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Friday, October 13, 2006

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer

The Friday Brain-teaser from Xrefer - this week: Who Are They Talking About?. Answers here.

1. Comedian Mort Sahl said: "Would you buy a second-hand car from this man?" about an American president. Which president?
2. Which British prime minister was nicknamed "Attila the Hen" by Clement Freud?
3. Lady Caroline Lamb described which poet as "mad, bad and dangerous to know"?
4. Which soldier and writer was described by Sir Henry Channon in these words: "He was intoxicated with his own youth, and loathed any milieu which he couldn't dominate. Certainly he had none of a gentleman's instincts, strutting about Peace Conferences in Arab dress"?
5. Which actor, who starred in the films "The Gold Rush" and "Modern Times", was described by Alexander Woolcott as "somehow importing to the peeling of a banana the elegant nonchalance of a duke drawing a monogrammed cigarette from a platinum case"?
6. Ben Jonson called an English dramatist "Sweet Swan of Avon" and said "He was not of an age, but for all time!" Who was he talking about?
7. Which British statesman and prime minister was described by Aneurin Bevan as "a man suffering from petrified adolescence"?
8. The US novelist who wrote "The Sun Also Rises" and "A Farewell to Arms" was described by Cyril Connolly as "the bully on the Left Bank, always ready to twist the milksop's arm". Who was he talking about?
9. The novelist John Galsworthy described another British novelist as "Interesting, but a type I could not get on with. Obsessed with self. Dead eyes and a red beard, long narrow face. A strange bird". Who was he describing?
10. Which British statesman was Adolf Hitler talking about when he supposedly said: "He seemed such a nice old gentleman. I thought I would give him my autograph as a souvenir"?

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