Bonus QuestionJamie's Birthday Connections Quiz!

I've been a bit busy of late doing statistician-y things, so no regular Ones That Got Away today, instead something from down the back of the sofa before normality resumes next week!

A few week's ago Jamie 'UCL Karran' Karran had a birthday, and to mark the occasion I put together a connections quiz for him and some friends to tackle. Now the dust has settled and the party hats are back in the cupboard I thought I'd tidy up the questions and stick them up here for your enjoyment.

What follows are ten sets of five questions, with the five answers in each set sharing some sort of connection for you to try and identify. After each set you can click a button to find out the answers, and then another button will reveal what connects them.

Before you start, a quick word of warning: this quiz was written with Jamie and friends in mind, and so some of the connections will seem pretty tough, if not downright unfair (unless you've been stalking him for 20-odd years, of course). I've tried to put the groups in an approximate order of how Jamie-centric they are, but if you're struggling with a connection I wouldn't recommend spending too much time on it: there's a strong chance when you check the answer you'll think "that's bloody ridiculous" and hate me forever. Seriously. Still, at the very least there are 50 questions to distract you from whatever it is you're supposed to be doing; if you get any of the connections then consider it a bonus. Good luck!

Round 1
1) Which musical is an adaptation of the 19th century novel whose subtitle is The Parish Boy's Progress?
2) What type of animal could be a Sloth, a Kermode, or a Gobi?
3) What small creature has been used in Christian culture as a symbol of the deadly sin of sloth?
4) What four-letter food item is spelled out by the symbols of the chemical elements with atomic numbers 6, 1, 53 and 15?
5) With a month named after him, who is the Roman god of beginnings and transitions?

Round 1 answers

1) Oliver!
2) Bear
3) Snail
4) Chip
5) Janus

Round 1 connection

They're all body parts with a letter in front.

Round 2
1) Which historical Israeli town supposedly takes its name from Japheth, one of the sons of Noah?
2) Which language uses a a Latin alphabet consisting of 28 letters of which eight are digraphs?
3) Marcel Duchamp's Fountain takes the form of what object signed “R. Mutt”?
4) Which song, a reference to Chris Martin's unrequited love, was Coldplay's first top 10 single, reaching number 4 in the UK charts in 2000?
5) Dunlop, Dovedale, and Beacon Blue are all examples of what foodstuff?

Round 2 answers

1) Jaffa
2) Welsh
3) Urinal
4) Yellow
5) Cheese

Round 2 connection

All can be followed by 'cake' (making things that you might not immediately think of as cake!).

Round 3
1) Which Polish mathematician and astronomer's name derives from consecutive elements of the periodic table, with atomic numbers 27 and 28?
2) What is the name of Doc Brown's dog in the Back to the Future movies (the 1985 version of Doc Brown, that is)?
3) In which US state is John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men set?
4) Which newspaper published a front page story under the headline “THE TRUTH” in 1989, later admitting that it was the “most terrible” blunder in the paper's history?
5) As any reader of the Internet's premier 'pub quiz wrong answers' blog will know, in which city were the equestrian events of the 1956 Olympic Games held, with all other events taking place in Melbourne, Australia?

Round 3 answers

1) Copernicus
2) Einstein
3) California
4) The Sun
5) Stockholm

Round 3 connection

They've all had chemical elements named after them: Copernicium, Einsteinium, Californium, Helium and Holmium.

Round 4
1) Picture: What animal (a general term for a pinniped) has been 'found' on the underground here?
2) What single word did Prince Philip offer as his opinion of Beijing during a 1986 tour of China?
3) Also a word meaning to discard one's cards in a game of poker, what is the name of the bulldozer-cum-dump truck in the Bob the Builder series?
4) Typically used in physics and engineering for the coefficient of friction, what is the twelth letter of the Greek alphabet?
5) Picture: This is the 'black' variety of what material?

Round 4 Questions 1 and 5

Round 4 answers

1) Seal
2) Ghastly
3) Muck
4) Mu
5) Onyx

Round 4 connection

Homophones of Pokemon: Seel, Gastly, Muk, Mew and Onix.

