We all know the feeling, right? It’s pub quiz night, it’s our turn to host and we haven’t had the time to research new questions. You know the real-ale brigade will judge you harshly if you fail to impress. But NEVER FEAR! Eurojism is happy to start a regular series on Pub Quizzez: Your Own Handy Cheat-Sheet. Here’s this week’s submissions. Just print out and put in your pocket. Answers are provided below the questions for ease of reference.
Part 1. History
Q. How many wives did Henry VIII have?
A. Five or six?
Q. Where was the battle of Hastings?
A. In a field near Hastings.
Q. Who discovered America?
A. President Nixon?
Q. In which year did man first land on the moon?
A. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
Q. Who killed Martin Luther King?
A. Hatred and prejudice and a gun.
Today, tomorrow, and the day after that, here in Brussels, in Ireland, and in various other locations (including America and Australia, probably not in Pakistan, but you never know), people will be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.
What a GREAT opportunity to expound on the history of St. Patrick’s Day.
St. Patrick was a Welshman called Patrick. He lived in Aberystwyth between 1864 and 1899.
He had a brother, Jonathan, and one day the two of them decided to go and steal some sheep.
Crime never pays, and the brothers got caught, both with two sheep under their arm. The town judge sentenced them both to be branded with the letters “ST” on their foreheads, so that everybody they met would know that they were “Sheep Thieves”.
Jonathan couldn’t live with the shame, so he moved house. But in his new town and/or village, the villagers were sure that ST meant “sheep thief” and he couldn’t settle. The same thing happened in the next town, and the town after that. Jonathan spent the rest of his life a wanderer, begging for scraps and smelling of wee.
His brother Patrick decided to devote his life to good causes, however, and set about putting right all the wrongs he had perpetrated, rather like “My Name is Earl”.
He moved to Ireland, opened their first low-cost airline, which proved to be a raging success, and entertained the leprechauns with incredible feats of drinking. The Irish are inherently Catholic, so they didn’t see ST to be a sign of a Sheep Thief, as they would in Wales, but rather the sign of a SAINT.
St. Patrick died a wealthy man with a slight alcohol problem. His children now run the airline and campaign against drink-driving. St. Patrick’s day is the one day that Ireland forgets the evils of booze and celebrates with a right knees up.
And there’s the story of St. Patrick.
Anybody for a Guinness?
It’s Friday afternoon and that melancholy feeling is welling over me again, a time for introspection and self-evaluation.
My mind often turns towards the various sexual encounters I have had with famous people over the past four decades. People like Dame Judi Dench, Paul Wolfowitz and Floella Benjamin.
Here’s my top five:
Kofi Annan - a gentle, considerate lover. Doesn’t like to go on top. Post-coital conversations revolve around important issues of world politics and nuclear disarmament. Well-hung.
Faria Alam - famous for being somebody else’s lover, surprisingly discrete. Details of our affair never hit the headlines. She did this wonderful thing where she hummed the theme tune to Match of the Day whilst slowly removing her socks. We didn’t last long. The pressures of tabloid attention got in the way.
Tracey Emin - if you look very carefully inside Tracey’s famous tent “Everyone I Have Ever Slept With”, you’ll see my name sewn into the inside seam. Tracey and I never got beyond the heavy-petting stage. A real tease.
Michael Fish - quite possibly the most selfish, chauvinistic and brutal lover I have ever known. Michael, famous for his colourful jumpers and inaccurate weather forecasts was like a sabre-toothed man-eating dominatrix between, on top of, and under the sheets.
Sarah, Duchess of York - what to say? Collar and cuffs. Knows her stuff. I couldn’t get enough. Hammer time!
Who are your favourite celebrity bunk-ups? Answers on a postcard to the usual address …
A reader writes:
“I was out shopping with my Mum in Kensington High Street and I felt somebody tugging insistently at my bag. When I looked carefully at the blonde girl, it was none other than Gemma Bissix, from BBC’s Eastenders! She took off it with it. I chased after her but she was far too quick and she got away with my whole bag, including its contents. I was gutted”
WHAT? GEMMA BISSIX, who plays Clare Bates in Eastenders and started her acting career at a young age? Has she already gone off the rails, so soon after refinding her feet in the less-than-murky world of popular BBC prime-time dramas?
It would seem that the sad answer is YES NO. Take a look at the CCTV image above, and tell me if I’m wrong …
Metropolitan Police were today unavailable for comment, but they did insist that they would take any accusations of theft, even by pretty girls, extremely seriously.
