ROUND 3 - Final performances
All people who died during or very shortly after a performance
1. Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) while starring in his play Le Malade Imaginaire. He fell ill during the performance, ironically as a hypochondriac, completed the performance but died after the curtain fell.
2. Eddie Cochran, in a taxi that crashed in Chippenham on the way to London Airport. Gene Vincent was also injured and walked with a limp for the rest of his life. Bonus points if you knew that the taxi driver was called George Martin.
3. Eric Morecambe, immediately after the show. By all accounts it was one of the most sparkling performances of his career.
4. Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper (JP Richardson).
5. Les Harvey of Stone the Crows. He touched an unearthed microphone while his fingers were on the strings of his electric guitar.
6. Sid James
7. Tommy Cooper. The show was televised live. When he collapsed many people assumed it was part of his act.
8. 'Ian Cognito' (Paul Barbieri). He'd just made a joke about having a stroke so, as with Tommy Cooper, some people in the audience thought it was part of the act.
9. Leonard Rossiter. He was performing in Joe Orton's pitch-black comedy Loot, so it's possible that audience members unfamiliar with the play might also have thought it part of the act.
10. Miriam Makebe, Xhosa singer exiled from South Africa for anti-apartheid campaigning. She was performing for a campaign fundraiser. Not an opera singer – you shouldn't chase stereotypes!
ROUND 4 - Foreign words
1. Chocolate (~cacahuatl~)
2. Robot (from a 1920 play by Karel Čapek, RUR, which stands for ~Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti~ and was translated into English as Rossum's Universal Robots to match the abbreviation.
3. Slogan (^sluagh ghairm^)
4. Bistro (~быстро~ via French)
5. Tycoon (~taikun~)
6. Catamaran (~kattumaram~)
7. Ukulele ~ukulele~)
8. Hussar (~huszár~)
9. Bizarre (~bizar~)
10. Coffee (~qahwah~)
ROUND 5: Tautological binomials
All of common British animals.
1. Common Toad
2. Grass Snake
3. Badger
4. Manx Shearwater (yes, it ought to be the puffin but that would be so dull when the puffin is actually the Little Brother of the Arctic (~Fratercula arctica~)
5. Red Fox
6. Pine Marten (my nomination for most adorable British mammal)
7. Otter
8. Magpie
9. Eel
10. Pipistrelle (bat)
ROUND 6 - Blue Peter presenters
The Blue Peter being the P flag in the International Code of Signals, hoisted by a vessel in harbout to indicate that it was about to leave port (so crew had better leave the bar and get on board pronto.
1. Leila Williams (1958-1962)
2. John Noakes (1965-1978)
3. Konnie Huq (1997-2008) Sister of Rupa Huq MP
4. Richard Bacon (1997-1998). What could be more humiliatin g than being stripped of your Blue Peter Badge?
5. Valerie Singleton (1962-1972). The thrown water was on radio though. Sykes let her repeat a cue she'd already done without warning her.
6. Christopher Trace (1958-1967)
7. Peter Duncan (1980-1984 and 1985-1986)
8. Peter Purves (1967-1978). As Steven Taylor, a 23rd-century earthling space pilot stranded on a planetwho stowed away on the Tardis, he accompanied the First Doctor for a year.
9. Janet Ellis (1983-1987). Mother of Sophie Ellis-Bextor and victim of a scurrilous tabloid story that she'd been sacked for being Pregnant While Unwed (not with Sophie).
10. Yvette Fielding (1987-1992].
AFTERWORD
These quizzes were modelled on the King William's College, Isle of Man, general knowledge paper that is set to the pupils every Christmas and has been published in the Guardian since forever – certainly for quite a few years before it ceased to be the Manchester Guardian. You can find the latest one at
www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2022/dec/25/the-king-williams-college-quiz-2022
or for several years' worth of previous papers
kwc.im/general-knowledge-paper-2022/
But a word of warning: if you thought mine were tough, these are much tougher. You aren't supposed to know the answers (average correct answers unseen: 2/180) you are supposed to research them in reference books over the holidays and get credit for how yout score has improved when the paper is sat again after the holidays . In the age of Wikipedia much effort has been put into making the questions Wikiproof.
I reserve the right to set similar quizzes whenever the fancy takes me.
