The answers to a dickens of a quiz. If you’ve not done it yet, and want to, head over to that page before reading on.
1. Which English television and radio presenter, and model is best known for co-hosting Let’s Do Lunch with Gino D’Acampo and a program with Des O’Conner that features the pair’s first names?
Melanie Sykes
2. Who is missing from this 80s TV line up. Matthew Kelly, Sarah Kennedy, Henry Kelly and…?
Jeremy Beadle
3. What was Scottish popular beat combo The Shamen’s biggest hit, released in August 1992 it was one of the most controversial UK number-one hits of the 1990s due to its perceived oblique endorsement of recreational drug use, and it was initially banned by the BBC?
Ebeneezer Goode
4. What is the name of the motor vehicles that NASA landed on Mars in 2012 for a two-year mission that was extended indefinitely and is still operational today?
Curiosity
5. In TV’s Midsomer Murders, what is the surname of both the original Detective Chief Inspector and his replacement, who, in the programme was the original’s younger cousin?
Barnaby
6. What are the names of the two major baseball teams in Los Angeles?
Dodgers and Angels
7. What is the name of the small bird with glossy blue-black upper parts, a pure white under parts, a distinctive white rump with a forked tail that spends much of its time on the wing collecting insect prey and lives in mud nests, usually sited below the eaves of buildings?
House Martin
8. 2008 American comedy-drama film stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston as the owners of a Labrador retriever which set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever upon its release?
Marley and Me
9. In 1983, who performed “the illusion of the century” in front of a live audience on Liberty Island, making the Statue of Liberty disappear, which holds the Guinness World Record for the largest illusion ever performed by an illusionist?
David Copperfield
10. Which social insect comprises of over 250 species in the genus Bombus, part of Apidae family?
Bumblebee
11. Which English rock band was formed in 1969, have released 24 studio albums with Demons and Wizards being the most successful and are still producing music today, albeit with rhythm guitarist Mick Box being the only original member?
Uriah Heep
12. Who is the fictional sleuth in an American mystery novel series created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series?
Nancy Drew
13. Which British Writer, Broadcaster and former politician caused a sensation when publishing her diaries as they revealed a four-year affair with future Prime Minister John Major?
Edwina Currie
14. One of the signatories of King Charles I’s death warrant in 1649, who later became Lord Protector of the British Isles from 1653 until his death in 1658?
Oliver Cromwell
15. Who played the younger brother of Derek “Del Boy” Trotter in the BBC TV comedy Only Fools and Horses, which first aired in 1981and ran until 1991 as a series and 2003 as sporadic Christmas Specials?
Nicholas Lyndhurst
16. What do Hamlet’s father and Banquo have in common as they appear in Hamlet and Macbeth?
They are both ghosts
17. Which Australian external territory is an island in the Indian Ocean 960 miles from Australia and was named by Captain William Mynors of the Royal Mary, an English East India Company vessel, when he sailed past it?
Christmas Island
18. What part of an apple contains Cyanide and would kill you if even in sufficient quantities?
Pip
19. Which poem by the English poet Christina Rossetti, commonly performed as a Christmas carol, was published under it’s original name – A Christmas Carol – in 1872?
In the Bleak Midwinter
20. Which ex-footballer followed Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley as manager of Liverpool football club?
Joe Fagan
In keeping with the them, all answers relate to Charles Dickens books and characters:
- Bill Sykes (Oliver Twist)
- Beadle (Bumble’s role in Oliver Twist)
- Ebeneezer Scrooge (A Christmas Carol)
- The Old Curiosity Shop
- Barnaby Rudge
- Artful Dodger (Oliver Twist)
- Bleak House
- Jacob Marley (A Christmas Carol)
- David Copperfield
- Bumble (Oliver Twist)
- Uriah Heep (David Copperfield)
- Nancy (Oliver Twist)
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood
- Oliver Cromwell (Oliver Tewist)
- Nicholas Nickleby
- Ghosts (A Christmas Carol)
- Christmas Island (A Christmas Carol)
- Pip Gargery (Great Expectations)
- Bleak House
- Fagin (Oliver Twist)