The Browser - Daughters and Souls

On Sundays, Browser subscribers receive a special edition filled with quizzes, images, archive picks and other excellent goodies. A taste of yesterday's supplement is included below; if you'd like to receive the full supplement every Sunday, please do Join The Browser.

Prize Quiz Of The Week

1. If you have a five-goal handicap in polo, are you a good player or a bad player?
2. What happened at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on 22nd June 1986?
3. What is Deobandism?
4. In 1920 the Czechoslovak writer Karel Čapek coined a word which has since passed into many languages to describe a field of technology and its products. What is the word?
5. Where might you encounter a nekomata, a bakeneko, a kasha and a maneki?

Answers at the foot of the page

From The Browser Four Years Ago

Raising A Teenage Daughter
Elizabeth Weil & Hannah Duane | California Sunday | 30th November 2017 | U
A mother writes about her teenage daughter; the daughter annotates the article. The effect is one of eavesdropping on a conversation between the inner voices of mother and daughter. Both have precision, plausibility, and charm. Hard to say which is more compelling — the honesty of the dialogue, or the love so clearly present. Would an angry dialogue make such good reading? (1,600 words)

From The Browser Six Years Ago

Observations On Donald Trump
Ward Baker | NRSC | 22nd September 2015 | PDF
Prescient advice from a Republican strategist on the implications for GOP Senators were Donald Trump to win the party's 2016 presidential nomination. "Trump is a Misguided Missile. Let’s face facts. Trump says what’s on his mind and that’s a problem. Our candidates will have to spend full time defending or condemning him if that continues. And, that’s a place we never, ever want to be" (1,750 words)

Performance Of The Week

Soul Man

Sam & Dave perform Soul Man in 1967 for the German television show Beat-Club. Sam Moore (born 1935) is the tenor; Dave Prater (1937–1988) was the baritone. They performed together from 1961 until 1981.

Image Of The Week

Traffic Management In Amsterdam

The Damrak main street in Amsterdam, before and after the city government gave pedestrians, cyclists and public transport priority over motor-cars.
source: The One-Handed Economist

Quiz Answers

1. If you have a five-goal handicap in polo, are you a good player or a bad player?
   A very good player. Probably a professional. The polo handicapping scale runs from -2 (for a novice) to +10. Two-thirds of all handicapped players are rated at +2 goals or less; fewer than two dozen living players are handicapped at +10. The handicap describes "the player's worth to his or her team". It is an overall rating of a player's horsemanship, team play, knowledge of the game, strategy, and horses.
2. What happened at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on 22nd June 1986?
   Diego Maradona scored two of the most-discussed goals in football history, ensuring a 2-1 victory for Argentina over England in a quarter-final of the soccer World Cup. While scoring his first goal Maradona touched the ball with his hand but the referee lacked a clear line of sight and the foul went unpenalised. Maradona said later that the goal was scored "a little with his head, and a little with the hand of God". Maradona then managed a 60-yard dash, bamboozling four English outfielders and a goalkeeper, to score a second goal, often cited as "the goal of the century" and perhaps the greatest individual goal of all time.
3. Who are the Deobandis?
   Deobandis are a sect of Sunni Muslims concentrated in South Asia. After the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, the spiritual home of the Deobandi movement remained in India but its political centre moved to Pakistan. The Taliban in Afghanistan identify as Deobandis, although not all Deobandis welcome them as such.    
4. In 1920 the Czechoslovak writer Karel Čapek coined a word which has since passed into many languages to describe a field of technology and its products. What is the word?
   The word is "robot". It first appears in Čapek's stage-play R.U.R, depicting a company called Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti which manufactures artificial people called roboti. Initially happy to work as servants and slaves, the robots eventually revolt and exterminate humanity. Roboti echoes the Czech word robota, meaning forced labour, which derives from rab, meaning "slave".
5. Where might you encounter a "nekomata", a "bakeneko", a "kasha" or a "maneki neko"?
   In Japan; or, at least, in Japanese folkore. These are types of cats that possess magical powers or are themselves possessed by demons. The nekomata is a "massive, man-eating, two-tailed cat" believed to stalk the woods of Nara prefecture. The bakeneko is a shape-shifting cat liable to kill and replace its owner. The kasha, having once smelt a corpse, turns into a demon from hell. The maneki neko, by happy contrast, is the “Lucky Cat” whose smiling image — typically sitting up and extending its front paws — brings happiness and prosperity.

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