Saarang SpEnt QuizPrelims with answers

Aravindabharathi R, SahilMathur, Shivamshu

Prabhakar

1

He was born John Clayton III, and would have inherited his fa-ther’s title of “Lord Greystoke”, had fate not intervened. However,since he was presumed dead, the title instead passed to his cousinWilliam Cecil Clayton.

As a child, he accidentally put his inky fingers on his father’s jour-nal. Much later, this helped prove his identity as the son of theformer Lord Greystoke by a comparison of fingerprints.

He and his cousin William shared the same love interest. Williamproposed to her first, and after she had accepted, X decided tosuppress his identity, since while “it would take away his title andhis lands and his castles”, it would take them away from her also.Who are we talking about?

Tarzan of the Apes

2

Identify the voice of this legendary commentator.

Audio

Steve Slater

3

The release of Ender’s Game earlier this year was met with protestsfrom gay-rights groups. They called a boycott of the film due to Or-son Scott Card’s history of anti-gay rights activism.

In the original book, the aliens Ender is being trained to fight againstare referred to as the “Buggers”, referring to their insect-like ap-pearance. However, since it was also slang for gay men, a differentterm was used in the movie to prevent controversy.

What alternate term, meaning “ant-like” and derived from the Latinword for ant, was used instead?

Formics

4. Complete the list.

1. Donald Bradman

2. Bill Ponsford

3. Wally Hammond

4. W. G. Grace

5. Graeme Hick

6. Brian Lara

7. Mike Hussey

8. Ravindra Jadeja

9. ?

Cheteshwar Pujara

5

His real name is Svlad Cjelli, and the name he calls himself by isan Anglicised version of it. He is a pudgy man who normally wearsa heavy old light brown suit, red checked shirt with a green stripedtie, long leather coat, red hat and thick metal-rimmed spectacles.

Although he is psychic, he refuses to believe in such things. Identifythis “holistic detective” created by Douglas Adams, who might giveyou a bill for a vacation in the Bahamas for three weeks as part ofan investigation, due to the “fundamental interconnectedness of allthings”.

Dirk Gently

6. What sport is being played here?

Video

Lacrosse

7“Ut queant laxis” are a set of verses about John the Baptist, writtenby a historian named Paulus Diaconus. It goes something like this:

Ut queant laxisresonare fibris,

Mira gestorumfamuli tuorum,

Solve pollutilabii reatum,

Sancte Iohannes.

What were the first syllables of each half-line of verse used toname? “Ut”, being a closed syllable, was later replaced with anopen syllable in 1600. About a century later, the last syllable wasrenamed so that every syllable began with a different letter.

The notes of Western music

Ut queant laxisresonare fibris,

Mira gestorumfamuli tuorum,

Solve pollutilabii reatum,

Sancte Iohannes.

8

X are very popular in the world of sports today. However, they wereonly introduced in the twentieth century.

The word X was introduced into English through a translation of acomic operetta by the French composer Edmond Audran. It orig-inates from a provincial French word meaning “sorcerer’s charm,faerie friend, or good luck piece”. In Provence and Gascony, theword was used to refer to anything which brought good luck to ahousehold.

What’s the good word?

Mascot

9. Identify the instrument and the raaga beingplayed.

Video

Saarangi/Vrindavni Sarang

10. What is being celebrated here?

Nepal’s qualification for the 2014 ICC WorldTwenty20

11*

This company is the world’s largest manufacturer of tyres. It begantyre production in 1962, with the lauch of its first product which hadmovable tyres. In 2011, it produced 381 million tyres, more thantwice the production of tyre manufacturers such as Bridgestone,Michelin, and Goodyear. However, none of those three considerthe company in question to be competition.

Which company are we talking about?

LEGO

12.* Identify these three sporting stalwarts.

Haile Gebrselassie, Mo Farah, Kenenisa Bekele

Venues for the US Open

13.* What novel is this parodying?

Also name the 2010 cinematic adaptation it inspired, which is set in a highschool.

The Scarlet Letter, Easy A

14*

The Tour de France is one of the three ‘Grand Tours’ in cycling.

Name the other two.

Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a España

15*

Actor Film Awards

Dustin Hoffman Rain Man Won, Best ActorTom Hanks Forrest Gump Won, Best Actor

Peter Sellers Being There Nominated, Best ActorSean Penn I am Sam -

Sean Penn’s brilliant performance did not gain him many admirersin the awards circuit. This is the “reasoning” behind someone’spithy piece of advice for other actors. What advice?

Never Go Full Retard

16*

Shiva Keshavan has carried the Indian flag in the opening cere-monies at Nagano 1998, Salt Lake 2002 and Vancouver 2010. Butin February at Sochi, assuming he leads the contingent, he will notbe able to do so.

Why not?

Answer

Since the Indian Olympic Association is currently suspended bythe International Olympic Council, the athletes are participating asIndependent Olympic Athletes under the Olympic Flag

17*

Among other things, it has been described as the “television equiv-alent of ritual seppuku”. The term reflects a widely-held belief thatsince people would rather be out socialising at bars or watchingnewly-released movies at certain times during the week, those pe-riods are not at all lucrative for television advertisers, who indirectlyfund the shows in question. However, this is limited to the US, andin European countries, the very best programming is often sched-uled for this time. Shows scheduled for this time often end up get-ting cancelled due to low viewership ratings. Victims of this includeTerminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Prison Break, Firefly,Dark Angel, and Dollhouse.

What four-word phrase do we use to refer to this phenomenon?

Friday Night Death Slot

18.* Name the two versions.

Calcutta

19*

X is 99.1% chemically pure.

X is made from the reductive amination of phenyl-2-propanone withCH3NH2.

The reductive amination method described above is not a stere-ospecific one, and trying it out in the lab will result in a productwhich is half-decongestant.

However, since many have vouched for the quality and purity of X,its manufacturer must be doing something we don’t know to makethe reaction chirally selective. It is perhaps this step that makes X’screator extremely proud of the formula he uses to make X.

What is X? Be very, very specific. (no chemical names.)

Blue Sky

20*

The X was originally performed by the singer and fans of a Welsh-language punk group called U Thant. U Thant’s singer said he wasinspired by the footage of attendants at the funeral of a controver-sial leader (which was broadcast live on British television), doingthe movement to express their grief at his death. It quickly becamevery popular with the fans of Cardiff City and is performed by itssupporters at every match. The X is performed by having bothhands flat pointing towards each other, raised above one’s head,and repeatedly moving them up and down in a patting motion.

What is X?

Animated GIF

The Ayatollah

21“Jambo bwana” is a Kenyan pop song written in Swahili and re-leased in 1982 by the band Them Mushrooms. It has since beencovered by many artists. The chorus roughly translates as follows:

HiHi sir

How are you?Very fine

Visitors are welcomeIn our Kenya

there are no worries

This song is credited with popularising the less-popular variant of acertain phrase. Which phrase are we talking about?

Hakuna Matata

22. Which infamous match is this 2006 film about?

Blood in the water

23In the 1920s, telephone directories such as the Yellow Pages be-came very widespread, and were the easiest way of locating busi-nesses. These listed many companies in alphabetical order, cate-gorised based on what they sold.

In order to get to the top of the list and be seen by more potentialcustomers, many businesses began re-branding themselves. Dueto this, when Chuck Jones was looking for a company name, thiswas the obvious choice. In his own words:

“Whenever we played a game where we had a grocery store or somethingwe called it the ___. Why? Because in the yellow pages if you looked,say, under drugstores, you’d find the first one would be __ Drugs. Why?Because "__" was about as high as you could go; it means the best; thesuperlative.”

Fill in the blanks.

ACME

24

Hailing from Winnipeg, Manitoba, he was an athletic child with apassion for basketball, despite being only five feet tall. In spite ofbeing coerced to take up cross-country running, he maintained hislove for basketball, eventually playing for his university.

After an amputation in 1977, he embarked on something monu-mental, which has since led to annual event in over 60 countries.Name him or the annual event.

Terry Fox/Terry Fox Run

25

Scene from the 1984 film Repo Man. In a later review of this film inthe Daily Telegraph, Nick Cowen and Hari Patience suggest that acertain MacGuffin owes a “debt of inspiration” to something foundin this scene. What MacGuffin, and from which movie?

