Potpourri Number Five Trivia Quiz

Answer: Orthopaedic stockings

Now there's a name to keep you hopping and bopping. Not that orthoepaedic stockings themselves are amusing. They're usually worn as bracing after surgery, or as supports for weakened joints. Guildo Horn though was never one to be serious. Born in 1963, he is notable for his crazy lyrics and over the top antics on stage.

The public love him for it. The song he and his backing group entered in the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest was "Guildo hat euch lieb!" (Guildo loves you all), and during its performance, Guildo climbed onto the gantries of the stage - cheerfully ringing cowbells. One of its brief lines of lyrics was "Yoo hoo hoo - I love you".

The song came seventh out of twenty-five entries that year. Considering the artistic touch of those clanging cowbells, he definitely should have won.

Answer: Their skin became yellow from the TNT powder

During World War One, many of the women working in munitions factories in England making bombs, other explosive devices, and even aeroplanes, were, like most factory workers, from the lower classes. This was hardly surprising as those families needed all hands on deck to feed their broods. Working with the dangerous fumes and chemicals involved in TNT though was dangerous at the best of time, with these women, also known as "canary girls", returning home most days with the skin on their faces and hands tinged yellow. Illnesses these products could cause, according to the British Medical Journal of 1 April, 1916, were "headaches, eczema, loss of appetite, cyanosis, shortness of breath, vomiting, anaemia, palpitation, bile stained urine, constipation, rapid weak pulse, pains in the limbs and jaundice and mercury poisoning". Children born to many of these women were also often tinged yellow, and, as a result, became known as "canary babies".

(Thanks to WaggaWagga2010 for the information regarding this question)

Answer: First Lady Barbara Bush

The Capital Area Food Bank was established in the Washington area in 1979. It is a large organisation that, with over 440 other groups, works to solve hunger, undernourishment, diabetes, heart disease and obesity. George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States. He held that position from 1989 until 1993. On assuming the Presidency, Mr Bush laughingly banned broccoli from Air Force One, stating that "I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it, and I'm President of the United States. And I'm not going to eat any more broccoli". Once this earth shattering revelation was revealed by the media, some 10,000 tons of broccoli was sent to the White House by, one imagines, disgruntled Democrats. First Lady Barbara Bush put these donations to good use, however, and had them all delivered to the Capital Area Food Bank to feed, hopefully grateful, people in need.

Did you know that Mrs Bush developed a medical condition called Graves disease while at the White House - and that both President Bush and their dog Millie also developed the illness shortly afterwards as well? This very unusual coincidence so alarmed the Secret Service that they had the water at the White House, at Camp David, at the couple's residence in Maine and at the residence of the Vice-President thoroughly tested.

Answer: She submitted eighty thousand questions to a show there

French woman Laure Leprieur, also known as Madame Leprieur d'Agon-Coutainville, lived from 1919 until 1999. When she began listening to a popular radio show called "Les Grosses Tetes" in that country, she quickly, as so many of us do here with Fun Trivia, was drawn in with the thrill of submitted questions to the quiz type program the radio played every weekday.

The idea was to try to stump the famous guest artists who took part in the show with the most obscure questions possible, for, if they failed to answer any question correctly, the submitter of same won a small prize.

In the years between 1977 to 1998, the wily Laure Leprieur stumped enough guests on the show with the 80,000 questions she submitted over this period that she won herself the sum of 150,000 Francs.

Answer: Lay low all the woods that are there

King Louis XIV was King of France 1643 until 1715. André Le Nôtre (1613-1700) was a very famous French landscape architect who not only denuded most of the woodland in the Chateau de choisy, but also designed the equally famous gardens of the Palace of Versailles, Chantilly, Fontainbeeau, Saint-Cloud and Saint-Germain, the avenue of the Champs-Elysses, and all the other royal gardens of that country.

In fact, France probably once had a lot more trees before Andre picked up his axe. The Château de Choisy definitely did.

When he first set eyes on this lovely buildings set in its green glory of woodlands, when hired to provide landscaping at the site, his first words to its owner were "Lay low all the woods that are there". And the workmen did precisely just that.

There is no truth to the rumour today that, after this piece of nature-living work was completed, the Château de Choisy was quickly renamed by the locals to become the Chateau Nus comme un bébé fesses. (As bare as a baby's bottom - more or less)

Answer: He cheated by driving eleven miles in a car

Fred Lorz lived from 1884 until 1914. A bricklayer by trade, he usually trained at night and this proved to be his downfall in the 1904 Olympics held in Saint Louis that year. Nominated as one of the possibilities for a win in this long distance event, Fred took off willingly enough when the marathon began. Unfortunately though, the organisers of the event decided to start it late on the day instead of early in the morning when it was much cooler, as was the custom. By the time the race began on hot and dusty roads, with officials in vehicles making the dust far worse by travelling ahead and behind the runners, the temperature had soared to some 90 degrees Fahrenheit. As well as that, the only time the runners were given water was at the eleven mile marker. Fred had had enough by the nine mile mark, and, breathless and exhausted, dropped out of the race, accepting a lift with his manager, so he thought, for the rest of it. As he drove along cooling off, he happily waved to spectators and runners alike - but then the vehicle in which he was travelling broke down another 11 miles on. So Fred, never one to miss an opportunity, jumped out and jogged along to the finishing line, crossing it first. He admitted his prank when about to be awarded the gold medal, but only after his unusual tactics were revealed at the last minute.

