Summer Prize Competition 2013

I’ve been meaning to do something about this for a while, but kept getting distracted. Now the fact that the Summer is starting to look a bit tired here has prompted me to get on with it.

I’ve given up on my previous “place the photo” system – it was fun, but mostly just for me.

Here’s a simpler idea. The overgrown ECW mortar from my previous post looks as if it could do with a name. I know they liked to name their artillery pieces in those days – give them personalities. So let’s go with that.

Here’s what to do – please send me a comment, or email to the address in my Blogger profile, setting out what you think the gunners might have called their mortar, why you think it’s a good name (any personal stories explaining associations are likely to give extra credits), how you think history should record the reason it was given this name and anything else you think might be relevant – or of interest, even if not relevant. Gratuitous profanity (beyond a realistic measure of historically-authentic colour) will lose you marks.

I thank you.

I’ll score any responses entirely subjectively and unfairly, bringing to bear the full weight of my customary, unreasoning prejudice. The sender of the entry which pleases me most will win a prize, plus – of course – a little measure of immortality in the lasting name of the mortar.

Oh yes – the prize. I happen to have an extra, unread copy of Stephen Bull’s most excellent A General Plague of Madness – The Civil Wars in Lancashire 1640-1660 – paperback, 500pp, with maps and illustrations. Highly recommended if, like me, you are interested in the “backwater” areas of the ECW.

Entries will be accepted up until 10^th September, or September 10^th if you prefer your dates the wrong way round. If there’s anything else I’ve forgotten to stipulate, please just make it up.

The Spring Quiz - results

I won't be around to do anything with this tomorrow, and I've had no responses at all for the last week about the Quiz, so I'll close it a day early, with my sincere thanks to the 22 people who submitted entries - or comments and (mostly) emails which looked like entries.

I very much enjoyed reading the explanations and reasoning - it was possible to score as many points for an entertaining justification of the wrong place as for no justification at all for a near miss. Thank you again to anyone who took part, or who thought about it but didn't send an entry.

My two winners are JohnPreece, who scored highly all round and was a remarkable half a kilometre out, and Vive l'Empereur, who did a good line in reasoning and finished up with a stab which was only 40 Km off. I also read some nice reasons why it was Portugal, or Spain, or Greece, or Provence. In fact the photo was taken on private land, from the access road at the wine production estate of La Mormoraia, looking almost due south towards the ancient town of San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy, which is the collection of towers on the hill in the distance. Access to the winery is off the minor road linking San Gimignano with Certaldo, just north of the hamlet of Sant' Andrea. I reckon this is 3.5 Km as the crow flies, so John was very close indeed.

I stayed with my family in a self-catering apartment at La Mormoraia that year - in a heatwave! - and became a loyal and regular customer at the big Co-op in San Gimignano, which has splendid air-conditioning. The estate is a phenomenal place for a holiday - everything that Tuscany is supposed to be - and the house wine is a bit special too.

The best of the runners-up were Jiminho, Prof De Vries, Mrs Crick, Angelo, Xaltotun of Python, Paul Dempster, Martin S, Dino Di Monnaco (who lives just a few miles from the target area), Patrick Walsh and rosso471.

I'll contact the winners to get postal addresses for the prizes. Thank you all again. You have helped make a happy man very old.

The Spring Quiz

It's getting quite Spring-like here in the Land of Mud. I fancy another silly quiz, since I rather enjoyed the last one.The prize this time is interesting (if you like that sort of thing) rather than especially valuable. I have two copies of a CD containing my private collection of French Napoleonic marches and fanfares. All good quality stuff - public domain, but hard to come by. Excellent for motivating the little soldiers, by the way.

Similar arrangement to last time - please have a good look at the following picture, and see if you can work out where it was taken.

(1) Where was I standing when I took this photo? Please be specific - give an actual location, or the name of a nearby village or something - "France" or "California" would be examples of poor answers. (There are up to 10 points available for this, depending how far your answer is in a straight line from the real place. If your answer is too general, I shall place it at the furthest point possible...)

(2) How do you know, or how did you work it out? Also, do you have any thoughts about this? (up to 10 points for this section, with originality, ingenuity and humour scoring high) 

You can comment here (tell me if you don't want it published!) or (probably better) email me through my Blogger profile. I'll send a copy of the CD to each of the two entries I judge to be best. I'll keep this open until March 14th, and publish the exciting results shortly afterwards. When I have some winners, I'll arrange to get postal addresses to send the prizes.

You will want to know that I took the photo at around 10 in the morning, on 17th July 2007, in the northern hemisphere. I'm sorry the picture does not have higher resolution - it's the best I've got...

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 President 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.

Christmas Prize Quiz

While sorting out my bookshelves, I find that I have two good copies of HT Siborne's "Waterloo Letters", so I thought it would be amusing to offer one as a prize in an appropriately off-beat quiz, just for Christmas. Well - actually it's just to get rid of the extra copy, but it might still be amusing.

The book is a collection of 200 of the letters which were sent to William Siborne in the 1830s when he was gathering data to build his ill-fated model of the Battle of Waterloo. The collection was originally published by his son in 1891 - this is the 1993 edition published by Greenhill books. It is in nice, clean condition. The dustjacket is a bit faded, and is what one of my sons used to term "scrunkled" slightly at the ends of the spine, and there is a little general shelf-wear, but the book is tight and firm and doesn't smell.

If you fancy it, all you have to do is have a look at the photo below and answer some questions. If you don't know the answers, have a guess.

(1) What is this? (up to 5 points available for this)

(2) Where is it, exactly? (give an actual location - up to 10 points available, depending how far your answer is in a straight line from the real place)

(3) How do you know, or how did you work it out? Also, do you have any thoughts about this? (up to 10 points for this section, with originality, ingenuity and humour scoring high)

You can comment here (tell me if you don't want it published!) or (probably better) email me through my Blogger profile. I'll keep this open until Christmas Eve (24th December), and publish the exciting results shortly afterwards. When I have a winner, I'll arrange to get a postal address to send the prize.

All you detectives will want to know that I took the photo at around 11 in the morning, on 21st July 2008, in the northern hemisphere.