Question -220

Connect the visuals.

Answer: These are some of the more famous April fool's day hoaxes over the years. The hoaxes are Spaghetti trees, write-only memory, the island of Sans Serriffe (a play on the font), Water on Mars (I haven't seen a more groan-inducing hoax than this one and it featured on NASA's front page) and a Buddhist pitcher Sidd(hartha) Finch who can pitch at 168 mph. I should have posted it a day earlier but didn't realize what the day was till I got fooled myself. Iam, Shweta, Anon, Mekie, Vetti, Anshul, Avinash and Rajesh got it right. Well done everybody.

Question - 219

Identify this legend (the one with the ball in his hand). You can work out the answer even if you have only a passing similarity with the game like I do.

Answer: This is the lakers legend Jerry West whose iconic dribbling silhouette forms the logo of the NBA. Arvind, Shweta, Iam, Raghu, Avinash, Manix, Sinndhuja, Srivats, Vetti, Vijay, Rajeev, Adithya and Keshav got it right. Well done.

Question - 218

Identify the billionaire and her pet millionaire.

Answer: This is the notorious "mean queen" Leona Helmsley and her dog Trouble to whom she left $12 million dollars in her will. Iam, Swapnaa and Vetti got it. Well done.

Question - 217

Connect the visuals.

Answer: The visuals are the Gila monster, the only venomous lizard native to the United States. It takes its name from the Gila river basin in Arizona where they were once plentiful. Srivats, Anshul and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 216

The place in the third visual gets its name from an event related to the one shown in the second visual. The second visual shows the transfer of power of the place shown in the first visual. The name of the place in the third visual is famous in a different context. Identify all.

Answer: The fort is Alhambra in Spain. The painting depicts Boabdil, the last moorish king of Alhambra handing the fort over to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Legend has it that after being exiled, Boabdil while crossing the place shown in the third visual sighed loudly looking at his lost kingdom. The place has come to be known as Puerto del Suspiro del Moro (the pass of the moor's last sigh). Salman Rushdie's novel takes its name from this piece of legend. Iam, Johnny Walker, Srivats, Keshav, Vetti, Shreya and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 215

After yesterday's s***ty question, this should be more straightforward. Connect the three visuals.

Answer: The visuals gave rise to the phrases "Jumping the shark", "nuking the fridge" and "jumping the couch". They all refer to that tipping point when a favourite TV show (resp. movie, celebrity) has horribly and unalterably changed for the worse. Rajeev, Mekie, Srivats, Keshav and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 214

Connect all the visuals. The bottom left visual shows the results of a border dispute (the borders prior to and after the dispute are shown using a color code).

Answer: The birds are Guanay Cormorant, the most important producer of Guano. The map shows the War of the pacific between Chile and the joint forces of Bolivia and Peru was primarily over Bolivian attempts to tax Guano harvesters of Chile. The extreme right shows a Guano mine and the person is Colonel Bat Guano from Dr. Strangelove. Swapnaa and Shweta were the only ones to get this. Bravo.

Question - 213

The event shown in the first visual was one of the earliest and most notorious of its kind. It inspired the movie shown in the second visual. A term that arose from this event has now come to be associated with a cult-like group. A symbol of this cult can be seen in the third visual. Identify all.

Answer: The first picture is from the Hollister riots, an event blown out of proportions by yellow journalists. An article about this in the Life magazine inspired the Brando movie The Wild one. When asked about the unruly behaviour of the bikers, the American Motorcycle association attributed it to the "one-percent" of unruly bikers. Outlaw biker gangs snatched that phrase and started referring to themselves as "one-percenters". A 1% patch is visible in the biker vest in the third visual. Many of you identified the event but only a few got the term correct. Shweta, Adi, Vetti, Avinash, Hirak, Swapnaa, Srivats and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 212

Explain the significance of the two events shown.

Answer: The color of the smoke signifies the election of a new Pope by the College of Cardinals. Black smoke means deliberations are still going on while white smoke denotes the election of a new pope. Anshul, Vijay, Rajesh K, Vetti, Mekie, Raghu, Keshav and Avinash got this one. Well done.

