Quiz #38
Quiz this the real life?
A big hello to all. I hope you are well and ready for another five-round quiz.
This week there are questions on The Island Games, problem-solving in Uganda, ten insects’ incredible journey, and vegetables to make a bride cry, as well as some less obscure topics.
Before the joys of Round 1, here is the link to the version with the answers, held on the website.
Now, to the allegedly easy questions:
Round 1
Question 1
Which actor has had the nicknames ‘The Austrian Oak’ and ‘The Governator’?
Answer:
1 point
Question 2
What concert was opened by The Coldstream Guards on July 13, 1985?
Answer:
1 point
Question 3
What connects the games Mornington Crescent, Calvinball, Numberwang, and Cups?
Answer:
1 point
Question 4
What food is consumed at the famous annual July 4 competitive eating competition held at Coney Island in New York? The 2025 men’s winner was Joey Chestnut, who was victorious for a 17th time, and the women’s winner was Miki Sudo, who has never lost in the 11 years she has entered.
Answer:
1 point
Question 5
A variety of what type of vegetable is known in Quechua as ‘q’achun wakachi’, translated as ‘the daughter-in-law cries’, because of the difficulty in peeling it? It is symbolically used at Quechua wedding ceremonies, with the bride having to try peel the vegetable without wasting any of it.
Answer:
1 point
Question 6
Including its white tail, how many coloured bands appear on the ruderal bumblebee, the largest bumblebee in the UK?
Answer:
1 point
Question 7
How many players are there per team in the two most common forms of rugby union?
Answer:
2 points
Question 8
What three vowels are written the same in both the Latin and Russian Cyrillic alphabets?
Answer:
3 points
Question 9
Of the five Conservative Prime Ministers who led the UK between 2010 and 2024, who were the only three to lead their party to victory in a general election?
Answer:
3 points
Question 10
Make the longest word possible from the following letters: AEKLMORTW
Answer:
Up to 9 points
(*length of word equates to points awarded)
Round 1 points
(Maximum: 23)
Round 2
Question 1
What was the name of the detective mystery show starring Alan Davies that ran from 1997 to 2016 on BBC1 in which he played a deviser of magic tricks who was adept at solving locked room murders?
Answer:
1 point
Question 2
The Cambodian sites Tuol Sleng, Choeung Ek, and M-13 have all been added to the UNESCO Heritage site, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of which political group coming to power and beginning the four-year genocide to which all three sites are connected?
Answer:
1 point
Question 3
What job title, which is also the name of an American TV franchise, is approximately the equivalent of a SOCO in the UK?
Answer:
1 point
Question 4
Which literary character famously shouted ‘Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!’ after rescuing a young woman from the gallows and taking refuge in a cathedral?
Answer:
1 point
Question 5
Wimbledon Ladies Singles winner Iga Świątek caused a stir outside her native Poland during the tournament when she said in a courtside interview that one of her favourite foods was pasta with which type of fruit? In Poland the dish is fairly common, most often eaten by children, and is known as makaron z truskawkami.
Answer:
1 point
Question 6
Per UK & EU food regulations, a drink advertised as ‘fruit juice’ must include a minimum of what percentage of juice?
Answer:
1 point
Question 7
The world’s busiest motor vehicle bridge, which has 14 traffic lanes spread across two decks and carries over 100 million vehicles a year, connects which two US states?
Answer:
2 points
Question 8
What are the three colours of ball used in the different formats of international cricket?
Answer:
3 point
Question 9
The UK is the fourth most populous island nation in the world. What are the three island sovereign nations - as recognised by the UN - with higher populations?
Answer:
3 points
Question 10
The Island Games take place in Orkney from July 12-18, featuring 24 island groups administered by which eight European nations?
Answer:
8 points
Round 2 points
(Maximum: 22)
Total points
(Maximum: 45)
Round 3
Question 1
Alongside the owner of the comedy club in which he performed, which US comedian was found guilty of obscenity in a Manhattan court in 1964 despite support from several high profile cultural figures?
Answer:
1 point
Question 2
Which brand of ice cream ran an advertising campaign for over ten years using an adapted version of the Neapolitan song O Sole Mio?
Answer:
1 point
Question 3
What item, commonly seen in gardens in affluent nations, has been re-designed by a Ugandan company called Pura Vida to help reduce food spoilage and rot during that country’s rainy season? The new design uses bamboo, insect screens, and polyethylene plastic, and is shaped to resemble the da Vinci bridge.
Answer:
1 point
Question 4
The first confirmed example of an insect flying across an entire ocean was announced in 2024 after it was discovered several members of a species had crossed the 4200km of Atlantic from West Africa to French Guiana in South America, a journey estimated to have taken five to eight days of non-stop flying. What type of insect made the journey?
