2. After Fulgencio Batista was overthrown, a toy
manufacturer was reported in the media of
capitalizing on the news with a brand new
product meant to “startle parents in the US”.
Manufacturer Jack Noahson was insured for
$100,000 against allergy suits, as the product was
made of treated dog fur.
What was the product?
5. It was lit by thousands of flashing light bulbs and was
erected as an advertisement for a housing development.
The development was complete by the end of 1923 and
the developers figured it would take about a year to sell
the remaining plots, at which point X would be
dismantled.
By 1949, with the bulbs long since burned out and X
battered by weather, the city decided to replace the
original with a new version that was shorter.
What is X?
8. July 4, 2015 in addition to being the 239th
anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of
Independence, was also the 150th anniversary of
the introduction of one of literature’s most
memorable characters.
Name either the book or the character?
11. Kathrine Switzer after breaking the gender barrier
for the race in 1967 told TIME, "I was so
embarrassed and upset, but if I dropped out,
everyone would have said that a woman couldn't
do it.“
What was she upset about?
14. Losing his mind as result
of worry, Willy Loman
babbles at imaginary
characters in a restaurant.
His two sons attempt to
restrain him while a
couple of floozies the
boys have picked up look
on in cold puzzlement.
Scene from which Tony
winning play?
17. Although the early history of habitation in the
area is limited, Julius Caesar mustered 800 to
1,000 sailing boats, five legions and some 2,000
horses here due to its strategic position to
attack Britannia. At some time prior to the 10th
century it would have been a fishing village on
a sandy beach backed by pebbles and a creek.
Which much in the news place which also finds
mention in the title of an August Rodin
sculpture?
22. At the end of a workout, “pehelwans” rest against
the walls of the “akhara”, covering their heads
and bodies with earth to soak up any perspiration
and avoid catching cold.
23. The one that was worn on Moonwalk was auctioned for
$350,000 in 2009, six months after M. Jackson’s death.
Another auction in June 2010 saw a different one sold
for $160,000.
It was given by Jackson to his artist friend, Paul Bedard,
whom the musician commissioned to create over a
dozen paintings for his home and Neverland ranch.
Bedard sold it to a private collection in 2005. The artist’s
paintings for Jackson featured historical figures –
Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Albert Einstein
and ET – sporting it.
What is being talked about?
26. Fill in the blanks in the following lines taken
from Isaiah 21:6:
"For thus hath the Lord said unto me,
___, ____ __ _________, let him declare what he
seeth."
29. Warwickshire’s head groundsman, Gary
Barwell, used lights to ensure that Edgbaston’s
pitch was in proper condition for the third
Ashes Test.
The lights were confiscated by the West
Midlands police and loaned by the force to the
club, to help dry out the turf – thus making it
harder and faster.
Why were they confiscated by the police in the
first place?
32. “If I can figure it out, if all of us can figure it
out, it’d be fun to do. I’d like to fly those jets
again, but we got to do all the jets practical, no
CGI, I’m saying right now, no CGI on the jets.
If we can figure all that out, and the
Department of Defense will allow us to do it,
that would be fun.”
Who was talking on what?
35. Seventy years after the end of the second world
war, stadiums built by the Nazis for the 1936
Olympics played host to the European Maccabi
Games, which featured 19 events, including
badminton, basketball, chess and volleyball.
The games, hosted by Germany for the first
time, ran until 5 August from the last week of
July.
What are the Maccabi games?
38. Normandie-Niemen was the name of the Free French
air force regiment that was sent in 1943, on de Gaulle’s
initiative, to fight with the Soviets using Russian-made
Yakovlev Yak-1 planes. The unit later took part in the
campaign to reconquer the Nieman river, which flows
through Belarus and Lithuania, and was allowed by
Stalin to add the reference to its regimental name.
Having become a passport-holder of the Russian
Federation – among others – X is planning to solidify
his relations with president Putin by making a film
about this little-known episode of the second world
war, in which French fighter squadrons fought
alongside Soviet forces on the eastern front.
ID X.
41. “I’ve been kidnapped nine times, including seven
while on club tours abroad, which remains a
record in top-flight English football, and each time
it’s been a new and slightly surprising experience.
I suppose it’s a bit like winning the FA Cup in that
sense. You certainly don’t get bored of it!”
X and his team tended to get kidnapped while on
summer tours to despotic African or South
American states broken apart by revolution; the
deal was that the X would play against a scratch
team of insurgents and then be granted their
freedom.
ID X
45. Jo Farrell embarked on a nine-year journey
across China, tracking down the last survivors.
She found just 50 women. Five of them were in
hiding, but most had released their
“impediments”.
All were from impoverished villages in the
provinces of Yunnan and Shandong. The
oldest, Zhang Yun Ying, was 103.
Who/what was the subject of her project?
48. First made nearly 100 years ago, and named in
honour of contemporary basketball player
Chuck Taylor in the 1930s, they have been
worn by American soldiers in the first world
war, along with icons of cool including James
Dean, Kurt Cobain and the Ramones.
What is being talked about?
51. At the end of July 1890 X, then
the business manager of the actor
Sir Henry Irving, had just
endured, with his theatrical
company, a somewhat disastrous
tour of Scotland.