Question - 211

The first sculpture is designed as a hugely magnified version of the second visual. Identify both and the location of the sculpture.

Answer: This is the Atomium in Brussels built for the 1958 world fair. It is a model of the body centered cubic crystalline structure of Iron magnified some 165 billion times. Srivats, Vetti, Anshul, Iam, Schmetterling and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 210

The man in the top left visual is connected to the other four visuals. Identify all the visuals and the connections. Do try to connect all the visuals to the top left rather than just identify the overall theme.

Update: I might have made the question too obscure. So here are some hints - the connect is a work authored by the man in the top left. The man in the top right is a psychoanalyst obliquely related to the work. If you are familiar with the work, the top middle visual should give a big hint. The man in the bottom right is an ancient Roman satirical poet.

Answer: The man in Alan Moore, the author of the graphic novel Watchmen. The other visuals are the Galle crater in Mars (which looks like a smiley and was included in the novel as part of the recurring motif), Rorshach of the inkblot test fame (after which a character in the novel is named), Ramases II (after whom another character is named), Juvenal (who wrote quis custodiet ipsos custodes or Who watches the watchmen after which the series is named). This work along with The Dark Knight Returns redefined the genre of graphic novels. Swapnaa, Rajesh, Rajeev, Iam, Keshav, Srivats and Johnny Walker got it. Well done.

Question - 209

What two word phrase connects the three visuals? (The logos in the middle together constitute one visual).

Answer: The "seven sisters". The visuals are the Pleiades (seven sisters in Greek mythology, also a star cluster with seven bright stars), the seven erstwhile big oil companies (some have merged together now) and the seven northeastern Indian states which are given this nickname due to their geographic and cultural similarities. Another famous "seven sisters" which I couldn't find a way to pictorially depict is the group of seven historically women's liberal arts colleges - Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar and Wellesley. Rajeev, Adithya, An0n, Shweta, Johnny Walker, Mekie, Raghu, Keshav, Rajesh K, Srivats, Vetti, Iam, Hirak, Swapnaa, Rajesh and an Anon got it. Well done.

Question - 208

These two men have been to a place no one else has ever been to. The equipment they used to accomplish this was designed by one of the men in the picture along with his father. Identify both and their achievement.

Answer: The men are Lt. Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard. To date, they are the only two to have been to the deepest point in the earth's crust (the challenger deep in the Mariana trench). Their mission was undertaken in the bathyscaphe Trieste that Jacques Piccard built with his father Auguste Piccard. Srivats, passer by, Iam, Anshul, Rajeev and Avinash got this. Well done.

Question - 207

The visual in the top is the satellite view of this landmark. The visual at the bottom is a still from a recent movie that pays homage to this landmark. Identify both landmark and movie.

Update: No correct responses for this one. So here are some hints. The movie at the bottom is Cars and the background of the bottom visual (those 6 or so tower-like thingies) is drawn to look like the landmark shown in the top visual. The landmark in the top visual is named for and made entirely of a classic American automobile. I will let the question stand with hints for another day.

Answer: The landmark is the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. Passer by, Mekie, Shreya, Iam, Swapnaa and Keshav got this. Well done.

Quesiton - 206

Visual in left is the last known survivor of a subspecies and is named after the person on the right. Identify both.

Answer: The bird is Martha, the last known specimen of the passenger pigeon named after Martha Washington, the first first lady of the United States. Supposedly, they were so numerous that flocks measured 300 miles by 1 mile in size during migration. However, we managed to kill every last one of them in a span of 20 or so years. Vetti and aptly enough passer by (the pigeon gets its name from the French word passager meaning to pass by) got this one. Well done.

Quesiton - 205

Today's question is courtesy Iam. What is common to A, B & C? D is a picture that Iam took of a painting of A. Sorry about the bad angle. I understand the painting was hanging a bit too high on the wall.

