"F"inally another alphabet quiz

Answer: Field Spaniel

A descendant of the English Cocker Spaniel, the Field Spaniel is a working dog which has a gentle, affectionate personality.

The Finnish Lapphund originated, as the name implies, in Lapland, the area on the Scandinavian Peninsula north of the arctic circle. Initially hunters, they changed with the Sami society and became herding dogs. A spitz breed, the thick weatherproof coat protects a small, intelligent, friendly dog which needs a moderate amount of exercise.

The French Brittany Spaniel is a gun dog, normally black and white but may be tricoloured (white, liver and orange, or roaned in these colours). With an easy-going disposition and seemingly unlimited energy, this little guy makes a good companion and excellent bird dog.

The Fauves de Bretagne is a medium-sized, reddish dog with a history going back to the Middle Ages. Also known as the Tawny Brittany Griffon, it was originally used to keep wolves from the sheep in Brittany.

Answer: Gentile da Fabriano

Gentile da Fabriano lived c. 1370-1427 in what is now Italy. According to www.ibiblio.org, "He carried out important commissions in several major Italian art centers and was recognized as one of the foremost artists of his day, but most of the work on which his great contemporary reputation was based has been destroyed. It included frescoes in the Doges' Palace in Venice (1408) and for St John Lateran in Rome (1427). In between he worked in Florence, Siena, and Orvieto."

Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar, was born around 1400 and died in 1455. He started his career as a manuscript illustrator, became prior of S. Domenico in Fiesole in 1450, and worked in Rome, creating the frescoes in the private chapel of Pope Nicholas V at the Vatican. He was beatified in 1984.

Jean Fouquet (or Foucquet) was born c1420 and died c1481. He was born in Tours, France, and became a premier painter of portraits for members of the French Court. A superb draughtsman, his paintings are exquisitely rich in detail.

Fragonard was of a much later era, born in 1732 and dying in 1806, and was a proponent of the Rococo movement. An expert painter of landscapes, he is best known for his erotic (but very tasteful) paintings.

Answer: Fugitive

Thank heavens for the Amazon.com blurbs, as I haven't read this one (yet). A man is sent to prison for murdering his girlfriend - but says he didn't do it. Problem is, he's not exactly the sort of guy you'd want to bring home to meet Daddy - and now he's escaped from prison, only to be caught again... Will Kinsey find the evidence to prove him innocent, or was he really the bad guy after all?

Hmmm.... I have to go get a copy of this one, it looks like a jolly good read!

Answer: fuchsia

With droopy stems and colourful flowers, this plant is most often seen in hanging baskets. A native of South and Central America, it is also known as "ladies eardrops". There are over 100 species of the plant, and the colours can vary from white to purple, red and orange.

Fuchsias are normally cultivated from cuttings, as plants grown from seed will not necessarily appear like the parent plant. The plant is mostly an indoors one in cooler climates. They prefer temperatures ranging from about 50-60 degrees F at night and 60-70 degrees F during the day. They will not flower when temperatures rise over about 76 degrees F.

Answer: Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch

Walter Frye was a Renaissance composer from England, of whom practically nothing is known but his surviving music, including three nearly complete masses. It is known that his works were well regarded, and copies have been found across Europe. It is believed he died in the latter 1400s.

Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch was born in 1736 in Zerbst, Germany, and died in 1800 in Berlin. He was a harpsichordist who played under, then followed CPE Bach as harpsichordist to the court of Frederick the Great. He later directed the Royal Opera.

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was born in 1822 in Liege, Belgium, and died in 1890 in Paris. He was probably the finest composers for the organ since Bach, but is generally best known for his "Symphony in D".

I would love to tell you about Carolus Emanuel Fodor, who was born in 1759 and who may have died in 1799 (unconfirmed) in Paris, but the only sites I have found with (apparently) biographical information are not in English. I am covered in shame that I cannot read Dutch fluently, but what I can glean from the site in French (and bear in mind please that I flunked French in middle school) is that he came from a very musical family, was the brother of Carolus Antonius and Josephus Andreas (both composers?), and wrote music. (For those who want a good idea of what I'm up against here, check out the "translate this page" version of his bio at www.musicologie.org. It's a case of "English as she is sometimes spoke"!)

Answer: Foodo

With about 8.5 million population in Benin (2005), the 24,500 speakers of Foodo in the country are a small minority of the total population.

Furu is found spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. There are about 16,000 speakers left. It is also known as Bagero.

Fayu is a language of four nomadic groups in Indonesia, and probably only about 350 speak this language.

Fang is spoken in a small part of Cameroon, and by only about 2,400 people.

