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The Foxer

While there's no truth whatsoever in the rumour that the defoxing annexe was built on top of an old Native American burial ground, a few weeks back when we were digging a hole for a Pickett-Hamilton Fort by the front gate, we did unearth:

  • A silver whistle shaped like a serpent's head
  • A purse full of milk teeth
  • A padlocked meat safe containing three dismembered Victorian dolls
  • A copy of the 1980 hit single “There's No One Quite Like Grandma”

The answers to last week's tram-themed geofoxer:

a. Vienna (Syt)
b. Hong Kong (Stugle)
c. Tallinn (Little_Crow)
d. Athens (bsplines)
e. Brussels (Stugle)
f. Seattle (Arglebarf)
g. Nice (Stugle)
h. Porto (Llewyn)
i. Sheffield (Llewyn)
j. Istanbul (AFKAMC)
k. Melbourne (Arglebarf)
l. Prague (Stugle)
m. Oslo (AFKAMC)
n. Toronto (phuzz)

* * * *

Foxer Fact #1102

During the early 1930s, a period when competition between British flying circuses was at its fiercest, finale 'turns' grew increasingly elaborate and dangerous. Freddie 'The Foxer' Foxmorton's outfit, The Aerocrats, routinely ended their shows with something called The Tally-Ho – a rollicking low-level fox hunt in which an orange Gloster Gamecock piloted by Foxmorton was chased over a series of specially erected hedges and through a mock barn, by a jostling crowd of Avro 504s and DH.60 Moths. On September 9, 1934, the stunt ended in tragedy when the Gamecock collided with a spooked pheasant. The ensuing six aircraft pile-up cost two pilots their lives and Foxmorton – who, amazingly, emerged with barely a scratch - his performer's licence. After his next venture, an air taxi business, went belly up in '36, 'The Foxer' left for Spain to fly for the Republicans (see Foxer Fact #848).

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Tim Stone: A vereran PC games journalist, Tim has been covering simulation, strategy and management games in print and online for over 30 years. At Rock Paper Shotgun, he was the writer of The Flare Path, a weekly column, from 2011 until 2022.
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