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General Knowledge Quiz

krus_aragon

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I'm pretty sure that Auntie Anna played the Grand Piano (Piana).

My memory's drawing a blank on the other two. It's stuck with a mash-up of two different verses: :oops:

He had an Auntie Anna / who could play the grand piana
And according to her power / she did forty mile an hour

(I'm not sure how many beats per minute 40mph would be!)
 
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Calthrop

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This looks like a rhyming thing, how about...

Brother Norwich - ate his porridge
Little sister Lily - was very, very silly
Auntie Anna - would do anything for a tanner (6d)
or
had a face like a bag of spanners

You get one out of three, as close enough:

Crawshay Bailey's brother Norwich
Was fond of oatmeal porridge,
But was sent to Cardiff College
For to get himself some knowledge.

The other two -- compliments on ingenuity; but, "not on-target". ("Silly" does come in the verse about Lily; but rather indirectly.)
 

Calthrop

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I'm pretty sure that Auntie Anna played the Grand Piano (Piana).

Correct:

Crawshay Bailey's Auntie Anna,
She plays the grand pianna:
She goes hammer, hammer, hammer,
And the neighbours say "God... bless her".

My memory's drawing a blank on the other two. It's stuck with a mash-up of two different verses: :oops:

He had an Auntie Anna / who could play the grand piana
And according to her power / she did forty mile an hour

(I'm not sure how many beats per minute 40mph would be!)

(My bolding) -- this line belongs to the first verse: about Crawshay's decidedly sub-optimal locomotive -- verse as I know it,

Crawshay Bailey had an engine,
And she always needed mending;
But according to the power,
She could do four miles an hour.

One verse to @DaleCooper, one to @krus_aragon. Anyone up for telling us about Lily's chief trait?
 

krus_aragon

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(My bolding) -- this line belongs to the first verse: about Crawshay's decidedly sub-optimal locomotive -- verse as I know it,

Crawshay Bailey had an engine,
And she always needed mending;
But according to the power,
She could do four miles an hour.
The version of that verse the I know comes from D.S.M. Barrie's South Wales volume of the Regional History of Britain's Railways. From memory, he described childhood memories of hearing the men singing as they walked home from the pub:

Cosher Bailey had an engine / but the engine wouldn't go
So they pushed the bloody engine / all the way to Nantyglo

Then, one day, when at the railway station with his parents, a big GWR tender engine pulled in. This was far larger than the tank engines that normally plied the line, so he asked (in a typically loud, innocent child's voice): "Dada, is that Cosher Bailey's bloody engine?" o_O

-----

Back to the guessing: Did Lily have a filly?
 

Calthrop

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The version of that verse the I know comes from D.S.M. Barrie's South Wales volume of the Regional History of Britain's Railways. From memory, he described childhood memories of hearing the men singing as they walked home from the pub:

Cosher Bailey had an engine / but the engine wouldn't go
So they pushed the bloody engine / all the way to Nantyglo

Then, one day, when at the railway station with his parents, a big GWR tender engine pulled in. This was far larger than the tank engines that normally plied the line, so he asked (in a typically loud, innocent child's voice): "Dada, is that Cosher Bailey's bloody engine?" o_O

Not heard the version above, before -- always hitherto in my experience, rhyme-scheme has been AABB. Verse 2 in my experience before today: "Crawshay had her second-hand, and he painted her so grand / When the driver went to oil her, why he nearly bust the boiler" -- at all events, our hero seems not to have been all that clued-up as a purchaser / operator of motive power.

-----
Back to the guessing: Did Lily have a filly?

The spoken word "filly" is -- sort-of -- a part (not the whole) of the word which ends the verse's second line. (I fear this might be a clue of the less-than-helpful kind.)
 

Calthrop

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I'll have to think very caerphilly about that.

OK Dale -- you're first to mention the cheese-and-Castle-class-loco town -- I figure, you have it.

Crawshay's little sister Lily,
She played soccer for Caerphilly;
But when she took up rugger
She looked such a silly...billy.

@DaleCooper 2, @krus_aragon 1 -- Mr. Cooper, yours to produce -- as per song's chorus -- a funnier thing than we've ever seen before.
 

EbbwJunction1

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Auntie Anna had a Grand Pianna (Piano), which she'd "hammer, hammer, hammer".

Curses … beaten to it!
 

krus_aragon

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Not heard the version above, before -- always hitherto in my experience, rhyme-scheme has been AABB. Verse 2 in my experience before today: "Crawshay had her second-hand, and he painted her so grand / When the driver went to oil her, why he nearly bust the boiler" -- at all events, our hero seems not to have been all that clued-up as a purchaser / operator of motive power.
I've found D.S.M. Barrie's original words on the matter, on page 50/51 of the Regional History:
Crawshay became immortalised in South Wales folk-lore as having introduced one of the early steam locomotives in South Wales. Although technical evidence of its existence seems slender, there was nothing slender about the words of the song, which like Sospan Fach was sing (and maybe it still is) for generations on pay nights, or after a notable victory by the Newport rugger team, or most often on the past on arrival of the last train at valley stations on Saturday nights. The original ditty does not often find its way into the milk-and-water versions of some folklorists; the first two lines went:

Crossher Bailer had an engine, and the engine wouldn't go,
So they pushed the bloody engine all the way to Nantyglo...​

Having betrayed at the early age of six a promising interest in railway history by enquiring at the family breakfast table next morning, the meaning of certain words in the song as heard through the bedroom window the previous night, purposeful glances ensued across the table, followed by a rapid change of subject. But the next time the family went in state by train, perhaps to Tenby or Weston-super-Mare, I pointed to the magnificent Great Western 4-4-0 bringing in out train, and inquired in a loud and penetrating voice, 'Dadda, is this Crossher Bailey's bloody engine?'
 

