It's Silly Enough to Be True 3 Quiz

Answer: True

Jack Lemmon was born on 8 February, 1925, in a hospital elevator (a lift) at the Newton-Wellesley hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts. He is well known for his movies 'Some Like It Hot' (1959) with Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis, and 'The Odd Couple' (1968) with Walter Matthau.

However he won two Academy Awards with the less known movies of 'Mister Roberts' (1955) and 'Save the Tiger' (1973). His humour is expressed in one of his quotations. "If you think it's hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball". Sadly he died of cancer on 27 June, 2001.

Answer: False

Oscar Wilde (Fingal O'Flahertie Wills) was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1854, and was associated with this humorous quotation. His famous comical plays include 'Lady Windermere's Fan' (1892) and 'The Importance of Being Earnest' (1895). He was imprisoned between November 1895 to May 1897 for homosexuality.

His famous work, 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' (1898) described his observations and experiences of prison life. Strangely as it might sound, he married Constance Lloyd who bore him two sons, Cyril and Vyvyan. Finally, he gave himself the name of Sebastian Melmoth and died in 1900, while in exile, in Paris, France.

Answer: False

Prior to 1990 the young of a hedgehog were simply called young or baby hedgehogs. During the 1990s the term of hoglet or hedgehoglet came into being.

Answer: True

Robert Edwin Peary was born on 6th May 1856 at Cresson, Pennsylvania, USA. Robert studied civil engineering before becoming an officer in the American navy. He led scientific exhibitions to Greenland but was determined to conquer the North Pole. President Theodore Roosevelt was his superior who urged him to reach the North Pole.

The custom-built ship, 'The Roosevelt', was designed to part the ice using the ship's 1,500 ton battering ram. Peary had the ship designed so that whilst cracking the ice, the ship rose upwards thus preventing damage to the ship. On his eighth attempt at reaching the North Pole, Peary had a crew of 24 men, 19 sledges and over 100 dogs.

Despite previous attempts where he had his toes frozen and amputated, his sheer determination enabled him to reach the North Pole with his assistant Matthew Henson and four inuits (eskimos) on 6th April 1909.

Answer: True

This situation comedy started on BBC1 in 1973 and is set in the Yorkshire village of Holmfirth. Nora Batty is the character played by actress Kathy Staff. She is lusted after by William 'Compo' Simmonite who is besotted with Nora's look, especially those hideous wrinkled stockings which she dons in each episode.

The haircurlers, she often wears, did little for her on-screen image. Compo seems to get away with his pure sexist remarks as Nora's husband, Wally, is rather hen-pecked and enjoys offloading his overbearing wife, onto any new admirer. Sadly, Minnie died aged 80 years old, on 13th December, 2008, from a brain tumour.

Answer: True

Beryl Cook was born in Surrey, England, in 1926. She moved to Plymouth, Devon, where she lived for over 25 years. Here she opened a guest house with her husband in the 1960s and started to paint large women enjoying social occasions such as drinking at the pub or dancing at various venues.

She painted purely for her own amusement as she was not professionally trained. When she began to display much of her work to adorn her guest house walls, this caused a lot of interest. A friend swayed her to let him display some of her paintings in his antique shop in order to reach a wider audience with the general public and possibly sell some of the paintings for her. Because of the content of the paintings, humour with innocent sauciness, these sold extremely well. Comedian, Victorian Wood, described her humorous style as 'Rubens with jokes'. Alas, Beryl died on 28th May 2008.

Answer: False

This was a quotation from American radio comedian Ed Gardner who was born in Astoria, New York, in 1901. Ed played the part of Archie from 'Duffy's Tavern' which was aired on CBS radio (1941-42). This tall comedian, with a Brooklyn accent, died on 17th August 1963.

A movie version called 'Duffy's Tavern' (1945) featuring Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour and Alan Ladd was allegedly a disaster, a turkey/raspberry in the movie world. Despite all this, Ed's quotation tickled my funny bone and was a worthy contender to be included in my quiz.

Answer: True

This architectural icon of British history was designed by Scott to commemorate the silver jubilee of King George V in 1935. The initial design was called K1 and resembled a miniture pagoda. The next design was that of K2 which looked great but was just far too expensive to install. K6 was the final design which could be seen in their hundreds, dotted around England.

