BUMPER CHRISTMAS QUIZ
Welcome to the 100th edition of this blog. As I pondered how I might celebrate this momentous event, I remembered that it’s nearly Christmas. The time of indigestion, intoxication, bad telly, dreadful jumpers and quizzes.
The best part of that list is the quiz bit, so here’s a MASSIVE quiz based on the first 99 Dale Fort Blogs. Astute readers will notice that the questions are strictly chronoblogically arranged.
The even MASSIVER answers will follow in the new year, should we all be spared.
Email your answers to me at: morrellstephen@hotmail.com The winner gets a free copy of Scattering Dreams: A History of Dale Fort by me. Second and third may get two and three copies respectively…
Note added a few days later: It’s been pointed out to me by several people that many of the questions are impossibly difficult. No they’re not, maybe I should have made this clearer but all you have to do is click on the contents button to get to the contents page. You can then get lots of the answers by reading or watching a bit of the blog entry. I thought this was a cunning subterfuge to get people to read more of it. The questions are in chronological order, one question for each blog entry.
1: How long was the biggest nematode worm ever found?
2: Which video on this blog has had more than 86,000 views? (Quite astonishing given the subject matter)
3: The rocks of the Dale Peninsula are red, why?
4: Where did the slate flagstones in Dale Fort come from?
5: What is the big brown seaweed from Japan that’s colonising European shores?
6: What’s a potboiler?
7: Who pioneered the futon on the Dale Peninsula?
8: What do book lice eat?
9: Why does ice float on water?
10: How many bait digger’s holes were found on The Gann Site of Special Scientific Interest when Dale Fort mapped them?
11: What is the grazing organ of a limpet called?
12: Upon what did Saint Bridget hang her cloak to dry?
13: What did Saint David preach against at The Synod of Brefi in 545 AD?
14: What do the terms “trap happy” and “trap shy” mean?
15: Why are female mosquitoes far scarier than than the chaps?
16: What is orpiment?
17: How big is a mouses bladder? (Choose from huge, medium, small or very small).
18: What does the old Norse name “Grassholm” mean in English?
19: What is pogonophobia?
20: What is the oldest frequently spoken language in Europe?
21: What is the standard deviation of the mean?
22: What was The Giant Bat of St. Bride?
23: What is a frequency distribution?
24: What’s the name of the pub in Dale?
25: Who hated a barnacle as no man ever did before?
26: What is the oldest structure designed for ordnance in Milford Haven?
27: What multicellular creatures might survive in outer space without spacesuits?
28: What do house dust mites eat?
29: What creatures terrified the protagonist in Edgar Allen Poe’s story The Tell Tale Heart?
30: In 1930, why did a policeman stop the traffic on Tower Bridge?
31: What was The Black Legion?
32: What colour is phycoerythrin?
33: When did the oil tanker Sea Empress first crash into the rocks near St Anne’s Head?
34: What is Melarhaphe neritoides?
35: Which Emperor of France was a special constable in London?
36: What is a null hypothesis?
37: What animal paddled into the middle of the pond on Skokholm at the sound of the supply vessel?
38: Who is the cocker spaniel?
39: Where is the source of the Afon Synfynwy?
40: What does Aberdaugleddau mean in English?
41: What is the smallest city in the UK?
42: Where in Pembrokeshire can you discover the truth about longshore drift?
43: How many musketry loops are there in The Defensible Barracks at Pembroke Dock?
44: Which champion of marine conservation informed me that: “Limpets are my f***ing business Steve…”?
45: What does a baby termite have to do before it can digest its food (wood)?
46: What marine mollusc has up to a 100 blue eyes and is jet propelled?
47: What is a murmuration?
48: What was the carbon date obtained for the earliest known Dale Fort?
49: What was Chain Home Low?
50: Who was the military engineer most probably responsible for the construction of Dale Fort?
51: Who is Jooligan Inglesius?
52: Who was the earliest named victim of gingism in Pembrokeshire?
53: What is an actinomorphic flower?
54: What is a stigma (in terms of parts of a flower)?
55: What is rifling?
56: Why would you not use ferrous metals in a powder magazine?
57: What was La Gloire?
58: What Does RnkAvg stand for in Excel?
59: What is an MCZ?
60: Who drew the earliest known plan of the present Dale Fort?
61: Who was Scalm?
62: What is the largest predator on earth?
63: Why do rabbits do so well on Skomer and Skokholm?
64: What sounded like the wail of a discontented elephant?
65: What % (by weight) water loss can Fucus serratus tolerate?
66: What year did Noddy’s Hat get broken?
67: What does Creigiau Preseli mean in English?
68: What was the name of Colonel Owen Evans’s dog?
69: What was M. A. Bland known as?
70: How much water loss (by weight) can bladder wrack tolerate?
71: What is an anaerobic organism?
72: What is Ascophyllum nodosum?
73: Who on the shore has flashing headlamps?
74: What species of red seaweed can you buy on Swansea Market?
75: Where was the largest oil fire the world had ever seen until the first Gulf War took over this dubious honour?
76: What was an M-Coil?
77: What entered the sea via a blue silk parachute?
78: What does LCG stand for?
79: How many military personnel were stationed in and around Dale during World War Two? (To the nearest thousand will do).
80: Who invented the nun shrinking machine?
81: Who was the first warden of Dale Fort Field Centre?
82: When was the first recorded field course at Dale Fort?
83: Who helped fire a volley of King Edwards potatoes at an Icelandic trawler during an action in The First Cod War?
84: How much aggregate was needed for the main runways of Dale Airfield? (This one’s for Simon).
85: How do Natural Resources Wales know if someone if breaking their code of practice for worm digging at The Gann Site of Special Scientific Interest?
86: What salt marsh plant is sometimes called “poor man’s asparagus”?
87: Sea pink, thrift, Armeria maritima. Three names for the same plant. What languages does the generic name (Armeria) derive from?
88: Which salt marsh plant tastes of coriander (apparently) and is best avoided even if very hungry?
89: Which coasts are the native habitats of Sargassum thunbergii?
90: What are the main nutrients derived from chicken poo that algae might use?
91: What is nominative determinism?
92: Who wrote A Field Atlas of the Seashore?
93: What is a fruiticose lichen?
94: How many tanks (+ or – 10) does the British Army have ready for action?
95: What is the Ritec Fault?
96: When did Archbishop James Ussher claim that the world began?
97: When was the paddle steamer Albion wrecked?
98: Where did Saint Brynach commune with angels?
And finally:
99: How do you ensure instant eternal bliss upon shrugging off the mortal coil?
If you’ve actually completed this quiz and it took you anything like the time and effort it took me to compile it, I think you might be a rare bird. I suggest you send the results to me and you’ll probably win.
The answers and results will appear in the new speak year in Blog 101.
Good luck and Happy Christmas to you all.
dalefort 
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