dubdobdee ([info]dubdobdee) wrote,
@ 2008-01-15 11:13:00
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wiki-illiam q8!
8. Which pirate:
i: inspired Sir Walter Scott?
ii: had a terminal encounter with a crocodile?
iii: masqueraded as Sir Charles Ewan, Governor of St Kitts?
iv: was terminated off Ramsey when the Marine Offence Act became law?
v: together with her colleague Mary, pleaded pregnancy and escaped the gallows?
vi: had a high, old, tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken in the capstan bars?
vii: was placed in his apprenticeship through a mishearing of the word pilot?
viii: was hacked to pieces and roasted limb by limb in the Gulf of Darien?
ix: tended his geraniums in his window box in Bridgewater?
x: hated man too much to feel remorse?

the rules as they have evolved:
a: give nice full answers and anecdotes where possible!
b: say if googled or not, and leave a bit of a while for people to answer non-googlingly
c: you're obviously allowed to look ahead at future questions as (first) this was published in a national newspaper and i can't stop you and (second) i can't stop ME either, and have done exactly this
d: let other fora in same game be (unpoliceably) Out of Bounds till next set is up -- even tho obv they are all wronghead feebs compared to us

v is ann bonney; for other actual real pirate names see my essays --
1, 2 and 3 -- on treasure island on FT!! (ie i haf forgot em all except blackbe4rd, who surely has to be one of the above)

ps success on previous q was a bit fugitive so far :(

(21 comments) - (Post a new comment)

no google
[info]marnameow
2008-01-15 11:40 am UTC (link)
ii - Captain Hook, no? Although only terminal for his PAW? I cannot remember?
iv PIRATE RADIO?

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: no google
[info]carsmilesteve
2008-01-15 11:45 am UTC (link)
ii. does the croc not come back and EAT HIM ALL UP at the end?

iv. caroline i assume?

vii. is this pirates of penzance, it sounds somewhat G&S...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: no google
[info]dubdobdee
2008-01-15 11:48 am UTC (link)
ii: yes i think the croc eats him all -- it's kind of an ahab/d!ck thing
iii: surely caroline GOOD CALL MARNA

pirates mentioned in my FT piece = Edward England (died a beggar 1720) and Bartholomew ‘Black Bart‘ Roberts (died in action); not mentioned = edward trach viz blackbeard, who kept fireworks in it!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: no google
[info]dubdobdee
2008-01-15 11:49 am UTC (link)
vii is def penzance yes

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: no google
[info]marnameow
2008-01-15 11:52 am UTC (link)
In the version in my head, all the children get savaged by the croc, instead.

iv. I would need GOOGLE to be sure of the station. There were lots and lots, I think.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: no google
[info]jeff_worrell
2008-01-15 12:01 pm UTC (link)
I agree on ii. and iv.

i. is John Gow, the 'Orkney Pirate'

(Reply to this) (Parent)
quick pregoogle summary
[info]dubdobdee
2008-01-15 12:10 pm UTC (link)
i: john gow orkney pirate [how did the inspiration work?]
ii: capt hook out of peter pan [croc et his hand he4nce hook; then all of him]
iv: an pirate station prob CAROLINE [as no one can remember names of any others]
v: ann bonney = one of two v.famous ladypirates who pretended to be boys (other = her pal mary read) (not that kind of pal i don't think) (tho they WERE pirates so total torchwood agenda obv)
vii: is part of backstory plot of pirates of penzance by G&S

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: quick pregoogle summary
[info]jeff_worrell
2008-01-15 12:15 pm UTC (link)
Scott's "The Pirate" is loosely based on Gow's life, IIRC. I'll google it in a minute & provide anecdote.

ix. is also a literary one I think

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: postgoogle anecdote
[info]jeff_worrell
2008-01-15 12:26 pm UTC (link)
'The Pirate' is set at the end of the seventeenth century, a few decades earlier than the real-life events (the exploits of John Gow), on which they are based. Pursued by the authorities and running low on supplies, Gow had returned home to Orkney to lie low for a period. There he had assumed the part of 'Mr Smith', a respectable, prosperous trader, and in that capacity courted a Miss Gordon. Eventually, however, Gow was recognised by the captain of a visiting merchant vessel, and the alarm was raised. His cover blown, Gow attacked the house of a local landowner, carrying off valuables, and abducting two maidservants. An unsuccessful attack on a second Orkney mansion led to Gow's arrest and subsequent execution.

