Christmas Quiz 2020

Hello everyone, the usual mix of fiendish and impossible questions below, for a total of 150 points (I guess people might have a bit more free time than normal and so need a good long quiz). I will upload the answers here in the New Year. Good luck!

Round 1: Link Round (10 points)

A nice gentle start this year with the below link round 

1. Which artist drew the cartoons which appear in the opening credits of the sitcoms Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister?
2. Which character from literature was based on William Henley, a man described by Lloyd Osbourne as “a great, glowing, massive-shouldered fellow with a big red beard and a crutch; jovial, astoundingly clever, and with a laugh that rolled like music; he had an unimaginable fire and vitality; he swept one off one’s feet”?
3. Which jazz musician was nicknamed “Bird”?
4. In Greek mythology, King Pellas ordered Jason and the Argonauts to acquire what item?
5. During which battle did the Charge of the Light Brigade take place?
6. And which member of the nobility led that charge?
7. What was the nickname of English gangster Jack McVitie, murdered by Reggie Kray in 1967?
8. What is the name of the award given to the goalkeeper in a Premier League season who has kept the most clean sheets?
9. Which British sitcom, which ran from 1976 to 1971, was set in the close of the fictional St. Ogg’s Cathedral?
10. Why would you be grateful for all or part of all of the above answers around this time of year?
    

Round 2: Combination link round (13 points)

The answers to all or part of each of the first five questions can be combined with all or part of one of the answers in the second five questions to form a word (creating five words in total). These five words are linked.

1. What is the chemical symbol of the second lightest metal element?
2. What name is shared by a Berkshire village famous for its windmill on which J.R.R. Tolkien based the Middle Earth settlement of Bree, and a Cornish village in the parish of Constantine?
3. Who was the president of Malawi from 1964-1994?
4. In Star Wars, which crime lord employed the bounty hunter Boba Fett to capture Han Solo?
5. What is the abbreviation for the room where the VAR team sits in a game of professional football?
6. In which 2000 film does Brad Pitt play the character “One Punch” Mickey O’Neill?
7. Recipients of which prizes have their acceptance speeches interrupted by a small girl who says “Please stop, I’m bored” if they go on too long?
8. What was the actual name of the first dog to play Lassie in film?
9. What kitchen implement is known as a kuo in Chinese, a penggorengan in Indonesia and a kuali in Malaysia? Its common English name comes from the Cantonese word for the item.
10. The Harrison Ford film Witness is set within which specific American community?
11. What are the five words that can be created by combining all or part of the first five answers with all or part of the second five?
12. What is the link between the words?
13. Which two additional theme words are still in use today?
    

Round 3: Link Round (13 points)

1. Where do Watford play their home games?
2. In 1991, Status Quo had none, in 2003, Jay-Z stopped just short of a century, while in 1997 The Notorious B.I.G. drew a positive correlation with increasing wealth. What am I referring to?
3. In The Crystal Maze, there were four kinds of games. What was the second alphabetically?
4. What kind of building was the only Ancient Wonder of the World in Alexandria?
5. In the Japanese punishment known as yubitsume, what part of the body is the affected?
6. What does the A stand for in the abbreviation “TBA”?
7. Noisy Nora and Angelina Ballerina are both what kind of animal?
8. The Treaty of Versailles was signed in a room named after which object?
9. In which East Sussex town, once famous for its smuggling activities, would you find the Ypres Tower, built to defend against French invasion in 1249?
10. Samuel Gruber is an antiques dealer with a shop on the Portobello road. With which fictional animal does he take elevenses everyday?
11. Which fictional character links all of the above words?
    
12. What was that character’s first name?
    
13. Give any other word which could continue the theme above (8 possible answers)
    

Round 4: Link Round (12 points)

1. Which author, best known for his works set in North American wildernesses, was also a war correspondent who managed to get arrested three times by the Japanese military while covering the Russo-Japanese war?
2. Which choreographer is the only person to win an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony in the same year (1973)? The Oscar was for the film Cabaret, where he won Best Director.
3. Which Shropshire village, forming a civil parish with Uppington, has at its centre St. Andrew’s Church, a Grade 1 Listed Building dating back to Saxon times?
4. Who is New Zealand’s current test match wicketkeeper? He currently holds the record for most Test dismissals by a New Zealand wicketkeeper, and is currently the only New Zealand wicketkeeper to have scored a test double century.
5. In The Remorseful Day, the last episode of Inspector Morse, in which Oxford college does Morse die?
6. What is the name of Gibraltar’s leading football team, 24-time winners of the Gibraltar National League? In 2014 they became the first team to represent the territory in the Champions League.
7.  What name is commonly given to the stoat when in its white winter coat?
8. What title is generally given to the second son of English monarchs?
9. What is the state capital of Delaware?
10. How do 3 of the above answers link the other 6?
11. Fill in the blanks in the below diagram with the link words (diagram not to scale) (2 points)

