Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland Part 7

20 Electronic ticketing system used on London-based transport networks.

21 The Man From U.N.C.L.E.-NBC television series broadcast between 1964 and 1968 and centred upon a two-man troubleshooting team working for the covert organisation United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air- NBC television series running from 1990 to 1996. The programme was a comedy based around the cultural tensions of a street-wise teenager from West Philadelphia sent to live with his wealthy relatives in their Bel Air mansion. The main character, Will, was played by Will Smith. Smith recorded a version of 'Wild Wild West' for the soundtrack of the 1999 Barry Sonnenfeld feature film of the same name (1999, Overbrook/Interscope/Columbia). The song featured a performance by rap artist Kool Moe Dee, who sings the chorus from his 1988 song of the same name, taken from Dee's alb.u.m How Ya Like Me Now (1987, Jive). The chorus features the lyric 'Wicky wicky wild, wild west'. The song reached number one in the Billboard Hot 100.

22 Belisha beacons-the flashing orange globes on the top of black and white poles at British and Irish pedestrian traffic-crossing systems, or zebra crossings. They are named after Leslie h.o.r.e-Belisha, the Minister of Transport between 1934 and 1937, who introduced them.

23 mo' fo'-abbreviation of the gang expletive 'motherf.u.c.ker'.

24 Taken from Book I, Canto ix, stanza 35 of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (see p. 15, n. 1).

25 'Can't pay, won't pay' was the slogan used by protesters during the Poll-Tax (also known as 'Community Charge') protests of 1989 and 1990. The tax was widely unpopular, seemingly shifting the tax burden from rich to poor, and is cited as one of the contributing factors in the downfall of the Thatcher government.

26 Hat-trick is the term used to describe a set of three goals by a single player in an a.s.sociation football match. Players who score a hat-trick are ent.i.tled to keep the ball used during the game.

27 Truro-administrative centre of the county of Cornwall in the UK. It is twinned with Boppard, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, and Morlaix, Brittany, France, after which Morlaix Avenue in Truro is named.

28 Fame-US television series running from 1982 to 1987. The show was based on the 1980 motion picture of the same name (dir. Alan Parker) that tells the stories of the students and faculty at the New York City High School for the Performing Arts. The character, Leroy Johnson, was a street-wise performer who possessed no formal training but had an abundance of raw dancing talent. He was played in both the series and film by Gene Anthony Ray (19622003).

29 The body contains between 3.5 and 4.5 grams of iron, two-thirds of which is present in haemoglobin. The remainder is stored in the liver, spleen and bone-marrow. A small amount is present as myoglobin, which acts as an oxygen store in muscle tissue. Four grams of iron would be sufficient to make a small-gauge nail measuring approximately 1.91 centimetres (3/4 inch) in length.

30 The advertiser quotes a lyric from 'Life is a Rollercoaster', written by Gregg Alexander and Rick Nowels. Performed by Ronan Keating on his alb.u.m Ronan (2000, Polydor). The single reached number one in the UK singles chart.

31 'Justify My Love'-written by Ingrid Chavez, Lenny Kravitz and Madonna. Taken from the Madonna alb.u.m The Immaculate Collection (1990, Sire, Warner Bros). It reached number one in the Billboard Hot 100 and became the highest-selling video single of all time.

32 Camming device invented by Soviet mountaineer and inventor Vitaly Mikhaylovich Abalakov in the 1930s. Abalakov was arrested by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) in 1938 along with other members of his team. They remained under investigation until 1940, being accused of 'open public propaganda' of Western mountaineering techniques and 'diminishing' domestic alpinist's achievements, and also of being German spies. Many of the alpinists arrested with Abalakov were executed but he survived the investigation and went on to be awarded the Order of Lenin (1957), Order of the Badge of Honor (1972) and t.i.tles Honoured Master of Sports of the USSR (1943) and Honoured Trainer of the USSR (1961). He died in 1986.

33 After they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, the Beatles' George Harrison said that there were only two 'fifth Beatles', Neil Aspinall and Derek Taylor, but there have been many (often dubious) claimants to the t.i.tle. These include, at various stages, Muhammad Ali, Pete Best, Wilfrid Brambell, William Stuart Campbell, Eric Clapton, Rod Davis, Brian Epstein, Mal Evans, Astrid Kirchherr, Len Garry, Eric Griffiths, Colin Hanton, Nicky Hopkins, Tatsuya Ishida, Larry Kane, Jackie Lomax, Jeff Lynne, George Martin, Linda McCartney, Tommy Moore, Murray the K, Chas Newby, Jimmy Nicol, Yoko Ono, Billy Preston (sometimes cited as 'the Black Beatle'), Little Richard, Ed Rudy, Tony Sheridan, Pete Shotton, Phil Spector, Stuart Sutcliffe, James Taylor, Klaus Voormann, Andy White, and Roby Yonge.

