Clockwise and Anti-Clockwise Rounds with X and Y

Conducted by:
Debasish Bhattacharjee

 Two rounds final
 Round 1 has 20 questions, infinite bounce,
going clockwise
 Round 2 has 20 questions, infinite bounce,
going anti-clockwise

 Clockwise and Infinite Bounce
 10 points for every correct answer
 No negatives, so please keep the guesses
coming

Tibor Fischer's parents were Hungarian
basketball players, who fled Hungary in
1956. He studied French and Latin at
Cambridge University. The 1956
revolution, and his father's background,
inspired Fischer's debut novel X, a story
about a Hungarian basketball player
surviving Communism.
The title is derived from a Hungarian
saying, that the worst possible place to
be is “Under a Y down a coal mine”.
X is a derivation of Y. Either mention X
or Y.

X: Under the Frog
Y: Frog’s arse

In 2006, she was one of the eight
flag bearers at the Opening
Ceremony of the Winter Olympics
in Turin, Italy.
She was the daughter of Francisca
Llona Barros and Tomás ____, who
was at the time, ambassador to
Peru. Her father was a first cousin
of a victim of a military coup.
Her writing style has also evoked
comparison's with Gabriel Garcia
Marquez.
ID the lady.

Isabelle Allende
Her father was the first cousin of Salvador
Allende of Chile, who was overthrown by
Augusto Pinochet.

In researching the story of X, the author pretended to be preparing a coup
d'état against Equatorial Guinea on behalf of the Igbo people whom he
passionately supported. He was told it would cost 240,000 U.S. dollars.
Five years after the 1973 attempted coup d'état, the author's research was
subject of a feature story in the London Times, in 1978, that mentioned he had
commissioned the operation in earnest. Many people believed he was
planning a real coup d'état in Equatorial Guinea. Later, he said that arms
dealers were the most frightening people he had ever met.
In Ken Connor's book "How to Stage a Military Coup", Connor praises X as a
textbook for mercenaries.
X derives its name from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" from the line "Cry,
'Havoc!', and let slip X".
What is X?

In the words of journalist and author Sam Weller, the book "predicted
everything from flat-panel televisions to iPod earbuds and twenty-four-hour
baking machines.“
In the words of the author during an interview in 1956 “I wrote this book at a
time when I was worried about the way things were going in this country
four years ago. Too many people were afraid of their shadows, there was a
threat of ___2____. Many of the books were being taken off the shelves at that
time. And of course, things have changed a lot in four years. Things are going
back in a very healthy direction. But at the time I wanted to do some sort of
story where I could comment on what would happen to a country if we let
ourselves go too far in this direction, where then all thinking stops, and the
dragon swallows his tail, and we sort of vanish into a limbo and we destroy
ourselves by this sort of action.”
A prequel to this book is entitled “A Pleasure to Burn”.
Which book?

The blank contains the two words “book
burning”.

The author claimed that reading a sentence in his
daughter's textbook which stated "in 1600, an
Englishman went to Japan and became a
samurai" inspired the novel.
The book is believed to be inspired by the
exploits of William Adams, popularly
remembered in Japan as Anjin Miura.
Soon after Adams' arrival in Japan, he became a
key advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu and built
Japan's first Western-style ships for him. Adams
was later the key player in the establishment of
trading factories by the Netherlands and
England. He was also highly involved in Japan's
Red Seal Asian trade, chartering and captaining
several ships to Southeast Asia.
ID the book.

Published in October 1976, the book earned rave reviews and the author
earned a Pulitzer Prize special award in 1977. The success though was marred
by charges of plagiarism in separate lawsuits filed by Harold Courlander and
Margaret Walker Alexander.
Courlander's suit was settled out of court for $650,000 and an
acknowledgment from the author that certain passages within the book were
copied from "The African".
Alexander's case was dismissed by the court, which, in comparing the content
of the book with that of "Jubilee", found that "no actionable similarities exist
between the works.“
The author acknowledges the work to be largely that of fiction but mentions
that the protagonist was his real life ancestor who was taken from his village
in modern day Gambia and then sold into slavery in the US.
ID the book.