Round 5: Link round (12 points)

1. By what nickname was Francois Duvalier, President of Haiti from 1957 to 1971, commonly known?
2. Which US Republican presidential nomination candidate in 2008 and 2016 has a daughter who served as Donald Trump’s White House Press Secretary from 2017 to 2019?
3. Which architect is famous for designing many civic buildings in Brasilia when it was founded, and the United Nations headquarters in New York?
4. What was the name the 1972 Genesis’ album which contained their longest ever track, the 23-minute epic “Supper’s Ready”?
5. In which 1948 film does Humphrey Bogart appear as a desperate young man who goes to Mexico in search of gold? It was one of the first Hollywood films to be filmed on location outside of the United States.
6. Which song, by which artist, contains the lyrics “The one you warned me about/ The one you said I could do without/ We’re in an awful mess”?
7. What kind of radiation occurs when a helium nucleus is released by an atomic nucleus?
8. Which country’s world heritage sites include The Sundarban National Park, Keoladeo National Park and the Red Fort complex?
9. Which song, by which band, starts with the lyrics “When I look into your eyes/I can see a love restrained/But darlin’ when I hold you/Don’t you know I feel the same”?
10. What is the link between all or part of the above 9 answers?
11. What question is posed by the link words in order?
12. What is the answer to that question? Please give your answer in the same style as the link words.
    

Round 6: Link round (11 points)

1. Which UK café chain was at the centre of an accounting fraud in summer 2019 which saw five people arrested after a 94 million pound hole was discovered in the accounts?
2. Which Liverpool band, championed by John Peel, achieved fame with the 1985 album Back in the D.H.S.S? Their hits often reference football, such as the overlooked classic All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit.
3. Which 2004 film, directed by Matthew Vaughan, starred Daniel Craig as an unnamed cocaine dealer wishing to leave the drugs business?
4. Sprinter Asuka Cambridge and judo expert Matthew Baker are Olympic medal winners from the 2016 Olympics. What nationality are they?
5. Which 1980s classic song begins with the lyrics “We’re leavin’ together/ But it’s still farewell/ And maybe we’ll come back/ To Earth, who can tell”?
6. With what three word phrase did the Roman poet Juvenal characterize the Roman Empire’s way of placating the masses? (answer in English to fit with the link)
7. By what name is the first Franco-Mexican war of 1838-39 War also known, after the profession of the Frenchman who demanded reparations for the looting of his shop, the initial cause of the conflict?
8. Which part of a meal gets its name from a French verb meaning “to clear the table”?
9. Which English rock band from Brighton often had their name abbreviated to TEMBD?
10. Which British soul band was formed by Errol Brown and Tony Wilson, and had their biggest hit in 1975 with “You Sexy Thing”, a song which later reached the charts again after it was used in The Full Monty?
11. Where would you have found the above 10 answers in 2020?

Round 7: Picture round (11 points)

Each of the below rows of pictures has some kind of festive theme. Get the theme for 1 point. A black line around multiple pictures indicates that they refer to a single item.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Round 8: Word pictures (14 points)

The twelve answers below all have the same number of letters. The twelve answers can also be formed into two symmetrical six pointed stars like the one below, with each word forming a “side” of the star.

1. Which words precede “Husband” in the title of an 1895 play by Oscar Wilde?
2. New York’s Chrysler Building, for a short period in 1930 the tallest building in the world, is built in which architectural style?
3. What is the last word in the title of the first Sherlock Holmes novel?
4. What is the surname of the character played by Julie Walters in Acorn Antiques?
5. What name is given to the branch of physics which deals with the forces acting on stationary bodies?
6. What is the medical term for acute or chronic pain in the lower back?
7. The War of the Spanish Succession was ended in 1713 by a treaty named after which European city?
8. Of the four main islands of Japan, what is the smallest?
9. After which area of London is the decennial conference held by the bishops of the Anglican church named?
10. What is the name of the brand of Bluetooth headphones released by Apple in December 2016?
11. Somali and Common are the two main species of what kind of bird?
12. Which Caribbean island has a cricket stadium named after one of its most notable cricketing sons, Daren Sammy?
13. What two “word stars” can be made from the above answers? (2 points)

Round 9: Fill in the blanks (13 points)

Fill in the blanks with the names of London Underground stations. Wordplay ranges from poor to unforgiveable (half point each).

My daughter was playing with her dolls. She likes Sindy, but I’m not a fan – I think there’s so much Sindy can’t do that (1). She was engrossed, as were her (2). I was going to make the eight of them breakfast, but my cooking is very bad and tends to (3), so instead I went out on the water with my Scottish friend, Rick. He has a very bouffant hairstyle, which he loves, though to me it seems like an impractically (4). On the lake, I navigated while the (5). We chatted about the state of the world, but he is very nihilistic about our future as a species. As I often tell him, (6) more than you give him credit for. 

