Here are the solutions to the Royal Statistical Society’s Christmas quiz. The winner of the competition is David Harris, who wins a year’s subscription to Significance magazine. Thanks to all who entered.
1. Setting the scene
In whole or in part, which works are set on, in or at:
- (a) A ship at sea; The Palace of Theseus; An open place; The guard-platform of the castle
- (b) Antwerp, c. 925; Thuringia, c. 1200; Rome, c. 1350; Gothic Spain, at an unspecified time
- (c) A Leicestershire castle, c. 1194; A Warwickshire castle, c. 1575; ‘A large and antiquated edifice’ in Northumberland, c. 1715; Prestonpans, 1745
(a) The Tempest; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Macbeth and The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Hamlet (the opening scenes in plays by William Shakespeare).
(b) Lohengrin; Tannhäuser; Rienzi; Parsifal (operas by Richard Wagner).
(c) Ivanhoe; Kenilworth; Rob Roy; Waverley (novels by Sir Walter Scott).
2. Groups
As of December 2014, which groups comprise:
- (a) Three royals, five lords, a baroness, two prime ministers, two historians, a mathematician, a naturalist, a surgeon, two other scientists, an artist, an art historian, a playwright, a classicist, a conductor and an internet pioneer
- (b) NC, VC, ED, DA, AC, and 17 blues
- (c) 45 of one, 53 of another, and two who belong to neither?
(a) The current holders of the Order of Merit: Queen Elizabeth II, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales; Lord Foster, Lord May of Oxford, Lord Rothschild, Lord Eames and Lord Rees; Baroness Boothroyd; Jean Chrétien and John Howard; Sir Michael Howard and Owen Chadwick; Sir Michael Atiyah; Sir David Attenborough; Prof. Sir Magdi Yacoub; Prof. Sir Roger Penrose and Sir Aaron Klug; David Hockney; Robert Neil MacGregor; Sir Tom Stoppard; Dr Martin West; Sir Simon Rattle; Sir Timothy Berners-Lee.
(b) The British Cabinet consists of Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Ed Davey, Danny Alexander and Alistair Carmichael, along with of 17 members of the Conservative party.
(c) The United States Senate consisted of 45 Republicans, 53 Democrats, and two Independents.
3. Coordinates
What appear, in sequence, at
(2,1), (1,5), (1,3), (2,3), (3,3), (2,4), ..., (1,2), (3,6), (1,1)?
The positions of the letters A, B, C,…,X, Y, Z on a standard keyboard, in terms of their respective rows (numbered from bottom to top) and columns (numbered from left to right), counting the letter keys only.
4. Calendar
In 2014, what was won:
- In January, 5-0, for the second time in seven years?
- In February, by the hosts, with 13 out of 33?
- In March, by the Lord of the Lake, by a narrow margin?
- In April, by Charles Smith’s namesake, by three?
- In May, by two Welshmen, at around the same time, seven days apart?
- In June, by a Czech and a Serb, each for the second time?
- In July, generally, by a shark?
- In August, in Switzerland, by a Dutch woman at the double?
- In September, when 12 stars beat 13 stripes?
- In October, when Morse helped the SFG beat the KCR?
- In November, by 67, after the 11th of 19?
- In December, by the best of Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand and Spain?
Australia won the Ashes 5-0.
Russia finished top of the Winter Olympics medal table with 13 golds and 33 medals in total.
Lord Windermere won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in a photo finish.
Bubba Watson (said to have been named after Charles ‘Bubba’ Smith) won the US Masters by three shots.
Aaron Ramsey and Gareth Bale scored winning goals after around 20 minutes of extra-time for Arsenal and Real Madrid in the FA Cup and Champions League finals, respectively.
Petra Kvitova and Novak Djokovic won Singles titles at Wimbledon.
Vincenzo Nibali, nicknamed ‘The Shark’, won the General Classification of the Tour de France.
Dafne Schippers won the 100m and 200m at the European Athletics Championships.
Europe (represented by a flag containing 12 stars) beat USA (whose flag contains 13 stripes) in the Ryder Cup.
Michael Morse scored the winning run as the San Francisco Giants beat the Kansas City Royals in the Super Bowl.
Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One world title by 67 points after winning his 11th of the 19 races of the season.
The FIFA Club World Cup was won by the Spanish team Real Madrid against opponents from the other named countries.
5. British Studio
Each of the nine names in the list below contains one mistake. Correct them, and with the help of the title, explain what they represent. Which one of the nine is represented by the corrections, read in order?