Video

The Briefcase from Pulp Fiction

26. FITB

Boxing at the Olympics:

Rank Country Gold Silver Bronze Total

1 USA 49 23 38 1102 ___ 34 19 14 673 Great Britain 17 12 24 534 Italy 15 15 17 475 Soviet Union 14 19 18 516 Hungary 10 2 8 207 Russia 9 5 12 26

Cuba

27

Selections from whose oeuvre?

• Upon the Tracing of Footsteps• Upon the Influence of a Trade Upon the Form of the Hand• On the Surface Anatomy of the Human Ear• On the Typewriter and Its Relation to Crime• Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, With Some Observations

Upon the Segregation of the Queen

Sherlock Holmes

28

This is a practice whereby an employee who is leaving a job isinstructed to stay away from work during the notice period, whilestill remaining on the payroll. It is often used to prevent employeesfrom taking with them up-to-date (and perhaps sensitive) informa-tion when they leave their current employer, especially when theyare leaving to join a competitor. This term/practice is often used inEnglish football circles.

What term?

Gardening leave

29

It was a large, Tyrannosaurus-like dinosaur which lived in NorthAfrica around 85 million years ago. Only one fossil of the dinosaurhas been found, consisting of a part of the upper skull, includinga large eye socket. This being its only known physical feature re-minded one of its discoverers of a certain fierce-eyed fictional entity,which this dinosaur is named after.

Which fictional entity?

Sauron

30

Before Andy Roddick was called A-Rod, which New York Yankee,who recently confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs,was christened with the nickname?

Alex Rodriguez

31. Fill in the first blank.

“People always ask me why "___" sounds exactly like "Taurus",which was released two years earlier. I know ___ also played "___"in their live set. They opened up for us on their first American tour.”

Audio

Stairway to Heaven

32. What completes the list?

• Newport Casino, Newport, Rhode Island• West Side Club, Forest Hills, New York• Germantown Cricket Club, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania• ?

USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center,Flushing Meadows, New York

33

The following are excerpts from an interview with Rajiv Chilaka.What is he talking about?

“I do believe ____ is for kids what Salman Khan is for young guys.You expect Salman to take his shirt off and fight, and children ex-pect ____ to fight. He is already not wearing a shirt, so that makesit easier. Even the girls are huge fans of ___.”

Chhota Bheem

34. Put funda.

1 . 4 1 . 1 6 1 . 2 1 4 6 1 4 6 1 6 6 . 6 . 6 1 . . 6 6 6 6 6 1 . 1 4 4 11 6 6 4 1 2 4 1 6 1 2 2 1

Corey Anderson’s 36-ball 100

35

___ is a dance move which has been described as a “combinationmovement involving a deep squat and a pelvic tilt”. It has beencompared to various traditional African dances such as the Ma-puka, which is banned from television broadcasts in Cote d’Ivoiredue to its suggestive nature.

Fill in the blanks with something which originated in the hip-hopculture of New Orleans.

Twerking

36

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi have won this tournament to-gether five times (1997, 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2011). Paes part-nered Janko Tipsarevic to win in 2012, while Bhupathi finishedrunner-up partnering Jonas Björkman in 2005. However, circum-stances were such that both Paes and Bhupathi did not play a sin-gle match this year.

Which event?

Chennai Open

37

This game was created as a female-friendly alternative to the vio-lent video-games which used to dominate arcades. In many inter-views, the game’s creator has said that he wanted to make gamingparlours “desirable places to go on a date” by having games which“appeal to women and thus to couples”.

The non-violent design of the game was also influenced by thefact that its creator wanted his own kids to play his games. Whenthought about what women enjoyed, he claimed that the first ideahe had was about them eating cakes and desserts, which he incor-porated into the game.

Name this game.

Pacman

38. Which annual sporting event?

The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race

39

The following video is a clip from a recent Channel 4 ad. Whichdirector’s PoV do we see? Also identify the film being shot.

Video

Stanley Kubrick, The Shining

40In 1993–1994, Nike ran a series of commercials pairing MichaelJordan with Warner Brothers-owned Bugs Bunny. As a tie-in, Nikecreated a line of merchandise which featured a spoof of these two,combined with a caption.

What was the caption?

Hare Jordan