Answer: Flute, transverse

A Flugelhorn looks like a trumpet on steroids, and there is controversy over its invention. Some attribute it to Adolphe Sax (father of the saxophone) while others claim it was invented by Michael Saurle, predating the sax. It is usually a B-flat instrument but variants can be found tuned otherwise. It has a round tone but is a bit tricky in the upper registers. Prominent musicians who have used it include Miles Davis and Hugh Masekela; it is mostly heard in jazz works these days.

The French horn looks like a pile of brass spaghetti (21 feet of it!)with all its curls and twirls - but they do produce a lovely sound! While it is called "French" it may have originated as an English hunting horn. It is one of the most difficult orchestral instruments to play.

A duct flute is an ancient instrument - essentially a tube with holes in it, and a wooden insert or "duct" in the tube just below the blowhole at one end of the tube. If this sounds awfully like a recorder, yes, the recorder is one of the versions of a duct flute. Others include Chinese hsiao , the Slovakian kaval , the Greek darvyra , the Syrian nay, the Japanese shakuhachi and native American courting flutes.

The transverse flute is the one found in modern orchestras. Essentially it is a tube with a hole in the side of the tube near one end, a bunch of holes along the tube and (usually) some serious metalwork operating little "lids" over the holes. The sound comes from the turbulence of the airstream within the tube, tuned by the length of the tube to the nearest exit, or hole. The standard flute today plays a range of three octaves.

Answer: Faeroe Islands

The Faeroe Islands population generally descend from the original Viking settlers, and the country is still part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The islands (17 inhabited, 1 uninhabited) are about halfway between Norway and Iceland, but because of the Gulf Stream the winters tend to be mild and the summers are cool. Life expectancy is a bit under 76 years for men and 83 for women. The literacy rate is believed to be 100%. The capital is Torshavn, the economy is based largely on fishing (and is doing very nicely, thank you) and apparently nearly everyone has a cell phone! (according to the CIA factbook, that is...)

French Polynesia is in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Australia and South America. Population is almost 275,000 (1976) and median age was approaching 29. Average life expectancy is 76 years, 98% of those over age 14 are literate, and the economy is based on tourism, fishing and pearl farming. The capital is Papeete. It remains a dependency of France.

The Falkland Islands are a territory of Britain, although Argentina still claims it should be theirs (leading to a short war in 1982 over the islands). During that war, many of us joked that sheep vastly outnumbered the population of just under 3000 (excluding military). Therer are two main islands and about 200 minor ones, and the capital is Stanley. The Falklands host the only commercial reindeer herd that was not affected by the Chernobyl disaster. Despite this, they are not a major input to the economy, which largely is based on fishing and the aforementioned sheep. There were, in 2001, no cell phones.

The French Southern and Antarctic Lands are two uninhabited (except for researchers) archipelagos in the southern Indian Ocean, plus a slice of the continent of Antarctica.

Answer: Fairy from Hell

The "Fairy from Hell" is 2 oz absinthe herbal liqueur, 1 oz apple juice, 2 oz ginger ale, 1 oz lemonade and 2 oz Red Bull, shaken over ice.

Absinthe is a bitter, anise-flavoured liquor derived from wormwood and can be either green or clear. Its popularity peaked with the Impressionist artists in Paris around the late 1800s and early 1900s. Sadly, it was believed that a substance in the drink was dangerous, and it was banned in the US and a number of European countries. Efforts are underway to rescind these bans, however, as it is now considered that the substance, thujone, is not as bad as once thought.

The "Fallen Angel" is 1 1/2 oz gin, 1/2 tsp white creme de menthe, the juice of 1/2 lemons and a dash of bitters, shaken with ice, strained into a glass and topped with a cherry.

The "Flatliner #2" is 1 oz Goldschlager® cinnamon schnapps and 1 oz Grand Marnier® orange liqueur, shaken over ice and then poured into a martini glass; it is then topped with 1 oz Bacardi® 151 rum and may or may not be ignited before serving.

The "Fleur de Lis" is 3 oz Stoli® Razberi vodka and 2 oz Cointreau® orange liqueur, shaken over ice and served with a wedge of lime.

Recipes from www.drinksmixer.com. I will not be held responsible for any action caused by testing out these, or any of the other listed, recipes!

Answer: The Flamingos

"The Flamingos" were a group from the early to mid 1950s. Members included Jacob and Ezekial Carey, Paul Wilson, John E. Carter and Sollie McElroy. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

"The Fortunes" formed in 1965 in England and are still going, albeit with many personnel changes in the interim. Their best-known hits were "You've Got Your Troubles" and "Here It Comes Again".

"The Four Tops" formed in 1954 and had many hits, but this wasn't one of them! Some of their hits include "I Can't Help Myself(Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)", "Reach Out I'll Be There", "Bernadette" and "Standing in the Shadows of Love". They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000.

"The Fifth Dimension" was a group of the later 1960s, and were most known for their hits "Up, Up and Away", "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In", and Laura Nyro's "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Stoned Soul Picnic". They have not (as of 2006) been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.