Congratulations to Scraps!
A salute to everyone who played!
Hail to the Quizmaster!

Someone's hitting the egg nog pretty early.

Um, I mean, mega-dittoes.

So my strategy of forgetting to answer didn't pay off this time.

I tip my wombatskin cap to Scraps.

Wombatskin cap?! HEY!

#4 A lot of people got this one correctly ("Jingle Bells" -- originally titled "One-Horse Open Sleigh")

And most picked up points on "duck-billed platypus" as well.

Only one correct answer to #1, one correct for #3, and nobody guessed #2 -- the answer there being Coleridge himself.

You know, I almost weighed in with Coleridge several times, knowing at least that he was a poet and alive then, which criteria my actual guess didn't reach. But I figured he took himself way too seriously for that.

I'm disappointed that the answer to the bonus question wasn't "wombat."

Thanks for the good times.

Scraps you're one scary mofo.

Looking at the scores, it's pretty evident that whoever got #1 or #3 correct got either "Jingle Bells" or "platypus" WRONG (or didn't guess), because nobody got more than 202 (= 2 full corrects).

So, somebody who didn't get "Jingle Bells" or "platypus," what'd you put for 1 or 3?

Not "goats" or "mine."

Oh - except Rory - 2 halves and 2 fulls.

What'd you put?

Sorry for going off-topic but for those of you who knew him at W&M, Robert McDonough is in a series of web movies (/ads?) that are fairly interesting. Here's a link to one of the movies, which will lead you to the others:

http://www.mercuryvehicles.com/extras/luckyones/email_movie_return.asp?mod=Stella2

It just struck me (upon learning that mortar was wrong, and dumb) that #3 is Shrapnel. Which google quickly verified.

Dammit.

Ooh, shrapnel is good. I was fumbling around with Gatling guns and claymores and the like. I guessed monkeys for #1, but that appears to have been wrong, which disappoints me greatly.

Coleridge is funny, and was very fairly hinted at.

(All I got this round was "Jingle Bells.")

I was fairly confident that #1 was open sewers / common areas for defecation in the street, so I spose Pig would be the creature in question.

Pigs in the time of cholera.

The much-maligned porker was indeed the answer to #1. Apparently, keeping pigs was common practice among the urban poor -- a good way to provide food for the household (or to sell), because the pigs were allowed to forage in the streets for garbage, etc., so perhaps the expense of keeping one was relatively low. What I found interesting was Cadwallader Colden's emphasis on their "disgusting" nature, with the suggestion that the spectacle of pig-pleasure was probably on view with some frequency.

I didn't word the question well, though. Not sure how I should have done it, but plainly most people thought I was talking about some practice of the citizenry (spitting, etc) until the clue. And because there was little internal evidence in the quotations about what kind of animal was at issue (goats, pigs, maybe even dogs or chickens), it was probably expecting too much that anyone could get to "pigs" other than by random guessing. Would have been good for the regular Friday question, I guess.

As for #2, I thought I hinted broadly enough in the clue, but it was sort of a trick question. I just love that poem, though.

Answers for #3 were all over the map -- Rory was the only one to guess Shrapnel (Henry Shrapnel, by the way, who wound up running His Majesty's artillery). I probably should have said in the clue that he was an artilleryman.

Also, I confess that given current events I now sort of wish I'd asked a different question, but I didn't think about that until after I'd posted it.

#4, despite the fact that it turned out to be a little bit on the easy side, was irresistable. I mean, "Strike for the South"???

Thanks, Bill! That was fun--one thing that I've clearly missed by living in the Australian Eastern Standard Time zone. Congrats to Scraps, best wishes and happy new year to all!

What will the 2005 Wombatfile offer us for Friday entertainment?

I will endeavour to conduct myelf in a fit manner, albeit on one leg.

Shrapnel now seems really obvious. I was pretty sure Claymore wasn't right, but couldn't think of anything else.

"Objects" led me away from animals for answer one, though I had considered fighting cocks.

The Coleridge question is beautiful. I knew that Robert Southey had gripes with Coleridge, so that was my wild guess, though the clue made it clear that was wrong.

I had a couple pure wild guesses hit home in the first two rounds, and that seems to have made the difference.

Bill, I loved this whole last set of questions -- loved the whole thing, really -- and the quiz has been something I've looked forward to every Friday since you first tipped me to it. Thany you very much for running it so inventively and amusingly. I'll miss it.

Also, they just don't make names like MC Cadwallader Colden anymore.

Thanks everyone...as I said, send me your mailing addresses via email and your actual, material rewards will shortly thereafter be in your hands.

As for the future: there will be a 2-week hiatus in Friday Anything (though I hope to get in a few regular weblog entries). Then, in the new year, I have a different amusement planned for Fridays. I may yet revive the quiz as a monthly, not weekly thing (in its comment-answer, not email-answer, form). But we'll see.

Tonight, I'm going to put some antibiotics in my eggnog, put on the Extended Director's Cut of the television "yule log," and fall into a blissful Wombat doze. Merry whatever to all, and to all a good night.

Hooray! That's more like it... thank goodness for Mr Shrapnel, and wherever I heard he actually existed. And thanks to you for all these fiendishly difficult diversions, Bill.

God Bless us Every Wombat!