Q1
In what kind of landscape might you encounter a veteran Spectator cartoonist, one who was sculpted in solid gold and the inventor of a reliable test for arsenic?
CLUES
- The solid gold sculpture is real, not fictional or mythological.
- Hopefully this one won’t be too much of an uphill struggle.
Q2
What Formula might Brazilians apply to a great Flemish painter, the author of Self-Reliance and the First Duke of Bronté?
CLUES
- The First Duke of Bronté is much better known by another title: he is a hero in British history.
- If you get the surnames of these people, you then have to think of them as first names.
A1
On the moors, or somewhere similar: their names are Heath, Moss and Marsh, all names used for a boggy expanse of upland.
The veteran cartoonist is Michael Heath (b.1935), since 1991 cartoon editor of the Spectator and creator of memorable series such as Private Eye’s The Regulars and Great Bores of Today. His characters have often drawn inspiration from the Soho social scene he was part of in the 1960s, alongside Jeffrey Bernard, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon.
Someone sculpted in gold is the British supermodel Kate Moss (b.1974), subject of the work by Marc Quinn entitled Siren exhibited at the British Museum in 2008. It depicts a lifesize Kate Moss with her legs wrapped behind her head, and is made of solid 18-carat gold, promoted at the time as ‘the largest pure gold sculpture since ancient Egypt’.
The Marsh test was developed by the British chemist James Marsh (1794–1846) for detecting tiny traces of arsenic, a popular choice of substance for poisoners in Victorian times. It was widely adopted by the newly established police force and was a significant development in the history of forensic science.
A2
The capital F suggests Formula One, and this celebrates three Brazilian racing drivers. In each case, the surname suggested in the question gives us the Christian name of the driver.
So the painter Pieter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) gives us Rubens Barrichello (b.1972).
Self-Reliance was a work by the American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) in which he expounds his belief that one should avoid conformity and a slavish unthinking adherence to commonly held notions, and instead be true to one’s own instincts and ideas. As Emerson himself put it, in what is probably the most famous line from the essay: ‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds’. His surname gives us Emerson Fittipaldi, (b.1946; World Champion 1972 and 1974).
The Duke of Bronté was not a relative of the literary sisters of Haworth but a title conferred on Horatio Nelson by the King of Naples after Nelson had restored him to his throne in 1799. Nelson Piquet (b.1952) won the Formula One World Championship in 1981, 1983 and 1987, having changed his name from Nelson Souto Maior to stop his parents finding out about his motor-racing career.
Q3
For your starter, choose a Nicaraguan presidential dynasty; you’ll have whetted your appetite for the mistress of a prime minister, and a lyricist who is far from EGOT-istical; and you can wash it all down with a dog. What kind of restaurant are you in?
CLUES
- The mistress of a prime minister is in recent history (so it’s not Lloyd George’s mistress, for example).
- You’ll need to make sure the water jug is topped up.
Q4
Why might you find Lucifer, Kingsley Amis’s Colonel and Francisco Salva’s most important invention right on your doorstep?
CLUES
- You won’t have heard of Francisco Salva but you will have heard of his invention, and heard a lot as a result of his invention.
- Confusingly, thinking of books by Kingsley Amis may not help much.
A3
You’re in an Indian restaurant.
The Nicaraguan dictator, President Anastasio Somoza (b.1896, assassinated 1956), was succeeded by his sons Luis Somoza Debayle (1922–67) and Anastasio Somoza Debayle (1925–80). A samosa (difference in pronunciation negligible) is a spicy pastry pyramid filled with meat and/or vegetables.
The prime minister’s mistress is Edwina Currie (b.1946), whose four-year affair with John Major while he was a rising cabinet star was sensationally revealed with the publication of her diaries in 2002. She was the Conservative MP for Derbyshire South, a junior minister in the Department of Health and a prominent media performer.
