Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

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Christmas Quizzes 2017–2018

Question of the Day (solved): 3 January


Useful resources
 
  Words of Procol songs | eBay | Utrecht University | Setlists for Fiftieth Anniversary Tour | 2017 tour stats | Novum
 
Tonight's topic is   An eBay bargain?


 
The answer is  
Nothing but the truth
 

Choose the question below that is most applicable to the answer above. Make a note of the Question Number
 

Q10a
 
 


Apparently the band that recorded this album is called ‘Novum’, and evidently it contains one or more Procol fan: the bonus track on it is a Brooker/Reid song, the one that begins ‘It feels as clear like yesterday …’
No Procol song starts with those words, though it does sound a bit like 'Nothing But the Truth'

 

Q10b  


EBay’s listing doesn’t name the tracks on this
double CD bootleg, and doesn't even name Procol Harum. But it does promise that all the titles are different, and that 'each of this band’s Fiftieth Anniversary concerts (except for XIV September)' had contributed a different song. Assuming this is true, a quick look at 2017's tour statistics page – and some simple arithmetic – tell us this recording cannot possibly feature Procol Harum.

The 2017 Tour stats page tells us that 29 different Procol Harum songs were performed at 34 Anniversary Tour concerts for which BtP has setlists. So this is obviously the correct question ... it is 'nothing but the truth'

 

Q10c  


Each of the four people pictured on the artwork of this splendid eBay bargain is a well-known world-class musician and who, having guested on countless platinum-selling albums, has presumably played or sung on this one.
There are not four but five people ... Chaplin, Kafka, Marx, Putin and Teller ... and Chaplin would seem to be the only noted musician among them

 

Q10d  


The X faces on the CD artwork are not musicians, but each person’s surname contains a coded reference to a member of the classic Procol line-up (MMXVII). The key to who represents whom is easily found in the International Dictionary of Biography (MMI edition, Utrecht University Press). For each name, collect III numbers: the page number, the number of letters in the first noun in the second sentence of the biographical entry, and the last pair of digits of the person’s younger sister's death-date. Reverse these, compile them into a clump in such a way that no even number is adjacent to any odd number, and vice versa; jettison fractions or decimals, then translate them into Roman numerals, and Bingo! you have the initials of the musician concerned! (eg 200 = CC = Chris Copping). 
Clearly twaddle from top to bottom. How many Procolers' initials can be made from Roman numerals? Is Chris Copping in fact the only example?

 

Q10e  


This is Fake Music, Fake Music OK … bad music by bad dudes. How can it be ‘live’ in MMXVII when we haven’t had MMXVII yet? Losers!
This statement is characteristically ill-informed, boorishly phrased and contemptibly stupid

 


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