10Q (Feb 12, 2024)

1. In 19th-century Britain, a 'fawney' was a colloquial word for a finger ring. A confidence game called the 'fawney rig' developed that involved the con artists dropping what looked like a golden ring on the street, and rushing to pick it up the moment a bystander went for it. They would then offer to keep the ring in exchange for half of what they could get from it. Some marks would take this to indicate that the object was a valuable one, and would instead bargain for it at a price. Money having changed hands, the conman would vamoose, and the poor sap who took the ring would later find out that it was just brass. What common word in English has its roots in the 'fawney rig'?

2. The vertical picture at left in the composite below shows kuzhi paniyaram (close-up at top right) being prepared in Tamil Nadu in a specialised cast iron pan. The photo at bottom right is of an European breakfast item called poffertjes. Which colonial power brought the poffertjes pan used for making these mini pancakes to India, and left it behind to be adapted into a paniyaram pan?

3. Shot from an unusual perspective, what is the picture below a photo of?

4. Shown below is a Bouguer [X] anomaly map, showing variations in [X] around the earth. Positive anomalies occur in areas coloured red. Negative anomalies are found in areas coloured blue.The anomaly is named after French scientist Pierre Bouguer (1698-1758), a prodigy who became a professor of hydrography at the age of 16. Among his many discoveries was the fact that small regional variations in [X] could be related to the varying density of subterraneous rocks in the subsurface. What is [X]? Also, what is the unit 'gal' a shortening of?

5. The surname of this Goan artist comes from the Portuguese word for 'mosque' For half a point, give me that word; for full points tell me the artist's full name.

6. The actor Milla Jovovich, fluent in four laguages, helped director Luc Besson develop the Divine Language that her character Leeloo speaks in this 1997 sci-fi movie. To get the character to sound natural when speaking it, Besson and Jovovich would hold conversations and write letters to each in the language as practice. Which movie?

7. The photo below is of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of [X], aka Lord [X], who was Secretary of State for India in 1866-67 and again from 1874 to 1878. He went on to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, holding that position for three stints between 1885 and 1902. A city founded in 1890 in what was at the time one of Britain's African colonies was named Fort [X] after him. In the 1920s, later the name was shorted to just [X] and the city became the capital of the colonial country. In 1982, on the second annivasary of the country's independence from the UK, it was renamed [Y]. What are [X] and [Y]?

8. The meme below purports to be the origin story of what 3-word Hindi phrase, which is the chorus line of a song from 'Soorma', the 2018 biopic of hockey player Sunny Singh?

9. The rule articulated in this 1985 episode of the weekly comic strip 'Dykes to Watch Out For' are commemorated as what 'test' named after the strip's creator?

10. The last sailing ship to serve as a flagship of the Royal Navy, this vessel was launched in November 1821 at Bombay Dockyard and named HMS ______ after an Indian river. Fill in the blank.

Answers
1. Phony
2. The Dutch
3. The Guggenheim Museum atrium
4. Gravity, Galileo
5. Ted Misquita (the Portuguese word can also be spelt 'mesquita')
6. The Fifth Element

7. Salisbury > Harare
8. Goodman di laaltein (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNhpBpLGyAE)
9. Bechdel test, after Alison Bechdel
10. HMS Ganges

10Q (Feb 6, 2024)

1. What word – German for 'compulsion to move', and one of the last words in any English dictionary – is generally used in the context of chess and other games?

2. Sling ____ and port ____ are the two main acceptable ways of carrying what? Both blanks are the same word.

3. Shown in the composite image above is the logo of the oldest existing club football tournament in Asia, and the person who it is named after, who started it in 1888 while recuperating from illness in Shimla. Name the tournament.

4. Frank Welker, who voiced the monkey in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvF3eAYSGfs), also did the sounds for which monkey in a 1999 Hollywood movie?

5. Which organisation's headquarters is this, and in which city would you find it? [1 point each]

6. The name of what creature, also called a 'shark sucker' or 'suckerfish', comes from the word for 'delay' in Latin, because ancient sailors believed they had the power to slow or even stop a ship by attaching themselves to it?

7. When this book was chosen in November 2001 as Book of the Month by Oprah Winfrey – only her second non-American book choice after Bernhard Schlink's 'The Reader' – its publisher Knopf printed an extra 700,000 copies, half a million of which sold. Though this lesson on educational site Vallath places the book as 'Canadian literature', in most other mentions, it would be classified in Indian writing in English. Using the visual as a clue, name the book (which was also in the 1996 Booker Prize shortlist) and its author. [1 point each]

8. What food item popular in Goa and originating in the Iberian peninsula, has a Filipino version flavoured with indigenous spices called the longaniza?

