Fun for Boys

• Name a common word with five consecutive vowels. Queueing. Less common is miaoued (pertaining to a cat's cry, found in some dictionaries). Words with four consecutive vowels include sequoia (giant redwood tree) and aqueous.

• These very old iconic symbols were responsible for what modern system? - the moon, the sun, the planet Saturn, and the Anglo-Saxon gods: Thor, Tiw, Woden, and his wife Frig. The days of the week.

• Cryptic anagram puzzles answers (the clues are in the questions): dirty room = dormitory; here come dots = the morse code; lost cash in, me = slot machines; alas, no more z's = snooze alarms; I'm a dot in place = decimal point; eleven plus two = twelve plus one.

• A father took his son to hospital for emergency treatment after an accident. The doctor greeted them, but on seeing the boy, exclaimed, "I can't operate on him - he's my son!" How can this be? (The son was not adopted, nor a step-son.) The doctor was the boy's mother.

• The 'Frying Pan' was a 1931 prototype and early production nickname for what item of electro-magnetic equipment? The electric guitar. The prototype's body was made of maple wood; production models were of cast aluminium.

• What is remarkable about this phrase? - Anger? 'Tis safe never. Bar it. Use Love. When reversed, supposedly, it translates into Latin with the same meaning: Evoles ut ira breve nefas sit; regna. (Ack Richard Lederer)

• Catholic bishops are allowed seven of them, priests five, and ordinary people one; what are they? Crosses on a tomb.

• Words that sound exactly the same and have opposite meanings. (They are spelt differently but phonetically - they sound - the same): There are several examples:

• Raise (build up) and Raze (destroy to the ground).

• Wave (dismiss) and waive (allow).

• Why do we say 'Bless you' to someone who has sneezed? While there are variations around the theme, the main origin is that sneezing was believed in medieval times to be associated with vulnerability to evil, notably that sneezing expelled a person's soul, thus enabling an evil spirit - or specifically the devil - to steal the soul or to enter the body and take possession of it. Another contributory factor was the association of sneezing with the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) which ravaged England and particularly London in the 14th and 17th centuries.

• Whose secret ingredient is code-named 7X? Coca-cola.

"Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please."
Mark Twain

• Why did so many sailors have a crucifix tattooed on their backs in the 1700's? In the hope that the ship's captain would be merciful in the event of having to administer punishment by whipping.

SEMPER FI

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors".
Plato