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

Who you calling a bag head ?

...Maybe I made this too hard ...



(Duchy is right, by the way)

>> ...Maybe I made this too hard <<

No, no, never. Actually it is full of pith and promise and I'm having a mulling good time with it. Lots of variables. Good fun.

But I do think we needs another hint besides Duchy being the wife of the Brig one.

Tell us more about this insolvent insurer.


jwf

Well, they claim to be the world's oldest life assurance company. In spite of their tribulations, they could be said to be fairly vital. (They even have a Canadian arm!)

Didn't Brig and Duchy help? I noticed that they made a foray across the pond and turned up on the charmingly-named ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre...

But, like I said before, it's old Bag-Head (who is NOT PW, by the way) who'll really unlock this for you...


P.

>> Well, they claim to be the world's oldest life assurance company <<

Well a google search of your phrase 'worlds oldest life assurance company' turns up quite a few pretenders.

Example:
"Among CGU's many constituent companies is the Hand-in-Hand, the world's oldest fire insurance office. It was formed in Tom's coffee house, London, in 1696 under the original title of The Amicable Contributionship for the Insurance of Houses against Fire. The name changed soon after the company adopted an emblem of two hands joined beneath a crown."

It seems generally agreed that Lloyds is in fact the oldest but there are claims by Sun, Royal, Unum and several others similar to CGU's above.

But I'm guessing the troubled 'Equitable' (recently acquired by Halifax) sounds more like the insolvent one you may have been thinking. I base this entirely on a BBC news link to the scandalous story and their use of phrase 'oldest mutual life assurance' company, a subtle distinction from 'general insurance' in which, I'm still certain, Lloyds was the original.


jwf

I surrender...

...but with Equitable Life (= fairly vital - I thought that was quite good? Yeah? Oh well, never mind....)

Like I was saying, with Equitable Life you're off and running...

P.

i have nothing to say.
^. .^
= ' =

I found The Brig and synopses of five episodes of whatever that series was - btw ExxonMobil is a perfectly fitting name for television drama, especially expropriated television drama (the Americans have so little of their own) - and discover he was the HEAD of a large family; its progenitor I believe is the word.

John the Baptist was beHEADed.

The man had his HEAD in a bag.

And I have no idea where the insurance company's HEAD office is but at a guess I'd say London.


~jwf~

(Hey, Clelba - I meant off and running in a quiz-solution sense, not in an advocate-the-investment-and-live-happily-ever-after sense. Oh, never mind...)

OK, ~jWf~, forget the HEAD stuff, right? Equitable Life and The Cazalets are both going to have a name in common, yeah? As will Bag-Head, who's a pretty well-known specific individual. I strongly recommend that you go after him, in a way that I wouldn't viz-a-viz certain life assurance products.

Let's have some stream-of-consciousness Bag-Head suggestions, right?
(This should be good...)

P.
(
Oh, yeah, and John the Baptist wasn't the gospel-writing John)

The Elephant Man?

Merrick, I think.

played by John Hurt in the movie.

Am I close?

>> (Oh, yeah, and John the Baptist wasn't the gospel-writing John) <<

Well, like the hooker said, "I just can't keep my Johns straight."



Told you I could never figure out how many John's there were. The Bible really ought to have a Cast List of Players with character descriptions and a timeline so folks'll know which one is which; there's the Baptist John, the Disciple John, the Revelator John and the Gospel According To John. It's all too confusing.



But hey! Thanks to Lucksystar, we got the Elupfront Man. I never woulda thought of a canvas sack as a paper bag but then you never said 'paper' bag did you; that was my own mis-reading (Damn the Unknown Comic!)
Anyways, now we might be getting somewhere.


~jwf~

Elephant Man is good
Now find a name (not too difficult; he didn't have too many friends, and get going with yer Google)

P.

Frederick Treves is the only one that I can think of off the top of my head...

No more clues needed!

P.

All I've got to do now is try and remember what the hell the question was!

You really want it all, don't you?

Alright - repetition, no charge...

Connect : The Brig, the Gospel According to St John, a Near-Insolvent Insurer and a Man with a Bag on his Head

Treves is the French name for Trier, a Roman city in Germany. It was the 2nd most important city in the Roman Empire.

This might be completely useless!

It's not useless!

(Come on, Luckystar - finish the job!)


P.

Wow this is getting wierd.

The man in the bag, the elupfront man, Joseph Merrick was presented to the London Pathological Society in 1884 by DOCTOR Frederick Treeves, who subsequently wrote "The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences" (1922) which was the basis for the movie.

There is an actor called Frederick Treeves
http://www.hollywood.com/celebs/detail/celeb/498206
who played a DOCTOR in a 1990/1 film called "Paper Mask"
and was in several DOCTOR WHO episodes..
..and (wait for it) he also played an 'alderman'
in "The Elephant Man".

Can't wait to see how that connects to our boy John's Gospels and the Brig.
Unless...
*rushes back to Treeves filmography site*

~j~

You've got an extra "E" in there, ~jwf~ and that won't help.

So what other parts did this second Frederick Treves play?

P.