9. American writer H.L. Mencken, complaining of the tepidity of the American vocabulary of profanity, wrote about this sometimes hyphenated 4-word term that "is so lacking in punch that the Italians among us have borrowed it as a satirical name for an American: la sanemagogna is what they call him, and by it they indicate their contempt for his backwardness in the art that is one of their great glories." What is the term?

10. Depicted on this currency note are poet Banjo Paterson and elements from his poem “The Man From Snowy River". The poem was also commemorated in two films, a silent black-and-white version released in 1920, and an award-winning 1982 drama, which held the title of the most popular film of all time from its country [X] until the release of [Y] in 1986. Which country [X], and what movie [Y], that remains to this day the highest-grossing movie from that country? [1 point each]

Answers
1. Zugzwang
2. Firearms

3. Durand Cup, named after Sir Henry Mortimer Durand
4. Abu in 'Alladin' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7GVxPpR-n8)
5. NATO HQ in Brussels

6. Remora
7. 'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry

8. Chouriço
9. Son-of-a-gun
10. Australia, 'Crocodile Dundee'

10Q (Jan 30, 2024)

1. Tannenbaum is the German word for a fir tree. Knowing that, what is the title of the well-known English translation of the song "O Tannenbaum", written in 1824 by organist, teacher and composer Ernst Anschütz?

2. And, during World War 2, Operation Tannenbaum was the planned but never carried-out invasion of which country by Nazi Germany?

3. As part of its marketing strategy, Amar Chitra Katha has been selling collections of its comics as thematic packs, such as the five Elements of Nature packs shown in the visual below, each with its own theme. Apart from titles related to Fire, Water, Wind and Earth, what is the name of the 5th pack, which is an anagram of one of the other packs? [Clue: it's not strictly speaking an 'Element of Nature'.]

4. In Persian, 'hamazakaran' is a term that means 'to make war'. The related Persian word for 'warriors' is cited as one of the possible origins for an English word that has traversed a long route from Greek mythology through geography to commerce. The folk etymology that links it to an amputation story is specious, as there is no indication in Greek art of such a practice. What's the English word?

5.  Talking about warriors, by what 2-word term do we better know the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, a religious military order that existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages.

6. Forged by the dwarven brothers Sindri and Brokkr, its characteristically short handle was due to a mishap during its manufacture. What object whose name is usually interpreted as meaning "that which smashes" was this? It's become widely known over the past 15 years because of a popular Hollywood film franchise.

7. This is a historical novel about Rani Jindan, one of the minor wives of an influential 19th-century Indian ruler, who gained prominence after his death in 1839, largely through her efforts to sustain a princely legacy for her son Duleep Singh. Which Maharaja was she the 'last queen' of?

8.  This 4-letter adjective, defined by Merriam-Webster as "very eccentric or absurd, often in an amusing way", came into English as a noun word for a theatrical buffoon. That was rooted in a stock servant character in the Italian commedia dell’arte. The Italian name for the character – from which the English word arose – was a colloquial shortening of the Italian form of the name John. What's the English word?

9. Hugely popular in the US after their path-breaking feats in the late 1920s and '30s, this couple had a spectacular fall from grace in the lead-up to the Second World War. Invited to inspect the rising power of Nazi Germany's Air Force, the husband was full of praise and admiration, and strongly campaigned against the US getting involved in the war. The wife wrote a booklet titled 'The Wave of the Future', arguing that something resembling fascism was inevitable. The Roosevelt administration attacked 'The Wave of the Future' as "the bible of every American Nazi, Fascist, Bundist and Appeaser", and the booklet became one of the most despised writings of the period. She had also written in a letter, of Hitler, that he was "a very great man, like an inspired religious leader – and as such rather fanatical – but not scheming, not selfish, not greedy for power." Who were the couple? Just the shared surname will do.

10. Fill in the blanks in this verse from 'Paradise Lost: The Fourth Book' by John Milton, which contains a dialogue between Gabriel and Satan. This is the origin of a certain common 4-word phrase in English.

