Dr. Bob's Skeptical Quiz

Quiz Results - May 2003

Sorry for the delay this month – but you were all probably having more fun than I was, in Wellington NZ on a bank holiday in the rain … anyway here’s the efforts for May 2003. This month’s WINNER is

who is not only a historian, but also knows a musical Swedish dentist who tends to have bright ideas in the middle of doing root canal work. There are a lot of interesting people in Malmo. I know, I married one of them.

• Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany answer could be right, but this is the top one.
• According to all who heard him at the keyboard, yes. They didn't dare say otherwise. He played John Cage extremely well but died before he could attempt Mike Batt. He would probably have been able to play Philip Glass (no-one knows if he is being played badly or well) but again his early demise prevented our enjoyment of this.
• Annoyingly close... I read the autobiography of daughter Svetlana and she must have told this, among all the other fascinating personal details about the old butcher... My guess is poorly. [Probably right but you wouldnt have said that at the soirees] Yosif was a man of brutal mediocrity.
• Anyone can play the piano; just ask your mate Phil. The question is - could he do it well.
• Are YOU going to tell him he can't? The KGB will want to have a little talk with you about this.
• Bob Stalin sure can. (http://www.hothousejazz.nu/webb/swing_after_work.htm - that's Bob Stalin on the far right). As for "Uncle Joe" Stalin, he certainly had a piano (preserved in the Joseph Stalin museum in Gori, Georgia - see http://www.travelintelligence.net/wsd/articles/art_829.html), but I have no idea whether he actually knew how to play it.
• Could Stalin play the piano?! Is the Pope a catholic? Do the Anglican and Catholic churches protect pedophiles? As Horowitz used to say after a few ales at the Goat and Compasses Public House on a Saturday night: "Now there was a piano player! He could rule all the Russias, sign ten thousand death warrants with one hand and play the complete "Annees de Pelerinage" of Liszt with the other, and all without his hands leaving his wrists." Dr Bob, I am beginning to see through your little game. Common sense says that the answer should be no, but you would not have asked the question if it was. Now would it?
• Da! comrrrade - the people burst into spontaneous applause
• Dunno. Not if he didnt have lessons. (He was probably to busy killing people)
• Harry Truman was a not-bad piano player, and he dropped a couple of atomic bombs. If I can use this fact as a hint, well... probably Stalin was a great piano player.
• He could beat out fabulous version of "Pure Massacre" by Silverchair. His "War Machine" did not stack up to the version by Six Feet Under, however.
• He might have banned jazz, but he loved to play the foxtrotsky.
• He was a ruthless and tyrannical dictator, Dr Bob, he could do whatever he bloody wanted. I understand that Krushchev could play the shoe, though.
• I could not find anywhere that says Iosef Vissarionovich Zhugashvilli could play the piano..however there is a piano in the Stalin museum so there may be a possibility he could. Mr "Man of Steel" (Staling) did have some webbed toes and a passion for purges and mass genocide which is almost an artistic skill in itself.
• If he could I don't know, but anyway he didn't like it (no piano found in his secret bunker in the Russian city of Samara, former Kuybishev, bunker which is not secret anymore, since I've been there)
• If Stalin said he could play the piano, who am I to say otherwise. If stalin says I'm a cabbage, I'd paint my head green and lay on the floor.
• I'm sure that under his rule he was allowed to do whatever he wanted. (I don't know if he had any musical talent, but that wasn't the way the question was phrased.)
• Joe could play piano quite well but was much better at forte. However his music appreciation skills were sorely lacking, how else can you explain Shostakovich?
• Josef Stalin couldn't, but Fred Stalin could knock out a mean tune on the ivories...
• Maybe he could but he didn't. Too busy plotting and slaughtering his own people and renaming Russian cities and generally being a bad bastard to tickle the ivories.
• Most probably or at least aspired to maestro accomplishment of trilling ivories megastardom. Not a rare penchant of tyrants... Suetonius appreciated this but observed, Romans were too nervous to fully appreciate such talents of their masters. While Hitler stormed gallerys with his oeuvre of paintings. The totalitarian Kings Henry VII & VIII exhibited fine taste but denied indulgence of the same to their subjects by, taxation - Morton's Fork, and kindly acts of paternal affection like the exercise of terror - the closest England suffered to medieval versions of Saddam Hussein. This last, too, sought to `raise literacy' and instil delight in art, but the numbers of Iraqis who could fully appreciate such riches dwindled daily under Saddam’s tender attentions ... as Mitterand assured the world, `he is their leader and therefore he loves them.' Could Stalin play the piano, in view of history, certainly he could.
• My mate Bob Stalin, from Norway, plays the piano very well. It is not clear whether his great uncle Jo was any good.
• No, and other people couldn't either after Stalin made their lives a misery.
• No, he only played the Stalin Organ.
• No, it was a player piano. Stalin just pretended he was hitting the keys. His favorite song to play was "You Always Hurt the One You Love."
• Not quite as well as he could wield an icepick, but yes.
• Of course he could, having all the necessary appendages. But did he? If only he had practiced like his mother begged him to!
• Of course he could, in fact he had a small swing band called "Joe and the Georgians." They were a real hoot at the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Roosevelt. They were going to tour after the war, but with Clement Atlee and Harry Truman as rather dull patrons, Uncle Joe gave the showbiz game away.
