h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So many people went to his grave the church floor collapsed. Thus revealing the first level of hell?

The canals of Venice turned to beer ... er wine ... and washed his bones into the Lido?

Welcome back Ben.

Apologies in advance.

Venice.

*braces self for another one*

Don't the Italians have a complicated system of temporary burial and then transfer once the corpse is just bones? Though I don't see where papal meddling would come into the thing, unless the 14th C popes meddled and the 17th C one unmuddled the meddle?

They might: show me a link and I'll consider it a QI bonus.

There was an awful lot of meddling and not just by popes

PS - it's good to be back, Clive.

Link to what? I thought googling and such was not allowed? Can we search hootoo?

B

Good to see a familiar face

Sorry for the inauspicious start. I have a list traps, see. That was one of them.

oh well I'll allow google to demonstrate a QI but not to find the answer.

No worries about the inauspicious start - I'll do a lot for a joke and it was a tribute to the beer flood story.

I won't risk googling for a QI link for the Roman catacombs, but I will tell you another thing about them.

The Swedes have a winter festival called Santa Lucia in which a girl wearing white robes with a red sash and a crown of candles processes into church with a procession of followers the girls among them similarly dressed and the boys looking worryingly like members of the KKK. They all carry candles and sing traditional songs. The original Santa Lucia was a Roman maiden who was taking food and things to Christians hiding in the catacombs of Rome. The red sash denotes the fact that roman soldiers disembowelled her when they caught her doing it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lucia_Day

I suspect it's a grisly Christian myth attached to a much older ceremony of light.

QI enough?



B

Oh definitely

Ben +6

The Beer flood was a good one. Quiet proud of that one.

Still, back to Dante; what if I said there was a dispute over his 'rightful' resting place?

Seeing that this is Italy, a white wine flood would have been more topical:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7658808.stm

Malabarista was very very close with post 35. I think if you can work out the reason why he was moved you may have your answer.

There is a place (I think) where bodies are put to be cleaned by vulture-type birds before being moved to a more permanent resting place.

A problem at present is that the birds are being poisoned by some common chemical (insecticide/weedkiller?) so that their ancient way of death is at risk.

Well, at least I think I know the reason why he was reburied once they dug him up: he smelled bad and wasn't a pretty sight.

Did they move him to somewhere where the church could demand a fee for letting people visit his grave?

How about if I revealed the his remains went briefly missing?

well I say briefly, 300 years more or less.

re post 54 (bodies cleaned by vultures).

I can't find the item I meant, but see, eg
http://www.zeelearn.com/course/funeralmgmt/html/module4d.htm
Which deals with Parsee custom - The last para is relevant.

Hmm that is quite interesting so +6.

But it's not the right answer.

Comedy... Was it a case of mistaken identity? Was someone else accidentally buried in "his" grave?

No, the bones were almost certainly his.