Here are the answers to last year's quiz. (Gosh, that seems like a long time ago now.)

1. In 1920:

Which organisation came after crabfat? [South African Air Force]
After White followed Red and Charles was found unacceptable, who was persuaded to take the job? [Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary]
Which Irishman wasn't allowed into Ireland, and ended up in Penzance? [Archbishop Daniel Mannix]
Which former royal mistress finally left her bed, which would later be used by a trifling woman? [Gaby Deslys; Barbara La Marr, Trifling Women 1922]
Which GCVO and great reformer uttered his last OMG? [Jackie Fisher]
Who died, having never been paid for his last two eggs? [Peter Carl Fabergé]
Who gave the team their first chance to win one for him? [George Gipp]
Which pioneer of plasma cosmology was recognised for something else? [Charles Édouard Guillaume]
Where did the metre start to replace the standard, though it would take nine years? [Royal State Railways of Siam/State Railway of Thailand gauge transition]
Which Commodore's grandson died in Paris? [William Kissam Vanderbilt]

2. [Names of aircraft built by Vickers]

What term did a salesman come to recognise as outdated, though not actually incorrect? [Monty Egg; Varsity]
Where did four from the Dominion fight together for the first time, winning four of the highest? [Four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force; Vimy Ridge; Victoria Crosses]
In what may have been the first of its kind in 1902, where did Jeff come from? [Virginia; The Virginian, first Western]
Whose Hessians were later upgraded by Hutchinson? [Wellington; boots]
Of what was Beaumont the first in England? [Viscount]
Who were the three-score northerners who talked about God in everyone? [Valiant Sixty]
What ran on Orpheus and nearly killed the hamster? [Vampire; jet dragster; Richard Hammond]
Which gem went into decline after being bypassed in 1914? [Valparaíso]
Where did Edward feel imprisoned, with no galleries or gardens? [Windsor; Castle]
What was cancelled in 2004 when the Danes gave up on the whole idea, but might still eventually lead to the A26? [Viking; submarine]

3. [Fish]

Which ship's ironmonger branched out to get a monopoly with the Post Office, and even supplied the woman? [Chubb]
In the title of which work by a biographer of Donne might the hunter be mistaken for the prey? [The Compleat Angler]
The drummer always claims the drums hold the band together. Which instrument does everyone else think does the job? [Bass]
An Albanian hastiness, an Irish attack, a Kurdish leg, a Scottish heather… [Ling]
Which vessel surfaced where two separate Nautilus had failed? [USS Skate, North Pole]
Who was psychoanalysed by Freud and Lacan, and found to be Oedipal, psychopathic, narcissistic and psychotic? [Hamlet]
What got into English twice to mean the same thing, once from Guangzhou and once from further north? [Char]
The Macedonians originated it, the Swiss brought it to perfection, but it was nearly gone by Napoleon's time. [Pike]
What indicates a position between the crescent and the martlet? [Mullet]
What did its best to kill Simon le Bon and, a few years later, HMS Otus? [Drum; a yacht]

4. [Duchesses]

Whose painting hung near an Austrian bronze? [My Last Duchess, Robert Browning]
Whose was the feline from the English principality? [The Duchess, Alice in Wonderland; Cheshire Cat]
Who came after Lady Bo? [Norma-Jean Wofford, The Duchess]
What would result from the addition of salt, pepper, butter, egg yolk and nutmeg to the base material? [Duchess potatoes]
What four-seat twin first flew in September 1974? [Beechcraft Duchess]
What were Coronations number 6 to 15? [Duchesses; Coronation class locomotive]
What starts with four fans, four foundations, and then simply four? [Duchess Solitaire]
What exploded after hitting a battleship near the Mull of Kintyre? [HMS Duchess]
Who was the first of her kind in the thirty-first? [Juanita Spinelli "The Duchess", first woman executed in California]
What was deemed blasphemous because of the band's costumes? [Video for The Duchess, Stranglers song]