• Of course he could. Many a cheerful sing-song was held as kindly old Uncle Joe tickled the ivories of the official Kremlin Steinway during the darkest days of the Great Patriotic War, while those jolly lads Bulganin and Kaganovich sang "Knees-up Babushka Brownova" and little Lavvy Beria started a merry game of "Shoot the Revisionist". But it was only when Uncle J started in on the Wurlizer that the Nazi hordes trembled in their foxholes.
• Of course. Especially after watching the cartoon "Johann Mouse" (1950) starring Tom & Jerry.
• Of course; and I loved my phonograph too. The piano! We'd have a few drinks and I'd lean back and say to my friends "Isn't that lovely?" They invariably said "Yes! You play very well."
• Only on days that end with "Y".
• Only when drunk
• Only when wearing a pink tutu and with the stars and stripes draped over his shoulders.
• Propaganda driven rumour. In reality it was the piano ACCORDION but that just ain't cool for a nasty, cruel dictator with a bent for genocidal activities on his own peasants. [He was cruel, but not sadistic enough to play the accordion]
• Stalin often played the piano and because he cheated he always won!
• Sven Robert "Bob" Stalin could, and still can. He's in a Swedish jazz combo, The Honeysuckle Roses. But then you probably mean the other guy. Well, it turns out the Joseph Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia (the country, not the US state) has a piano once owned by the man, so it's likely he could bang away a note or two.
• The question is ...could the piano play Stalin?
• The true answer is no, but to everyone in the former Soviet Union it was yes. He told them to face the music (his music) and they all did.
• Well, if you think about it, the purpose of the piano is to produce music. And who is to say what is or is not music? Perhaps the pounding of keys could be considered music. Therefore, the question becomes, Did Stalin ever pound or otherwise depress the keys of a piano with the result being an audible sound, and was that sound ever heard and perceived as music by anybody other than stalin? [A complex question but it can be roughly translated as "do you like Siberia?"]
• Which Stalin? Comrade Stalin?
  "Great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
  Thou who broughtest man to birth …
  Thou who makest bloom the spring, |
  Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords …"
  - A.O Avdienko (Pravda, 1936) [Yes that’s the one]
• Yes. Absolutely yes. Nobody ever said he couldn't play the piano. Not twice, anyway.
• Yes. He was quite good and mentor to young Elton.
• Yes. Assuming you mean Bob Stalin of the Svenska Delicatessorkestern. If you mean uncle Joe, then probably yes again, since he was educated in a church school and seminary.
• Yes. No one would tell him that he played very poorly, though.

• Every year! Those poor people.
• George W Bush.
• "Other than Man" - must mean woman, of course "woman". In some countries in Africa they drive on the left side of the road, and in others they drive on the right. In some countries however, they drive on both sides at the same time. The probable true answer is hippopotamus - get them into a car and they are lethal. [How many can you get into the car? Four – two in the back two in the front. How many giraffes can you get it? None, it’s full of hippopotamuses]
• <accompanying self on virtual banjo>:
  I want a hippopotamus for Christmas, a hippopotamus is all I want.
  Don't want a gun, or missile to deploy,
  I want a hippopotamus to crush, kill and destroy.
  Oh, I want a hippopotamus for Christmas, only a hippopotamus will do.
  No elephants or lions or rhinosauruses,
  Kill as many Africans as hippopotamuses -
  If I don't win I'll sic him onto you!
• A bird...what's its name again?...oh yeah, the Double Breasted Mattress Thrasher.
• Bats
• Camel-riding Chimpanzees.
• Damn! A question I actually know - the hippopotamus. They complete this remarkable feat by overturning boats when they sudden emerge from the water. A hippo is quite big, but you'd never know cause they're always wallowing. Like a guy I once went out with ....
• Deadly, vicious African hamsters. They may be small but they are lethal. Do not turn your back on one of those beasts!
• Domestic dogs, usually guarding the homes of wealthy white South Africans.
• Either hippos or animal rights activitists (who may be primates, but they ain't human.)
• Elephant and they are in such numbers that the much desired extinction of them is, unhappily,a dim prospect. They are guilty of much environmental damage but greenies might cheer, they successfully squish some of that unwelcome interloper, man. Greenies, lead the way in saving the planet, stand before a herd of elephant ( and note, the process, elephant squishing small things, is entirely enviro-friendly and non-toxic) .
• Gawdamn Dr Bob why can't you ask a nice easy question...something like 'In what ways and with what successes was the economy strengthened by Peter the Great 1672-1725" [Ans: Completely insignificantly, but it might depend on whose economy you are talking about] Oh no Ive got to wait till Wednesday for that. Bugger. Crap English isnt it.. trust an exam board...
• Goat (a big one)
• Ha, easy one. Woman of course.
• Hippopotami. By crushing innocent bystanders when they fall off the roof after eating cake.
• Hippopotamus is the obvious (and correct) answer, however we like to think that it is the Pink Crested Great Tit. No reason really, it is just a fantasy that we have harboured for years.
• Hippopotamus, "Rivers' horse". He is also talked to be stupid. Funny how words as "stupid" and "killer" are so often linked, huh?
• Hippos .... this was way too easy to be hard (although I did have an Oprah comment but I stifled myself)
• Hippos, of course. Of course, if you can find a stick you can always beat them off [you have been reading my answers for Jan 97 haven’t you?]
• Hungry Hungry Hippos
• I consider Mugabe and Amin & their kind animals, so that makes them mammals.
