Q1
Ten in 1901; twelve in 1948; seven in 1949. What might these numbers and dates have to do with reproduction?
CLUES
- Each of these dates might be said to represent a revolution.
- If you’re thinking about babies, think again.
Q2
Why might you accuse the following of sycophancy: Danger Mouse’s arch-enemy, one whose life was changed by a ‘Poop-poop!’, and Mr Jackson?
CLUES
- You’ll go a bit green when the answer is explained to you.
- Children’s fiction is important in this question.
A1
This is nothing to do with childbirth, contraception or developments in fertility treatment. It’s about sound reproduction, i.e. the format of recorded discs.
We could have worded the question as ‘78 in 1901, 33 and a third in 1948, and 45 in 1949’. These are the launch dates of three different disc formats that dominated the recording industry in the twentieth century – the 78 rpm disc, the LP record and the single. And the numbers relate to their typical diameter in inches.
A2
They could be accused of sycophancy because they are all toads in children’s fiction (books or TV) – and are therefore, by definition, toady.
Danger Mouse’s arch-enemy is Baron Greenback, created by Brian Trueman and voiced by Edward Kelsey, in the original children’s cartoon series (ITV, 1981–92), which was revived on CBBC in 2015. He’s a wheezy-voiced toad dressed in a suit and spats, his name and demeanour suggesting a stereotypical unscrupulous tycoon.
His image may owe something to Kenneth Grahame’s Mr Toad, whose life is changed when the reckless driver of a motor car ploughs his gypsy caravan off the road in the early chapters of The Wind in the Willows (1908). He’s left sitting in the road, stunned, repeating ‘Poop-poop!’ – and vows that the motor car is henceforth ‘the only way to travel’.
Mr Jackson is the toad who invites himself for tea in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse (1910). He comes in because he smells honey and ransacks her burrow in search of it, unmoved by her protestations that she has none. He is a more unsettling character than either of the above because (in common with most of Beatrix Potter’s carefully observed characters), despite his human speech and clothes, he behaves exactly like a toad.
Q3
A naturalist, originally studying marine mammals in Cardiff but then switching to conifers in Nicosia, travels to work in Santiago but finds it too cold. He moves to hotter climes in Doha, only to suffer from mucous inflammation. He tries a spell selling lubricants in Athens, and finally settles in Seoul to spend the rest of his working life. Given his track record, where might he choose to eat Christmas dinner?
CLUES
- This is a classic Round Britain Quiz punning question.
- Think of where the cities are in each case, and it should start to make sense.
Q4
In what sense could a punctuation mark, a reptilian carapace, one with the power to admit or exclude and a forked harbinger of summer all be described as elusive?
CLUES
- Do any phrases spring to mind including the adjective ‘elusive’?
- You’re in the natural world here.
A3
The answer is Ankara. The link throughout is homophones of the countries he visits.
Studying marine mammals in Cardiff would mean he was watching whales in Wales …
Switching to conifers in Nicosia (cypress in Cyprus) …
He travels to work in Santiago but finds it too cold (so he’d be chilly in Chile).
He moves to hotter climes in Doha only to suffer from mucous inflammation (or perhaps catarrh in Qatar) …
He tries selling lubricants in Athens (grease in Greece) …
and later settles in Seoul to spend the rest of his working life (a career in Korea).
By this logic, he’d be likely to go to Ankara for a traditional Christmas dinner (thus eating turkey in Turkey).
A4
They are butterflies. The reference is to Bob Lind’s classic hit song ‘Elusive Butterfly’, which flitted around in the British top 10 for several weeks in the spring of 1966 alongside Val Doonican’s equally popular cover version.
Although they are elusive (and in many cases endangered) these are four of the most commonly found butterflies in Britain.
The comma, Polygonia c-album, named for the markings on its underwing which resemble the punctuation mark; the small tortoiseshell, Aglais urticae (the large tortoiseshell is sadly all but extinct in the UK); the gatekeeper, Pyronia tithonus, also known as the hedge brown; and the swallowtail, Papilio machaon, whose most notable remaining habitat is the Norfolk Broads.
Q5
Why is the link between a gallantry medal invented by George Washington and a legendary rhythm section, summed up by Alice Walker?
CLUES
- The rhythm section, rather than consisting of real musicians, is referred to in a popular song.
- The connection could be described as imperial.
Q6
What connects Sebastian Dangerfield; Fred Murray; David Lodge; political agitators; and a supporting outlaw?
CLUES
- You may have to tread your way carefully through this question.
- Geraldine Horner might also be on the list.
A5
Because the link is the colour purple.
Alice Walker wrote the novel The Color Purple (1982) which won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into a movie by Steven Spielberg in 1985.
The gallantry medal is the Purple Heart, first awarded by Washington for outstanding bravery in the War of American Independence and later revived on the 200th anniversary of Washington’s birth in 1932. It’s now awarded exclusively to those wounded or killed in the service of their country.
