Last night's "Say whaaat?" moment on Jeopardy!: Even though the clue included the name "Bruce Catton" and the phrase "A Stillness At ___________", two of the contestants didn't buzz in at all. The third one guessed, "What is the O.K. Corral?" but I was yelling "What is Appomattox?"
On tonight's program (British, programme) there were only blank stares from all three contestants when someone besides me should have said, "Who is Samuel Barber?" The clue mentioned "Adagio For Strings" but also included a fact that was new to me, that his life partner (that's the term that was used) was Gian-Carlo Menotti.
I will remember that from now on.
Of what use is that particular piece of information? As far as I know, it is of no use whatever.
In the words of Joe Hamilton, Carol Burnett's husband:
I'm so glad we had this time together
Just to have a laugh or sing a song
Seems we just get started and before you know it
Comes the time we have to say, "So long".
Which reminds me, who said, "So long, and thanks for all the fish"? and it wasn't Douglas Adams.
The dolphins left the message.
ReplyDeleteEmma, You are correct! Too easy, I guess.. But why? What was the occasion?
DeleteWell, as a devotee, of the five part trilogy of the Hitchhikers' Guide to The Galaxy I would have said that it was the Dolphins who left the message "So long, and thanks for all the fish." However if someone said it before the dolphins than I am unaware of it.
ReplyDeleteGraham, you’re right too! Tell me why they said it. What was happening?
DeleteI woke up this morning to find that you had answered your own question.
DeleteI don't know what you are talking about Bob but I hope on the British program that nobody from Yorkshire is asked what woke means.
ReplyDeleteRachel, now I am the one who is confused. I’m not sure what you are talking about unless you saw the discussion (non-discussion, really) on Neil’s blog about ‘woke’ where I contributed my attempt at a little clarity.
ReplyDeleteRachel, my grey matter finally started stirring and I think you were saying either that nobody in Yorkshire knows what ‘woke’ means or that nobody in Yorkshire is woke. I can be a little slow on the uptake at times.
DeleteWhat a relief to find your whole post wasn't in French! I don't understand Jeopardy at all, except to say that the OK Corral was a movie in which there was a gunfight. And if Douglas Adams didn't say that, who did?
ReplyDeleteAlphie
Alphie Soup, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, which is in Arizona, was an event in the life of Wyatt Earp, and it was a wrong answer. Appomattox, the right answer, is in Virginia, nowhere near Arizona. It was the place where General Robert E.Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S . Grant in 1865, ending the U.S. Civil War.
ReplyDeleteDouglas Adams, author of the five-volume “trilogy” Hitchhiker”s Guide Through the Galaxy wrote “So long, and thanks for all the fish “ but he didn’t say it. The dolphins said it in a message they left when they departed Planet Earth because it was going to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Now you know.
I've learnt a lesson there. Do not enter into discussion about Jeopardy. I know nothing about it, and should simply steer clear of it. After all the facts that are revealed are not going to change my life, not for better or worse. I should have stopped at the first paragraph in my comment.
DeleteAlphie
P.S.to Alphie, I made a small error that would have exposed my ignorance on Jeopardy! — it’s ‘To the Galaxy”, not ‘Through the Galaxy’. I am mortified.
DeleteI wouldn't have known the question either, and I visited Appomattox as a young child. I do remember being disappointed that the battlefield was so green and peaceful, guess I was expecting blood?
ReplyDeleteKathy, I remembered the author’s name and the title of the book because I love history and I remembered reading this book in my teens or twenties, and that it had won the Pulitzer Prize (for History, not Literature). The pastor of the church we attend grew up in Fredericksburg, not far from Appomattox.
ReplyDelete