Historical Questions

Question	Author	Story
How you moved the North Pole to the Equator to avoid being captured by the French?	James Walker
Tell me, your grace, what happened to the Marie Celeste and why it is only now that you can speak of it.	Mike Walker
Sir, please explain to us the story of the Magnificent Mangonel and how he got the name.	S_ B_
Your grace, please tell us how you discovered the oldest tree in the world and why you cut it down for cigars.	Mike Walker
Sir, why is it that whenever you travel in Ascott, you always carry with you a live kipper?	James Walker
How was it sir, that with a herd of flying pigs, you managed to lift the siege of Antioch?	Peter Wass
How you invented ice cream for the pleasure of the Empress of Russia and why you chose to serve her Creamed Hedgehog Crunch.	Michael Cule
How you dug a tunnel right through the Earth to the Antipodes and what you discovered there.	Michael Cule
Of the curse you placed upon the town of New Amsterdam, why you did it and the price you asked for lifting it.	Michael Cule
Of why you are known among the Esquimaux as Mr.. Red and Wobbly.	Michael Cule
Why you bent the steeple of Chesterfield out of shape and why you refuse to correct it.	Michael Cule
How by returning a lady's handkerchief you accidently sank Atlantis?	James Walker
How you discovered the North West Passage and why you refuse to tell anyone about it.	Michael Cule
How you drained the wine cellars of all Prussia using just a forked spoon.	Paul Gainer
How did you become the Grand Mogul of all India's Chief Cat Fancier despite your well-known allergy to cats.	Paula Dempsey
How you managed to come across the Ramses pyramid in a rowing boat. Did I mention you did it blindfolded?	Olaf Flatland
Why it is was you that invented the steam driven calculating engine and not Sir Charles Babbage.	Olaf Flatland
How you climbed Everest on a Friday.	Ian Miller
How you journeyed to the depths of the ocean in a hot-air balloon.	Ian Miller
How you defended yourself from a thousand screaming fuzzy-wuzzies armed with only a needle, thread and three brass pennies and maintained both yourself and your virtue intact.	Ian Miller
Why you are the sole survivor from the Household Cavalry of the Changing of the Guard.	Ian Miller
Why the outcome of the Battle of Austerlitz was changed by your visit to a Danish brothel.	Ian Miller
How you resolved the Whale shortage with the aid of 4 nuns and a barrel of fine brandy?	James Walker
Describe the occasion on which you were presented to the courts of the Moon, Sun and Paris on the same day.	Ian Miller
Tell us of Love, Pity and Sorrow and whose daughters they were.	Edmund Bosworth
Why the tribes along the Limpopo think you unworthy of your beard.	Edmund Bosworth
How you persuaded the Northern Lights to shine and what they revealed.	Edmund Bosworth
How you became estranged from your cousin, the archbishop of Rheims.	Edmund Bosworth
How you single-handedly removed all of the gold from the King of Arabia's vaults using nothing more than a sack of cheese.	John Lewis
How you came into possession of a deed to the moon and how you used this deed to assume a seat in the Chinese senate.	John Lewis
Why you refuse to play bridge whilst facing West and how this fact cleared you of the Sir Farweather murder.	John Lewis
How you prevented the annexation of Croatia, with the aid of naught but a hip flask of gunpowder, a fine grey wig made of horse hair and a jar of honey.	Gary Woodward
Why you decided to sail the Indian Ocean, blind-folded, on a wooden barrel, and how you discovered the Mystery of the Island of Mu.	Gary Woodward
How you persuaded every locksmith in the country to make a skeleton key to every known chastity belt?	James Walker
How you accidentally caused the demise of The Five Headed Hydra of Constantinople, and how you escaped the King's subsequent wrath.	Gary Woodward
Why you invented the worlds first Marvelous Mechanical Automaton, and how it subsequently became married to the Princess Toobongo of the Isle of Savages.	Gary Woodward
How your gout saved the Moon from the French.	Neil Lancaster
Why in Jamaica you are called Saturday and how local wizards managed to re-attach your severed head.	Neil Lancaster
Why you claim to be both a Cardinal and a Rabbi while being a notorious follower of the Protestant faith.	Neil Lancaster
