Quizzes & Puzzles 33

Some new problems with which to exercise the brain. But first a look at answers and solutions to Quizzes & Puzzles 32. New problems below the image (cartoon).

Answer to Quiz 32:1

Everyone has heard about Christopher Columbus, the official discoverer of America. In 1506, he died in Valladolid in present day Spain, but where was he born?

Since Columbus discovered new areas of the world sailing Spanish ships, it is easy to believe he was Spanish, but he was not. He was born in the Republic of Genoa (in present day Italy).

Answer to Quiz 32:2

Most people know that a piste is a marked path for skiing or some similar sport. However, a piste is also the area for an entirely different activity, an indoors sport. Which sport am I thinking of?

It's fencing; the fencing area is called a piste.

Answer to Quiz 32:3

In this portrait of Van Gogh from 1887 (painted by Toulouse-Latrec), we can see a typical glass at the bottom right corner. But of what is it typical? What did Vincent Van Gogh drink?

Van Gogh drinks from a typical absinthe glass.

Today it is hard to realise the impact absinthe had on a whole generation of authors and artists, but it was profound. You can read more about this in my old article The Cult of the Green Fairy; La Fée Verte.

Answer to Quiz 32:4

We were recently discussing Frankenstein and its author Mary Shelley. Mary was married to an English poet who drowned under somewhat unclear circumstances. Where did he drown – in which lake?

I was the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and he drowned in Lake Geneva, in Switzerland. I have previously written about this in Byron & Shelley: Egyptomania & Shelley's Funeral.

Answer to Quiz 32:5

There is a scale for measuring and comparing the hotness of peppers. What is it called?

The answer is Scoville; SHU (Scoville Heat Units) are used to express the hotness of peppers. I quote my article: More Spices: Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Clove & Pepper.

“[...] ordinary Cayenne pepper is 30,000-50,000 SHU, while the strongest peppers, like Indian naga jolokia is rated at more than 1,000,000 SHU. Chemically pure capsaicin is rated at 16 million SHU, and the strongest chemical known in this respect, resiniferatoxin, is rated at 108,800 millions SHU.“

Answer to Quiz 32:6

If you are a vet and get a patient with strangles; which sort of animal are you dealing with?

A horse. Strangles is a serious infection that has the potential of being life-threatening for the horse.

Answer to Quiz 32:7

Why Didn't They Ask Evans?

This is a difficult question, because there seems to be too little information. But it is not; it is just a matter of whether or not you are into the genre of literature to which the question refers.\

This was a puzzling question. If you have no idea what it is about, it might seem as too little information even to be a proper question. Yet it refers to a novel by Agatha Christie, titled "Why Didn't They Ask Evans". That is not sufficient as an answer, you must explain too why they didn't.

The story is a about a forged will of John Savage. Evans wasn't asked to witness its signing, although she would have been close at hand. That was because she would have recognised that the dying man who was signing it wasn't John Savage, but an impostor.

And now some new exercises for brain & memory...

Quiz 33:1

If you read a word or a sentence from left to right, and it becomes the same if you read from right to left – what is such a word or sentence called?

A simple example is the name “Anna”; you can read that from the left or from the right, and it still becomes “Anna”.

Quiz 33:2

In old Rome, what was the title of the high priest, the head of the Roman religion? Strangely, the title is still in use, still for the head of the Roman religion, although the religion is not the same anymore.

Quiz 33:3

Has there ever been a king named Dagobert? Yes it has - but where?

Quiz 33:4

Why is a so-called “blue baby” blue?

Quiz 33:5

What is paraskavedekatriaphobia?

There is another long word for the same thing, can you tell me that word too?

Quiz 33:6

In old lore, there are two “dragon points”. But what is a “dragon point”?

Quiz 33:7

What does amber and dragon's blood have in common?

You'll find answers and solutions in the next “Quizzes & Puzzles”.

Quizzes & Puzzles has its own label in my Index, where all issues of the series can be found.

In my INDEX, you can find all my writings on Read.Cash, sorted by topic.

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(Cartoon by Christian Dorn/Pixabay, CC0/Public Domain.)