The questions
1 Laocoön issued which famous warning?
2 Who first appeared in a 1939 Christmas campaign for US retailer Montgomery Ward?
3 Who claimed “to make dictionaries is dull work”?
4 Which ICI fibre was named after a valley near Harrogate?
5 Whose cats are called Dr Meredith Grey and Detective Olivia Benson?
6 What is closed each night at the Wagah border ceremony?
7 The aardwolf is part of which family of animals?
8 What was stolen from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1950?
What links:
9 Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland (via St Petersburg)?
10 Rachel Wall; Anne Bonny; Mary Read; Grace O’Malley?
11 Cathy’s Clown; Respectable; 500 Miles; Latch?
12 HAL; Orac and Zen; JARVIS; Deep Thought; KITT?
13 Doña Isabel de Porcel; Count of Floridablanca; Duke of Wellington; Duchess of Alba?
14 Carolingian; 12th century; Italian; Northern; Harlem?
15 The Ellipse, Washington DC; Rockefeller Center, NYC; Trafalgar Square, London; St Peter’s Square, Vatican City?
The answers
1 About Greeks bearing gifts (in Virgil’s Aeneid).
2 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
3 Dr Johnson (in his dictionary).
4 Crimplene (Crimple Valley).
5 Taylor Swift.
6 India/Pakistan border.
7 Hyenas.
8 Stone of Destiny/Scone.
9 River Neva.
10 Female pirates.
11 Hits by sibling duos: Everly Brothers; Mel & Kim; Proclaimers; Disclosure.
12 Fictional (talking) computers: 2001; Blake’s 7; Iron Man; The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy; Knight Rider.
13 Portraits by Goya.
14 Names given to so-called Renaissances.
15 Christmas tree locations.
