Quiz 25

This quiz was contributed by Captain Chandrakant Nair. Please post your answers as comments on this page or mail to captain dot chandrakant at gmail dot com.

1. It was initially the name for the Aegean Sea. Today , the sea shown below is called by that name and is a popular tourist destination . What name?

2. This South African entrepreneur is the founder of Canonical Limited in 2004 , a firm which funded the development of the Linux distribution Ubuntu . In the Ubuntu project, he is often referred to with the tongue-in-cheek title Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life, abbreviated SABDFL . Who ?

3. One from the share market – What is a bond with no principal , no interest and no maturity called ? (This rarely seen buzzword is more often used to make a point, than to actually represent a market stock)

4. Intelsat I was the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit, in 1965 . It was the first to provide direct and nearly instantaneous contact between Europe and North America, handling television, telephone, and tele-facsimile transmissions. It was also one of the satellites involved in the broadcast of Our World , the first live, international, satellite television production . The satellite was given a nickname because of these unique achievements . What ?

5. General Eyre Coote (1760 – 1823) was a British soldier who was born in Ireland. He was the nephew of Sir Eyre Coote, KB, who fought the 2^nd Anglo-Mysore war and the Battle of Plassey . General Coote went on to serve in Holland, Egypt and eventually became Governor-General of Jamaica . He is widely believed to be the great great grandparent of a famous US Army general . This person has even mentioned this fact in his autobiography . Who ?

6. The title of the following image was “Matoaks als Rebecka daughter to the mighty Prince Powhatan Emperor of Attanoughkomouck als Virginia converted and baptized in the Christian faith, and wife to Mr. John Rolfe” . The subject of the image became a celebrity in London in the last year of her life. The life of the subject of the image served as inspiration for a famous film released in 1995 . Identify .

7. Lt Col TE Lawrence , the subject of “Lawrence of Arabia” suffered a fatal crash on a narrow road near his cottage near Wareham in England in 1935 . The accident occurred because a dip in the road obstructed his view of two boys on bicycles . Lawrence went into a coma and died after six days in hospital. One of the doctors attending him ,neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns, began a long study of this unfortunate incident . This study of his resulted in something significant . What ?

8. Specialists Valerio Maioli S.p.a. with an experience of over 40 years were handpicked for this job . 108,423 metres of power cables, 240 steel pylons ,around 1,600 projectors with a total power requirement of 3,180,000 watts and 12 twin-power generators were utilised by the firm. What was the task assigned to them ?

9. Many older editions of his books have a swastika printed on their covers associated with a picture of an elephant carrying a lotus flower(pic below). This had raised the possibility of him being mistaken for a Nazi-sympathiser, though the Nazi party did not adopt the swastika until 1920. His use of the swastika, however, was based on the sign's Indian meaning of good luck and well-being. Even before the Nazis came to power, he ordered the engraver to remove it from the printing block so that he should not be thought of as supporting them. Which famous author?

10. Hyrule is a common fictional kingdom appearing in the Legend of Zelda video game series . The currency in this kingdom , apart from being used to purchase stuff , has other uses . These include ability to use arrows , ability to summon a fairy to increase the arsenal , powering the magical armour etc . The currency resembles hexagonal crystals/gems and green coloured currency has the least value while gold/silver coloured currency has the highest value . Just hazard a guess regarding the name of the currency .

11. Pioneering filmmaker Baburao Painter’s 1920 film Sairandhri attracted the attention of the then censor board for its graphic depiction of the slaying of Keechak by Bhima . He also introduced two female artisits Gulab Bai and Anusuya Bai with screen-names as Kamala Devi and Sushila Devi respectively in the movie . Kamla Devi was later immortalized in a particular way . How

12. Morley Callaghan , the famous Canadian author , was challenged by X to a boxing match in 1929 . X was considered as the best boxer by himself and Callaghan as well . The match held at the American club in Paris was refereed by mutual friend Y . In the end , Callaghan won the match by knocking out X who boxed with aggression . X , in turn , blamed Y for the debacle because of Y’s lack of attention on the stopwatch which let the boxing round go over time. All this was vividly described by Callaghan in his 1963 memoir ‘That Summer in Paris ’. Solve for X and Y.

13. Connect :

X

Y

Z

14. The cross-cultural popularity of this South Asian dish in the United Kingdom led former Labour foreign secretary Robin Cook to proclaim it as "Britain's true national dish" in 2007. Which dish ?

15. “Whenever I was in the field, no one really knew I was doing it except one or two friends. When I did my second Test at Edgbaston, in 1985, someone had written about it to dear old Brian Johnston (a commentator) . “I did my little “thing” and there was a titter in the crowd. I thought there must be a streaker on the field but it was Brian telling the world - and the spectators were listening on their radios. I’ve been lumbered with it ever since ”

Who about what?

