Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Aziz Ansari and More on the Lost Comic
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‘He was basically the funniest person I ever met’ Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Aziz Ansari and more on the lost comic genius of Harris Wittels By Hadley Freeman Monday 17.04.17 12A Quiz Fingersh Pit your wits against the breakout stars of this year’s University Challenge, and Bobby Seagull , with Eric Monkman 20 questions set by the brainy duo. No conferring The Fields Medal has in secutive order. This spells out the 5 1 recent times been awarded name of which London borough? to its fi rst woman, Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014, and was What links these former infamously rejected by Russian 7 prime minsters: the British Grigori Perelman in 2006. Which Spencer Perceval, the Lebanese academic discipline is this prize Rafi c Hariri and the Indian awarded for? Indira Gandhi? Whose art exhibition at Tate Narnia author CS Lewis, 2 Britain this year has become 8 Brave New World author the fastest selling show in the Aldous Huxley and former US gallery’s history? president John F Kennedy all died on 22 November. Which year The fi rst national park desig- was this? 3 nated in the UK was the Peak District in 1951. Announced as a Which north European national park in 2009 and formed 9 country’s fl ag is the oldest in 2010, which is the latest existing fl ag in the world? It is English addition to this list? 15 supposed to have fallen out of the heavens during a battle in the University Challenge inspired 13th century. 4 the novel Starter for Ten. Who is its English author? The fi rst square number is 10 1 (1x1). Placing the 1st, 3rd Roger Federer secured a re- and 7th square number beside 5 cord 18th grand slam tennis each other in that respective title this year at the Australian order gives a calendar year. Open. Which Australian, nick- Which international organisation, named the “Scud”, did he beat headquartered in Brussels, was at Wimbledon in 2003 to win his founded in that year? fi rst grand slam? Lord Sankey served as lord Combine the periodic table 11 chancellor during the second 6 symbols for the chemi- premiership of Ramsay MacDon- cal elements neon, tungsten, ald. In a judgment of the judicial hydrogen and americium in con- committee of the privy counsel, ames Clavell 18. Sir Frederick Banting 19. The Songhai Empire 20. Dadaism 20. Empire Songhai The 19. Banting Frederick Sir 18. Clavell ames J 17. Nui) Rapa (or Island Easter 16. Mongolia. Ulanbaatar, 15. cubit/qubit The 14. Nebula Crab The 13. III Richard 12. 2 The Guardian 17.04.17 on buzzers he likened the Canadian constitu- people living in which locale once tion to what lifeform? 17 partook in an egg hunt as part of a “birdman cult”? According to Shakespeare, 12 a military commander This man wrote, produced received a note informing him 17 and directed To Sir, With to “be not so bold. For ... thy Love, starring Sidney Poitier. He master is bought and sold”. was also famous for writing a Which English monarch was the series of loosely connected novels commander’s master? about “the history of the Anglo- Saxon involvement in Asia”. This heavenly object is Who was he? 13 thought to result from an event seen by Chinese observers A classmate of Dr Norman in 1054 . Containing a pulsar, 18 Bethune, this man received what is located in the area of the the Nobel prize in physiology or constellation Taurus? medicine. The man also received a letter from a boy who benefi ted This word was frequently from his discovery, stating, “I am 14 used in the description 7 12 a fat boy now and I feel fi ne. I can of Solomon’s temple in 1 Kings. climb a tree.” Name him. Spelled diff erently, which word can also be used to describe a This empire, located in the unit of information in computer 19 Sahel, was once ruled by science? Askia the Great. Which empire collapsed following the 1591 Residents of Ottawa Battle of Tondibi? 15 sometimes claim that a phenomen on called the “polar Possibly deriving its name vortex” renders their city the 20 from a colloquial French coldest national capital in the term for a hobby horse, what is the world. Which Asian city usually name of the early 20th-century BBC; AFP/GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY; ALLSTAR/COLUMBIA; SIPA PRESS/REX SIPA ALLSTAR/COLUMBIA; ALAMY; IMAGES; BBC; AFP/GETTY claims the title of coldest national artistic movement with centres in capital? Zurich, New York and Paris? Though more famous for Questions 1-10 were set by Seagull, PHOTOGRAPHS PHOTOGRAPHS 16 earlier cultural practices, 11-20 by Monkman. ssassinated 8. 