• It would have to something unassuming like an elephant or a hippo [But don’t say that to the animals in question]
• It's either Hippos or Barbara Streisand [A difficult choice, as they both have such big noses. And they probably sing similarly too. For positive identification one could check out the label on the cage, or do an interview etc]
• Leopard, nasty little buggers. I remember once, me and M'bopo were out stalking a Leopard when we found the leopard was stalking us. I asked M'bopo to pass me my red nike runners out of my backpack. As I was tying up the laces M'bopo said to me "Bwana, you will never outrun a Leopard wearing those". I looked at M'bopo and said "I'm don't need to outrun the Leopard, M'bopo only you".
• Now more hippopotami began to convene
  On the banks of that river so wide
  I wonder now what am I to say of the scene
  That ensued by the Shalimar side
  They dived all at once with an ear-splitting sposh
  Then rose to the surface again
  A regular army of hippopotami
  All singing this haunting refrain: …
• Rabbits..with their big horrible, nasty teeth and claws they'll rip yo... oh, sorry, in Africa you say...well lets see what would make you angry enough to kill someone...being ugly, fat and looking like a prune from sitting in water all day...gotta be a hypotenuse... no wait...hippopotamus.
• The correct answer will be something boring like the African buffalo or the water horse (hippopotamus to the non classicists), but I suggest it could be something more interesting. Like the rare, dangerous and endangered African barking squirrel, which despite its insignificant size and docile appearance can, when aroused (see Q.1 last month), be absolutely terrifying. I mean it has torn the throats out of more humans than...than... you have had duels in Paraguay (see below).
• The funky hippopotamus; probably Africa’s most dangerous mammal! (http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mhippo.html)
• The Hippo is a pretty angry animal and likes to protect itself and its young by killing people.
• The hippo. But not like the cute pet hippo, Jessica, in People magazine this week, who at 3,000 pounds and still just a babe (who will grow to 10,000 pounds) that consumes 88 pounds of grass per day and has deplorable toilet habits and has destroyed their furniture - she no longer has run of their house, they claim.
• The hippo. They get very defensive about their figure
• The hippopotamus, no one ever suspects the hippo, he just stares at you with those eyes of pure evil
• The hippopotamus. Don't ask me how I know this, but I do.
• The hippopotamus. Nasty, violent, ornery creatures. I really hate Hippos. They will attack for no reason what so ever and they're faster than most people would expect. They attack when your guard is down at the most unexpected time. I really fucking hate hippos. [Then you should not go to Hungary – see Q4 for January 1997. Ye gods, have I been doing this quiz for 6 years and can still remember all of it??]
• The meerkat. It is a little known fact that all members of this species are undercover Al Qaeda operatives who are not only adept in killing people but also in having the blame laid at the hooves (or pads) of innocent animals like the Cape Buffalo and the leopard.
• Those great big overstuffed animals that lay about all day in the swimming pools & basking in the sun, you know the ones I mean, no not those, their still humans I think, no, Hippos... that's it..
• While some people might say Lions, it would be the herds of zebras stampeding in flight from said lions, trampling all the people to death.
• While the elephant is the "biggest" killer, the hippo takes the award for the most numerous.
• Woman (stupid answer Rosie) I guess elephants.
• Woman!
• Woman.
• Woman. Or Boers. Assuming that green monkeys spreading AIDS don't count, probably elephants.
• Woman? No, it's our friend the hippo, a very aggressive critter indeed, although there are no statistics available as to how many human casualties there are every year. Strangely enough hippo's are strictly vegetarian.
• Zebra

• I am here to tell you are too far from reality..there are no Hippopotamus, they have not killed anybody.... they are not 100 miles from Africa... they are nowhere.....I am not scared and neither should you be. [Indeed, we will defeat them all! We will never surrender to hippopotamuses! Never!! I do miss that poor Iraqi optimist, he had the worst job in the world but he made a go of it]

• Someone else to duel with, otherwise it is only half as much fun and nowhere near as entertaining.
• You must be a registered blood donor. They probably send around the Red Cross who place a drip tray under the loser.
• Funnily enough, a penis. Which gives a whole new dimension to the phrase "cock fighting".
• A bribe?
• A death wish, suicidal tendencies and/or a perverted sense of justice.
• A DUEL in Paraguay? Hmmm … two people? Oh, and that they be registered blood donors too. So I guess a duel by swords would be preferable; just sever a major artery and just tap in.
• A dueling permit, a pistol or epee, a glove to initiate the duel and broken English.
• A mandrill with an Uzi
• A map that shows where the heck Paraguay is.
• A soccer ball
• A valid argument [No! Not needed at all]
• A visa would help. Got to get to Paraguay in the first place.
• A white hanky, a bottle of schnapps, plenty of bleachers for spectators, a snack bar and a wench.
• According to the media just a chance to play the Socceroos -the reports are littered with the word "duel"
• An opponent!
• An opponent. And a soccer ball.
• Apparently it's legal if they're both blood donors - this is so bizarre that it must be true, nobody could make that up. Is it because you are required to have made a deposit at the blood bank if you're planning to do something with a high likelihood of ending with you needing to make a withdrawal?
• Both parties must be registered blood donors. A degree of insanity and a bloody good aim are only highly recommended. Test tubes at dawn.... yawn.
• Duellists
• Hat. [Yes very wise. It can be sunny in Paraguay and you should never go out without a hat. Be careful crossing the street too. Wouldn’t want to get hurt]
• If you are a registered blood donor, you are legally allowed to duel with another registered blood donor.