Why your grandfather requested that you should name your twelfth cat Reginald and why you chose not to honour this dying wish.	Neil Lancaster
How a Turk stole your memories using a cursed lute and how your choice of saddlebag returned them to you.	Neil Lancaster
How you discovered the art of milking cows.	Neil Lancaster
How a statue of Nero saved your life and why this has caused you to be unable to say the word 'penguin' three times in a row.	Neil Lancaster
Why you exterminated the Dodo.	Neil Lancaster
Your holiness, was it really necessary to proclaim a jihad on the Scots over that particular muffin? And what was so special about it anyway?	Peter Cobcroft
How you saved Saint Swiverns day from the people of Kreeg.	Neil Lancaster
Why you spent ten years as a nun and how your beard never gave you away.	Neil Lancaster
How you managed to sink Noah's Ark using a scarecrow, and why you saved all the beasts from drowning.	Neil Lancaster
Why you have a full beard despite shaving it off twice daily.	Neil Lancaster
How you used De-Vinci's flying machine to save the Kaiser from typhoid.	Neil Lancaster
How you invented time travel and how this caused the dissolution of the monasteries.	Neil Lancaster
Why you confess to being the only casualty of the Ten Hours war.	Neil Lancaster
Why you drank claret believing it to be rum and how this marred your birthday celebrations.	Neil Lancaster
How you recreated the Hanging Gardens of Babylon using a herring.	Neil Lancaster
How this game saved your lovelife.	Neil Lancaster
Pardon me ma'am, but I do not understand why it was necessary for you to disguise yourself as one of the Queen's prize corgis in order to bring about the downfall of the Ku Klux Klan. Would you care to enlighten us?	Peter Cobcroft
How you were able to return your late books to the lost Library of Alexandria only last week, and why you never finished either of them.	Matthew Pook
How you founded St. Swinthun's School Choir and why you refuse to take the credit for such an act.	Matthew Pook
Describe how you sought the Mongolian Back Passage and what you found therein…	Matthew Pook
Why you came to discover the art of telling the future from gravy stains and what was foretold from your first gravyomancy reading.	Matthew Pook
Why you will never ever mount a flying carpet from the left side again.	Oliver Martin
Describe your recent skirmish with the Tsar's secret police under the Kremlin on a rainy Saturday morning in October.	Oliver Martin
Bring light into the matter concerning your recent spontaneous combustion on the steps of the Vatican and how this has affected your complexion.	Oliver Martin
Why in February you decided to call everybody 'My most generous Liege' (be they man, woman or child) for the whole month.	Oliver Martin
Of your great-great-uncle Wilhelm's ghost and why you are the only person to have seen him smile.	Oliver Martin
Why you strongly dislike all men called Umberto since returning from your journey to Naples and of the two wars this has caused.	Oliver Martin
My lady, would you be so kind as to tell us of the distressing secret at the heart of the College of Cardinals, and how you yourself became a member, despite being protestant, and a lady?	S_ B_
Tell me dear baron how you lured the infamous red bandits of the Dark and Twisted Woods to their deaths using but half a pound of mouldy Swiss cheese and a rather stale loaf of black bread.	Oliver Martin
Why you will never again be allowed to eat pancakes after dark anywhere in Brittany.	Oliver Martin
Why last year you celebrated Easter six hundred and seventy times although you completely forgot Christmas.	Oliver Martin
How you displaced the entire Schwarzwald to the West Indies and how you made sure nobody will ever notice the difference.	Oliver Martin
How you crossed the Danube on a raft made of matchsticks with your steed and a herd of elephants you had borrowed from the Grand Mogul.	Oliver Martin
How you single-handedly defended the mountain fortress of Hohenbach against Duke Tassenschrank and his army of minions and why the Duke is now allergic to melon.	Oliver Martin
How you convinced the Grand Old Duke of York to swap his 10,000 men for a small yet wiry terrier called Oswald.	Steven Wilkie
How you became the first man to walk across the bottom of the English Channel with nothing more than a barrel of fine Port and a collection of Christmas tree decorations to aid you.	Steven Wilkie