Answer: The connect is Volcanic caldera. The pictures are Santorini Islands in Greece, Crater lake in Oregon and Yellowstone national park. All of these are located in/above volcanic calderas. Shweta, Mekie, Rajesh, Adi, Swapnaa and Vetti got this. Well done.

Question - 204

Today's question is courtesy Swapnaa. The first map shows the original boundaries of this group. The boundaries were slightly modified later as shown in the second map. The visual at the bottom is the flag of the group. Identify. (The absence of the water body whose name is blanked out in the first visual from the second visual is incidental and not important).

Answer: The map and the flag are that of the Iroquois confederacy which originally had five tribes (Mohawk, Oneida, Onandaga, Cayuga and Seneca) till the addition of Tuscarora in 1720. Iam, Anon, Rajesh, Vetti, Shweta and Divya got it. Well done.

Question - 203

The visuals at the top show the start and end points respectively. The picture at the bottom shows the competing teams. What event am I referring to?

Answer: It is the Oxbridge boat race. Some of you went for the Harvard-Yale race. This is possibly the oldest college rivalry of any kind. Anshul, Rajeev, Shweta, Adithya, passer by, Srivats, Iam, Mekie, Vetti, Rajesh K, Vijay, Schmetterling, Keshav, Rajesh and Swapnaa got this. Well done.

Question - 202

This question is courtesy Manix. What does the map represent?

Answer: This is the corruption perception index published by Transparency international which measures the "degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians". Srivats, Raghu and Shreeranjani got it. Well done.

Question - 201

Today's question is courtesy Swapnaa. The clues are in chronological order. Connect them. The person in the first visual is not very well-known. So, as an aid in googling, let me tell you his first name is Horatio.

Answer: The visuals are Horatio "good roads" Earle, the Lincoln Highway and Eisenhower. These visuals represent the chronological evolution of the U.S Interstate system. Earle inspired the Lincoln Highway which was the first road across the U.S and Eisenhower in turn was inspired by the Lincoln Highway to enact the National Interstate and Defense Highways act of 1956. Iam, Shweta, Ragu, Vetti and Avinash got it. Well done.

Aside: Answers to Question-200 are up as well.

Question - 200

For the 200th question, I tried to do something different and made it a cyclic connect of the answers to the previous 9 questions. Some of these connects are a stretch while others are relatively straightforward. In fact, there are surely multiple ways to connect some of these visuals and there is no one correct answer. So feel free to make them as convoluted as you want. I have put the relevant portion of each of the previous 9 questions in today's visual.

Answer: The connect are as follows:
Pentagon Papers to Rosemary's baby: The papers along with the watergate scandal sunk the Nixon administration. In a rather lame attempt to save Nixon, his secretary Rose Mary Woods claimed that she accidentally erased parts of the watergate tape in an episode that has been nicknamed "Rosemary's boo-boo" by the press.

Rosemary's baby to Beatles: There are at least two strong connects. The movie was shot in the same building where John Lennon lived and was gunned down. Another connect: Polanski's wife Shannon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson who claimed to have been inspired by a Beatles song.

Beatles to Warhol: The common poster of the Beatles in Warhol's style. Another connect is Warhol's "15 minutes of fame" concept vs Beatles' "We are more famous than Jesus".

Warhol to Sandburg: Marilyn Monroe. Warhol made a famous painting of her. Sandburg was a close associate of Monroe and was supposed to read the Eulogy in her funeral but couldn't do so because of illness.

Sandburg to Hemingway: The face of E.T in the movie is modelled after them.

Hemingway to Franco: Hemingway's For Whom the Bells toll is about the Spanish civil war in which Franco played a pivotal part.

Franco to Dali: Despite his anti-war stance, Dali was openly supportive of Franco's fascist regime in Spain much to the dismay of the other surrealists.

Dali to Fibonacci sequence: The ratio of successive Fibonacci numbers approaches the golden ratio. This ratio features extensively in Dali's works (for example, in The Sacrament of the Last Supper).

Golden Ratio to Pentagon Papers: In a pentagon with unit side length, the diagonal length is the golden ratio, a fact which caused the ancients to attribute mystical properties to the pentagram.