The year 1903 saw the "Great Wyrley Outrages", a
series of slashings of horses, cows and sheep. In
October a local solicitor, George Edalji, was tried and
convicted for the eighth attack, on a pit pony, and
sentenced to seven years with hard labour.
Edalji was released in 1906 after the Chief Justice in
Bahamas and others had pleaded his case. But he was
not pardoned, and the police kept him under
surveillance. X was persuaded "turn detective" to
prove the man's innocence. This he achieved after
eight months of work. Edalji was exonerated by a
Home Office committee of enquiry, although no
compensation was awarded.
The friendship between X and Edalji forms the subject
of a Booker Prize shortlisted book.
Who was X?

In this book, the reader follows the narration of junkie William Lee, who takes
on various aliases, from the US to Mexico, eventually to Tangier and the
dreamlike Interzone. The vignettes are drawn from the author's own
experience in these places, and his addiction to drugs.
In 1991, David Cronenberg released a film of the same name based upon the
novel.
The author states that Jack Kerouac suggested the title. "The title means
exactly what the words say: X, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is
on the end of every fork." The title is also believed to be a result of Allen
Ginsberg's misinterpretation of the phrase "____ lust" in the manuscript.
In the book, the dildo Steely Dan is a prop used in a porn-film scenario based
on the orgasms that accompany death by hanging. This is also the source of
the name of the rock band "Steely Dan".
ID the book.

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an African-
American poet, novelist, and playwright of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much
of his popular work in his lifetime used a
Negro dialect, which helped him become
one of the first nationally accepted African-
American writers.
In 1890 Dunbar wrote and edited Dayton's
first weekly African-American newspaper,
“The Tattler”. The paper lasted only 6
weeks. This paper was printed at a printing
press started by two classmates of Dunbar.
His classmates had their moment in the sun
a few years later in 1901 at Kitty Hawk.
Who were they?

The 1971 Nagarwala scandal was a fraudulent act in
which Rustom Sohrab Nagarwala convinced Ved
Prakash Malhotra to withdraw 60 lakh rupees from
the branch of the State Bank of India where he was
the head cashier.
Nagarwala called Malhotra at the State Bank of
India, and imitated X. Nagarwala claimed that X
immediately needed Rs 60 lakh. Some sources
report that the money was needed for a "secret
mission to Bangladesh", while others report more
simply that the money was requested for a "man
from Bangladesh". In his later confession,
Nagarwala stated that he described it as a "matter of
great national importance". Nagarwala further told
Malhotra that he should contact X's office at a later
date to get a receipt.
This episode finds a significant mention in the book
"Such a Long Journey" by Rohinton Mistry.
ID X.

In the book “The Travels of Marco Polo”, the author
talks about how the “Old Man of the Mountain”,
presumed to be Hassan-i-Sabbah, would drug his
young followers and lead them to a "paradise“. He
would also drug them and bring them out and then
claim that only he had the means to allow for their
return.
Perceiving that Sabbah was either a prophet or some
kind of magic man, his disciples, believing that only he
could return them to "paradise", were fully committed
to his cause and willing to carry out his every request.
Since Sabbah died in 1192 and Marco Polo was born
only in 1254, these accounts have been widely
disputed.
But the question is, who were Sabbah’s followers?

Hashashins… literally meaning “hashish eaters”
from which the English word “assassin”
originates.

X was born in Nagasaki and has a Japanese name (the characters in his
surname mean 'stone' and 'black' respectively).
He set his first two novels in Japan; however, in several interviews he has had
to clarify to the reading audience that he has little familiarity with Japanese
writing and that his works bear little resemblance to Japanese fiction.
In a 1990 interview he said, "If I wrote under a pseudonym and got somebody
else to pose for my jacket photographs, I'm sure nobody would think of
saying, 'This guy reminds me of that Japanese writer.'"
His third book won him the Booker Prize in 1989. It was also made into a
movie by the same name in 1993 and went on to bag 8 Academy Award
nominations.
ID either the writer or the book.

Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book
The God Delusion (2006) to X, writing on his
death that "Science has lost a friend, literature
has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and
the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."
X was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge,
England. The year after X was born, Watson
and Crick famously first modeled DNA at
Cambridge University, leading X to later quip
he was DNA in Cambridge months earlier.
The pic shows our man in his first appearance
on Monty Python's Flying Circus.
ID.

