Tricky Quiz

The third form at Oundle were set eighty questions of unusual complexity to unravel over half-term. Of the ten I showed you I got just two right and then only two more of the other seventy. Here they are again with the answers.

1. What was regularly smuggled into the USA from Canada for 21 years, to honour a poet?
Haggis, for Burns Night, between 1989 and 2010, because the “lights” (the lungs of the sheep included in the dish) were outlawed because of BSE―mad cow disease.

2. If you did not have a thermometer, or any scientific instrument, how could you measure the air temperature reliably?
With a cricket. Crickets chirp at rates steadily related to the air temperature: not at all below 13°C; about 60 chirps/minute at 13°C and 140/minute at 22.5°C. There were some ingenious answers giving methods for jerry-building thermometrical instruments from scratch, but as this would result in possession of said instruments, it would invalidate the terms of the question.

3. Name three countries where English is at least one of the official languages.
Not England, nor the USA! Neither of these has English enshrined in law as an official language. Wales, India and New Zealand do, among others.

4. How does some burnt bread in Canada link to a Ridley Scott film?
Wilder Penfield, the celebrated Canadian neuroscientist, developed the “Montréal Procedure” for treating cerebral seizures. As part of his research, he conducted experiments that also led to his mapping the brain’s sensory and motor cortices. In doing so, he discovered that physical parts of the brain could be teased into evoking memories, like recalling the unmistakeable odour of burnt toast. Penfield was honoured by many institutions, but also by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, author of “The Man in the High Castle” and of “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” The latter novel was the basis for Ridley Scott’s film “Blade Runner”. In the novel, there is a piece of technology called the “Penfield Mood Organ”, linked to the brain, which allows characters to dial up any emotion they wish to feel, on demand.

5. What was a Caesarean contribution to modern vanity?
Julius Caesar―the comb-over―to hide his bald patch, of which he was embarrassed. Also the reason he wore a laurel wreath. Described by Suetonius.

6. What was the first (known) extra-terrestrial song?
Curiosity Rover sang “Happy Birthday” to itself on Mars. Its controllers reprogrammed the different sound frequencies it used to probe the different depths of Martian soil, to achieve this first human song on another planet. Other answers citing Voyager and other probes also received credit, as did projections and broadcasts into―or from―space.

7. Who is the only person in the country who doesn’t legally require a licence to drive?
Her Majesty the Queen. She doesn’t need a passport, either, is exempt from Freedom of Information requests and can fire the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian governments (which, in the case of Australia, proved to be a useful constitutional safeguard in 1975, when the Australian Prime Minister at the time refused to call a general election he would have lost). She also owns the swans in the River Thames, and the dolphins in British waters.

8. How did some bubbles help a 1913 Ghost?
James Radley “christened” his Rolls Royce Silver Ghost by pouring a glass of “The Widow” champagne into the radiator outside Brown’s Hotel, before setting off to compete in the 1913 Alpine Trial―in which he then did rather well.

9. When might you get catty about a Hungarian list?
1949, the year of the release of the cartoon “Cat Concerto”, starring Tom and Jerry, which is an animation of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 in C# minor. The cartoon won an Oscar.

10. Why might the streets of England be paved with platinum & how could you retrieve it?
The catalytic converters in cars emit tiny particles of platinum and other precious metals. Thismcan be harvested off the roads, which is now possible using a (non-nasty) strain of the ubiquitous E. coli bacteria. The process might be rather lucrative; several enterprises are developing it.

Congratulations to Mr Gunson and his Trivium Staff at Oundle School for setting such an ingenious quiz.