Quiz 29

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This set was contributed by Sreeram. Please send in your attempts to sreeram.b.iyer at gmail.com or leave them as comments on this post.

1. The Iliou persis (English: Sack of Ilium) is a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. The Iliou persis was sometimes attributed by ancient writers to Arctinus of Miletus. The Iliou persis was probably composed in the seventh century BCE, but there is much uncertainty. Ancient sources date Arctinus to the eighth century, but evidence concerning another of his poems, the Aethiopis, suggests that he lived considerably later than that. (courtesy : wiki)‏
The most famous recital of "the sack of illium" happened in the first century AD when someone dressed himself in stage costume and sang it from beginning to end. Many historians, though, doubt the truth of the incident.
Who was the singer ?

2. Alfred Shaw was a great 19th century bowler who represented England and Nottinghamshire. Among other things, he delivered the first ball of what is now considered as the first Test match. One of his last wishes was “bury me 22 yards from Arthur”. Arthur was Arthur Shrewsbury, another Notts man and the second best batsman of his time (WG Grace being the finest).
Some months after Shaw died, to everyone's consternation, it was discovered that his grave had been constructed 27 yards from that of Shrewsbury. Discussions ensued on how to move the grave to fulfil Shaw's last wish. Finally the secretary of Nottinghamshire came up with an explanation of why the grave was fine where it was, which satisfied everyone.
What was his reasoning ?

3. Yitzhak Rabin was given the honour of naming it. Fancy names like "Sons of Light", "Daring" and Salvation" were suggested. Rabin went for a very simple name. The name also evoked God's creation of the world, which was very apt from Israel's point of view. What name ?

4. There are mountain peaks which claim to be higher than Everest if different yardsticks, other than the height above sea level, are used for measuring them.Mouna Kea in Hawaii starts off from the base of the Pacific Ocean but has a base to summit height of about 10000m.Another claimant to the title is Chimborazo in Ecuador. Under what condition does Chimborazo become taller than Everest ?

5. It was a popularly debated question in the 19th century. In 1872, Leland Stanford requested the photographer Eadweard Muybridge help in settling the dispute. Muybridge developed a scheme for instantaneous motion picture capture, took photographs and settled the question. He worked further on the issue and took photographs in fast motion using a series of twenty-four cameras, taking pictures at 1/1000th of a second. He even developed a machine called zoopraxiscope which could project successive photos of that sort as in a motion picture.
What was the question that Muybridge originally set out to solve ?

6. The pictures below are those King Saud bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia (1902-1969), and Faisal II of Iraq (1935-1958), the last king of Iraq who was assassinated at the age of 23.
Which fictional father and son did they inspire ?










































7. BLF is an a organisation founded in 1995 by the London based social historian and leftist Keith Flatt. On the occasion of its founding, Flatt claimed that "Xs are politically progressive. All the great revolutionary socialists had a X. Stalin had a Y." BLF has been running a yearly award since 2000, and the winners include Andrew Flintoff (2004 and 2005) , Monty Panesar (2006) and Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin) (2007). Hashim Amla is another nominee. Expand BLF and name the award.


8. What editorial decision did Times announce last month thus (couple of words blanked out) :
"Key to policy at The Times on the usage of ____ is that they are adjudged to be recognisable to a majority of our readers. After the recent events this name has been used extensively in other media to which our core British readership is exposed. It would be foolish to ignore that context. We also have a global online audience to consider."

9.Gary Dexter writes a weekly column in Daily Telegraph on the origin of book titles, some of which were recently published as the book ‘Why not Catch-21 ?’. This is from a recent column (see also the book covers below):
We tend to think of the novel X (1974) as having a title of unique quirky brilliance. But it drew for inspiration on a whole corpus of earlier books, many of which had been extremely well-known and successful.
They included "... Archery" (Eng trans. 1953) by Eugen Herrigel, a German philosophy professor ; "....Flower Arrangement “ (Eng trans. 1958) by Gustie Herrigel; "... Photography" (1969) by Robert Leverant; and several others.
They all have 'in' rather than 'and' in the titles: but X was not first in this either, since Ray Bradbury had written an influential and frequently-anthologised essay on the craft of fiction, "... Writing", as long before as 1958.
What is the 1974 book whose title was possibly inspired by these ? In its introduction, the author warned that the book should not be considered as a factual guide for the orthodox Buddhist practice hinted by the title.

10. Dr BV Keskar was the Information & Broadcasting minister in the Nehru government.
Perhaps his most infamous contribution was that, in an attempt to preserve the “purity” of Indian culture, for several years from 1954 he banned something that was very popular in India. The main beneficiary of this ban was a neighbouring country who made millions from Indian companies by promoting the banned thing.
What did he ban and who gained from it ?

Answers:

1. Nero reputedly sang this while playing the fiddle/lyre
2. Shaw always took a 5 yard run-up
3. Six Day War. "War of Daring" and "War of Salvation" were considered, but Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Chief of Staff during the war prefered "Six Day War".
4. Chimborazo is located almost on the equator, and is the tallest peak if the height is measured from the centre of earth to the summit.
5. Whether all the four legs of a horse leave the ground at the same time during a gallop

6. Prince Abdullah and Emir Mohammed Ben Kalish Ezab of Khemed in Tintin comics

7. BLF is the Beard Liberation Front
8. The usage of Mumbai instead of Bombay.
9. Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance

10. He banned film music on All India Radio. Radio Ceylon with its programs like Binaca Geethmala was the main beneficiary.


Scores:

Rajesh-4
Manjith-3
Rithwik-5
Jithin-3
Chithananda-7
Praveen V R-5
Hrishi-3
Abdul Raouf-4
Arjun Lakshman-7