Thursday, April 05, 2012

Dinner with Ben Ainslie


First of all the answer to this week's photo quiz. Then the back story...

In my Picture Quiz post yesterday I posted five pictures and asked, "What do these people have in common?" I did give a clue that the answer had something to do with sailing.

The answer is that, according to an interview given by Ben Ainslie to Lymington's online magazine and portal Lymington Dot Com, these are the five people that Ben would most like to invite to dinner. Many of you guessed some or all of the names of the people in the pictures, but for the record they are Mr Blobby, Billy Connolly, Kirsten Dunst, Robbie Williams and Gisele Bundchen.

I didn't realize it would be such a hard question. I thought some of you would find the answer via Google for sure. Just googling Dunst Blobby will get you there, for example.

The back story is that the Ben Ainslie Fan Page on Facebook has been posting a quiz every Monday in which the prize for the first correct answer is a cap signed by Ben. This Monday the question (I'm sure you've guessed by now) was, "If Ben could ask 5 people for dinner (dead or alive) who would it be? First person to get 3 correct gets the signed cap."

Hmmm. So I did extensive research on the question using my vast knowledge of popular culture coupled with in-depth psychological analysis of Mr. Ainslie's personality to come up with my answer.

That last paragraph is, of course, total bullshit. I just googled: Ben Ainslie dinner guests. And up came that lymington.com site from which I copied and pasted the answers into Ben's Facebook page. Hey, I reckon a signed cap from Ben Ainslie is worth at least the 30 seconds of work it cost me to enter.

Of course I knew this didn't guarantee that I would win. Ben might have changed his mind about his preferred dinner guests since giving that interview. He might have forgotten what he said in the interview. The fact that the question allowed for "dead" guests might have changed his answer. Whoever is running the quiz might have decided that was already out there on the Interwebs would not be the "right" answer this week, just to stop smartasses who have a Google and know how to use it, like me, from winning. I did notice that the Lymington interview is undated, but that the last one of Ben's achievements it listed was his Finn Gold Cup in 2005. So that post is probably from before 2008 (when Ben won his third Olympic gold medal.)

I also thought it was a pretty cool group of people to have over for dinner. Two sexy, beautiful women. Two male entertainment personalities with something of a bad boy image. And Mr Blobby! What a dinner party that would be! You couldn't help admire a bloke who would choose a list like that. What a lad!

No surprise, I didn't win the quiz on Facebook. The "correct" answer of who Ben would like to invite for dinner was Nelson, Churchill, JFK, Kate Beckinsale and James Corden.

Really? Nelson, Churchill and JFK?? How predictable. How politically correct. Beckinsale? She doesn't even drink and, as far as I know, has never ever been photographed putting on her socks before her underwear. And no invite for Mr Blobby? Shocking!

I think I preferred the younger Ben.

8 comments:

JP said...

A much better list to be honest, though I'd have kept Dunst in place of Corden for some reason.

And in our defence who wants to add the phrase "Mr Blobby" to their search history?

Tillerman said...

Good point about the search history.

Uh oh. Guess which site is now #1 for Blobby Dunst, Blobby Bundchen and Blobby Ainslie? I am doomed.

Chris said...

I think you need to get out on the water more. And stay out of the sun for a bit.

That's a lot of work for a hat ... that you didn't even get.

I once performed an impromptu man overboard drill based on a lost hat. Impressed the girl, too - even if she was my 90-year-old neighbor. (But I couldn't have her losing her hat from my boat. Sorry, it wasn't a Laser.)

Tillerman said...

It wasn't a lot of work to enter the competition. It wasn't much more work to find and post those 5 photos (that generated 28 comments on that post so far.)

There seems to be an inverse relationship between time taken to create a post and number of comments generated. The post that took by far the most time in the last few days was my review of Seahawk Burning. I don't know how many hours it took to read the book. Then I had to think of something vaguely intelligent and perhaps a little amusing to write about it. Literary criticism is not my forte. Then I had to find some pictures to illustrate my post. (They weren't in the book.) On the way I ended up doing a little research online into naval warfare during the Civil War. I even worked in some knitting! So far ZERO comments on that post.

Go figure!

PS. Hope my knitting fans like the cardigan that Ben is wearing. Does anyone have the pattern?

Mr Blobby said...

Will you be my Facebook friend?

Tillerman said...

Mr Blobby, I just "liked" your page on Facebook. By the way, did you know you have more fans on Facebook than Ben Ainslie?

Pat said...

It's terrible when I have no idea who most of those "famous people" are or what made them famous. Well, one of them is an actress.

Tillerman said...

Pat, Nelson was a famous British admiral, Winston Churchill was a famous British prime minister, and JFK refers to John F Kennedy who was a famous American president. None of them was an actress in his spare time, as far as I know. Ben Ainsle is a sailor, and not an actress either, though some say he is a bit if a prima donna.

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