New Year's Revolutions Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bubble Wrap

Legend has it that the Spirit 95 Radio Station in Bloomington, Indiana received an order of equipment from their supplier, which was protected by a covering of bubble wrap. They started to unwrap the gear (all the while popping the wrap) without realising that they were still "on air" and in short time were receiving both curious and positive feedback from their listeners. Sheer accident sparked an idea and soon Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day was born. The radio station launched their first event in January of 2001, and to boost the sense of fun the organisers created competitions such as bubble wrap sculpture building and bubble wrap popping relay races.

Bubble wrap was created in 1957 by a pair of engineers, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, who were looking for a way to create three-dimensional plastic wallpaper. The wallpaper idea was a stinker but the pair soon realised that they had an even better product on their hands. In 1960 they raised $9,000 and formed the Sealed Air Corporation. The company now produces a range of packaging materials and has an annual turnover in excess of $7 billion.

The only question that remains now is, what do you intend to do for your next bubble wrap fun day - make sumo wrestling suits out of wrap, play bubble wrap Twister or just create a bubble wrap song?

Answer: Ice Cream

I swear I am telling the truth here. The first Saturday in every February is designated International Eat Ice Cream For Breakfast Day (EICFB). Snowed in during the middle of winter in New York in the early 1960s Mrs Florence Rappaport was at her wits end listening to her six children continually complaining "we're bored". Whether it was pure genius or a stroke of desperation she stood and declared that "this coming Saturday we will all sit down and have ice cream for breakfast". It soon changed the mood of the kids. The following year the two youngest reminded their mother of the day and soon a tradition was started. The children spread the word to their friends and their classmates and the family tradition was starting to gain a life of its own. There is no official listing of the first EICFB Day though there is some suggestion that this may have occurred in 1966 in Rochester (NY). The city was hit by a savage blizzard that year that closed down schools and packed children indoors.

Reports indicate that this event is particularly popular in Israel, has been featured in magazines in China and celebrated in areas as diverse as Nepal, Germany, New Zealand and Honduras. Ice Creameries have jumped on the bandwagon and, whilst it is an opportunity to boost sales during what is generally a low sales period, a number of them have taken an altruistic approach and used the day as a charity fundraiser.

Answer: True

It begs the question... why? According to Ruth and Thomas Roy of Wellcat Holidays, who have both created and copy written the commemorative, our pets are so dependent on us (humans) to provide them with their food that it would be great to take time out and reflect for a moment how great it would be if your pets could open their own can of food. Oh for Pete's sake! Hang about - Ruth and Thomas have copyrighted a holiday for that too - it's on February the 26th.

In some places people have taken this "howliday" a step further and declared it an If Pets Had Thumbs Day. All I can say is "too bad if you have a pet monkey", you miss out. This, however, introduces a little bit of irony because Thomas Roy's first motion picture acting role was as a street preacher in the film "Twelve Monkeys" (1995) alongside Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis.

Okay then, it may not be March the 3rd but I'm reflecting now, what other advantages would pets have if they had opposable thumbs? They could now understand what it means to "like" things on Facebook, they could thumb a lift down to the pet store if they needed to... wait a minute... they could fetch you drinks from the fridge while the football is on. Roll on evolution.

Answer: Eight Track Tapes

Sadly I am old enough to have owned an eight track tape deck. Eight track tapes were the MP3s of the late 1960s and for a good chunk of the 1970s.Whilst they were a godsend for music lovers making music more portable and accessible they were also big and bulky and the magnetic tape within them was ridiculously fragile. You would be driving along in your car, getting your groove on to your favourite song and BAM... the tape would snap or cease, get snagged in the player or, worse, get chewed by the infernal machine. Then you became eight track repair man. You pulled the car over to the side of the road and, with the patience of a surgeon, carefully extracted the tape from the player having taken the utmost care not to cause further damage to the tape. You cautiously started the rewind process till you found that it was twisted. You cursed and then you dropped the unit while still holding the flimsy tape, at which point miles of it unspooled onto the floor. Grrr aaarrrggh! In the event that the tape had snapped you always carried a little bit of sticky tape with you for minor repairs.