• Isn't it obvious, both parties have to be blood donors, either way the blood bank wins
• It sounds like a good example of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted but you must be a registered blood donor.
• Lack of intelligence. A formal certificate of.
• Permission from your parents? maybe a dualing license, am I getting close.
• Shoes [Good idea, see under "Hat"]
• Supposedly (according to http://www.statick.com/goods/laws.html) it is sufficient that both participants in the duel are registered blood donors, for it to be legal. However, I can find no other evidence that this rather baroque "law" (referenced in many sites on the 'net, but always with the precise same words, leading a critical observer to infer textual interrelation) is real. It may well be an urban legend. I don't have access to a Paraguayan lawyer, so I can't say for sure.
• Swear that you are not a Bolivian who wants to reclaim the Chaco.
• The State Coroner and a Funeral Director.
• Two people. The duel is completely forbidden if there is only one person present.
• Well a weapon would be useful.
• Well you have to be alive I guess, theres no fun in shooting a dead body (although I'm sure Stalin would have approved so long as it was a Kulak or Capitalist). But seriously you have to be a registered blood donor, after all if you get shot and start to bleed to death they can suck it all out before it soaks into the ground (or maybe if you don't die at least there will be some blood to put back in after you are shot/stabbed or whatever).
• You either have to give up your blood or your life.
• You have to be a registered blood donor. That's good. Fill out a form, pick up a weapon, off you go.
• You have to be a registered blood donor. What a wonderful social conscience they have in Paraguay. It is like Saddam Hussein instructing his torturers not to smoke at work or American soldiers collecting for Unicef while passing through the Iraqi villages. I found this gem on a British web site called Samizdata, which is basically a right wing rant. This is not a lot of different from a left wing rant, except that it makes a change and you don't have to agree with everything they say. Why I really liked it was because they also loathe that transcendent idiot Noam Chomsky. I am not even sure he is a good linguist. [Therefore to be as famous as he is without being good, he must be a cunning linguist]
• You have to have prepaid for your funeral.
• You know I know this one so I know you know I should get credit for it. (And don't write "no" in those patronising italicised parentheses of yours either, Dr Bob...) [OK]
• You must be in Paraguay. That is both a legal and a logistical necessity.
• You need to offer proof that you are a poor shot.
• An organ donor card. They've decided to recycle idiots.

• London? Budleigh Salterton? Wyre Piddle? As far away from the blast as possible would be the sensible answer, however, knowing the mind-numbing stupidity of governments, how about ground zero.
• "as close as possible to ground zero", says http://www.abc.net.au/am/s300518.htm. But it is surely a joke. I like Australia and Australians, and I strongly believe they are smart and intelligent. It is surely a joke. Tell me it is a joke.
• "as close as possible to ground zero", to test the effect of the bomb. Now we laugh at such stupidity, as we will be laughed at in fifty years, as the people who laugh at us in fifty years will be laughed at in a hundred years.
• "As close as safely possible" That'd be on the moon then. Or maybe Mars?
• "Sample troops" what sort of people think in terms of "sample troops"...I cant answer this question it is tooooo upsetting. [Sample troops, are the ones who are commanded in the usual way to be sample troops (at least, I dont think you'd volunteer when you know the answer)]
• According to recently-unearthed documents, "as close as possible to ground zero", to evaluate the effects of the blast on the troops. The plans were never actually carried out, though - being interrupted by a temporary moratorium on nuclear testing in 1958.
• As close to ground zero as possible. Of course the Australian Government of the time didn't actually have any say as they were so far up the collective arses of the British aristocracy they wouldn't have cared less what was happening to their troops, so long as Lizzie gave them a wave and a secret smile occasionally. "I did but see her walking by, but I shall love her till I die" Robert Menzies ... What a suckhole.
• Buckingham Palace.
• Canberra in Parliament house - if they didn't they should have.
• Doctor Bob, where is Maralinga? Is it where Russell Crowe was born? [No but it might be where he learned manners and social behaviour]
• Excellent ringside seating was available with an unobstructed view of ground zero! See the blast! Feel the shock wave! Absorb the radiation! Don't miss this chance of a lifetime!
• Ground Zero. It use to be that the government of Australia would do anything for Mother England. Change is good.
• Ground Zero. Wasn't that nice of them. Nothing the Mings Government of the day wouldn't do for Mother England.
• I know! I know! France!
• I would have hoped "New Zealand" was the correct answer but Pig-Iron Bob decided to put troops as close to ground zero as possible (some "1,000 yards away"). Worse than that, they were wearing only light clothing and were asked to "jump, crawl and run around in the dust" only hours after the detonation to test the protective ability of their clothing. Of course, they weren't told this at the time but wouldn't you be just a bit suss when all the scientists are walking around the same site in total body protection?
• I have this sinking feeling that some brainless fat balding twat in a suit in Canberra cheerfully offered to station some troops in the hot zone, and possibly in the vicinity of ground zero (we can only hope that they offered the troops for deployment there *after* detonation). Oh, why won't they let us experiment on politicians instead? They're certainly not as cute as lab rats, fruit flies, worms or pathogenic bacteria - I'm sure I'd never burst into tears when it was time to exsanguinate a cage of politicians.
• In a football field
• In kangaroo pockets
• In the Barossa Valley where they could be close to the sampling action!