Irving decided they should all
take a month’s holiday and then
regroup; he suggested X try
Whitby on the north Yorkshire
coast, where Irving had once run
a circus.
X took the advice and was taken
in by the sights of the town.
What resulted?
54. X was Bram Stoker; Whitby formed the setting
for the novel Dracula
55. Julianne Moore is posing
as a mythological
character in the 2011
Pirelli calendar.
Also depicted is a temple
at Agragento, Magna
Graecia dedicated to this
character.
ID the character.
59. X’s intriguingly varied career is set to continue
with a lead role in new FBI thriller Imperium.
He will play a young undercover agent seeking
out white supremacists who are attempting to
make a dirty bomb. The character is based on
Michael German, who spent years infiltrating
various neo-Nazi groups.
Which actor whose pearl of wisdom is on the
lines of : ‘If people are speculating about your
sexuality, then you’re doing OK’?
62. The X can suppress hunger, thirst, pain, and
fatigue, according to various accounts.
It’s also an ingredient in toothpaste, lotions and
shampoo in Bolivia.
It has been enjoyed by three popes. Pope Francis
drank a tea of X, camomile and anise seeds on the
plane to Bolivia from Ecuador in July 2015, Pope
John Paul II drank tea made from X during his
1988 visit to Bolivia, and Pope Paul VI drank the
special tea during a visit to the Andes in 1968.
What is X?
65. When it was submitted to Exterion Media, which
regulates advertisements on the tube, and Clear
Channel, a regulator for bus shelters, the poster
was declared not suitable to run in its original
form.
For it to be approved, the logo ought to have been
moved away from the crotch and on to the
woman’s belly button instead.
The “tongue over belly button” posters went up in
London a few weeks ago, while the rest of the
country received the original “tongue over pant.
Which famous “logo” designed by John Pasche?
67. The famous “lips logo” for the band Rolling
Stones
68. X’s boast in 1977 can be read in a number of ways.
Since a parsec is a unit of distance, rather than time, X
may simply have been talking a load of nonsense in
order to secure the patronage for their trip to Alderaan.
The apparent paradox of a ship covering an 18 parsec
route without travelling the full distance can be
explained by the Falcon’s advanced navigational
computer rather than its engines, which allow it to
calculate a smarter route. The expanded universe picks
up on the anomaly, suggesting the route itself skirted a
cluster of black holes, with X managing to cut down his
travel time by flying dangerously close to the cosmic
bodies.
Who was X or what was the boast?
70. Han Solo claiming to have made the Kessel
Run in 12 parsecs in Star Wars
71. “Topless men fight bulls, couples kiss amid
orchids, hundreds of flogged extras erect a
tower and there’s a 45 minute battle”.
What is The Guardian reviewing?
74. Disney is mounting a live action prequel to
Aladdin, the classic 1992 animation.
The movie titled Genies, will examine the
backstory of the magical spirits known from
Arabian mythology.
What often talked about mystery about
Alladin’s genie will this movie reveal?
76. It will reveal how the genie got into the lamp
77. Robert Capa found a
bathtub in the street in
Berlin in 1945. He said this
was going to be his scoop:
“for the first time, X
photographed in a
bathtub.”
Capa’s negatives were
damaged and none of the
pictures survived; the only
record is this picture, taken
by Carl Goodwin.
ID X (the lady in pic)
81. He’s boasted that he will rule for “a billion years”. He’s adopted a
ridiculous string of titles: “His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji
Dr Yahya AJJ Jammeh Babili Mansa.” (The last phrase translates to
“conqueror of rivers”.)
He’s posed as a fetishistic healer, claiming magical powers to cure
Aids, asthma and diabetes, and has launched witch-hunts to root
out enemy sorcerers.
Which country does he rule with an iron hand?
85. Nigel Richards’ command of the
language of Molière, as the French
like to call it, stretches to “bonjour”
and being able to count.
“He doesn’t speak French at all – he
just learned the words,” his close
friend Liz Fagerlund told the New
Zealand Herald. “He won’t know
what they mean, wouldn’t be able
to carry out a conversation in
French, I wouldn’t think.”
Earlier this year, he was given a
standing ovation by a
predominantly French crowd.
What had he accomplished?
88. He won the French World Scrabble
Championship
89. Louisa Lim said:
“I didn’t want to write this book. Even the thought
of it scared me, but it hammered away at my
conscience. When I finally gave in, I took elaborate
precautions. After signing a book deal, I made my
editor promise not to contact me again until I got
in touch with him. I warned my husband never to
talk about the book at home. Then, to do the actual
writing, I bought a computer that had never had
online access and kept it locked in a safe in my
bedroom”.
What was she writing?
91. The People’s Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen
Revisited
The book is about how this event has been
wiped out from public memory in China
92. On the morning of July 28, 1945, Lt. Colonel
William Smith was trying to reach Newark
Airport.
That morning thick fog had settled on the city.
Ground crews advised Smith that, with zero
visibility, attempting to land was a bad idea.
In the fog, he found himself off course and
flying over the city.
What happened next leading to the death of
only 14 people, it being a Saturday?
