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Tuesday, 10 January 2012 |
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January is named after Janus the ancient Roman god of beginnings, transitions and endings. He is usually depicted as a two-faced deity who looks to the future and also keeps one eye on the past. In the spirit of Janus, today we take a quick, whimsical look back at the year 2011 that ended, remembering some remarkable persons who bid farewell and some quotable quotes uttered. We also ponder what 2012 might have in store for us. 1. Steve Jobs once said 'Death is very likely the single best invention of life'. A month after his death aged 56 in early October 2011, Mona Simpson, sister of the late Apple co-founder, revealed to the world his last spoken words -- monosyllables, repeated three times. What were his last words? 2. Which British actor, accepting his Oscar award, said at the Oscars 2011 award ceremony: "I have a feeling my career has just peaked... I'm afraid I have to warn you that I'm experiencing stirrings, somewhere in the upper abdominals, which are threatening to form themselves into dance moves!” 3. Which Middle Eastern dictator told the US television network ABC's famous interviewer Barbara Walters in December 2011 that he had given no orders for violence to be used against protesters, adding: “No government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person”? Despite these lofty words, the UN says that at least 4,000 people were killed in his country in 2011 since a mass uprising began.
4. One of India’s best known cartoonists died on December 11, 2011 aged 85. Born and raised in Goa, he had no formal training in art and yet became an accomplished artist in several genres including caricature and water colours. He was known best for his brilliant depiction of his native Goa and his political satire. For decades, his work entertained the readers of a regular with The Times of India and The Economic Times, although he became the most popular with his works published in The Illustrated Weekly of India magazine. Who was he?
5. Another world renowned Indian artist who bid farewell in 2011 was, in fact, widely regarded as ‘India's Picasso’. At the time he died in London on June 9, 2011 aged 95, he was not only one of India's best-known artists but perhaps its most controversial one as well. The maverick painter was among the earliest Indian painters to command huge prices at international auctions. His painting ‘Battle of Ganga and Jamuna: Mahabharata 12’, fetched US Dollars 1.6 million in 2008, setting a world record at Christie's South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art sale. Faced with legal and physical threats from fundamentalists, he went into self-imposed exile in Qatar in 2006, even though he often expressed a yearning to return to India. Who was he? 6. In movie terms, 2012 arrived three years ahead of time. ‘2012’ was a Hollywood science fiction disaster film starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover and Woody Harrelson. The plot is based on one family’s heroic attempts to outrun a planetary scale disaster involving both land and sea. The film’s release in November 2009 was preceded by a prolonged marketing campaign that involved a website by the main character, Jackson Curtis and his fictional organisation ‘Institute for Human Continuity’, and a viral marketing website where people could register for a lottery number to save them from the ensuing disaster. Some people, who didn’t realise these were all part of a campaign, believed the hype and scared themselves into believing the world is going to end in 2012 as, apparently, suggested by an ancient Mayan calendar referred to in the film. Who directed this mega-disaster movie?
7. Vitamin D is sometimes called the ‘sunshine vitamin’ because the human body can synthesize the vitamin when exposed to sunlight. In northern climes, where the sun is not strong enough in the winter and people are wrapped against the cold or mostly staying indoors, the body uses up stocks of vitamin D made in the summer. For half the year, people in Scotland do not get enough sunshine on their skin to produce the levels of vitamin D required by the body. A new medical study, published in December 2011, showed a scientific link between the inability of the body to make vitamin D and a certain noninfectious disease that affects at least 10,000 Scots. This has led to calls for food to be fortified with Vitamin D. What is this illness far more common in sun-deprived countries?
8. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his Cabinet ministers will accept a pay cut of about 36 per cent from January 2012 (backdated to May 2011) as his government responds to public criticism over their high salaries paid to top government officials. But even after this pay cut, Lee remains the world's highest-paid political leader, with an annual salary of Singapore Dollars 2.2 million, or a little over US Dollars 1.7 million. Who is currently the world’s second highest paid leader, whose annual salary is about a third of Lee’s -- or around US Dollars 550,000? (In comparison, the US President is paid USD 400,000.) 9. 'Porisadaya' is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov's drama 'The Boor' which was translated into Sinhala by Dr Tissa Kariyawasam. A new version of this play, directed by Palitha Abeylal Dharmasena, is being stated at the Lionel Wendt Theatre in January 2012. Name the pioneer theatre and television play director and actor who originally produced the same play in 1968. 10. In 1969-70, an art competition was held in the US to determine a logo for a certain environmental practice that was gaining popularity. Graphics designer and architect Gary Dean Anderson, then a 22-year-old college student, designed a logo which was inspired by the Möbius strip and made up of three arrows. This design won from among 500 entries, and the logo then adopted is still widely used all over the world. What does this logo represent? It is one of the most recognisable logos in the world. 11. Which well known Russian writer once said, referring to himself: "Others made me a slave, but I must squeeze the slave out of myself, drop by drop."
12. She was born in Austria in 1878, and after being trained as a scientist, worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. She was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission, an achievement for which her German colleague Otto Hahn was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She is often cited as one of the most glaring examples of women's scientific achievements being overlooked by the Nobel committee. Years later, she had the chemical element 109 named after her. Who was she? 13. Sri Lanka has the dubious distinction of having had the worst ever railway accident in the world, in terms of the number of persons killed: an estimated 1,700 persons died when Samudra Devi (regular train service (Train No 8050) from Colombo to Galle was hit by the enormously powerful waves of the Indian Ocean tsunami on the morning of December 26, 2004. Two waves, a few minutes apart, caused heavy damage to the crowded train as well as the railway track which was 200 metres or 660 feet inland at the point of impact. Where on the southern railway line did this train tragedy occur? 14. Claude Monet, the great impressionist painter is famous for painting a series of paintings known as Water Lilies. But who was the post-impressionist painter who painted a series named 'irises'? 15. Lankan cricketer Kumar Sangakkara has accepted the invitation to join the MCC World Cricket Committee (WCC), an independent voice in world cricket set up in 2006 comprising current and former international cricketers and umpires from across the globe. Meeting twice yearly to discuss the prevalent issues in the game, it acts as a complimentary body to the International Cricket Council (ICC) and its constituent nations. Sangakkara, 34, becomes the second Lankan to join the WCC, and its youngest ever member. The first Lankan to be part of WCC has been a dominant figure in Lankan cricket for more than 40 years, as a player, administrator and manager. Who was he? Last week's answers |
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