10 december 2020
All original writing
2014, 2015, 2016,
2017, 2018, 2019,
2020, 2021, 2022,
2023, 2024
Dr Ian McLauchlin
ANSWERS TO XMAS QUIZ 2019
1. SCIENCE AND NATURE
a. Pulsars.
b. Ne (boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, neon)
c. Apollo 15
d. Lithium
e. Elephant
f. Talc
g. Methicillin-
h. Sheep
i. Polar bear
j. Bamboo
2. WHAT IS THE CONNECTION?
a. Can be pre-
b. Can add suffix 'ion' to make a word that means the second part of each clue.
c. Each have 6 consecutive consonants.
d. Read them out A to P etc. -
e. All have winter and summer variants.
f. All items left on the moon.
g. All black and white
h. Last words of G&S opera titles.
i. Poetic or satirical synonyms for 'Never'.
j. Traditional ways of simulating sound effects -
3. WHO’S SPEAKING?
1. Foghorn Leghorn, cartoon character
2. David Attenborough
3. Rob Brydon
4. John Humphreys
5. Victoria Coren Mitchell
6. Jeremy Clarkson
7. Roger Allam
8. Patricia Routledge
9. Ronnie Corbett
10. Jeremy Paxman
11. Elmer Fudd, cartoon character
12. David Mitchell
13. Dara O'Briain
14. Tommy Cooper
15. Norman Wisdom
16. Eamon Andrews
17. Frankie Howerd
18. Eric Morecambe
19. Dave Allen
20. Trevor McDonald
4. WHICH BOOK HAS THESE OPENING LINES AND NAME ITS AUTHOR
a. A tale of two cities, Charles Dickens
b. Peter Pan, J M Barrie
c. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
d. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
e. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J K Rowling
f. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
g. 1984, George Orwell
h. The Go-
i. Elmer Gantry, Sinclair Lewis
j. The Crow Road, Iain Banks
5. WHO FOUNDED AND IN WHICH YEAR?
a. Jeff Bezos, July 1994
b. Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, February 2004
c. Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll, Sept 1995
d. Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, January 2001
e. Bill Gates and Paul Allen, April 1975
f. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, April 1976
g. Three former Paypal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, February 2005. Now owned by Google.
h. Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. Now owned by Facebook.
i. Ken Howery, Luke Nosek, Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, Yu Pan, Russell Simmons and Elon Musk. Established in 1998 as Confinity. In March 2000 Confinity merged with X.com. Acquired by ebay in 2002.
6. NAME THE BAND AND THE SONG
1. Caro Emerald Dr Wanna Do
2. Rednex Cotton eye Joe
3. Love Affair Everlasting love
4. Blues Brothers Shake your tail feather
5. The Carpenters Only just begun
6. Glinka Overture Ruslan and Lyudmilla
7. Bonnie Tyler Total eclipse of the heart
8. Don McLean American pie
9. The Animals House of the rising sun
10. Dire Straits Sultans of swing
11. Katrina and the Waves Walking on Sunshine
12. The Beatles Back in the USSR
13. Pink Floyd Another brick in the wall
14. Coldplay Fix you
15. The Rutles Hold my hand
16. Blondie Denis
17. Creedence Clearwater Revival Bad moon rising
18. David Bowie Fashion
19. Paul MCartney Jenny Wren
20. Laura Brannigan Gloria
21. The Supremes Nathan Jones
22. George Ezra Shotgun
23. Mungo Jerry The pushbike song
24. The Four Seasons Rag Doll
25. Starship We built this city
26 .Jeff Lynne and ELO Wild west hero
27. Joni Mitchell Ladies of the canyon
28. Alisha's Attic Alisha rules the world
29. Paul Simon Call me Al
30. Bob Dylan Tangled up in blue
7. FOURTH IN THE SERIES
a. H=6, geometrical shapes, number of sides increasing from 3, triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon
b. 31-
c. numerator starts at 4 and decreases, denominator starts at 1 and increases. so 4/1, 3/2, 2/3, fourth is 1/4 = 0.25
d. eg. Rodolfo Urquhart, examples contain the words 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four'
e. less than, , , V , , V rotated through 90 deg each time
f. 6 = M, number of zeros in powers of 10 -
g. eg. FOCUS
4&5
-
h. 1st = F, the position of the letters in the word, fouRth, thIrd, sEcond, First
i. E. , morse code
j. And we are all together, Beatles I am the Walrus lyrics
k. 4of3=10 , increasing numbers from 1 to 10, each of only 3 letters, one, two, six, ten
l. It's 31. If you said 32 that's not unusual and scores no points! Why 31?
