London in Quotations

15 Points Per Correct Answer - No time limit  

1. In his “Moral Essays,” Alexander Pope says that “London’s column, pointing at the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies.” Which column is he referring to? Nelson's Column The Monument Cleopatra's Needle The Duke of York's Column

2. Which poet described London in these terms: “A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping In sight, then lost amidst the forestry Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown On a fool's head--and there is London Town.” Robert Browning John Dryden Lord Byron Jonathan Swift

3. Which author first described London as “a modern Babylon”? Charles Dickens Benjamin Disraeli William Makepeace Thackeray Oscar Wilde

4. Which of Charles Dickens’s characters had a knowledge of London that was “extensive and peculiar”? The Artful Dodger Sam Weller Wilkins Micawber Ebenezer Scrooge

5. “This is a London particular,” says William Guppy to Esther Summerson in Dickens’s “Bleak House.” What is he referring to? A hansom cab A fog A glass of porter A traffic jam

6. Which literary character described London as “that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.” Allan Quatermain, in “King Solomon’s Mines” by Rider Haggard Dr Watson in “A Study in Scarlet” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Richard Hannay in “The Thirty-Nine Steps” by John Buchan Mr Podsnap in “Our Mutual Friend” by Charles Dickens

7. In a famous song of the early twentieth century, an Irishman working in London says “Goodbye, Piccadilly: farewell, Leicester Square.” Where is he planning to return to? Tipperary Glockamara Connemara County Down

8. A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Which twentieth-century poet wrote these lines? T S Eliot W H Auden Christopher Fry Ted Hughes

9. Which musical duo celebrated the joys of crewing a “big six-wheeler scarlet-painted London Transport diesel-engined 97-horsepower omnibus”? Michael Flanders and Donald Swann Hinge and Bracket Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Flotsam and Jetsam

10. According to Bette Midler, “When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still ____ in London.”? 1938 closing time tea-time perpetual midnight