King William's College Quiz 2020-2021
December 23, 2020 3:34 PM   Subscribe

The King William's College Quiz 2020-2021 is ready for your christmassy quizzing. Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est - The greatest part of knowledge is knowing where to find something. Let's have all of your obscure knowledge, musings and guesses in the annual Google Spreadsheet
posted by BigCalm (40 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
1. who depicted five ladies plane-spotting?

"I've got a Porsche!"
posted by mykescipark at 3:38 PM on December 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


Well, 4-9 is kind of a gimme.
posted by LionIndex at 4:09 PM on December 23, 2020


3-3 is maybe Monroeville, Liberia.

Also, this is the first time I have ever, maybe, figured out a clue from one of these.
posted by nestor_makhno at 5:45 PM on December 23, 2020


Oh, nevermind. Looked at the spreadsheet and it seems like maybe they are state capital's. Maybe next year.
posted by nestor_makhno at 5:47 PM on December 23, 2020


ooh i can answer like one of these
posted by supermedusa at 5:57 PM on December 23, 2020 [3 favorites]


upon eyeing the spreadsheet: wow. y'all don't play.
posted by 20 year lurk at 6:10 PM on December 23, 2020 [5 favorites]


stuck at home with relatives/alone during LL hiatus got everyone antsy
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 6:19 PM on December 23, 2020 [3 favorites]


2-5 would be King George III, yes?
And apropos, 4-9 would be "A Christmas Carol"
7-1 would be Isak Dennison
7-6 "The Ghost" and "The Darkness" hunted men in the Tsavo region of Kenya. Eponymous movie with Val Kilmer & Michael Douglas at least got the names right.
posted by Qex Rodriguez at 6:22 PM on December 23, 2020 [1 favorite]


Guessing that 1-11 is the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin.
posted by martin q blank at 7:10 PM on December 23, 2020


oops, make that 11-1.
posted by martin q blank at 7:19 PM on December 23, 2020


13-8 is Chuffey from The Life and Times of Martin Chuzzlewit
posted by blob at 7:26 PM on December 23, 2020


I think I just pipped someone on 12-8 (the Dauphin), sorry
posted by theory at 7:37 PM on December 23, 2020


17-3 Eats, shoots & leaves ?
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 7:46 PM on December 23, 2020


Oh, nevermind. Looked at the spreadsheet and it seems like maybe they are state capital's. Maybe next year.

If it’s any consolation, I had that as one I was certain about, but I thought Wellington, New Zealand (named for the Duke, who was British PM as well as a general).
posted by Pink Frost at 10:34 PM on December 23, 2020


Pretty sure 12: 1 is a reference to Disney's Aladdin movie. Can anyone confirm this?
posted by Paul Slade at 11:48 PM on December 23, 2020


I think 7:8 may refer to Lucy Maud Montgomery's Rainbow Valley - one of her Anne of Green Gables books. There's certainly a Mrs Grant in that volume who seems to be bedevilled by rats and toads strewn around the house. I can't find any reference to a real place called Rainbow Valley in Kenya, but perhaps someone else can help there?
posted by Paul Slade at 12:09 AM on December 24, 2020


10:7 would be a reference to Turner, wouldn't it?
posted by Grangousier at 12:12 AM on December 24, 2020


And 10:3 would be in Oxford, somewhere? Possibly that bridge over the street round the corner from the Radcliffe Camera. I'm more or less from Oxford, but as an oik I recognise the buildings but couldn't tell you what they are.
posted by Grangousier at 12:14 AM on December 24, 2020


No way 4:9 is as simple as it seems. It's a trap, people - a TRAP, I tell you!
posted by Paul Slade at 1:03 AM on December 24, 2020


[which capital] appears to place yellow bellies in Lancaster? Lincoln. Yellowbelly is a nickname for Lincolnshire folk.
posted by StephenB at 2:22 AM on December 24, 2020


1-3 is Ponzi, surely?

edited to add: oh, it's already in the spreadsheet. I thought we had to spitball them here for a second or something.
posted by hearthpig at 3:49 AM on December 24, 2020


I have these categories (besides the obvious):
4: Carol/Caroline
5:Fruits
6:Somerset Locations
7:Kenya Locations
8: Book of Acts Locations
posted by CCBC at 3:50 AM on December 24, 2020


12:9 Stalag Luft III (The Great Escape - Tom, Dick,and Harry were the tunnel names)
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 5:26 AM on December 24, 2020


13:9 Nurse Ratched, from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 6:56 AM on December 24, 2020


7:2 - which giant silver ‘fish’ was caught by Leon with a Butterfly net?

added to guesses column:
In wilbur smith's "Assegai" Leon Courtney helps capture the zeppelin asegai by jamming its engines with fishing nets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assegai_(novel)
posted by 20 year lurk at 7:27 AM on December 24, 2020


Leon's airplane is named "Butterfly": das Schmetterling. see.
posted by 20 year lurk at 7:52 AM on December 24, 2020


I love this tradition and I also love watching MeFites jump all over the spreadsheet. Some very clever, well-read people around here.

As it stands, I think these are the unanswered/tentatively answered questions remaining:

1.1 During 1920, who depicted five ladies plane-spotting?
3.2 The name of which [US state] capital started as a district in Calvados?
7.8 Where did Mrs Grant endure failed breeding projects for rodents and nematodes? (Category theme: Kenya)
12.1 Who escaped by dropping onto Randal's circus elephant? (Category theme: escape plots)
18.2 In 2020, who capitalised on his earlier Irish Village success?
posted by ZaphodB at 10:05 AM on December 24, 2020


> ZaphodB: "18.2 In 2020, who capitalised on his earlier Irish Village success?"