There are some other ways to connect these and also some connects between the non-successive questions as well. Rajeev and Hirak attempted and partially answered the question. Very well done.

Question - 199

The second visual shows a common motivating example of the work of the man in the first visual. The third visual is an obscure but quite innovative use of the same work. Identify the man and the work he is most famous for.

Answer: The man is Leonardo of Pisa, more popularly known as Fibonacci. The second visual shows how a rabbit population evolves according to the Fibonacci sequence if, as Rahul Trivedi put it, they are left to do what they do best. The third is an abacus-like device used by Incans called the Yupana which is based on the Sequence. Rajeev, Rahul Trivedi, An0n, Raghu, Schmetterling, Hirak, Adi, Rajesh, Avinash, Shweta and Swapnaa got this. Well done.

Question - 198

This one is an old chestnut but a favorite of mine. Connect the visuals.

Answer: The first is an art piece by Salvador Dali and the second is Death's head Hawkmoth. The poster of the movie Silence of the Lambs shows the death's head moth but with the skull mark replaced by the Dali piece. Mekie, Kr!sh, Rajeev, Adi, Keshav, Anon, Rahul Trivedi, Anshul, Swapnaa, Shweta, Rajesh and Vetti got this one. Well done.

Question - 197

Identify the person appearing in all three visuals.

Answer: This is General Francisco Franco of Spain, possibly the only politician to have a political career after WWII despite associating with both Hitler and Mussolini. A little bit of communist hatred got you a long way in the cold war days. Shweta, Vikrant + Keshav and Manix got this one. Well done.

Question - 196

Since yesterday's question didn't generate many responses, I am inflicting more of the same upon all of you. Connect these visuals.

Answer: The connect is Ernest Hemingway. The visuals are Kilimanjaro, Joe Dimaggio, Running of the bulls in Pamplona and the Metallica album Ride the Lightning. The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a short story collection by Hemingway. Joe Dimaggio is a central character in the Old man and the sea. Spanish bull fights feature prominently in many of his works including Death in the afternoon and The sun also rises. The Metallica album Ride the Lightning has a song For whom the bells toll based on the Hemingway novel of the same name. Mekie + Raghu, Hirak, Keshav, Rajeev, Rahul Trivedi, Manix and Shweta got this one. Well done.

Question - 195

The last three visuals clue to the most famous works of the person shown in the first visual. Identify him.

Answer: This is the American poet Carl Sandburg. Most of his poems are about the city of Chicago (second visual), he wrote a series of children's stories called Rootabaga stories (third visual) and wrote a biography of Lincoln that won a Pulitzer prize. Hirak was the only one to get this. Bravo.

Question - 194

First visual shows an artist amidst his works of art. The second visual is a band that collaborated with this artist in their early stages. Identify both.

Answer: The artist is Andy Warhol with his famous Campbell soup cans in the background. The group is Velvet Underground with whom Warhol collaborated a lot in their early days in particular with the famous album cover art for The Velvet Underground & Nico. Mekie, Raghu, Arvind, Manix, Swapnaa, Rahul Trivedi, Anshul, Hirak, Adi, Rajesh, Iam and Keshav got this one. Well done.

Update: No posting today. Apologies. Regular updates resume Sunday night.

Question - 193

What is this? Where is it located?

Answer: It is a submarine and it is yellow. Its a reference to er, yellow submarine by the Beatles. The model is found outside Liverpool's international airport which is named after John Lennon. Anirudh Patil, Arvind, Rajeev, Shweta, Adithya, Anon, Anshul, Divya, Swapnaa, Vetti, Rajesh, Avinash and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 192

The person in the first visual wrote it. The person in the second visual directed it. The third visual shows the poster. Identify the movie and the people.

Answer: The people are Ira Levin and Roman Polanski, author and director respectively of Rosemary's baby. I had originally wanted to put another visual for this question but decided against it because I felt it had a mild spoiler. If you have already seen the movie, check out the poster I had in mind here (WARNING: slightly graphic and a definite spoiler). If you haven't seen it yet, I strongly recommend that you watch it. Arvind, Shweta, Rajeev, Raghu, Keshav, Anon, Vetti, Divya, Iam, Swapnaa and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 191

The man in the left set into motion a series of events captured in the three newspaper clippings shown. It resulted in a landmark case in US judicial history. Who is he and what did he do?

