue

Sydney's first "hospital", which was "built" on arrival of the First Fleet to Australia in 1788 only consisted of hastily erected tents - used to house victims of the smallpox that the English brought with them - and which killed half the aboriginal population in the entire area. The first purpose built hospital was a set of beautiful gracious buildings, some of which still exist today - but so very, very badly run, that, of its two kitchens, one was used to house the overseer of the convicts, and the other as a morgue. Cooking was done in the wards instead, hygiene was non-existent, and, because the windows and doors were kept locked to keep in the convicts, the stench was unbearable. Somewhat comically, even the sickest patients, convict or otherwise, tried to escape from it.

Known initially as the Rum Hospital, it also quite quickly earned itself the second nickname of "Sydney Slaughterhouse", with ill people all over the colony fighting tooth and nail not to be carted off there for treatment. There was nothing glorious about the first few years of Australian European settlement. It was very hard work, very poor soil, very little food, very little reward - and one very smelly hospital.

Answer: Lightning strikes

According to "Science Focus", although there haven't been a great number of lightning strikes recorded on giraffes in recent years, of the ones that did occur, giraffes are thirty times more likely to die from lightning strikes than are people. One presumes this is because giraffes are very tall creatures and would attract more lightning than other animals - but also because thirty times fewer human live outside all the time, unlike giraffes.

Other unusual facts this magazine has inflicted upon its readers is that the largest piece of fossilised dinosaur dung found to date measures over 30 centimetres long, and is believed to have emerged from a tyrannosaurus rex; comets smell like rotten eggs; deaf people are known to use sign language in their sleep (how amazing is that!); and the oldest cat who ever lived died at the age of 38 years and three days - her name was Creme Puff. Perhaps she disappeared in one?

Answer: Henry VIII

Many peculiar cures for various illnesses and shortcomings have been tried by man over time, and this was just one of them. Because of the Tudor's rather slender claim to the throne of England, Henry VIII, the second Tudor king, was desperate for his wife (any wife) to produce a male heir to cement that claim. Catherine of Aragon, his first wife, failed in that "duty", as did the infamous Anne Boleyn, wife number two. Still no surviving male heir. Doctors tried adding other male animal parts to Henry's potent drink above, and perhaps, but extremely unlikely, this may have had some effect on the desperate Henry - psychological or physiological - for his third wife, Jane Seymour, finally gave birth to a male child who survived Henry - but who died not long after.

Answer: Underneath jaw support mucles no longer exist

When humans pass away, all flesh and muscles eventually decay into dust, but long before that, those supporting the jaw bones that normally keep jaws closed when not in (living) use, now no longer work. This allows the jaw bones to fall open, especially perhaps if the body has been laid into its coffin lying on its back.

Indeed, such is this somewhat grim physical deterioration of bodies, that it was once the case that undertakers used to tie the jaws of deceased persons together before burial, to stop those grim gaping smiles of death appearing on unearthed skeletons.

Answer: Theoretically yes

Human beings can theoretically eat grass, because it contains a small amount of nutrients, and is non-toxic. However, it is inadvisable to do so. It is very difficult for humans to digest, it contains a product known as silica which is bad for our teeth, it is very high in cellulose, and, though certainly it contains a very small amount of nutrients, those benefits are far out weighed by its negative impact. All things considered, aren't cows just amazing?

Answer: Jackfruit

The jackfruit tree belongs to the Mulberry family of trees, but unlike those dainty berries, the jackfruit itself is the largest fruit from a tree known to man. Well, so far anyway. Who knows what wonder are still yet to be discovered. One single jackfruit can weigh as much as 120 lbs, be almost three feet long and 20 inches around its middle.

Some trees can produce as many as 500 jackfruits in a year, which is astonishing. Jackfruit thrives in the tropical areas of the world, can be consumed either ripe or unripe, and even the seeds and young leaves from its miraculous tree can be cooked and eaten. Given the size of this amazing fruit though, then probably a sound piece of advice regarding it would be never to stand underneath a jackfruit tree on a windy day - or lights out, Jack.