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

Well, "aphorism tomes" is the anagram of "smiter shampoo". So, anything to do with God's hairdo?

Woah! Toybox is Back?!


Oh, and, no idea whatsoever as to the answer, but I feel I should still say something, so how's about this :

Is it something to do with differences between Spanish from Spain and Spanish from Chile?
Like the same word having two completely different meanings, and the Chilean one being somehow offensive to the regime or something?
(The guy, being German, would have learnt the European version of the language).

(A bit like "slip" meaning "sleeping bag" in Quebecois French, but "panties" in French French).

//Was it some sort of alternative religious text?//

Nope.

//"aphorism tomes" is an anagram//

Quite right. +3

Not really back
Who can resist Clive's QI?

//Toybox is Back//

And there was much rejoicing!

//
Is it something to do with differences between Spanish from Spain and Spanish from Chile?
Like the same word having two completely different meanings//

No it's not that or one thing with two meanings but rather.... well I'll let you figure it out. Here's a DGI +1 for some clever thinking about the limits of similarity.

Nice bundles shiny points can be yours, if you solve my riddles and can avoid my klaxons.

I missed QI!!

"Aphorism tomes" is an anagram for metamorphosis.

He was keeping caterpillars in his house and meant to demonstrate that they would metamorphose into butterflies. He was arrested for heresy.

I know this because my brother-in-law sent me an article about Renous after we took my husband's sister and her family to a local butterfly sanctuary. He's a parasitologist and did several modules on various insects and arthropods.

It's also an anagram of 'I am Morphs toes'. Though what Tony Hart's little claymation companion has to do with this, I don't know.


Geggs

Oh well if people who know the answer are going to join in



Well played if that's correct

> Oh well if people who know the answer are going to join in



I think I just got carried away because I thought I might actually know something, for a change. It'd almost be more fun making something up though, eh?

Excellent question I am just awaiting confirmation of the enevitable correct answer

Well done for getting it

Well psychocandy solved it all in one fell swoop. +3


What is today common knowledge was back in the 1830s a total mystery - and Renous was a german collector of Natural History (and not a political dissident or smuggler of rare books as I perhaps mischeivously implied! ) , he had kept the caterpillars in a jar, and organised a small girl to feed them.

However this was deemed to be sacriligous by the civil authorities who had him arrested and then charged him with heresy.

Charles Darwin, recounts the tale of their meeting in "Voyage of The Beagle", thus:


------


One day, a German collector in natural history, of the name of Renous, called, and nearly at the same time an old Spanish lawyer. I was amused at being told the conversation which took place between them. Renous speaks Spanish so well, that the old lawyer mistook him for a Chilian. Renous alluding to me, asked him what he thought of the King of England sending out a collector to their country, to pick up lizards and beetles, and to break stones? The old gentleman thought seriously for some time, and then said, "It is not well, -- hay un gato encerrado aqui (there is a cat shut up here). No man is so rich as to send out people to pick up such rubbish. I do not like it: if one of us were to go and do such things in England, do not you think the King of England would very soon send us out of his country?" And this old gentleman, from his profession, belongs to the better informed and more intelligent classes! Renous himself, two or three years before, left in a house at San Fernando some caterpillars, under charge of a girl to feed, that they might turn into butterflies. This was rumoured through the town, and at last the padres and governor consulted together, and agreed it must be some heresy. Accordingly, when Renous returned, he was arrested.

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

Well done everyone this QI is now concluded. Points to be awarded soon.

I almost hated to post it, though, as watching everyone come up with creative possible answers is more rewarding than being right. Points are nice, but it's slightly less anticlimatic to get the right answer by accident. Or by being a smart arse and getting it right anyway.

I'm really looking forward to the next one!!

I think it is best if someone knows the right answer to as a courtesy to perhaps bite their tongue and hold back a bit and let everyone have a good run at it.

But on the otherhand if you can see through my riddles to the right answer I can hardly object now can I?

In the unlikely event I ever see through one of the riddles again, I'll try to be more courteous and hold off answering. I've never actually seen the QI prgram this one is modeled on, so I wasn't sure if "right" answer should ever be given or not.

While I am a bit shy of embarassing myself publicly, it could be fun to earn a klaxon - do ours go "a-OOO-ga"?

The questions are always really cool, though, and I have learned a fair bit from them, so I am really glad to see QI Soc being active again.

It is great to crack a QI with the right answer and it is a tricky balancing act to try to assist people to the correct answer whilst simultaneously leading them in the wrong direction and ensuring that you can still leap in and claim the prize before someone else does. Last time I tried I pulled a muscle in my back and had to lie down for a week.

Qi - Aphorism Tomes / Metamorphosis

Correct +3
-----------------
Toybox #21 "Aphorism Tomes is an anagram"

Psychocandy #28 "he was keeping caterpillars in his house to demonstrate how they turn into butterflies."

Decreasing General Ignorance +1
------------------
Baron Grim #9 "nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!"
&
"Don't judge a book by it's cover" (title clue)

Superfrenchie #22 "two things or one thing? "

QI BONUS
------------------
Florida Sailor #13 "protests in New York harbour against the ship Esmerelda"


Klaxons -5
-------------------
Teaswill #8 -"Dictionary"

Baron Grim # 9 "unauthorised bible"


Qi Elf Bonus +2
--------------------

Clive


Scores

Florida Sailor +6
Toybox +3
Psychocandy +3
Clive +2
Superfrenchie +1

Baron Grim -3
Teaswill -5


Returning to these shores after the winter thaw, Florida Sailor is a magnificent Red Admiral resplendent in scarlet eyelets. +6

Flapping furiously around the forsythia this fabulous pair of flitting flutterbyes. Toybox and Psychocandy sharing +3 each.
Stood on some sunny hillock bedecked in khaki and weilding the biggest butterflynet net in the hopes of catching the rare and the quiet interesting it is I your humble QI researcher going home for horlicks sasfied with +2

But suffocated with formaldehyde and pinned and displayed in some lepidoptirit's dungeon - it's Teaswill with a terminal -5.