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

"current" eh?

does one of them not really exist anymore?

Not as far as I'm aware...

Is it clue time?

Current does mean current. It means this year and not last year.

Belgium is a kingdom, the others are republics?

Indonesia is made up of islands; whereas the others are each only one area of land?

For reference ;

>>
Indonesia
Belgium
Panama
South Africa
Italy

Which is the odd one out and why?<<

(Verminette says the odd one out is Venezuela, because it's not in the list. She also says that isn't how you spell Venezuela, so that makes her wrong twice).

Venezuela not being on the list is very significant.

Same goes for Guatemala.

Dammit. You do realise that the brat now thinks she's important?

Quite right too If that was a swing in the dark, it was inspired.

OK. It appears that Verminette knew the answer all along.

These 5 countries are the ones elected to the UN Secutity Council last year.

Panama is the odd one out, because it wasn't originally nominated. They stuffed it in as a late compromise because Bush would have taken his ball home if Chavez got in.

I must confess i didn't realise that my daughter was that well-versed in world politics, although I diid realise of course that she was that opinionated.

It's what Daughters do best - be opinionated that is

Bullseye!

(It wasn't the odd one out I had in mind when I set it - I was thinking of South Africa because it's the only one of the five never to have held a seat on the Security Council before - but your odd one out's much more interesting )

Well-versed? I'll say This wasn't exactly top-of-the-head knowledge on my part.

Over to you Pin...

There will be a short delay while Verm thinks up the next quiz.
(I'm never going to live this down. I thought she was mucking about. It never remotely occurred to me that she knew the answer. And now she won't shut up)

Why Guatemala, incidentally?

The Latin American block had a week of tied voting, between Venezuela and Guatemala - Panama was then put forward as a compromise candidate to break the deadlock.

Ah.
That sounds a lot more diplomatic than the version that's ringing in my ears.

Oh well - I suspect the president of Guatemala's played golf/gone shooting/had tea with Dubya a few more times than Chavez has.

Verminette asks :

What precedes the following list of words?

Angevin, covey, enweave, glycerine, lustral, priest, slouch

By that do you mean to say that there is one word that could happily sit before each and every one of these words, or are you searching for a word to take the place in the list before Angevin?

I'm still not sure it helps me figure it out though!

Sorry. No more explanation just yet!

I think the seven deadly sins precede them in the dictionary.

I'm inclined to agree with Icy:

Anger - Angevin
Covetousness - Covey
Envy - Enweave
Gluttony - Glycerine
Lust - Lustral
Pride - Priest
Sloth - Slouch