The eight track was invented by Bill Lear (he of Lear Jet fame) back in 1964 in partnership with boffins from the Ford Motor Company, Amplex, Motorola and RCA. The invention had a short history as they were very soon overtaken in popularity by cassette decks, which offered greater convenience and portability by being less than half the size of its predecessor. By the early 1980s eight tracks were no longer available in most retail outlets around the globe.

For the record (that pun is so intended) there is a Vinyl Record Day and this is celebrated on August 12 every year.

Answer: 4th

Whilst the selection of the date is merely a play on the phrase "May the force be with you" the concept of May the Fourth was not created by the movies' creators Lucasfilm. For obvious reasons they have not shied away from it and have both embraced and encouraged it.

There are a number of stories that attest to the origin of the day though the one that appears to have the most weight is that it stemmed from a newspaper advertisement in the London Evening News in 1979. The Conservative Party had placed the ad to celebrate the election of their leader, Margaret Thatcher, as the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The message it proclaimed was "May the Fourth be with you Maggie. Congratulations."

By coincidence, and it would appear going forward it will be by design, May is a special month for the "Star Wars" franchise. Creator, George Lucas, celebrates his birthday on the 14th and the original "Star Wars" film, "A New Hope", was released on May 25 in 1977. There are some who will proclaim that because of the latter that that date is the true "Star Wars" Day. I won't enter into that argument here.

If one day of celebrating Luke Skywalker and his buddies is not enough for you then you can turn this into a two day event. Break out the light sabres and the Wookie cookies and celebrate with the rebels on May the 4th and then you can explore your dark side the next day on what is fast becoming known as "Revenge of the Fifth".

Answer: Donald Duck

National Donald Duck Day has been put forward to commemorate Donald's first appearance on the silver screen. For the aficionados it was in 1934 in an animated short called "The Wise Little Hen". He may be irritable, short tempered and possess (at best) semi intelligible speech but he has moved on to bigger and better things since his inauspicious debut. He has appeared in more films that any other Disney character, has been voted one of the fifty best cartoon characters of all time, gotten his own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and had an asteroid (#12410) named after him. "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy".

Other things you may not have known about Donald; His mother is Hortense McDuck and his father is Quackmore Duck. He also has a sister by the name of Della Thelma. He is an American Pekin duck, which is popular among breeders because of their ability to produce high egg numbers and meat. Oh, almost forgot, in 1958 he managed to host the Oscars alongside Bob Hope.

(Note) Just so that I don't get any correction notes, Foghorn Leghorn is not a Disney character but belongs to the the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies stable of cartoons for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Answer: Mary Shelley's birthday

Of course there is nothing stopping you from celebrating Frankenstein's Day on Halloween and many people do. There is also an alternate celebration for the monster on the last Friday of October that was created by Ron MacCloskey of Westfield, New Jersey, called Frankenstein Friday. Oh so many opportunities to get freaky.

However, it is on the 30th of August that people gather to pay homage to Mary Shelley, the woman who created the story of Dr Frankenstein and his monster as part of a game she was playing with her travelling companions on a trip to Geneva. (The things people get up to when they don't have Fun Trivia). To think she was only nineteen years old when she started crafting this remarkable story that manages to tap into our fears of death, the desire for reincarnation (or re-animation) and our quest for immortality. Unlike ourselves the tale has not been dimmed or dated by the progress of time.

You may choose to commemorate the event with a horror movie marathon, set up a monster mash or, if you're in London at the time, pay homage to the lady at the Bloomsbury Blue Plaque erected in her honour. I, however, see this as a chance to try on those fishnets, dust off my copy of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (1975) and do the "Time Warp" again.