• In the drive-thru waiting bay of the Pt Augusta McDonalds
• In the hot seat, literally. Some British and Australian troops were reportedly to be involved in ‘clothing tests’ where they were deliberately exposed to radiation. Codenamed ‘Operation Lighthouse’, the British Ministry of Defence confirmed it did plan a series of atomic tests at Maralinga, during which secret documents reveal the Australian services wanted over seventeen hundred troops placed in trenches as close as possible to ground zero as the bombs went off. Sheila Grey of the British Nuclear Tests Veterans Association. "What they planed to do with this operation "Lighthouse" is just unbelievable. They were going to virtually put our men beneath the bomb blast, just out of scientific curiosity." As it happened, the trials were abandoned due to a temporary nuclear test moratorium agreed to in 1958. (http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newsdaily/s300476.htm) If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb so if the government just got the troops on a staple bean diet, they would have avoided the tests altogether. Harnessing the gas would have been problematic, admittedly.
• In trenches at the bomb site. http://www.prop1.org/japan/speeches/e-pilip.htm
• In trenches dug "as close as possible" to ground zero. Presumably "as close as possible" carried the implication "without being immediately incinerated" as opposed to only being irradiated and dying more slowly.
• In trenches just upstream of the fallout. Menzies' brown-nosing of the Brits was worse than Howard's of Dubya so he would probably have agreed to putting them in a brown paper bag at ground zero.
• Leeds.
• Local hotel?
• London, Paris, New York, Monte Carlo, or any fun place, as long as the British would foot the bill.
• Maralinga
• Maralinga
• Maralinga
• maralinga
• Maralinga.
• Maralinga
• Margaret Thatcher's bedroom. [No thanks, I’d feel safer at ground zero]
• More REVELATIONS - shock, HORROR - according to documents found in a PERTH GARDEN SHED - yes really, so they must be true! - those naughty naughty Brits were going to put fine colonial specimens just UNDER the bomb blast 'just out of scientific curiosity' I'm not sure how far scientific curiosity is away from ground zero but the troops were going to be just out of range of it.
• Must be Maralinga - there are no limits to stupidity
• Near the epicentre, or whatever nuclear physicists call the place in the middle where it gets hot quickly.
• Not far away enough, with backs turned to find out what would happen to them when they're exposed to that much radiation.
• Out in the middle of ground zero roasting marshmallows.
• Out in the middle of the Timor Sea.
• Possibly at ground zero, but, most probably in Birmingham
• Test range, slightly off blast centre, entrenched. That's what made them sample troops. Having established atom bombs produce lovely mushroom patterns, the question was: could troops work tactically in close proximity to a-bomb, well, somewhat close, well, some miles away but still on test range.
• The Australian Government built a small town for the troops near Maralinga, most likely having not asked them where they would like to be billeted. The troops would have probably said somewhere like Bermuda.
• The government suggested placing Australian troops in a trench system upwind from the test. Morris May, a lawyer representing Australian troops says that "The Australian government's role in all the tests - and that has been consistently shown - has been that of suppliers of the troops and not asking any more questions than was absolutely necessary."
• Tierra del Fuego and Lower Templestowe. Those offered the latter alternative petitioned the government to be located at Ground Zero instead.
• Too close to the explosion. Trust me, my Dad was there and they tended not to worry about wind direction and stuff...
• Top of Ayers Rock.
• Where? Too bloody close to ground zero. (Let's face it, pollies are only too happy to station soldiers in harm's way when it suits, and that's ok if one's country is invaded by Stalin or a Paraguayan junta or the Yanks but it's not bloody ok when the harm is self-generated and so obviously stupid that even an Australian politician should recognise it.)
• Woomera Detention Centre
• Woomera, it was safer. Besides we don't have Sample Troops.
• X (i.e., "How about here?" Bruce said, pencilling an X at a point as close as possible to ground zero without.)

• Nothing unusual, it happens everytime you do this.
• A tall blonde female with big tits, eminently kissable lips and an outrageously sexy accent mysteriously appears. She spirits me away to a raging party on a nearby Russian nuclear submarine, dressed only in a full length mink coat. The band is led by that well known pianist, Mr Joe Stalin. Very hip. The weather outside is Siberian, but inside the submarine it is warm and full of semen, er sorry that's a typo. By the way, you forgot to mention ice, Dr Bob. You need ice with vodka. Vodka on the rocks improves ones piano playing, especially after fighting nuclear explosions or witnessing duels or fending off marauding hypotenuses. Vodka may also help improve my answers too, if only I could tell.
• Actually I tried mixing it and wound up with what looked like a litre of potent Paraguayan politician piss. I didn't drink it for that reason. So the effect you seek must be that I remained sober in the face of alcoholic temptation. And is that unusual? You betcha!
• At the fourth attempt, you'll believe that the ugly Yeti's sister that sits close to you at the bar is not so ugly. At the sixth, she looks like Nicole Kidman. At the tenth, the Yeti himself looks like Nicole Kidman.
• Because of the difference in specific gravities of the 2 liquids 1 floats on top of the other - observable? possibly not as they are both clear. I thought of colouring the water with vegetable dye and testing - I could afford the vodka but not the dye. Alternative approach, mix, observe, drink, and overhang.
• Boris Yeltsin's tears.
• Compression of mixture occurs and you get less than 1000ml.
• Consumption of vodka in Russia would double
• Dueling in Paraguay.
• Final volume would be less than 1000 mls (shrinkage occurs).