Answer: The picture shows Daniel Ellsberg, a RAND employee who released an internal government memo on the Vietnam war to the New York Times. The government tried to stop the publication of the memo but the Supreme court decided that it is within the press' first amendment rights to publish the memo. The memo is popularly termed the "Pentagon papers". Shweta, Pappu, Divya, Rajeev, Anon, Manix, Arvind, Iam, Vetti, Swapnaa, Avinash and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 190

Connect the two visuals.

Answer: The first visual is the Imola F1 track (the San Marino GP) where Ayrton Senna had a fatal crash in 1994. The corner where he crashed is called the Tamburello after the musical instrument shown in the right. Tamburello is also the name of a squash-like sport played with a racket that looks like the drum. After gentle prodding by way of hints, Rajeev, Iam, Rajesh K, Anshul, Shweta + Divya and Avinash got it. Well done.

Question - 189

Connect all the visuals.

Answer: The connect is the tower of Babel. The first visual is a woodcut by Escher depicting the tower. In Biblical mythology, mankind aspired to build a tower so high it reached upto paradise. Angered by this, God gave the men different languages so they couldn't communicate with each other. The second visual shows a ziggurat in Borsippa, Sumer which supposedly gave rise to this legend. The bottom right visual is a schematic of the Babel fish from Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy which is named after the tower of Babel. The other visual is the logo of Altavista's Babelfish translator which is named after the concept in HHGTTG. Raghu (whose comments I published too early and had to delete), Arvind, anon, Avinash, Trevor Burnham, Rajesh, Hirak and Melissa got it. Well done.

Question - 188

The two visuals in the top left show the headquarters of this organization (one is a miniature painting and the other is the present day ruins). The head of this organization shared a nickname with the natural formation shown in the top right (the formation and the organization are otherwise completely unrelated). The organization has an etymological connection to the bottom visual. Identify the organization, the nickname and the associated etymologies.

Answer: The fortress is that of the Hashshashin sect located in Alamut, Iran. The dreaded sect perfected the art of political assassination and was headed during their most powerful times by Rashid ad-Din Sinan who was widely known as the Old man of the mountain. The third visual shows a natural rock formation resembling a human face located in New Hampshire also nicknamed Old man of the mountain (the formation collapsed recently). The bottom visual shows cannabis plants. Legend has it that the Hashshashin warriors shot themselves up with the drug before embarking on their missions. We owe both the words assassin and hashish to this piece of history. Iam, Raghu and Rajeev got it. Well done.

Question - 187

The story behind the 3 sketches (viewed as a series - top left, top right and then bottom left) is supposedly this - a famous politician told a scientist requesting funding for a project that if he can explain what the project does in a way that the politician can understand, he would get the money. He illustrated the concept using these sketches in a way a politician would appreciate and got the funding. However, the project suffered a major setback due to the incident shown in the last visual. Identify the project (the above story might be apocryphal. I couldn't find multiple sites verifying it).

Answer: The sketches explain the role the Higgs boson (God particle) plays in the Standard Model in giving elementary particles their masses. The scientist (Brian Cox) used a cocktail party analogy to explain this to Margaret Thatcher (who can be clearly seen in the bottom left visual). For more details, go here. The last visual shows the damage caused by the recent accident at the LHC that has set the project back several months. Keshav was the only one to get this one. Bravo.

Question - 186

The two albums whose covers are shown in the first two visuals were embroiled in a controversy. The third visual is an ad which refers to this controversy while supporting the first album. Identify the albums, bands and the controversy.

