13th October, 2020.
Yes: I’ve officially been to Romford!
By train, if you didn’t realise it!
Mostly? So I could visit the Romford branch of CeX: as the Brentwood Branch is now closed.
It … was something of a trip.
I went to college in Romford: back in the Nineteen-eighties.
So it’s unnerving to see that a café called the Gingham Kitchen, and bakers, Godfreys of Hornchurch, are still there!
After some thirty-six years!
Let’s move on, shall we?
Yesterday’s Teaser saw Olga*, Mum†, Edith‡ and Debbi^‚ putting in their answers: with Olga and Debbi on ten out of ten, Mum on eight with and Edith on five. We also had a message from Trevorª.
Let’s see how everyone does with today’s questions, shall we?
Q1) 13th October saw Eliezer Ben-Yehuda hold the first modern conversation in Modern Hebrew. In which year: 1880, 1881 or 1882?Q2) 13th October, 1943, saw Italy declare war … on where?Q3) The last game of Baseball’s first World Series was played on 13th October, 1903. Which team won the series, 5-3?4) 13th October, 1980, saw the birth of footballer, Wes Brown. He last played — as a defender — in the 2017/18 season: for which side?Q5) Actor, Caleb McLaughlin, was born on 13th October, 2001. In which series does he play Lucas Sinclair?
Here’s yesterday’s questions and answers …
Q1) 12th October is the Fiesta Nacional de España. It’s on the anniversary of Columbus’ arrival where: Africa, Asia or the Americas?A1) The Americas.Q2) That arrival was in which year?A2) 1492.Q3) Spain is a what: monarchy, theocracy or republic?A3) monarchy.Q4) The Cortes Generales is the Spanish what?A4) Parliament, or legislature. (The Spanish term for the Prime Minister is Presidente del Gobierno de España, or President of the Government of Spain. Which confused me, when I found out. After all, what’s a monarchy doing with a president? I’m told, though, it’s the Spanish equivalent to the term chairman, or chair.)Q5) What’s Spain’s capital city?A5) Madrid.Q6) Spain’s majority language is Spanish. According to Wikipedia, seventeen to nineteen percent (17 to 19%) of Spaniards speak what: Galician, Basque or Catalan?A6) Catalan. (Typically for Wikipedia? The Language article — the source of the 19% figure — differs from the Languages section in the article on Spain: which gives the figure as 17%. Wikipedia has a very good article on Matthew 6:3.)Q7) Spain is on which peninsular?A7) The Iberian Peninsular.Q8) Castile and León, Andalusia, and Cantabria are Spanish what: autonomous communities, provinces or Comarcas?A8) They’re autonomous communities. (If I’ve got it right, the communities are on a par with the home nations of the UK, or US states: and made up of two or more provinces. Provinces are made up of Comarcas: roughly equivalent to an English county.)Q9) Lope de Vega, Miguel Cervantes and Javier Marías are all Spanish what?A9) Writers. (I have to admit, El Ministerio del Tiempo’s of Lope de Vega is a bit of a Jack the Lad: and vaguely reminds me of an old family friend.)Q10) Finally … ? La Roja, the Red One, is the Spanish national side. In which sport: basketball, football or shinty?
Here’s a thought …
“The suggestion that the prime minister had been flirting with one of the senior women cabinet ministers made me laugh every time I saw it, and I thought, ‘if you only knew!’ Perhaps they should have pushed it a bit harder.”Former MP And Cabinet minister, Edwina Currie, born 13th October, 1943.(Famously, she had an affair with Prime Minister Sir John Major. Whilst in office. His or hers, I don’t know.)
There’s a song …
Today’s questions will be answered in tomorrow’s Teaser.
Feel free to share today’s video Teaser.
Have a good day.
* At least there’s an upside to the Fiesta, Olga! :D Has there been anything new on Carles Puigdemont’s exile? It still seems … well … a touch off.
The stick was half price, you say? The makes it a hand option, then. I don’t know how much of an option it would be for transferring stuff between my family’s bits of kit: iOS phones and tablets, Android phones and tablets, Windows laptops, Ubuntu laptops … … …
† Hello, Mum!
‡ I think Trevor was just pointing out an issue with the trailer I was trying to show Debbi, Edith: I had to change it, I’m afraid!
Ataxia, you say? That’s new one on me! I hope it’s not too serious … ?
