Narcissus

Photograph Quiz.

Photo no. 111:- By the time Godiva was founded in 1879, a Coventry Harrier Club already had this pub as its headquarters. Which Club was it? Which of their members was to win the National Cross Country Championships. When? Which relation of his ran for Birchfield Harriers in Birmingham?

Reflections Blog:-

What was the funniest moment of the Olympic Games? At the site where my family was camping for the Olympic Games, I sat in glorious sunshine and watched a couple of Germans dismantling their instant pop up tent …. After 25 minutes they still hadn’t. In frustration, they bound up the collapsed tent with string and then strapped it to the top of the car on the roof rack after they had tried unsuccessfully to stuff it into the back of their laden car. As they drove off the site, the wind got under the tent which ballooned back to its original size and took off from the car with roof rack still attached and blew across the camp site flattening a couple of other tents in the process. Both Germans got out of the car to chase after the tent, one was armed with a knife. Why a knife??? When they finally caught up with the tent which had become snagged in the hedge at the site boundary, the German with the knife started slashing at it in a frenzy!!! They bundled up the shredded tent and left it stuffed in a waste skip! They did nothing about the two flattened tents.

What was the most frustrating part of the Olympic Games? Listening to all the comments of the spectators around where I was sat in the stadium; they did not understand or appreciating what was happening on the track when so many interested athletes were having to sit at home to watch events unfold on TV because they could not get tickets for the Games. Instead of watching all the events on TV, from the comfort of their sofa, with a drink in one hand and a tray full of food on their lap, seeing all the close up action, not missing any of the action replays, they could have enjoyed sitting with me in the shade in a drafty stadium about five miles (8 kilometres to you Blog) away from the action, ending up with a stiff bottom from the hard seats, unable to get a loan from the bank to afford a drink and a bite to eat, then having to traipse two miles (3km to you Blog) back from the Stadium to be crammed with 80 other people in a 50 seater omnibus back to the underground tube station to travel back to the camp site to find all the chip shops closed for the night and the camp gates locked and the site in total darkness.

Most astonishing fact from the Olympic Games? The Olympic spokeswoman, Sheona Redcard, announced after the closing ceremony that the Olympic Rings had originally been adopted in 1914 (FACT Blog) and had been chosen not for the five colours representing the five continents, nor that the five colours had not been chosen because they were the colours that appeared in the flags of all competing nations as most delegates believed but that the five colours had come about by sheer necessity. 1914 was the start of the Great War. At the first games when it was decided to use the Olympic Rings 1920 (FACT Blog), the Olympic Organising Committee had run short of cash (post war depression) and to save a few quids, the flag makers had nicked the concentric rings from the archery targets. That also explains why there was no archery competition for the last fifteen years in the Olympics before Antwerp (FACT Blog), if you had ever wondered Blog. Only three nations turned up to compete anyway (FACT Blog)! You can see it as a pub quiz question now, can’t you Blog? And don’t forget Blog, that you read it here first!

“Your specialist subject is ‘Archery’. You have sixty seconds to answer the following …  

(1) What was William Tell’s favourite fruit?

(2) When Harold stood in as Tell’s target man, where did the arrow land?

(3) Who made Overtures to William Tell?

(4) With their arrows, who was the first to 501 points, Tell or Hood, in the Sherwood Championship Throw Offs?

(5) Which hurts the most, slings or arrows?

(6) How many strings do you have to your bow?

(7) If you shot an arrow in the air, where would it come back down to earth?

(8) which … I’ve started so I will finish ….which Inn did Dan and Doris drink in, in the village of Umbridge?”

“Answers::: (1) I cannot accept pine apple. (2) The ‘ayes have it, the ayes have it’. (3) Not only did Rossini invent ice cream and scripted the TV programme ‘The Lone Ranger’ but he was quick silver on the old black and white ivories. (4) To tell the truth, Little John hoodwinked them both and blew the winnings on Maid Marion on a wild weekend at the Goose Fair in Nottingham Castle. (5) This depends on whether the sting is from a be or not a be, that really is the question. (6) This depends on how many you can fiddle (7) I know not where but I know a man who does, it’s that American fellow Mr Long who lives down our street. (8) Yes, I know the bell went when I started to ask the question but that was not a subliminal clue for you. The answer is not the Bell Inn. And no, neither can I accept the Bull’s Eye when you seconded guesseded, but you were within a blink of an eye of the correct answer. Listen out at 7 o’clock tonight four the answer. I shall repeat that, listen out at 2 o’clock tomorrow afternoon four the correct answer.

You answered two questions on your specialist subject correctly and you passed out.”

What was the funniest part of the Olympic Games? I am not joking with you Blog, but when I went to meet the kids from the inner city schools when I went to watch the Greco-Roman wrestling with them as an Olympian Mentor, I genuinely thought that someone was trying to cause disruption when a brick was thrown onto the fighting mat while two blokes were grappling each other. Did anyone bother to explain to me beforehand that when the fight officials objected to a judges’ decision about the actions of one of the fighters, the official response was to chuck a rubber brick into the arena?? Bizarre or what. Sticks and stones may break my bones but rubber bricks won’t hurt me. Just get me disqualified.

Fact Blog:- Armenia won a silver and bronze medal in the Greco-Romano wrestling which reminds me of an exciting part of the Games in the fencing competition, in which the Armenian Aram Khachaturian won the Sabre bronze although he should have been given a gold medal for his impressive celebratory dance after his victory ceremony. I am told you can see a clip on the world webberly if you are interested. Blog I kid you not, there is a clip of Khachaturian’s sabre dance to be viewed. Would I lie to you, Blog? Check it out!!

A mirror.

                                     Colin