Brett Lee’s nickname in the Australian team is Oswald. Explain how it came about.
Answer: (select the text below to show)
Steve Waugh was once reading out the batting order of his side, with Shane Lee followed by Ian Harvey followed by Brett Lee. So he read, “Lee, Harvey…”
Question by Amit Varma
The origin of this term, X Y, reportedly came when Louis XV asked a group of merchants, “How can I help you?” They responded, “X-nous-Y, X-nous passer, Le monde va de lui-même.” (“Let us do, leave us alone. The world runs by itself.”)
What is this term?
Answer: (select the text below to show)
Laissez Faire.
Question by Amit Varma
“The term X effect describes phenomena seen in nearly every species that it has been tested in whereby males show continuously high sexual performance given the introduction of new receptive females.”
What is X?
Answer: (select the text below to show)
Coolidge. The Coolidge Effect is named after the anecdote about a trip Calvin Coolidge and his wife took to a farm. Read more here.
Question by Mohan KV
Name the source and the individual in question:
“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,” whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here, in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!”
Answer: (select the text below to show)
Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows; The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Question by Sumant Srivathsan
Identify X, Y and Z in the excerpt below, taken from an article in the June 25, 2007 issue of Newsweek:
They’re both increasingly isolated from the people they are supposed to lead. They are contemporaries (X is 60, Y is 57), and both spent most of their lives as relatively unworldly men, albeit worlds apart. Both have had to learn on the job while in the top job. Both are surrounded by small circles of confidants who have given them demonstrably bad advice where the future of Z is concerned. Both are at odds with fractious legislatures. Both are deeply religious and have important fundamentalist constituencies. Each of them very much needs the other to succeed, and neither has any real alternative.
Answer: (select the text below to show)
X – George W Bush
Y – Nuri al-Maliki
Z – Iraq
The excerpt is from “Bogged Down In Baghdad” by Larry Kaplow and Christopher Dickey.
Question by Amit Varma
2007 – Man in Times Square
2006 – Waterhose Man
2005 – Willie Lumpkin (Postman)
2004 – Man Dodging Debris
2003 – Security Guard
2003 – Old Man at Crossing
2002 – Man Dodging Debris
2000 – Hot Dog Vendor
Whose big-screen Hollywood career is this?
Answer: (select the text below to show)
Question by Sumant Srivathsan
After the publication of Les Miserables, Victor Hugo, who wanted to know how the book was doing, sent his publisher a telegram with just one character. His publisher’s reply also contained just one character. What were the contents of these two telegrams?
Answer: (select the text below to show)
Hugo: ?
Publisher: !
Question by Amit Varma
In David Cronenberg’s film, Videodrome, there is a character named Professor Brian O’Blivion who says goofy things like “the television screen has become the retina of the mind’s eye”, “I refuse to appear on television, except on television” and “television is reality and reality is less than television.” This character was based on an old teacher of Cronenberg’s. Who?
Answer: (select the text below to show)
Question by Amit Varma
In 1276, a statute was passed in England applying this term to events that occurred prior to 1189, the year in which Richard I ascended the throne. In 1832, this definition was abandoned as a legal term, but common use has prevailed.
What term?
Answer: (select the text below to show)
Time immemorial.
Its original use was in recording legal memory, and the 19th century law merely stated that rights that were held for 20 years cannot be withdrawn just because they weren’t held before then. The Crown enjoys a 30-year luxury.
Question by Sumant Srivathsan
What is this a list of (exhaustive):
Robert Redford – Ordinary People
Barry Levinson – Rain Man
Kevin Costner – Dances with Wolves
Roman Polanski – The Pianist
Clint Eastwood – Million Dollar Baby
Answer: (select the text below to show)
The winners of the Oscar for best direction in the years Martin Scorcese was nominated before he finally won this time.
Question by Amit Varma