Potpourri Number Two Trivia Quiz

Answer: Victor Despeignes

Victor Despeignes was a French physician who lived from 1866-1937. His innovative method of treatment came close on the heels of Wilhelm Rontgen's discovery of x-rays in 1895. Research had shown at this time that this new invention could also kill bacteria, and Despeignes, who like many other physicians of his era believed that cancer was caused by a parasite, began to theorise that those parasites could be dealt with swiftly by using the same method. When, in 1896, a 52-year-old patient subsequently presented to him with a large stomach tumour the size of a new born baby in 1896, Despeignes accordingly began a course of x-raying him twice a day for thirty minutes each time. Poor man. Along with this, he treated his doomed guinea pig with opium, morphine, chloroform, injections of serum, condurango (the bark of a South American vine) and milk.

The treatment did work in that the patient, doped out of his brain, began to experience far less pain, and his tumour did indeed shrink in size by fifty per cent. Alas though, with Despeignes having no previous knowledge about the safety levels of radiation to be given and their potentially lethal effects, the patient died twenty days after treatment began. It was the beginning of physicians jumping on the bandwagon everywhere, and, for a time, until the negative side effects of radiation began to be recorded, they began treating every medical condition they could with this miraculous new discovery. This even included acne.

Answer: Julius Caesar

When Caesar and his armies were busily conquering Gaul (now France) between 58-50 BC, he realized that the eastern part of his newly acquired area needed protecting from the marauders constantly threatening from the Germanic lands. Those marauders on the eastern side had become over-confident that the Rhine River separating the two combatants kept them safe from Caesar's forces in the west - but they hadn't allowed for the brilliance of their foe. Obviously Caesar's forces could cross by boat, but that gave the Germanic armies plenty of time to prepare when they saw them approaching - and so Caesar decided to build a bridge. That was the first bridge built over the Rhine in known history, and even more than 2,000 years later, it is considered a military masterpiece.

The bridge's maximum length has been estimated at 1,300 feet, its width at 20 feet, and the depth of the river it crossed estimated at 30 feet, but incredibly, Caesar's forces had it built with ten days. Where is that famous bridge today, you ask? To the horror of historians and engineers everywhere, when Caesar left the area eight days later, he had the bridge torn down. Not only that, he had another bridge built over the Rhine two years later, and again had it torn down when he left. Just imagine what a difference those bridges could have made to that area of the world if both had been left intact. Perhaps Caesar's famous message sent back to the senate in Rome should have read, "I came, I saw, I wrecked a couple of perfectly sound bridges".

Answer: Paying for television licences for the poor

Kempton Bunton (1904-1976) had been a bus driver during his working life, but at the time he decided to pinch Goya's famous painting of the Duke of Wellington, he was living on a pension of only eight pounds a week. When the painting was purchased by an American art collector who planned to take it to the States, the British government, in an endeavour to stop it leaving the country, had offered to buy it back for 140,000 pounds. That was quite a lot of lolly back then. When Kempton saw this on the news, he was furious because he'd just had to pay for a television licence out of his very low income. So he decided to steal the work, and demand the equivalent amount as a ransom, which he stated should be channelled (pardon the pun) into paying for television licences for the poor.

This latter day Robin Hood set about the robbery by chatting casually with the guards at the gallery where the painting was housed, and learning from them that the alarm systems there were turned off at the same time each day to allow for cleaning. At that time early in the morning of 21st August, 1961, he then removed a toilet window, wriggled his seventeen stone frame though, calmly removed the painting from the wall and took off with it. Believing that a master thief had carried out the job, a hue and cry followed by all and sundry. When his demand for the ransom and its destination was denied, Bunton held on to the painting for four years. He then returned it through a lost luggage department at a railway station, and handed himself in six weeks later. As the painting had been returned, Benton was only charged for the theft of the frame, and given three months in jail for removing an object on display for the public. The comical ending to this affair took place several years later when Bunton's son confessed to the crime as well. The authorities decided his confession wasn't enough proof to carry out a prosecution, and nor could Bunton Senior be prosecuted for perjury. The judge declared that for this to happen, the law would have to rely on the evidence of the son, and that Bunton Junior was an unreliable witness.

Answer: A machine to extract honey from combs

In days gone by, extracting honey from the combs in the beehives was a somewhat laborious effort, but very much worth it of course. One process for doing this was to place the honey laden combs into a colander that rested over a larger container. The combs were then broken up with a wooden spoon, before the two containers were placed over a pot of warm water and left overnight. By morning, most of the honey had dripped down into bowl underneath, leaving just the combs in the colander. This was then bottled and enjoyed. Honey spinning today can be a lot easier with a piece of equipment know as a honey spinner. The extracted combs are placed in this, and the container is then spun, using centrifugal force to draw the honey out for you. Much easier of course, but perhaps not as historically romantic.

Oh, and don't throw those old bee combs away. This wax can be pressed into a mould which can then be used for an amazing assortment of things. These include food products; in pharmaceuticals; as furniture polish, boot polish, and surfboard wax; to manufacture beeswax candles (once very desirable); as a protective glazing on cheeses; in the production of cosmetics, face and hand creams; and even, as Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot would appreciate, as fine moustache wax. Perhaps the most amazing thing of all about this wonderful gift from mother nature, is that beeswax can also be used during surgery to control bleeding from bones.