• Fun with alcohol and water at the Night Club – ‘Spheres of Oil’. You Need: A small, clear drinking glass, a shot of vodka, bottled spring mineral water (seeing you can’t get tap water for free at pubs and clubs these days), oil from that bowl of olives on the counter, an eyedropper. 1) Half-fill the glass with water. 2) Tip the glass and pour the vodka down the side until the glass is approximately 3/4 full. Be careful not to shake the container or the vodka will mix with the water and ruin the effect. 3) With the eyedropper, gently place droplets of oil into the water/alcohol. 4) Small, perfect spheres of oil will become suspended between the vodka and water. What happens: A perfect sphere results when drops of oil are suspended between alcohol and water. Alcohol is lighter than water. Oil molecules are attracted more strongly to other oil molecules than to water or alcohol molecules. The attraction among all the oil molecules is equal and this equal attraction results in a sphere, just as equal pressure on all parts of a bubble results in a sphere. 5) Drink it.
• Girls squealing and giggling at nothing.
• Heightened sense of well being, slurred speech, double vision, leading to a comatose state and most likely followed by repeated vomiting and a force 10 hangover the next day (if you survived).
• Homeopaths could drink it with impunity.
• I asked my husband, (double first class hons maths and physics, phd + some chem somewhere), and he said, "Oh, yeah, that. Hmmm." So, I guess that's the answer. Is it the swirly effect, or the change in refractive index?
• I left this question until last - oh I see - whoops - it taashted ok though
• I wouldn't consider this unusual. Rather, I would consider it a typical and usual practice of most bars in the known universe.
• If the water is in frozen form then you have described my perfect drink.
• If they were mix in a sterile glass container, heat would be released (exothermic reaction) and the final volume would be less than the expected 1,000ml due to the more optimal arrangement of ethanol and water molecules amongst each other. If it was mixed in my stomach over a short space of time, I would become unusually dizzy and shtart shlurring my wordsh...
• If you drank it you would soon notice that the world would start to blur, then spin and then you would probably be getting acquainted with the toilet and finally the floor coverings would be your best friend. Of course if you didn't drink it you may notice (provided you had the equipment to measure it) that you don't have a litre of liquid, in fact you would have slightly less than one litre.
• If you mixed these in your stomach you would observe the room spinning and a decease in social inhibition. [Yes, one’s inhibition would decrease at first and then decease entirely]
• I'll say that they have the same density and either the same or different surface tensions. When equal amounts of the liquids are poured into one container, they won't mix with each other and they won't form two layers with one floating on top of the other, but will sit side-by-side, separated by the surface tension between them. (I have little knowledge of fluid dynamics.) [As is apparent. Never mind, if you repeat the experiment after disposing of the first try the two liquids will leap out of the glass, turn pink and dance the tango]
• It turns red [As would everything else when viewed through bloodshot eyes]
• It would take you twice as long to get drunk.
• Mixture compression. Some guy Mendeleev studied this effect. I still don't understand why, I couldn't tell the difference between 40` or 42` alcohol, nor could I care. Anyway - "Nasdarovje to Mendeleev"
• Never done that - I drink my vodka straight
• No one buys it. Most vodka manufacturers use a much higher ratio of vodka:water when mixing their product.
• None. The mixing of x ml of water with x ml of ethanol (or something that's very high in EtOH content) to give a total volume of less than 2x ml is well documented, and not unusual at all (dust off your 5th form chemistry text). If the owner of the bottle of vodka saw you diluting it 1:1 with water, they would no doubt react by screaming blue murder - mind you, that wouldn't be an unexpected effect, either.
• Now it all depended whether it was before drinking it or after. After, you would first observe the room rotating rapidly, next you would observe the floor rising equally rapidly to meet you, finally, depending upon whether you were face down or face up, you would observe nothing, blackness, an absence of anything, hallucinatory nightmares, etc. If it was before drinking it...ask a chemist. Is there any significance in the quantities, or only there relativities? Would it work just as well with 100 ml of each, or 5,000ml? Would it work with 50ml of vodka and 450ml of water? Or vice versa? It isn't one of those suspensions where one liquid sits on top of the other? Or maybe it turns cloudy, like aniseed and water (Pernod, Ouzo)
• Pink Elephants flying around the room
• Probably something unexpected like the total is less or more than 1000ml.
• Profound disappointment among your mates.
• Speaking as a Homeopath (NOT). This would be insufficient dilution to heal people of hangover symptoms.
• Sudden chemical inconvenience should you then scull. Followed by an overwhelming urge to take off your clothes because suddenly you've become an Earth Goddess (actually, you look a little like Frankenfurter at this hour ....)
• That you've spoiled 500 ml of nice healthy vodka
• The bartender would be fired for really bad cocktails.
• The combined liquid would turn cloudy.
• The dilution of perfectly good vodka.
• The glass would warm up [As would many things]
• The polar molecules in the water affect the intermolecular bonds, causing the liquid mixture density to increase, resulting in a reduction in volume. It shrinks. 1+1=1.9
• The revocation of your liquor license for being a cheapskate publican!
• The room spinning.
• The vodka would drown, thrashing about wildly as the water consumed it.
• This is why James Bond drinks vodka martinis. A phenomenon known as mixture compression was discovered by Mendeleev. If you mix 500ml of water and 500ml of vodka you get less than 1 litre of liquid. This means, of course, that you can get more martini into a glass than you can pure vodka. A personal rant, if substituting a cocktail onion for the olive turns a martini into a gimlet, how can you call it a martini when you take the gin out of it and put vodka in instead?