- Mama C
- Will Bourn
- Lambrini
- Eric Roget
- Billy Wu
- Rik Shaw
- W Loman
- Alexa Ponnet
- Paul Lea
Anagrams of the names of probability distributions, with a single letter changed in each case: Gamma, Bernoulli, Binomial, Geometric, Weibull, Wishart, Normal, Exponential, Laplace. The title is an anagram of ‘Distributions’ with one letter changed. The nine letters (in clue order) to be changed are G-E-O-M-E-T-R-I-C, corresponding to the name ‘Eric Roget’.
6. ALW
Identify the following.
- (a) 1968: ADWD, CED
- (b) 1970: HOTM, IDKHTLH
- (c) 1976: ASIAH, DCFMA
- (d) 1981: TSOTJ, M
- (e) 1986: TMOTN, AIAOY
- (f) 1989: LCE, ABL
Songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968): Any Dream Will Do, Close Every Door
Jesus Christ Superstar (1970): Heaven on Their Minds, I Don’t Know How To Love Him
Evita (1976): Another Suitcase in Another Hall, Don’t Cry for Me Argentina
Cats (1981): The Song of the Jellicles, Memory
The Phantom of the Opera (1986): The Music of the Night, All I Ask of You
Aspects of Love (1989): Love Changes Everything, Anything But Lonely
7. Meetings
Explain the diagram.
The letters on the left of the diagram represent Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Joseph Stalin, Charles de Gaulle and Chiang Kai-Shek, with individuals from the same country bracketed together. The letters on the right represent Casablanca, Cairo, Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, with their relative vertical positions corresponding to the starting dates of international wartime conferences held there: Casablanca 14/1/43, Cairo 22/11/43, Tehran 28/11/43, Yalta 4/2/45, Potsdam 17/7/45. The lines indicate which individual attended which conference.
8. Lambrinis
What do the following have in common?
- Henry Williamson’s best-known creation
- One of James Herbert’s first
- Two in ‘Wind in the Willows’
- Michael’s Amy
- One who ran ‘like a ripple of wind’
- A hairy pig that laughs, and another of the same family
- A close relative of the llama
- Gazza in Italy
The ‘binomials’ (indicated by the title, with reference to Question 5) of each of these animals comprises a repeated word:
Lutra lutra: European otter (Tarka, created by Henry Williamson).
Rattus rattus: Black rat (‘The Rats’, James Herbert’s first novel).
Meles meles: European badger & Bufo bufo: Common toad (Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame).
Gorilla gorilla: Western gorilla (Amy, the gorilla in Michael Crichton’s novel ‘Congo’).
Vulpes vulpes: Red fox (as described in ‘Reynard the Fox’ by John Masefield).
Crocuta crocuta: Spotted (laughing) hyena; Hyaena hyaena: Striped hyena (‘hyena’ comes from the Greek for ‘hairy pig’).
Vicugna vicugna: Vicuña (related to the llama).
Pica pica: European magpie (‘gazza’ means ‘magpie’ in Italian).
9. Capital Name Poser
Mali, Comoros, Togo and Senegal, and their capitals, share a particular property that is unique amongst the countries of Africa. What is it, and which two South American countries share the same property?
The names of the listed countries and their capitals (Bamako, Moroni, Lome, Dakar) consist of alternating consonants and vowels, as do Peru (Lima) and Suriname (Paramaribo) – and the words in the question title.
10. Farewell
Identify the following, who all bade farewell in 2014.
- The portrayer of TS Persons (2005)
- The brother of one of 2 (a)
- One who called Rodney ‘Dave’
- Richard, who was Richard, as in 8
- Robert, who was Mario, as in 8
- Joan Collins, Henry VIII, a man from St Ives, …?
- An American Gangster’s mother
- A man who twice appeared, villainously, as a shark
- The one who Married a Millionaire
- ‘The Ugly’
These are all actors who died in 2014.
Philip Seymour Hoffman: appeared as Truman Capote (born TS Persons) in the 2005 film ‘Capote’.
Richard Attenborough: the brother of David Attenborough (see question 2(a)).
Roger Lloyd-Pack: his character Trigger in ‘Only Fools and Horses’ called Rodney “Dave”.
Richard ‘Rik’ Mayall and Robert ‘Bob’ Hoskins: both played characters with reduplicated names (Richard Richard in ‘Bottom’ and Mario Mario in ‘Super Mario Bros’), indicative of question 8.
Mickey Rooney: married 8 times, more than Joan Collins (5), Henry VIII (6, by tradition), and a man from St Ives (“I met a man with seven wives”).
Ruby Dee: appeared in ‘American Gangster’ (2007) as the mother of the title character.
Richard Kiel: twice appeared as the character Jaws in James Bond films.
Lauren Bacall: her character married a millionaire in ‘How to Marry a Millionaire’ (1953).
Eli Wallach: ‘The Ugly’ in ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ (1966).
