Q1
In which famous sequence is a complaint about miserliness followed by Louis XIV, someone unpleasant with a condiment connection, a synthetic beauty, an unorthodox homecoming and blessed repose?
CLUES
- It’s a musical sequence.
- Think of four people crossing a road.
Q2
In a sentence can you say: what a revered England goalie does to protect his earnings; how a stellar guitarist’s manager responds to a request for his client; and how a Yorkshire announcer preserves his vegetables?
CLUES
- Trademark Round Britain Quiz puns are involved here.
- We should really have said, ‘In three very short sentences …’
A1
The long medley of songs on side two of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album (1969), mainly composed by Paul McCartney.
The titles hinted at in the question are, respectively: ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’, ‘Sun King’, ‘Mean Mr Mustard’, ‘Polythene Pam’, ‘She Came In Through the Bathroom Window’ and ‘Golden Slumbers’.
A2
These are people whose names are a sentence in themselves.
What a football goalie does to protect his earnings: ‘Gordon Banks’. Banks (b.1937) kept goal for England’s 1966 World Cup-winning side, was awarded the OBE in 1970, and won the Football Writers’ Association Player of the Year award in 1972.
How a stellar guitarist’s manager responds to a request for his client: ‘Brian May’. May (b.1947), guitarist with Queen since 1972, is still very much involved in the surviving band’s projects. He finally completed his long-abandoned PhD thesis, ‘A study of radial velocities in the zodiacal dust cloud’, in 2007.
How a Yorkshire announcer preserves his vegetables: ‘Wilfred Pickles’. Pickles (1904–78) was the BBC newsreader whose Halifax vowels caused a stir in the 1940s; he became a successful TV presenter and game-show host, routinely with his wife Mabel ‘at the table’.
Q3
Can you arrange in order of importance: the husband to whom Tess is finally reconciled, Martin’s epic Game, a U-2 pilot, a Russian White Sea port and medieval Wales?
CLUES
- Tess refers to Tess of the D’Urbervilles and the epic Game is exactly what you think it is.
- This is a heavenly question.
Q4
Separate and unite; approve and denounce; fasten up and collapse. Why might these pairs appear to prove the similarity of opposites?
CLUES
- We’re looking for synonyms for these words.
- The question provides examples of why English may be a tricky language to learn.
A3
These are clues to five of the nine orders of angels in Christian mythology. The nine orders (in descending order) are usually taken to be Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels.
The husband who marries Tess in Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) is Angel Clare. When she confesses on their wedding night that her virginity was taken against her will by Alec d’Urberville, he abandons her and goes to live in Brazil. Only near the end are they reconciled, before Tess is arrested at Stonehenge, tried and hanged.
The U-2 pilot is Gary Powers (1929–77), whose U-2 spy-plane flying a CIA reconnaissance mission was shot down by a Soviet missile in 1960. He was captured and interrogated by the KGB for several months. The incident was a pivotal moment of distrust in the Cold War. He was convicted of espionage and imprisoned in the USSR for two years, until sent home as part of a spy-swap in Berlin in 1962.
George R. R. Martin’s epic series of novels A Song of Ice and Fire and the TV phenomenon they spawned are known universally as Game of Thrones.
The port on the White Sea is Archangel or Arkhangelsk, at the mouth of the Dvina River in European Russia, some 700 miles from Moscow. According to legend it was near here that the Archangel Michael slew the devil, and the city’s coat of arms bears an image of that happy event.
The Principality of Wales, i.e. the land ruled by the Prince of Wales, lasted from 1216 to 1536 and at its height encompassed about two-thirds of the modern territory of Wales. Wales is still sometimes informally referred to as ‘the Principality’, though it isn’t one.
A4
This is about words that have the same meaning as their antonym – sometimes known as a contronym or auto-antonym.
Cleave can be both to separate and unite; sanction can mean both approve and denounce; and buckle means both to fasten and to collapse.
Q5
Why might Richard Wilson be incredulous at a boys’ comic, Dr Frankenstein and the Radio Corporation of America?
CLUES
- He would be incredulous if he was in character.
- You’re onto a winner with this one.
Q6
What do these people have in common?
CLUES
- The little girl in the middle picture inspired a famous fictional character.
- The runner inspired a famous film.
A5
He’d probably shout ‘I don’t believe it!’ in the role of Victor Meldrew – because these are all famous Victors.
The boys’ comic the Victor was published by D. C. Thomson of Dundee in 1961–92. Its stock-in-trade was Second World War stories of bravery with lots of colourful explosions, but it also carried strips about football and some more comedic Beano-style characters. Regular features included ‘Joe Bones the Human Fly’, ‘The Goals of Jimmy Grant’ and ‘Into Battle with Matt Braddock’.
Dr Frankenstein’s first name in the 1818 novel by Mary Shelley is Victor.