16. Connect :

17. The name of this disease derives from the Latin for ‘waterfall’ . As rapidly running water turns white, the term has been used metaphorically to describe the similar appearance. It is also thought that the disease has been named so because the sensation experienced by the patient is similar to what happens when he/she is within a waterfall . Which disease?

18. There was a certain group of Norse warriors who wore coats of wolf or bear skin and who were commonly understood to have fought in an uncontrollable rage or trance of fury. In video game parlance , the name of these warriors is applied to a situation in a variety of role-playing games, which generally causes the affected individual to attack recklessly and with increased power, and with no concern for personal safety . What was the name of this group of warriors?

19. The name of this particular series of toys (pic below) manufactured by Japanese toy company Medicom toy Inc was chosen in honor of a very famous movie personality . Furthermore , the logo of the toy bears the same design as the logo of one of his famous movies . By linguistic coincidence , the name of the toy is also a hybrid word comprising the Japanese words for nine and an English word . Nine is the number of figures required to manufacture such a toy and the English word in question is the collector’s jargon for another famous group of toys and refers to the similarity between the two groups of toys .

Just name the toy/ person

.

20. The Battle of the River Plate (December 13, 1939) was the first major naval battle in World War II . The battle featured German ship Admiral Graf Spee which was found and engaged off the estuary of the River Plate off the coast of Argentina and Uruguay by three smaller Royal Navy cruisers: HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and X . In the ensuing battle, Exeter was severely damaged and forced to retire while Ajax and X shadowed the Graf Spee which had entered Montevideo. This forced the captain of the Graf Spee , Hans Langsdorff , to scuttle(deliberately sink) his damaged ship rather than face the overwhelmingly superior force . The British ships returned victorious. The question is , how do we better know X today ?

Answers:

1. "Archipelago" – The Aegean sea was initially referred to as the Archipelago sea because of the presence of a large number of islands . But today , the Archipelago sea is the region shown in the visual , lying between the Gulf of Finland , Gulf of Bothnia and the Aland sea . It has the largest archipelago in the world when one goes by the number of islands .

2. Mark Shuttleworth , more famous for his exploits in space .

3. Clinton Bonds , named after Bill Clinton [ cos he has no principle , no interest and no maturity which got him into thick soup ]

4. Early Bird

5. Colin Powell

6. Pocahontas

7. The usage of crash helmets while driving 2-wheelers

8. To light up the Singapore Grand prix circuit

9. Rudyard Kipling

10. Rupee

11. The trumpet-blowing woman logo of Prabhat studios

12. X - Ernest Hemingway Y – F Scott Fitzgerald

13. Connect – All words contributed to the English language by the Crimean War / Charge of the light brigade

Pic 1 – Balaclava ; the name comes from the town of Balaklava in Crimea where the "Charge of the light brigade" happened. During the Crimean War, they were sent over to the British troops to help protect them from the cold weather .

Pic 2 - Cardigan sweater ; named after James Thomas Brudenell, the 7th Earl of Cardigan , who led the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Pic 3 - Raglan sleeve ; named after Field Marshal Fitz Roy James Henry Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan , who had lost his right arm in the Battle of Waterloo and this type of sleeve was designed to fit his coat for the arm lost and thereby look more presentable to the soldiers whom he commanded in the Crimean war/Charge of the Light Brigade . His military acumen was pathetic and this almost resulted in a defeat for the allies in the war .

14. Chicken Tikka Masala

15. David Shepherd and his lil hop at scores of 111 , 222 etc.

16. The connect is Esperanto. Pic 1 - Flag of Esperanto Pic 2 - The first ever book in Esperanto ; Unua Libro by LL Zamenhof Pic 3 - Monato , the most famous and widely circulated magazine in Esperanto Pic 4 - Alfonso Cuaron , who owns a production company called Esperanto films

17. Cataract

18. Berserks

19. Kubrick Toy ; 'Ku' – means 9 in Japanese , Brick – jargon for Lego toys

20. HMS Achilles which later became INS Delhi

SCORES:

Manjith (Earliest Bird) - 9.5

Sreeram - 7.5

Rajesh Mohan - 7

Rashma Mohammed - 13

Ritwik K - 4

Arun AS - 9

Chandrima - 5

Hrishi - 8.5

Shafeek - 9.5

Pankaj Singh - 17

Deepak Ranganathan - 9

Viswas - 3.5

Ranjit C - 4

Mohammad Shabeer K - 7