Many elements of Gow's story appear, transformed, in The Pirate. But by moving events further into the past, Scott was able to portray tension between the native Norse stock of the Northern Isles and the incoming Scots lairds (who had thoroughly imposed their language and customs by the days of John Gow). He is thus able to portray the old order succumbing to the new both locally and nationally.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Re: quick pregoogle summary
[info]byebyepride
2008-01-15 02:44 pm UTC (link)
The Pirate is a very disappointing novel if you're after piratical action. The 'pirate' of the title appears early on if you can guess at who the mysterious stranger is, but there is no action until rumours come through of extravagantly dressed gentlemen with many scarves (!!) misbehaving in the streets of Kirkwall.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
keeping that Kipling meme alive
[info]jeff_worrell
2008-01-15 12:46 pm UTC (link)
hurrah

(Reply to this)


[info]dubdobdee
2008-01-15 05:15 pm UTC (link)
full googled updates posted on q7 tho we are still shy a couple :(

also q7 = TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO COMPLETE before the advent of google! QED

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]jeff_worrell
2008-01-15 05:32 pm UTC (link)
I have now found all 5 of the missing pirates via google (wasn't hard). But I won't put up the answers til tomorrow soonest as I note e.g. anatol hasn't looked in today as yet. That said, 4 of the missing 5 are from Eng Lit...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]anatol_merklich
2008-01-15 07:26 pm UTC (link)
Have looked in, but was clueless about everything except ii = Hook and v (which name I could not remember).

Filled in q 6 & 7 from the QI forum -- which it appears may now contain the actual answers. As I said there, just say so if you'd prefer the unanswered ones be left open for longer than a day or two. I'll probably check previous qs myself when new ones are put up here, but that doesn't mean I have to tell you if it spoils things. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]dubdobdee
2008-01-15 10:58 pm UTC (link)
yes let's give ourselves a coupla days each time to squirrel up "our own" answers -- i wz kinda glad to have had my v.dimmed orlov memory confirmed

(Reply to this) (Parent)
handy pirate biographies!
[info]dubdobdee
2008-01-16 10:19 am UTC (link)
real life not fictional: i've only glanced at this -- haha they totally diss john gow!

(Reply to this) (Thread)
NSFW! (if you're pretending to be working that is)
[info]jeff_worrell
2008-01-16 10:46 am UTC (link)
haha that page has appropriate musical accompaniment. I'm working at a PC with built-in speakers today, so had to hurriedly click away...

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: NSFW! (if you're pretending to be working that is)
[info]dubdobdee
2008-01-16 10:48 am UTC (link)
oops sorry i still had my computer in "souvlaki tetris soundtrack appreciation mode"

(Reply to this) (Parent)
answers to iii, vi, viii, ix, x (no Blackbeard!) (also no Kipling)
[info]jeff_worrell
2008-01-16 11:19 am UTC (link)
iii. is Captain Sharkey from Conan Doyle's prose of same title

vi. is from 'Treasure Island', but NB: potential TRAP here. It's a description of Billy Bones in Chapter One, not LJS.

ix. is from the first sentence, chapter I of 'Captain Blood' by Rafael Sabatini: "Peter Blood, bachelor of medicine and several other things besides, smoked a pipe and tended the geraniums boxed on the sill of his window above Water Lane in the town of Bridgewater".

x. is from a line in Byron's poem "The Corsair" - which Nietzsche got very excited about apparently. The pirate's name from reading the poem appears to be Conrad.

and finally
viii. is an real actual pirate, Francois l’Ollonais, who is my new avatar and seems to have been one of the most bloodthirsty of them all, e.g. see:
http://www.thewayofthepirates.com/famous-pirates/francois-lollonais.php

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Things I never knew prior to mark posting this quiz, pt352
[info]jeff_worrell
2008-01-16 11:38 am UTC (link)
How much literature is now online, in part or often in full

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: Things I never knew prior to mark posting this quiz, pt352
[info]dubdobdee
2008-01-16 11:46 am UTC (link)
this is the "distributed intelligence" dimension of the gutenberg project isn't it? everything onto the net that's out of copyright?

(it has totally taken off in the last two years though) (there's a nice thing which googles and puts up scans of the original books -- you can't cut and paste but you get a sense of the actual old book) (it's a bit clunky but a price worth paying)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

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