The series is derived as follows. Draw a circle. For the first term place ONE point on the circumference. There is then only one area inside the circle. For the second term place TWO points on the circumference. Join them up. The circle is divided into TWO areas. With three points joined up, there are 4 areas etc. For SIX points, the circle is divided into 31 areas! See below:
8. NAME THESE PEOPLE
9. VARIOUS
a. Saint Lucia.
b. The word "Measure" appears 2 times in the title and only 3 times in the play itself.
c. Hot dog.
d. All mentioned in Beatles songs: Mr Kite; I Am The Walrus; Revolution; Taxman; I’m So Tired.
e. All black.
f. James Blunt.
g. Cabinet Office Briefing Room A.
h. SS Cars sounded like an association with Hitler.
i. Elizabeth b 1533; The others: WS b 1564; FD b 1540.
j. Ladies hairdresser.
10. WORLD AIRPORT IATA CODES
a. London Gatwick
b. Bristol, UK
c. Dubai International, UAE
d. Chicago O'Hare, USA
e. Tokyo, Japan
f. Alderney, Channel Islands
g. Faro, Portugal
h. Fuertevenura, Canary Islands
i. Minorca (Mahon)
j. Glasgow, UK (currently)
11. NAME THESE ICONIC SPORTS CARS
a. Triumph Spitfire
b. Lotus Elan
c. Caterham/Lotus 7
d. Jaguar E-
e. Morgan Super Sports 3 wheeler
f. Mazda MX5 Mark 1 (mine)
g. Triumph Stag
h. Mazda RX-
i. MG TA
j. MG Midget
12. TV COMEDY
a. Herr Otto Flick
b. Walmington-
c. Bottom with Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall
d. Pauline McLynn
e. Super Hans
f. Are you being served
g. Prunella Scales
h. Kayleigh played by Sian Gibson
i. Jim Hacker played by Paul Eddington
j. John Esmonde and Bob Larbey
13. TRUE OR FALSE?
a. True, a prime is a whole number whose only factors are itself and one.
b. False.
c. True.
d. True.
e. False, she doesn't have one.
f. False, it did in 1877.
g. False.
h. True (1249 vs. 1325).
i. True.
j. False, it stands for Kenyon Produce, and the company was founded in 1853 as Kenyon & Son.
14. PAIRS OF NAMES
a. Watson -
b. Craig Reid -
c. Ginger -
d. Sundance kid -
e. Ben -
f. Brown -
g. Teller -
h. Gromit -
i. Watson -
j. Marie Curie -
k. Swan -
l. Johnson -
m. Boon -
n. Nevis -
o. Orville Wright -
p. Wozniak -
q. Swann -
r. 1. Sullivan -
s. Yeatman -
t. Gamble -
u. Cubby Broccoli -
v. Lacey -
w. Allen -
x. Loewe -
y. Thymine (DNA base pairs)
z. Saunders -
15. NAME THESE ICONIC PLANES
a. De Havilland Comet
b. Boeing 737
c. Supermarine Spitfire
d. Wright Flyer
e. Boeing 787
f. Lockheed SR-
g. Boeing B29 Superfortress
h. Boeing 747
i. Concorde
j. Cessna (172) -
16. ANAGRAMS -
a. mercury
b. radon
c. manganese
d. nickel
e. phosphorus
f. helium
g. astatine
h. magnesium
i. uranium
j. rubidium
17. IDENTIFY THESE OBJECTS
a. 20p coin
b. Big Ben tower on £5 note
c. 2nd class stamp
d. computer monitor screen
e. mobile phone camera
f. ball point pen
g. eye of a needle
h. finger nail
i. tape measure
j. computer USB plug
18. DINGBATS
a. On second thoughts
b. Bits and bobs
c. The intruder
d. Head on collision
e. You turn me on
f. Up for grabs
g. Split second timing
h. Slap and tickle
i. A drop in the ocean
j. Three wise men
k. Throw in the towel
l. Get your kicks on Route 66
m. No peace for the wicked
n. The good, the bad and the ugly
o. Laminate
19. AND FINALLY
1. Found this Xmas card ages ago:
2. Liked it.
3. Decided that if I animated it, that would be a good demonstration of how it worked.
4. Split the image in two, rotated one half in a video editing program and grabbed each rotated image.
5. Compiled a sequence of those images. Added fades, title and transitions in a different editing program. Grabbed a suitable song from Spotify. Edited it to fit. Saved all of it as an .mp4 file, uploaded to Youtube.
6. Wondered what to do with it.
7. Did this with it!