Extremely difficult quiz questions

First topic message reminder :

This extremely difficult quiz question is possible to answer using the internet, lets see who gets the correct answer first.

What is the name of the cottage next door to The Crown & Anchor pub, near Kilnsea, East Yorkshire. ?

I somehow omitted to mention the football, but a location that was garrisoned by the British military during WW2 "for mutual defence". From which experience the locals acquired the taste for "a nice cuppa tea."

A Mrs. Trellis of North Wales has written in to ask whether this question remains "open".

No, it was correctly answered by Ivan a week ago, when he identified the location as the Faroe Islands without actually saying so.  

(62°00'N latitude and 7°00'W longitude, which makes London well to the East of them, which may surprise some)


Next question, please.

An agnostic who was born a Jew but wrote Christian music. He had a father who was Italian and a mother who was German. His more famous friend wrote a concert work about a creature that was going up in the world.

Have I given too much away? Who was he?

Room for more than one answer? Italian composer Giulio Regondi (1822-1872) was
born in Switzerland to a German mother and an Italian father. Wrote for the guitar and also for the concertina. (Not many competitors in that field.)

How about Gerald Finzi - whose friend was Vaughan Williams whose lark ascended...?

Well done, Gerald Finzi was the geezer I had in mind.  

Did Giulio Regondi have any friends, or was he like Millwall supporters and post-Brexit Britain?

Yes, Lark ascending was indeed a gift, but as I'd never heard of the fizzing chap it took me no further.  
Nevertheless, I'm sure "Post-exit Britain" can find an accommodation with Recep Tayyip Erdogan since neither is likely to have any other BFF in 2020.

I always listened attentively during Music lessons in school - at least, when I managed to stay awake...

The following is a synopsis of a popular TV series:

"Uhtred sets out to defeat the brothers Erik and Sigefrid, take back Eoferwic and reassert Guthred's authority. Hostility is rife when Sven tries to reason with Thyra."

1. Name the title, and identify which episode of what number series is above-described.
2. What is the name and nationality of the actor playing King Guthred?

(clue: It's not EastEnders.)

What a coincidence!

I took the train to Edinburgh yesterday to enjoy a day in what could eventually become a lost kingdom....

The overwhelming modesty of Cutting Edge readers clearly inhibits showing-off, but what everybody knows is that "The Last Kingdom" is a sword-and-sandals epic now on its second series on BBC2. In episode 4 shown on April 6th Danish actor Thure Lindhart played the part of King Guthred.

Moving swiftly on ....

This isn't a question, it's just an example of how a REALLY difficult question was resolved by Alan Turing's team at Bletchley Park of popular legend - which will excite the interest of the type of person who has "tuned-in" to a space on the www about hard questions.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/what-was-the-flaw-in-the-enigma-machine/ar-BBzVOnX?li=BBoPWjQ&ocid=iehp

(Ensure you are sitting comfortably before you begin.)

Can you name these three European capital cities?

1.



2.



3.


(Photos from Twitter users)

Another week, another brain-teaser:

We're looking for a three-word description that links all of the following ...

1.  Jessica Curry
2.  Nobuo Uematsu
3.  London Symphony Orchestra, Barbican, June
4.  Royal Philharmonic, Albert Hall in November
5.  Classic FM High Score, Leeds next week

What's the common denominator?

Is this to do with The Chinese Room and the music therefrom...?

As for the cities...how about Budapest, Oslo and Helsinki...?

I've no idea about 'The Chinese Room', but the cities are correct. A certain wise man of this parish explained to me how easy it is to identify photos on Google. However, I left the question in place because I thought the pictures brightened up the thread!

Indeed so - although I first thought that the top picture was Pease Pottage Town Hall...

A mistake any of us could have made.




Current search indeed has "music" in the answer, but to record a high score, tell us what makes it different?

It is the music from certain video games isn't it?

Absolutely correct.
Jessica Curry presents a weekly show on Classic FM devoted to the music written especially to accompany Computer Games. The best-known piece is called Aerith's Theme, composed by Nobuo Uematsu for the game Final Fantasy VII, which will be played at the concert dates mentioned in the question.
If you listen to the Classic FM programme on Saturdays between 9pm and 10pm you could sample music for Broken Sword; Snake Pass; Blue Dragon or Lost Oddysey.