On the way back I picked up a present for the local vicar; the (7) as my wife likes to call it. I probably shouldn’t favour him in this way, as it does make the (8) with envy. But I think he deserves it, especially as he’s been busy all week painting the outside of our place of worship. I’ve no idea why he wanted a (9), but it looks pretty good. 

I also visited the village farm. I poked my nose into the henhouse as the male has recently started taking in other animals and looking after them for a short time. It’s odd, but it’s as if the (10) them. Another friend, Jill, was there, and I asked her to give me the bag of oats for the pigs, saying “Pass the (11)”. I also asked her to give back the money she owed me, but she didn’t have it. “I hope (12)ing you money isn’t going to spoil our friendship”, I warned. 

I went home the scenic route, which involved crossing a river. I told Jill to come with me, but she was too scared. “I (13), but I’m worried I might fall in”. I (14) the river, but I’m not sure if I can construct something sturdy enough. Anyway, we got over somehow and arrived at my house. I might have exaggerated the size to Jill and Rick, because they both said “That’s not a (15) would be more appropriate.” I do have large grounds though, so much so I have a naming system for different parts. We walked through the P Courtyard and the (16) on the way to the house. I had a bit of a set-to with Stanley the gardener on the way, about how much he should prune the ornamental topiary; “(17) cutting, please” but in the end we agreed on how much he should trim. “That’s (18) off a branch or two and that’ll be job done”, I said. I also asked him to check the boundary topiary so I knew which was mine and which belonged to my neighbour, the famous golfing astronaut. I showed the gardener what to do. That’s (19) with an X. On the other hand, that’s mine – paint a Y on that one.

When we got in, the cricket was on the radio. England’s latest star batsman, Raymond (the descendant of a fellow famous for developing a way to represent propositions through diagrams), seemed to have been out slogging to the Koreans, as I heard “(20) for just 10” when I turned on the set. I hoped my celebrity betting friend Ms Paige hadn’t lost too much money on the result; she’s always been a bit of a (21). She drinks a lot too; always beer. I think she must be (22). Oddly, she pretends to be from Lincolnshire; an affectation I call her (23).

As the cricket wasn’t going too well, I turned over to a music station. They were playing the rock classic “(24) a Feeling”, one of my favourites. I was looking forward to our card game starting later in the evening; a (25) is always great fun. The dogs were (26) by side, and all was well with the world.

Round 10: Cryptic connections (18 points)

In the below questions, get each part of the connection and the connection itself for full marks.

1. In which part of the United Kingdom would you find: 

• A former records office; 
• The predecessors of the Inuit people; 
• 9-57 in 1994; and
• The heaviest man to have played test cricket (3 points)

2. In what sense might a gladiatorial musician be like a walking aid, but need the addition of a British island to get a Nobel Laureate and the further addition of a unit of force to get a notorious telegram? (3 points)

3. What kind of emoji links: 

• an elderly chap on the silver screen
• a stout on the small screen; and 
• a Walford family on the radio? (2 points) 

4. In what kind of shop might you encounter:

• A hooded one;
• A stained one; and
• One from Yemen? (2 points total)

5. What language is shared by: 

• St. Thomas and the Prince;
• a kind of wood;
• a repeated direction? (2 points)

6. In what geographical and alphabetical group would you find: 

• A flying New Zealand comedian; 
• Modern Lindum; and
• An explorer released from prison to find El Dorado? (2 points)

7. In what context would a severe medical issue be followed by two Marx Brothers films and a defunct red-top? (2 points)

8. What links the confinement of: 

• A make of brandy;
• The star of Veep; and
• A town in Gloucestershire? (2 points)

Round 11: 1920 births pictures (10 points)

2020 has been a bit of a disappointment, as years go, so let’s focus on 1920 instead.

The people in the middle column below were all born in 1920. The people or items on the left share the first name of the person in the middle. The people or items in the column on the right share the surname of the person in the middle (there may be some spelling differences, and in some cases you will need to decide whether it is the person’s real name you need or that of the character they are playing). Get all three for a point, or any 2 for half a point.

Round 12: Picture round (13 points)

In the below stills from films, one of the actors has had their faces inexpertly replaced with that of a sports star. The actor removed has the same initials as the sports star in each case, and the sport in question has been provided to help you. Name the film (half point) and the sports star (half point) in each case. Taking the initials of all the film stars/sports stars and rearranging them will give the name of a film which, despite its name, would likely not be considered very suitable for the time of year (1 point).

What is the name of the film that can be made by rearranging the initials of the 12 excised actors/sports stars in these pictures? (one point)

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