The red telephone kiosk was designed to protect the public from the traditional, unpredictable, British weather whilst they phoned friends and family. With the popularity of the mobile phone, many of these stalwart structures have disappeared from street corners. Today it is not that rare to see, one of these iconic pieces of history, installed in an English back garden, purely for decorational purposes.

Answer: False

The 1974 Eurovision Song Contest was held at the Dome in the seaside resort of Brighton, on the south coast of England. The show was hosted by Katie Boyle and surprisingly ABBA were awarded no points by the United Kingdom jury, despite singing the song in English. Cambridge-born, Australian singer, Olivia Newton-John represented England that year with the song 'Long Live Love' which could only manage a number 11 spot in the English singles chart in 1974.

Answer: True

Bob Hope (Leslie Townes Hope) was an American comedian who was born in London, England on 29th May 1903. His career took off after he appeared in the comedy-horror 'The Cat and the Canary', with Paulette Goddard, where he stamped his familiar brand of humour.

He is associated the the 'Road' movies in which he appeared with Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. It's not just the content of a funny line that makes it a success but the timing and facial expression. Only Bob Hope could have got away with this quotation from the movie 'The Ghost Breakers'(1940): "The girls call me Pilgrim, because every time I dance with one, I make a little progress." Sadly Bob's health deteriorated in the year 2000 and he died at his home in Toluca Lake, California on 27th July 2003.

Answer: False

The life-sized platinum skull is encrusted with 8,601 fine diamonds and was created in 2007. The skull is said to have its original teeth set into its jaws and is believed to be that of a European male from 1720-1810. This £12 million pound skull was first displayed at the White Cube Gallery, London in June 2007.

Answer: True

Les Dawson was a former jazz pianist who used his talent to deliver a hilarious, hopeless, piano routine. This Manchester-born comedian was well noted for his wife and mother-in-law quips. A typical example was: My wife is a sex object, everytime I ask for sex, she objects.

He performed a funny double act with Roy Barraclough playing gossipmonger Cissie, to Roy's character, Ada. Who could forget his sleazy character of Cosmo Smallpiece whose catchphrase was "Knickers, knackers, knockers", while pulling a contorted face behind his National Health spectacles. Alas, Les died from a heart attack in June 1993.

Answer: True

Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was born in Meigs County, Ohio, USA in 1842. He worked as a journalist and fought in the Civil War. His father indeed, had thirteen children, Ambrose was the tenth-born child. All his father's offspring had a name which began with the letter A. Ambrose's brothers and sisters were called: Abigail, Amelia, Ann, Addison, Aurelius, Augusta, Almeda, Andrew, Albert, Arthur, Adelia and Aurelia. A couple of entries in Ambrose's 'Devil's Dictionary' are quite amusing. 1) Cat: 'A soft indestructible automatron provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.' 2) Friendship: 'A ship big enough to carry two in fair weather but only one in foul.'

Ambrose must have been a big softy at heart as he married his wife on Christmas Day, 1871, she bore him three children. After sending a close mate a letter dated 26th December 1913, from Mexico, he seemed to disappear off the face of the planet and his death is estimated as 1914. Some schools of thought say that this is the life of a misanthropist, a person who distrusts mankind in general. Hey, and I thought the characters in the Addams Family were kooky!

Answer: True

Apollo 8 became the first spacecraft to leave the earth's gravitational field, orbit the moon, and return back safely to earth. Mission Commander Frank Borman, pilot James Lovell and co-pilot William Anders became the first astronauts to see the far side of the moon with their own eyes.

These wonderous sights and the relief of the engines successfully firing to leave the moon, with communications intact with mission control, gave rise to this appropriate quotation on Christmas Day, 1968.

Answer: False

Dover Castle is known as the 'Key to England' as invaders would need to get passed this strategically positioned castle of Kent, to gain access to England. Dover is the largest of the cinque ports and has the shortest cross-channel link with France. Dover Castle was built between 13-14th century on the orders of King John who employed Horace the engineer to carry out the work. Within the White Cliffs of Dover, on which the castle stands, there are Second World War tunnels and a nuclear bunker. Dover Castle was the site that the evacuation of Dunkirk was masterminded from.