Don Bain of Port Macquarie was interested in the achievements of Henry Searle, “our world champion sculler of the late 19th century, and turned to Artificial Intelligence for more details and was duly rewarded, only for AI to blot its copybook by adding that Searle was a more than useful tennis player who ‘gave Novak Djokovic a testing match at the Australian Open’.”
“If online data is half correct, it takes the average human 0.1 seconds or more to blink,” says Kate Coates of Wangi Wangi. “The other day, a young chap, Noah Lyles, won the Olympic 100 metres sprint by five one thousandths of a second - that is by 0.005 seconds. He won faster than the blink of an eye!”
“I wonder if the burglar exiting the herpetologist’s house (C8) had to negotiate a draught snake under the back door,” muses Maurice Collins of Wollongbar.
Some Scandinavian singularity now, from Edith Crowne of Turramurra: “Icelanders (C8) always address each other by their first names. Surnames are made up of the first name of the father, with the suffix ‘dottir’ for the daughter and ‘son’ for the son. If Margot’s father’s first name was Olef, she would be Margot Olefdottir. When she married, she did not take her husband’s surname, but remained Margot Olefdottir. To find her name in the telephone directory you would have to go through all the Margots”.
“If Queensland should become Kingsland (C8), Victoria is well behind the times,” reckons Lord Paul Barber Esq of Windsor (Castle).”
A Herald Superquiz (C8) perfect score? Roger Campbell of Beecroft has been there, but it was a team effort: “My friends and I do the Superquiz regularly when convening for Friday night drinks (FNDs). We achieved the perfect score of 30 on 10th September 2021. I’ve kept a spreadsheet of our scores (maybe incomplete as some of the scores are ‘alcohol assisted’) with an average score of 17.74. Our lowest score is seven.”
John Sowter of Sandgate (Qld) isn’t there yet, but he’s a stayer: “I have never got 15/15. I’ve made 14/15 twice in fifteen years for 29 points and 28 points. The wrong answer on both occasions was an either/or and I chose the wrong one. For some context and so as not to come across as a bit of a smart arse, one day last week I got two points and regularly get below five.”
Column8@smh.com.au
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