Random Trivia

See next post for the answers: if you got at least ten right,

you are a Kaleidoscope Mastermind!

We all have bits of seemingly irrelevant knowledge that we have apparently acquired by some form of cosmic osmosis: someone says: "How do you know that?" and you have to answer: "I don't know - I just know it." Here are a baker's dozen of those I-Just-Know-It things!

1. Anne Boleyn was unique is saying "no!" to King Henry VIII, a word he did not often hear. She played hard to get and held out for a wedding ring. (That a crown came with it never crossed her mind!) Owing to her steadfast balking at the bedroom door, Britain is a Protestant country today. What made her different and unusual?

a She had six fingers on each hand.
b She could hypnotise birds.
c She wore only black and white.

2. Scotch whisky is whisky made in Scotland. Where was it made 200 years ago?

a Ireland
b Only in the Hebrides
c Scotland

3. Who is Isambard Kingdom Brunel?

a A dead British engineer.
b A character in "Lord of the Rings" by JRR Tolkien.
c The Earl of Cardigan, who led the Charge of the Light Brigade.

4. Andy Warhol remains a major pop icon: dying was an excellent career move and his vast earnings increase every year. He died in New York in 1987. How?

a Shot by a crazed fan
b Complications following a gallbladder operation
c Drug overdose

5. You have been invited to a formal dinner at an exclusive golf club in Scotland. Having enjoyed a marvellous meal, you sit back and light a cigar. Your dinner partner grabs the cigar, stubs it out in the remains of the haggis and hisses: "Not yet!" What has to happen at a formal Scottish dinner before anyone may smoke?

a The ladies leave the room
b The host gives thanks in Gaelic
c A toast to the Queen

6. The building of the Great Wall of China was ordered by Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, in 221 BCE. Why did he think it a good idea to build a great wall?

a To keep the rabbits out.
b To keep the invading nomadic tribes out.
c To keep corrupting foreign influences out.


7. The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald is considered one of the ten best novels of the 20th Century and is a standard text in high school and university English courses. Who or what is the Great Gatsby of the title?
a A steam ship
b A wealthy young man
c An emerald

8. What is the official title of the famous portrait generally known as "Whistler's Mother"?
a Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. 1
b Composition in White, Black and Gray, No 1
c The Artist's Mother in Black and Gray, No 1

9. Fifteen what on a dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum?

a Flags
b Doubloons
c Men

10..What are The Skin Game, The Pleasure Garden and The Mountain Eagle?

a Early Hitchcock movies.
b Chapters in the Kama Sutra.
c Surrealist paintings by Rene Magritte.

11. What do the painters Joshua Reynolds, J.M.W. Turner and Anthony van Dyck have in common?

a Each had a mistress named Emma.
b All died before their 40th birthday.
c All are buried in St Paul's Cathedral, London.

12. What happened at the Guildhall (Town Hall), Windsor, on 21 December 2005?

a Elton John married David Furnish.
b Prince Charles married Camilla Parker-Bowles.
c The Queen paid an unexpected visit to the staff common room when her car was stalled in a three-hour traffic gridlock caused by a truck accident.

13. Who or what was Charlie in John Steinbeck's "Travels with Charlie"?

a A dog
b A donkey
c The narrator's aunt