Answers to Ian’s Trivialus 7 September 2025
Answers
Aryna Sabalenka & Amanda Anisimova. Jannik Sinner & Carlos Alacaraz
Geneva
Giorgio Armani – he was 91 years old. After forming the fashion company bearing his name in 1975, it subsequently expanded into music, sport and luxury hotels.
a) – 53 years ago. In 1972, Sainsbury’s, a UK supermarket, introduced shelf-mounted barcodes which were developed by Plessey. It took twenty years after its invention in 1952 before the barcode became a practical commercial tool.
Mars
Funicular railway – Lisbon’s famous Elevador da Gloria, inaugurated in 1881, derailed on Wednesday and careered down the hill for 200m before crashing at a bend – 16 people died and 18 others were injured. The cause has yet to be established, but there’ve been claims that poor maintenance and underinvestment might be to blame.
True – the company was founded in 1997 and only moved to a streaming service in 2007 once broadband became more ubiquitous.
Alanis Morrissette
Nestlé – he had been with the company for 40 years, but his relationship with a subordinate breached the company’s code of business conduct. Some French commentators rose to Freixe’s defence, denouncing his termination as a return to puritanism and a medieval mindset in corporate governance.
Austria
Emerson Fittipaldi
a) – As Housing Minister, her professed ignorance around the amount of stamp duty she was obliged to pay when buying a new home was a flimsy excuse for an alleged tax avoidance that made her position untenable.
Benjamin Franklin
The fall of the Tunguska meteor which is thought to have burst at an altitude of 3 to 6 miles as no impact crater was found. The explosion felled hundreds of trees in a sparsely populated part of Eastern Siberia. It is considered the largest near-impact event of Earth in recorded history.
c) – Scotland which had 246 deaths per million of the population in 2024. Ninety per cent more than second-placed Estonia. Romania was the lowest out of the 30 countries in the survey. (From an article in The Spectator)
Basically the Free States where slavery was forbidden, and the Southern States, where it was still practiced. It was originally drawn up to resolve a boundary dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania, but later became recognised as a dividing line between the North and the South.
All the digits in alphabetical order.
Adrian – Talia Shire – Francis Ford Coppola.
7 000 miles
Gifted