Why you consented to the marriage of your great aunt and a gibbon, when your uncle died of monkey bites.	Steven Wilkie
How you outsmarted the High Ching Ching of Old Kang-Po and married his three daughters for two days.	Steven Wilkie
Your Excellency, perhaps you could tell us of the time you crossed the Himalayas in a rowboat, in order to smuggle summer fruit to the Shah of Pakistan?	S_ B_
Why you started the rumour that it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind.	Steven Wilkie
How you discovered the alchemical formula for turning mashed potato into gold whilst taking tea with the Monks of Manchu.	Steven Wilkie
Although being a man of some significant scholarship, and despite using the resources of the wondrous repository of regrettably mostly trivial lore that is called the Internet, I was able to find no reference in old proverbs to the city of Rhodes. Could you please give me some inklings about that proverb that led the Baron to mistakenly lead the city of Rhodes to Rome?	Jean-David Lanz
Has the Baron ever recounted how he came to befriend Master Dor despite the latter's being not only French, but also born in the century that followed the Baron's untimely final death?	Jean-David Lanz
I have long been impressed by the extent of your travels, Lady Alyssa. This is a good night for tales, so perhaps you could share with us the tale of your journey to the Earth's core in a barrel of ice, and what you found there to precipitate the downfall of the government of New Zealand.	Barbara Robson	Lady Alyssa and the Barrel of Ice
Do tell us the exhilarating tale of the time you went on safari in the North of Africa and what you did there to ensure the survival of the last known species of dinosaurs.	Alisa Krasnostein	Dinosaur
I know you have travelled to all 5 corners of the globe and I have always been most interested to learn more of your adventures in the Far East. In particular, I have heard rumours that you were instrumental in recovering the Grey Pearls of Pung Qing for his Excellency Qian Long, Emperor of China. Is it true that you found them in a forgotten room of the Imperial Palace?	Kathryn Linge	the Grey Pearls of Pung Qing for his Excellency Qian Long, Emperor of China
Perhaps, then, you could tell us of the time you discovered the potato, now so popular upon our tables, and how you used its little known and hitherto unsuspected properties to cause so much mayhem among the primitive tribes folk of the American Indies.	S_ B_	Potato
It would be an honour if you could enlighten us as to the circumstances of your having a rat name Gerald. And how it was that with nothing but his help you lifted the Great Siege of Antioch?	Peter Cobcroft	the Great Siege of Antioch
If you would be so kind, could you tell us of your Spanish adventure leading to the discovery of your famous Preparation Number 3	Terry	Preparation Number 3
Your grace, gift us with the tale of your revolutionary cure for warts and explain how that led to your arrest in Scotland for the theft of a bishop's nose.	Barbara Robson
I would be eternally grateful if you would share with us the story of how you discovered the Mask of Zorro in a remote part of the Andes. I admit I have a personal interest in learning more about your experiences, to which you alluded earlier, with Peruvian pharmaceuticals.	Pullinc	Zorro
Perhaps, your Grace, you would care to tell us of why you were naked in Antarctica facing a pack of Wolverines as the result of a wager with the Empress Catherine the Great of Russia	James Walker	Face to face game 18/2/2003
Tell me, Lord Lucas, Why you invented lavatories, and why the French refuse to use them.	Peter Cobcroft	Face to face game 18/2/2003
Why you built the moon out of chestnut cheese and why a bite of it saved your life	Mike Walker	Face to face game 18/2/2003
Captain, pray tell us how you came by the name 'Longshanks', despite being 3'6\“, and how you quelled the Scottish rebellion in Eastern Patagonia using a Halibut, a Squirrel, and the string that formerly held up the moon	Peter Wass	Face to face game 18/2/2003
Why you were removed from the human race and the conditions of your return.	S_ B_	Face to face game 18/2/2003
Why you are known among the Eskimos as 'The Woman of a Thousand Voices' and why you are forbidden from attending their festivals.	Eric Henry	Face to face game 18/2/2003