"So judge thou still, presumptuous, till the wrauth,
Which thou incurr’st by flying, meet thy flight
Sevenfold, and scourge that wisdom back to ____,
Which taught thee yet no better that no pain
Can equal anger infinite provoked.
But wherefore thou alone? Wherefore with thee
Came not ___ ____ _____ ____? Is pain to them
Less pain, less to be fled? or thou than they
Less hardy to endure? Courageous chief,
The first in flight from pain, hadst thou alleged
To thy deserted host this cause of flight,
Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.”

The blank at the end of the 3rd line is the second word in the missing phrase.

 

Answers

1. "O Christmas Tree": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQLdqnICsS8
Here's the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xww_oaafCBA
2. Switzerland
3. Heart

4. Amazon, from 'ha-mazan'
5. Knights Templar
6. Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor
7. Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab
8. Zany, from 'zanni', short for Giovanni
9. Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh
10. All Hell broke loose

10Q (Jan 21, 2024)

1. Shown below are a satellite image of Guanabara Bay and an early 20th-century picture of a city on its banks. The bay was first encountered by Europeans on January 1, 1502, when the Portuguese explorers Gaspar de Lemos and Gonçalo Coelho arrived on its shores. The name given by the exploration team to the bay originally used the Portuguese word for lagoon as part of the name of the bay, but some confusion in spelling led to it being called a river instead. The resulting name of the bay was later also given to the city on its shore. What is it called?

2. Watch this title sequence of a children's TV series very popular in the 1990s, and name the singer.

3. Formerly part of Hyderabad Division in the province of Sindh, the division in red below was renamed Shaheed _______abad District in 2008, on the demand of most of the Members of the Provincial Assembly. Whose first name fills the blank?

 

 

4. In Greek, 'ateleia' is a word used for, among other things, 'tax exemption'. In the 1860s, Frenchman George Herpin combined this with a Greek prefix to come up with what word for something he loved doing?

5. This is a plaque outside a building called Blavatsky House in Mumbai. Which organisation's 'Three Objects' are listed on it?

6. Which toy brand's mascot Murph is this?

7. In medieval Japan, a Tessen was a disguised weapon that samurai could take into places where swords or other overt weapons were not allowed. Apart from as a weapon of offence, it was also used for fending off arrows and darts, as a throwing weapon, and as an aid in swimming. What everyday object was the Tessen a variation of?

In the following 2 questions, use the letters (a), (b), (c) to identify your answers 

8. (a) What word has been blanked out in the Amul Topical shown below? (b) What popular TV show is the subject of this ad?

9. Three parts to this question.
Who (a: with the red headdress) is shown guiding whom (b: in the brown robes) through Hell in this 1822 painting by the French painter (c)?

10. Give me a 2-word term that connects the 3 visuals below.

Answers

1. Rio de Janeiro (January River, because of the date of discovery)

2. Amit Kumar 

3. Benazir Bhutto (the division is now called Benazirabad) 

4. Philately – Herpin loved collecting stamps, which were a new invention at the time

 

5. Theosophical Society

 

6. Nerf – he's made up of the darts shot from a Nerf gun

 

7. A fan – the tessen is an iron-reinforced war fan, sometimes incorporating sharp metals tips and throwing knives

 

8. Oven, 'Made in Heaven'

9. (a) Virgil (b) Dante (c) Eugène Delacroix 

10. Round Table – Algonquin Round Table, Knights of the Round Table, Round Table India

One-Off Q (Oct 17, 2021)

Take a look at this video clip, and list the answers to the questions below it. Post your answers in the Comments box, clearly marked with the appropriate letters of the alphabet, and with your name at the bottom of the post.

Questions

A-B. Name this movie A and its director B.
C. Name the main actor C, the young guy with the blond hair who walks into the club, and at the end of the clip runs off with the neck of the broken guitar.
D. Name the 1983 Indian movie D that has a scene directly inspired by something from this movie (a mention of B even appears in that scene).
E-G. Identify the group E that is seen playing in this clip, and the two guitarists F (who smashes his guitar) and G (at the extreme left on stage in a black jacket similar to F's).
H. After E split up in the late 1960s, G went on to form what was initially called The New E, but later became famous as H. What is H?
I. The movie A had fleeting, uncredited appearances by several people who would become famous later in life. Identify the actor I whom you see for a short while starting 00:36 in the clip [screenshot below].