5. Who… [Royal Navy officers, plus one rating]

pioneered chain, on ships and in bridges? [Samuel Brown]
built a thermo-electric paragon? [William Peter Durtnall]
was out for ten in his one match, in the days before Titania and Cyclops? [Edward Aylmer]
built a gun-raft and sounded the death knell for the broadside? [Cowper Phipps Coles]
was so shocked by his wartime experience that he dedicated his life to dietary education? [Stanley Green, "Protein Man"]
reinvented the chain pump to the point that it was useful, as well as a storm sail? [John Bentinck]
nearly invented a steam car, but ended his life chasing the Illuminati? [John Robison]
set a record in 1982 unbroken until 2005, probably helped by his pram full of bricks? [Bill Boaks]
built a triplane years before the Wright Brothers, but died before he could fly it? [Percy Pilcher]
helped invade Sicily and Elba, in between pretending to be a Flight Lieutenant? [Alec Guinness]

6. What… [Towers]

is named properly for the monarch, but more usually for its contents? [The Elizabeth Tower; not Big Ben]
was the site of a fire so big it needed diagonally split credits? [The Glass Tower; The Towering Inferno]
is the sole remnant of a capital city, rather more solid than it sounds? [The Minaret of Jam]
associated since its construction with scams and hustle, has been foreclosed multiple times, seized from Ferdinand Marcos, struck by an aircraft, and renamed after its owner? [40 Wall Street, aka the Trump Building]
saw the execution of an abbot, was excised from the 2012 Olympics, and is now a site of Goddess-worship? [St Michael's Tower, Glastonbury Tor]
replaced the television link betweeen London and Birmingham, and has displayed one of the world's largest bootloader errors? [GPO/Post Office/BT Tower]
required the destruction of Islamic historical sites by the bin Ladens, and set records with its German clock? [Makkah Royal Clock Tower, Abraj Al-Bait, Mecca; largest clockface in the world]
construction by Wren (at a distance) prefigured the Gothic Revival, and has tripled its self-titled burden? [Tom Tower, Christ Church]
replaced a shipbuilding crane as the symbol of its city? [Turning Torso, Malmö]
was the site of a pyrotechnic illusion, concluded by a musical veronicelloidea? [The Dark Tower, Childe Roland]

7. [Georgette Heyer]

Who was cast off both by his family and by the 1st Foot? [The father of Miss Sophia Trent, Snowdrift]
Who fought a jealous husband even though he saw the lady in a rather different light from what she believed? [Philip Jettan, Powder and Patch]
Whose collar-points and tie quite prevented him from moving his head? [Sir Bonamy Ripple, False Colours]
Who survived Waterloo only to be killed by a cart? [Captain Malvern, Cousin Kate]
Who led an innocent into five thousand pounds of debt? [Charlotte Gillingham, Friday's Child]
Whose family had no truck with Edward IV but always held by the true line? [the Morvilles, The Quiet Gentleman]
Who was likened to the rockets' red glare, not to mention their unpredictability? [Sophy Stanton-Lacy, The Grand Sophy]
Who was pining away for the Incomparable, at least according to his tailor? [Sherry, Friday's Child]
Who learned to play chess in order to be beaten – and won as a result? [Miss Fishguard, Cotillion]
What was the one indiscretion that the retired devil would not tolerate? [Trifling with the bourgeoisie or the aristocracy, Devil's Cub]

8. In 2020:

What, in the USA, was released for the first time since 1978? [Material into the public domain]
What might have had for the second time what it might have been having for the third, had not other events intervened on each occasion? [Tokyo; Olympic Games]
Which former chancellor of the University of Stirling was no longer growing strong? [Diana Rigg; also played Olenna Tyrell]
What returned to the box after 35 years away? [Crackerjack]
What was the first in the Arab world, after nine years? [Barakah nuclear power plant; first commercial npp]
What made the first of two visits to Aphrodite's grotto on its way to somewhere else? [BepiColombo]
What dropped from six to four in a week? [The Archers]
What was seen passing through the West Midlands and the Peak District, for only the second time? [Bearded vulture]
Who was no longer going up up down down? [Kazuhisa Hashimoto, creator of the Konami Code]
Where was the Orange Line the first ever? [Lahore, Pakistan; first metro system in that country]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

RogerBW's Blog