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

I guess you know the famous picture http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_GF_X5q0eY90/SdXO4RsEv1I/AAAAAAAAA0o/A76E5y_bpuw/s400/Groucho+Karl.jpg

What about the brother Sartre: Jean, Paul, George and Ringo?

OK - 3 answers , one is Roger Moore (who played the Saint and James Bond (Klaxon?)), the other is ?, which leads us to a third?

The 2nd person (or possibly the whole lot?) was/were a direct inspiration for QI....

Seven Dwarves - leads me to believe there is a link in the number 7 - have there not been 7 different incarnations of James Bond on film (either Sean Connery being in THunderball and Never say never again or the 6 "official" bonds and David Niven in the first Casion Royale (except IIRC didn't others play Bond in the same film?).

However, back to the rest of the clue... Being pretty sure the answer to the third part is James Bond.

Who is the "Creator's first choice" - well creator must be either Cubby Brocolli, or Ian Fleming.

I seem to remember that Roger Moore originally turned down the role of Bond either to play the Saint, or because he thought he was too young for the role - so maybe that's that clue.

Which takes me back to the original "The real inspiration (in part)" clue for the other person - maybe the inspiration for QI was "how many Bonds have their been?" (or a similar question) and most people said things like 5 - Connery, Moore, Lazenby, Dalton, Brosnan - but the answer was actually 6 (or more - if you include the other "bonds" in Casino Royale (was one of them Woody Allen?)....

So I'll go for the following as being the full answer:

David Niven
Roger Moore
James Bond

Argon0 BenKORs and TomAOR_s Dad

Congratulations on James Bond +3 that is the correct answer to part three.

Part two was indeed Roger Moore which was picked up around post 10.

I am amazed that James Bond lasted for 50+ posts without being spotted. Especially as I gave the answer in the clue "bibbity bobbity b{oo? Seven} Dwarves

Ok so we are left with "The real inspiration (in part) of QI" plus Roger Moore and the link is the James Bond Movie series.

So who is "The real inspiration (in part) of QI"?

So 2nd person isn't David Niven then?

Must be another Bond....

Please forgive the first portion of the following it is but my stream of thought:

=========

If it IS another Bond my vote goes to Sean Connery... But why?

"The real inspiration (in part) of QI..."

David Niven (Ian Flemings original choice for Bond, I have since learnt)
Sean Connery
Roger Moore (saint)
George Lazenby
Timothy Dalton
Piers Brosnan
Daniel Craig

Who else has links with Bond...
Q... Q...
=========================
That's it --- Q played by John Cleese, and Desmond Llewellyn (please forgive Spelling)... Were there other Qs?

Orcus - Moore and Caine - weren't they together in that film about the two fraudsters - I really can't remember name, and will not use imdb...

I think a lot of people (me included) were deliberately not touching James Bond with a bargepole, expecting a huge minefield.

Bob Holness. Played James Bond on the radio, hosted Blockbusters (TV quiz)

The first JB was an American who played "Jimmy Bond". Can't remember his name. I think that may also have been a radio thing in America.

That was Michael Caine and Steve Martin I think Argon0

Dammit, I missed Bob Holness by one post

back... Gives a newbie a chance to get a couple of points on the score board..

I was expecting the Klaxon too, but just couldn't get the train of thought out of my mind - what swung it for me was 7, as I am sure there have been 7 Bonds in Film (now).

IIRC Bob played Bond in an adaptation of Moonraker on South African Radio (I have a friend who is a complete Bond head - knows nearly everything about him, so any tidbit he may not know gets grabbed and stored until we meet up - e.g. I now know that David Niven was Ian Fleming's preferred actor for Bond and (this tidbit thanks to G**gle) that Niven is the only real actor mentioned in the Bond Books....

Orcus - you made me G**gle it, darn you - a film called Bullseye starred them both as Confidence Tricksters....

That may or may not be the film I was thinking about... (actually its not - you called it right - the film I was *thinking* about was Dirty Rotten Scoundrels....)

Argon0 BenKORs and TomAOR_s Dad
Please forgive the first portion of the following it is but my stream of thought:

You are forgiven by not having any 's fired.

David Niven (Ian Flemings original choice for Bond, I have since learnt):

Interesting!! My source actually gives Roger Moore as the first choice (hence the clue) Also says that Fleming warmed to Connery to the extent that he created a scottish ancestry for Bond in the later books.

Who else has links with Bond...
Q... Q...
=========================
That's it --- Q played by John Cleese, and Desmond Llewellyn (please forgive Spelling)... Were there other Qs?

Spot on !!!! DGI+1 There were other Q's but the question is how inspirational are they?

Roger was who I went with as I remember it from an interview with him, saying he had turned it down so he could do the Saint....

post 33 dgi+1 The connection!

Kim Howells was appointed to take over from Margaret Beckett as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, a Committee of Parliamentarians that oversees the work of Britain's intelligence and security agencies.

And the promised Douglas Adams connection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlXOdvkzTKA&feature=player

One last bump. I will close this after a week if no further guesses. (I may even try claim the unwon 3 points )

The real inspiration (in part) of QI and the Creator's first choice, well he was a saint. Put them together and what have you got, bibbity bobbity boo? Seven Dwarves?

The answers so far : Roger Moore and the James Bond film series.

The outstanding +3
The real person whose name was used by Fleming for Q and who is credited in the movies, and the reason why this name was used.

current scores:
Orcus:Is one Walt Disney? klaxon -5
hygienicdiscurtisy: Roger Moore correct +3
Kim Howell DGI +1
Taff Agent of Kaos:stephen fry klaxon -5
gandalfstwin:God klaxon -5
Adam Klaxon -5
Argon0 BenKORs: James Bond +3
Q DGI +1

Though we'd got all this!!

You mean to say that David Niven ISN'T the other person?

Now to work out the inspiration to Q...

Well Q is (IIRC) a division (Desmond Llewellyn playing the head of either secion or division Q) - so could it be Qinetiq (sp?) - spun out of the militay in the not too distant past (IIRC)... However I don't think that's what you are trying to get us to get at...

Some War time inventor? The Bouncing Bomb man (darn can't remember the name... Barnard? Barnes?... Barnes Wallis!), bit of a big invention - sure I would have picked up on that..., Aeroplane related, camouflage, gadgets - photography? Radio's in books, maps in buttons (wasn't that on QI the other day - maps/compasses in buttons which the German's cottoned on to - so the makers made them unscrew the other way). Or the chap that came up with the crystal radio the channel islanders used..

Or an armourer? (most of the gadgets we see in the labs in Bond are weapons/protection of some description (the flame throwing deodorant?) - but that may just be for filmic effect... Guy that invented silencer, Bullet proof vest.. Guess that actually falls under inventor?

enough of the scattergun approach, lets see how many klaxons that sets off!

maybe the papers were mentioning More snow.

Roger Moore + Charles Percy Snow= More snow.

Argon0 BenKORs and TomAOR_s Dad

Scattergun is a great tactic unless the setter decides that every name mentioned is a guess and not a thought

There are very few klaxons in this area.

There is a real person who loosely inspired the Q character in the films. I have possibly misled you in the sense that this person did not inspire the character in the earliest books, but that's a clue

Moore Snow? I have skylarks singing, primroses blooming and i saw my first butterfly today.

OK.... Right well, some conflabbing with my Bond Encyclopedic friend comes up with two possibilities - one who is said to be Q's real name, and gets mentioned in the early films, and another who is said to simply be the technical inspiration for the character int eh books.....

I will go with the former - Boothroyd, darn can't remember his first name G... Geoffrey? In the films he is known as Major Boothroyd...