• Three children in bed before 7.30 pm. 8^)
• Very little, but if you drink it, you become a sex god, and you think you are witty, debonair, successful and well hung. Everyone else of course thinks you’re a sozzled prat.
• Vodka (the stuff that's actually sold) is half water and half alcohol. Probably a blurring of eyesight and slurring of speech after that.
• Well, I just mixed the two and the unusual effect I observed was the floor hitting my face after I drank the whole damn thing *ouch* Pity Points for me please
• Well, vile really - where's my G&T? And, worse, I have to drink the water first to get at the gin.
• You get a jelly [in your legs]
• You would get drunk only half as fast?
• You would have less than 1000 ml in the glass. It would perhaps be endothermic
• You would see me cry. On the other hand I would fully expect the volume to be 500ml+500ml= 994.4783ml.... not unusual at all.
• You wouldn't be able to observe very much at all….
• You'd be kicked out of any Russian bar for indecent behaviour.

• Aerial shot of a night city - maybe Karachi

• A bullet hole in a windshield lit from behind? A star exploding in a distant galaxy? The gateway to the tunnel of doom? A slightly melted negative? The one and only neuron in George Bush's brain?
• A backlit fungal culture.
• A cross section of the kidneys belonging to the person from the previous question
• A flare or star shell (according to my dictionary since I know the word in Spanish) - one of these things children lit on Bonfire Night instead of blowing their fingers with fireworks.
• A fractal spider’s web? Our universe shortly after the Big Bang? A dopaminergic neuron?
• A not-yet-completed solar eclipse seen throughout a broken polaroid filter. Or, maybe, a pic of the unusual effect you observe when you mix 500 ml of water with 500 ml of vodka (Twentieth attempt)
• A photo of something.
• A picture of the univers. If not uranus can't go wrong with that!
• A representation of the Big Bang, perhaps?
• A sequin on Za Za Gabors frock or something splattered on a windscreen
• A streetlight glimpsed at night through a rain smeared window at the Department of Poetic Inspiration!
• A tasteful and thought-provoking composition in brown and yellow.
• A very old film negative
• Based on the radial fractures, out of focus particles and radial cracks, it looks like a high speed photo of a particle penetrating a glass sheet.
• Bullet striking a water drop
• Close up of a smoked mirror having been broken by the end of a pool cue in a badly planned basement sportsroom. Just a guess I really don't have a clue.
• Either a quasar or the view through the windscreen of a clapped out Kombi van at night.
• Exact closeup replica of the bat shit currently on my windsreen.
• exploding chocolate
• Gough Whitlam bending over to show where the "light on the hill" got to.
• High speed photo of hole being punched in glass.
• I don't know but it looks like a pubic hair got on the lens - bad Dr Bob, you'll go blind.
• I dunno, but something tells me that there is a doctor in a hospital room waiting for me on the other side...
• It is the headlight of an oncoming motorbike seen through the remains of a large moth that just hit the windscreen.
• It looks like a galaxy, but it is not. It is a broken windscreen on your car. You are driving home after seeing Joe and the Georgians Revival Tour, having consumed far too many vodka and waters, and you hit a pole ( the upright ones with a light and wires, not the ones from Poland ) The light in the centre of the picture is from the Police car, and an officer is walking towards you holding a breathaliser. He asks you to blow into the machine and he notices that in the back seat are Stalin, Churchill, who are too pissed to drive, and Roosevelt who couldn't get his legs to double clutch.
• It looks like a light bulb exploding.
• It looks like the windscreen of my car, after that dirty big semi threw a couple of ton of gravel at me the other day.
• It's either Mum and Dad's kitchen window after I hit a cricket ball into it, a polaroid snap of the first instant after the Big Bang or a lighted dinosaur fart. Give me some more vodka.
• It's the bright light of heaven that Stalin’s victims may have seen as they were purged, or that someone being killed by a hippo would see, or if you were a Paraguayan who has been fatally shot in a duel you might see it, or it could be the after image from watching a nuclear explosion at Maralinga while marching towards ground zero ( this is microseconds before you see the bright light of heaven). It may be what you see the morning after drinking not quite a litre of vodka and water.
• It's the Exploding Lightbulb Galaxy in Morris Minor.
• I've changed my mind, it's the effect of a flash on a highly polished bit of black granite, probably on a headstone.
• Ken Ham sputtering with rage as another discovery makes the fossil record more complete.
• Looks as though it might be something viewed under an SEM, I believe that it is maybe a layer of carbon on resin, in false colour
• Looks like a bullet impact on glass.
• Looks like some sort of impact fracture on a glass surface. Have you been playing with the particle accelerator again, Bob?
• Magnification of a sneeze or an orgasm - well they are sort of similar (from memory) [How do you magnify an orgasm? This would be very useful knowledge for which many people would be profoundly grateful]
• Maralinga!
• My backside after I slipped and knocked myself unconsious during the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. I'm very upset, they never send flowers, or call. On the plus side I now have a new occupation as a smuggler of some renown and capacity.
• Neat picture of bird dropping. I like the effect that makes it look surrounded by a ring-road.
• photo negative of Dr Bobs anus
• Photo of a nebula taken byHubble telescope.
• Photographic proof that Iraq has chemical weapons (according to President Bush)
• pic0305.jpg [I always change the names of the JPGs]. Unfortunately, googling for that produced no answers, but a lot of um... interesting pictures. Obligatory guess: firefly traces?