^ I’ll be honest, Debbi, I did a bit of swapping. And — wouldn’t you know it? — the one on the blu-ray is a different one to the one I grabbed from YouTube … ! I’ll try and send it over, if possible … ! (It’s actually under the footnote to Trevor!)
ª Yeah, I had to swap it out, Trevor: the one on the disk wouldn’t stay still! It was a shorter version of this one …
7 comments:
Ohh, Debbi!? You have a transfer on route … !
That’s a thought, Olga: you do the extras look: on yesterday’s fourth and eighth answers? I tried summarising what I knew, As best as I could, but one never knows for sure!
A1 1881
A2 Germany
A3 The Boston Red Sox
A4 date of birth 13 Oct 1979. Kerala Blasters
A5 Stranger Things
Ah Romford I used to travel there every weekday fro 1998 to 2007. Last time I was there all the Aon buildings were empty. My old IT office block by the railway line has been converted into apartments. Same happened to the old IT office block in Croydon (England's windy city).
Q1) 1881
Q2) Germany
Q3) The Boston Red Sox
4) The Kerala Blasters (by the way, he was born on the 13th of October 1979 not 1980).
Q5) Stranger Things
I think the device we were talking about might well work, as long as the equipment recognises it. I just thought it would be handy not to have to download so much stuff onto the phone, and also because if the girls wanted to keep a copy of the audio or the documents, that would save us going through links, etc.
You got the president thing right. I think we had talked about it at some point. Here, a president is somebody who presides over something (oversees), so it is applied to all kinds of things, not only the government either. Football clubs, big (or small) companies… Sometimes companies will have a “director” (or directora) but others they’ll go with presidente (or presidenta). I’ve talked sometimes with people from the different charitable organisations and societies from here, and the people in charge are often referred to as “presidents” even if the affair is pretty small. So yes, chair or chairman would work as an equivalent. I’m not really sure there is any specific rule about it. It seems to be a matter of taste. (Of course, the bigger the company, the larger number of titles and categories you can find). We also have vice-presidentes in the government, this time four, because of course, there’s a coalition, so everybody had to be on it (one man and three women).
The autonomous communities, well… It’s a bit tricky to explain. There are what are called (or were called, who knows) the “historical communities” those that, historically, had always been distinct and somewhat separate, that had different languages (in most cases), different laws… The Bask Country, Catalonia, Galicia…. They had always, or at different historical points, demanded to have their own government and apply their own rules. And, of course, come Franco’s death and the writing of the new constitution, they demanded the same. How to allow for that without having a completely different set of rules for some part of the country and others getting a bit upset as it wouldn’t be fair? Well, for administration purposes we had long had provincias and regions (I always think of regions as being similar to counties, but it’s not quite right. Let’s say the whole of Yorkshire would be a region, for example, and West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, East Yorkshire and North Yorkshire would be the equivalent of provincias, more or less). So they gave areas similar to the old regions, the status of autonomous communities, and that gave them certain responsibilities and the right to also organise certain things (promote their tourism, have their own police force, look after health and education, have their own budget), and, of course, have a government of sorts. And that’s sort of how things are, although some areas have moved across, Madrid is an autonomous community on its own (not the city only, but the area), so it has two governments, the central government and the autonomous government (and they’ve been having a bit to do regarding the management of COVID-19, as they are from the opposite ends of the political spectre, well, more or less)…. Never-ending fun, as you can imagine.
Puigdemont has become the president (there it goes again) of a new Catalan party —because the old one had major issues— with the idea of getting rid of the old party completely, but another ex-president of Catalonia (yes, they are presidents as well in the autonomous communities) has insisted he doesn’t want to leave that party, and, how is Puigdemont going to become a candidate in the next elections? Anyway, the fun and games never end. Who needs soap operas?
Sorry about this very long comment, but there’s no way to summarise all this, other than throwing the hands up in the air and saying “whatever”!
1 1881
2 Europe
3 Mininisota Minors
4 Kerala Blasters. courtesy of Anna
5 No idea
I saw. Thanks! :)
1. 1881
2. Germany
3. the Boston Americans
4. the Kerala Blasters FC
5. Stranger Things
1. 1881
2. Greece
3. White Sox
4.Manchester United
5. Sarah Jane Adventures.
Ataxia is trouble with balance and coordination. I was born with it. So I do exercises every day to help. I can do most things, but I can't drive or do gymnastics. It also takes me longer to do some things like type and write.
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