Christmas Prize Quiz – The Judgement

This is a day earlier than I meant to publish the results, but hits on the Quiz post have just about stopped now – I haven’t had any fresh entries for a while – and I won’t have any blogging time for a few days, since we have visitors staying over Christmas.

The Quiz...

Well now – interesting. Thanks very much to all who sent in an entry, and also to those who thought about it but didn’t send one.

I received a total of 18 submissions, of which 13 were correct. Google has to take a lot of the credit, naturally, but that is the way things work now, and some good thinking went into the searches. Very well done, everyone [thank you, Miss].

There is a faint clue in the fact that my Blogger profile lists Vacances de Monsieur Hulot first among my favourite films - I’ve always loved Tati’s earlier films.

The answers, then are:

(1) It’s a bronze statue of Jacques Tati, in character as the sacred Monsieur Hulot.

(2) It is on the beach at St-Marc-sur-Mer, near St Nazaire, in Brittany (France). St Marc is where most of the film was shot in 1951.

(3) With so many direct hits, the deciding section had to be the description of how you solved it, and some appropriate reaction. This was all very entertaining – thanks for entering into the spirit of my silly quiz. On first instinct I thought Gary should have got extra points for having actually been there, but on second thought that rather discriminated against non-Europeans. I awarded extra points to entrants who ventured some original observation over and above a cut-&-paste from Wikipedia. In the end it was a very close call, but overall I found Fabrizio’s story the most amusing, and he also had the good taste to send a link to a very fine picture of a statue of Ronald Reagan, which had suffered a sad dommage at Newport Beach – this was one of the better finds on Google from “leaning statue beach”.

Result: Fabrizio wins by a very short head from Steve, Gary and Pjotr, but there were lots of great efforts. Thanks, again, very much. I’ll email Fabrizio to get his address so I can send the prize parcel. Pjotr, you get a special runner-up prize because it was so close and because yours was the only entry which included a complete untruth – I’ll be in touch.  

Here’s another couple of pictures I took on that same day in 2008 at St Marc, to give a context. I was surprised how many people found an answer on Google, but was also surprised that so few knew of Monsieur Hulot – I guess you are all too young!

The most intriguing wrong entry was from Hannibal(?), who was certain it was the promenade at Tenby (Wales), and thought the figure might be a mime artist. Well, he sort of was. To remind us (primarily myself) what this was all about, here’s a little clip from Vacances.

Which leaves me only to offer a Christmas wish to everyone. I re-read what I said last year, and I think it still sums up my sentiments on the subject, so the message is the same as before:

I wish everyone, whatever your religion or political standpoint, a peaceful and comforting Christmas, and - to anyone who reads this blog - all the very best to you and yours in the New Year, and thanks for your company.