Q1
What law might unite a film about teenage rebellion, a comic-strip character played by Johnny Weissmuller and a lesbian cult novel by Rita Mae Brown?
CLUES
- The film dates from the heyday of teenage rebellion, the 1950s.
- Johnny Weissmuller played Tarzan, but we’re looking for a different character here.
Q2
If you connect a song by Hector Berlioz with a medieval allegorical poem and a medieval murder mystery, why are you proving the truth of something Ethel Merman sang?
CLUES
- The murder mystery is medieval in setting, but not in date of composition.
- The role Ethel Merman played could also be relevant to the question.
A1
The law of the jungle.
The film The Blackboard Jungle (1955), written and directed by Richard Brooks from the novel by Evan Hunter, concerns a young teacher intimidated by his unruly pupils. It appeared at the height of societal fears about the new post-war phenomenon of teenage
delinquency. It features a brilliant performance by Sidney Poitier as one of the youths, though he was actually 31 when he made the film.
The comic-strip hero is Jungle Jim, created by Alex Raymond in the 1930s, which spawned a series of film adventures (1948–55) with Weissmuller in the title role. An idea
of the wide range of his acting talents is conveyed by the contemporary comment that his character was ‘Tarzan with clothes on’.
Rubyfruit Jungle (1973) is a novel by Rita Mae Brown with a streetwise lesbian heroine, now regarded as a pioneering example of the frank lesbian coming-of-age story, a genre far more prevalent now than it was at the time. Brown has more recently written a long series of mystery stories ‘co-authored’ with Sneaky Pie Brown, her cat.
A2
All the clues might prove that – as Ethel Merman sang in the role of Rose in the Sondheim musical Gypsy – ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’.
The song by Berlioz is ‘La Spectre de la Rose’, from the cycle Nuits d’Été (Summer Nights), Op.7 (1841 for solo voice and piano, then fully orchestrated 1843–56), based on poems by Théophile Gautier.
The medieval poem is the thirteenth-century Roman de la Rose or Romance of the Rose, composed in two sections almost 50 years apart and totalling well over 20,000 lines, which provided source material for Chaucer and other English poets.
The medieval murder mystery – medieval in setting but not in date of authorship – is The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (1980), filmed in 1986 with Sean Connery as the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville investigating mysterious deaths in a monastery in northern Italy in 1327.
Q3
Why might the most famous inhabitant of Bedloe’s Island extend a special welcome to visitors wearing red felt caps – and sporting undergarments produced by Messrs Symington?
CLUES
- In theory at least, the inhabitant of Bedloe’s Island is there to welcome everybody.
- The undergarments are obsolete, many would say thankfully.
Q4
How could pairing Adam Krug and Morse’s creator produce the autobiography of Osbert Sitwell?
CLUES
- Adam Krug is a fictional character, created in the 1940s.
- We’ve got to hand it to you, if you work this out you’ll have done well.
A3
Because the most famous inhabitant of what used to be called Bedloe’s Island – in New York Harbour – is the Statue of Liberty (properly titled Liberty Enlightening the World), by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, unveiled in 1886. Bedloe’s Island was renamed Liberty Island in 1956. As a symbol of liberty she therefore welcomes the free.
The cap of liberty was a red felt cap given to freedmen by the Romans, and adapted as a symbol of republican freedom in the French Revolution.
The liberty bodice was introduced in the late nineteenth century and produced by R. & W. H. Symington of Market Harborough until the 1960s, by which time it had been worn by many generations of women and girls. Although constraining to modern eyes, it was originally regarded as a huge, liberating advance on the uncomfortable and restricting bones and tight laces of the traditional corset.
A4
They give us the words sinister and dexter, which respectively mean left and right in Latin. The first volume of the aristocratic English writer Sir Osbert Sitwell’s autobiography, published in 1945, was entitled Left Hand, Right Hand – and this became the overall title of the five-volume series as the remaining books appeared over the next five years.
