Tribond Match Trivia Quiz

Answer: Velvet

Lou Reed (1942-2013) was associated with the band Velvet Underground as singer and guitarist. Managed by Andy Warhol, the band attempted to bring elements of avant-garde art to rock music.

Mel Tormé (1925-1999) was an American singer nicknamed "The Velvet Fog". He wrote the music, and co-wrote the lyrics, for 'The Christmas Song', more familiar to many from its subtitle, 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire'

Bobby Vinton (1935- ) had a number of popular hits in the 1960s. His cover of 'Blue Velvet' (originally recorded in 1951 by Tony Bennett) reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1963.

Answer: Lizard

Little Orphan Annie first appeared in an 1885 poem by James Whitcombe Riley, and was the central character in a comic strip that first appeared in the New York 'Daily News' on 5 August 1924. Annie, her dog Sandy and her benefactor 'Daddy' Warbucks have since appeared on radio, on stage and in films. She has two catch phrases: "Leapin' lizards!" and "Gee whiskers".

Jim Morrison (1943-1971) is best remembered as the lead singer of the band the Doors, known for his flamboyantly rebellious persona. His nickname of The Lizard King may be a reference to his frequent reference to them in his writing, as part of his fascination with Native American mythology.

Brontosaur is the common term for the genus of dinosaurs properly named Brontosuarus. Their name, which comes from the Greek words "bront" (thunder) and "sauros" (lizard) is due to their immense size - up to around 20 metres (65 feet) long, with a weight of around 15 tonnes. The sound of the feet of a running brontosaur hitting the ground would have been thunderous, indeed!

Answer: Current

A battery can be a number of different things, but one use of the word is to describe a device composed of one or more electrochemical cells which produces electric current when it is connected to a circuit.

The overall motion of water in a river (or other body of water) is called a current. Attempting to swim or propel a craft upstream is often described as going against the current.

News stories usually deal with current events, which means they are about something that is happening at that moment, or which has happened in the recent past. A show which says it deals with current affairs is often dedicated to in-depth reporting on its subjects.

Answer: Don Juan

Molière (1622-1673) was a French playwright and actor especially known for his comedies. Ironically, he died while performing the title character in his play 'Le Malade Imaginaire' ('The Imaginary Invalid' or 'The Hypochondriac'). His 1665 play 'Dom Juan ou le Festin de pierre' ('Don Juan or The Feast of the Statue') is based on the Spanish legend of Don Juan Tenorio. The play's presentation of Don Juan in a positive light was seen as sacrilegious and anti-monarchical, and he was forced to censor it before it could be performed.

Mozart (1756-1791) used the Italian version of the name for his 1788 opera 'Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni' ('The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'). As was the case in Molière's play, Don Juan gets his comeuppance after abusing (in one way or another) everyone else, and the statue of a man he had killed in a duel takes him away to Hell.

One of the best-known poems of Lord Byron (1788-1824) is the lengthy 'Don Juan', which portrays its subject as a man easily seduced by women, rather than as the more usual seducer of women. While relating his sexual exploits, Byron included many satirical references to his contemporaries; it was the latter aspect that caused the poem to be criticized as immoral.

Answer: Scout

Tonto is the name of the Native American who saved the life of the Lone Ranger, and became his companion, in the television show of that name which originally aired from 1949 to 1957. Jay Silverheels (1921-1980) played Tonto, and rode a horse called Scout.

The World Scout Emblem is the emblem of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. It has evolved over time since it was first designed by Lord Baden-Powell using the fleur-de-lys image that he had earlier used for an award to the soldiers he trained in India. The fleur-de-lys remains the central feature of the emblem.

Jean Louise Finch may be more familiar to you as Scout, the narrator of Harper Lee's 1960 novel 'To Kill a Mockingbird', which describes the tumultuous events that took place during three years of her life. The 1962 film starred Gregory Peck as her father, Atticus Finch, and Mary Badham played Scout.

Answer: Hamlet

All of these titles are borrowed from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.

The title of Philip K. Dick's dystopian 1959 novel comes from Act I: "The time is out of joint; O cursed spite! / That ever I was born to set it right!" (I.5.211-2)

In Act III, scene 2, the King asks Hamlet the name of the play that is being performed, and he replies that it is 'The Mousetrap'. It is actually 'The Murder of Gonzago', but Hamlet intends the performance to trap the King, hence his reply. Agatha Christie chose that reference as the title of her famously long-running murder mystery play.