Answer: The albums are Crest of a Knave by Jethro Tull and And Justice for all by Metallica. The controversy was that in 1989, the Grammy for the best hard rock/metal performance was given to Tull over Metallica. Jethro Tull isn't exactly a heavy metal band which ticked many people off. The ad features Ian Anderson's flute prominently and supports Tull's status as a heavy metal band. The next year, when Metallica did indeed win a Grammy, they thanked Tull for not releasing an album that year. Arvind, anon, Mekie, Raghu, Keshav, Hirak, Iam, Terms of Service, Rajeev, Ashwin, Pi, Manix, Anshul, Shreya, Vetti, Rajesh, Sha, Avinash and Pappu got this one making this one of the most answered questions. Well done.

Question - 185

Sculpture in honor of who/what?

Answer: This is a sculpture honoring al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at George W. Anon, Manix, Raghu, Rajesh K, Pi, Anon, Anshul, Terms of Service, Avinash, Pappu, Rajesh, Rajeev, Keshav and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 184

The visuals in the left are conjectured to form the thing that is blanked out in the visual on the right. Identify all.

Answer: The peaks are Jebel Musa in Morocco and the Rock of Gibraltar. Together, they form the Pillars of Hercules. Raghu and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 183

Identify.

Answer: This is a poster of the people who stood trial at Nuremberg after WWII. Anshul, Mekie, Schmetterling, Arvind, Manix, an anon, Terms of service, Iam, Pappu pimp, Rajesh, Hirak and Vikrant + Vikram + Keshav got it. Well done.

Question - 182

The maker of the movie in the top left sued the maker of the movie in the bottom and won the case. This is despite the fact that both movies borrowed heavily from the novel in the right without due credit. The director who won the lawsuit later claimed that he made far more money out of the suit than from the movie. Both movies are extremely famous. Identify.

Answer: The movies are Yojimbo by Kurosawa and Sergio Leone's Fistful of dollars. The novel is "Continental Op" by Dashiel Hammett. Leone was sued by Kurosawa but Leone claimed the idea is from Hammett's work (there are several similarities between the 3 works - for example, in all 3 works, the protoganist is nameless). Arvind, Hirak, Rajeev, Manix, Pappu, Iam, two anons, Raghu, athreyat, Rahul Trivedi, Anshul, Rajesh, Terms of Service, Swapnaa and J got it. Well done.

Question - 181

What is this and who made this model?

Answer: This is a model of the solar system built by Kepler on the basis of the 5 platonic solids. He firmly believed that the universe has a geometric basis and expended prodigious computational efforts to come up with this model only to discard it as new data revealed that the model was flawed. Iam and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 180

Almost the last scene of which movie?

Answer: The movie is the Shining and the scene depicts a party at the Overlook hotel with Jack Nicholson as the bartender. Raghu, Iam, anon, Mekie, Rahul Trivedi, anon, Rajeev, Hirak and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 179

Connect the visual in the top left to the other visuals. While the top left visual is unique, the list of species that connect to it is not limited to the ones shown.

Answer: The top left is Van Gogh's depiction of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The species are Takahe, Mahogany glider, Wollemi pine and the Coelacanth. The fossil records for these animals disappeared for long periods of time before reappearing again leading biologists to name these the Lazarus taxon in parallel to the biblical story. Manix, an anon and Iam got it. Well done.

Question - 178

Identify and connect the visuals. The list is not exhaustive.

Answer: The visuals represent different styles of moustaches. From the top counterclockwise, the visuals are Persistence of memory by Dali, Fu Machu, Pancho Villa, Genghis Ghan, Walrus and a horseshoe. All are names of moustache styles. QoD, Mekie, Swapnaa, Iam, Hirak, Manix, Rajesh and an anon got it. Well done.

Aside: This question was not asked keeping any of this blog's regular readers in mind. Any similarity to moustaches (balding or otherwise) is purely coincidental.

Question - 177

Today's question is courtesy Swapnaa. Identify all the visuals and the common thread that connects them.

Answer: The visuals show all Nobel laureates who did their major work at Bell labs. Clockwise from the top left, they are Davisson-Germer, Bardeen-Brattain-Shockley, Phil Anderson, Steven Chu, Stormer-Laughlin-Tsui and Penzias-Wilson. Manix, Hirak and Rajesh got it. Well done.