Sir Tim Rice (b.1944), the lyricist of the hugely successful musicals Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Chess, The Lion King and Aladdin among others, is one of the very few people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award during their career – a grand slam known, for obvious reasons, as EGOT. Despite this, he remains self-effacing.
To accompany this tasty meal you might order a jug of Lassi(e) – a sweet yoghurt drink.
A4
Because the clues lead to the titles of three major British newspapers, which might (even in our online age) drop onto the doormat in the morning, namely the Morning Star, the Sun and the Telegraph.
The word ‘Lucifer’ literally means ‘light-bearer’, and, as well as referring to the fallen angel of Paradise Lost, is the Roman astrological term for the planet Venus in its guise as the morning star, a translation of the Greek term ‘eosphoros’ or ‘phosphorus’, which has the more specific meaning of ‘dawn-bearer’
Kingsley Amis wrote a James Bond novel in 1968 entitled Colonel Sun, intended as a sequel and homage to the Ian Fleming books he admired. It appeared under the pseudonym Robert Markham – but the author’s real identity became well known.
The telegraph was the cumulative product of work by several inventors, but the earliest working prototype, which predated the development of the voltaic cell, was the electrostatic telegraph produced by the Spanish physicist Francisco Salva (1751–1828). Other inventors with a legitimate claim to the device’s creation include Samuel von Sömmering, Paul Schilling, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Wilhelm Weber and Sir William Fothergill Cooke, who patented the first commercial electric telegraph in 1837.
Q5
In which room of the house would you be most likely to find a hit Elvis sang in Loving You, Ibsen’s drama about Torvald and Nora, and a D. H. Lawrence story filmed in 1949?
CLUES
- It would probably have to be quite an old-fashioned house.
- It’s a playful connection.
Q6
If Manchester provided you with a conversation between, say, the Queen and Prince Charles; Sheffield would send Miller potty; and Charles Foster Kane would be in Glasgow – what would drive you to Hull?
CLUES
- Don’t make too much of a drama out of this one.
- ‘Wolfie’ Smith could be in Glasgow too.
A5
The answer is a child’s bedroom or nursery.
‘(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear’ was sung by Elvis Presley in his second movie, Loving You, and reached no. 1 in the US (no. 3 in the UK) as a single in 1957.
Troubled husband and wife Torvald and Nora Helmer are the main characters in the Ibsen play A Doll’s House (1879).
The D. H. Lawrence short story is ‘The Rocking Horse Winner’, the story of a child with an uncanny ability to predict racing winners while riding his rocking horse. It was filmed in 1949 with John Mills and the young John Howard Davies.
A6
A Truck. The link here is British regional theatres.
The conversation between the two members of the royal family gives us Manchester’s Royal Exchange (founded 1976).
The Sheffield Crucible recalls both the Arthur Miller play and the snooker venue; the theatre was opened in 1971 to replace the old Sheffield Playhouse, and takes its name from the crucible process of steel production, pioneered in Sheffield in the 1740s by Benjamin Huntsman.
Charles Foster Kane is Citizen Kane in the Orson Welles film and could thus be found at Glasgow Citizens Theatre, founded by James Bridie in the 1940s.
That just leaves a drive to Hull Truck. Hull Truck Theatre was opened in 1971 by actor Mike Bradwell who placed an advert in Time Out: ‘Half-formed theatre company seeks other half’. John Godber was appointed creative director in 1984 and his formal association with Hull Truck continued for the next 26 years.
Q7
Why might Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve read a late masterpiece by Henry James while being driven in the definitive Indian motor car?
CLUES
- Even if you’ve never heard of Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve you will probably be familiar with what they look like.
- We have to be diplomatic with any clues we give you.
Q8
What could it be about a US prosecuting official, the unified atomic mass unit and a Teddy boy’s haircut that would interest the man who documented Bob Dylan’s tour of Britain?
CLUES
- The prosecuting official is a reference to a generic title rather than a specific person.
- The Bob Dylan tour was in the 1960s.
A7
They are all Ambassadors.
Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve are the two subjects in Hans Holbein’s large canvas known as The Ambassadors, finished in 1533, now in the National Gallery.
Henry James’s dark comedy The Ambassadors (1903) is considered one of his finest late novels.
The Hindustan Ambassador, based on the 1950s Morris Oxford, was in production from 1958 to 2014 and was the ubiquitous car on Indian roads throughout the late twentieth century.
A8
The director of the film Dont Look Back (there is deliberately no apostrophe), chronicling Bob Dylan’s 1965 concert tour of the UK, was D. A. Pennebaker – and the others are all D. A.s of one kind or another.
D(onn) A(lan) Pennebaker (b.1925) was approached by manager Albert Grossman to film Dylan’s British tour, after his documentary on the jazz musician Dave Lambert came to prominence following Lambert’s tragic death in a car crash. The movie Dont Look Back contains candid footage of Dylan in performance, backstage and in conversation, and incidentally documents his increasingly obvious break-up with Joan Baez. It includes the famous sequence in which Dylan, standing in an alleyway, holds up cards bearing lyrics from the song ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ and throws them away as the song proceeds.
In the US legal system a District Attorney or D. A. is the government-appointed (or elected) official responsible for prosecutions. Among the memorable lyrics in ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, coincidentally, is: ‘Maggie says that many say / They must bust in early May / Orders from the D. A.’
The standard scientific unit of atomic mass is the unified atomic mass unit or the dalton, named after the Manchester chemist John Dalton (1766–1844), and abbreviated Da.
A hairstyle popular with Teddy boys in 1950s Britain was the D. A. or ‘duck’s arse’, where the hair was combed back into a ridge or seam at the back of the head, often held with Brylcreem.
Q9
On what grounds could you expect a Rossini opera to be set in Newcastle, a US news network to be based in Leicester, a wartime thriller to be set in south London, Lewis Carroll’s Alice to meet an eccentric character from Luton, and a Chekhov play to be staged in Brighton?
CLUES
- The phrase ‘on what grounds’, in the context of these cities, is a heavy hint.
- Kick this one around for a while and see where it gets you.
Q10
A shanty town in the Depression, the principle of the free market and a twenty-first-century programme of health insurance are all in the dictionary, but a long way apart – so what do they have in common?
CLUES
- They are likely to be in the OED but they will definitely be in Webster’s.
- Think of journalistic jargon that entered the language.
A9
On football grounds: the link is English league football clubs’ nicknames.
The Rossini opera is The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra, 1817) − Newcastle United are the Magpies. Clearly there is another cheeky Newcastle United connection (if you mispronounce the Italian Gazza).
Rupert Murdoch’s network in the US is Fox News – Leicester City are the Foxes.
Where Eagles Dare (1968), based on the novel by Alistair MacLean, is a Second World War action film starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood – Crystal Palace are the Eagles.
Alice meets the Mad Hatter at the tea party − Luton Town are the Hatters (so named because Luton was for centuries a centre of hat manufacture, particularly straw hats). The fumes given off by the glue used in hat-making were notoriously supposed to send factory workers mad after inhaling them for years on end, hence the phrase ‘mad as a hatter’, inspiring Carroll’s character.
Finally, a Chekhov play would be The Seagull (1896) – Brighton & Hove Albion are the Seagulls.
A10
These are all words, incorporating the names of the US presidents with whom they are associated, that have entered the language.
Hooverville was the name given to any of several thousand shanty towns built to shelter the homeless in the US after the crash of 1929. They were named for Herbert Hoover who was president at the time and on whom the crash was widely blamed.
Reaganomics is the orthodoxy that the best way to run the economy is to allow the greatest reasonable leeway for the free market, famously espoused by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
Obamacare is the system of health insurance introduced in 2010 by Barack Obama, against fierce opposition, which provided health care to some 20 million previously uninsured Americans. His successor made it a pledge of his election campaign to dismantle it.