Douglas Noel Adams of HG2G fame

"Gail... I didn't think you'd ever admit that to
yourself."
"Why not? I knew what I was doing. I wanted power
over a collective soul and I got it. A collective soul.
It's a messy kind of concept, but if anyone wishes to
visualize it concretely, let him pick up a copy of the
New York Banner".
Excerpt from a novel, which has inspired the name of
the band Collective Soul.
Which novel?

The title of this book is an apparent play on the
title of the book shown in the pic. In its
introduction, the author explains that, despite
its title, "it should in no way be associated with
that great body of factual information relating
to orthodox ___2____ practice. It's not very
factual on ____1___, either."
The book sold 5 million copies worldwide. It
was originally rejected by 121 publishers, more
than any other bestselling book, according to
the Guinness Book of Records.
ID the bestseller.
(The blanks are merely meant to conceal clues
and are not meant to be filled in)

This non-fiction book has been written by former host
of the BBC Radio 4's “Cutting a Dash” programme.
The author dedicates the book "to the memory of the
striking Bolshevik printers of St. Petersburg who, in
1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for
punctuation marks as for letters, and thereby directly
precipitated the first Russian Revolution“.
ID the book.

In Chhindwara, in 1949 this book was read out in court by the
defense for a murder charge. A villager by the name of Todal
was found dead on 19 September 1949. The police's theory was
that the accused conspired to murder the victim as he was in
love with the latter's wife.
The defense was that the victim was killed by a X. Thus the
defense produced the book in question and read passages
relating relevant wounds and circumstances of an attack. The
accused was later found not guilty.
The cover for the book when published by Signet Press was
designed by Satyajit Ray.
Which book?

This book by Ralph Leighton is about the author and his friend X's
attempt to travel to Y.
The introduction explains how X challenged Leighton, at the time a
high school math teacher, "Whatever happened to Y?" Since X had a
reputation as a prankster and had proven himself entirely capable of
inventing a fictional country name to confound friends, Leighton
assumed it was made up. But the country existed, and the pair
became fascinated with this hard-to-reach destination, at the
geographic center of Asia, which had become a republic in the Soviet
Union. They made it a goal to travel there, which, for Americans in
the late 1970s and early 1980s, was extremely difficult.
X never managed to get to Y. Instead of him, the trip was realized by
his daughter Michelle.
Either name the book or X.

X is married to songwriter and performer
Amanda Palmer (see pic).
One of his most commented-upon
friendships is with Tori Amos. She
became friends with X after making a
reference to him in a 1991 demo tape. He
included her in turn as a character (a
talking tree) in his novel “Stardust”.
X is godfather to Tori Amos's daughter
Tash, and wrote a poem called "Blueberry
Girl" for Tori and Tash. The poem has
been turned into a book by the illustrator
Charles Vess.
ID X

Monica Coghlan, a prostitute was at the centre of a scandal that
involved British Conservative politician X in 1987. Although he
won a libel case against the Daily Star newspaper, which had
alleged that he had "liaisons of a carnal nature" with her, it was
later established, in legal proceeding in 2001, that he had
perjured himself in the trial.
X was jailed for this in July 2001. Coghlan died in a car crash
shortly before the second trial and X's subsequent conviction.
X also apparently paid Coghlan 2000 pounds to leave the
country. The amount of 2000 pounds has entered British slang
as "an X".
ID X.

Jeffrey Archer
2000 pounds is called “an archer” in British slang

 Anti-Clockwise and Infinite Bounce
 10 points for every correct answer
 No negatives, so please keep the guesses
coming

X's response to a man who insulted him about his African ancestry has
become famous. X said:
"My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-
grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours
ends".
He was known to have at least four illegitimate children, including a
boy named after him. This son became a successful novelist and
playwright, and was known as X, fils (son), while the father became
conventionally known in French as X, père (father).
X's signature has been depicted in the pic.
ID X.