(Thanks to FT player WaggaWagga2010 for the idea for this question)

Answer: The last ice age killed them all off

New Zealand has no land snakes at all, but very occasionally a sea snake or two will make an appearance in its coastal waters. This lack of land snakes is a rather wonderful thing when one considers its neighbour, Australia, has more than its share of the deadliest snakes in the world. Surprisingly, the Land of the Long White Cloud once did have land snakes. That was millions of years ago, but the last ice age killed them off.

By then New Zealand and Australia, because of tectonic plate movements, had drifted far apart.

The two countries, though, remain close emotionally though, in spite of the fact New Zealand's All Blacks constantly beat the Aussies at rugby. The only time that New Zealand allowed snakes into the country was for an operatic production of "Cleopatra" at the historic St James Theatre in Wellington, early in the 1900s. Honestly, you'd think they would have just used stuffed toys instead.

It doesn't say what became of those snakes after that particular opera finished production, but there's a sneaking suspicion that they ended up stuffed anyhow.

Answer: Ping pong balls

American Harry Richman lived from 1895 until 1972. This very talented "singer, actor, dancer, comedian, pianist, songwriter, bandleader and night club performer" was at the height of his popularity with audiences in the 1920s and 1930s. Apart from one or two appearances on television in the 1950s, he retired from his career during the 1940s. Harry was also an amateur aviator in this new exciting world of transportation, and with the famous flyer, Dick Merrill, the two carried out the first round trip across the Atlantic in 1936 in a single engine Vultee plane. Harry though was nervous about the possibility of the plane going down in the ocean - who could blame him - and insisted that all the spare space in the plane be filled with ping pong balls, so that these would keep the plane afloat should it crash. On his safe return home, and never one to waste any resource in the world of entertainment, Harry then proceeded to autograph and sell the balls right up until his death. Apparently these are still turning up on eBay well into the 21st century.

Harry's big hit during his career was "Putting on the Ritz", the Irving Berlin number that Harry performed in the 1930 movie of the same name. It was his first movie appearance and destined, shortly afterwards, to be almost his last. He was, in fact, panned rather severely by the critics. One wrote, for example, that "Famed nightclub entertainer Richman made his film debut in this primitive early talkie about vaudevillian who can't handle success and turns to drink. You may do the same after watching Richman's performance...". One last amusing fact about the ever entertaining Richman was that he also owned a yacht - but that, along with his film career, blew up in 1931.

Answer: A NASA aerospace research engineer

It just seems really odd that these two careers combined in the one person, but they did. Without wishing to be insulting, one doesn't normally associate wrestling with a particularly high degree of intelligence (well, I don't anyhow), and nor is it easy to picture a highly educated NASA engineer rolling around on a mat trying to put out the lights of his opponents. This remarkable man was a champion athlete in the Case Institute of Technology in his younger days, and represented his alma mater in football and track as well as wrestling. In 1951, he was voted its most outstanding athlete. His quoted wrestling career included "15 consecutive national championships in Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling... gold medal in the 1955 Pan American Games...(representing) the United States three times in the Olympic Games, placing fifth, eighth and seventh from 1952 through 1960" and achieving a Guinness Book of World Records, at 44 seconds, the "Fastest Pin in National Tournament Competition".

Yet this intriguing man also worked daily as an aerospace research engineer for NASA, during which time he helped co-invent ion propulsion for space travel, and served as the chairman on the technical committee of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Such an interesting person. Perhaps though his wrestling career helped him let off steam as he "grappled" with engineering problems at NASA.

Answer: It has been stolen four times

Jacob de Gheyn (1596-1641) was an engraver from the Golden Age of the Netherlands. His 1632 painting by Rembrandt is actually one of a pair. The other is of his friend, Maurits Huygens, and he is dressed in similar clothing to that portrayed in the de Gheyn, but with both men facing in different directions. Because it is one of a pair, this work is quite small by artwork standards and only measures 11.8 by 9.8 inches.

Unfortunately, as a result, this small size has enabled the painting to be stolen four times. By 2016 then, "Takeaway Rembrandt" still held the dubious record of being the most stolen artwork in history.

The first theft was carried out by four men who drove away with the painting in a taxi, the second theft by a thief who smashed through the skylight in the gallery in which it was housed, the third time it was found under a bench in a graveyard, and the fourth time it was found on the back of bicycle.

Answer: Mobile phone throwing

What a scandalous waste of money and resources, but this is indeed the case. Mobile phone throwing first appeared as a sport in Finland in 2000, and, within a few years, was so popular that it is now an international event. Competitors are judged in four categories.

These are (1) Original - the longest distance the phone is thrown over the shoulder (2) Freestyle - in which competitors are judged on "aesthetics and choreography" as they hurl the device (3) Team event - in which distances thrown by a team of three are all combined, and (4) Junior - for children under the age of twelve.

There is no truth to the rumour that Russell Crowe and Naomi Campbell took out gold and silver in the inaugural event.

Answer: Surgery

During the course of any normal day, tiny fibres of clothing comprised of cotton, linen or wool materials are constantly being rubbed off by us, and tend to accumulate in areas such as pockets, hems of clothing and in navels. Referred to as gnurr, these small fibres on the cotton scrubs worn by surgeons pose a particular hazard in an operating theatre during surgery, because they can contaminate an open wound.

In fact in G.S. Kulkarni's 2008 work "Textbook of Orthopaedics and Trauma" (p.296), the author states that "a person wearing a standard cotton scrub suit actually sheds more bacteria than without clothing". What if this eventually leads to a recommendation that surgeons carry out their work while being totally naked? Can you imagine how alarming it would be to wake up during surgery to see a naked, masked man hovering over you with a saw in his hands?