It's Silly Enough to Be True 2 Quiz

Answer: False

Rod Stewart (Roderick David Stewart) was born on 10 January, 1945, in Highgate, North London. Rod's father was born at King's Port, Edinburgh whereas his mother was English-born. His initial jobs were as a trainee footballer at Brentford Football Club, in London, and as a grave-digger at Highgate cemetery.

The latter job only lasted a fortnight. After this dead-end job he must have wondered 'What am I Gonna Do' and 'Took the Downtown Train' to a career in the pop industry where he has been 'Sailing' ever since.

Answer: True

Both the phrases 'Only a Brit' and 'Brainy Lot', when unscrambled, make the name of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. Tony served ten years in office from 2 May, 1997, to 27 June, 2007.

Answer: True

The 8th Earl Spencer (Edward John Spencer) married Frances Ruth Burke-Roche on 1 June, 1954. They had five children together, and he was the father of Princess Diana. When Diana was only six years old, her mother left her husband for Peter Shand Kydd. Earl Spencer remarried Raine, the daughter of Barbara Cartland, who was renown for her romantic novels. Unfortunately Diana publicly hated her step-mother and called her 'Acid Raine'. Alas, Princess Diana's father died of a heart attack, on 29 March, 1992, while Diana and Prince Charles were holidaying in Austria, with their two children, William and Harry.

Answer: True

Pugsley had an octopus called Aristotle and his sister, Wednesday, had a black widow spider called Homer. Why call a child Wednesday? According to the nursery line, here is the answer. Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace, Wednesday's child is full of woe. Oh dear, that sounds like Wednesday, whose favourite toy is her headless Marie Antoinette doll which she had guillotined. Morticia Frump Addams had a man-eating African Strangler called Cleopatra (Cleo) which enjoyed nothing better than portions of red, fleshy meat. All this seems quite appropriate, as the family lived in a large Victorian house, in a street called Cemetery Ridge.

Answer: False

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace, in Oxfordshire, England. He was born on 30 November, 1874 and was the prime minister of Great Britain on two occasions, (1940-5 and 1951-5). In 1953, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and was also knighted that same year.

His 'Pearl of Africa' quotation is "For magnificence, for variety of form and colour, for profusion of brilliant life - plant, bird, insect, reptile, beast, for the vast scale, Uganda truly is the Pearl of Africa".

This is quoted from his book 'My African Journey' which was published in 1907.

Answer: True

Andreas Vesalius (1514-64) was a doctor who was born in Brussels, Belgium. He published 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica'(1543). Although illegal, in order to find out more about the human body, he dissected corpses. With this information he was able to determine that blood vessels originated from the heart, and for the first time, realise that the heart itself, consisted of four chambers. Before Andreas Vesalius, human anatomy was not learnt by dissecting bodies and much fiction was supplied by Galen over a thousand years earlier.

Answer: True

The late comedian, Dave Allen (David Tynan O'Mahony), was well known for his religious jokes and his disrespectful observations of human nature. He use to perch himself on a high stool, holding a cigarette in one hand, with a customary drink, always by his side.

His famous closing catch phrase was "May your God go with you". Some schools of thought attribute this quotation to American comedian George Carlin.

Answer: True

Dusty Springfield (Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien) was born on 16 April, 1939, in London, England. She was noted for her blonde hair and excess use of make-up which made her a memorable sixties icon. Her only British number one single was 'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me', in March, 1966. Dusty died on 2 March, 1999, from breast cancer, in her home in London, England.

Answer: True

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826) also founded London Zoo and was the first president of the Zoological Society of London. The world's largest flower is the Rafflesia, which bears his name. This parasitic plant is native to Malaysia and has huge flowers although it has no stems, branches nor true roots.

The plant has a characteristic rancid, foul-smelling stench like the stink of rotting putrid meat. Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles was the expedition leader who discovered this unusual plant while he was studying the natural history of Indonesia.

He was finally knighted in England when he was forced home due to ill-health.

Answer: False

The city of Oxford was nicknamed 'The City of Dreaming Spires' by English poet and literary critic, Matthew Arnold (1822-88). The architecture of Oxford's university buildings inspired this famous quotation. The county of Northamptonshire was nicknamed 'The Shire of Spires and Squires'.

It is set in the heart of England which is dominated by ancient churches and large country houses. This established the county of Northamptonshire as a very historic part of England.

Answer: False

Queens is the largest, of the five boroughs of New York City, being greater than a hundred square miles in area. It is also the home to John F Kennedy International and La Guardia airports. Queens is the second most populous of New York's five boroughs, having roughly 2.2 million inhabitants as opposed to Brooklyn's population of 2.5 million people. Allegedly, the borough of Queens, was named after the Queen Consort of Charles II, Catherine Henrietta of Braganza (1638-1705), although no official documents support this fact.

Here are the statistics of the approximate areas of the five boroughs of New York City, starting with the largest. Queens (109 square miles), Brooklyn (70 square miles), Staten Island (59 square miles), The Bronx (42 square miles) and Manhattan (28 square miles).

Answer: True

The other four founder members were Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. OPEC was etablished in 1960. The countries of Algeria, Indonesia, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar and United Arab Emirates, all joined at a later date. Their aim was to secure the price of crude oil and the amount it manufactured, therefore protecting their members interests.

Answer: True

Billy Ocean was born Leslie Sebastian Charles on 21 January, 1950, in Fyzabad, Trinidad. An excellent singer of 'Suddenly', 'Caribbean Queen' and 'Red Light Spells Danger'. 'When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going' was the only single of Billy's to reach the top of the British charts.

He achieved this in January 1986 and the song featured in the movie 'Romancing the Stone' (1984) starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas.

Answer: False

'Starsky and Hutch' was a police drama television programme, set in Los Angeles. It featured Detective Dave Starsky (Paul Michael Glaser) and Detective Ken 'Hutch' Hutchinson (David Soul). Their characters were total opposites of each other, Starsky enjoying junk food and a busy social life, whereas Hutch opted for a healthy lifestyle and a much more quieter life.

Despite this, they worked well as a team of undercover cops speeding through the streets in Starsky's red Ford Torino with its distinctive white stripe, along its side.

They always got in the car via the open windows rather than using the conventional opening of the doors, and it looked even better if they leapt on the bonnet first, before driving the car away. Huggy Bear was the trendy man on the street who was their street contact.

His real name was Antonio Fargas.

Answer: True

Vampire bats are located in the warm climates of Mexico, and some South American countries, such as Brazil and Argentina. Sleeping mammals are targeted by the common vampire bat as they pursue their prey during night-time. Draculin is the anticoagulant that counteracts the blood from clotting. Vampire bats tend to lap the blood from their victims rather than suck it.

This satisfies their frenzied thirst for a liquid diet of fresh blood. I'm indebted to a work colleague who brought this unusual fact to my attention. Hope you enjoyed the challenge.