 

Answers
A. 'Blow-Up'
B. Michelangelo Antonioni
C. David Hemmings
D. 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro'
E. The Yardbirds
F. Jeff Beck
G. Jimmy Page
H. Led Zeppelin
I. Michael Palin

10Q (March 24, 2018)

[For most of the images, larger versions can be viewed by clicking on them]

1. John William Hessing was a soldier from the Netherlands, initially in the employ of the Dutch East India Company in Ceylon. After the British overpowered the Dutch in 1781 and annexed all their sub-continental holdings, Colonel Hessing continued the fight as a mercenary, first in the employ of the Nizam of Hyderabad, and later the Marathas. He was rewarded with the prestigious command of the Agra Fort, which he retained for almost two decades, dying in battle on 21 July, 1803 defending the fort against the British. In commemoration, his wife Ann reversed the story of a then 170-year-old labour of love, and built him a tomb of red sandstone which has come to be known as the Red [X], less than 10km from the original [X]. What is [X]?

2. Which French poet, whom Victor Hugo described as "an infant Shakespeare", produced his best known works while still in his late teens, and gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21? He is seen seated second from left in this 1872 painting, with his lover Paul Verlaine at extreme left.

3. [Y] Day is an unofficial holiday celebrated among chemists on October 23, between 6:02 AM and 6:02 PM, making the date 6:02 10/23 in the American style of writing dates. What is [Y], also the name of a creature of the Talpidae family?

4. This vehicle was originally called a [Z] Hanseat, a brand belonging to the German company Oscar Vidal und Sohn [Z]-Werk GmbH. Three-wheeled trucks, vans and the curious soft-top passenger taxi you see in the second image were manufactured in India under license by Bajaj-[Z] from 1960 until 2000. In Madhya Pradesh, it is affectionately called a bhatsuar – a 'stuttering mechanical pig'. The name [Z] has since disappeared in Germany, but is still a generic term in India, for small transport vehicles. What is [Z]?

5. In the printing and typesetting industry, this is a two-word term for dummy text. It has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing _____ _____ passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like PageMaker including versions of this dummy text. The term comes from the following lines in 'De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum' ('The Extremes of Good and Evil') by Cicero, written in 45 BC, a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance: "Neque porro quisquam est qui _______ _____ quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..." ("There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."). What is the term?

6. The ancient Chaldean word 'Gizbar', which means 'treasurer', has led to a number of names in European languages, including the Dutch Jasper and the Danish Jesper. Give me two of these derivatives – [A], which one would associate with a convivial supernatural entity; and [B], the name of a nobleman after whom a fort that once stood in the Miramar area of Panjim was named.

7. Who is this, reciting his own translations of whose poetry? [Two answers required]
[Audio clip]

8. While working in the postal service of the Council of Europe in the 1950s, Arsène Heitz, an Austrian draughtsman submitted 21 of the 101 designs for [C] that are conserved in the Council of Europe Archives. One of these designs, inspired by the twelve-star halo of the Virgin Mary, often portrayed in Roman Catholic art,  was the one finally chosen. In 2002, Dutch architect [D] and his architecture firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) suggested a new design in response to Commission President Romano Prodi's request to find ways of rebranding the European Union in a way that represents Europe's "diversity and unity". The proposed new design, shown here, was dubbed the [E], and has also been compared unfavourably to wallpaper, a TV test card and deckchair fabric. What are [C], [D], and [E]?

9. Name this dramatic adaptation of the tiatr format, written in English and directed by Sunil Shanbag. Set on a Goan river island in the 1970s, the play is named for the bhatkar's son's Anglo-Indian girlfriend. The play was first staged in Mumbai in April 2016 as part of the Aadyam theatre initiative of the Aditya Birla group.


10. This drug cartel in Mexico was founded by a small group of Mexican Army Special Forces deserters and now includes corrupt former federal, state, and local police officers. The group's name comes from its first leader, Lieutenant Arturo Guzman Decena, whose Federal Judicial Police radio code was "Z1", a code given to high-ranking officers. What are they called, from a Greek / Latin / Spanish word equivalent to the letter 'Z'?

Answers
1. Taj Mahal

2. Arthur Rimbaud
3. Mole
The naming is derived from Avogadro's number, which is approximately 6.02×10^23, defining the number of particles (atoms or molecules) in one mole of substance, one of the seven base SI units.
4. Tempo
5. Lorem Ipsum

6. [A] Casper, [B] Gaspar (Dias)
7. Watch...
Gulzar, Rabindranath Tagore
8. [C] EU flag [D] Rem Koolhaas [E] Barcode
9. 'Loretta'
10. Los Zetas

10Q (March 19, 2018)

[For most of the images, larger versions can be viewed by clicking on them]

1. You may have heard of Sake Dean Mohamed, the first person to open an Indian restaurant in Britain. While the restaurant didn't work out, in 1814 Mohamed and his Irish wife Jane moved to Brighton and opened a public bath-house, also the first of its kind in England. The bath-house was very popular, and both King George IV and his successor William IV were among the customers. It was billed as a 'health resort', specialising in '_______ing', a word derived from a certain Indian activity. This was hugely successful, and resulted in Mohamed being appointed _______ing Surgeon to both George IV and William IV. What's the blanked-out word (both blanks are the same)?