34 National Film Board of Canada-public film distribution and production organisation operating as an agency of the government of Canada. It is better known for doc.u.mentaries and animated short films, many of which have gained cult status. Two such examples are cited in the advert-The Owl Who Married a Goose (1974, dir. Caroline Leaf), an Inuit legend animated with Inukt.i.tut voices, and Cosmic Zoom (1968, dir. Eva Szasz), a short animated feature exploring the magnitude of s.p.a.ce and the minuteness of matter.

35 Frau Emmy was the pseudonym given to Sigmund Freud's patient f.a.n.n.y Moser, who was presented to Freud exhibiting sequences of facial tics and stammers that today would be diagnosed as a form of Tourette Syndrome. Nachtraglichkeit is a psychoa.n.a.lytic conception of time indicating 'deferred action' and used to refer to the relationship between an event and its later meaning in an individual's life. Freud used the term nachtraglichkeit in many of his published works, but the word is absent in the index of his Gesammelte Werke, possibly indicating that he didn't feel the subject had sufficient conceptual substance to warrant a paper on it. Colchester has a population of 104,390.

36 Taken from 'The Best Thing Wi' Gear Is the Haining O't', a traditional Scottish folksong about thriftiness written by Archibald McKay and published in his book Ingle-Side Lilts (1855).

37 Corrie McChord-leader of Stirling Council in Scotland. Squirrels are omnivorous.

38 Solitaire-based card game included on Windows computer packages. The original version consisted of 32,000 possible combinations of play, of which only game #11,982 was unbeaten. Later editions carried approximately 1,000,000 combinations, where games #11,982, #146,692, #186,216, #455,889, #495,505, #512,118, #517,776 and #781,948 are thought to be unsolvable.

39 Feng Shui-ancient Chinese system of aesthetics used to harmonise the flow of life-energy (or qi) in a living or working environment.

40 Physical fitness regime that focuses on the core postural muscles. It was developed by Joseph Pilates during the First World War to help rehabilitate returning veterans.

41 Match.com-online dating service begun in 1994.

42 The advertiser is possibly referring to some of the less commercially successful alb.u.ms of Crosby, Stills & Nash, namely After the Storm (1994), which reached number 98 in the US alb.u.m charts, and Live It Up (1990), which reached number 57.

43 See p. 25, n. 15.

44 Judith Chalmers (b. 1936)-English television presenter. Judith Pinnow (b. 1973)-German actress and author.

45 William the b.a.s.t.a.r.d-latterly King William I of England, also known as William the Conqueror. With the a.s.sistance of King Henry I of France, William secured control of Normandy by defeating rebel Norman barons at Caen in the Battle of Val-es-Dunes in 1047, obtaining the Truce of G.o.d, which was backed by the Roman Catholic Church. The battle is depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry. At the time of the battle, William was Duke of Normandy having succeeded to the t.i.tle as the illegitimate son of the previous Duke, Robert I, in 1035.

46 'Disco Duck'-written and performed by Rick Dees and performed by Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots (1976, Fretone, later RSO). Rigdon Osmond 'Rick' Dees III was a radio DJ at WMPS-AM in Memphis, Tennessee. The song reached number one in the Billboard charts in the US in October that year and can be heard in a brief scene in the film Sat.u.r.day Night Fever in which a small group of older people are learning to 'move their feet to the dis...o...b..at'.

47 Primark-budget clothing retailer trading in the UK and Ireland (where it is known as Penney's).

48 Giacomo Girolamo Casanova (172598). Casanova became a librarian to Count Joseph Karl von Waldstein in the Castle of Dux, Bohemia, in 1785 after many aborted careers, including those of scribe, military officer, violinist and professional gambler.

49 Marcel Mauss (18721950)-French sociologist not known for his skills in magic. Cup-a-Soup-instant soup product not known for its microwaveability.

50 Alan Bennett (b. 1934)-British author, actor and playwright.

51 Amyl nitrite-a potent vasodilator often used as a recreational s.e.x drug; known sometimes as poppers. Inhaled, it expands the blood vessels and lowers blood pressure, resulting in the relaxation of involuntary muscles, particularly in the a.n.a.l sphincter. Ben Wa b.a.l.l.s-small metal or plastic b.a.l.l.s, usually hollow and containing a small weight that rolls around. Used for s.e.xual stimulation by insertion into the v.a.g.i.n.a or a.n.u.s. Percy Thrower (191388)-British gardener and broadcaster. He was the resident gardener on BBC Television's children's programme Blue Peter between 1974 and 1987.

52 Grand National-a handicap chase run over a distance of four miles four furlongs at Aintree race course in Liverpool every year. It is the most valuable National Hunt horse race in the world. Bobbyjo (ridden by Paul Carberry and trained by Tommy Carberry) was the winner in 1999 at race-time odds of 151. William Hill PLC is one of the largest chains of bookmakers in the UK.

53 Rudolph Valentino's ten attributes of the perfect woman, cited in Vanity Fair:Selections from America's Most Memorable Magazine: A Cavalcade of the 1920s and 1930s, ed. Cleveland Amory and Frederic Bradlee (Viking Press, 1960).