Quiz Questions 21 to 30
|
Round 21 - 10 October 1999 Here are four questions that I think everyone will enjoy more. 1. "I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the love light in her eyes. I don't know how to account for it, but it is so." (Who speaks, to whom are they speaking and how does that person account for this enigma?) 2. "The face was drawn, the eyes haggard, the general appearance that of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas pipe with a lighted candle." (Who is described here and which book is it?) 3. "We've got to get you out of your sea of troubles, as Jeeves calls it. Everything else is relatively unimportant. My thoughts of self are merely in about the proportion of the vermouth to the gin in a strongish dry martini." (Who is Bertie speaking to and what is the book?) 4. "The spectacle rocked him back on his heels. The last thing he had expected to encounter in this remote suburb was a vintage butler of obviously a very good year." ( What is the book and who does this describe?) Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 22 - 18 October 1999 For the crypto-family, there are two lists that are connected in some way. They each have their own code.
The question is "What are the two Emsworth family curses? Lord Emsworth and Galahad have different ideas." Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 23 - 29 October 1999 Let us go back to a variation on the multiple-choice answers. The variation is that the same multiple choices apply to all the three questions. The choices are, in alphabetical order, Belpher Castle, The quotations all show how the place appeared to someone seeing it for the first time. As there are three questions and the answers are all different, one (and only one) of these four options is entirely superfluous, and has been put in to muddle you. You have to say which place is described by each quotation, and to get extra marks, say where (book and chapter) the quotation comes from. 1. After an eternity of winding roads, darkened cottages, and black fields and hedges, the cart turned in at a massive iron gate which stood open, giving entrance to a smooth gravel drive. Here the way ran for nearly a mile through an open park of great trees, and was then swallowed in the darkness of dense shrubberies. Presently to the left appeared lights, at first in ones and twos, shining out and vanishing again, then as the shrubberies ended and the smooth lawns and terraces began, blazing down on the travellers from a score of windows with the heartening effect of fires on a winter night. Against the pale grey sky ... stood out like a mountain. 2. There now appeared before us through the trees a stately home of E. I braked the car. "Journey's End, Jeeves?" "So I should be disposed to imagine, sir." And so it proved. Having turned in at the gateway and fetched up at the front door, we were informed by the butler that this was indeed the lair of ... 3. Five miles did he tramp before, trudging wearily up a winding lane, he came out on a breeze-swept hill-top, and saw below him, nestling in its trees, what was now for him the centre of the world ... And now what? ... He must shift his base nearer the scene of operations. One of those trim, thatched cottages down there in the valley would be just the thing. Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 24 - 7 November 1999 Let us stay with the beauties of Wodehouse-shire, but focus for the next round on the lakes, moats, ponds or other sheets of water adorning the Stately Landscapes of England. The following occur as before in the grounds of one of four mansions; either (in alphabetical order again): Blandings Castle, As there are only three questions, and the answers are different, one and only one of these four mansions is superfluous. Say which mansion contains the water referred to in each question. Extra marks as usual for sources; and I mean bibliographic sources, not where the water comes from. 1. "Mr McTodd asked me to go for a row on the lake." "On the lake, eh? On the lake?" said his lordship, as if this was the last place in the neighbourhood where he would have expected to hear of people proposing to row. Then he brightened. "Of course, yes, on the lake. I think you will like the lake. I take a dip there myself every morning before breakfast. I plunge in and swim perhaps fifty yards, and then return." 2. Rather decent grounds at ... A couple of terraces, a bit of lawn with a cedar on it, a bit of shrubbery, and finally a small but goodish lake with a stone bridge running across it ... "Why, take it from me, laddie, he would have shoved you behind that clump of bushes over there, he would have got me to lure Honoria on to the bridge somehow; then, at the proper time, he would have told me to give the kid a pretty hefty jab in the small of the back, so as to shoot him into the water; and then you would have dived in and hauled him out. How about it?" 3. Here, by the willow, it broadened out almost into the dimensions of a lake; and there was in the glitter of stars on its surface and the sleepy rustling of birds in the trees along its bank something infinitely soothing ... He had never supposed that water could be so cold. Silently he waded out towards the opposite bank. The only thing that offered any balm in this black moment was the recollection that his hostess had informed him that the moat was not more than four feet deep. Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 25 - 15 November 1999 One-Word Sentences 1. "Tut!" 2. "Moth-balls!" 3. "Parbleu!" Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 26 - 23 November 1999 Fruit and Vegetable Department 1. "Capital, capital! Full of iron, I believe, and highly recommended by the medical profession." 2. "I began to gather that the business was going to be treated rather differently to-night when a dashed great chunk of pips and mildew sailed past my ear and burst on the wall behind me." 3. "Every ancient family in England has some little gap in its scroll of honour, and that of Lord Emsworth was no exception." Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 27 - 1 December 1999 Villains Identify the heavy making each of the following statements. For extra credit, give the situation, book, and chapter (or short-story title). 1. "Did you throw that flower-pot?" 2. "I am not interested in your totterings and tricklings." 3. "It was your fault," she said to her victim severely. "I accept no liability whatever. I did not run into you. You ran into me. I have a good mind to have you arrested for attempted suicide." 4. "I spoke without thinking." Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 28 - 9 December 1999 Disaster! 1. What caused him to interrupt his tale was the fact that at this moment the tea table suddenly began to rise slowly in the air, tilting as it did so a considerable quantity of hot tea on to the knees of his trousers. 2. There was no doubt that the man was dead. Insensibility alone could never have produced this icy chill. He raised his head in the darkness, and cried aloud to those approaching. He meant to cry, "Help! Murder!" but fear prevented clear articulation. What he shouted was, "Heh! Mer!" 3. The cigar came as an absolute surprise to him and it could not have affected him more powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young cigar, and its curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils. His jaw fell. His eyes protruded. . . . Then with the cry of a stricken animal, he bounded from his seat and fled for the deck. 4. "Not too good," I was forced to concede, as the roof fell in, sending up a shower of sparks and causing a genial glow to play about our cheeks. Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 29 - 17 December 1999 Judgement of Paris (France) Well, to begin with, in this round, let me direct your attention to four passages in each of which P.G.W. refers to some typically French behaviour or event. I have deviously concealed the three names originally mentioned in quotes 1 and 2 under the thick veil of alphabetical anonymity. Hardly cricket, that, I know. But then I am French, and ‘as such more to be pitied than censured’, surely? Identify as many as you can of the characters who are either speaking or spoken of (one or two in each quotation, six in all). Extra marks for full references (book, chapter or short-story title) and other relevant details. 1. "But it's going to be hard to get rid of all that money if everyone's as uncooperative as you." "They won't be," X assured him. "They'll be lining up in a queue with outstretched hands like the staff of a Paris hotel when a guest's leaving." 2. ‘Once more through Y's mind there was racing that pithy address which the coach of his college boat had delivered when trying to do justice to the spectacle of Number Five's obtrusive stomach; while Z, on her side, was endeavouring not to give utterance to a rough translation of something she had once heard a French taxi-driver say to a gendarme during her finishing-school days in Paris.’ 3. ‘It was at this juncture that he found that he had no trousers on.(...) Apart from being the soul of modesty, he is a chap who prides himself on always being well and suitably dressed for both town and country. In a costume which would have excited remark at the Four Arts Ball in Paris, he writhed with shame and embarrassment.’ 4. "I can't stand Paris. I hate the place. Full of people talking French, which is a thing I bar. It always seems to me so affected." Click here to go to Quiz Answers Round 30 - 28 December 1999 Catless Adages Now, this is a festive season, and – if a non-driver – you may well be in the throes of ‘the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer,’ or ‘the Gremlin Boogie’. In other words, you may find yourself in ‘the sort of overwrought state when a fly treading a little too heavily on the carpet is enough to make a man think he's one of the extras in 'All Quiet On The Western Front’. I feel, therefore, that I should show a little womanly sympathy (‘When pain and anguish wring the brow ...’) and make things easier for you. So here is a short list of five names to choose from (two misleading suggestions being included just to make this round more interesting): Monty Bodkin, Bonus marks for (a) full references (book, chapter or short-story title), (b) other proverbial gems (with sources, please). 1. "You can lead a horse to the altar, (...,) but you can't make it drink." 2. ‘A banana a day keeps the gorilla away.’ 3. ‘If butlers come, can port be far behind?’ 4. ‘You can't press your suit and another fellow's trousers simultaneously.’ Click here to go to Quiz Answers |