Adam Krug is the protagonist of the satirical, cryptic Bend Sinister (1947), the first novel Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) wrote after settling in the US. According to Nabokov, the title (a heraldic term meaning a diagonal bar drawn on a shield from upper left from lower right, as opposed to the more normal opposite) suggests a wrong turn taken in life. In the novel this refers to an error of judgement by Krug, a philosopher in a totalitarian state, which results in the death of his young son.
Inspector Morse’s creator in a series of novels beginning with Last Bus to Woodstock (1975) is Colin Dexter (1930–2017).
Q5
What might intoxicate you about a village on the Jurassic coast, a gathering of Morris dancers and a hospital orderly?
CLUES
- Round Britain Quiz enthusiasts do tend to have a thirst for knowledge.
- Don’t get sidetracked by Lyme (Regis) – that’s not the village we’re after.
Q6
What prize was achieved by a famously destructive hurricane, a cocktail and an expression of a global fraternal bond, but which very much eluded Castor and Pollux?
CLUES
- They achieved the prize at different times, not all together.
- The theme of this question is musical, and frivolous.
A5
Alcohol.
The village, in East Devon on the Jurassic coast (now a World Heritage Site, known for the copious and important fossil discoveries in the local cliffs) is Beer.
The peculiarly English folk tradition of Morris dancing (thought to derive from the term Moorish dancing, suggesting an origin in Spain or north Africa, though the roots are hard to trace) was first recorded in the fifteenth century but enjoyed a revival from the beginning of the twentieth century. An ale is a party or gathering of Morris teams at which dances are performed.
A term for a hospital orderly – also used for staff who provide assistance in places such as railway stations, docks and university colleges – is a porter.
Beer, ale and porter are all potentially intoxicating.
A6
Despite the promising reference to Classical myth, this is about the Eurovision Song Contest – and some of the UK’s successes and failures therein.
The hurricane would be Katrina which laid waste to the city of New Orleans, and other areas on the US Gulf Coast, in 2005. Katrina Leskanich, with her band the Waves, won the contest for the UK in 1997 with ‘Love Shine a Light’.
The cocktail is a Bucks Fizz, which is champagne and orange juice – their perky skirt-ripping routine (and the song ‘Making Your Mind Up’) won them the contest in 1981.
A global fraternal bond might be one way of describing the Brotherhood of Man, whose ‘Save Your Kisses for Me’ won in 1976 and became that year’s bestselling song.
At the other end of the spectrum are the UK’s least successful entrants, the Liverpool duo Jemini, whose ‘Cry Baby’ came last in 2003 and suffered the ultimate ignominy of scoring ‘nul points’. Subsequently the UK became accustomed, one might say inured, to finishing close to the foot of the table every year. In mythology Castor and Pollux (Polydeuces) are the twin sons of Leda, who was ravished by Zeus in the form of a swan. On their death they were transformed into the twin stars of the constellation Gemini.
Q7
What would have caused Aretha to praise a Jamaican-born singer and model who went Nightclubbing, an American-born actress who became royalty and three British-born cricketers?
CLUES
- The cricketers are brothers.
- The actress literally became royalty – not just in a film role.
Q8
Why might the curative invention of a physician, a cat’s tongue, the monarchs of Spain and Luxembourg, and a unifying Italian general make your mouth water?
CLUES
- Nibble away at this question one phrase at a time.
- By now we’ve probably given it to you on a plate.
A7
The fact that they are all named Grace, either as a given name or surname. The late Aretha Franklin’s biggest selling album was the gospel recording Amazing Grace (1972). A documentary film about the making of the album was unreleased until after her death but became a worldwide success in 2019.
Grace Jones (b.1948), Jamaica-born supermodel, actress and singer, was a well-known figure on the New York nightclub scene long before she recorded the acclaimed album Nightclubbing in 1981. It includes some of her best known tracks including ‘Demolition Man’ and the risqué ‘Pull Up to the Bumper’.