Could the "Irish Village" here refer to a particular horse racing event, sponsored by Dubai Duty Free The Irish Village? If so, maybe this is referring to Aidan O'Brien, a very successful trainer whose horse won that race? Or maybe it's referring to the jockey, Wayne Lordan, who rode the winning horse? Though, it's a bit unclear to me how "earlier" fits into the question in this context.
posted by mhum at 10:27 AM on December 24, 2020


Is it cheating to Google? I think I figured out 7.8, but I wouldn't have got it on my own.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:39 AM on December 24, 2020


7.8 I obsessed a while about explorer James Augustus Grant (no wife in Africa, Tanganyika not Kenya, Buruli ulcer not elephantiasis) Would someone please re-read The Flame Trees of Thika? By Elspeth née Grant Huxley. It's in there somewhere.
Two half ideas is a solution.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:38 PM on December 24, 2020


As it stands, I think these are the unanswered/tentatively answered questions remaining:

1.1 During 1920, who depicted five ladies plane-spotting?
3.2 The name of which [US state] capital started as a district in Calvados?
7.8 Where did Mrs Grant endure failed breeding projects for rodents and nematodes? (Category theme: Kenya)
12.1 Who escaped by dropping onto Randal's circus elephant? (Category theme: escape plots)
18.2 In 2020, who capitalised on his earlier Irish Village success?


1.1 I think the "Fly Girls" book is probably a red herring, because there's no clear event from 1920 to link to it. In addition, Fly Girls probably simultaneously too American and too feminist to be fodder for this quiz. (The quiz always seems very "traditional" to me in addition to how Anglophone it is.)

It also says "plane-spotting" not flying the planes themselves. I'm thinking maybe an artistic or literary depiction of women watching planes go by, but they might be using "plane" creatively here.

3.2 It's "Montgomery." Montgomery derives from Saint-Germain-de-Montgommery, which was a district in the Calvados region of France.

7.8 Whoever came up with The Flame Trees of Thika has probably nailed it. The IMDB summary of the miniseries (which starred an all-grown-up Hayley Mills as Mrs. Grant) says that most of the events take place in and around the town of Thika itself. Since Thika is a real town in Kenya, it sounds we should probably go with this & not overthink it.

12.1 It's a character called Jaikie from John Buchan's The House of the Four Winds. According to the Wikipedia summary, the character Randal Glayne is the owner of a circus called the Cirque Foré. Jaikie is a captured by the anti-monarchist villain Mastrovin, but Jaikie escapes from a first-floor window by landing onto one of Randal's elephants. (Seriously, the anti-monarchist republican has to be the villain? There's a lot of a nostalgia for monarchy and colonialism I detect in this quiz.)

18.2 "Irish Village" has to be a name or title for something, but what exactly? If we can figure that out, it will probably be clearer.
posted by jonp72 at 1:57 PM on December 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I feel like 18.2 is about Bob Dylan selling his music catalog but don't have anything to back it up.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:06 PM on December 24, 2020


Could the "Irish Village" here refer to a particular horse racing event, sponsored by Dubai Duty Free The Irish Village? If so, maybe this is referring to Aidan O'Brien, a very successful trainer whose horse won that race? Or maybe it's referring to the jockey, Wayne Lordan, who rode the winning horse? Though, it's a bit unclear to me how "earlier" fits into the question in this context.

It looks like the answer is Wayne Lordan. He won the Irish Village race in June 2020, then followed up by winning the Tatersalls Gold Cup, which was held on July 26, 2020. According to Wikipedia, Tatersalls is normally held in May, which would have put it before the Irish Village race, but I guess it was delayed because of the pandemic. That accounts for "earlier" being an important word in that clue, and those were the two main races that Lordan won this year.
posted by jonp72 at 2:10 PM on December 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


I like your answer better than my feeling.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:24 PM on December 24, 2020


So it seems the small two contributions I thought I'd made were both wrong. Thanks, 2020!
posted by Paul Slade at 2:34 PM on December 24, 2020


I'm thinking maybe an artistic or literary depiction of women watching planes go by, but they might be using "plane" creatively here.
So I read this and thought "That's it! It refers to Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon which was painted in" . . . 1907, not 1920. So it is possible to overthink this quiz.
posted by dannyboybell at 8:30 PM on December 24, 2020 [1 favorite]


who, plane-spotting, depicted five women could certainly indicate painting in a cubist (planes) or pointillist (spotting) style. i haven't found it though.
posted by 20 year lurk at 10:26 AM on December 25, 2020


It's a character called Jaikie from John Buchan's The House of the Four Winds.

When tackling this quiz, it is worth remembering there is always a John Buchan question in the quiz. The junior school of King William's is called the Buchan School. It was founded as a girls school in 1875 by Laura, Lady Buchan. Perhaps she was related to the novelist, but I can't find a connection other than the name. He was Scottish, she was Manx.
posted by beagle at 9:39 AM on December 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


Someone appears to have answered the last question,* so now all we have left to do is to turn our answers in to the Principal’s Office by Monday 18th January. Well done, Metafilter!

*Picasso, who painted Baigneuses regardant un avion. Maybe I'm just bitter because I had already Googled "1920 Picasso painting," and scrolled through hundreds of images without it coming up, but:

A. This seems an incredibly minor work. Seemingly incomplete, although who knows with Picasso.
B. Only four women are looking up; one is casually reading a book, so feh!
posted by Tsuga at 10:49 AM on December 26, 2020 [2 favorites]


Tsuga, same! That's pretty deep cuts stuff.
posted by Capybara at 2:07 PM on December 26, 2020


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