2. An [X] was the basic tactical unit of the Roman army following the reforms of Gaius Marius in 107 BCE, with a legion consisting of ten [X]s, named the first [X], the second [X] and so on. The first [X] was considered to be the most senior and prestigious, and the tenth the least. Each [X] consisted of six 'centuries' of 80 men.
(a) What is [X], currently also used in scientific, especially biological, contexts?
(b) The [X] sagittaria was a specialised auxiliary unit consisting of what type of soldiers?

3. Watch this video clip.

If you have trouble playing the Youtube video, you can download the clip from here.
This is an age-old form of Hindu religious discourse known as Harikatha or Katha Kalakshepa, popular in Andhra Pradesh, in which Haridasus go around villages singing devotional songs telling the stories of Vishnu. Who, according to Hindu mythology, was the first Harikatha singer?

4. This is Mona E. Simpson (born Mona Jandali, June 14, 1957), a prize-winning American author and professor of English. She is also the biological younger sister of a person whom she first met when she was 25 years old, after he tracked down his birth mother, Joanne Carole Schieble, who had had him out of wedlock in 1955 and given him up for adoption. The siblings developed a close friendship, but kept their relationship secret until 1986, when Simpson introduced her brother at the book party for her first novel, 'Anywhere But Here'. Her first three books, 'Anywhere But Here' (1986), 'The Lost Father' (1992) and 'A Regular Guy' (1996) were based on her mother, father and brother, respectively. Who was her brother?

5. What nine-letter English word borrowed directly from Italian, that is used to refer to a confused, messy situation (as in the titles of these books), shares its origins with a common culinary term meaning 'to roast'?

6. Born in Junagadh in pre-Independence India, he was coached early on by a Gujarati named Jaomal Naomal, and late in life said that he wished Partition had never taken place. He was 16 when he first toured India in 1951-52, celebrating his 17th birthday during the Test series. His precocity impressed Jawaharlal Nehru – who specially asked to be introduced to him in New Delhi – as well as many other Indians, some of whom woke up the Pakistani cricketers at railway stations as they criss-crossed the country, demanding to see the boy wonder. His team-mates were so impressed by this adulation that they nicknamed him 'Dilip', after Dilip Kumar, himself originally from Peshawar and once named Yusuf Khan. Who?

7. Predatory insects of the genera Vespula and Dolichovespula, known simply as wasps in most English-speaking countries, are in North America known by a two-word name based on their distinctive colouring. This name has also been used as the name of multiple superheroes and supervillains, including at least one of each by Marvel Comics. A mutant version also turns up in 'The Hunger Games', in the form of the 'tracker jacker', a genetically mutated species that's lethal due to its repeated stings. Its most visible place in American popular culture is as a mascot, most famously with the Georgia Tech ______ _______ American football team, represented by the mascot Buzz (below). Fill in the blanks.


8. This Hollywood actor comes from a Swedish noble family descended from the cavalry lieutenant Nils Gunnarsson ____, ennobled in 1652 with the addition of the Swedish word for 'Golden' to his surname. In an interview related to the première of the movie 'Prince of Persia' in 2010, the actor jokingly told an interviewer that his last name was pronounced "Yil-en-hoo-luh-hay", poking fun at Americans' difficulties with pronunciation of foreign words. Who? [Need full name for the full point]

9. PCOs in many parts of India are using SIM boxes such as the one shown below to achieve a transformation that is often used by phishing rackets in which people are duped by calls purporting to have been made from their banks. What do these SIM boxes do?