When the book that made her famous was published, her name was
listed as "Joanne ______". Anticipating that the target audience might
not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers
demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name.
As she had no middle name, she chose a letter from the first name of
her paternal grandmother. She calls herself "Jo" and has said, "No one
ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry."
Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne
Murray when conducting personal business.
Who?

The opening chapter of the novel was originally published in
New World Writing as _____-18 in 1955, but the author's agent,
Candida Donadio, requested that he change the title of the
novel, so it would not be confused with another recently
published World War II novel, Leon Uris's Mila 18.
The title _____-11 was suggested, with the duplicated 1
paralleling the repetition found in a number of character
exchanges in the novel, but because of the release of the 1960
movie Ocean's Eleven, this was also rejected. _____-17 was
rejected so as not to be confused with the World War II film
Stalag 17, as was ______-14, apparently because the publisher
did not feel that 14 was a "funny number."
What was finally agreed upon?

When she was a young woman, she set out on a
grand tour of Europe with her sisters Lorina and
Edith. One story has it that she became a
romantic interest of Prince Leopold, the youngest
son of Queen Victoria. She being a commoner,
marriage was somewhat out of the question.
Years later though, Leopold named his first child
after her, and acted as godfather to her second
son Leopold.
She married Reginald Hargreaves, a cricketer
who played for Hampshire, on 15 September
1880, at the age of 28 in Westminster Abbey.
They had three sons: Alan Knyveton Hargreaves
and Leopold Reginald "Rex" Hargreaves (both
were killed in action in World War I); and Caryl
Liddell Hargreaves, who is believed to have been
named after a much older gentleman she was
close to.
What is her connection with the world of
literature?

This is Alice Lidell, the real life inspiration for
Alice in Wonderland.
The older gentleman that she was close to was of
course, Lewis Carroll.

LaJoie and I stayed on.
"Gospodin," he said presently, "you used an odd
word earlier--odd to me, I mean."
"Call me 'Mannie' now that kids are gone. What
word?"
"It was when you insisted that the, uh, young lady,
Tish-- that Tish must pay, too. 'Tone-stapple,' or
something like it."
"Oh, 'tanstaafl.' Means ~__________________.' And
isn't," I added, pointing to a ___2____ sign across
room, "or these drinks would cost half as much. Was
reminding her that anything free costs twice as much
in long run or turns out worthless."
Excerpt from the book in the pic. Fill in the blank
with a phrase which is believed to have been used
for the first time in this book.

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch

X was once asked by his friend Charles Poncet which he preferred, football or
the theatre. X is said to have replied, "Football, without hesitation."
X played as goalkeeper for Racing Universitaire d'Alger (RUA won both the
North African Champions Cup and the North African Cup twice each in the
1930s) junior team from 1928–30. The sense of team spirit, fraternity, and
common purpose appealed to X enormously. In match reports X would often
attract positive comment for playing with passion and courage. Any
aspirations in football disappeared at age 17, upon contracting tuberculosis—
then incurable, X was bedridden for long and painful periods.
When X was asked in the 1950s by an alumni sports magazine for a few
words regarding his time with the RUA, his response included the following:
"After many years during which I saw many things, what I know most surely
about morality and the duty of man I owe to sport and learned it in the RUA".
ID X

Still from a popular TV show
aired on BBC One. Well, it's a cell-
phone asking for an unlocking-
password.
As it turns out, the said password
is so much in sync with the show
and it's characterization.
Interestingly, it has also become a
craze on the Internet for it's clever
play of words and the teasing pun
played at the viewers.
What's the 4 character password?

SHER… the TV series is “Sherlock”
The sentence will read “I am Sherlocked”

Aniruddha Bahal is the founder and editor-in-
chief of Cobrapost.com. He has worked for
India Today and Outlook and is also the co-
founder and former CEO of Tehelka.com, the
news website.
While at Tehelka, he exposed match-fixing in
international cricket, titled "Fallen Heroes". He
also exposed the corruption in Indian defense
procurement, more popularly known as
“Operation Westend.”
He even wrote a book which was an espionage
thriller (see pic)which got some attention in the
international press. In 2003 for this “outstanding
contribution” to literature he was conferred a
rare literary award for an Indian.
Which award?

The name of this place in London has been
blanked out. What Dickens book shares its name
with the name of this place?