Question - 176

In the first visual, the man tied to the mast is the captain of the ship and he has explicitly instructed his men to tie him up. He did so in order to be among the very few mortals to have encountered the ladies' (shown circling the ship) craft and live to tell the tale. The man in the second visual (the one in the red robes) went one step further and beat the ladies in their own craft. Identify all and the incidents referred to. Also, this has given rise to a phrase in the English language. Identify that as well.

Answer: The first painting shows Odysseus listening to the songs of the sirens. The sirens were women in Greek mythology who lured sailors to their deaths with their irresistible melodies. Odysseus plugged his men's ears with beeswax and tied himself to the mast to be able to hear their song without endangering his life. When Jason and the Argonauts had to cross paths with the sirens, Orpheus (second visual), the greatest singer in all Greek mythology, sang his own tune to drown out the sirens thus saving the Argonauts. The English phrase that refers to this myth is siren song which means an appeal that is hard to resist but if heeded leads to bad things. Mekie, Raghu, QoD, Hirak, Rahul Trivedi, Manix, Rajesh and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 175

Person in visual 1 started it all off. Person in visual 2 gave it his official blessing. Visual 3 shows a famous response to it. Visual 4 is a work of fiction that is partially concerned with it. Identify all the visuals and the connecting thread.

Answer: Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha (Visual 1) declared Indira Gandhi's election as invalid which led Indira to persuade President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (Visual 2) to declare emergency. Visual 3 is the famous blank editorial that Ramnath Goenka published in the Indian Express as a response to the censorship of the press. Rushdie's midnight's children (visual 4) claims the emergency is just a distraction for Indira to destroy the 1001 special midnight's children. Rajesh, Raghu, Schmetterling and Hirak got it. Well done.

Question - 174

The second and third visuals deal with widely different phenomena (in completely different fields) but are both named after the first visual. Identify the name and the reasoning behind it.

Answer: The phenomenon is named after Goldilocks of Goldilocks and the three bears story (first visual). The Goldilocks zone in astronomy is the zone where it is neither too hot nor too cold ("just right" like in the story). A Goldilocks economy is one that does not face the threat of inflation or recession (again "just right"). Iam, Adi, Mekie, Sriraam, Hirak, Schmetterling, Swapnaa, Rajeev and two anons got it. Well done.

Question - 173

Today's question is courtesy Manix. One western great is playing with two eastern greats. Identify all.

Answer: The people are Yehudi Menuhin (violin), Ravi Shankar (sitar) and Alla Rakha (tabla). Rahul Trivedi, Keshav, Hirak, Rajesh, Arvind, QoD and Rajeev got it. Well done.

Update: Regular updates will resume from tonight. I missed Sunday's update as well thanks to a combination of laziness and the Federer/Cardinals double heartbreaks.

Question - 172

The blog needs a little color if only in black and white. Identify the ladies and also what they are doing.

Answer: The ladies are Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell imprinting their hands in wet cement in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Iam, Manix, Rahul Trivedi, Swapnaa, Keshav, Hirak, J, Schmetterling, Rajesh, Ashwin and an anon got it. Well done.

Question - 171

The first visual is the cover of a book detailing the story of the guy in the top left of the cover and how the three people at the bottom (including him) were part of a very significant moment in history. The second visual involves the same three people (the guy in the top left of visual 1 is in the coffin and the other two are the pallbearers) and shows the respect the pallbearers had for the dead man. Identify all three and the historic occasion they scripted together.

Answer: The people are athletes Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Peter Norman who were the medal winners in the 200m event at the 1968 Mexico city Olympics. During the American national anthem, Smith and Carlos raised their fists in their now famous power salute while Norman wore a badge in their support. All three men came under severe flak for mixing sports with politics and suffered heavy repercussions. Norman's story is especially tragic considering he is an outsider to the situation. Read wiki for more details. Iam, Anand, Keshav, Hirak, Swapnaa, Ashwin, Schmetterling, Adi, Sha, Rajesh, Rajeev and an anon got it. Well done.