It’s a very sad day indeed when famous and loved soap-stars turn to petty crime to feed their appetite for cheap thrills.
Liechtenstein has had some bad press lately. It turns out the nation of foxes contained a rat and now the Germans are running scared. Along with the Russians. And possibly a Frenchman. The English are not bothered. They are not keen on foxes.
I was invited to advise the Crown Prince of Liechtenstein on new banking secrecy measures to protect the principality’s key assets. Although my recommendations are bound my a non-disclosure clause, I’ll be breaking no state secrets by mentioning the following highlights:
- All visitors to the country should be blindfolded and driven around in cars with darkened windows, taking circuitous routes to get between popular destinations
- All Liechtensteiners to be kept in a large box. Access to the outside world allowed only on Mondays and Thursdays, and then through the intermediary of the chief of the secret police, if he’s not off whoring.
- Access to bank accounts to be limited to East Europeans with firearm licenses and mustaches.
- Conversations should begin with the words “The weather is cool in Stalingrad at this time of year”. The correct answer to this statement is a state secret, kept in a safety deposit box in the vaults of the national bank. Any failure to provide a correct answer will result in immediate blood-testing to check for the presence of sauerkraut and beer.
- All bank accounts to be numbered instead of named, and all numbers should include at least sixty seven individual digits.
The Crown Prince was, I’m happy to say, keen to adopt my suggestions and has granted me franchising rights to an affiliate referral scheme. If you are interested in opening a bank account in the newly-once-again-secure state of Lichtenstein, get in touch at the usual address. All correspondence should be marked “Top Secret Bank Account Opening Request”.
Whilst researching my doctoral thesis on the disassociation of ambidextrous monozygotic siblings in the Third Reich, it occurred to me that there are very few sources available, online or otherwise, which offer a summary of the really important dates in European history.
I would therefore like to make the following proposals, subject to the caveat that these refer specifically to “Europe” in the geopolitical sense, and not the geographical or purely (God Help Us!) political:
- March 16th, 1972
- September 12th, 1648
- The first week in August, 1921 and 1922
- May 16th OR 17th, 1811
My apologies for length. I realise these may be a little controversial, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch: this should be a collaborative project.
Your comments?
Eastenders has been the backdrop to my childhood, adulthood and old age. Dirty Den, Nigel, Dot Cotton … the list is (almost) endless. There are others.
The greatest ten seven scenes from Eastenders of all time:
- When Jesse turns to Billy in the Queen Vic and says “Don’t be a pratt all your life”. This quick one-liner had me and my flatmate, Robin, laughing for literally three or four minutes. It was a special moment I won’t forget.
- When Dot quotes the Scriptures. I love Dot and I love the Scriptures! What a great combination! My favourite verse from the Bible is the bit that rhymes in Psalms. She does it so well. Always a special moment I’ll never forget.
- When Mo sells some dodgy goods and then has to go around Albert Square and various other locations in Walford to retrieve them, encountering assorted obstacles and difficulties along the way. My, how we (me, my mother and my aunt Dot (no relation)) laughed at the farcical and unlikely nature of the whole episode!
- When Ian Beale thinks he’s being chatted up by a gay man. It’s funny because it’s true! LOL! ROFL! OMFG!
- When Stacey married a ginger. It’s funny because it’s true! What a special moment! OMG HAHAHA!! POS!!
- When Frank screamed “I LOVE YOU PAT” into the pouring rain. It was especially poignant because I had forgotten my umbrella that day, like countless residents of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and former colonial territories and other international locations where Eastenders is broadcast. A clever piece of writing guaranteed to invoke empathy at the bathetic finale.
- When Charlene married Scott Robinson. And proved that the battle with serious illness can be won with make-up and a good editor.
What are your favourite moments? Discuss them in the comments. No prizes, though!
UPDATE!! Due to popular demand, the winner may choose to substitute 50 euros for 75 USD!! Or a signed photograph of yours sincerely …
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In Poland, they eat rats and spiders. I know this because I once ate a cat kebab in a small market near the German town of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder, which in turn is very close to the Polish town near Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. It’s not such a great leap from cat to rat, no? Just one letter, in fact.
Next time you go to your local Polish supermarket, look carefully at the list of ingredients on the pre-stuffed cabbages. You might be (pleasantly) surprised.
The nutritional values of rats are well-documented. In addition to the health benefits, they are also considered an aphrodisiac. The same cannot be said of spiders. It’s generally felt that spiders add little to a dish, other than a slightly tangy flavour and crunch.
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