[ZK] I am feeling delicate after a bloody good wedding yesterday. Recovering with the liberal application of tea and TV.

Hello ZK - good to see you again :-)
Hello pen - good to see you as always :-)
I'm spending a bit of time on here 'googling' for 3 Characters for the quiz tonight. It's my turn in the chair and the last round involves giving information in 3 stages about a person and the scores are 5,3 or 1 depending on when the correct answer is given. I'm trying to be really fair and not choose subjects that the team I belong to will be able to answer straight away and score maximum points. Oh - and I have to cook a roast chicken dinner for 5 for around 5pm.

Yum. I chose E M Forster, Peter Gabriel and Otto von Bismarck and have aimed for some tantalising first clues ...

He had a country house built, called Schloss Kroechlendorff (been there, got the sweatshirt), and he said, "God made Austrians by crossing Bavarians with humans."

[Raak] So how do we tell him apart from Peter Gabriel?

[Darren] Costumes. Gabriel will either be a giant flower or a fox, Bismarck will be a slightly camp military type.

[rab] Does being 'darlinged' give you a hangover the next morning? ;o)

[Chalky] I seem to remember [from my O-level history (over 25 years ago, eeek)] that OvB introduced Kulturkampf where he sought to reduce the power of the Catholic church in Germany, fairly successfully. He also tried to "kill socialism with kindness" - which was an interesting concept that mirrored Tsar Alexander's ill-fated attempts at liberalisation in Russia. Blimey it all comes flooding back ...

Bismarck was great. He seems to have been prejudiced against more or less everyone apart from upper-class Protestant Prussians - remember he referred to Disraeli as "that old Jew" in a tone of grudging respect! And he had a dodgy tache too.