Break a Leg! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Arm

Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek statue perhaps best known for its lack of arms. This is what distinguishes it and makes it perhaps the best known sculpture from the Hellenistic period. It is also known as Aphrodite of Melos, reflecting its discovery on the Greek island of Milos in 1820, and has been in the Louvre Museum in France since 1821. There was also a hand holding an apple found with the main sculpture and a bit of an arm.

Answer: Arm

Arsenal Football Club in London takes its name from the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, London where the munition workers who formed the club were working. An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made and stored. It is the 'arms' part which is being referenced here. The Royal Arsenal used to be called the Woolwich Warren, reflecting its previous use for raising rabbits for meat and fur. At the time of the First World War, 80,000 people were working at the arsenal. Manufacturing ceased in 1967.

Answer: Arm

The 1949 novel "The Man with the Golden Arm" was Nelson Algren's best known. It won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1950. There was also a 1955 film adaptation starring Frank Sinatra although it had a completely different ending and Algren was not happy with the process.

The novel tells the tale of an illicit card dealer with a morphine habit in Chicago immediately after the Second World War.

Answer: Eye

A piece of surrealist art by Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte, "The False Mirror" (1928) shows a human eye framing some cloudy sky where the iris would normally be. He painted three versions of "Le faux miroir" with the original sold in 1936 to the Museum of Modern Art in New York by photographer Man Ray.

Answer: Eye

The Eye of Horus is a symbol from ancient Egypt representing healing, protection and well-being. It is typically shown as the left wedjat-eye, paired with the right wedjat-eye (known as the Eye of Ra). The myth is that the eye was lost in a conflict between Horus and his rival Set but subsequently restored. "Eye of Horus" is also a 1989 video game designed for the Amiga family of PCs.

Answer: Eye

The chatoyant (or cat's eye effect) gemstone referred to here is the mineral known as tiger's eye, a form of quartz crystal mostly composed of silicon dioxide. It has unique light refraction properties which make it popular as a gemstone. The intergrowth of quartz crystals and altered amphibole fibres gives this metamorphic rock its characteristic sheen.

The word 'chatoyant' comes from the French word 'chatoyer', meaning 'to shimmer'.

Answer: Ear

An ear of corn is that part of the plant that contains the seeds of the plant, also known as the kernels. The same is true for the wheat plant and other cereal plants such as maize and rye. The ear is the central stem of the plant on which the tightly-packed rows of flowers are contained. These normally develop into the fruits with the edible seeds.

Answer: Ear

Cockney rhyming slang from London has various names for beer such as "King Lear". The one being referenced here is "pig's ear". If you happen to be in a restaurant, you might end up getting ... pig's ear. Various countries have recipes using pig's ears, typically as appetisers.

Then there is the idiom to make a pig's ear of something, in other words to make a mess of it. Maybe that's what happens when you have had too much beer.

Answer: Ear

Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in late December 1888 got into an argument with fellow artist Paul Gaugin. At one point a distressed van Gogh cut off part of his left ear. The incident resulted in him being hospitalised where he continued to paint. He produced two self-portraits in January 1889: "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear" and "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe".

As he used a mirror to paint the portraits, his right ear is shown as being bandaged.

Answer: Leg

American rock bank ZZ Top released the single "Legs" in 1984 as the fourth single from their 1983 album "Eliminator". It reached number eight in the US "Billboard Hot 100" chart, helped in part by the award-winning music video which received a lot of airplay at the time. Look out for the pair of specially-created matching guitars painted white and covered in sheepskin in the video.

Answer: Leg

The character Long John Silver from the 1883 novel "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson is the main antagonist in the story. A colourful pirate, he is strongly identified by his missing leg and his parrot named Captain Flint. Silver gave various versions as to how he lost his leg, depending on the audience. When talking to Jim Hawkins it was honourably in battle.

Answer: Leg

The fielding side in a game of cricket generally tries to dismiss the batting side whilst giving away as few runs as possible in the process. There are various ways in which a batter can be dismissed, one of which is leg before wicket (lbw). Lbw is where, but for the ball striking the batsman's body (other than the hands holding the bat), the ball would have struck the wicket. If the fielding side appeals, the umpire can rule that the batman be dismissed. Various controversies have resulted in changes to the lbw law and ball-tracking technology has now made an appearance.