(Note): Bram Stoker, who wrote about Dracula, has his birthday on the 8th of November. Boris Karloff, best known for portraying Frankenstein's monster in "Frankenstein" (1931), "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935) and "Son of Frankenstein" (1939), was born 23 November, 1887 and Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" was first published on the 11th of March 1818.

Answer: Talk

"Avast ye scurvy dogs". September 19 has been designated by the above-named entrepreneurs as International Talk Like a Pirate Day though a number of the people that join in the ridiculousness and fun of the day may also indulge in a bit of singing, dressing up and possibly a bit of rum. What started out as a joke received attention across the United States when humour columnist Dave Barry picked up on it and started promoting it. In recent times social media has also cottoned on to it and the concept has spread globally. So much so that Baur (Ol Chumbucket) and Summers (Cap'n Slappy) are able to enjoy sales of a range of themed merchandise through their website.

Whilst the following do not legitimise the event they certainly lend credence to its growing popularity;
Krispy Kreme (and Long John Silver has followed suit) offer free doughnuts to patrons who come in either dressed or talking like a pirate on the day. Google Search offers "Pirate" as a language alternative on September 19.

So if you're not up with pirate-speak I can tell you that "avast" means "pay attention" or, more appropriately, "check that out". "Arrr", not to be confused with "Arrgh", means just about anything. Now that you're armed with the necessaries, come September 19 next put on your eye-patch, stick a parrot on your shoulder and "shiver me timbers, me hearties".

Answer: All My Uncles are Monkeys Day

Terrific, finally a serious day of observance in this quiz and Poll is trying to crack jokes. Speaking of jokes... How do you tell the sex of a chromosome? Take down its genes. I seek no forgiveness and all groans are gratefully accepted.

Seriously though, this day marks the anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" in 1859. It was the day the world got to hear about Darwin's groundbreaking theories that, amongst other things, claimed that man was a descendant of the ape (hence the alternative title of the day). Despite being forward thinking (if you can call looking at our past that) his theories were both controversial and divisive. Do you recall the name John Snopes. Snopes was the man who was taken to trial for teaching evolution in the classroom. It produced a hearing that was full of flashpoints, debate and anger. Through all this though Darwin's theories endured and today they are seen as "science". As if to provide a freakish footnote of validation to Darwin's theories it was also on this day that the fossilized remains of the Australopithecus, christened Lucy, were discovered in Ethiopia. Lucy would provide scientists with a great deal of evidence that human evolution took steps (no pun intended this time) towards bipedalism before their increase in brain size.

(Note 1) For those of you that are aware that there is a Darwin Day, it is not the same as the above. Darwin Day is celebrated on his birthday, February the 12th.
(Note 2) In case you are struggling with the significance of the song title at the very start of this question it is the tune the orangutans sing to Mowgli in the 1967 film "The Jungle Book".

Answer: See the moon, it hates us (Barthelme)

As a resident of the Land Down Under (Australia) my first reaction to this event was "Are you kidding"? It's the start of summer, it's four days before Christmas and holidays, no more work for a week and everything is already on the up, why do we need a bright side. That's when I was informed that for my northern cousins it was the day of the winter solstice, their shortest day of the year, the day that they have the least number of daylight hours available to them in the day. Little wonder then that they're feeling down. But look on the bright side, as from tomorrow their days get longer and they'll have reasons to be positive. Bring on the optimism, bring on the sanguineness, bring on Look on the Bright Side Day.

There's more to this than an ounce of my sarcasm. Some studies have shown that people who look on the bright side of things tend to live longer and overcome the effects of pain and disease a lot better. There are some, however, who will disagree with this argument and believe that trying to be happy only gets in the way of improving one's mood.

On December 21 there will be all sorts of people delivering all manner of advice to get you looking on the bright side - read positive quotations, surround yourself with positive people, do some yoga or meditate. They're all well and good but I've got something that's far simpler - smile. Having said that, why stop at December 21? Why not make every day a day that we all look on the bright side?