Historical Common Bond Trivia Quiz

Answer: Marlboro

The McLaren team has had several sponsors throughout its history, but its partnership with Marlboro is famously long-enduring. It came to an end in 1996, however, when Marlboro switched to the Ferrari team. McLaren then took the opportunity to seek - and find - less unhealthy sponsorship from their new friends at Vodafone.

Answer: Randolph Scott

Like the other three choices provided, Randolph Scott was a celebrated Western star - although he appeared in many different genres of film, the cowboy movie was where he made his name. To many, the highlight of his career was "Ride the High Country", a tale of two past-their-prime lawmen directed by renowned feminist Sam Peckinpah. P.S it has nothing to do with anything, but I never let slip an opportunity to mention that John Wayne's real name was "Marion".

Answer: Khartoum

One interesting feature of the "Godfather" movies is the way in which they toy with the audience: lulling us into buying the image of avuncular, rough-but-fair men of honor that the Corleones like to present; then shocking us with a brutal reminder of what they really are. Khartoum's head in the bed is remembered as one of the most effective of these shocks. People gasp at the thought of what Jack Woltz goes through, waking up to find his horse's head. I say: what about the horse! The poor horse doesn't know anything about these mafia turf wars! That was low, killing that horse.

Answer: South Africa

South Africa has eleven official languages - the five chosen for the anthem are those with the largest number of speakers. They are: Xhosa and Zulu for the first verse, Sesotho for the second, Afrikaans for the third, and English to finish it off.

Answer: Oh My Darling Clementine

"In a cavern, in a canyon/Excavating for a mine/Lived a miner, forty-niner/And his daughter, Clementine."

"Forty-niner" refers to the California Gold Rush of 1849. This notably sad song tells how the narrator's darling, the miner's daughter, dies in a drowning accident, and how much he misses her. But it's not all sadness - apparently, in some versions, he puts his grief behind him by taking up with Clementine's "little sister". Heartwarming!

Answer: Black Dog

All of the choices provided are from Led Zeppelin's fourth album (which, helpfully, does not have a title). "Black Dog" is the first song on the album and contains the above line - a line that, I confess, I find puzzling.

Answer: The Battle of the Wilderness

All of the above choices are battles fought by Grant during the Civil War. The Battle of the Wilderness, however, named for the huge area of scrubby Virginia terrain where it was fought, inaugurated the campaign that saw him strike a decisive blow at the South, forcing Robert E. Lee's army into retreat and leading, eventually, to the fall of the Southern capital of Richmond.

Answer: Beaches

Starring Barbara Hershey and Bette Midler, "Beaches" is a heartstring-tugging story of two childhood friends whose friendship is strained by jealousy and misunderstanding, but who realize, when Hershey's character is on the point of death, how much they mean to each other. "Wind Beneath My Wings", with its chorus of "Did you ever know that you're my hero?", illustrates this theme of the power of friendship. Or so I understand, because I haven't seen this movie and have no plans to do so. Neither do I plan to see any of the other movies on this list.

Answer: Curtain

"Curtain" is, in fact, the great detective's final case. It reunites him with his old friend Captain Hastings, not the brightest bulb on the tree, but unfailingly loyal. The scene is Styles Court, the country manor where the two solved their first case together. A psychological thriller ensues, where nothing is what it seems and the least likely people find themselves tempted to do wrong.

I won't reveal any more since I'm sure that, like all good people, you're an avid Poirot fan, and now you know this book exists, you'll be heading for a library as soon as you can.

Answer: Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill, one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, figures in modern British history. The British, in fact, voted him their greatest ever in the BBC poll of "100 Greatest Britons". He even beat Princess Diana (quite a feat - the British apparently regard her as more significant than Darwin, Shakespeare, or Newton).

The answers relate to Churchill as follows:

1. Churchill's family are the heirs to the Duchy of MARLBOROUGH (forgive the difference in the US/UK spellings).

2. Churchill's father, also an ambitious politician, was Lord RANDOLPH Churchill.

3. Pursuing a military career before turning to politics, Churchill participated in the British defeat of the Mahdi at the Battle of Omdurman, now a suburb of the Sudanese capital of KHARTOUM.

4. Churchill made an early name for himself as a journalist (and POW) during the Boer War in SOUTH AFRICA.

5. In 1908, Churchill married CLEMENTINE Hozier.

6. Churchill suffered all his life from depression, which he famously called his "BLACK DOG".

7. During the interwar years, Churchill's reactionary views on such issues as Indian home rule lost him all his friends and allies and, seemingly, his political future, a period known as his "WILDERNESS years".

8. Churchill's greatest claim to fame is, of course, his leadership during WWII. He refused to give into the pessimism that swept his country in the early days of the war and made a number of famous speeches, promising, among other things, to fight the Germans on the BEACHES.

9. Despite losing the prime ministership just before the end of the war, Churchill continued to be a towering figure. Always a prescient man, he was one of the first to predict that the post-war world was heading into the Cold War, noting that an "Iron CURTAIN" had descended across Europe.

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