Answer:
1 point
Question 5
In 2005, a scandal broke at the British Comedy Awards when the People’s Choice Award was given to Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway despite it receiving less votes than The Catherine Tate Show, allegedly because which male pop singer and former boyband member had agreed to present the award if Ant and Dec won?
Answer:
1 point
Question 6
Having already banned all non-essential vehicles from being on the road until 6am, what did Sweden force all remaining cars to do between 4.50am and 5am on September 3, 1967 - a day known as Högertrafikomläggningen?
Answer:
1 point
Question 7
What were the names of the Davies brothers who, along with Pete Quaife and Mick Avory, formed the music group The Kinks?
Answer:
2 points
Question 8
Although the film implies all types of birds are involved, what are the three recognisable types of birds that attack the people of Bodega Bay in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds?
Answer:
3 points
Question 9
Excluding the words ‘football club’, what three teams in the Scottish Premier League have names that start and end with the same letter?
Answer:
3 points
Question 10
Due for completion in 2030, the Rail Baltica project seeks to connect the Baltic region to Europe’s railway network, including stops in which five capital cities?
Answer:
5 points
Round 3 points
(Maximum: 19)
Total points
(Maximum: 64)
Round 4
Question 1
Bob Dylan’s lecture at the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature awards - in which he spoke about books that had inspired him - rekindled claims of plagiarism within his work when it was found to have twenty similar phrases as the Sparks Notes guide to which American book?
Answer:
1 point
Question 2
At a meeting with African leaders last week, US President Donald Trump praised Joseph Boakai for speaking ‘good English’ - unaware that English is the official language of which country, of which Boakai is President?
Answer:
1 point
Question 3
The name of which children’s TV character completes the lyrics to this theme tune: “He knows everything about nothing, and not too much about that, so if you someone who knows what he knows, then you must know…”?
Answer:
1 point
Question 4
In Scottish Highland Games, by what descriptive collective term are events such as tossing the caber, the stone putt, and the weight over the bar known?
Answer:
1 point
Question 5
A speaker cube that plays different songs and stories depending on which magnetic figurine, or ‘tonie’, is placed on top of it, the children’s toy Toniebox was devised by two men from which European country?
Answer:
1 point
Question 6
With only a thin exosphere rather than an atmosphere, the planet Mercury has a yellow-orange ‘tail’ comprised primarily of what chemical element being spread by the solar wind?
Answer:
1 point
Question 7
What two fingers of the hand are most often measured in order to generate a digit ratio believed to correlate to prenatal androgen exposure - particularly testosterone and estrogen? The theory is that the more testosterone an unborn baby is exposed to, the closer the fingers will be to being the same size.
Answer:
2 points
Question 8
What are the three species of sticklebacks in the UK, each classified by the number of spines they have?
Answer:
3 points
Question 9
The character Charles Hartmann appears in which three novels by Sebastian Faulks - once as a main character, and twice incidentally - with the three books collectively known as ‘The French Trilogy’?
Answer:
3 points
Question 10
Since the start of the 1958 tournament, when team shirts began to be associated with specific manufacturers, what seven sportswear companies have made the kit for a men’s World Cup winning football team?
Answer:
7 points
Round 4 points
(Maximum: 21)
Total points
(Maximum: 85)
Round 5
In Round 5, there is only one answer. The less clues you need to get it, the more points you receive. If you need only one clue, you receive 10 points; if you require two clues, you will receive 9 points, and so on.
However, you may only answer once. If you answer incorrectly, you receive zero points for the round.
What surname is shared by all the following people?
Clue 1 (10 points)
David, Canadian world champion slalom canoeist who competed in five Olympic Games
Clue 2 (9 points)
Trevor, geologist who published the first report on a recognised Precambrian fossil
Clue 3 (8 points)
Glenn, Hollywood Golden Age actor who starred in Gilda and The Big Heat
Clue 4 (7 points)
Rob, former mayor of Toronto who refused to resign despite public drug use and a video of him using crack cocaine
Clue 5 (6 points)
Ford Madox, Literary critic and editor of The English Review
Clue 6 (5 points)
Betty, US First Lady and founder of a substance abuse treatment clinic
Clue 7 (4 points)
John, film director who won a record four Academy Awards for Best Director
Clue 8 (3 points)
Henry, industrialist and car company founder
Clue 9 (2 points)
Gerald, 38th President of the United States
Clue 10 (1 point)
Harrison, actor known for playing Indiana Jones and Han Solo
Answer:
Round 5 points
(Maximum: 10)
Total points
(Maximum: 95)
That’s the quiz done. I trust, or at least hope, you gathered a bagful of points.
Should you feel the desire, here are the share and subscribe buttons, plus the PDF version.
More questions shall arrive very soon. In the meantime, as a Scot in Paris may say, adieu for noo, and have a great week. Bye.