Calthrop

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I've found D.S.M. Barrie's original words on the matter, on page 50/51 of the Regional History:

On reading this which you cite: I'm now suspecting that "my" version of the song, is actually a feeble "drawing-room" one as referred to with scorn by Mr. Barrie. I got the words as I know them, long ago: from my first girlfriend, who was from South Wales -- she was a very proper young lady.
 

Calthrop

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Next question:

You all know about the Hippocratic Oath but what is the origin of Rhinocratic Oaths?

A totally uninformed guess: from Kipling's "Just So Story" How the Rhinoceros got his Skin ? When Pestonjee Bomonjee the baker of cakes, takes his dreadful revenge on Strorks the rhino for the latter's cake-theft; by filling the rhino's removable skin with tickly and irritating dried cake-crumbs and burnt currants (which is why rhinos to this day have "great folds in their skin and a very bad temper"): Strorks, finding himself in this fix, gets very angry and no doubt uses strong language -- i.e. Rhinocratic Oaths.
 

DaleCooper

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A totally uninformed guess: from Kipling's "Just So Story" How the Rhinoceros got his Skin ? When Pestonjee Bomonjee the baker of cakes, takes his dreadful revenge on Strorks the rhino for the latter's cake-theft; by filling the rhino's removable skin with tickly and irritating dried cake-crumbs and burnt currants (which is why rhinos to this day have "great folds in their skin and a very bad temper"): Strorks, finding himself in this fix, gets very angry and no doubt uses strong language -- i.e. Rhinocratic Oaths.

A very detailed, informative, erudite but completely wrong answer. Try a different form of artistic expression.
 

krus_aragon

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Perhaps the art of whistle-blowing and investigative journalism (and sticking your nose where some people would prefer it wasn't)?
 

341o2

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OK Dale -- you're first to mention the cheese-and-Castle-class-loco town -- I figure, you have it.

Crawshay's little sister Lily,
She played soccer for Caerphilly;
But when she took up rugger
She looked such a silly...billy.

@DaleCooper 2, @krus_aragon 1 -- Mr. Cooper, yours to produce -- as per song's chorus -- a funnier thing than we've ever seen before.
The version I know
Cosher Bailey had an engine
It was always wanting mending
And according to her power
She would do five mile an hour

chorus Did you ever see, did you ever see, did you ever see such a funny thing before

Did you see my sister Millie
She went down to Piccadilly
And for half a crown an hour
she would be a Passion Flower

Did you see my cousin Anna
Well she plays the grand pianna
And she plays "Arama rama"
Till the neighbours cry "God damn her!"

Another verse has the auntie sitting by the fire knitting using india rubber wool (making condoms, a jest referred to by Nevil Shute in one of his novels regarding a young pilot on the carpet, accused of bombing one of our own ships
 

Calthrop

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The version I know
Cosher Bailey had an engine
It was always wanting mending
And according to her power
She would do five mile an hour

chorus Did you ever see, did you ever see, did you ever see such a funny thing before

Did you see my sister Millie
She went down to Piccadilly
And for half a crown an hour
she would be a Passion Flower

Did you see my cousin Anna
Well she plays the grand pianna
And she plays "Arama rama"
Till the neighbours cry "God damn her!"

Another verse has the auntie sitting by the fire knitting using india rubber wool (making condoms, a jest referred to by Nevil Shute in one of his novels regarding a young pilot on the carpet, accused of bombing one of our own ships

Definitely not the version which I heard from my girlfriend :oops: ... It's interesting that Mr. Bailey is sometimes "Crawshay" and sometimes "Cosher". I personally like better, the dignified "Crawshay" -- the other variant feels a bit thuggish. I prefer the image of the benign, none-too-competent steam-loco owner and eccentric family man...
 

DerekC

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An oath taken by Pinocchio to tell the truth in future?

PS - since it is becoming traditional to quote a verse of "Cosher Bailey":

Cosher Bailey had a daughter
Who did things she didn't oughter
She was quite beyond the pale
But over that we'll draw a veil
 

Calthrop

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You can find the answer in Granny's Greenhouse along with Zelda, Mabel, a trouser press, a drainpipe, a doughnut and a postcard.

I thought, "Granny's Greenhouse = apples?", and went to Google. Learnt thereby that Rhinocratic Oaths is a number by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, purveyed by Apple Music. Essentially search-engined; plus, this sort of stuff is "as unknown to me as Muscovy itself" -- so taking it that the above is correct: open floor.

Verse from Mr. B.'s epic:

Oh, the choir on Sunday night
Sing much better when they're tight:
Their performance of "Cwm Rhondda"
Makes the angels shake up yonder...
 

DerekC

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I did own Bonzo Dog's first album (Urban Spaceman) at one time but never bought the second (The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse) - I think a friend had it, but it's all lost in the haze* of the late 1960s!

* - nothing illegal involved
 

Calthrop

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"Granny's Greenhouse" is part of an album title by those folks? -- man, I am but so square...
 

DaleCooper

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I did own Bonzo Dog's first album (Urban Spaceman) at one time but never bought the second (The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse) - I think a friend had it, but it's all lost in the haze* of the late 1960s!

* - nothing illegal involved

Their first album was Gorilla. If nothing illegal was involved it wasn't the 1960s.

I thought, "Granny's Greenhouse = apples?", and went to Google. Learnt thereby that Rhinocratic Oaths is a number by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, purveyed by Apple Music. Essentially search-engined; plus, this sort of stuff is "as unknown to me as Muscovy itself" -- so taking it that the above is correct: open floor.

Correct, open floor...
 

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