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

Some old chestnuts, some maybe not so.

1. Which country is named after a chemical element?

2. Which country gives its name to an article of clothing?

3. Which of these is not a kingdom: Madagascar, Morocco, Netherlands, Swaziland?

4. What 20th century composer's name means (in English) two contradictory things that can be expressed by two words identical apart from their first letter?

5. Which of these has an eponymous hero: The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, Watership Down, Dances With Wolves?

6. When was the first ostensibly featureless monochrome canvas exhibited in an influential art gallery: in the 1920s, 1950s, or 1980s?

Off the top of my head:

1. Argentina
2. Knickeragua, Tieland? (still thinking)
3. Madagascar sounds most likely
4. (still thinking)
5. Dances With Wolves, I think.
6. I'd guess the 1920s, but I really don't know.

Three out of six.

5 can only be the Man in the Iron Mask, surely.

Am still trying to get my early morning mind round the composer thing, and for countries named after elements - there was me trying to remember which countries ended in 'ium'.

Yeah, clothing. So many named after places, jodhpur, balaclava, cardigan, homburg, but a whole country!!!??? Although, based on the 'Argent - Argentinia' principle, I suppose French knickers would fit.

2. Panama fits (well, some of them fit)

The best I can do for 4 is:

John Cage = Poop Coop

I started perusing this list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_20th-century_classical_composers

but I baulked at finding a translation for Rimsky-Korsakov.

On Q6, the old Libyan flag was monochrome, so it was presumably flying above exhibitions in Tripoli and elsewhere for many years.

Bermuda shorts

And Dances With Wolves. Remember, "Dances With Wolves" was the name given to the protagonist during by the Lakota.

Ah. I never saw the film. (Must be the last person on the planet....)

Hmm. I don't think a flag is actually an "exhibit", Icy. I would guess the 1920s for that one, too. Was it dadaism?

Hmm, no. 4 is abstruse enough. Let's say The name is not English, but reading it as though it were, it could with the addition of a T or a G before it go for a drive.

About no. 6, I don't count a flag as a canvas. I'm talking about a primed and mounted canvas painted with a single colour with no variety of shade, and exhibited as an art work.

Rabo Karabekian's _The Temptation of Saint Anthony_ nearly fits the description.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabo_Karabekian

Nearly... except I am not thinking of a fictional artist.

Icy was right about Argentina, Madagascar, and Dances with Wolves. I rule out The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask as it is not their names that give the story its name, and Watership Down is a location rather than a hero.

I was annoyed and disgusted at the scene in which the hero was told that he had been named "Dances with wolves". It was the look of slow realisation that came over Kevin Costner's face: "Ah, so that's why they called the movie that". What I hate about Hollywood. No other country (well perhaps Bollywood) would take such pains to prod the audience reaction in such an insultingly redundant way.

Heh... I know how you feel. Stephen King famously dislikes the Stanley Kubrick version of _The Shining_ and prefers the 1997 made for TV miniseries. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118460/

This version doesn't ever go longer than the next commercial break to remind you that Jack has a drinking problem.

After your last clue, is 4 Ravel? I'm not sure that gravel and travel are particularly contradictory, but maybe in the context of 'drive'.

That's the one. The contradictory meanings of 'ravel' are entangle and untangle. Gravel and travel were bonuses.

Ah, all becomes clear! We rarely use 'ravel' these days.

So are we still waiting for Q2? It wasn't Panama, then?