Elvis Presley’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ (1956) features the memorable line: ‘The whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang’.
A6
Ginger.
Sebastian Dangerfield is the wayward hero of the bawdy comic novel The Ginger Man (1955), the literary debut of J. P. Donleavy (1926–2017). Donleavy’s autobiography is called The History of the Ginger Man (1993).
The popular music-hall song (c.1910) ‘Ginger, You’re Barmy!’ is attributed to songwriter Fred Murray. The title was in turn taken by David Lodge for an autobiographical novel about National Service (published in 1962).
A small group of political agitators, often within a larger political grouping, is known as a ginger group.
Ginger is a friend of ‘Just William’ Brown, one of the ‘Outlaws’ in the books by Richmal Crompton (1890–1969). The other outlaws were Henry and Douglas. The first William book appeared in 1922 and she continued to publish books about him until her death.
We deliberately left out Geraldine Horner (née Halliwell) – otherwise known, of course, as Ginger Spice.
Q7
Why might Gordon express surprise at being the father of a defensive publisher, the kingdom of Croesus, Impatiens walleriana, a carrier of typhoid and a bowls player’s target?
CLUES
- The fact that he’d be the father of five might give you a hint.
- Gordon is a real person whose name has become proverbial.
Q8
The final words of Ibsen’s Ghosts, the final words of Mr Kurtz and the title of an Iris Murdoch novel might start to sound familiar. What are they?
CLUES
- At the risk of repeating ourselves, there is a familiar pattern in this question.
- Mr Kurtz appears in a novel, but he has a counterpart in film whose final words are exactly the same.
A7
A popular expression of surprise is still ‘Gordon Bennett!’ The exclamation is said to derive from the colourful exploits of James Gordon Bennett Jr, a nineteenth-century playboy and owner of the New York Herald.
Give or take a final ‘t’, he shares his surname with the five sisters in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, whose forenames are suggested by the other clues.
The ‘defensive’ publisher is Jane’s, as in Jane’s Defence Weekly, Jane’s Fighting Ships and many other authoritative publications, named after Frederick Thomas Jane, nineteenth-century journalist, pulp novelist and illustrator.
Croesus was King of ancient Lydia, in Asia Minor, whose site on at least two major Asian trade routes contributed to its huge wealth.
Impatiens walleriana is the garden plant known as a Busy Lizzie.
‘Typhoid Mary’ was the nickname given to Irish-born Mary Mallon, who, as the first known healthy carrier of typhoid in the US, is thought to have infected 22 people while working as a cook in Manhattan.
Finally, a kitty, as well as being a cat and a pool of money, is another name for the jack, or target ball, in lawn bowls.
A8
They each consist of a short phrase repeated.
The final words of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts (1881) are uttered by the dying Oswald, sitting in an armchair while the sun sets. His distressed mother is the only other person on stage. Several times in the last minutes, but resonantly as the very final line of the play, he says: ‘The sun. The sun.’
Equally disturbing are the dying words of Mr Kurtz, the mysterious ivory agent of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902). Having spent much of his life in the depths of the African jungle, driven mad, and unable to articulate the frightening reality of what he has experienced, Kurtz’s final words are: ‘The horror! The horror!’ Colonel Kurtz, Marlon Brando’s character in Apocalypse Now, which takes direct inspiration from Heart of Darkness, speaks the very same words at the end of the film.
The novel by the late Iris Murdoch, which won the Booker Prize in 1978, is The Sea, The Sea. It centres on the relationship between a theatre director and his childhood love, and draws heavily on elements of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Q9
Something whose speed was measured by Rømer; an original for Sludge the Medium; and the estate of the common people. What happened in 1967 to render them obsolete?
CLUES
- Sludge the Medium is a fictional character based on a Victorian spiritualist.
- To be more precise, it happened on 30 September 1967.
Q10
These are three little pairings. One’s energizing and soulful, another scientific and entrepreneurial, and a third rejuvenating and playful. What’s the common letter?
CLUES
- You’re looking for abbreviations that are all in quite common conversational use.
- As it happens, they are in alphabetical order.
A9
Light; Home; Third: all were BBC networks, which disappeared with the reorganization of radio in September 1967.
Ole Rømer, Danish astronomer, first measured the speed of light in 1676: in a vacuum it’s slightly over 186,282 miles per second or roughly 300,000 km/sec.
Daniel Dunglas Home (1833–86), was a Scottish-born spiritualist who attracted high society to his London séances in the mid-Victorian period. He was expelled from Rome in 1864 as a sorcerer. Browning loathed the Victorian fashion for charlatan mediums, and had Home (possibly among others) strongly in mind when he satirized them in the 1864 poem ‘Mr Sludge, the Medium’.
The term originating in pre-Revolutionary France, the tiers état or Third Estate was the common people, after the nobility (the First) and the Church (the Second).
A10
R & B, R & D, R & R. So the common letter is R.
They stand for Rhythm & Blues; Research & Development; Rest & Recreation.