I'll Have A Serving of Scrambled Losers Quiz

Answer: Attempting to straighten a crooked light

Claude Francois was really big time in France. In 1967 he co-authored and recorded a song called "Comme d'habitude". Paul Anka rewrote the lyrics in English and called it "My Way".

In 1978 Clever Claude got into the bath and before sitting down he noticed that the light was crooked. He reached up to straighten it and proved that even the 115-volt domestic current in France is enough to stop a heart.

He might have been smart enough to inspire one of the most famous songs of all time but he forgot that electricity and water do not mix.

Adieu, Claude.

Find out about his Darwin Award at http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1994-28.html

Incidentally, the Wikipedia article on Claude Francois gives a slightly different story.

Answer: Decca

The audition took place on New Year's Day 1962 in London in front of producer Tony Meehan who had been The Shadows' drummer. They played 15 songs in an hour and were sent on their way with a "We'll get back to you".

Eventually the rejection came through, by which time they were talking to EMI which lead to their eventual signing with Parlophone.

The funny thing is that three EMI producers (Norrie Paramor, Walter Ridley, and Norman Newell) all also rejected The Beatles. It was only when George Martin, who was in charge of comedy records at Parlophone, heard the Decca tapes that The Beatles got any attention at EMI.

In light of this last circumstance the Decca decision doesn't seem quite so stupid after all.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_27_Decca_audition and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Martin for more detail.

Answer: Australia and New Zealand

Anthony Prince and Luke Carroll were sentenced to 4.5 and 5 years respectively for what must have been one of the most inept robberies of all time. The people in the bank actually recognised them from the many times they had been in to cash their pay checks. They took photos and videos of themselves with the loot and left the results lying around for the cops to find.

Carroll was a fair dinkum Aussie but Prince was a Kiwi with Aussie residency. They say that when a New Zealander moves to Australia it lowers the average IQ in both countries. Hmmm. Could be something in it.

The three incorrect answers were picked completely at random. As a compatriot of Dumb and Dumber it would ill behove me to resort to stereotyping based on nationality or statehood.

Answer: Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers

Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers (Brueys) had successfully accompanied Napoleon and his army to the coast of Egypt as a start to Napoleon's attempt to invade India via the Sinai Peninsular. Nelson had been hunting for Brueys all around the Mediterranean and on 1st August discovered him anchored in Aboukir Bay with 13 ships of the line. Nelson had a similar number of ships but was out gunned (1026 vs 938).

According to all of the accepted wisdom the French should have been unassailable; they had the greater number of guns and they were anchored close to the shore.

Unfortunately Brueys made a number of fatal mistakes which, combined with Nelson's audacity, lead to his defeat.

These mistakes included:

1. Assuming that Nelson would anchor on his arrival and fight the next day rather than risk a night time engagement. In fact, on arriving, Nelson immediately sailed into the bay and "went at 'em".

2. Leaving enough room between his anchored ships to allow a British 74-gun ship to get through to the lee side (breaking the line) and thus allowing for any French ship to be doubled (attacked on both sides simultaneously).

3. Failing to rig chains between his ships as an extra precaution against the RN breaking his line.

4. Failing to rig springs to his anchor lines to enable his ships to be hauled around and their guns to be bought to bear on all angles regardless of the wind direction.

During the battle Grueys lost both legs to gunshot but continued to command the French from a chair until his eventual death.

At the end of the battle the RN had sunk or captured 11 French ships with no ships of their own lost.

Admiral Pierre Villeneuve was another losing French sailor. He commanded the combined French/Spanish fleet at Trafalgar. He was captured and paroled but was killed by Napoleon's agents while returning to Paris.

Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul commanded the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir in 1940 when they were destroyed by the Royal Navy.

There was no Admiral Jacques Clouseau. There is an Inspector Jacques Clouseau played brilliantly by Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther movies and somewhat less than brilliantly by Steve Martin in the remake.

Answer: Leonard Cohen

Cohen wrote "Beautiful Losers" before achieving musical success. It was first published in 1966.

Bob Dylan's only novel "Tarantula" was also published in 1966. It's interesting but probably only to hard core Dylan fans.

John Lennon's best known writings are "In His Own Write" (1964) and "A Spaniard in the Works" (1965). Both are made up of short tales full of word play interspersed with John's art.

Elton John - write a book? Say no more - the lawyers may be listening.

Answer: The thruster control software used imperial units rather than metric

On September 30, 1999 CNN reported that "NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a Lockheed Martin engineering team used English units of measurement while the agency's team used the more conventional metric system for a key spacecraft operation, according to a review finding released Thursday."