• Someone's failed attempt at car theft?
• Something bright and yellow, with less bright yellow things around it, on a black background.
• Stalin's arsehole after a night on 50/50 water and vodka. Now THAT's an unusual effect...
• Sun shining through a cracked windscreen
• The Challenger space shuttle
• The eye of a lizard.
• The inside of a politician's head. No, too much activity. The result of an atom being split asunder. What Dr Bob sees when he thinks of another of his bloody questions. (You really should get out more) [yes but the nice men in white coats wont let me] Some star cluster or supernova in one of the less well travelled parts of the universe, maybe near the Horsehead Nebula. Or possibly the other end of the universe, near the Horsearse Nebula. It is a long time exposure shot, because of the moving object (you notice I did not use the more obvious star, as it may not be a star) at the bottom of the picture.
• The nighttime view from the drivers seat of my car after a stone hit the windscreen
• The photo negative of a pimple?
• The shell of a Japanese sea snail.
• What the footpath would look like a couple of minutes after mixing half a litre of vodka with half a litre of water in my stomach.
• Wood's lamp image of Monica's blue cocktail dress.
• What? No question mark? Now how am I supposed to know if the sentence has ended, if indeed it has? Please try again.

• "sample troops" I’m still stunned [But not as much as those at ground zero]
• "Swine wolf" indeed. I am mortified. And fancy saying in last month's answers that you are safe from anagrams? What tosh. How about "Boob Droct", Doctor Bob? (Surely you know that 'Boob Droct' is Swahili for 'smartarse academic with big tits')
• @(**&%^^^^@&^%% [Which in lower case is 298875666627655 showing the usual non-randomness of human-typed attempts to make random text]
• A bit late this month, Doc. Sorry for late and sorry for silly answers. Well, no... after all, these answers are exactly as silly as usual, I think.
• A bit vague this month but entertaining nonetheless. P.S. I've got an Aussie friend called Steve, do you know him?
• An interesting aside from boring physics lectures.
• Are you any relation to Rev. Bob?
• Can u tuck me into bed uncle bob and read me a bed time story?
• Can you play the piano softly, or is that a tautology?
• Did you know that it is still illegal to have eggs in the fridge in New Zealand?
• Do I get extra credit for not looking up any answers, ever?
• Do you know anything about Vortex's?
• Dr Bob you are very evil. My doctor recommends that you stop immediately as it carries a serious health risk.
• Dr Bob, is this serious? [No, it’s trivial]
• Easy one this week good doctor
• Fair.
• Good questions Dr Bob, even though I could only answer one of them. No Bill and Ben questions this month? Running out or just saving them up? Like a wet fart (I know you like this concept so I decided to slip it in again). Who is Dave Hawley and what has he done to win his award? I looked up the Victor Zammit web site. Wondrous! Sublimely brilliant. One of the greatest pieces of unscientific piffle ever perpetrated by man on anybody. I loved it. He may be a good lawyer, but he certainly knows nothing about logic. As Randi and Williams pointed out, you cannot prove a negative.
• Got to go, the boss is lurking around...
• Great questions Dr Bob. Hope my answers tickle your funny bone, if not I'll try again next time.
• Great quiz, must have a go at this again
• Great site Dr. Bob!
• Guns don't kill people, bullets do and so do bayonets too. Although you could use the gun as a club or perhaps as an enema.
• Hi, Dr. Bob, I'm back. Typical, I just get back from OS and the company decides to make my position redundant. I told them I like doggie, but they said it was a redundant position.
• Hope your Beltane celebration was ecstatic.
• Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. Imagine the day when we learn to communicate with them ...
• I enter your quiz almost every month, but you never enter mine. I am deeply hurt. [You’d probably be hurt more if I did enter it and gave pathetic answers]
• I like asparagus. Really.
• I like New York in June, how about you? [I don’t know – only YOU can say if you like me or not]
• If people just had more calming drugs to take at work, we would all be much happier.
• Ik wou nog even de groeten doen aan mijn broer. Dag Joost!
• Is it June yet?
• I've been away for a bit. Sorry [Where did you go, I went away to NZ and I bet I am more sorry than you]
• Keep up the good work!
• No anagrams, eh? Well, Dr. Bob, you'll be pleased to know that you're an anagram of Brobd, which is an abbreviated form of Brobdingnagian, or one of Swift's giants.
• No Hitler or Philip Glass questions? You are falling down on the job.
• No search engines were hurt in the processing of these answers.
• Purchase not required. Batteries not included. Some assembly required. Must be 18 or older to participate. In case of accidental overdose, contact a physician immediately. Not intended for internal use. Authorized personnel only.
• So a Stalin question instead of the usual Hitler question ... next time "Could Mao-Tse Tung play the saxophone"?
• The last couple of times I've contributed to this quiz, I've actually tried to find out the real answers, but when I realised that I'm in such a large minority, I decided to treat the quiz with the disinterest it deserves.
• This entry may contain traces of nuts
• tough questions Dr Bob [as the newspaper headline said, after someone asked me for my wallet]
• what sort of questions are these? [Oh, just the usual sort, with that curly mark at the end. Except where I forget to put it, as in Q6]
• You rock! [As Jesus said to Peter]
• You're so clever - make it bloody rain! We're in a drought you know .... oh, I need to hose down the driveway. [All that water in the vodka should help]