Grace Kelly (1929–82) was the Philadelphia-born actress who made her movie debut in High Noon in 1952 and went on to star in Mogambo, The Country Girl and three films for Alfred Hitchcock: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief. She married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956 and left her Hollywood career behind; she died tragically following a car accident in Monaco in 1982.
The cricketing brothers are the Grace Brothers: E. M. Grace, W. G. Grace and Fred Grace, all born in what was then the small village of Downend near Bristol. All three played for the same England Test team in 1880 (Fred tragically died of pneumonia just a few days later). W. G.’s career was the most illustrious of the three: it is hard to think of a more feted British cricketer, ever.
A8
Because they are all types of biscuit.
The physician William Oliver invented the biscuit known as the Bath Oliver in about 1750; it’s a dry, plain cracker often taken with cheese or port, and was designed to aid the digestion of wealthy visitors to the fashionable spa at Bath trying to make amends for a lifestyle of over-indulgence.
A cat’s tongue or a langue de chat is a small, delicate, buttery biscuit named for its vague resemblance to the shape of a tongue.
The Bourbon royal dynasty goes back to late thirteenth-century France; the dynasty held sway in many European territories across the centuries, and Spain and Luxembourg are still ruled by members of the House of Bourbon. The Bourbon chocolate biscuit was given that name in 1930 (after being marketed under the name Creola for 20 years previously).
The Italian general, who played a major role in the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century, was Giuseppe Garibaldi. The Garibaldi biscuit was named in his honour, a few years after his visit to Britain, which caused great excitement in 1854.
Q9
A musician whose tune took a veteran soldier to the top of the charts; a Geordie actress who played Queen Bess; and a turn-of-the-century Jewish cuckold with connections in the media, might all be found in the place where the First Fleet landed in Australia. How so?
CLUES
- This is a sweet-smelling question.
- The Geordie actress’s achievements go back to pre-Second World War days.
Q10
The similarity between a cross-dressing French diplomat and the James Bond films is as old as time itself. What is it?
CLUES
- The French diplomat is a real-life figure, but from a very long time ago.
- Try not to spend an eternity working this one out.
A9
Because their names are all plant-related; and the place where the ‘First Fleet’ carrying Australia’s first consignment of convicts landed, on 20 January 1788, was Botany Bay. (They didn’t actually settle there but moved on, a few miles north, to land six days later at Port Jackson in what’s now Sydney Harbour.)
Herbie Flowers (b.1938), composer, trumpeter and bass guitarist, has appeared with David Bowie, Elton John, Lou Reed, Cat Stevens and Paul McCartney. In the late 1970s, along with the guitarist John Williams, he was a member of the virtuoso group Sky, who specialized in rocked-up versions of classical melodies. But his biggest success as a songwriter is the novelty song ‘Grandad’, a no. 1 hit for Clive Dunn (aka Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army) in 1970.
Flora Robson (1902–84), the South Shields-born actress, played Elizabeth I in Fire Over England (1931) as well as many other tragic and romantic heroines including Zola’s Thérèse Raquin in Guilty (1944). She was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1960.
Leopold Bloom is the Everyman-hero of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), the Jewish advertisement canvasser for a Dublin newspaper, whose wife Molly commits adultery with another man (‘Blazes’ Boylan) in Bloom’s absence during the single day in 1904 on which the book’s action takes place.
A10
Eon.
The eighteenth-century French soldier and diplomat the Chevalier d’Éon was noted for an androgynous appearance and an aptitude for passing himself off as a woman, which allowed him to undertake numerous spying activities without being suspected. From the age of 49 onwards he identified as female and dressed consistently as a woman. ‘Eonism’ became, at one time, a term for transvestism.
The film production company formed by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman which has, since 1962, produced the official James Bond film series, is Eon Productions. Eon is said to be an acronym for ‘everything or nothing’.
An eon (or aeon) is a word often used non-specifically or poetically to mean ‘since the dawn of time’ or ‘an impossibly long time’. In astronomy and geology it has more recently been used specifically to mean 109 (i.e. 1,000,000,000) years.