Don't be too harsh on Fred though. Thomas Hicks, the person who was awarded the medal in his place, only managed to complete it by being given several doses of strychnine (small amounts of which give the nervous system a boost) mixed with brandy along the way by his team. He almost died as a result and was assisted across the line by his trainers before being carted away for medical treatment. As for poor old Fred, he died of pneumonia in 1914, his race finally run in its entirety at last.

Answer: They said it was disrespecting fish

Conger cuddling was a traditional annual event in Lyme Regis, Dorset, England. It began there in the 1970s. Instead of discarding dead eels caught by accident in fishing nets, these were frozen, defrosted prior to the event, and then thrown one at a time at nine men standing on flowerpots until only one was left standing.

The purpose of this very peculiar event was to raise funds for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Certainly a very worthy objective, and in the years before it was stopped, more than 3,000 people attended annually with between 5,000-7,000 pounds raised each year.

In 2006, one animal activist was responsible for having the event cancelled, for the reason mentioned above. It had been harmless fun for a rather bizarre but very worthy fund raising event, during which nobody was harmed, as the eels had already departed for the great blue horizon in the sky. Protecting animals against cruelty and abuse is very, very important as you would all agree - but "disrespecting fish" is r-eel-y rather ridiculous.

Answer: Cash and Carry

The ever suave Cary Grant lived from 1904 until 1986. This leading man of Hollywood, who was born in England, took his British accent and impeccable style onto the silver screen, stage and radio from 1923 until 1966. He appeared in a total of five radio shows, five stage productions, and sixty-eight films. A particular favourite was the 1938 "Bringing Up Baby" with Katharine Hepburn, in which he plays a very absent-minded and dedicated palaeontologist, David Huxley, who finds himself in a series of hilarious predicaments with a lively and out there young woman, Susan Vance, who happens to be in charge of a leopard sent to her aunt from Brazil as a gift from Susan's brother. The shooting of this film went over schedule because it was being constantly held up by both Grant and Hepburn bursting out laughing.

Cary was married five times during his life. The second of these was to Woolworths heiress, Barbara Hutton, in 1942. The cruel press at that time immediately and derisively nicknamed the young couple "Cash and Carry". If they'd taken the time to investigate further, however, they would have realised that Cary had signed a prenuptial agreement prior to the wedding - and refused any financial settlement at all when the pair, who always remained good friends, divorced three years later in 1945.

Answer: It could create a breeze over the head of the occupant

George Washington purchased this very interesting chair in Philadelphia when attending a conference there in 1787. The one in his study is a replica of that chair. The fan chairs were designed in 1786 by John Cram, who was a noted furniture designer from Philadelphia, and their ingenuity is more than impressive. Consisting of an ordinary comfortable wooden chair with arms, this was set onto a treadle just below the feet of the occupant. That treadle was also connected to a wooden rod that went up behind the back of the chair. From this a smaller rod projected, and, dangling from that was either a thick cloth or a piece of wood in much the same shape as the blade on a fan today. As the treadle was moved whenever desired by the chair's occupant, a rope connecting the smaller rod and the treadle, moved that blade back and forth to create a lovely breeze over the sitter's head. Just brilliant.

This can be seen at the Mount Vernon website, where they have a virtual tour of George Washington's magnificent plantation, a very impressive production found on the internet. As you click on each of the numbered sections, a printed description or a speaker comes up with information about same to you, including slave quarters, the rooms of the main house, the grounds, the distillery and the mill. It's so very interesting historically to see how life was lived back then.

Answer: Break a clavicle

Also known as the collarbone, the clavicle is the long bone that connects the scapula with the sternum in human anatomy - and presumably in that of a Klingons as well. Klingons are the lovable, but definitely not designed to win a beauty contest, aliens who have had a long love-hate relationship with humans in the "Star Trek" universe, that wonderful productions of television series, films, books and animations.

The Klingon language, initially co-created by James Doohan (Scotty) in the first series, and a producer from the first movie, has even made its way into our own languages on earth today, with a Klingon language institute set up for its promotion.

As we learn from the holographic doctor in "Star Trek: Voyager", Season 3, 16th episode "Blood Fever" where Ensign Vorik, a Vulcan, has caused half Klingon, Chief Engineer B'Elanna Torres to experience the pon farr, Klingons consider it good luck if they break a clavicle on the first night of their honeymoon during their very energetic mating practices.

They probably need major surgery at the conclusion of this happy period for them.