"Time and tide wait for no man ...."

The punctuation nazis are having fun with the plastic Five-Pound-Note, which they say "contains a grammatical mistake".

What's their problem?

(Though a purist might call it a syntax error)

Can you make a connection between a recent state visit to the UK, some coffee mugs and a wheelie bin?

Starts presumably with the state visit last November of the President of Colombia, who generously brought flowers and coffee with him for the royal banquet in case they weren't readily available in Austerity Britain.

I regret the rest must be for another brain ....

Don't be stumped so easily! You made a thoughtful response, but I was looking for a much more recent state visit.

Clue - this is a question about sport.

My feeling is that Ashley Giles is the key here.

Giles was an England spin-bowling cricketer whose had some coffee mugs made for sale in his benefit year. The mugs should have borne the legend ' King of Spin' but were erroneously produced with 'King of Spain' emblazoned upon them.( The real King came to the UK in recent times).

When bowling, Giles had an approach to the wicket  which was somewhat trundling and ponderous and he therefore became known as 'Wheelie Bin' .

If that isn't the answer, I have no idea what is...

" What's their problem?"

It appears to be the omission of quotation marks in Churchill's famous message( and even a full stop at the end of the quotation).

I have never liked the order of the " I promise to pay the bearer on demand..." bit, either. I'd favour the sentence ending "....the sum of five pounds on demand".

If that isn't the answer, I have no idea what is...

Spot on, sir!  

It was that nasty, patronising, right-wing commentator and Old Etonian Henry Blofeld who called Giles a "wheelie bin" because of his trundling run-up, much to Giles' disgust. (I'm not surprised that the James Bond supervillain was named after Blofeld's father, with whom Ian Fleming went to school.)

"...nasty, patronising, right-wing commentator ..."

(bbc)

"Goodness - my  dear old thing..."

Phil Hornby wrote:" What's their problem?"

It appears to be the omission of quotation marks in Churchill's famous message( and even a full stop at the end of the quotation).

I have never liked the order of the " I promise to pay the bearer on demand..." bit, either. I'd favour the sentence ending "....the sum of five pounds on demand".

Indeed, Sir: http://www.countryliving.co.uk/news/news/a1722/new-five-pound-note-grammar-mistake/

Ah, yes - that Oxford comma. I'm never quite sure about them...

Can you make a connection between a canal which was used to carry bricks, a village on the north coast of Cornwall, and a Berkshire town which was deemed to be "unfit for humans"?

Sir John Betjeman (Come friendly bombs..) died Trebetherick, Cornwall on 19 May 1984, aged 77. The Slough Canal Arm was used to carry bricks into London via the Grand Union Canal.

Very good answer, and just as ‘correct’ as what I was anticipating.  

In his poem ‘A Shropshire Lad’, Betjeman wrote about a canal “that carried the bricks to Lawley” (not to mention a gentleman who rose “rigid and dead” from it!).

"Rigid and dead" doesn't sound much fun.  I take enjoyment from the poet's own recording about Miss Joan Hunter-Dunn.  Encapsulates the frustrating human condition of being an ardent young man.

A 17th.century puzzle concerning a canal and bricks queried how it can be that throwing some bricks out of an overloaded barge can cause it to rise in the water although the bricks themselves sank immediately.

I guess that Archimedes would have had something to say about that.

This is probably too easy, but here goes:-

Apart from being media 'personalities', what do Harry Enfield, Holly Willoughby and Alex Adair have in common?

This place?



The College of Richard Collyer

I said it was too easy!  

Yes, all three of them attended that sixth form college in Horsham.

Traditional British rain-in-August provides ample time in which to cogitate.

Also associated with Horsham, who are these other four celebrities?

A**** ; K*** P**** ; D**** D*** ; P**** B**** S****** ?

The fourth can only be Shelley - and the second may be Katy Price and the third Diana Dors. Is the first Adele? - it fits, at least...

Right again, you pop-picking pollster !

(Who ever suspected that Horsham could be such a swinging place?)  

Next time: Famous visitors to Dorset villages such as Toller Porcorum, Ryme Intrensica and Cerne Abbas. We can leave Melbury Bubb and Piddle Hinton for another day.

Ah, the power of guesswork...!