Yet another reason for the US to abandon the insanity of sticking with a ridiculous and outmoded system of measure. Remind me again, how many widdershins are there in a peckerwood?

The distance to Mars is very accurately determinable and has been for a long time based on Isaac Newton's great work three hundred odd years ago.

Using Venus' gravity would certainly have upset the applecart if it had happened. Venus has about 0.9 of Earth's gravity while Mars only racks up 0.37 or so.

Answer: They scored zero points in the Eurovision Song Contest

Chris and Jemma made up a band called Jemini which was Britain's entrant in the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest with a song called "Cry Baby". They scored exactly zero points. According to them technical problems meant that they couldn't hear the backing track and were hence off key. Terry Wogan was supposed to have told them that it was a reaction to Britain's involvement in the Iraq debacle. It may also have been a reaction to the awful pun behind the band's name - "Gemm and I" = "Jemini".

IMHO scoring zero points in Eurovision can be a good thing. It means you are either really, really bad or very very good.

There was no Winter Olympics in 2003 and falling over has never been a bar to winning the figure skating given the level of politicisation among the judges.

Again IMHO blowing lottery winnings in sixth months is not necessarily the sign of a loser. They asked George Best (the famous football player) what he had done with all of his money and he said "I spent 90% of my money on women, drink and fast cars. The rest I wasted.". Way to go George!

Chris and Gemma may well have had SARS. This might be the real reason why they were off key.

Answer: Nikita Khrushchev

The Battle of Stalingrad is often cited as one of the turning points of the Second World War in Europe. It was the first major land defeat (after Moscow, 1941) for the Wehrmacht, and estimates put the number of casualties at around 2 million. Initially the Germans swept across the plains and Stalingrad looked doomed. However Stalin had other ideas and ordered that the Germans should not cross the Volga. Stubborn Russian resistance halted the Germans on the river bank and then the winter set in. Hitler ordered his forces to make a stand rather than pull out. Stalin reportedly had 10 million soldiers in reserve and threw some of these into the fight eventually surrounding the 6th Army Group under Paulus. Over 90,000 Germans were taken prisoner.

During the battle Nikita Krushchev was responsible, with Marshall Andrei Yeryomenko, for planning the defence of Stalingrad. Krushchev was later famous for his stoush with JFK over the Cuban Missile Crisis and for denouncing Stalin.

Leonid Brezhnev was the second longest serving of the Soviet leaders (after Stalin). His claim to fame was the invasion of Afghanistan which was widely criticised in the West. Plus ca change, plus c'est la même chose.

Yuri Andropov was leader of the USSR for only 15 months. Prior to this though he had distinguished himself by being instrumental in crushing both the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring.

Benjamin Dimshits was a minor Russian politician. I only included him because of his name - I just like the sound of Benjamin.

Answer: He drowned while bathing in his armour

Frederick I, also known as Barbarossa, was obviously a mastermind of historical note. Along with Richard I and some other psychopaths he lead an army of 100,000 men on the Third Crusade. Their intent was to convert the world to Christianity by killing all non-Christians starting with the Muslims in the "Holy Land". After marching across the desert he camped on the banks of the Saleph River and decided to immediately dive in. Unfortunately chain and plate armour are both somewhat less than bouyant and he was never seen again.

Attila the Hun might have been a brilliant strategist and brave general. Unfortunately, the record shows that he was also a drunken fool. On his wedding night he developed a nosebleed but was too drunk to notice and drowned in his own blood.

Francis Bacon was a 16th century philosopher and scientist. He wanted to test whether freezing a chicken would preserve it as well as salting it does. His refrigerator must have been on the blink so he took the chook outside and stuffed it with snow then contracted pneumonia and died. He was given a Darwin Award, somewhat unfairly in my opinion. He died attempting to further scientific knowledge through experimentation. He deserves a medal.

Tycho Brahe supposedly died of a burst bladder due to his reluctance to excuse himself from a formal dinner. Modern medicine has cast doubt on this story, however, and mercury poisoning is seen as the more likely cause. He did however have a pet elk (aka moose) which died after getting drunk and falling down the stairs. I dont make them up, folks. I only report them!

Answer: He flooded the boat while trying to use the toilet

U-1206 was fitted with a new fangled deep water toilet and the skipper Commander Schlitt got into trouble while availing himself of its facilities. During the process something went wrong and large amounts of sea water entered the boat. The batteries were directly under the loo and the result was a chlorine gas forcing an immediate surfacing. Unfortunately for him and his crew, the RAF were out and about and he was sunk forthwith.

The French submarine Farfadet (Merry Spirit) was lost with all in 1905 after diving with an open hatch.

I doubt that you could burn enough toast to force a submarine to surface and confusing up and down is just plain silly.