The questions
1 Who solved the riddle of the Sphinx?
2 What is Europe’s top-selling newspaper?
3 Which singer took his stage name from a Dublin hearing aid shop?
4 What is the largest storm in the solar system?
5 Deeds of the 63 Illustrious Men is a key text in what Indian religion?
6 What football first did Hannah Dingley achieve in July?
7 Almost half of euro banknotes are what denomination?
8 McGuffin was which director’s name for a plot device?
What links:
9 Tulips, 1630s; canals, 1790s and railways, 1840s; stocks, 1920s and 1990s?
10 Argos; Black Shuck; Cavall; Garm; Gelert?
11 Kilauea; Mauna Loa; Mauna Kea; Hualalai?
12 Daphne Akhurst Memorial cup; Suzanne Lenglen cup; Venus Rosewater dish?
13 Shakespeare (32,661); Walter Scott (17,104); Chaucer (14,252)?
14 Australian Christmas tree; corpse flower; dodder; mistletoe?
15 Charles Dickens; Harold Brighouse; Pierre Boulle; Boris Pasternak; EM Forster?
The answers
1 Oedipus.
2 Bild (German tabloid).
3 Bono (Bonavox).
4 Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.
5 Jainism.
6 First woman to manage an English men’s professional team (Forest Green Rovers).
7 €50.
8 Alfred Hitchcock.
9 Speculative bubbles: Netherlands; Britain; US.
10 Dogs in myth and legend: The Odyssey; East Anglian legend; Arthurian legend; Norse myth; Welsh legend.
11 Volcanoes on Hawaii.
12 Women’s singles trophies: Australian Open; French Open; Wimbledon.
13 Most-cited individual authors in the Oxford English Dictionary.
14 Parasitic plants.
15 Sources for David Lean films: Great Expectations/Oliver Twist; Hobson’s Choice; Bridge on the River Kwai; Dr Zhivago; Passage to India.