Round 5
1) Typically used in statistics to indicate degrees of freedom, what is the thirteenth letter of the Greek alphabet?
2) What is the top-level domain country code for the Netherlands?
3) What two letter abbreviation is commonly used for an Italian phrase meaning "note well"?
4) What post-nominals indicate a person has, informally, 'taken silk'?
5) Definitions of which word, according to dictionary.com, include “so as to be or remain supported by or suspended from” and “operating or in use”?

Round 5 answers

1) Nu
2) nl
3) NB
4) QC
5) On

Round 5 connection

Postal abbreviations of Canadian provinces and territories.

Round 6
1) Complete the title of a 2010 film by Banksy: Exit Through The...
2) Its proper name is 'moai', but what do we usually call a monolithic human figure carved by the Rapu Nui people?
3) While serving as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 19th century, a man named Thomas Bruce was granted a controversial permit to remove what?
4) Which mythical creature, with the body of a lion and a human head, is classically associated with riddles and treachery?
5) Which historical artefact is named after the Western name for the Egyptian city whose Arabic name is Rašīd (Rashid)?

Round 6 answers

1) Gift Shop
2) Easter Island statue
3) The Elgin Marbles
4) Sphinx
5) The Rosetta Stone

Round 6 connection

All can be found in the British Museum.

Round 7
1) According to the Laws of Cricket, what piece of equipment must be no more than 965mm long and 108mm wide?
2) The common name of which bird includes the species gos, sparrow and Sharp-shinned, among (many) others?
3) Stretched, dealt, gone out (9) [This is a cryptic crossword clue]
4) An excellent song by which pop group features the lyrics “You're my doll, rock'n'roll, feel the glamour in pink / Kiss me here, touch me there, hanky panky... / You can touch, you can play, if you say: "I'm always yours"”?
5) What does the singer in the previous question think it's 'fantastic' to live in?

Round 7 answers

1) Bat
2) Hawk
3) Elongated
4) Aqua
5) Plastic

Round 7 connection

Can be folloewd by 'man' to make superheros (specifically, superheros who have been members of the Justice League of America).

Round 8
1) Which 2013 film received criticism for its casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as a character who is of Indian descent in the franchise's canon?
2) In 2013 which author published a book under a pseudonym derived from Robert Kennedy (one of her heroes) and Ella Galbraith (a childhood fantasy name she had invented for herself)?
3) In 2012 students from LeHigh University, Pennsylvania, estimated that it would take 833,315 years to produce enough steel to begin work on which fictional installation?
4) Which chemical element's symbol is also the first name of the star of the first 'talking picture' The Jazz Singer?
5) While on his deathbed, who did Edward VI name as his successor?

Round 8 answers

1) Star Trek: Into Darkness
2) J K Rowling
3) The Death Star
4) Aluminium (the singer is Al Jolson)
5) Lady Jane Grey

Round 8 connection

These have all been subjects of Wikipedia's lamest edit wars.

Round 9

Round 9 Question 4

1) Despite the folklore surrounding him, about which real-life 14th century Englishman does Wikipedia observe “there is no compelling evidence that he owned a cat”?
2) Which Oxford college's full, official, name is “The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford”?
3) What can be both tensioned cables to help keep your tent up, or effigies burnt on November 5th?
4) Picture: Name this historic, landlocked county from its flag, now mostly part of Greater London.
5) In the Simpsons, whose middle name (a major character) is 'Jojo'?

Round 9 answers

1) Dick Whittington
2) University College
3) Guys
4) Middlesex
5) Bart's

Round 9 connection

London hospitals (give or take some punctuation).

Round 10

1) Beginning with W, what word refers to the explosive and/or toxic material that is delivered by a missile, rocket or torpedo?
2) In Holst's The Planets, which planet is subtitled 'The Magician'?
3) Picture: Who painted this?
4) Picture: What bird is this?
5) Which skateboard trick begins like an ollie before the skater kicks the board so that it spins (at least) 180 degrees under their feet?

Round 10 Questions 3 and 4

Round 10 answers

1) Warhead
2) Uranus
3) Caravaggio
4) (Blue-footed) booby
5) Pop shove-it

Set 10 connection

They're all incorrect answers Jamie has offered on TV quizzes (I did warn you).

So there you have it! Hope it was at least passable fun, and that you weren't too put off by some fairly heavy subject biases. If you were keeping score a perfect game would be 60 (one point for each question and each connection), and I think anything over 30 constitutes a more than solid performance.

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