10. This is an extract from "The Sedan Also Rises", a 2015 article about the hunt for a 1955 Chrysler New Yorker belonging to [Z]: "It seems to be one of the few items from [Z]’s entire life that hasn’t been preserved. His birth certificate hangs in his boyhood home in Oak Park, Illinois. His wooden skis adorn the wall of Sloppy Joe’s bar in Key West. His childhood scrapbook is searchable online ... Generations after his death, he still attracts pilgrims who follow his footsteps from Petoskey, Michigan to Pamplona, Spain. It’s not his books that inspire lookalikes to sweat on the streets of Key West every summer for his birthday celebration. It’s his image as a man who lived life intensely. For devotees, to sit at his barstool or stand in his study or peek at the 'Pilar' is to touch a little bit of the man. These objects are relics in a shrine." Identify [Z].

Answers
1. Shampoo (from the Hindi 'champi')
2. (a) Cohort (b) Archers
3. Narada 
4. Steve Jobs
5. Imbroglio, cognate with 'broil'
6. Hanif Mohammad
7. Yellow Jacket
8. Jake Gyllenhaal
9. It translates international data calls into voice calls
10. Ernest Hemingway

10Q (March 11, 2018)

[For most of the images, larger versions can be viewed by clicking on them]

1. La Madone des Motards, known in English as the festival of the Madonna of the [X] (it's a plural word), is promoted as the largest “pilgrimage” of its kind in France. Begun in 1979 by a local abbot as an event for himself and 37 friends, it annually attracts 10,000-plus participants from across Europe to the fields of Porcaro, population 650, in Brittany. What is [X]?

2. In biological studies, 'in vitro' refers to studies or experiments conducted outside the living body and in an artificial environment. In contrast, 'in vivo' refers to studies or experiments that are performed in the living body of a plant or animal. What are experiments conducted 'in silico', a term coined by mathematician Pedro Miramontes in his 1989 report "DNA and RNA Physicochemical Constraints, Cellular Automata and Molecular Evolution"?

3. A former industrialist born and raised in a conservative Hindu family in Burma, S.N. Goenka (photo above) stumbled upon this form of meditation while searching for a ‘cure’ for his migraines. He reached out to local teacher U Ba Khin, who refused him at first, chiding him for looking at an ancient way of meditation for something so mundane. Not to be deterred, Goenka handed over his business to his family, and spent the rest of his life learning and teaching the techniques. In 1969, he came back to India and re-introduced it here (the teaching had been lost over the years) and set up the first meditation centre.
(a) What technique? (b) In which small town in Nashik district in Maharashtra did he set up the first centre?

4. Betta splendens, also known as the betta, is a popular species of freshwater aquarium fish (photo above). The name of the genus is derived from ikan bettah, taken from a Malay dialect. The wild ancestors of this fish are native to the rice paddies of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam and are called pla-kad (meaning 'biting fish') in Thai. Tending to be rather aggressive, they have been used for 'battles' since prior to the 19th century in south-east Asia. Seeing the popularity of these encounters, King Nongklao started licensing and collecting these fish in the 1840s. What common name are they known by in English?

5. Developed for US military use in the late 2000s by a team at Ekso Bionics under a licensing agreement from Lockheed Martin, what kind of device / mode of transport is the Human Universal Load Carrier, or HULC?

6. The blurb on this non-fiction book cover is by its author's well-known sister, whose name and description have been blanked out. Name her.

7. Having been forgotten on the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, this tiny principality remained legally at war with Germany till 1958, when it formally 'declared peace'. Which country nestled between two larger nations?

8. A vaquero is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that originated on the Iberian Peninsula, and remains a part of the doma vaquera, the Spanish tradition of working riding. Vaquero traditions that developed in Mexico from these Spanish antecedents also became the foundation for the North American cowboy. This is reflected in what word for a cowboy, especially one in the California region of the US, that derives from the word 'vaquero'?

9. I was asked this year to be one of the judges for the Publishing Next Award for Cover of the Year. This was one of the designs submitted. Identify the author. [Enlarge the picture to read the author bio.]

10. These are two early-life memoirs of which famous author?


Answers
1. Bikers

2. Biological experiments carried out entirely in a computer simulation
3. (a) Vipassana (b) Igatpuri
4. Siamese fighting fish
Nongklao was King Rama III of the Chakri dynasty, predecessor and half-brother of King Mongkut or Rama IV, whose life was the subject of the book 'Anna and the King of Siam' (also made into a film), and the subsequent musical 'The King and I'.
5. An exoskeleton
It is an un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton, designed to help soldiers in combat carry a load of up to 90 kg at a top speed of 10 miles per hour for extended periods of time.

6. Mindy Kaling, whose real name is Vera Mindy Chokalingam

7. Andorra
8. Buckaroo
9. M. Veerappa Moily
10. Roald Dahl