The Radio Corporation of America bought the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1929 and became RCA Victor. The company ‘invented’ the 7-inch single, launching the first gramophone disc of this size in 1949. The legend ‘RCA Victor’ continued to appear on many of the company’s records, including those by Elvis Presley, Harry Nilsson, the Kinks, John Denver, Jim Reeves and David Bowie, as late as the 1970s.
A6
They are linked by the surname Liddell, with slight variations in spelling and pronunciation.
The story of the Scottish athlete and missionary Eric Henry Liddell (1902–45), pictured here, is told in the film Chariots of Fire.
The young photographic model is Alice Liddell (1852–1934), of whom Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) made many photographic images, and for whom the Alice stories were originally written. She was the daughter of the eminent Classical scholar Henry George Liddell, best known for the Greek-English Lexicon.
Alvar Lidell was a BBC announcer and newsreader, deputy chief announcer from 1937. He famously announced the abdication of Edward VIII; and in 1939 read the ultimatum to Germany from a room at 10 Downing Street, and introduced the prime minister as he broke the news that Britain was at war. He retired in 1969 and died in 1981.
Q7
In what sense does royalty own a chat-show host and a prime minister in Birmingham, the heroine of Georgy Girl in Norfolk and the creator of The Demon Headmaster in London?
CLUES
- Place names in the UK often contain clues about their history.
- In the case of London there is a railway connection.
Q8
Why might a Leon Garfield villain, the still-familiar product of a royal decree of 1801 and Lord John Russell think they were all right?
CLUES
- They all have a name (or nickname, at least) in common.
- Thinking of Peter Sellers might give you a further leg up.
A7
This is about UK place names that have a royal possessive in them. Strictly speaking, of course, it doesn’t mean they are really owned by the Crown to any greater extent than anywhere else.
King’s Norton, as in Graham, and King’s Heath, as in Sir Edward, are both in Birmingham (another example of the latter can also be found in Leicestershire); King’s Lynn, as in the actress Lynn Redgrave (1943–2010), of the celebrated Redgrave acting dynasty, the Oscar-nominated star of the 1966 film Georgy Girl; and King’s Cross, as in the children’s writer Gillian Cross, creator of the Demon Headmaster series.
A8
Because they are all Jacks, as in the popular phrase usually used as a denouncement of those who look after their own interests – ‘I’m all right Jack’. The 1959 Boulting Brothers’ film comedy of that title starred Peter Sellers.
Among the works of the children’s writer Leon Garfield (1921–96) is Black Jack, a novel set (like many of his stories) in the eighteenth century and featuring the adventures of a boy called Bartholomew Dorking with a murderer who has survived a hanging. It was filmed in 1979 by Ken Loach.
A royal declaration by George III in 1801 following the formal union of Great Britain and Ireland led to the adoption of the Union flag of the United Kingdom, known almost universally as the Union Jack. It combines the cross of St George with the saltires of St Andrew and St Patrick. Strictly speaking a Jack is a naval flag worn on the jackstaff in the bows of a warship, but those who insist that the flag should not be called the Union Jack are usually regarded as pedants.
Lord John Russell, the Victorian Whig politician and reformer who was twice prime minister (1846–52 and 1865–66), was nicknamed Finality Jack. The nickname arose from his assertion that the great Reform Act of 1832 was a ‘finality’. In the event he made several attempts to further reform the parliamentary system and extend the franchise during his political career.
Q9
Transform something sweet into a fake, fertile ground into a story with a moral, and a specific measurement of length into an unspecific measurement of volume – but do it very quietly.
CLUES
- The measurement of length is an imperial measurement.
- The means of transformation is the same in each case.
Q10
What would a Lincoln mathematician who invented a system of logical formulation, a feared recluse in Maycomb and a motorbiking private investigator of the 1980s say to a goose?
CLUES
- The private investigator is a TV character.
- The feared recluse’s name was borrowed by a British pop group.
A9
These are three word transformations achieved by adding the initial letter P.
Honey becomes phoney; arable becomes a parable; inch becomes a pinch (as in a pinch of salt).
The additions add up to ppp, which is an instruction on a musical score to play very quietly.
A10
The phrase has it that you would (or wouldn’t) ‘say boo to a goose’: and these are three people whose names begin with Boo–.
The Lincoln mathematician is George Boole (1815–64) who gave his name to Boolean algebra, a way of describing logical relations using mathematical symbols.
In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the feared recluse living in the tumbledown old house across the way from where Scout and Jem live, in Maycomb, Alabama, is Boo Radley.
The motorbiking private investigator is fireman-turned sleuth Ken Boon in the 1980s TV crime series which ran from 1986 to 1995. He was played by Michael Elphick, and his trademark was the red and silver ‘White Lightning’ motorbike he always rode.