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

Is it mixed in with a lot of other ores, or a very thin seam, so it's expensive to extract?

not poo

and not uranium.

It follows from a danger of mining - shall we say.

No this is a very large and accessible deposit - mineralogists just aren't very keen on it.

Keep these final guesses coming.

I'm off out for a meal tonight - but I've just finished working out the points, so soon as someone figures out why mineralogists are sniffy about Australian Minium, I'll add their name to the legend and we can call this one closed.

It's all upside down?

I've seen the reason and it would drop right in on the Petty Hates thread. Particularly seeing as the Australian deposits are considered particularly fine.

Nope.

DA's right. The sort of snootiness of professional outrage.

Is it rubbish at making nice pretty-shaped crystals?

Nope it's to do with it's.... provenance.

It's in the outback? On traditional aboriginal land? That sort of provenance?


Geggs

No - rather it's origin.

I believe you have given it away, Clive!

The two biggest dangers of mining are explosion and fire, with tunnel collapses coming in at a very poor third place.

I am guessing that explosion and/or fire are responsible for the formation of minium....



GT

Did I? *exaggerated innocence*

gt Correct +3 - it was the result of a mine fire, thus in a sense artificially created.

Job interview this morning so everything else I can sort out later...

This Qi is formally concluded. (at last!!! )

QI - Happily Violence

------------------------




Correct (+3)
------------------------

Geggs (87)
- The 'minor Phoenician' is a letter/symbol.

Taff (106)
- 'Big' refers to Capital letters etc.

Mr Dreadful (183)
- 'Happily Violence' and 'invite great anger' refers to 'seeing red'

MMF (213)
- Red Lead was a pigment.

HygienicDispenser (223)
- 'nothing to lose' refers to 'Minimum'

Gandalf'sTwin (285)
- "Minium'

Van Smeiter (292)
- 'dehydrate' refer to 'Mem' the Phoenicain / Hebrew symbol for 'water'

HygienicDispenser (320)
- to 'colour in red' is 'rubric'

Rosemary (322)
- Australia has the largest source of Minium.

Gandalf'sTwin (352)
- "Mine fire'


QI Bonus (+6)
------------------------

MMF (79) & HygienicDispenser (77)
- Velum Preparation Techniques.

Pebble (113)
- "The Phoenicians developed Thyrennian Purple"

Rosemary (122)
- "Red stained glass is made using gold."

Taff (295)
- Minium (aka Lead Plumbate, aka Lead Tetroxide) was used as waterproof undercoat on military vehicles.

DGI Bonus (+1)
------------------------
Rod (9)
-"Maybe the Phoenician language or Alphabet"

MMF (17)
- "Illumination"

Toybox (40)
- "The character's name means "full of water"

Gandalf'sTwin (48)
- "Dehydrate - shrink - something lost in translation."

Pebble (113)
- "colour"

Rosemary (152)
- "Liturgical texts are coloured at start of section."

Rosemary (155)
- "Missal"

Geggs (258)
- "A crib sheet"

Van Smeiter (291)
- Minium is Latin fro Red Lead"

Klaxon (-5)
------------------------

Taff (29)
- "Carthage / Cartoga Delenda Est."

Taff (32)
- "Crusades"

Taff (35)
- Pope"

Hygienic Dispenser (77)
-"The Name of The Rose by Umberto Eco."

MMF (213)
- "Cochineal"

Elf Bonus (+2)
------------------------
Clive.





Total to be added or subtracted.
------------------------

Rosemary +11
Gandalf'sTwin +7
HygienicDispenser +7
Pebble +7
MMF +5
Geggs +4
Van Smeiter +4
Mr Dreadful +3
Clive +2
Rod +1
Toybox +1
Taff -6


She's a Matriarch of The Illuminati and her arcane knowledge has seen her rise to the very top. Fear Her. Rosemary conspires to gain +11

Speaking of conspiracies, it's a gaggle of Conspiracy Theorists next: Gandalf's Twin, Hygiencic Dispenser and Pebble all share +7 points which probably means something significant in numerology circles but here it means they come joint second.

MMF shows their erudition and the rest of plebs what true enlightenment brings, +5 points and *this* round of applause

But sat in the dark it's the mad monk Taff of Kaos, driven loopy on mercury, lead and Bat guano. He did very well but he did trigger a few of our klaxons - a paranoid and twitchy -6

The only thing I think left to clear up is the confusion over "Cinnabar"

Cinnabar is a red mercuric sulfide but for a time Red lead (minium) was also called Cinnabar until it was discovered that the red lead was a contaminant of the red mercury.

Historically colours and the pigment sources that created them weren't individuated much until much later as chemistry started to over-take Alchemy.

So any thing red tended to be called the same thing becuase it was assumed to be the same becuase the same colour property.
or wwhere it was sourced from (Tyrian purple) and later what it was made from (Cadmium Yellow)

This early like-to-like rationale underlies a lot of early thought in colour-theory, medicine, alchemy and the like.

How did the interview go?


Geggs

A real good 'un, Clive. Thank you.

MMF

Thanks for asking.

Okay, I think - always hard to tell. Trickiest question was 'what would you do if you discovered a broken vile of blood in the Centrifuge?'

So if you think *my* QIs are tough!

Speaking of which I think I'll take a few days to recover my regular sleep pattern and then I'll be back with another - got an idea....