Past winner of Only Connect and Quiz Master at The Mill, Cambridge Frank Paul has launched his Online Quiz, which is simply brilliant. He has kindly supplied a sample round for you to ponder over, and if you enjoy it, you know what to do!
1. The first letter of a word meaning “minute quantity” can be removed to make which word, meaning “item” or “piece of writing”?
2. Which word is shared in the titles of the most recently released instalments of the Terminator and Fast & Furious film franchises (not including the Fast & Furious spin-off film Hobbs & Shaw)?
3. Which two-word term used in grammar is an anagram of “neutrino overlap”?
4. I’m looking for, firstly, a film and, secondly, a surname. The film, released in 2000, centres on Chuck, who suffers a fate not altogether dissimilar to that of José Salvador Alvarenga, a fisherman who in 2014 arrived in a country named after an explorer with this surname. The actor who portrayed Chuck also portrayed the adult version of the main character of a 1988 film whose director has this surname.
5. Which word concludes the names of an accolade conferred by People magazine on celebrities who over the years have included John Legend, Brad Pitt and John F. Kennedy Jr. (the latter of whom would no longer be eligible) and a song used as the soundtrack to an advert by the British Heart Foundation in which Vinnie Jones describes how to perform CPR?
6. Which surname is shared by a notoriously unsuccessful former general manager of the Detroit Lions and a fashion designer who was declared bankrupt in 2017, whose now-defunct chain of eponymous shops was described by The Guardian as “retailing a sexy look of tight-fitting dresses and Versace-style bustiers that was firmly plugged in to the fashion zeitgeist”?
7. If you make the following changes...
Use an example of the answer to question 1.
Change one letter of the answer to question 2.
Use an example of the answer to question 3.
Use a synonym of the string of letters at one end of the answer to question 4.
Imagine a dividing line after the first letter of the answer to question 5, and ignore letters on one side of this line.
Translate the letters at one end of the answer to question 6 from French (or Spanish, if you prefer) into English.
...you can make the first six words of a seven-word quotation from the late 16th century. What is the final word of this quotation and which character is it describing?
8. If you make these same changes to your original answers but produce a different word in each case, you can make the first six words of a seven-word quotation from 1941. What is the final word of this quotation and which event is it describing?
And the answers are:
- Remove the P from Particle to give Article
- Terminator: Dark Fate and The Fate of the Furious give Fate
- The anagram gives Relative Pronoun
- In this case the film is Cast Away and the surname is Marshall
- The accolade is Sexiest Man Alive and the song is Stayin' Alive to give Alive
- The two people are Matt and Karen Millen
The definite article is The, changing a letter in fate gives Face, That is a relative pronoun, Launched is a synonym of cast, A is the first letter of alive and mille in French means Thousand.
The full quote is The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships about Helen of Troy.
The indefinite article is A, changing a letter in fate gives Date, Which is a relative pronoun, Will is a synonym of shall, Live is the remainder of alive and en in French means In.
The full quote is A Date Which Will Live In Infamy about Pearl Harbour.