According to an
apocryphal story, a
certain author named his
most celebrated character
after the lead actor and
actress of this movie.
ID either the character or
the writer.

The character of Holden Caulfield in J.D.
Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye”

An experimental
book by Pritish
Nandy.
Essentially a
collection of poems.
What is so unique
about the poems?

All the poems are
confined to 140 characters
as a Twitter friendly
measure

X was the informal name of a number of celebrated English racing cars, built and
raced by Count Louis Zborowski and his engineer Clive Gallop in the 1920s.
The Xs were built and stored at Higham Park, Zborowski's country house at Bridge
near Canterbury, Kent. The cars were so loud that Canterbury reportedly passed a
by-law prohibiting them from entering within the city walls. The origin of the name
"X" is disputed, but is believed to have come from the sound of an idling airplane
engine or from a salacious World War I song.
What is X?

In an interview to The New
Yorker, Y said :
"When I wrote the first one in
1953, I wanted (main character)
to be an extremely dull,
uninteresting man to whom
things happened; I wanted him
to be a blunt instrument ... when
I was casting around for a name
for my protagonist I thought by
God, X is the dullest name I ever
heard.“
Either X or Y will do.

The title of a book is taken from the story of Boabdil (Abu
Abdullah Muhammed), who looked back at the palaces
and particularly the Alhambra, after being ousted by the
Catholic monarchs in 1492.
The spot from which Boabdil last looked upon Granada
after surrendering it is known as Puerto del Suspiro del
Moro.
His mother famously chastised him saying "Now you
weep like a woman over what you could not defend as a
man."
Which book?

This is a Latin proverb popular in English to this day.
Originally from Virgil’s “Aeneid”, the phrase was
allegedly the last words of Pliny the Elder before he
left the docks at Pompeii to rescue people from the
eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
In case of Pliny the proverb did not prove to be true
and he died in the attempt.
“Audentes Fortuna Iuvat” is the original Latin
version.
What is the popular English phrase?

X worked for the Worker's
Accident Insurance Institute. The
job involved investigating and
assessing compensation for
personal injury to industrial
workers. Accidents such as lost
fingers or limbs were
commonplace at this time.
Management guru Peter Drucker
credits Kafka with developing the
first civilian hard hat (see pic)
while employed at the Worker's
Accident Insurance Institute, but
this is not supported by any
document from his employer.
ID X

The pic is that of a controversial fictional character being
portrayed in a movie, which has the same title as the book.
She is an amateur golfer with a slightly shady reputation and a
penchant for untruthfulness.
The writer once revealed that the character was based on the
golfer Edith Cummings, who incidentally was also the first
woman athlete to have been featured on the cover of Time
magazine.
ID the character or the book.

Jordan Baker; from F Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great
Gatsby”

The author once told a librarian in Cleveland, Mississippi, that X was inspired
by William Coyne, a local murderer who had escaped from prison in 1934.
Charlotte Greig asserts that the serial killer Albert Fish was the inspiration, at
least in part, for X. Greig also states that to explain X's pathology, the author
borrowed the story of Andrei Chikatilo's brother Stepan being kidnapped and
eaten by starving neighbors.
Incidentally X's sister Mischa was also eaten alive by their starving captors
when X was a child.
X is Lithuanian and his eyes are a shade of maroon, and reflect the light in
"pinpoints of red". He is also said to have small white teeth and dark, slicked-
back hair with a widow's peak.
ID X

This character’s given name was Agastya and
much of the book in which he is first featured
centers around a place called Madna, basically in
the middle of nowhere.
His mind, while he is at home, not a rare
occurrence at all, is dominated by marijuana,
masturbation and the meditations of Marcus
Aurelius.
How is he better known in the world of literature?

In her speech to the Academy
after accepting the Nobel Prize
in 1938, she took as her topic
"The Chinese Novel." She
explained "I am an American by
birth and by ancestry," but went
on to say "My earliest
knowledge of story, of how to
tell and write stories, came to
me in China.“
Her tombstone is engraved with
her name in Chinese characters
(see pic)
ID.

So long and thanks for all the fish!!!

Clockwise and Anti-Clockwise Rounds with X and Y

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