1963 9. Denmark 10. Nato (1 9 49 gives 1949) 11. A (living) tree tree (living) A 11. 1949) gives 49 9 (1 Nato 10. Denmark 9. 1963 8. ssassinated a All 7. Am) H W (Ne Newham 6. Philippoussis Mark 5. Nicholls David 4. Downs South 3. Hockney David 2. Mathematics 1. ANSWERS: 17.04.17 The Guardian 3 Jessica Knappett I am queasy, irritable and dehydrated. My heavy-drinking days have trained me well for having a baby am pregnant. I think I’m supposed to I go to the opportunity to come to terms with the fact say we’re pregnant but it feels more like that your life is about to change irreversibly and in I I’m the pregnant one. He is just reading work, not inconceivable ways – in what is by all accounts a about being pregnant. Aloud. From a hungover miraculous nightmare – before all the unsolicited tediously saccharine baby manual, while advice and opinions start pouring in. I mutter things such as, “What? No brie? That’s but So I decided to button it, which is hell for a bullshit,” under my breath. professional over-sharer like me. Then again, I am I was going to announce it on Instagram by preggers, an actor so I should be able to lie convincingly. It posing in my bra and wearing a veil in front of drinking turns out it wasn’t my acting skills that prepared a wall of roses, but then I remembered I’m not me for what I am now referring to as “the perfor- Beyoncé, so I just texted all my mates: “Guess Lucozade mance of a lifetime”. No. It was being a drunk. what?” and a baby emoji . Many replied saying before 11am As I carried around my guilty secret I became they had guessed. Apparently, the fact that I twitchy with paranoia every time I spoke to wasn’t drinking on any given evening was so out anyone. One morning, feeling like the colour grey, of character that they knew I was pregnant before I bump into a work friend in the street, and yet I could even utter the words “lubricated vaginal again have to resist the urge to tell the truth when ultrasound wand”. asked the innocuous question: “What have you The fi rst trimester of pregnancy has felt almost been up to, Jess?” exactly like a hangover: a 12-week-long hangover Me: “Nothing much, just working,” Brain Me: (or indeed perhaps a detox, though I wouldn’t “I’M PREGGERS, MATE, SO I AM BASICALLY know). I may be sober now, living without any of NOW A PERSON IN A PERSON, LIKE A TERRIFY- the relaxing, entertaining benefi ts of the delicious ING HUMAN RUSSIAN DOLL.” alcohol I held so dear, but what I have observed is This is when it hits me. This cageyness is that almost nothing has changed since my heavy- somehow familiar. I’m covering something up, drinking days. just like in my good old drinking days. Pregnancy First, there are the physical similarities. Most isn’t just physically like being hungover, it also days I am queasy, irritable and have a bang- mirrors it psychologically. Secret Hangover, my ing headache. I wake, parched, at 4am in the old friend, come and meet Secretly Pregnant. You recovery position (my body’s refl ex response to a are virtually the same horror. presumed drinking crisis). I stumble around my So off I go to work, not hungover but preggers: fl at desperately seeking hydration and searching dry heaving on the tube and quietly knocking for some memory of last night’s correlating bad back a Lucozade before 11am, as if it were a behaviour (karaoke? A lock-in? Did dinner get normal morning drink, while fantasising about out of hand again?) until I remember I fell asleep when and where I will take a nap undisturbed. on the sofa watching the News at Ten before my Future pregnant If anyone notices my dark eyes and pallid skin, husband put me to bed. This is me now. I spend person in training I shamefully pretend I am “coming down with each night in a cycle of waking, rehydrating and something”. I wolf down vitamins and gorge on urinating. The reward? Managing an infant doing beige food, and slip out early, falling asleep on the exact same thing, I imagine. the bus home. For the fi rst 12 weeks, the advice is not to tell The agonising shame-over of old has been anyone you are pregnant. Push it down, bottle it replaced with a new, far more disturbing anxi- up, just … be British about it. A big reason for this, I ety: the impending sense of doom that comes learn, is because the chance of losing your baby in with becoming a person in a person.