The two courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor characters, who accompany Hamlet when he is exiled to England. When Hamlet discovers that they are carrying a letter ordering that he be put to death on arrival, he changes it to be their death sentence, then escapes and returns to Denmark. In Act V scene 2, their death is announced while the audience contemplates the death of all the major characters (except Horatio). Tom Stoppard's 1966 absurdist play makes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern its central characters, with Shakespeare's characters touching on their lives intermittently.

Answer: Salome

Salome was a controversial figure in the Bible (although she is not named there, but gained the name by which she is commonly known from the historian Josephus) whose dance at the birthday party of her stepfather Herod led to the beheading of John the Baptist. Some of the controversy associated with her is the question of whether she was a conniving seductress, or simply a pawn of her mother.

In the early 16th century Titian produced a painting which is usually called 'Salome', as it shows a fresh-faced woman holding a severed male head in her arms. It has been suggested that the male head was modeled on the artist himself. Like a number of other paintings showing a woman holding a head, there has been dispute as to whether it is in fact intended to show Salome and John the Baptist, or whether it is Judith and Holofernes, the other major Biblical incident involving a young woman and a man's beheading.

Oscar Wilde's 1891 tragedy 'Salomé' was written in French and first performed in Paris in 1896. Salome is portrayed as a woman scorned, infatuated by John the Baptist who rejected her definitively. In revenge, she performs the Dance of the Seven Veils after Herod promises her whatever she wants as a reward. Presented with the head of John the Baptist, she finally kisses his lips - which so revolts Herod that he has her crushed to death.

Richard Strauss's 1905 opera based on the German translation of Wilde's play was infamous for its dance scene. While the Dance of the Seven Veils does not necessarily mean that they are removed, that is how it was interpreted, leaving the performer naked at its end. Many of the singers who have played the role of Salome have refused to perform the dance themselves, but had a stand in for that part of the performance.

Answer: Iron

In the 1800s, the newfangled steam locomotive was often called an iron horse. Just as the first automobiles were often called horseless carriages, people linked the new mode of transport with those with which they were more familiar. The comparison was intended to emphasize the superiority of the new devices over the old.

Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) was one of the driving forces behind the unification of Germany in 1871, serving as the first Chancellor of the German Empire until 1890. His diplomacy in foreign affairs and his control of domestic politics led to his nickname, the Iron Chancellor. This also referenced his 1862 Iron and Blood speech; he actually used the phrase "blood and iron" to describe the need for determination in achieving unification, but the reversal of the words is more euphonious, and became the common usage.

The phrase iron curtain dates to the 19th century (describing a fire curtain in theatres) and had been used by several political commentators to describe the barriers between the Soviet Union and the rest of Europe before Winston Churchill made it his own. In a speech delivered on 5 March 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, he declared, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow." This speech is seen by many as a pivotal moment in relationships between the Soviet Union (an ally during World War II) and the countries which formed NATO in 1949.

Answer: Grand

The Automobile Club de France held the first Grand Prix in 1906 near Le Mans; Arizona's landmarks include the Grand Canyon; Grand Marnier Cordon Rouge, the first product of the Grand Marnier company, is a liqueur made by combining Cognac brandy, bitter orange essence and sugar.

Answer: Eponym

An eponym is a person whose name is or is thought to be the source of the name of something.

Amelia Bloomer (1818-1894) was a newspaper editor who staunchly supported women's rights. Her advocacy for the wearing of the loose trousers fastened at the ankle as a less restrictive form of female garment that Libby Miller adopted in 1851 led to them being associated with her, and they became known as bloomers.

Nicolas Chauvin is a legendary (possibly real, possibly apocryphal) figure from Napoleon's Grande Armée who is said to have been wounded 17 times in battle, leading to severe disfigurement, but no abatement in his patriotic fervour. Chauvinism came into use as a term to describe excessive patriotism; it has since come to designate any attitude based on the firm belief that one's own group is innately superior to all others.

In 1880, Charles Boycott (1832-1897) was the land agent (estate manager) for an Anglo-Irish landowner in County Mayo. In protest about some proposed evictions, activists working for Irish independence encouraged all of the workers on the estate to refuse to perform their duties. The British government was forced to spend thousands of pounds to gather that year's harvest (which was worth less than a tenth of the expense), and Boycott returned to England after the success of the first boycott.