Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 23-10-2021: Feeling Hungary.

23rd October, 2021.

Right … 

It’s officially the case that I got everything I needed to do, yesterday, done.

Bills?   Paid.

Interview?   Done: I even managed to ask relevant questions.   Including ones about stools.   The older I get, the more I appreciate being able to sit down on the job.

Pest controller?   Visited: bang on the dot of 8:30.   Seemingly, I’ve been visited by mice, at some point.   And I got some better — presumably more lethal — bait/poison.

I need to get a new key for my rat trap though.

And I need to shop!

~≈Ÿ≈~

Remember me telling you that the UK government had removed the twenty pound (£20) uplift to Universal Credit, the standard unemployment benefit in the UK … ?

That’s going to make life difficult for all of us: I could see that, yesterday, paying my bills.

Now … granted I’ve put in for the Warm Home Discount fuel companies make available to those of us on benefits.   But I have no guarantee of when that will turn up.

But think the Government should have kept the uplift.

One thing I have noticed?

Is that the French Government has announced they will be paying about 38 million French citizens €100, this winter.   That’s about eighty-four pounds (£84), roughly equivalent to the monthly uplift we got during the Pandemic.

Well played, President Macron.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak will be unveiling this year’s Autumn Budget, next Wednesday.

Will he do something similar?

I very much doubt it, somehow.

~≈Ÿ≈~

Let’s move on, shall we?

Yesterday’s Teaser saw Olga*, Mum†, Edith‡ and Debbi^ putting in their answers: with Olga and Debbi scoring five out of five, and Mum and Edith on three.

Let’s see how everyone does with today’s questions, shall we?

Here they are, along with the How To, License and video … 

Q1)        23rd October is a national day in Hungary.   It marks the day Hungarians tried expelling Soviet troops.   In which year of the 1950s?

Q2)        What’s Hungary’s capital: Belgrade, Bucharest or Budapest?

Q3)        Hungarian uses a version of the Latin alphabet.   A version that — in full — uses how many letters: forty, forty-two or forty-four?

Q4)        Hungarian Goulash is traditionally made with what: turmeric, paprika or chilli?

Q5)        Finally … ?   Béla Bartók was a well known Hungarian what: composer, footballer or painter?

Here’s yesterday’s questions and answers … 

Q1)        22nd October, 1929, saw the birth of footballer, Lev Yashin.   He’s considered the greatest what in the history of the game: goalkeeper, prop or shortstop?

A1) Goalkeeper.

Q2)        Actor, Derek Jacobi, was born on 22nd October, 1938.   He played Claudius in the 1996 version of which of Shakespeare’s plays: Coriolanus, Hamlet, or A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

A2) Hamlet.

Q3)        The College of New Jersey was chartered on 22nd October, 1746.   The College of New Jersey is now called what: Princeton, Harvard or Yale?

A3) Princeton.

Q4)        22nd October, 1811, saw the birth of composer, Franz Liszt.   If you’re Brahms and Liszt, you’re what: drunk, hungover or dead?

A4) Drunk.   (In British English, if you’re drunk, you’re said to be pissed: which is what the phrase Brahms and Liszt rhymes with.   By contrasted, pissed means annoyed, or angry, in American English: it’s roughly equivalent to the British English phrase, pissed off.)

Q5)        Finally … ?   Britain’s biggest ever anti-nuclear missile protest: on 22nd October, 1983.   Who organised it: CND, Insulate Britain or the Church of the Illuminati?

A5) The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, or CND.

Here’s a thought … 

“Bagoly mondja a verébnek, hogy nagyfejű”


The owl says the sparrow’s big-headed.

Traditional Hungarian saying.

And a national anthem …

Today’s questions will be answered in tomorrow’s Teaser.

The quizmaster’s decisions about scores are final.

Thank you for coming: have a good day.

*        I always fancied seeing Dartmouth College, Olga, the smallest of the Ivy League colleges.   It’s in one of my favourite science fiction stories.

        Yep: everything’s sorted, so far.   I’ll hear if I got the job by Wednesday.   And the pest controller’s back in a couple of week’s time, to see if we’ve caught anything.   He didn’t think much of the rat poison I’d got.   But it had been gnawed at … so something’s been at it.   (He said it’s mice: but I know at least one dead rat’s been found, not far from my building, recently.)

        Have fun at Sant: I hope it goes well!   (Hmmm … Overnight ferries …)

†        Hello, Mum!

‡        Thanks, Edith: it went well enough.   Hopefully, I’ll hear Wednesday.

^        The Future Shocks are quite something, Debbi!   They were … a set of one offs that appeared in 2000AD, back in the day.   Except Abelard Snazz — the Double Decker Dome — took off and ended up with his own series.   So to speak.

        Oh, DR and Quinch cropped up in the similar 2000AD strip, Time Twisters: and got a spin off, as well.   Imagine Animal House meets time travel meets large amounts of weaponry, and you get the effect.   Just don’t ask about oranges … !