Why The Long Face? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gordon Brown MP

On 28th April 2010, after being harangued at a constituency meeting in Rochdale over his party's stance on immigration, Labour Party leader Gordon Brown failed to ensure that his microphone had been correctly switched off. As he and his aides sped away, Brown was heard to ask "Who was that bigoted woman?" His remarks, released almost immediately by the press, caused some considerable upset in the party and within a week the Labour leader had been forced to make a televised and very public apology during a visit to the home of 65 year old lifelong Labour Party supporter, Mrs Gillian Duffy.

It has been said that the microphone had been left active by dark powers within the Labour Party; Brown was never a universally popular choice as Tony Blair's successor and that 'Bigot-gate' as it became known was an attempt to undermine Brown's bid for re-election. Irritatingly, since the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, just about every scandalous incident since has been named with a 'gate' suffix!

Answer: Henry V

Knowing what the penalty for treason was, and what methods were used to deliver justice back in the England of the High Middle Ages, it should come as no surprise that these three knights blanched and had long faces. These dramatised lines are from Act 2 Scene 2 of the play 'Henry V', which takes place in a council chamber at Southampton as the king and the English army prepare to depart for France.

In the play, three English knights; Richard Earl of Cambridge, Lord Scroop (Scrope) of Masham and Sir Thomas Grey, Knight of Northumberland are revealed as traitors in the pay of the French.

The actual historical conspiracy, known as the Southampton Plot, had little if anything to do with the French, the real aim of the conspiracy was to remove King Henry and replace him with Edmund Mortimer, the 5th Earl of March who had a better claim to the throne of England.

Their executions by beheading took place at Southampton on the 2nd of August 1415 in the case of the Earl of Cambridge, and then three days later, on the 5th of August, for the two knights.

Answer: Anne, Princess Royal

Hands up all those who think that the Princess Royal looks just a little horsey! Because of her long standing involvement with equestrian sport, she represented Great Britain at the Montreal Summer Olympic Games in 1976, has won European eventing titles and been voted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, she has been associated with jokes like this for decades.

Answer: Big Country

Released in 1995 as the successor to 1993's 'The Buffalo Skinners', the album artwork features a close up shot of a Dobermann Pinscher, a dog known for its long face and, in this case, made even longer because of the camera angle that the picture was taken at.

This album peaked on the UK Album Chart at the number 48 position; an indication that the band's popularity was in steep decline. If the band were left with long faces over the performance of this recording, there was worse to come in 1999 when their next album 'Driving to Damascus', the band's last with Stuart Adamson, peaked at the number 82 position on the UK Album Chart and a pitiable number 96 spot on the German Album Chart.

Answer: Dre Head

Dre Head, the shrunken head hanging from the rear view mirror on the Knight bus, is something of a magical navigation system providing instructions to the bus driver, Ernie Prang. In this scene, Harry Potter is a passenger aboard the Knight bus as it travels across London at breakneck speed. As the Knight Bus crosses Westminster Bridge it is forced to pass between two other buses, travelling closely together and approaching from the opposite direction:

"Ernie! Two double deckers at 12 o'clock. They are getting closer, Ern... Ernie, they're right on top of us!"
"Mind your head! Ha ha ha!" declares Dre Head as the buses come together.

Ernie, the driver, operates a mechanism which compresses the bus and everyone inside enabling it to pass between them unscathed; and why not? It's a magic bus!

"Hey, hey guys, why the long faces? Ha ha ha!"

Answer: Evolution

Evolution is defined as a change in the heritable traits in a biological population over successive generations. It was the English naturalist Charles Darwin that formulated the theory of evolution by natural selection in his work 'On the Origin of Species' which was published in 1859.

His theory proposed that species evolved over time through a process called natural selection; this proposed that individuals that possessed certain characteristics that gave them an advantage would pass these traits on to their offspring with those individuals that did not possess these advantageous traits, over time, dying out. On its publication, which had been delayed for some years due to concern over how his ideas would be received, Darwin was roundly criticised by religious leaders and the general public and remorselessly mocked by the satirists of the day.

Interestingly, Darwin never used the word 'evolution' in this work!

Answer: False

Of course not! Long Face Syndrome is a condition that develops in childhood where the individual finds it difficult to breathe normally through the nose and is forced to breathe through their mouth, forming a habit known as 'mouth breathing'. Also known as Skeletal Open Bite, this habit causes developmental problems, the most noticeable of which is an excessively long lower part of the face. Fortunately for those individuals with this condition, corrective surgery involving the removal of portions of bone in a procedure known as a Dentofacial Osteotomy is available, but these procedures are only carried out after the patient's normal growth and development has ceased.

Answer: Droopy Dog

The character that became known as Droopy remained nameless until his appearance in a fifth animated feature, a cartoon titled 'Señor Droopy'. Droopy always appeared a little miserable and quite slow intellectually; however, he always managed to get the better of his tormentors.

The character was developed by Tex Avery and appeared for the first time in the 1943 cartoon 'Dumb-Hounded'with Avery also voicing Droopy between 1945 and 1955. Of the incorrect answers, Wile E. Coyote was the one most often left with a long face; usually in the few seconds before he began to fall from the top of a cliff or as the ever present heavy object fell upon him from a great height!

Answer: Wild Onager

On the day of its launch, U-338 slipped out of its moorings and struck or 'kicked' a harbour tugboat with so much force that the smaller vessel sank! From this day it was referred to by the nickname 'Wildesel' or 'Wild Onager' a species of wild asiatic donkey.

The U-338 was a Type VIIC submarine that was constructed by Nordseewerke of Emden. The vessel was laid down on the 4th of April 1941, launched just over twelve months later and commissioned into the German Navy, the Kriegsmarine on the 25th of June that same year.

Unfortunately, depending on your viewpoint, the service career of U-338 was relatively short as, on her third patrol under the command of Kapitänleutnant Manfred Kinzel the vessel was destroyed with all hands during an attack on a convoy, allegedly by gunfire from the Royal Canadian Navy Corvette, HMCS Drumheller.

Answer: False

The term 'Phrenology' was popularised during the 19th century by the German physician Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, an associate of fellow countryman and physiologist Franz Josef Gall who had developed the science. Phrenology states that the human brain is an amalgamation of different organs each of which influences a facet of behaviour and the size of these 'organs' influence the shape of the skull.

Although it has since been discredited, phrenology was very popular in its day with many members of the higher social classes indulging in its study.

This so-called 'science' was instrumental in the development of the Nazi's racial policies during the 1930s and 1940s. Modern proponents of phrenology maintain that those with very rounded skulls and squat faces are to be avoided as features like this show that these individuals are untrustworthy.

However, this does NOT mean that those possessing long faces are to be considered completely trustworthy... Not in my experience at any rate!